Need advice on starting career

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miamiheatfan

259 posts

Ultimate Geek
Inactive user

#96967 8-Feb-2012 11:42

Hey guys, i'm not sure if this is in the right category, but any mods feel free to move it to the appropriate one (I don't use this site very often so still not sure).

So here goes,
I am a few months away from 21. I sat my final exams at UoA in November and am now waiting to graduate in May.
Since December I've been looking for full time, part time, entry level jobs, whatnots. etc. related to anything tech. Be it helpdesk, technician etc etc to no avail.
I had 1 interview in Dec with HCL Tech down in Shortland Street but of course since i'm posting here u guys know the outcome of that one. It was a good experience though since it was my first ever real interview.

For the past few days i've been thinking of looking for part time jobs at Subway, DSE , etc etc , those places you know , to earn a little bit of $$ while also looking for "that" job.

Now i'm not a picky person at all, i realize that i have little to no experience working at all and just my education (albeit with an avg-at-best grade really) , so i'm willing to take any entry level jobs.
The only kind of paid work i've done so far is ....mowing the neighbors lawn for some pocket $$ ...and that was a few years ago.

I might be regretting not getting a real pt job in high school and college. But i'm still willing to take it. I"m just now considering it you know. Since the PT job is unlikely to be related at all to my chosen degree field , would it be beneficial for my cv ? since they say to only include related work history in your CV.

I"ll be graduating with a major in Computer Science. During my 3 years studying, i've had exposture to : Java (most comfy with) , C# (used often) , ASP.NET (basic knowledge model-view-controller etc.) , HTML , CSS, SQL (can do queries, procedures etc.) , basic office skills (powerpoint, word, excel etc.) .
I can type about 55 wpm with about 95% accuracy.

Any suggestion is welcome here and if any of you guys know someone or you guys need anyone at all ...you know.
PM me for anything.

And of course i'm still sending out applications (from SEEK, SJS , etc.)

Thanks for your time guys.

MK.

ScottStevensNZ

245 posts

Master Geek

#578637 8-Feb-2012 11:56

You seem to have some pretty good technical skills there so the question is, IT is a large field so what do you think you might want to do? I am a load and performance tester/engineer/senior consultant (depending on what business card I look at) which involves quite a bit of development and I hae to say is actually a really interesting job with a good deal of technical stuff to get your teeth into. PM me if you want some more info and I can send you a link to have a look at for my employer

Load & Performance Tester/PHP/JSP/C/PERL/MYSQL/LoadRunner8->11/HTML/CSS/XML/XSLT/2B|!2B/Cervelo Soloist/EMC Equip4/ Samsung Galaxy S /Darkys 10.2 Extreme

Do androids dream of electric sheep?
use strict;
my $sheepCount;

Yes, they can.

jonb

1771 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

#578644 8-Feb-2012 12:02

Hi,

I'll take that you'd like to be a software developer?

Take any job you can now to get some cash, and to show that you are a reliable worker not afraid of a bit of hard work. This is surprisingly important for your first job, as you'd be surprised by how many people are not. When I applied for my first IT job, I put my previous work experience on my CV ( finance data input, warehouse shift work)

If the job isn't in the area you want to be in, you'd have to do some work in your free time. You've done java and C# - how about getting together with a coursemate and making a simple-ish android app and put on the marketplace. This is building visible, provable experience and showing initiative. Both good, and it's something to talk about in an interview.

jonherries

1395 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Subscriber

#578663 8-Feb-2012 12:48

Best thing I can think of is in your spare time do some voluntary programming/development for a not-for-profit (including smaller healthcare and social service agencies).

Generally they tend to be gagging for some of these skills but don't have the $$ to pay for it.

Would look awesome on your CV as they are likely to hand you the keys and just let you get on with it.

Hope this helps,

Jon

miamiheatfan

259 posts

Ultimate Geek
Inactive user

#579188 9-Feb-2012 11:34

Hey guys, thanks for the replies.
@scottstevensNZ , i've Pm'd you, thanks.

Yea i realize I need to do more small self projects like android app, or windows marketplace etc etc.
It's just that in uni i was often confused, because we needed to learn assembly language, C, C++ , Java and a bunch of other languages sometimes all in 1 semester and tested on etc.
So if i sit down and try to do those small self projects it can get abit confusing.

I use w3schools mostly to help me with the basics and then work on it from there. Do you guys have anymore good sites to recommend ?

I'll be applying for the pt jobs soon but i'm also still applying and looking for IT jobs, even entry level ones.
I'm just now a little bit hesistant, because if i do get the PT job say at Subway , then if i keep looking when i have that job and i get an interview and am hired , would i be able to leave say only 3 weeks into the PT job ?

jgeek

3 posts

Wannabe Geek

#586796 25-Feb-2012 21:09

Hey just letting you know I'm about same age as you and what I did was ask for work experience at a large I.T company in town. I did it for a week then got offered a entry level job in I.T a week later.
Now I have that on my C.V it's great!!!
I guess you have to put yourself out there :)
Sometimes you can even do 1 day a week work experience??? All i did was acer pc troubleshooting travelling around with a senior tech as his little noob.
Once u get into a company then they like to train you up to be a software develepor etc... but some don't but i've been pretty lucky!!

AstonAMV

19 posts

Geek

#590605 5-Mar-2012 12:46

Speaking from personal experience, do not take any job you get just for the sake of having a job. If you are desperate for cash or are struggling to find your perfect role then I would suggest trying for a help desk/support job, since customer service experience is a big plus on you CV.

I ended up taking a programming job in a non standard language and have found it near impossible to switch to another job programming in my preferred programming languages (Java, C#) due to the fact that my commercial experience being out side of Java and C#, even though I have a Computer Science degree with A average across my 200 and 300 level papers.

You need to decide which area or language you want to specialise in as soon as possible and concentrate on applying for jobs in that area. It might be useful to do certifications in the area of IT you want to pursue you career in.

If you haven't made up your mind on what area you want to specialise in, I would suggest looking for a Network engineering job based around telecommunications and completing the Cisco certifications (Voice, IP) as quickly as possible. Career and pay progression in that area is quicker than in the programming field (My brother went from $35000 NZD to > $120000 AUD in less than two and a half years).

sleemanj

1490 posts

Uber Geek

#591372 6-Mar-2012 17:50

Some words of advice.

Take great care not to get "stuck" in a bad place in your career, it's very easy to "paint yourself into a corner" in IT, if you work in one language, doing one type of development, for too long, it will take a lot of very hard work to break away from it, basically starting from scratch.

If you want to make decent money doing interesting things, I probably wouldn't recommend web stuff, sure it sounds all varied and interesting and well paid. It's really not (for the developer).

Try to start in the "harder" areas of development. Embedded software. Desktop applications. Server applications.

An office. A fat paycheck. And respect that you are doing a highly skilled job. In my experience, these are things that web developers seldom get to see. Even though we should.

---
James Sleeman
I sell lots of stuff for electronic enthusiasts...