Any Unemployed IT/Software Engineers on Boards?

L.Jenkins

Just wondering if any of you who frequent Boards are unemployed? If so, what is your experiences hunting for work and what sort of barriers do you meet most often? For those of you who are unemployed, do you try and keep up to date in your spare time on current and emerging technologies?

As for myself, I find it difficult to deal with Recruiters at times, trying to get my skill set across and have them come back to me with appropriate roles, suited to the skills I do have. I try where possible to go straight to the Company when a new role arises. In my own spare time, I try developing a few projects in Java and C#. I try to up skill by learning other languages and I'm working on Python at the minute. I like to try out any DB I can get my hands on, working with Microsoft SQL Management Studio Express and Oracle. Need to try out SQLite and MongoDB soon. I also use and Develop on Linux, while testing out Apache and other available tools for Development.

Anyone have any other ideas on what I should be doing to keep going? I upload to Github where possible and maintain a blog as often as I can. So any ideas would be appreciated and if any unemployed Engineers want to chat and possibly work on a project, that would be interesting also.

Aswerty

Not unemployed here but in your case jumping between technologies might not be a great idea. Companies and recruiters generally look for people with a depth of knowledge as opposed to a breadth of it. Why not focus on a single technology stack which you'd most like to land a job in? Also not being able to find employment isn't neccessarily down to you technical abilities. C.V writing skills and interview skills are equally important. Are they up to scratch?

Digital Society

Location, Location, Location it seems. Some places just have no hope. Apply for jobs everywhere and be prepared to move.

Also SQLite is simple enough. Just remember to s.close(); and s.setQueryTimeout(10); to avoid locking. Apart from that i haven't come across anything different yet and i'm using it on a fairly large project after using it for the first time maybe 2 weeks ago. Great when it suits the requirements.

Lmao_Man

Just finished a software degree with over a 70% average. No experience and looks like companies don't want to take on the risk of employing someone new to the industry.

Digital Society

Lmao_Man wrote: »

Just finished a software degree with over a 70% average. No experience and looks like companies don't want to take on the risk of employing someone new to the industry.

Whats your portfolio like?

dazberry

Aswerty wrote: »

Companies and recruiters generally look for people with a depth of knowledge as opposed to a breadth of it. Why not focus on a single technology stack which you'd most like to land a job in?

This is good advice. I have 20 years development experience and generally only the last 3 is looked at because that is what is currently relevant. It's a pain in the nads because of course the other 17 have a lot of bearing on the last 3, but that's not how the market sees it.

The other piece of advice I would give is that when you're looking at a technology stack, look at how technologies group together. Back in the early 90s, you'd often see ads for just the language (C, Pascal etc.) - then in the mid-90s things started to group (C + Unix, VB + Access etc). Todays job requirements are like essays, but for instance if you're concentrating on front end (say C# + ASP.Net MVC) you'll also need JQuery, CSS and probably an array of other stuff (Bootstrap, AngularJS etc). So don't spread yourself too thin, just look at the jobs sites, see how things clump and concentrate on those as a group.

D.

ChRoMe

dazberry wrote: »

The other piece of advice I would give is that when you're looking at a technology stack, look at how technologies group together. Back in the early 90s, you'd often see ads for just the language (C, Pascal etc.) - then in the mid-90s things started to group (C + Unix, VB + Access etc). Todays job requirements are like essays, but for instance if you're concentrating on front end (say C# + ASP.Net MVC) you'll also need JQuery, CSS and probably an array of other stuff (Bootstrap, AngularJS etc). So don't spread yourself too thin, just look at the jobs sites, see how things clump and concentrate on those as a group.

D.

Listen to this poster.

Lmao_Man

Digital Society wrote: »

Whats your portfolio like?

Decent enough compared to my classmates anyway.

Was hard during college to build up a portfolio with how busy the course was.

Digital Society

Lmao_Man wrote: »

Decent enough compared to my classmates anyway.

Was hard during college to build up a portfolio with how busy the course was.

Your portfolio at this stage would probably only be the college work and maybe a few small side projects that kept you busy anyway. Employers know full well you haven't created the next Amazon just yet. :pac:

If you think the portfolio is a bit weak just start doing a few Java Projects if thats what your into.

Create a website to show your portfolio and add a link to your CV. That way you can send the CV and always have the latest portfolio work on the site. i.e Get a strong Linkedin page together also with some good endorsements etc. It all helps.

L.Jenkins

I appreciate the advice, take a technology stack and focus on it. People may have other opinions, but I'm gravitating towards the .NET stack. I'll definitely need to brush up on Web Technologies.

yop

Finding all jobs are Dublin/Cork centered though more and more are looking at remote options after a period of time.

No harm in keeping up to date on skills, plenty of videos on Youtube and courses online which are pretty cheap.

Digital Society

yop wrote: »

Finding all jobs are Dublin/Cork centered though more and more are looking at remote options after a period of time.

No harm in keeping up to date on skills, plenty of videos on Youtube and courses online which are pretty cheap.

Lots but not All. Id say there's as many jobs in Galway as Cork at this stage. Then theres random companies all over the country.

If your willing to move / commute there should be no problem in getting something.

Can be tough for a young graduate to accept that they have to move for work but thats life id say.

yop

Digital Society wrote: »

Lots but not All. Id say there's as many jobs in Galway as Cork at this stage. Then theres random companies all over the country.

If your willing to move / commute there should be no problem in getting something.

Can be tough for a young graduate to accept that they have to move for work but thats life id say.

Galway is full of "cv poolers", looking at the job sites you have agencies advertising for WCF, there must be 4 agencies advertising for this job, its Fidelity and has been filled for about 5 weeks.
Another job is advertised by 3 agencies. In the .NET area there is 1 and maybe 2 jobs in Galway at the moment.