Switching languages = entry level job?

Question

I am trying to switch programming languages. I have ten years experience with the full SDLC. I have been able to get about 1 year experience with C# ASP.NET. With all my other responsibilities for my current job, it would take 4 years to get 2 more years C# ASP.NET experience. So I also need to switch jobs.

How does one find an entry level job for C# ASP.NET? All the job postings seem to require 3-5 years experience.

I know one year experience is not great, but I do have many years of programming, psuedo-dba, source control, support, and documentation experience: both corporate and commercial.

That doesn't seem to come through on a resume. (Based on conversations with recruiters, only one in the past six months read my resume, the rest focused on keywords/years of experience only). I don't want to oversell - IT is a small world.

Would an MCST certification help?

Should I give SetFocus some consideration?

I know I will take a serious pay cut, but I want to remain a developer. Most of my experience is with Object Oriented client/server development, some web development[C# ASP.NET, and JSP].

Thank you,

Greg

Answer 1

It depends on the employer but as someone with 12+ years experience who has done some hiring and team leading I'll add this:

In my experience, programming languages don't really matter all that much if you're treating the new hire as a long term investment. So you've got a better chance of getting a salaried rather than a contract job. Of course, contract has the advantage (for the employer) that it's easy to sever the relationship if they decide you're not working out so that can sometimes work in your favour. Compare that to getting rid of an employee after a probationary period, which can in some cases be extremely difficult.

One year of experience in C#/ASP.NET when combined with 10 years of experience is actually a lot. Michael Abrash once said that it takes one year to become proficient with a new technology and three years to become an expert. I take that same view. However a lot of a programming job isn't the technology, it's also the stuff that goes around it: working within a team, delegation, prioritization, design, finding bugs, time management, etc. All of these things are pretty much technology-agnostic and therein lies the value of your 10 years experience over, say, a graduate with one years experience.

So you won't get a senior level position (probably) but you should be able to get a mid-level position (that someone with 3-5 years experience in that area might other apply for). You've certainly above entry-level jobs.

Answer 2

The better employers will care less about your specific past experience and more about your ability to execute - which includes the capacity to learn and the experience to apply it.

Use your network of friends and colleagues to get interviews that will actually consider your talents and not filter your resume based on "keywords" - you'll probably end up at a better place like this anyway.

Answer 3

At my company we don't care too much about programming language experience. I was hired with no practical C# or C++ experience and dove straight into a decent sized code base in those languages the first day.

The kinds of employer you (hopefully) want to work for care more about your ability to get things done than they do about what you already know. Sharp developers learn quickly.

Answer 4

Generally companies and their recruiters line you up according to experience. You may have 10 years of Java experience, but if you only have one year of .Net experience, then you get ranked as entry level if you’re looking for .Net positions. It’s an effective way of pigeon-holing you to what their needs are.

Answer 5

Would an MCST certification help?

Generally, no. But some companies are Microsoft Gold Partners etc. and for them the certs can make a difference. The tests make no guarantee for a person's aptitude on the tested material.

Answer 6

I'm curious by what you mean with "it would take 4 years to get 2 more years C# ASP.NET experience". Is about 50% of your time--averaged out over the course of a year--spent on C#? If so, it would seem to me that you could count each calendar year as being "a year of C#". After all, we typically measure the granularity of the experience in years, not weeks or hours. (Does anyone know of any standard that says that this is right or wrong?)

At the very least that will get you past the recruiters and HR people to someone who understands that your 10 years of other experience more than qualifies you for a job that only requires "3-5 years of C#".

A good interviewer will also take into consideration what type of work you do in addition to the number of hours. A person who does the same thing over and over isn't going to learn as much as someone who does a diverse range of things. Experience is all about encountering new challenges and overcoming them.

Quoting from Pragmatic Thinking and Learning

By “experience,” I mean specifically that performing this skill results in a change of thinking. As a counterexample, consider the case of the developer who claims ten years of experience, but in reality it was one year of experience repeated nine times. That doesn’t count as experience.

Many junior developers get relegated to doing the same basic tasks over and over. Wheres senior developers often get much broader challenges. What that means is that if a senior developer and an intern both started learning C#, the senior developer is likely to know more about the language after a year than the intern would.

I personally don't put much stock in certifications, but it may be a good way of hedging your bets. I suspect that the type of people who think think that your non-C# experience isn't relevant are the same type of people who think that certifications are important. Also, it's a good way to learn more about the language if you don't think you're learning enough in your day-to-day work.

Answer 7

Maybe you should work on how you are presenting yourself in your resume. I find this book, Winning Resumes, to be very helpful for reframing your experience.

Answer 8

Look for smaller companies, where the HR department is less likely to have a choke hold. Try to apply directly. No technical recruiter I've ever worked closely with has understood software development well.

See if you can network with people in the business. If you can hand a resume to a friend or acquaintance to give to a manager, that will likely avoid HR and the buzzword comparison.

You can always just look for companies you'd like to work for, check for names on the website, and cold-mail a resume. Again, if you can find a technical officer name, it might bypass HR.

It's difficult to get hired for a job the average recruiter and HR department won't think you qualified for, so you may have to get creative.