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Ithaqua posted:Option 4. A graduate degree means fuckall when hiring software developers, unless, for example, you did your masters degree in some area of machine learning and my company is looking for an expert in machine learning. I've seen people with no college degree at all who were badass software developers and had no problems getting jobs. I can understand a graduate degree on top of a regular CS degree wouldn't mean much, but considering I have nothing to show right now on a resume that I can actually program it seems like it'd help at least to the same extent as an undergrad in CS. edit: after seeing the part you added, this makes more sense. I was thinking that was probably the best route. Any suggestions on where I can volunteer my time that I could actually put on a resume?
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Dec 13, 2011 01:31
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Date of birth in a CV: Yay or nay?
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Dec 13, 2011 04:49
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Destroyenator posted:Date of birth in a CV: Yay or nay? Nope. Don't put your race, religion, marital status, political affiliations, etc. either. Why reason can you come up with for adding it?
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Dec 13, 2011 05:09
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Markov Chain Chomp posted:Nope. Don't put your race, religion, marital status, political affiliations, etc. either. Why reason can you come up with for adding it?
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Dec 13, 2011 05:38
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hayden. posted:I can understand a graduate degree on top of a regular CS degree wouldn't mean much, but considering I have nothing to show right now on a resume that I can actually program it seems like it'd help at least to the same extent as an undergrad in CS. Go to Github or Sourceforge and look for an interesting project in your language of choice. Start contributing.
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Dec 13, 2011 13:13
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Destroyenator posted:I can't, just used to applying for liquor stores where it matters. In the US anyway I think it's illegal to ask during interviews, so it may even get your CV thrown out if there's a similar law where you live. Ithaqua posted:Go to Github or Sourceforge and look for an interesting project in your language of choice. Start contributing. Thanks, I'll do this!
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Dec 13, 2011 18:14
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Ithaqua posted:Option 4. A graduate degree means fuckall when hiring software developers, unless, for example, you did your masters degree in some area of machine learning and my company is looking for an expert in machine learning. I've seen people with no college degree at all who were badass software developers and had no problems getting jobs. This depends on the company. Not having a degree (or having a liberal arts 4 year degree) but being a badass developer won't get you past the phone interview at large companies. I'll concede a graduate degree is meaningless if you already have a CS degree.
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Dec 13, 2011 21:01
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Any advice for "early career" job hunters? I spent my last two years in a pretty non-traditional development environment and wouldn't mind a reboot - starting entry level again in a completely different language & industry. Is it inappropriate to use the Student applications or University web links? Any general advice?
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Dec 21, 2011 04:22
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gotly posted:Any advice for "early career" job hunters? I spent my last two years in a pretty non-traditional development environment and wouldn't mind a reboot - starting entry level again in a completely different language & industry. Is it inappropriate to use the Student applications or University web links? Any general advice? Uh yeah, that would be pretty weird, you're not some noob and it's not like switching languages is going to suddenly make you one.
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Dec 21, 2011 04:55
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hieronymus posted:This depends on the company. Not having a degree (or having a liberal arts 4 year degree) but being a badass developer won't get you past the phone interview at large companies. I'll concede a graduate degree is meaningless if you already have a CS degree. I had an Info Systems background with some development courses that I really liked, and am now finishing my Masters in CS (with a few supplemental courses I had to take like Linear Algebra/ Discrete I and II / Algorithms / Data Structures / etc). I wish I would have gotten my CS degree in the first place, but hindsight, so whatever. At least now I can apply for Grad level internships/fellowships, of which there are a tremendous amount. (Basically I'm agreeing with you that a Masters CS degree is of questionable usefulness if you have an undergrad degree there unless you go into some obscure specialization.) Good Will Punting fucked around with this message at 23:59 on Dec 21, 2011 |
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Dec 21, 2011 23:52
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shrughes posted:Uh yeah, that would be pretty weird, you're not some noob and it's not like switching languages is going to suddenly make you one. I think this is a situation where you have to trust the first-person report as incorrigible...
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Dec 22, 2011 00:18
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hieronymus posted:This depends on the company. Not having a degree (or having a liberal arts 4 year degree) but being a badass developer won't get you past the phone interview at large companies. I'll concede a graduate degree is meaningless if you already have a CS degree. This is not true at all. Not having a degree won't get you past the phone interview if there is a requirement for a degree, or if the interviewee has a personal bias for people with a degree. There is no need for someone to accrue thousands of dollars of student loan debt to attain a title rendered meaningless by a couple of years of experience as a programmer. So it depends more on the person, rather than the size of the company as to whether or not you'd be passed over for the lack of a degree, and even then it's probably due to how a particular interviewee values a degree.
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Dec 22, 2011 23:23
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Fiend posted:There is no need for someone to accrue thousands of dollars of student loan debt to attain a title rendered meaningless by a couple of years of experience as a programmer. They need to show equivalent expertise in another fashion then. Not many companies are going to toss someone with no CS experience into any sort of role where programming is the focus of their job. Plenty of people simply can't wrap their head around the work and it would be a huge gamble for the company, with a significant commitment of the resources of experienced programmers for training and questionable returns.
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Dec 23, 2011 00:06
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baquerd posted:They need to show equivalent expertise in another fashion then. Not many companies are going to toss someone with no CS experience into any sort of role where programming is the focus of their job. Plenty of people simply can't wrap their head around the work and it would be a huge gamble for the company, with a significant commitment of the resources of experienced programmers for training and questionable returns. On this note, I've been looking at entry level software development jobs not having any real experience with programming (also don't have a degree in CS or related field) and have this to pretty much be the case. I've asked some of the guys interviewing me what they suggested between academics and self study/doing my own projects and the advice was this: go take the relevant classes but don't worry about the degree (since I already have one). Use what you learn in the classes to work on your own projects. I wasn't really expecting to find an actual job doing development work with no experience or relevant degree, but possibly something more of a support role like doing documentation. I was told that this is a huge no-no and the last thing you want is to be an job/environment with lots of documentation work.
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Dec 23, 2011 01:40
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hayden. posted:I wasn't really expecting to find an actual job doing development work with no experience or relevant degree, but possibly something more of a support role like doing documentation. I was told that this is a huge no-no and the last thing you want is to be an job/environment with lots of documentation work. To write good documentation you really need to be able to understand the code, not only what it does but what its intent is and the considerations taken in writing it. Documentation being pieced out to someone not actually either speccing out or writing the code just strikes me as... wrong.
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Dec 23, 2011 07:03
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Fiend posted:This is not true at all. Not having a degree won't get you past the phone interview if there is a requirement for a degree, or if the interviewee has a personal bias for people with a degree. Haha. Who's left in this field with that bias, besides the occasional dinosaur? There's so much competition for good talent, if someone's still clinging to that bias instead of adapting... that's a red flag against working there. In my experience, education hardly ever comes up in the hiring process, on either side. Companies I interview at don't care. Colleagues I discuss candidates with don't care.
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Dec 23, 2011 22:40
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A A 2 3 5 8 K posted:In my experience, education hardly ever comes up in the hiring process, on either side. Companies I interview at don't care. Colleagues I discuss candidates with don't care. This has been my experience. The jobs that require a degree aren't ones I want to work at. I've been approached by recruiters from places like these and they didn't seem to care. The only case I have had where the lack of a degree is an issue is visa requirements. That and when i've had to interview people I haven't found a degree to be a good indicator of ability.
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Dec 26, 2011 18:12
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A A 2 3 5 8 K posted:Haha. Who's left in this field with that bias, besides the occasional dinosaur? There's so much competition for good talent, if someone's still clinging to that bias instead of adapting... that's a red flag against working there. In my experience, education hardly ever comes up in the hiring process, on either side. Companies I interview at don't care. Colleagues I discuss candidates with don't care. The technology company I work for will simply not hire anyone without a degree in Computer Science or a related discipline. As part of a recruitment strategy it works well for us. I certainly wouldn't describe the company as a "dinosaur".
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Dec 28, 2011 21:01
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A A 2 3 5 8 K posted:Haha. Who's left in this field with that bias, besides the occasional dinosaur? There's so much competition for good talent, if someone's still clinging to that bias instead of adapting... that's a red flag against working there. In my experience, education hardly ever comes up in the hiring process, on either side. Companies I interview at don't care. Colleagues I discuss candidates with don't care. Also Google.
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Dec 28, 2011 21:17
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So I've been looking for technical jobs of any sort, even Systems Administrator jobs, and pretty much everywhere wants experience of which I have none. As I mentioned earlier, I just finished a degree in Finance and have always enjoyed programming but consider myself a beginner. Can anyone give some examples of what I can do that would display to a employer that I can function a professional developer? A suggestion earlier was to contribute to open source projects, but would putting "helped with XYZ project to develop ______" actually mean anything? Do I need to undertake original projects that would require greater technical aptitude? I have no idea what software developers actually look for on a resume to show an ability to develop software aside from a CS degree or professional experience. bonus: which languages/skills should I work on to maximum my employability? VB.NET, database skills, and Java seem to be the most popular. hayden. fucked around with this message at 22:57 on Dec 28, 2011 |
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Dec 28, 2011 21:57
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hayden. posted:A suggestion earlier was to contribute to open source projects, but would putting "helped with XYZ project to develop ______" actually mean anything? This is a good suggestion. And yes it would. You could write something like "I refactored the [X] of [Y] to provide [feature Z]. The project used [standard industry technology]" or whatever. hayden. posted:Do I need to undertake original projects that would require greater technical aptitude? I have no idea what software developers actually look for on a resume to show an ability to develop software aside from a CS degree or professional experience. Pretty much just those two, really. Training and commercial experience cover it mostly. Some hobby programming helps to show an interest, but we all know we all hack the ugliest poo poo together when we're programming for ourselves so it's not like we'd judge a man by it. (Or rather, I do, and I wouldn't) hayden. posted:bonus: which languages/skills should I work on to maximum my employability? VBA.NET, database skills, and Java seem to be the most popular. Looks like you're getting a little confused. There's no such thing as "VBA.NET". There's VBA - a programming language for the Microsoft Office suite of applications. And there's VB.NET (no A). A language derived from the old Visual Basic syntax, and runs on the .NET framework. C# also targets the .NET framework and has major feature parity with VB.NET, just different language semantics.
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Dec 28, 2011 22:22
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Sorry, meant VB.NET (I was doing some VBA in Excel while writing the post and it was on the mind). So my major hope is going to be working on open source stuff until I can get an entry level job?
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Dec 28, 2011 22:47
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Orzo posted:What city do you work in? Because here in Chicago there's quite a few companies that definitely aren't 'dinosaurs' that won't even consider you without a degree. My experience is in Southern California, the Bay Area, and Boston/Cambridge. If you're a good developer, degree or no degree, you won't be on the market long in these areas. And you will get unsolicited contact from Google if you have a good resume that doesn't have a degree on it.
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Dec 28, 2011 23:18
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I haven't written anything recursive in like 3 years. I just had to write a pretty involved recursive function in an interview. It went better than expected 
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Dec 29, 2011 03:14
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Orzo posted:Also Google. Nope! A A 2 3 5 8 K posted:And you will get unsolicited contact from Google if you have a good resume that doesn't have a degree on it. Yep! (For me, in the UK, at least.) Although having a degree gets you past some checklists, but it doesn't trump or replace domain experience  I know off hand of city/finance employers who only hire graduates (and they only hire from specific universities).
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Dec 29, 2011 08:33
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quote:Can anyone give some examples of what I can do that would display to a employer that I can function a professional developer? A suggestion earlier was to contribute to open source projects, but would putting "helped with XYZ project to develop ______" actually mean anything? Do I need to undertake original projects that would require greater technical aptitude? I have no idea what software developers actually look for on a resume to show an ability to develop software aside from a CS degree or professional experience. When I say earlier 'you don't need a degree to get a job', that means 'you have to stand out to get a job'. Although I would recommend hobby projects to someone with a more vocational degree, for you I would advocate working in a group. One of the largest differences between hobby projects and other experience is that of working collaboratively. Something that is taken for granted with academic and professional experience. So find a library or package you use. Read the source, Read the bug tracker, Join the mailing list, Join the irc channel and join in. quote:bonus: which languages/skills should I work on to maximum my employability? VB.NET, database skills, and Java seem to be the most popular. this will depend on where and for whom you wish to work for. given your background in finance, if you are looking for HFT work, some functional language experience wouldn't go a miss. If you spend any time with C# or VB.Net, try learning a bit of F#.
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Dec 29, 2011 08:39
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How long should I stay at my current programming job so it doesn't raise a red flag on my resume? 6 months? A year?
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Dec 29, 2011 11:51
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tef posted:given your background in finance, if you are looking for HFT work, some functional language experience wouldn't go a miss. If you spend any time with C# or VB.Net, try learning a bit of F#. While a lot of algorithmic trading places do their secret sauce stuff in functional languages (esp. OCaml and Haskell), there's also a ton of C++ hanging around in the domain (mostly implementing platforms that the functional code interacts with). Unfortunately, it's somewhere between climbing everest and climbing to mars to learn a functional language and c++ at the same time (this is a long winded way of saying that I agree with you )
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Dec 29, 2011 14:42
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Oisin posted:How long should I stay at my current programming job so it doesn't raise a red flag on my resume? 6 months? A year? I've heard 18 months if it's your first dev job.
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Dec 29, 2011 15:21
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tef posted:Nope! Orzo fucked around with this message at 16:20 on Dec 29, 2011 |
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Dec 29, 2011 16:16
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Orzo posted:I'm sure there's exceptions as you pointed out, but Google is notorious for having fairly strict education requirements, at least here in the US. Searching yields a number of contradictory reports--there's definitely some horror stories from the hiring committees rejecting people based on sub-3.3 GPAs, etc. So it's untrue, then, that they "won't even consider you" without a degree. Having high standards is a different thing. That's not an education requirement, it's a "don't hire average people" requirement. If you went to school and didn't distinguish yourself, sure, that's a mark against you. If you didn't go to school, you might have learned a lot and done great work and gained valuable experience instead. Or, you might have spent that time hacking together some PHP or Java without learning or improving much. And that's also a mark against you. There are no shortcuts if you want to do hiring right. You just can't rely on education as an accurate heuristic. I've worked with MIT CS grads who suck. There's no escaping having to evaluate a candidate based on what they actually know and what they've actually done.
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Dec 29, 2011 19:13
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I don't know of any companies that would hire solely on education, but they will filter you out if you don't pass that hurdle. Sucks, but that's just how it is with some people. I never said that I agreed with the practice.
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Dec 29, 2011 19:30
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edit: going around in circles edit: yes, a degree from a good university makes it easier to apply for a job, but the absence of one does not make it impossible, except in a few cases. tef fucked around with this message at 19:48 on Dec 29, 2011 |
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Dec 29, 2011 19:43
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Agree, I guess my opinion is that 'a few cases' is actually 'a lot of cases' depending on your location.
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Dec 29, 2011 19:53
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I'd wager that it is only impossible in a rare number of cases, and significantly hard for a small number of cases. Personally i've found networking to be bigger factor in employment than qualifications. To me, a degree is a foot in the door - there are other ways of doing so. It also solves the 'chicken and egg' of being inexperienced and every job requiring experience. To me at least, it doesn't matter where you got that experience - personal, academic or professionally, but if you don't have a degree you have to make up for me it in other areas, but having a degree does not guarantee relevant or useful experiences. This matches my experiences hiring, as I am yet to find much of a correlation between qualification and ability. I don't care where they worked, but what they worked on and how much they've learned. I like hiring self-taught programmers because they're very capable of learning on the job and dealing with change. A degree or lack of doesn't really give me any insight into this. The people who make good programmers have a autodidactic nature, and some have degrees, some don't. I guess I know a few people who are good at programming despite their universities best attempts to cripple it  (That said, the situation at my old university has improved *dramatically* in the quality of education, so I guess there is still hope )tef fucked around with this message at 20:13 on Dec 29, 2011 |
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Dec 29, 2011 20:00
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Oisin posted:How long should I stay at my current programming job so it doesn't raise a red flag on my resume? 6 months? A year? Depends on what your reasons for leaving are. Also make drat sure you stay at your next job for a long time because stuff like two jobs in two years and applying for a third raises flags.
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Dec 29, 2011 23:55
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Milotic posted:Depends on what your reasons for leaving are. Also make drat sure you stay at your next job for a long time because stuff like two jobs in two years and applying for a third raises flags. Yep. I jumped ship in July, then again in late November, and I was grilled extensively on why I was looking to leave after 5 months. I also knew I'd be locked into the new job for at least a year. I'm debating even putting the 5 month stint on my resume.
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Dec 30, 2011 07:39
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Orzo posted:I'm sure there's exceptions as you pointed out, but Google is notorious for having fairly strict education requirements, at least here in the US. Searching yields a number of contradictory reports--there's definitely some horror stories from the hiring committees rejecting people based on sub-3.3 GPAs, etc. When I applied for a job doing test software development at google a couple years back I got a pretty blunt letter back saying that I should have a CS degree, gently caress off.
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Dec 30, 2011 19:49
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hieronymus posted:When I applied for a job doing test software development at google a couple years back I got a pretty blunt letter back saying that I should have a CS degree, gently caress off. Being told you should have a degree when the problem is that you're not qualified is like being told that you should have driven to the interview if the problem is that you were late. If you'd been on time, they never would have cared that you walked. You could have been late if you'd driven. Mode of transportation is a red herring. A company might suggest that you get a degree because it's the path of least resistance towards gaining the usefulness you lack. And it's what most people do. That's how paths of least resistance work. And it's more tactful and tangible than saying, "just get better at this." They're trying to be polite. They're saying, "it's not you." But really, it's you. Don't show up after fulfilling the bare minimum requirements for a degree and expect them to take you any more seriously. Education is a means, usefulness is an end. Companies actually care about the end. Some individuals get it wrong and focus on the means. Some individuals may have a bias about degrees because they poured a lot of money and time into theirs and don't want to accept that it can be seen as optional. It's a form of sunk cost fallacy.
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Dec 31, 2011 04:32
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Dude, you don't know anything about hieronymus, can you not accept that some employees of google actually do discriminate on education, completely ignoring all other qualifications? I am almost certain that it does happen.
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Dec 31, 2011 04:41
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