Newbie..Need advice on job search

Question

I am trying to research the qualities that an entry level candidate should have when trying for a fulltime IT job. Beacuse when I approach some one (I collected good contacts from my friend/relatives) for a job I dont want to simply ask them "Can you give me a fulltime job?" Instead I am planning to explain them the qualities/aspects that make me competent and if i dont have a certain quality/skill I would describe my efforts in developing that particular quality/skill.

So any one IT Pro/Newbie/guru who has ideas in this topic please help me in preparing the list of qualities.And by the way I could have referred to a career guide book but I want REAL ones based on your experience or knowledge.

Few such aspects that I know currently:

--Ability to continuosly learn (may be new softwares)

--Willingness to work extra hours if needed to meet project deadlines

--Accepting temporary employment which will give you a chance to prove yourself and ultimately lead to a fulltime role.

--willingness to stay with the comany for atleast few years (not jumping as soon as you get a better offer)

--willingness to work for low pay,Complete any certfifications

Thanks,

David

Answer 1

Below the question box it says "What's your programming question?". This is not a programming question.

Please try at the following site or another appropriate q&a site/forum: http://answers.yahoo.com/

edit: Won't be changing this answer no matter how much it's down voted. :P

Answer 2

The most important, but not only, aspect is that you have to want to do it. Let me explain: although there are lots of technical skills you should master, and work habits to develop, you need to ask yourself if this is the kind of work that you really, truly, want to do. Not that you want to be paid for, but want to do. If you truly want to do IT work or software development, then an intelligent quest will eventually help you develop the necessary skills. If you only want to 'be in IT', but don't like IT, you will not do well at it. Find your passion and follow it.

Another way to say the same thing is to ask "Will I enjoy doing IT work for free for charity?" If you don't want to do that, then you don't want to do the work, and IT is not for you.

Answer 3

I applaud your effort to gather good qualities. I work with entry level developers everyday and most don't even think of this concept. "How to better market yourself."

BUT….See below for my WARNING

So far you have: (best to also work on your spelling / typos)

--Ability to continuosly learn

--Willingness to work extra hours

--Accepting temporary employment

--Willingness to stay with the comany

--Willingness to work for low pay

--Complete any certfifications

Well what you have is a start, but some of these are a little weak and may not be qualities you'd want to mention to a potential employer. Many of these are assumed and or not what the future employer is looking for.

Good Qualities:

(WARNING) - Some of these you can't fake so I hesitate to just throw out qualities you are going to add on a resume or offer in an interview. At some point you need to back them up with examples. If you have promoted a quality to a hiring manager that you don't really have, there is no reason to continue the interview process. You are done!

--Integrity - I'd say Most important

--Passionate about your chosen field (assume software development)

--Drive to learn new technologies and tools (you had "Ability to continuosly learn" similar)

--Good grades Math, logic, tools knowledge, concepts, methodologies (shows return on effort in school)

--Experience (some) in specific area of your field - through school, charity, open source, self projects.

--Great Communications skills -aptitude for listening, understanding, writing, speaking,

--Dependability - say you are going to do something, you do it.

--Continues investment in on-line communities (specific to your interest)

--Ask good questions, and know when to ask good question - don't wait too long

--Completely understand the full life cycle of software development

--Understanding of business rules/logic the whys of and reasons for the application to be build; and the implications to the users and business managers.

OK I think that is enough. If you have further question please feel free to contact me.

Best of luck!

Answer 4

Here are a few questions for you to answer in a somewhat rhetorical fashion:

• What do you want to do? Within IT there are dozens of different roles that all carry different skillsets to my mind. Developers, administrators and analysts are main roles but even this can have significant differences and what is a strength in one role may not be so great in another.

• Why are you going for any position rather than the position that fits you? To me this has the problem that you don't know yourself well enough to know that you'd be better suited for one type over another. Even if you want to be an 1 man IT department that narrows things down to some extent. Are you better at troubleshooting issues, setting up systems, examining a given situation or writing code? Whichever one(s) you pick you should focus on that.

• Have you tried talking to various recruiters about what you want to do? They may have some insight into what employers want to see or hear that may help you. Being able to use a network is a great skill to have that often isn't given its full credit.

• How good are your communication skills? Do you have a 30 second pitch for what you want to find and would bring to an organization that may want to make them create a position for you?

Now let me take a little look at what you have listed so far:

--Ability to continuosly learn (may be new softwares)

To which I feel like saying "Duh." 99.9999% of jobs require some on the job training as rarely does any company work exactly like a public book in terms of procedure and process.

--Willingness to work extra hours if needed to meet project deadlines

This should almost be a given and rarely worth mentioning as you haven't illustrated what you'd be doing in those hours. Some people could hang around an office and slow down the success of a project by chit-chatting with other co-workers. A better way to state this would be to say, "I'm a team player, ready to pitch in wherever and whenever needed," which sounds a bit better as some may wonder what you'd want for those extra hours, time off, extra pay, or a combination of the two.

--Accepting temporary employment which will give you a chance to prove yourself and ultimately lead to a fulltime role.

There are some companies that work on placing contract people but I'm not sure how many entry-level candidates work in this situation unless you are after something like an internship or summer student program that may work though that depends on the company and culture to some extent as I don't know if summer student is applicable outside Canada and the U.S.

--willingness to stay with the comany for atleast few years (not jumping as soon as you get a better offer)

To my mind this is dangerous. Unless you've shown to be awesome this isn't exactly stating anything useful in a sense. The company paying you money is wanting services and rarely is the timeframe something to be discussed upfront unless it is a contract position.

--willingness to work for low pay,Complete any certfifications

This is also dangerous in that you may not give yourself proper value. The cheap person may be seen as less qualified or desperate which aren't exactly what you want, right?