How do you get your first job?

[Rob Grainger]

You must admire the irony of being lambasted to work harder by someone whose username is...

[BobJanova]

While true, most technology companies require a degree, even if it's not directly relevant to the work you'll be doing. It is pre-screening for HR in a lot of places; as one of our senior staff said, without my degree my CV would have taken seconds to process, even though it's in geology and not in a computing subject. Completing a degree with a decent grade will open up a chance in the kind of job the OP seems to be looking for.

[BobJanova]

This won't help you at all but I used pre-existing contacts through my family and the APL programming community to get mine. (That job wasn't all that great for me, though it's a good company in general, but that's another story.) You really need that degree, though. Just knuckle down and complete a course. A very large majority of tech companies will require one.

[Bsw79]

You need to think outside the box. Before you can specialize, you may need to generalize. Instead of working towards a programming position, look for something that can lead to a programming position. Consider getting a job doing web content management, pc hardware repair at a company that also has software developers, etc. The contacts you make and the experience you gain could help you land a programming job.

[fellathedog]

I was in a technical school taking up Data Processing (that is what it was called back then). There was an opening for a computer operator. IBM System 3 model 15d, for those old folks. The teacher reccomended another student for the job. The manager hired me. When I went back and told the teacher I got the job, he said, gee, I told him to hire Matt. That was back in 1980. I have been working on IBM mid-range computers ever since, now programming mostly in RPG (not Role Playing Games, but Report Program Generator). Our language uses indicators, which used to be lights you could see on the computer when they were turned off and on.

[Ryan McBeth]

I'm going to weigh in on this one. I would still look at a programmer even if he didn't have a degree, but he better be good. In a way, you are somewhat like me. I spent a few years in the Army before I went to college. I was an adult student in a room full of 18 year-olds, and it was odd, but it gave me certain advantages. I after staying up all night running ambush patrols, staying up all night to finish a FIFO parking lot programming problem was easy. I don't know where you are in the country, but it certainly sounds like you are somewhere in the middle of nowhere. My suggestions would be this: #1. Leave wherever you are and go to North Dakota. Get a job as a roustabout on a natural gas drilling crew. Work for two years. Save your money and go back to college. If I was your age and had no family, no connections, and little education, I would be in North Dakota working on a drilling crew. The unemployment rate in that part of the country is around 3%. #2. Join the Army. Specifically look for MOS 25B which is basically a Network Admin. You'll learn a trade related to your field and get out with money and a shot at a college education. #3. Consider moving to the Philadelphia area and look for a job in The King of Prussia area. It seems like companies are always hiring junior programmers in the Philadelphia area. California is an option, but you won't be able to find housing. Don't fret about being too old. It took me 8 years to get my bachelors and 5 to get my masters, I finally hit my stride at 35. Now I manage a team of programmers. In all honesty, the best choice you may have is the Army. I don't think I would be where I am today without the discipline I learned as an Infantryman. Best of Luck. Quick edit. I never answered how I got my first job. Well, a buddy from the Army knew someone who was hiring a webmaster. I knew web programming and Perl and they hired me on my buddy's recommendation even though I didn't have a degree - basically they knew an Army guy would show up and work which was more than they could say for any other young programmer. Ryan

[Member 7833521]

A small potted history of my career... Was writing code for educational software at Grammer school (in the UK) whilst still at the school (12-17 years old - 7 unremarkable O-levels) Flunked my first go at A-Levels (17 years old), went to college and got the A-levels (18 years old). I don't know what the difference between US and UK education standards were, but it doesn't matter). Went to Uni for BSc in Computer stuff - realized the course was not what I wanted from life (only took 2 years to figure - but I got educational experience - see below). Spend a year looking for ideal work whilst working in bookshops and such dead-end stuff. Spoke with a friends brother, was hired on a pitiful salary (they had to pay my travel from Mums to work..). The poor pay only lasted until I proved myself, then got a realistic wage for experience. Have spent the last 20 years gaining more experience (you can NEVER have enough experience). Many of my peers do not have Uni degrees, but lots of base experience... In summary - it's not what you know, it's who you know (or how long you've used what you know) that matters...

[Gary Huck]

Lot of facets here. Yes, most employers demand a degree - the Gates' and Jobs' of the world are rare. Finishing a degree says something. However, I know great software nerds that didn't get a degree. It's a crap shoot. After I graduated [at 26 yrs old, all expenses paid by me] I moved to San Diego, CA - big city, lots of opportunity. Entry level is a bitch ... I worked jobs I didn't like and put resumes out there constantly for nearly a year. Ended up finding a great job [shoulda kept that one, in fact :] Moving was a bitch ... but the opportunity I found turned out to be well worth it. Thus, I would advise: move and expect to put out a lot of resumes. Be glad you're wanting to work in a field with promising opportunity.

[Gary Huck]

Really? They are still doing RPG?!

[Pete OHanlon]

While he's backing academies, from what I've read they aren't really creationist.

*pre-emptive celebratory nipple tassle jiggle* - Sean Ewington

"Mind bleach! Send me mind bleach!" - Nagy Vilmos

CodeStash - Online Snippet Management | My blog | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easier

[Gary Huck]

I've landed jobs remotely - after gaining great experience! No one will hire an entry-level prospect remotely.

[fellathedog]

Actually, IBM breathed new life into RPG with the latest operating system release. They have created Open Access, which allows a handler to re-route all the ugly 5250 traffic to the web for example. We are currenly using ASNA's handler to accomplish this. We import the displays into ASP.NET, then change them. The RPG buisness logic stays intact and runs on the POWER box (formerly AS/400), while the web server renders the web stuff. I know, there have been many discussions that RPG is dead. But I think it will be around for quite some time. Yes, the interface is dead, and has been dead, but all the user will see is a web page. RPG still powers it. It also gives me some tranportable skills with JavaScript and HTML.

[Gary Huck]

All I can say is: impressive.

[svella]

Lots of mid-size and large company like to hire student programming interns - the one's who work out usually are offered a permanent position upon graduation. If you were going to a school where there are local companies that have intern programs then you could do it concurrent with school, otherwise you would need to take time off (usually 4-6 months) to do it. You college placement center or counselor should be able to help you find opportunities. I think, however, most companies want you to be at least a Junior before they will consider you. -Shon

[sidinsd]

I can only talk to you from my own experience, I can't pretend to be Bill Gates, Paul Allen or Larry Ellison, who through some confluence of luck and skill attained heights we mere mortals can only dream of. I am 58 years old and started programming in 1971 in assembler language on a CDC 6600 at my college NYU. I went on to get a BA in Math and Computer Science and two Master's Degrees, one in Mathematics and one in Computer Science. Today, I am a Senior Software Engineer at General Atomics in San Diego. My great regret in life is that I too was bored with school getting my first Master's degree and left school to work for General Motors in Detroit before I could complete my PhD program. I have always felt that I would have gone much further in my career endeavors had I completed my PhD. Other people I have spoken to feel just the opposite, that an advanced degree or any degree at all mean little in corporate America, but I look around me and the majority of successful people that I know (the three aforementioned entrepreneurs aside) all have advanced degrees of some kind. I say to you from my experience, stick it out in school, get your degree, the job will come naturally after that. I was 25 also before I got my first job, and from where I sit now I'd love to be 25 again. Its a wonderful time of life, so as bored as you seem to be, enjoy it while you can, life goes by very quickly!

[DerekT P]

What's a degree got to do with anything? Sorry, this from a Dad who's just packed off his daughter to Uni and is cracking the whip over his son to make sure he gets there next year. But, if you're struggling with finance, and you've got years to go, and you reckon you're a shit-hot programmer, then why not just start working now? Not learning English Lit or Biology, but building systems for people? Having a degree simply proves you can get a degree... There are umpteen sites out there posting literally hundreds (thousands, probably) of projects a day for guys (and girls) like you to work on. Five years ago, in breaks between "long-term" contracts and when "bored with my life", I bid on these little jobs on vWorker (Rent-a-Coder as it was then), eLance, PeoplePerHour etc.. Sure, the headline rates are pretty abysmal, as you're competing with folks in India, China and Eastern Europe who'll work for a couple of bucks an hour. So, don't compete on rates. Compete on quality, value added, responsiveness, professionalism, communication. They're all winnable against that competition. Turn the little jobs into big ones. 4 years ago I did a $250 job, won against Indian competition, completed it in an afternoon. The client was happy, asked for some more work, and 4 years later his organisation is wholly dependent on my tech input; he's paying $100 / hour, with a guaranteed minimum $16000/month payment regardless of the hours I work. He's never asked if I have a degree (as it happens, I do, but not in IT) nor whether I have any other qualifications. I do work for numerous other clients at the same rate for people referred to me by happy clients or picked up in those on-line auctions. Winning those first auctions isn't easy, but it's not hard either. Focus on quality of bid and volume of bids. Of course that's just one route. Use your imagination, write a mobile app and market it. It MAY make you a billionaire, probably won't; but it WILL give you some practical experience and something to show potential employers. Or build a killer website. Or write some PC shareware. NOBODY is stopping you from doing that - except maybe yourself. When I was a teenager needing to find some work through the summer break, I made 99 applications for bar jobs, shop work, anything easy and not needing qualifications. I got nowhere. I decided I'd write one last letter, but it had to be a corker. Where did I really want to work above all else, what would be a dream job? For me, the answer was working at the UK's Railway Technic

[Joe Woodbury]

Stephen Dycus wrote:

Why is your full time wage hire than mine?$7.25 at 40 hours a week (full time) 4 weeks a month == $1160

(7.25 x 40 x 52) / 12

Stephen Dycus wrote:

Fixing computers is not related to selling car speakers. It's like if you were hired as a programmer and they made you the secretary instead

Yes, and this will happen in your career. I can't count the times I've heard, or uttered, the phrase "I wasn't hired to do this." Usually followed by an expletive. If you have to pay your bills you suck it up and do the job and chalk it up to experience. At one job, I was suddenly assigned to produce some marketing materials. At another job, I was put in charge of maintaining some equipment barely related to my job. Sometimes this leads to finding out you like doing something else. I had a technical writer who ended up writing for the usability team. She started helping with some testing, found she liked it and was very good at it, worked a while in usability at a very well known company and is now a product manager at that company. I'll bet if you ask the question here on CP, you'd find every developer at one time got assign some crap task way outside their field.

[Slacker007]

Truth hurts, especially for the weaker ones. Being a cry baby will get you no where in life. If that makes me an asshole, then so be it. As for my online name, it is completely opposite of how I really am...reason why I picked it. :)

"the meat from that butcher is just the dogs danglies, absolutely amazing cuts of beef." - DaveAuld (2011)
"No, that is just the earthly manifestation of the Great God Retardon." - Nagy Vilmos (2011) "It is the celestial scrotum of good luck!" - Nagy Vilmos (2011) "But you probably have the smoothest scrotum of any grown man" - Pete O'Hanlon (2012)

[Glosse]

You mean a summer job while you are in school, or a full time job? One summer many moons ago two friends and I got the bright idea to hitchhike to Wyoming and look for work. After arriving in Jackson Hole we spent a day knocking on doors, asking at every business with no luck. We got a ride from a man driving a big Cadillac and I guess we were sounding discouraged. I remember him saying "Oh, you have been looking one day? Then you have just started." Right. We got the message. We all ended up getting jobs, my friends with the Yellowstone Park Company as busboys, and I with the Park Service as a trash collector. We were thrilled. After college it was a bit easier. I got a letter from Uncle Sam saying we want you. There used to be this thing called the Draft. But the US Army sent me off to programming training at the IBM Ed Center in D.C., thus launched a career. So it appears you are at a wonderful age. You can haul ass to Wyoming (or wherever) and not be too particular about what you do, or you could join the military for a few years to get some practical experience (but if you do get a guaranteed MOS (military occupation) before signing on the dotted line). Have fun.

[Bruce Patin]

After I got a degree in Physics (and learned FORTRAN for statistics), my dad got me an interview for a job fixing IBM hardware far from home in Washington, D.C. - not programming, and I worked hard and got a good reputation, but the frequent late night emergency calls made life miserable and undependable. After 4-1/2 years of that, I was recruited by a competitor to fix their hardware, in exchange for a promise to make me an instructor in 6 months, so that I could have a normal life. Because instructing entailed writing and scheduling courses, I had the opportunity to write programs to schedule training and deliver computer-based training modules. The languages I had to use were mainly IBM REXX, JCL, IBM mainframe assembly language, and a little bit of Visual Basic, Perl and Pascal, all of which I learned on my own, and not much people would use these days. The key here is that I was given work by managers who wanted some results, but knew nothing about software, so accepted whatever I came up with, as long as it did the job. That allowed me to put programming successes on my resume, so that when I got laid off (for refusal to move), after nine months and getting a certificate in Java, I was able to get a programming job at an organization where the managers had the understanding (or lack of prejudicial knowledge) to think that my programming skills could be easily transferred to other languages and systems. So then, I gradually worked my way into making modifications to a Perl web/database program on a FreeBSD system, then Linux, then VB.NET and C# on Windows, and now I'm dabbling in PHP and Android. In sumary, I would say to get any job that you can excel in, and work your way into IT.