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Training for a career in development

  • 28-03-2011 3:37pm
    #1
    moycullen14
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 897 ✭✭✭


    Hi All,

    I'd be interested in any opinions on this.

    Do you think it would be possible to take a reasonably intelligent, well-educated person with no IT development experience and train him/her to a level that they could get a job at graduate/intern level? In other words, what would you do if you wanted a drastic career change in IT development? What technologies would you focus on? Where would you go for training, what training would be required/most useful? Going back to college for a full-time, multi year course is probably out of the question, so, what would be the next best thing? Would companies look at people with no commercial experience & no degree?

    Lots of questions!

    TIA


Comments

  • #2
    Mr. Loverman
    Closed Accounts Posts: 4,001 ✭✭✭Mr. Loverman


    The key is experience.

    This is what I would do if I were you.

    Pick a language. (PHP, Java, ASP.Net, etc.)
    Create an open source application or website using that language.
    Contribute code to open source projects.
    Do small coding jobs on outsourcing websites like www.scriptlance.com and www.elance.com
    Try to get some experience looking after the website for a voluntary organisation. (I would simply contact them asking if they need any help.)

    If you did all the above you could probably fill a page on your CV.

    No harm getting some sort of qualification as well, e.g. Java Certification or Zend PHP Certification or something like that.

    What you want to do is definitely achievable!


  • #3
    amen
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,781 ✭✭✭amen


    Do you think it would be possible to take a reasonably intelligent, well-educated person with no IT development experience and train him/her to a level that they could get a job at graduate/intern level

    No.

    I think you can train a reasonably intelligent, well-educated person with no IT development experience and get him up to graduate level but I think you are going to find it very hard if not next to impossible to get a job interview with out a degree. There a lot of IT grads out there who can't get interviews (some with Masters) and you will be competing against those.

    To get an IT job you really need the degree and show some IT interest outside of your course.

    If you had some domain specific business knowledge that you could use with your recently acquired IT skills then you might get lucky.

    Before I get flammed I don't think you need an IT degree or even a qualification to be a good programmer just that in today's market a degree gives some indication of the persons skills.


  • #4
    adm
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 342 ✭✭adm


    Mr. Loverman wrote: »
    No harm getting some sort of qualification as well, e.g. Java Certification or Zend PHP Certification or something like that.

    I got zend certified a couple of years ago. Strangely in the last couple of months I've had recruitment companies email me after finding my email in the zend yellow pages.


  • #5
    fergalr
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,922 ✭✭✭fergalr


    moycullen14 wrote: »
    Hi All,

    I'd be interested in any opinions on this.

    Do you think it would be possible to take a reasonably intelligent, well-educated person with no IT development experience and train him/her to a level that they could get a job at graduate/intern level? In other words, what would you do if you wanted a drastic career change in IT development? What technologies would you focus on? Where would you go for training, what training would be required/most useful? Going back to college for a full-time, multi year course is probably out of the question, so, what would be the next best thing? Would companies look at people with no commercial experience & no degree?

    Lots of questions!

    TIA

    2 years if you are really smart, hard working, and have good analytical skills.

    Maybe 1 year if you are all of the above and want to be a mediocre programmer that gets a job, but doesn't really know what they are doing, and isn't well equipped to respond to changing technology.

    3-5 years if you want to be good.

    Less time if you've a degree in engineering, or maths, or something else relevant.
    moycullen14 wrote: »
    Would companies look at people with no commercial experience & no degree?
    Yes.

    Big companies probably won't, but small companies will.
    You'd need to build up a CV of open source, or small projects.

    If you have a primary degree, you could do a MSc after a little experience, eg part time.


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