Working in IT

beauf

For me, Ye aren't talking about the same thing.

1) Older People who are IT literate (even working in IT) for a long time
2) Older people who are new to IT trying to get into IT, change of career etc.
3) Younger people who have advanced IT qualifications
4) Younger people trying to switch careers to IT
5) Younger people who know nothing about IT, but are conjoined to a smartphone.

These are all very disparate groups of people.

beauf

I assume, as I've no recent experience of it. But the main point is that job hunting in IT, now requires more technical skill-set, and qualifications, especially the younger you are. You can't circumvent that. Older people may have other industry, and experience in general, that they can bring to the table. However this might get filtered out by an Agency or HR as they might have a narrow brief to meet. Or lack experience themselves. If you go to a company directly, they often are looking for other skills, experience people can bring onboard.

pillphil

Berserker wrote: »

How long does your 'Introduction to Programming' module last? I interview graduates and the amount of them who do not know what an interface or abstract class is always amazes me.

How much would you expect a graduate to know? I'm doing a course that has a long work placement and I'm curious as to how much work I have ahead of me to reach graduate level.
I think I'll have to do a part time degree at the same time to catch up. Something like DIT's dt249.

Ash.J.Williams

dinnynora wrote: »

Hi Steve,

My background is finance. I have been working in finance for about 10 years now.
Areas I would like to get into is software development or an analyst but unfortunately I have no experience in the IT sector yet.

The world is your Oyster .....Finance + Software dev = $$$$$$$, that would make you a highly paid consultant. eg Project managing software implementations in multi nationals, how does that sound?

moc moc a moc

amen wrote: »

There should be an uproar about your born in the 70s statement.

You do realise that computers have been around for the last 80 odd years?
That those who grew up in the 70s are now only in their early forties and mid 30s?
That they often learnt to program before the internet and from reading a manual inside out.

That they helped build the internet infrastructure, created new programming languages, often have an in depth knowledge of several programming languages, understand infrastructure issues.

The vast majority of people who grew up in the '70s did absolutely none of these things. Only an extremely small proportion of people of this age were involved in any way at all with technology, particularly computing.

This proportion has changed immensely with time. Nowadays people grow up with advanced technology as a core component of their lives, with more exposure to programming and other low-level aspects of computing than ever before.

Go on out of that garden, trying to claim that people automatically know more about technology simply due to having been alive longer. Environment is everything.

Stheno

moc moc a moc wrote: »

The vast majority of people who grew up in the '70s did absolutely none of these things. Only an extremely small proportion of people of this age were involved in any way at all with technology, particularly computing.

This proportion has changed immensely with time. Nowadays people grow up with advanced technology as a core component of their lives, with more exposure to programming and other low-level aspects of computing than ever before.

Go on out of that garden, trying to claim that people automatically know more about technology simply due to having been alive longer. Environment is everything.

TO be honest I think all sides of the argument are generalising here. I learnt basic programming in secondary school in the mid eighties (my school had a computer lab), worked part time in college doing pc building and repair, then started out in tech support in the late nineties and have worked in IT ever since.

My partners son who is a software developer in his mid twenties has no concept of how to build a pc/load an operating system, doesn't use a smartphone etc.

Some areas of tech have almost gone back to the seventies and eighties but with different technology supporting them. Thin clients are a good example.

beauf

moc moc a moc wrote: »

...Nowadays people grow up with advanced technology as a core component of their lives, with more exposure to programming and other low-level aspects of computing than ever before......

Not with you.

How are those people not involved in IT exposed to low level aspects of computing. Of course it depends how you define "low level computing". Most of the people I know in IT, aren't involved in what I'd consider low level computing.

testaccount123

moc moc a moc wrote: »

The vast majority of people who grew up in the '70s did absolutely none of these things. Only an extremely small proportion of people of this age were involved in any way at all with technology, particularly computing.

He said born in the 70s. I too was born in the late 70s and grew up coding in BASIC, as did most of my colleagues in IT now. I'd actually say kids coding was more common in the 70s and 80s than it is now.

Stheno

testaccount123 wrote: »

He said born in the 70s. I too was born in the late 70s and grew up coding in BASIC, as did most of my colleagues in IT now. I'd actually say kids coding was more common in the 70s and 80s than it is now.

As well (and I'm one of that same group) those people will have seen the growth and expansion of technology and the impact it has had.

I remember supporting windows 3.11 and IBMS OS/2

I genuinely think it gives you an appreciation of the growth of the role of tech in our lives now tbh.

I genuinely can't see how being older is an issue if you work in IT.

beauf

testaccount123 wrote: »

He said born in the 70s. I too was born in the late 70s and grew up coding in BASIC, as did most of my colleagues in IT now. I'd actually say kids coding was more common in the 70s and 80s than it is now.

Well it was a fad. I'm not sure whats comparable today in the same scale. Back then it was everywhere Atari, amiga, BBC micro or similar.

I think the conversion of all those people into IT skills was quite small. In the same way I don't think every kid who plays minecraft or someone who uses whatsapp today will work in IT.

RedXIV

testaccount123 wrote: »

He said born in the 70s. I too was born in the late 70s and grew up coding in BASIC, as did most of my colleagues in IT now. I'd actually say kids coding was more common in the 70s and 80s than it is now.

Maybe 5 years ago that would have been true, it's no secret that people believe "young people have been using technology all their lives, they'll fly in IT" is far more a testament to the evolution of UIs and ergonomics than any real cultural shift towards learning about technology. But having worked at a few local coderdojos, and with a son obsessed with Minecraft modding, we are not far off from a generation of software engineers.

OP, while not exactly what you are looking for I know some of the big software testing consultancies would like someone of your experience if that helps?

beauf

RedXIV wrote: »

...But having worked at a few local coderdojos, and with a son obsessed with Minecraft modding, we are not far off from a generation of software engineers....

I've been to quite a few coderdojo's in our area. They are all packed out. But even so its only a tiny of fraction of the numbers say a GAA/Soccer Blitz will draw in the same area. Maybe I'm wrong, but only tends to be a few in each school class. I think the popularity of coding, while more popular overall, isn't anything like the sweeping epidemic being forecast.

David Hilbert

Hi folks,
Good thread here; I have some insight for the OP, and some questions of my own..

OP, I'm in a not-dissimilar boat to yours, if a little bit further on. I started work in finance, and am now in IT - albeit still within finance. I'm a business / systems analyst and a member of an Agile development team (not a developer though). I started in finance as a graduate of B.Sc. in Mathematical Sciences and have just completed a M.Sc. in Business Analytics (I see you have your own plan for course though, so that's just FYI).

My main piece of advice to you, and surprised that it hasn't been mentioned thus far, is to try to get into project work within your own business unit. Most, if not all, IT work comes in bitesized chunks, i.e. projects. In this space, especially if you're looking to go the analyst route rather than hands-on coding, project experience is a must. As an analyst you need to be able to speak the language of PMs (ie know your colours :P), and also the language of developers and testers (your course will help immensely with this - the more hands-on experience you have the better) and also also the language and sensibilities of 'the business' - this is something you'll be able to bring with your background, in spades. A common problem with IT development is that the tech guys know how to code, the business guys know how to do business, but there's no-one in between. This is where analysts come in.

Does your company have an IT / systems development department (just to be clear, I'm not talking about IT support here, as in my PC isn't working / need MS apps installed - I'm talking about the teams that administer / own / develop the IT applications your department uses)? Does your team ever submit change requests to the development team, or even use small applications like macros and so on? This is how I began the transition to IT; I started by getting to know the applications used by my team and getting 'under the bonnet' if you will. I volunteered for change management-type projects which most operations folks would run a mile from. This got me great exposure outside of my own department, and got me working with developers and testers. Before I knew it, I was an analyst. There's no specific qualification called business analyst / systems analyst per se (well, there is actually but most BAs I know are from various backgrounds, not just computer science / BI-type qualifications).

As for me, currently I'm working in an Agile development team; doing similar work that a business analyst would do in a non-agile framework - and then some. But I am hoping to move away from finance myself, and here's where it's getting alittle tricky for me. Essentially I'm a bit concerned that I may be pigeon-holed into finance. I see folks on this thread saying that finance + IT = $$$$ but, it doesn't seem like that for me (I'm not mad into project management so that may be an issue). Initial feedback from throwing a few CVs out while finishing my masters has been along the lines of: "good experience, but you don't seem very technical".

Now this may be a failing in my own CV, but I feel that looking at tech companies who do work in sectors other than finance (but also possibly including finance) may be developing systems that I have no exposure to - that's the impression I'm getting anyway. In the company I'm with now, it's straight-up reporting systems that work off the back of plain old databases - so SQL queries / SPs and so on (excuse the tech speak for the un-initiated)

Now the masters I've done looks at much more advanced stuff than that - data mining / warehousing / business intelligence & intelligent systems and so on - but it was quite theoretical / academic. In any case, it would appear I'd need more exposure to web & cloud-based applications, and I'm at a bit of a loss as to where to start with this (keeping in mind I've just finished a masters and I have a full time job already!!).

So I hope my insight has been helpful to the OP and others, and I hope some of you good folks might have some insight for me.
Thanks for reading
DH

Berserker

pillphil wrote: »

How much would you expect a graduate to know? I'm doing a course that has a long work placement and I'm curious as to how much work I have ahead of me to reach graduate level.
I think I'll have to do a part time degree at the same time to catch up. Something like DIT's dt249.

I certainly wouldn't expect any candidate to know everything in perfect detail. Take the "What is an interface?" question for example. If you can answer a question like that, in your own words then that is going to impress an interviewer. That displays a genuine understanding of the concept. I have many years experience as a developer and I certainly don't know everything. The more experience you get, the more you realise how much you have to learn, if you ask me.

The best way to excel at this stuff and gain confidence is to build applications in your own time. Look online at what other people have done and build it yourself. Through building applications, feeding off the solutions that others have designed, you will gain a natural understanding of what interfaces, abstract classes, inheritance etc is all about.

beauf

David Hilbert wrote: »

....Now the masters I've done looks at much more advanced stuff than that - data mining / warehousing / business intelligence & intelligent systems and so on - but it was quite theoretical / academic. In any case, it would appear I'd need more exposure to web & cloud-based applications, and I'm at a bit of a loss as to where to start with this (keeping in mind I've just finished a masters and I have a full time job already!!)....

I know one person in a similar person, who created reports and a reporting dashboard from data mining, information that the business wasn't aware of it. Got a good response. But it was only possible because they were able ignore much of their usual work to do it. That's not possible for many. Bit of a catch 22.

Lekrub

...bump...Any update op now you have started on the course? I'm similar in have a marketing degree but want to move into "IT' - not sure which specialty. But can't invest the time in a degree - ideally I would love to jump into year 3 of a degree if I complete some intense short courses to show i'm up to scratch.

Musicman2000

Lekrub wrote: »

...bump...Any update op now you have started on the course? I'm similar in have a marketing degree but want to move into "IT' - not sure which specialty. But can't invest the time in a degree - ideally I would love to jump into year 3 of a degree if I complete some intense short courses to show i'm up to scratch.

Depends which area you want to move into. Developing, Testing, Networking, Desktop & Server Support etc

Lekrub

Musicman2000 wrote: »

Depends which area you want to move into. Developing, Testing, Networking, Desktop & Server Support etc

Software Devolpment would be the plan. What's you opinion on each?

Musicman2000

Lekrub wrote: »

Software Devolpment would be the plan. What's you opinion on each?

Software Development is not something you really can jump into especially going straight into third year of a SSD Degree you wont have a clue whats going on. Thats if you have no experience . You really need to start from the bottom and work your way up. Some of the Spring Board courses could be an option. Fas run and excellent SSD course and it is fairly intense .

Another bit of advice Development is not a golden ticket to a 100 k a year. Its very intense and long hours . Also the market is getting flooded at the moment with a lot of Graduates so it can be hard to your foot in the door.

Have a look here plenty of people asking the same question it will give you a better idea http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=882

scamalert

Gonna give my input here,while have started myself into IT this year.
There are few things that i see people overlook here.

Firstly someone who mentioned age being factor its not,in my course there are around 50/50 people between mid 20s and around 50s-and while younger people are able to process material faster and learn,older folks specially those who have some sort of previous background or related work experiences seem to be better overall,and have better communication skills and are able to focus more on subjects-that said its only those who did indeed got in at some time into IT in last decade or so,and were able to have some related experience in work environment.

Second thing is while IT sector seems to be picking up at the moment,and amount of courses being available,people seem to overlook and dream getting certs and land in a nice position which is total opposite,reality is if one has no previous experience in that field,employer wont look at what you have scored on your exams certs,its what you can deliver-they might drop you into office ,give a task which wont be your textbook task and if you cant deliver in given amount of time,then you wont hear from them again.Thus its not how good you managed to study,but real life experience and how quick you can adapt-thus if one done programming course and hasnt worked in programming sector,or event have come up with portfolio showing off skills-degree wont matter,as there will always be someone who might not even did any courses but tinkered in business or made projects on side will have much more to show and give then someone who cracked textbook for a year or two.Thus again age might favor someone who might be older then your new 20y old who just rolled out from some course,but never seen a job in such sector.

Thus one way around it is to start from bottom at some company where one might gain experience in environment,thus getting certificates to move up when having basic foundation.

Last thing that i see is very overlooked and not sure how wide spread it is,but the courses at colleges that are part time of funded,are pushed at such levels that you can get materials for say programming,networks,administration-and that puts a fork into learning,not only courses are fast paced-as in few hours of college and rest is left to person to study on its own,but trouble lies that with higher certs you need 20-40h hardcore study time just to get handle on one topic you are studying.As someone mentioned doing ms word,html,java ,css,web design,its fine if its only to introduce you to extra directions you can span out,but its overlooked that each such course usually has year or two just to get to level where one would be considered well advanced to work in that field.Thus one might have access to many materials,but drop 2 on top and one might have glimpse of broader knowledge but master of none :cool: