Getting a foot in the door

Question

How did you get into the IT field? What would you recommend to someone who is trying to enter the hyper-competitive market that is IT? Computers have always been a tremendous passion of mine, but in the past few years I've become very lax in developing my skills. I'm going to a technical school for Information Security currently and want to do all that I can to make up for the time that I've lost.

Languages

It's my understanding that languages such as Java and C# are some of the easiest and most used languages in IT. Is this true? Are there any other languages one might suggest learning to give someone like myself an edge?

Certificates: Yes or No?

From the reading that I've done, the IT industry seems to be somewhat divided on this topic. What are your thoughts on certificates versus degrees? Do you have any certificates yourself?

Location

While IT as a whole is a global industry, what geographic market would you suggest to be more IT friendly, North America or Europe? I can explain why I've chosen these two continents later if anyone is interested.

Contacts

Establishing good contacts in any industry can greatly increase one's success. What ways can I help establish good contacts?

I'll appreciate any advice that can be given to me. Thanks!

Answer 1

My advice is to take the languages you've learned and make them your own. Create some projects on your own and finish them. When interviewing, this shows that you have initiative to work on new things.

Finding your first IT job can go along way towards getting your foot in the door. If you're going to be in school for a while, try to find an internship. See if your school has a work-study program and positions open in it's own IT department.

I also found it useful to join a professional society such as AITP. You can meet a lot of contacts and listen to information on the future of technologies and the industry. If your school has an Honor Society, hit the books and try to make the grades.

I started out working in IT over 12 years ago. My first job was a custom computer chop-shop building and repairing PC's. Now I'm a software engineer. Believe me. Making that transition from support to development was not easy.

Best of luck to you watkinsguy

Answer 2

What do you want to do?

The question is like asking "what should I learn going into a career in medicine?" You can aim to be a doctor, a nurse, or someone who runs the billing department; you could make the tools the doctors use to fix people; you could work in research coming up with cures for the next disease.

Without some focus, it's hard to answer anything else.

Answer 3

Pick a language type, adopt a project you can complete on your own (and finish), and build it. Then pick a different language and complete the same project (if the methodologies are compatible). Make sure your source in both languages is clean and easy to read so that when code samples are asked for you'll have something to present that is worth reading. Be a finisher. Half-done projects are exactly that -- undone. If your own personal projects aren't finished, how can an employer expect you to finish the ones they assign that you don't actually want to do?

Certifications are nice when they're available but they don't say much about the developer. A developer with certifications and no experience isn't worth much, but a person with lots of experience and no certifications is worth his/her wait in gold. (EDIT: By certifications, I do not mean 4 year collegiate degree. I mean individual technology certifications)

Location is not so important as the events, contacts, etc you make. There are higher concentrations of jobs in certain areas (SF, NY, LA, London, Chicago), and those jobs will gain you lots of experience, but you more likely to find advancement opportunities in other areas where software development is growing/expanding (Orlando, Cinci, Vegas, Portland, not sure where in Europe). Because IT is such a mobile community, don't get locked into a location, but make sure your skills are marketable in many locations.

To find good contacts, go to events. Find a working users's group for the language you're interested in and attend meetings regularly. Learn the names of people there and engage them in conversation. Don't be a pedant, asking questions you know the answers to just to get some face time. Ask engaging questions, ask them how they overcame certain obstacles in code or career. When you find a job, be a good employee. Don't be the creepy guy with the stained shirt and dirty beard. Get to know people.

When it comes to your "edge", it's going to boil down to who you know and how well you work with the people you work with. People who can code clocks out of bisquick are a dime a dozen (just look at this site), but people who can do that and still manage to deal with other people at the same time are a little more rare.

Answer 4

Just thought I would add my experiences to the above.

You mention certifications - in my opinion a degree education in something like development is essential if you plan on working for a big name. The reason being is that large organisations will not look at employing you based on being "self taught" or with a portfolio alone. Don't be fooled into the whole mentality where people tell you that "degrees are worthless". Things can be different, however if you "come up with an idea". Inspiration can't be taught.

I know from first hand experience that in Software Engineering that a good degree will set you in good stead. If you go to University, have patience. You don't run before you walk. Often the first year or two will be boring and very basic. But things will step up and you will learn as you progress. You'll complete project works and when you graduate you will be much more employable than a non-grad.

What to establish contacts? My advice is to be proactive. Get your name out there. Constantly network with people. Find an interest and connect with the professionals in your field. Use Twitter, monitor trends, come up with ideas and refine them. Get a blog, write articles and tutorials about stuff you've learnt. Record your ideas and discoveries on a day-to-day basis. Contribute to projects, like open source ones etc. A great idea could set you off for life. Look at big IT systems like Facebook or Twitter - they started life as a seed planted in someones mind. You won't get well known by just sitting there doing nothing :)

Languages aren't the most important thing to consider. I'm primarily a PHP/MySQL developer but if you follow this field you'll constantly hear people hating Microsoft for the sake of it. People whine and moan about ASP.NET/C# etc but the fact of the matter is that Open Source developers and coders using technologies like PHP are ten a penny. Keep an open mind and learn both, and you'll do the best. There are more jobs going for Microsoft .NET developers than Open Source ones, at least. So why not learn both?

Hope I can help. Good luck.