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IT jobs are skill jobs. Most new college graduates have practically no experience in their fields. This isn't so bad for most fields, but in IT, they will be

by jcnnghm 16y ago

IT jobs are skill jobs. Most new college graduates have practically no experience in their fields. This isn't so bad for most fields, but in IT, they will be competing with smart people that also have lots of experience and who are deeply interested in the field. While it is almost expected to enter certain fields with no real experience (Law, Medicine - Internships don't count) that expectation seems to be reversed in IT.

dmitri1981 16y ago
Isn't that quite reasonable since you can code all you want in your spare time? Something that is not really possible with law or medicine.
- jcnnghm 16y ago
  I absolutely believe that it is reasonable. Given two equally smart candidates, one with good academic credentials and no experience, and the other with no academic credentials and a portfolio of work, I'd take the guy that has actually built stuff every time.
- Goladus 16y ago
  You can code all you want in your spare time, but if that practice doesn't map exactly to what a employers (or consumers) are looking for then it doesn't matter. I wrote a SNES rom-hacking utility in C/win32 while I was in college and that didn't impress anybody. After I graduated (2001) I spent 3 months stacking boxes of silverware on pallets until I got a job as a night-shift backup operator for $10/hr. After 6-12 months of that I was like, "hey guys I automated everything can I work days now?" And just kind of went from there. And typically, even when you do have the skills an employer wants, actually learning their particular systems well enough to be useful takes another 3-6 months, because training and integration is completely neglected. You'll get "read the docs." Which, if you are lucky, will be a disorganized mess of wiki rather than a slow and nearly impenetrable sharepoint labyrinth. It doesn't have to be this way. I'm sure at the best tech companies, it isn't.
ig1 16y ago
Why don't internships count ? - certainly in the UK for most professional jobs having an internship in the field is a huge advantage over other candidates and in popular fields such as banking, media, etc. having done internships is pretty much a requirement.
- jcnnghm 16y ago
  It depends on the internship. Lots of internships seem to be of the "do all the shitty jobs that nobody else wants to do because you are free labor" variety, and not the "trade the salary you deserve for lots of mentoring and training while we help prepare you for your career" variety. If the internship is Google's Summer of Code, that's one thing, if it is fetching Mountain Dew's and snacks for the guy that's actually building something, that is something else entirely.
  - eru 16y ago
    Yes, though there's actually a lot of "do all the shitty jobs that nobody else wants to do because you are free labor"-type work in software, where you can learn lots exactly because you are getting your hands dirty. E.g. bug fixing.

by jcnnghm 16y ago

dmitri1981 16y ago

Isn't that quite reasonable since you can code all you want in your spare time? Something that is not really possible with law or medicine.

jcnnghm 16y ago
I absolutely believe that it is reasonable. Given two equally smart candidates, one with good academic credentials and no experience, and the other with no academic credentials and a portfolio of work, I'd take the guy that has actually built stuff every time.
Goladus 16y ago
You can code all you want in your spare time, but if that practice doesn't map exactly to what a employers (or consumers) are looking for then it doesn't matter. I wrote a SNES rom-hacking utility in C/win32 while I was in college and that didn't impress anybody. After I graduated (2001) I spent 3 months stacking boxes of silverware on pallets until I got a job as a night-shift backup operator for $10/hr. After 6-12 months of that I was like, "hey guys I automated everything can I work days now?" And just kind of went from there. And typically, even when you do have the skills an employer wants, actually learning their particular systems well enough to be useful takes another 3-6 months, because training and integration is completely neglected. You'll get "read the docs." Which, if you are lucky, will be a disorganized mess of wiki rather than a slow and nearly impenetrable sharepoint labyrinth. It doesn't have to be this way. I'm sure at the best tech companies, it isn't.

ig1 16y ago

Why don't internships count ? - certainly in the UK for most professional jobs having an internship in the field is a huge advantage over other candidates and in popular fields such as banking, media, etc. having done internships is pretty much a requirement.

jcnnghm 16y ago
It depends on the internship. Lots of internships seem to be of the "do all the shitty jobs that nobody else wants to do because you are free labor" variety, and not the "trade the salary you deserve for lots of mentoring and training while we help prepare you for your career" variety. If the internship is Google's Summer of Code, that's one thing, if it is fetching Mountain Dew's and snacks for the guy that's actually building something, that is something else entirely.
- eru 16y ago
  Yes, though there's actually a lot of "do all the shitty jobs that nobody else wants to do because you are free labor"-type work in software, where you can learn lots exactly because you are getting your hands dirty. E.g. bug fixing.