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Need experience, getting experience

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  • 28-05-2003 10:32am
    #1
    jaarius
    Registered Users Posts: 383 ✭✭


    the old issue of needing experience to get experience. where should one start when looking for programming work while having no experience in the field. is there any freelance work available? or work you could do from home?

    jaz?


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    #2
    [CrimsonGhost]
    Registered Users Posts: 1,023 ✭✭✭[CrimsonGhost]


    Well have you ever written some software and made it available online? Have you ever contributed to an open source project significantly? If not I suggest whilst looking for work you keep your programming skills up to date by doing just that. Check sourceforge.net for project which interest you and get involved, or take the time to start your own project creating something you feel would be good. Then stick it on your CV. Employers will be more impressed by someone who can demonstrate programming ability outside of college.

    **** I went through 4 years of college and graduated with people who wouldn't be able to reverse the contents of an array to save their lives. And I think employers are copping on to this. So any extra experience you can demonstrate will certainly help your cause.


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    #3
    tomED
    Registered Users Posts: 1,452 ✭✭✭tomED


    I always judge people from what they have done and not from the education they have had.

    I found that students coming out of college were not always up to scratch. In fact in my whole time of hiring and firing staff in my last job I only hired one person with a college degree. This was simply because the people without a college degree were the type of people that loved what they were doing and spent endless hours at home developing stoopid applications for the fun of it!

    However in saying that - a lot of the good students leaving college have a good grasp of theory (in my filed anyway) but need guidance and after a couple of years experience will probably outshine the ones without a college degree.

    Now is such a bad time for companies - generally they dont have the time to train someone up and most are looking short term rather than long term. They would prefer to pay for one strong candidate on a 6 month contract than two not so good candidates with a lot of potential over a 3 year period. (that was the case in my last job, where i was recruiting!)

    I suggest developing a little website with downloads of your applications. Maybe if some source code if you are not afraid of people knicking it - most technical people will get an idea of what level you are at by a quick glance at your code. The people that hire you will take the technical persons advice and then the rest is in the hands of your personality ;)


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