BA Computer Science - tips for gaining employment?

fergalr

Roveros wrote: »

I've read through the advice posted on this thread and have distilled it down to these bullet points in roughly descending order of implementation.

...I think you are going to do just fine.

coniosumadre

Graham wrote: »

Roveros wrote: »

Hi all,

I've read through the advice posted on this thread and have distilled it down to these bullet points in roughly descending order of implementation.

Join LinkedIn and IrishJobs.
Increase HTML/CSS/AJAX/JSON/XML/JavaScript/JQuery skillsets.
Increase experience in Java, PHP, C# and possibly JavaScript.
Learn Oracle DB, MongoDB, NoSQL.
Make use of GitHub, build up repositories to demonstrate skill, link in C.V.
Contribute to open source projects (codetriage) Goal: fix around 20 bugs, get your work committed to the main branch. Link to C.V
Increase testing and test automation experience
Gain mobile app experience
Constantly reference job descriptions to identify prevalent requirements
Try simple paid work on freelance.com
Rent a Virtual Private Server, install Jenkins. Configure to talk to GitHub for testing automation. Make sure it public and put link in C.V
Learn Docker, SVN, Bugzilla


I feel much more relaxed having plan of action now.

Holy crap. That's not an action plan, it's a software company. By all means investigate those options, pick a few that interest you and start from there.

Exactly, I'm not suggesting it's an easy market, and it's always good to stay ahead of the pack. but for a graduate position I think maybe ye are going a bit far in fairness!

bpmurray

If you have an opportunity to do an honours degree, jump at it - it will mean much, much more than anything else you do. For example, multinationals won't even look at you unless you have a 4 year honours degree.

That said, you're looking at specific technologies. What I look for in a software developer is flexibility: if you are willing to try using Java, JavaScript, Ruby, Python, Perl, etc., without knowing the language, that's the attitude I want. Screw confidence in your technology X or Y skills: your willingness to jump into something is critical. I would assume you know how to program and how to think programmatically, the rest is just syntax.

counterpointaud

bpmurray wrote: »

multinationals won't even look at you unless you have a 4 year honours degree.

This is not true in my experience. I was hired a few weeks after my third year exams by one of the bigger multinationals, I had a level 7 with optional level 8 / extra year. I took the job. Two of my class-mates took a similar path, one with another multinational.

bpmurray

counterpointaud wrote: »

This is not true in my experience. I was hired a few weeks after my third year exams by one of the bigger multinationals, I had a level 7 with optional level 8 / extra year. I took the job. Two of my class-mates took a similar path, one with another multinational.

OK - it's true in the three major multinationals I know, for developer positions.

ShowMeTheCash

First off I think people are bamboozling you with too much information and cannot see the wood for the trees at this early stage.

First of where do you live?
Where are you willing to live?

Do some research to all the companies that have graduate programs.
Intel - I worked for Intel maybe 15 years ago, they have a huge graduate program and take on significant numbers each year.
Microsoft - Again a graduate program perhaps not as many in terms of numbers.
Google...
Dell...
Apple...
Citigroup and or any other investment bank that have offices in Ireland.
I know Citigroup do an "academy" essentially take on technical graduates giving them training and experience for 8 weeks if you do well there is probably a job in it at the end.

I have interviewed a ton of graduates for big name companies, be polite, be enthusiastic, be able to talk about a project with some clear technical knowledge....
Try not get flustered most interviewers (can only speak for myself) want you to do well, if there is something you do not know just say you do not know or you do not have a whole lot of experience in that area. Talk as long as required be try and be succinct, graduates have a habit of tying themselves in knots when they are talking about something they clearly know very little about.

Practice online code exams and examples in your chosen discipline.
There are a number of websites that will do it like brain bench.

You will find a lot of the larger companies will send out these to all applicants some of which you can do in your own time, only them will you be called to interview.

I think all the other advice on this thread is grand but probably not necessary. And secondary to the above, in my opinion.

Good Luck!

coniosumadre

ShowMeTheCash wrote: »

First off I think people are bamboozling you with too much information and cannot see the wood for the trees at this early stage.

First of where do you live?
Where are you willing to live?

Do some research to all the companies that have graduate programs.
Intel - I worked for Intel maybe 15 years ago, they have a huge graduate program and take on significant numbers each year.
Microsoft - Again a graduate program perhaps not as many in terms of numbers.
Google...
Dell...
Apple...
Citigroup and or any other investment bank that have offices in Ireland.
I know Citigroup do an "academy" essentially take on technical graduates giving them training and experience for 8 weeks if you do well there is probably a job in it at the end.

I have interviewed a ton of graduates for big name companies, be polite, be enthusiastic, be able to talk about a project with some clear technical knowledge....
Try not get flustered most interviewers (can only speak for myself) want you to do well, if there is something you do not know just say you do not know or you do not have a whole lot of experience in that area. Talk as long as required be try and be succinct, graduates have a habit of tying themselves in knots when they are talking about something they clearly know very little about.

Practice online code exams and examples in your chosen discipline.
There are a number of websites that will do it like brain bench.

You will find a lot of the larger companies will send out these to all applicants some of which you can do in your own time, only them will you be called to interview.

I think all the other advice on this thread is grand but probably not necessary. And secondary to the above, in my opinion.

Good Luck!

Amen to that

stefanovich

Roveros wrote: »

Hi all,

I've read through the advice posted on this thread and have distilled it down to these bullet points in roughly descending order of implementation.

• Join LinkedIn and IrishJobs.
• Increase HTML/CSS/AJAX/JSON/XML/JavaScript/JQuery skillsets.
• Increase experience in Java, PHP, C# and possibly JavaScript.
• Learn Oracle DB, MongoDB, NoSQL.
• Make use of GitHub, build up repositories to demonstrate skill, link in C.V.
• Contribute to open source projects (codetriage) Goal: fix around 20 bugs, get your work committed to the main branch. Link to C.V
• Increase testing and test automation experience
• Gain mobile app experience
• Constantly reference job descriptions to identify prevalent requirements
• Try simple paid work on freelance.com
• Rent a Virtual Private Server, install Jenkins. Configure to talk to GitHub for testing automation. Make sure it public and put link in C.V
• Learn Docker, SVN, Bugzilla


I feel much more relaxed having plan of action now. I am very grateful. I have a few more follow on questions and then I hope to be able to continue on my own for a while.

Which DBMS would benefit me the most to learn first, my only experience so far was with MySQL? I used TravisCI for testing automation in college however this was done mostly by following a lecturers notes and I lack a true understanding/comfort with the service. With further study would TravisCI work in place of a private server with Jenkins? Does SVN refer to Apache Subversion control system? Would this be used along with GitHub or would it's commits act as a kind of versioning?

And finally, are there any resources you would recommend (anything from youtube to paperback) that I should watch/read to reinforce my base web skill-set? I want to start populating my GitHub with websites to practice/show my proficiency with different technologies. I would also appreciate a pointer to what could be considered best practices for testing. My PHP instructor had us using PHPDOC, PHPUnit and PHPCoverage which I really liked but without his lecture notes and his custom scripts I don't think I could replicate my previous work.

Sorry for the wall of text. Hopefully It will be the last one for a while

Thanks all

Jesus. That's a horrendous amount of prework to get employed as a graduate. I would advise keeping busy while not employed but don't consider any of this stuff as a prerequisite to looking for employment. In fact I can see you just getting frustrated and confused even with the jargon.

Most employers in this field are rational people and would have certain expectations for graduates. I've seen the level of some graduates is quite poor so certainly being able to demonstrate programming ability is good but needing to know every new fad is just not true. Most people learn on the job. New language? If you know how to program you'll pick it up fairly quickly.

Just start applying now for work. Focus on one or two languages to stay fresh.
If it were me I would focus on one proper language like C and one scripting language (Perl or Python).

14ned

bpmurray wrote: »

For example, multinationals won't even look at you during your early career unless you have a 4 year honours degree.

Added a section for you there.

I've also noticed that contractors seem get an easier ride on having an honours degree or not compared to permies. Either way, once you're into your second decade of experience, degrees and such aren't so important except in academic programming roles.

ShowMeTheCash wrote: »

Do some research to all the companies that have graduate programs.

The way I read the OP was he was wanting to get as far as a F2F, and to do that he needs to get past the HR filters. He's already disadvantaged due to not having a honours degree from a top tier university, so my advice to him was based on getting a foot in the door, not trying to get into a graduate programme. I've even seen some people with qualifications from Ivy League universities in the US who got no traction because Irish HR doesn't name match their institution.

In my experience graduate programmes almost always select those with first class honours from the top tier engineering universities. If there are spaces remaining, they fill those with 2.1 honours candidates from the cream of the top tier engineering universities. If you don't have a 2.1, or didn't graduate from Trinity or the NUI or some but not all of the ITs, you stand little chance for a multinational graduate programme.

And that's not necessarily a bad thing for the OP - graduate programmes are there to shake out the chaff from the wheat, they are competitive and have a poor work life balance, and are therefore not conducive to a family life if you're about to have children.

I'd still recommend for the OP to find a local family run business, one which will be flexible and treat you well even if not pay well.

ShowMeTheCash wrote: »

I have interviewed a ton of graduates for big name companies, be polite, be enthusiastic, be able to talk about a project with some clear technical knowledge....
Try not get flustered most interviewers (can only speak for myself) want you to do well, if there is something you do not know just say you do not know or you do not have a whole lot of experience in that area. Talk as long as required be try and be succinct, graduates have a habit of tying themselves in knots when they are talking about something they clearly know very little about.

<snip>

I think all the other advice on this thread is grand but probably not necessary. And secondary to the above, in my opinion.

Interviewing skills are totally different to the skills required to get to F2F interviews, and in turn those are quite different skills from what is needed in the job. I agree once you're at F2F interview stage (which in itself is usually hard to reach for graduates without a 1st class honours from Trinity who was also the President of the Computer Society), the biggest failing is graduates who have a very poor understanding of their own inabilities. A good chunk also tell bald faced lies and try to faff their way past lack of knowledge of a topic instead of simply saying "I have no idea".

Niall

ShowMeTheCash

14ned wrote: »

Added a section for you there.
The way I read the OP was he was wanting to get as far as a F2F, and to do that he needs to get past the HR filters. He's already disadvantaged due to not having a honours degree from a top tier university, so my advice to him was based on getting a foot in the door, not trying to get into a graduate programme. I've even seen some people with qualifications from Ivy League universities in the US who got no traction because Irish HR doesn't name match their institution.

A lot of companies are shifting on this, yes if a company is getting 100s even 1000s of CV's it may not be feasible to interview everyone.
But a lot of companies now will at least let you do some sort of online technical test, a high score on a technical test might see you get in the door.
But I would not be put off.. apply or call them.

14ned wrote: »

In my experience graduate programmes almost always select those with first class honours from the top tier engineering universities. If there are spaces remaining, they fill those with 2.1 honours candidates from the cream of the top tier engineering universities. If you don't have a 2.1, or didn't graduate from Trinity or the NUI or some but not all of the ITs, you stand little chance for a multinational graduate programme.

I disagree on the top tier engineering universities, looking the Universities and graduate programs I have been involved with I have always seen a good mix of Universities, perhaps the companies you have been involved with are different but I would suggest this is not the case of them all. I agree that anything under a 2.1 you are kind of hoping that all spots have not been filled but again this does not mean you should not apply, like the lotto if you're not in you cannot win!

14ned wrote: »

And that's not necessarily a bad thing for the OP - graduate programmes are there to shake out the chaff from the wheat, they are competitive and have a poor work life balance, and are therefore not conducive to a family life if you're about to have children.

Again I disagree and would suggest the opposite!
I know a lot of the top tier companies have some very good work life balance schemes, wfh days flexible hours, optional holiday buy in's, good maternity or paternity time off, good insurance schemes, medical etc etc...

14ned wrote: »

I'd still recommend for the OP to find a local family run business, one which will be flexible and treat you well even if not pay well.

I do not know too many "family run" software companies, I know a lot of start-ups I have worked for a number of start up's and currently own one.
Thing with smaller companies or start ups they will probably demand more of your time or at least that is what I have found. The work life balance is not always consistent with family life but great for experience and great for fast tracking a career! But it can be very very demanding you might not see the same amount of time off, paid time off and perhaps less fringe benefits you might see at a larger company.
I have known guys to leave start ups simply because it was having too much of an impact on their family life.

As I say pros and cons.

14ned wrote: »

Interviewing skills are totally different to the skills required to get to F2F interviews, and in turn those are quite different skills from what is needed in the job. I agree once you're at F2F interview stage (which in itself is usually hard to reach for graduates without a 1st class honours from Trinity who was also the President of the Computer Society), the biggest failing is graduates who have a very poor understanding of their own inabilities. A good chunk also tell bald faced lies and try to faff their way past lack of knowledge of a topic instead of simply saying "I have no idea".

Niall

I would tell the OP not to be discourage, I think you are painting a very dire picture that if he did not finish top 2 of his class from Trinity he will not even get an interview, that is not the case there are lot's of graduate programs not only in Dublin but places like Belfast, they have some great programs or even a two year trip to the UK would be good on the CV.... Just to get him out of that graduate bracket.

rawn

Nvm!

Roveros

Hello all,

Loving the advice! Its helping me to get these different perspectives. I get that software development is a wide area of interest and that there can be a number of potentially conflicting opinions and pieces of advice that are true with respect to each poster. I found a book online called "Building Back-End Web Apps with Java, JPA and JSF". I have no experience with JPA and JSF and if I complete and understand the contents then I'll have a good example of my undertsanding of back-end programming that I can show employers. Its uses a step by step learn as you code to build:

"A back-end web app is a distributed web app where essentially all work is performed by the back-end component, including data validation and UI page creation, while the front-end only consists of a web browser’s rendering of HTML-forms-based UI pages."

I'm currently splitting my time between this and looking for positions I can apply for. I'm thinking maybe I should put some time aside for going though online code examples just to stay fresh incase I get a call for an interview. To answer ShowMeTheCash I live in Blanchardstown. Both my own and my fiancée's families are here so moving is not really an option. We have a great support network for when the child comes such that we may both be able to work and not have to worry about child care costs. I have no problem with commuting of course. I currently use public transportation or cycle whenever possible but my fiancée is getting ready to get a car which I'll be getting licensed on as well.

Thanks again for the support all, I'll keep taking steps forward and I'll find myself where I need to be eventually

bpmurray

ShowMeTheCash wrote: »

First off I think people are bamboozling you with too much information and cannot see the wood for the trees at this early stage.

First of where do you live?
Where are you willing to live?

Do some research to all the companies that have graduate programs.
Intel - I worked for Intel maybe 15 years ago, they have a huge graduate program and take on significant numbers each year.
Microsoft - Again a graduate program perhaps not as many in terms of numbers.
Google...
Dell...
Apple...
Citigroup and or any other investment bank that have offices in Ireland.
I know Citigroup do an "academy" essentially take on technical graduates giving them training and experience for 8 weeks if you do well there is probably a job in it at the end.

I have interviewed a ton of graduates for big name companies, be polite, be enthusiastic, be able to talk about a project with some clear technical knowledge....
Try not get flustered most interviewers (can only speak for myself) want you to do well, if there is something you do not know just say you do not know or you do not have a whole lot of experience in that area. Talk as long as required be try and be succinct, graduates have a habit of tying themselves in knots when they are talking about something they clearly know very little about.

Practice online code exams and examples in your chosen discipline.
There are a number of websites that will do it like brain bench.

You will find a lot of the larger companies will send out these to all applicants some of which you can do in your own time, only them will you be called to interview.

I think all the other advice on this thread is grand but probably not necessary. And secondary to the above, in my opinion.

Good Luck!

You left out the largest software development company in the country, probably as big as all the others put together - IBM.

ShowMeTheCash

bpmurray wrote: »

You left out the largest software development company in the country, probably as big as all the others put together - IBM.

Yeah IBM is another big name but I do not think they are not the largest in the country. Nor do they employ more than the others combined.
Just to give you an idea:

Intel approx 5000 in Leixlip
Google approx 6000 in Dublin
Apple Ireland (cork) approx 5000
Microsoft approx 2000
Dell approx 2500
IBM approx 3000

Here is a list of companies that operate in Ireland and how many they employ.

http://www.top1000.ie/companies

Roveros

Hey all,

Thanks for the continuing input. I'm looking for work. I've made applications to a few internships with Intel, IBM and Oracle as well as FINEOS and DemonWare. There is a google internship but it requires knowledge of linux "from kernel to shell" which precludes me from applying. There is also nothing from Dell or Microsoft. It hard to find positions to apply to that don't fill me with imposter syndrome. I might have to take another non-career related job soon to get some money up for my fiancée and myself. I have a friend who is continuing in ITB who has agreed to share the course material with me for the coming year, or at the least will give me the author and titles of the the books the courses are being based on. The idea being that if I return to complete the 4th year I will be familiar with most of the course work and can afford to put more time into my projects and come out with higher grades at the end of it. But that would put me back on 90 euro a week for 9 months which I really wanted to avoid. It might be unavoidable though.

Sorry, this post was more venting than asking a question or contributing to anything

Thanks all

bpmurray

ShowMeTheCash wrote: »

Yeah IBM is another big name but I do not think they are not the largest in the country. Nor do they employ more than the others combined.
Just to give you an idea:

Intel approx 5000 in Leixlip
Google approx 6000 in Dublin
Apple Ireland (cork) approx 5000
Microsoft approx 2000
Dell approx 2500
IBM approx 3000

Here is a list of companies that operate in Ireland and how many they employ.

http://www.top1000.ie/companies

I meant software development: most of those employers do very little software development. IBM have almost 2000 in dev roles which is much, much greater than any of the others.

L.Jenkins

I worked for IBM in Mulhuddart and the majority of the roles there were Support based roles. Intel has Development in Leixlip, Cork and Shannon. HP has Development in both Leixlip and Galway. I'm sure IBM is not the biggest Software House in the Country.

bpmurray

Itzy wrote: »

I worked for IBM in Mulhuddart and the majority of the roles there were Support based roles. Intel has Development in Leixlip, Cork and Shannon. HP has Development in both Leixlip and Galway. I'm sure IBM is not the biggest Software House in the Country.

Equine excrement!

IBM has about 100 in support in Mulhuddart and about 1500 in development. There is also a large group of folk in services (who do bespoke dev work) and in tech sales (who don't). IBM also have dev offices in Cork, Galway and Belfast.

ShowMeTheCash

bpmurray wrote: »

Equine excrement!

IBM has about 100 in support in Mulhuddart and about 1500 in development. There is also a large group of folk in services (who do bespoke dev work) and in tech sales (who don't). IBM also have dev offices in Cork, Galway and Belfast.

Not that matters, but I to would not have through IBM to be the largest dev house in Ireland.
They could be but not by the margins you are trying to convey.

I would say Intel easily have around 1500 dev roles of their 5000 to 6000 employees in Leixlip and that is not counting Shannon or Belfast.

Where are you getting your figures? The last poster said he worked in the Mulhuddart plant are you suggest he/she is lying?

Looking at the website it says Mulhuddart:

"delivers services, manufacturing, research and software development"

Blanchardstown is their European sales centre...

I know IBM employee around 3000 for Ireland across all sites, I know they also do manufacturing in Ireland as well as support, usually manufacturing accounts for a large number of head count as does support in most companies like Intel, easily half of the 5000 in Leixlip are in manufacturing.

How many graduates/interns do IBM take on every year?
I know Intel will take on around 150 placement students each year from BSc add BEng roles just to give an idea of how many of these roles are dev roles.

IBM I am sure have a large number of dev roles but I think perhaps you are a little confused.

If not show me where you are getting numbers instead of calling horse sh1t when people who worked in these plants tell you, you are wrong...

bpmurray

ShowMeTheCash wrote: »

Not that matters, but I to would not have through IBM to be the largest dev house in Ireland.
They could be but not by the margins you are trying to convey.

I would say Intel easily have around 1500 dev roles of their 5000 to 6000 employees in Leixlip and that is not counting Shannon or Belfast.

I know Intel do a lot of product dev work, but a lot of their focus is on devices and some of their stuff is pretty amazing. However, I don't believe they have that many software developers and the majority of their workforce are involved in the manufacturing end. On the other hand there are some very large software places like AIB but I think they're still smaller than IBM.

One thing is for sure - the cool companies that people all try to join like Google, Amazon, EBay, Facebook, Microsoft, etc. don't do a whole lot of development work in Ireland: much of it is sales, support and operations, with a little piece of dev work in the corner. Hopefully that'll change over time.

ShowMeTheCash wrote: »

Where are you getting your figures? The last poster said he worked in the Mulhuddart plant are you suggest he/she is lying?

Looking at the website it says Mulhuddart:

"delivers services, manufacturing, research and software development"

IBM addresses every single nook & cranny of the computing world. Their web site is externally facing, so it's important to impress potential customers and to emphasise that they can do anything in the area. However, all manufacturing has moved to different parts of the world over the years, so that one's definitely out of date.

ShowMeTheCash wrote: »

Blanchardstown is their European sales centre...

Actually it's Ballycoolin, near Blanch. Nope - over a year ago, those sales folk, very technical people who also develop solutions as part of their remit, moved to Mulhuddart. The other office only houses some Level 1 support folk now.

ShowMeTheCash wrote: »

I know IBM employee around 3000 for Ireland across all sites,

Nope - it's around 4000 - that web site is out of date.

ShowMeTheCash wrote: »

I know they also do manufacturing in Ireland

Not for years - all moved offshore

ShowMeTheCash wrote: »

as well as support,

There are around 100 in level 2 support and a couple of hundred in Level 1 in Ballycoolin.

ShowMeTheCash wrote: »

usually manufacturing accounts for a large number of head count as does support in most companies like Intel, easily half of the 5000 in Leixlip are in manufacturing.

True, except there's no manufacturing any more. Unless you include research playing with new devices or IoT experimentation, but that's really s/w R&D.

ShowMeTheCash wrote: »

How many graduates/interns do IBM take on every year?
I know Intel will take on around 150 placement students each year from BSc add BEng roles just to give an idea of how many of these roles are dev roles.

IBM have a number of schemes, the two major ones being:

• Extreme Blue is really, really hard to get on - it's over a summer where the students/graduates take an idea and execute it to a product, presenting the results to an audience of VPs and senior execs somewhere in Europe.
• IBM hires probably in excess of 200 recent graduate interns every year, spread throughout the year, depending on the current needs in the various areas. Many of these leave, for many reasons - post graduate courses, other jobs, etc. So then more are hired - I don't know the precise total number in a year but I know it's in excess of 200. Most of these are then made permanent.

ShowMeTheCash wrote: »

IBM I am sure have a large number of dev roles but I think perhaps you are a little confused.

If not show me where you are getting numbers instead of calling horse sh1t when people who worked in these plants tell you, you are wrong...

Perhaps my exclamation was over the top, but I actually work there now: the previous claimant was mistaken. IBM's numbers are quite a bit in excess of 3000 - closer to 4000, most of whom are working in development roles. By development, I include the following:

• Product development in Analytics, Cloud, DB2, Rational, Now Factory, Watson, Tivoli, and more.
• Testing - relying on automation (no manual testing done any more)
• Services doing bespoke development
• Internal systems development
• Research

Even the folk on the Digital Sales team are dev folk. And, of course, there are other roles: sales, mostly based in the city centre, admin & HR although they're not large numbers, financial people, again not a big population.

So my numbers are pretty accurate.

Roveros

Hi all,

I'd like to thank everyone for their contributions, advice and especially thanks to those who reached out to me personally. I was unsuccessful in finding employment. My partner and I decided I would to return to college for my 4th year degree. We felt it would be better to tough it out while the baby is small rather than giving up and taking another line of work. I have learned so much about what will be expected of me by many employers and am going into this final year with my eyes open.

I'm in my second week of college now and already in my first semester i'm seeing modules such as cloud computing, android development and data analytics (which will involve RDBMS's) that I know will be incredibly useful for me to learn before I try to enter the workforce.

Thank you all again,
Roveros.

L.Jenkins

I suppose it will be difficult on you both with a newborn, but in the long run, I'm sure it will be highly beneficial to you. I would suggest you continue learning and contributing to projects online, that you're interested of course.

DULLAHAN2

John_Mc wrote: »

Itzy nailed it. Having interviewed many candidates, those with Github accounts where I could look through their repositories in advance and discuss in the interviews obviously came across a lot better.

I just came across this thread and am in the same position as the op, I'm doing the hons degree currently. Hope no-one minds me bringing it up.

My question is what type of stuff would I put up on github? I have a few small applications that I made during my degree, like a countdown timer, a small application when I was learning mvc with partial views and a couple of others. Is this the stuff I should put up on github?

Roveros

I would advise looking at jobs being advertised at the moment and see what keeps coming up and try to put up some small projects that show your proficiency in those areas. You could also replicate one of your existing projects in another language like C++ to show you can. Also GradIreland will be on at the RDS, Dublin 4 this Wednesday the 5th of October. There will be over 100 employers there and a CV workshop. There will be internship, graduate and postgraduate jobs being advertised there I believe.

Looking for work this past summer showed my that a lot of the positions out there at the time wanted front-end websites and back-end programming. Fortunately this year in ITB we are doing Cloud Computing and Java EE so I am learning Java Server Faces and Java Persistence API which is a much more comfortable way for me to approach web design (I hate web design). There was a lot of interest in having experience with database management systems and SQL.

I will be doing a JSF front end website with JEE as the back-end talking to a database for an assignment that I will definitely put extra time into so that I can upload it to GitHub.

Hope this helps. Boards has been great to me and I'm sure you'll get some sound advise here.

Good luck
Roveros

DULLAHAN2

Roveros wrote: »

I would advise looking at jobs being advertised at the moment and see what keeps coming up and try to put up some small projects that show your proficiency in those areas. You could also replicate one of your existing projects in another language like C++ to show you can. Also GradIreland will be on at the RDS, Dublin 4 this Wednesday the 5th of October. There will be over 100 employers there and a CV workshop. There will be internship, graduate and postgraduate jobs being advertised there I believe.

Looking for work this past summer showed my that a lot of the positions out there at the time wanted front-end websites and back-end programming. Fortunately this year in ITB we are doing Cloud Computing and Java EE so I am learning Java Server Faces and Java Persistence API which is a much more comfortable way for me to approach web design (I hate web design). There was a lot of interest in having experience with database management systems and SQL.

I will be doing a JSF front end website with JEE as the back-end talking to a database for an assignment that I will definitely put extra time into so that I can upload it to GitHub.

Hope this helps. Boards has been great to me and I'm sure you'll get some sound advise here.

Good luck
Roveros

Thanks for getting back to me. I would love to go to the GradIreland but i can't make it up. In my third year project i developed a website doing the front and back end programming using C# and Asp.net MVC and getting it hosted on Azure using a SQL database. I don't know what the project i am doing this year will be yet. I have a Github account but no public repos as i don't know what to put up there. Would making my third project public (with some refactoring) be something recruiters be interested in? Would having a few small applications i developed when studying (regardless of how good they are) public on github be a good thing just to show recruiters i am interested in development.

Good luck this year Roveros

happycoach

L.Jenkins wrote: »

A few things I think might help him:

• An Honurs Degree, if feasible.
• Set Up a Github Account
• Develop Applications and post them to Github
• Contribute to Open Source Projects
• Branch Out in Web Development and Mobile Apps
• Learn to use things like Docker, SVN, Git, Bugzilla
• Understand Testing and Test Automation
• Branch out into and become proficient in languages like Java, C#, PHP etc.
• Learn Oracle DB, MongoDB, NoSQL etc. Where Possible.

+2