4 ms·

But there are a few fields that are hiring like crazy. One of them is mine: software engineering. Major tech firms cannot hire fast enough. It's so competitive

by KevinMS 16y ago

But there are a few fields that are hiring like crazy. One of them is mine: software engineering. Major tech firms cannot hire fast enough. It's so competitive that you do not need to have a degree (I don't). Was this written in the late 90's? I follow job listing sites almost daily, and I'm just not seeing this. I'm also not seeing it in the volume of headhunters contacting me. And thirdly, what job listings I do see, they have absurd ideas of what qualifications they require. Yesterday I saw a job listing for perl scripter for system automation tasks requiring a BSCS, MS preferred, and a little while ago I saw a sysadmin job requiring a BSCS. I'm not in the middle of nowhere, I'm in the Boston/128 area. So do I have the worst job hunting skills ever or is this guy living in a bubble?

SandB0x 16y ago
In my experience, mainstream jobsites are awful for software jobs. Jobseekers are sitting there firing off CV's left right and centre, and the recruiters put things like "MUST have a BSc or MSc in Computer Science" to try and stem the tide. Good companies don't care if you have a CS degree as long as you can code and think. That said, someone may have embellished the job requirements and if you think you'd be a good fit for a job it may be worth applying anyway. I'm not sure what the situation is if you have no degree at all, or a degree with no scientific or technical element, but it helps to have evidence of your skills, and whatever your situation it really helps to know people who have a good impression of you and your abilities. For better jobs boards, look at: Stack Overflow Careers http://careers.stackoverflow.com/Jobs?searchTerm=&searchType=Any&location=boston&range=20 http://careers.stackoverflow.com/Jobs?searchTerm=&search... HN Who's Hiring threads. Eg http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1659409 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1659409 Also, check local user groups for whatever languages/technologies you're interested in.
- KevinMS 16y ago
  I'm talking about sites like craigslist and jobs.perl.com, and I'm aware recruiters put in all kinds of filters like a CS degree but I'm mindfull of that and I notice that the same problem exists without recruiters involved. Stackoverflow careers? Seriously? "34 jobs found near boston". How many candidates are looking at these listings? Thousands?
- cletus 16y ago
  While you can get a job (and a good job at that) without a CS degree it is my opinion that you are putting yourself at a significant disadvantage by not having one. One aspect is the theoretical foundation. You can of course get this by just reading yourself and a transcript doesn't actually prove you know anything but without a CS foundation, the onus is now on you know to prove somehow you're simply a "monkey see, monkey do" cut-and-paste coder. The other important part is practical. Companies get a lot of CVs. For programming jobs, the most common filter is "has a degree". If you have one, you go in one pile, if you don't, you go in the other (which is often filed in the big circular filing cabinet). What's more, hiring managers may have their hands tied on this one: it could be HR policy or the hiring manager may not even see your CV because HR has already filtered it out (this happens a lot). After I started working I went back and studied part time to get a degree. I'm glad I did, even if it's major use is to have one less barrier to being hired.
- estel 16y ago
  Whilst the average quality on those boards is clearly much higher, the number of jobs being posted is about two orders of magnitude lower than mainstream jobsites; and until they gain more traction, they'll never be the first place I check for any vacancies.
greyhat 16y ago
I'm about to graduate BSCS from an engineering school, and every networking job I've seen wants experience + CCNA/CCNP, and the system administration jobs want BSCS + experience. I have 5+ years of part time IT experience and a summer of full time basically admin level experience and yet I can't even get interviews. Pretty depressing. =|
- KevinMS 16y ago
  Its just crazy they want a BSCS for sysadmin. That's like requiring a truck driver to have a degree in thermodynamics.
  - greyhat 16y ago
    Do you know any good places to look for sysadmin jobs that might be more open?
    - KevinMS 16y ago
      Wish I could help you. My only suggestion is to ignore the requirements. It must be tough though, a programmer can send samples, a designer can send a portfolio, but what can a sysadmin do.
      - alain94040 16y ago
        I just blogged minutes ago with a solution for you: http://blog.fairsoftware.net/2010/11/10/how-to-land-a-job-at-google-or-elsewhere/ http://blog.fairsoftware.net/2010/11/10/how-to-land-a-job-at... In the case of a sysadmin job, this is how I would do it: start showing some expertise in configuring Linux virtual instances, discuss why and how you manage them, share tips and tricks you learned. That will do you a lot of good on your resume, help you land interviews, and help you convince during those interviews. Especially if you are competing with other college grads with 0 experience, you'll stand out.
      - smiler 16y ago
        A sys admin can set up a virtual network on EC2. He can blog about it, he can then ask to take his laptop to the interview (check beforehand if WiFi / ethernet is available, otherwise perhaps a 3g dongle) and they can demonstrate everything they can do. Just imagine a sysadmin turning up with their laptop and demonstrating... 1. Provisioning of servers where they've created the *nix build, deployed a web app, mysql etc 2. They show off their system monitoring capability, take down a few services and then show off their e-mail alerts. Bonus points for twilio integration with SMS :) 3. They then show the backup process they have and how they verify their backups 4. The sysadmin then runs a series of security tests against a server and shows the results I would hire that guy in an instant
angelbob 16y ago
Perhaps he's living in the Silicon Valley bubble. His experience looks a lot like mine.
sanswork 16y ago
I see two problems with this. One you're expecting them to come to you just because you are there or looking in the worst spots for good jobs(public job sites). Get out and contact the headhunters yourself and work with them and network with all the people you do know and hit them up for positions. They might not have anything at their work but its possible they or one of their colleagues has or knows someone who does have a position open. Secondly you are taking the BSCS or MS lines in job ads at face value. When they say "Requires a BSCS" what they mean is "Requires a BSCS or experience".
ary 16y ago
Your difficulty and this gentleman's relative lack of difficulty finding a job probably has a lot to do with location. Second runner up is probably credibility. Let me explain. My experience is in line with the author's. Finding a job has always been relatively easy (beginning at a certain point, which I will elaborate on) and I do not have a degree of any kind. It's my opinion that three factors are primarily responsible for my state of affairs. 1. I started working at a local ISP when I was 15 years old. This was around the time that 28.8kbps modems were all the rage. While I was very green I had unbounded enthusiasm and desire to learn whatever I could about technology. The ISP got a super cheap tech support person and I got paid to learn. After a year I got a chance to do UNIX sysadmin work, and my level of experience began to snowball. The (fairly obvious) takeaway here is that I built experience. Businesses don't want to train you if they can help it. Not able to find a learn-on-the-job opportunity? Take the author's advice and contribute to an interesting open source project. 2. Befriending an employee of one of the largest ISPs in the United States ended up landing me a development position on a pretty large contract. I worked damn hard, and ended up contributing in a fairly visible way. Because the job was for a company in the Fortune 50 I've since been able to point to it as social proof that I at least have a vague idea of what I'm doing. Employers love this. This is when job hunting became dramatically easier. You may think the takeaway here is to be lucky, but I disagree. The takeaway is to get to know people that you can develop mutually beneficial relationships with. To this day I still get contract work and referrals from people I worked with on that one job. 3. Location. Companies will sometimes relocate you, but I've never seen one that will do it without there being a very compelling reason to have you on staff (ie, experience and a proven track record). You have to go where the jobs are. Sometimes you have to suck it up, move away from your family and friends, become a nobody, and start pulling in a paycheck. Once you do you can start planning (and saving) for the luxury of living and working in a desirable place. The takeaway here? Get away from the crowd. In my experience there are at least two good markets for developers, Denver/Boulder CO (Denver being easier than Boulder), and Kansas City MO/KS. I'm not a big fan of Kansas or Missouri (sorry natives, you're all great people), but Colorado is a beautiful place with lots to do outside your cube/apartment. The job markets in both those places are reasonable and you can be relatively well paid even with limited experience. How do they compare with SF/NYC? Not even close, but it's way easier to stand out from the crowd when there is no crowd. Being in the middle of nowhere can sometimes be a benefit. All that said, good luck.

by KevinMS 16y ago

SandB0x 16y ago

In my experience, mainstream jobsites are awful for software jobs. Jobseekers are sitting there firing off CV's left right and centre, and the recruiters put things like "MUST have a BSc or MSc in Computer Science" to try and stem the tide. Good companies don't care if you have a CS degree as long as you can code and think. That said, someone may have embellished the job requirements and if you think you'd be a good fit for a job it may be worth applying anyway. I'm not sure what the situation is if you have no degree at all, or a degree with no scientific or technical element, but it helps to have evidence of your skills, and whatever your situation it really helps to know people who have a good impression of you and your abilities. For better jobs boards, look at: Stack Overflow Careers http://careers.stackoverflow.com/Jobs?searchTerm=&searchType=Any&location=boston&range=20 http://careers.stackoverflow.com/Jobs?searchTerm=&search... HN Who's Hiring threads. Eg http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1659409 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1659409 Also, check local user groups for whatever languages/technologies you're interested in.

KevinMS 16y ago
I'm talking about sites like craigslist and jobs.perl.com, and I'm aware recruiters put in all kinds of filters like a CS degree but I'm mindfull of that and I notice that the same problem exists without recruiters involved. Stackoverflow careers? Seriously? "34 jobs found near boston". How many candidates are looking at these listings? Thousands?
cletus 16y ago
While you can get a job (and a good job at that) without a CS degree it is my opinion that you are putting yourself at a significant disadvantage by not having one. One aspect is the theoretical foundation. You can of course get this by just reading yourself and a transcript doesn't actually prove you know anything but without a CS foundation, the onus is now on you know to prove somehow you're simply a "monkey see, monkey do" cut-and-paste coder. The other important part is practical. Companies get a lot of CVs. For programming jobs, the most common filter is "has a degree". If you have one, you go in one pile, if you don't, you go in the other (which is often filed in the big circular filing cabinet). What's more, hiring managers may have their hands tied on this one: it could be HR policy or the hiring manager may not even see your CV because HR has already filtered it out (this happens a lot). After I started working I went back and studied part time to get a degree. I'm glad I did, even if it's major use is to have one less barrier to being hired.
estel 16y ago
Whilst the average quality on those boards is clearly much higher, the number of jobs being posted is about two orders of magnitude lower than mainstream jobsites; and until they gain more traction, they'll never be the first place I check for any vacancies.

greyhat 16y ago

I'm about to graduate BSCS from an engineering school, and every networking job I've seen wants experience + CCNA/CCNP, and the system administration jobs want BSCS + experience. I have 5+ years of part time IT experience and a summer of full time basically admin level experience and yet I can't even get interviews. Pretty depressing. =|

KevinMS 16y ago
Its just crazy they want a BSCS for sysadmin. That's like requiring a truck driver to have a degree in thermodynamics.
- greyhat 16y ago
  Do you know any good places to look for sysadmin jobs that might be more open?
  - KevinMS 16y ago
    Wish I could help you. My only suggestion is to ignore the requirements. It must be tough though, a programmer can send samples, a designer can send a portfolio, but what can a sysadmin do.
    - alain94040 16y ago
      I just blogged minutes ago with a solution for you: http://blog.fairsoftware.net/2010/11/10/how-to-land-a-job-at-google-or-elsewhere/ http://blog.fairsoftware.net/2010/11/10/how-to-land-a-job-at... In the case of a sysadmin job, this is how I would do it: start showing some expertise in configuring Linux virtual instances, discuss why and how you manage them, share tips and tricks you learned. That will do you a lot of good on your resume, help you land interviews, and help you convince during those interviews. Especially if you are competing with other college grads with 0 experience, you'll stand out.
    - smiler 16y ago
      A sys admin can set up a virtual network on EC2. He can blog about it, he can then ask to take his laptop to the interview (check beforehand if WiFi / ethernet is available, otherwise perhaps a 3g dongle) and they can demonstrate everything they can do. Just imagine a sysadmin turning up with their laptop and demonstrating... 1. Provisioning of servers where they've created the *nix build, deployed a web app, mysql etc 2. They show off their system monitoring capability, take down a few services and then show off their e-mail alerts. Bonus points for twilio integration with SMS :) 3. They then show the backup process they have and how they verify their backups 4. The sysadmin then runs a series of security tests against a server and shows the results I would hire that guy in an instant

angelbob 16y ago

Perhaps he's living in the Silicon Valley bubble. His experience looks a lot like mine.

sanswork 16y ago

I see two problems with this. One you're expecting them to come to you just because you are there or looking in the worst spots for good jobs(public job sites). Get out and contact the headhunters yourself and work with them and network with all the people you do know and hit them up for positions. They might not have anything at their work but its possible they or one of their colleagues has or knows someone who does have a position open. Secondly you are taking the BSCS or MS lines in job ads at face value. When they say "Requires a BSCS" what they mean is "Requires a BSCS or experience".

ary 16y ago

Your difficulty and this gentleman's relative lack of difficulty finding a job probably has a lot to do with location. Second runner up is probably credibility. Let me explain. My experience is in line with the author's. Finding a job has always been relatively easy (beginning at a certain point, which I will elaborate on) and I do not have a degree of any kind. It's my opinion that three factors are primarily responsible for my state of affairs. 1. I started working at a local ISP when I was 15 years old. This was around the time that 28.8kbps modems were all the rage. While I was very green I had unbounded enthusiasm and desire to learn whatever I could about technology. The ISP got a super cheap tech support person and I got paid to learn. After a year I got a chance to do UNIX sysadmin work, and my level of experience began to snowball. The (fairly obvious) takeaway here is that I built experience. Businesses don't want to train you if they can help it. Not able to find a learn-on-the-job opportunity? Take the author's advice and contribute to an interesting open source project. 2. Befriending an employee of one of the largest ISPs in the United States ended up landing me a development position on a pretty large contract. I worked damn hard, and ended up contributing in a fairly visible way. Because the job was for a company in the Fortune 50 I've since been able to point to it as social proof that I at least have a vague idea of what I'm doing. Employers love this. This is when job hunting became dramatically easier. You may think the takeaway here is to be lucky, but I disagree. The takeaway is to get to know people that you can develop mutually beneficial relationships with. To this day I still get contract work and referrals from people I worked with on that one job. 3. Location. Companies will sometimes relocate you, but I've never seen one that will do it without there being a very compelling reason to have you on staff (ie, experience and a proven track record). You have to go where the jobs are. Sometimes you have to suck it up, move away from your family and friends, become a nobody, and start pulling in a paycheck. Once you do you can start planning (and saving) for the luxury of living and working in a desirable place. The takeaway here? Get away from the crowd. In my experience there are at least two good markets for developers, Denver/Boulder CO (Denver being easier than Boulder), and Kansas City MO/KS. I'm not a big fan of Kansas or Missouri (sorry natives, you're all great people), but Colorado is a beautiful place with lots to do outside your cube/apartment. The job markets in both those places are reasonable and you can be relatively well paid even with limited experience. How do they compare with SF/NYC? Not even close, but it's way easier to stand out from the crowd when there is no crowd. Being in the middle of nowhere can sometimes be a benefit. All that said, good luck.