5 year Gap in dev career , how to recover it now ?
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How to get back on track ? I know C#( worked for a year ), I was really good in C during student life (Computer science and engineering grad) as well. Now want to do MVC, very little knowledge of HTML and CSS. Can anyone give me some idea how to make myself fit for a job by Jan'2014 ?? its not a joke. (I am jobless at the moment ). by the way I am in UK.
You need to go all out. Buy cheap old PC's from ebay, fit them out with all the free stuff, do a few practice projects in c/c++/c# on Linux, which is all free. Start a project or two, tout a product around local businesses - it doesn't have to be brilliant, it's just that you can claim on your CV that this is 'commercial experience', without lying. Open an account with Abe books and buy LOTS of cheap, used programming books to work through. When going to interviews, you've got to be able to talk the talk. This is not commercial, but you can claim 'familiarity' with all the tech; expand from C/C# and try out (free) Python, (free) Ruby etc. C/C# are a natural fit for Interop, get used to building C library functions to be consumed by C# apps; if you're on windows there are free 'express' versions of Visual Studio. And practice, practice, practice! Then, when your CV looks good(a MS Word template looks good if you have the luxury - if not, do it on a friend's machine, then when you put the CV back on your Libre-office free wp, evrything will stay where it is meant to), HIT THE AGENCIES! Job sites? CWJobs is a good one. Build experience with the agents. Once you've got a track record they'll often keep feeding you leads because you show. Good hunting! :-D
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How to get back on track ? I know C#( worked for a year ), I was really good in C during student life (Computer science and engineering grad) as well. Now want to do MVC, very little knowledge of HTML and CSS. Can anyone give me some idea how to make myself fit for a job by Jan'2014 ?? its not a joke. (I am jobless at the moment ). by the way I am in UK.
Ummm... "get back on track"? What track do you want to get back onto ? You say you did C# and C. Now you want MVC, HTML, CSS. First of all, do you know what position are you targeting? Or what particular type of project? You must first determine what is it that you want. In the "real programming world", C programming is nothing like college, trust me. But if you were any good at it, you must have some solid knowledge about data structures. First go with that and study some more. Add some algorithms and design patterns to your study list, and you're good to start pretty much anywhere a little above the beginner level. Moving on... C#... this is a rather generic language. Did you do desktop or web applications? Did you like it ? After answering this, you can choose a path to follow. There are a lot of books out there, some good, some better, some garbage. This is not that important, anyone can read a book, but what matters is what you can do after reading that book. Practice, practice, practice! As someone else replied, if you're satisfied with the results of your studies (small projects and homework), you could make yourself an online portfolio. Probably it will not matter much, but you will be doing something which you can show if necessary. Also, you can get some self esteem from this too. And most importantly, when applying for a job, be flexible, ask about personal improvement, be open to negotiation (regarding not only salary, but also position and projects). Be aware of what you know, be honest, and most importantly, be open. And get ready to relive the student years, because you will most likely have to learn a lot of stuff after you get a job.
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How to get back on track ? I know C#( worked for a year ), I was really good in C during student life (Computer science and engineering grad) as well. Now want to do MVC, very little knowledge of HTML and CSS. Can anyone give me some idea how to make myself fit for a job by Jan'2014 ?? its not a joke. (I am jobless at the moment ). by the way I am in UK.
Take a look at http://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/#?fbid=C5_8bh7ClVt[^]. It's Free Microsoft Training Delivered by Experts.
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How to get back on track ? I know C#( worked for a year ), I was really good in C during student life (Computer science and engineering grad) as well. Now want to do MVC, very little knowledge of HTML and CSS. Can anyone give me some idea how to make myself fit for a job by Jan'2014 ?? its not a joke. (I am jobless at the moment ). by the way I am in UK.
HTML and CSS are pretty easy to learn, HTML is a tag language, while CSS is for giving style to these tags for presentation, you can find plenty of tutorials about both on the Internet, I learned a lot about HTML from some dead simple tutorials, but this was many, many years ago, so I can't find them anymore. Also, you may also want to add JavaScript to the HTML/CSS mix, as it's necessary for interactivity. Your mayor problem will be wrapping around the MVC concept, especially if you were doing something with Windows Forms/ASP.NET when you were using C#.
CEO at: - Rafaga Systems - Para Facturas - Modern Components for the moment...
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How to get back on track ? I know C#( worked for a year ), I was really good in C during student life (Computer science and engineering grad) as well. Now want to do MVC, very little knowledge of HTML and CSS. Can anyone give me some idea how to make myself fit for a job by Jan'2014 ?? its not a joke. (I am jobless at the moment ). by the way I am in UK.
Hi, fatema. I think that a good start point for you should be get a Microsoft Certification (http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en-us/certification-overview.aspx[^]). You said that you already know how to program, maybe MTA certifications should be easer for you. http://www.asp.net/mvc[^] is a good place to study. Good luck! :)
André Maia
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Cristian Amarie wrote:
*(unsigned char *)buffer++ = '\0';
Man, I miss the days when C / C++ ruled the Earth. I miss the dinosaurs, too. Just not as much. They always made a mess of my front yard.
Christopher Duncan Author of Unite the Tribes: Leadership Skills for Technology Managers Have Fun, Get Paid: How to Make a Living with Your Creativity The Career Programmer
Well, I usually feel like on the extinction verge. But working on Bitdefender there isn't a single day without guts. Just finished a meeting for the next version optimizer - should be freeze processes with NtSuspendProcess or registering ourselves as a debugger and do a some form of Break All? Now *that's* the stuff I wanna do. Not jerking around yet another [fill spaces].JS library larger than user32.dll or discovering some new json database after working with ODBC for years.
Nuclear launch detected
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How to get back on track ? I know C#( worked for a year ), I was really good in C during student life (Computer science and engineering grad) as well. Now want to do MVC, very little knowledge of HTML and CSS. Can anyone give me some idea how to make myself fit for a job by Jan'2014 ?? its not a joke. (I am jobless at the moment ). by the way I am in UK.
fatema wrote:
How to get back on track ?
And how long were you a developer? And what have you been doing since then? If you did in fact have a number years as a professional developer and you have been working in a specific industry since then then the obvious path would be to use your domain knowledge of that industry to land a job as a developer in that industry. If you don't have real development experience in the past (like 5 years) then you are starting from scratch.
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In addition to what Richard (and others) said, I recommend building a non-trivial (start simple, then add complexity) web app that you can host at a cheap ASP .NET host in order to be able to demo to a potential employer. Nothing says "I can code" like demonstratable running code. Good luck! :thumbsup: /ravi
My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com
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How to get back on track ? I know C#( worked for a year ), I was really good in C during student life (Computer science and engineering grad) as well. Now want to do MVC, very little knowledge of HTML and CSS. Can anyone give me some idea how to make myself fit for a job by Jan'2014 ?? its not a joke. (I am jobless at the moment ). by the way I am in UK.
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How to get back on track ? I know C#( worked for a year ), I was really good in C during student life (Computer science and engineering grad) as well. Now want to do MVC, very little knowledge of HTML and CSS. Can anyone give me some idea how to make myself fit for a job by Jan'2014 ?? its not a joke. (I am jobless at the moment ). by the way I am in UK.
From a hiring manager's perspective what Ravi Bhavnani recommended (build a site) would impress me most. My main worry about the 5-year gap would be that you didn't find the technology interesting, especially with something as relatively simple as HTML/CSS, so it would be hard for me to hire you to do it at my firm. Building a working MVC site would go a long way - especially if you did some cool stuff with it, and double especially if you are able to say "look at the cool parts of my demo site - I really had fun learning how to do that." Smart people know that smart people can learn to do almost anything relatively close to their existing skill set in a week or two, that's why I hire developers who really love to code and show that by what they do in their free time.
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In addition to what Richard (and others) said, I recommend building a non-trivial (start simple, then add complexity) web app that you can host at a cheap ASP .NET host in order to be able to demo to a potential employer. Nothing says "I can code" like demonstratable running code. Good luck! :thumbsup: /ravi
My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com
Ravi Bhavnani wrote:
Nothing says "I can code" like demonstratable running code.
I couldn't agree more! When I interview, I always ask for code to look at. First thing I check is if it has that "classroom assignment" or "copied from a book" smell to it. I expect you to be able to give a tour so I can also smell whether it is borrowed code and not your own. I want to see how you code, format your code, and most importantly comment your code. I don't look for any rigid "standard du jour", just if it is easy on the eyes, I may have to debug your code at some future date and I want to see if I'll be able to find my way around. Or better yet, what I can learn from it. Most important to me is interacting to develop a sense of your understanding of the concepts. Again, I don't go for 'gotcha' syntax, those things change too fast (although I've met too many interviewers who delight in seeing if you know some obscure syntax they think is important), I want to see if you understand what you need to learn if you don't know it. I look for passion, not a checklist.
Psychosis at 10 Film at 11 Those who do not remember the past, are doomed to repeat it. Those who do not remember the past, cannot build upon it.
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Ravi Bhavnani wrote:
Nothing says "I can code" like demonstratable running code.
I couldn't agree more! When I interview, I always ask for code to look at. First thing I check is if it has that "classroom assignment" or "copied from a book" smell to it. I expect you to be able to give a tour so I can also smell whether it is borrowed code and not your own. I want to see how you code, format your code, and most importantly comment your code. I don't look for any rigid "standard du jour", just if it is easy on the eyes, I may have to debug your code at some future date and I want to see if I'll be able to find my way around. Or better yet, what I can learn from it. Most important to me is interacting to develop a sense of your understanding of the concepts. Again, I don't go for 'gotcha' syntax, those things change too fast (although I've met too many interviewers who delight in seeing if you know some obscure syntax they think is important), I want to see if you understand what you need to learn if you don't know it. I look for passion, not a checklist.
Psychosis at 10 Film at 11 Those who do not remember the past, are doomed to repeat it. Those who do not remember the past, cannot build upon it.
Where I work, we ask candidates who pass our phone screens and are invited for an in-person interview to write a small piece of code. We give them a small programming problem and see how they talk out their design and implement the algorithm. It's amazing what you can learn from this. /ravi
My new year resolution: 2048 x 1536 Home | Articles | My .NET bits | Freeware ravib(at)ravib(dot)com
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If I were you, based on your description here, I'd apply for junior level development positions. However, as you have very little knowledge of HTML and CSS, I would recommend that you buy some good books and spend a lot of time catching up on MVC, HTML and CSS, as well as C#.
What is MVC btw?? and don't you think that html and css is sufficient enough to develop a Web site.??