Finished Coillege and looking for work.

Ronan|Raven

Im out of college now about 2 weeks and have recieved my lil cert etc etc. I was looking forward to the end of the college year and recieving my cert, geting a job in the area I love (computers, net etc!) I given up a good job with good pay in order to pursue this career.

Now I have been looking for lots of jobs day after day and its so damn frustrating everything I apply for they want damn people with 2-3 years exp! What im wondering is how the hell can ya become experienced if no one is willing to offer you a job!

If anyone knows of a better route for peeps like me to get into jobs in the I.T area. Reply lavish me with advice!!!

Trojan

Here's what I did to get decent jobs for summer (don't leave college w/o at least a Diploma):

- network (people not data comms ) : got a job through uncles friend programming, 100 squids a week but good exp which is what counts as you're finding out

- take a crap but relevant job: I got a job doing Software Validation (argh, functionality testing) at Dell in Limerick, again crap, decent pay (cos of overtime), but experience.

That's how you escape the catch 22 - make sacrifices & don't give up college too early

Al.

WhiteWashMan

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Trojan:
Here's what I did to get decent jobs for summer (don't leave college w/o at least a Diploma):

- network (people not data comms ) : got a job through uncles friend programming, 100 squids a week but good exp which is what counts as you're finding out

- take a crap but relevant job: I got a job doing Software Validation (argh, functionality testing) at Dell in Limerick, again crap, decent pay (cos of overtime), but experience.

That's how you escape the catch 22 - make sacrifices & don't give up college too early

Al.</font>

you do have one thing going for you, some sort of college education.
to be honest i had to take 2 steps back to go forward as i had no experience. i worked 4 years doing shift work pressing buttons on a mchine and doing crap operations work. i then got a job doing tech support, dropping 6 grand in the process. am now doing fairly much 9 to 5 monday to friday and am 3rd level support and learning lots, (well, was learning lots!) and now its time to take it to the next stage. get into networking, drop a few more grand. thats the only way to do it unless you can get a jammy job where things happen. but to get on it can be a tough slog or you can get lucky. i hope you get lucky

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Your Dungeon Is On An Incline;
Irate Creatures Cannot Play Marbles

ConUladh

Prob. tricky enough at the moment without experience, lot of IT companies (american ones anyway) have recruitment freezes while they're waiting to see what happens in the States. Hopefully that will blow over in a couple of months though

On a lighter note, what was your course in specifically? If you want to go the development route I'd agree with Trojan re the QA bit (what about S/W localisation???)

Shiminay

Ya man - I've got a Diploma and I'd love to get a degree - thinking about doing it, but I love money too much

Anyway, go to college and get a degree if possible - no offence, but any muppet ont he street can get a Cert (Hell, they gave me a Diploma so that's can't say much).

Good luck with it mate.

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All the best!
Dav
@B^)
We were all set for a game of Ice Hockey when Frank Williams says "Sorry lads, I've forgotten my skates!"
[honey i] violated [the kids]
Tribes 2 Goodness
The Dawn of the Beefy King approaches...

WhiteWashMan

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Kharn:
Ya man - I've got a Diploma and I'd love to get a degree - thinking about doing it, but I love money too much

Anyway, go to college and get a degree if possible - no offence, but any muppet ont he street can get a Cert (Hell, they gave me a Diploma so that's can't say much).

Good luck with it mate.

</font>

and youre ugly as well.....

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One Of your Imps Does A Good Impersonation Of You
He Can Even Do The Ears.....

logic1

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">no offence, but any muppet ont he street can get a Cert </font>

I wouldn't actually agree with that. I did a cert in Industrial Computing in WIT. 33 People started the course and 5 of us got our certs at the end. It had an extremly high disqualification rate because of applied maths and applied physics. These people didn't drop out they were dropped by the course leaders.

.logic.

strat

have to agree with logic there, im doing the Applied Computing Cert in LIT and the drop out rate is woeful, maths being a rite beeeotch, and good aul COBOL catches alot of ppl, im just out of the cobol exam now actually

<

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click link for example of cobol

damnyanks

So basically your saying stay away from certs? Cause I planned on doing nothing next year (6th) and doing some national computer cert but the content looked alright, well only Oracle really interested me. But is any cert any good? Or is it just some way to step onto the whole diploma stage?

Ronan|Raven

Diploma?!!

see my problem was I never did a bit in secondry school and as a result only got a decent leaving cert far less than I was capable of (silly me )

I didnt have enough points for a good comp course in college so I said f it and went working for a while, then decided to do a cram course more or less in I.T which would give me the cert that I felt at the time would be good enough :0/

Tis annoying though knowing that I could probaboly be able to do the damn jobs!

Thx for the advice guys,



[This message has been edited by Ronan|Raven (edited 29-05-2001).]

Winning Hand

Anyone who is saying stay away from certs seem to be saying it with hindsight, so you would be wise to heed their advice. However if you use the cert as a stepping stone then fire away.

Has anyone said this yet?

Try McDonalds

Trojan

As a grad, and forgetting experience (which interviewers seem to be doing to me at the mo ), you want to be in the top 2 here to get a real[1] job:

Good LC - Nat Cert - Nat Dip - BSc
Bad LC - Nat Cert - Nat Dip
Ugly LC - Nat Cert
Dont go there LC - stupid non-National Cert

Al.

1. "Real" in sense of "Real Men"(tm)(r), don't be offended[2]

2. I'm still looking for one myself...

damnyanks

But how long would that take? Like a cert is 2 years, then do you have to do a full diploma course taking another 2-3 years? Or can you skip the first year since you probaly did it in your cert

kayos

Right I had to jump in here. I have only a cert in Electronic Engineering and I have been working for over 3 years now in programming. I feel the main thing about a dipolma or Degree is that you get the jobs easier for the first year or two. With a Cert you start on poor wages but if you have ability and work hard you will get your just rewards. I am atm earning more than most ppl with dipomla's/degrees in our company (bar ppl who have more exp/been with the company longer). So as for you'll never get a job bla bla bla thats not true you have to start low but once you prove yourself you fly up the ranks. Exp and good references will always stand to you proving you can program while a degree in programming just means you know the syntax (not having a go at every body but some grads think there the bees knees until they see real programming then they faint). Looking back I wish I had stayed on but I'm doing very well for myself it just takes skill, luck and a lot of hard work the choise is yours.

kayos

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When you get to hell tell them I sent you,
you'll get a group discount...

tribes.gameshop.ie

sutty

For me it was get a Jr position, I started off as a Jr Network Admin. The trick is to find a company with a very small IT department. You will have to make up for the lack of poeple be learning more and more stuff. Six month's after I started in my company I've been made a System's Admin. I've been sent on TCP and networking corses and also a AS/400 sys opper corse. If your trying to make a start into IT.......be a lap dog......do all the sh!t work. Get what you can from your company and leave.....use them like cheap $10 ho's!!!!!

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Ciaran Sutcliffe
aka: sutty
[HIV]sutty
For a good time goto:
http://www.hotinternetvirgins.com

Trojan

Well, I agree with 90% of what Mr. Soak[1] is saying, but I still think a degree is necessary for ultimate career progression (I'm talking 5 - 10 years after graduation stuff). That's when it's not just useful, but essential.

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by kayos:
I feel the main thing about a dipolma or Degree is that you get the jobs easier for the first year or two. </font>

That's not the main thing, that's the first thing!

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by kayos:

Looking back I wish I had stayed on but [snip]
</font>

There's my point.

Al.

1. Pratchett in-joke. Dav'll explain after he cops on.

Kegser

And then there's the people like me, with no Leaving Cert; hiking uphill to get a decent job.

At the moment I'm around the 20k a year mark, and studying for a Degree equivalent qualification in Information Systems. Database Administration/Design, Project Management, Software Engineering etc. etc.

It's not all doom and gloom, but the longer you stay in college, the easier it'll be later in life.

Ronan|Raven

well since I posted this I have managed to get a job, shame it no where near the IT area but hell I needed the cash.I currently am spendig 7 hours a day digging out floors on a site with a kango hammer nyom nyom!! noise!

lol anyway itll keep me going till I find summin in computers or go back to college which I fear I may have to do

ecksor

I remember looking for a job this time two years ago (summer job I intended, but kept it when I had to drop out), and in the interview it was like "this is the stuff we work with, are you familiar with any of this <list of about 10 technologies>" to which I could say yes to two, one of which was html. (unix kid, windows company, go figure ). They gave me an asp for dummies book and gave me an e-commerce site to have finished by the following week! Pay was miserable for the first month or so, but they gave me a chance, which was cool.

I think the job scene now is a bit grim by comparison though. I know lots of skilled, but inexperienced people who walked into jobs or would have this time last year but it took them a while to find work this year. One guy was beating off offers of full time work with a stick last year because he was going back to do his final year, and is finding the uptake a lot slower this year. I still think that there are jobs for anyone who's any good if you're willing to give it a bit of time and once you start getting experience, anything is possible, so don't give up hope.