Question: How Do You Get Enough Experience to Apply for Programming Jobs? by Eli

let's see here I have a problem with the IT field a particularly with software
development i graduated as a programmer from a community college but found it
difficult to find a job as a developer
if i were to look for acc sharp roll I would find experience for C sharp but
also a number of other languages or experience needed and technologies that
i have heard of it seems like to be a developer i need to know 20 different
things just to be qualified as a developer for a particular language
because of this I haven't been able to apply to any jobs because i don't have
experience with certain technologies and as a result I've been working as a help
desk analyst since I meet the requirements for that role and as an IT
guy who learned things as time went by why is this the case and how do i tackle
this issue in order to start my career as a developer right
haha oh you poor dumb bastard you poor poor Tom Tom bastard
are you really telling me you are not applying for jobs because you don't fit
into the mold of the job description
oh my boy my boy my boy
and this is one of the problems that we run into in the modern world of
technology is the fact of the matter is applicants don't seem to understand
reality right so here I want to explain something to you about how job postings
get created what is the sausage factory uh of job postings get creative
so here's the deal you have an IT manager somewhere you have a software
engineer manager somewhere and they have a project to get done right so the
c-level executives have dumped this project onto them and they are trying to
get it done because if they don't get the project done things are going to go
bad for them there you're not going to get promoted or they're gonna get fired
whatever right again in the technology world
it's all about getting the job done and so they get this project dumped dumped
on them they're trying to figure out how to get it done and what they find out is
one of the things that don't have enough manpower
they need more geeks right so here's the deal so they they look at it
and being geeks themselves they go I need more geeks and so they go to human
resources department they say human resources person by Department get me
more geeks and the human resources department department person looks at
that looks at that manager six little bit cup of coffee
looks at the manager for a couple more seconds and then says what do you mean
by a geek
I need more geeks well I understand you need more geeks but what does that mean
I'm a human resources person I don't really know what a geek is what
qualifications does this person need the IT manager looks at the human resources
person and thinks that that human resources person is basically it's just
something a little bit above pond scum and goes
do I have to do everything for you I have this project to get done
I have 20 people to manage I have a million dollars on the table and if I
screw up
it's all gonna go to hell I don't have time to do your job and Human Resources
person now pick up that cup of coffee set to stare at the i-team and you're
like okay I don't know what you need
I don't know the difference between sheets csharp developers or Java
developers or mcse said oh I don't know any of that stuff
so you have to sit down and you have to create a job description for me so i can
get will go out and find you one of these geeks the IT managers cut
yeah what is wrong with you I have so much on my shoulders and you want me to
write a frickin paper about what I need
and so the human resources person except okay I tell you what i tell you I've got
a couple minutes here
you got compliments at forget I've got a compliment i got here at like got a
couple minutes I'm gonna pull out a notepad and we're just going to talk
about what you need and I'll write up the job description for you
well that's what I'm saying you should do oh oh they're so so you need a
developer right yeah of course I needed if I told you any developer you need a
developer so on so how much experience to this person have
well I'd like to have somebody with 10 years experience
ok so needs 10 years experience
ok so so what programming languages or is this person gonna be using
well you know where job shop and obviously you know that
oh yeah sure I know where job shop ok needs java and what else
well we're also using javascript or using PHP
ok need javascript knees PHP and you know we've got we have these iOS apps
coming out so we need somebody that understands a I OS development ok needs
Iowa see here here's what happens when that that match of a of a job
description gets created basically what you have is you have an IT manager
throwing out like their wish list of things to find and you have the human
resources person basically putting need in front of every item on that wish list
there's a reality nobody fits that description
no body fits that description does not exist
so what happens in the real world in the real world and this is why I'm calling
you a poor dumb bastard right at the second i can say that cuz you said to
call you anonymous right is what happens in the real world right
so you get this Airy fairy cotton candy fairy dust job description that
literally nobody in the world can fill that job description is then what gets
posted to monster and all those other places right and then people apply to
that job
now here's the thing we are in the real world if we live in a perfect
f in Utopia every time I put out a help wanted ad i would get a whole list of
candidates that actually fit that help one of that
that's what never never never happens that never happens what you get is you
get a whole mess of candidates that have some of these skills and have some of
that skill who they know this programming language but this is what
they only have two years experience this person has 10 years experience but
doesn't know this and basically you then have to as as the employer as as the IT
manager you have to sort through this stupid ridiculous mess to figure out who
you want to highlight this this was a
this was really driven home to me again back when i was at 20,000 23 and I was
doing that whole regional support thing because we had to hire somebody
and that was the thing is what we did one of the reasons i'm qualified and so
many things that i am now is because nobody did what we did
again the networking the the the desktop support the telephone systems build-outs
like the stuff that was on our plate just the fundamentally encompass many
different professions and so when we went out and I was responsible for for
wading through the resumes to find people i mean that was a thing I was
like oh look this guy knows what the hell definity is but has never touch
cisco equipment
okay well this guy's really great a cisco equipment but doesn't know
telephone systems and you sit there and like well we have the data comm dept
back you know
main headquarters who doesn't really let us touch the cisco equipment very much
you know Cisco it would be nice to have something Cisco experience but it's
actually not really necessary i'd prefer to have somebody with telephone systems
in Minnesota experience
ok so we'll go with this guy right and that's how it works so I'm so if you're
not applying for jobs because you don't fit the the mold
sorry I'm sorry you don't understand how this game is played you have set
yourself back like a year simply because you don't know how the game is played
what you want to do is you want to apply for every job you want to get right
you won't go out there you want to look for companies that you want to work for
you want job positions that you want to get and then you apply for that job
description because especially being a programmer right now they're truly truly
there are not enough programmers
there's more than enough Sisqo people mcse novice the mcs there's more than
there's more than enough of a lot of technical skill sets in the development
world there frankly there isn't enough there's something like a hundred
thousand open position so the reality is you're going to go out you're going to
apply to a lot of these jobs
what'd you find out is one sometimes they will take you simply because you're
the best damn thing that got you know they may want somebody with 10 years
experience right
I want to hire somebody with 50 years experience
I want
somebody that was with Bill Gates when all this stuff originally got coded i'm
not going to get it right you know i can only hire the the applicants actually
apply so one of the things you have to think about is when you apply to these
positions they can only hire and that's the thing like it like a lot of you guys
don't understand is money is budgeted out so like when all the managers and
sea levels are going head to head right there's a lot of arguments about how
many new employees are going to be hired and so one of the issues that happens
with departments is a lot of times departments will get a window for hiring
people so you'll get a call from from your your CIO or your director of IT and
they'll be like you know listen I've got to go ahead for two technicians you need
to hire them in the next month and you know what
why do we need to hire them in the next month and it because we'll be like it
because if you don't hire them in the next month
the money gets Brie released back into the system and I'm gonna have to go to
the same stupid ass argument again
so you have one month to find two people and get them in the slot so you know
again sometimes you know there's what we want and then you know you're running
you your your your three and a half weeks into the process
you haven't found the perfect person but you've got like these resumes in front
of the year like you know what these two people don't piss me off
screw it I've act I can hire that I've got the money to hire them right now if
I wait another seven days we lose that money
these people got hired right so that's the first thing that can happen is just
because how things work you may get hired for the position
the other thing that happens is also realized
whenever you're dealing with companies or organizations more is going on
then you see we get this view is in for ourselves we get very tunnel vision you
know I want this job i'm applying for this job
again if I am an IT director an IT manager and I am building out the
department
guess what I may have 20 jobs to fill that you may not realize so you see this
one job for like senior c-sharp developer no way in hell you're actually
going to get the resume comes in
and I pick up the resume and go well I don't know why the hell is dumb asses
applying for this job
but you know what i do have a mid-level or a junior programmer spot that I need
filled
let me put this over here and i'll call and see if this guy's actually
interested right
so those are all the kinds of things that can happen so on so nothing is
stopping you from applying you know because of this I haven't been able to
apply
no because of your own how you think the world works
you haven't applied you have been able to you just have not actually done it so
so now go out there
apply for every job that you want and you will be surprised how far you go
because I don't know but I swear to you I swear to you I see this job is nobody
has that buddy
and the other thing too is what you have to realize like I see this a lot in the
IT world or saw this a lot before and would make me lose my mind because like
ms sequel will come up a lot of Microsoft's a sequel database system
right
and so you would see all of these job postings of needing experience with ms
equal so like with me i'm a rather honest person so I do have some database
experience but it's not
I wouldn't want to have to do a lot of database work in a production
environment you know if you've got some small little business with like five
users fine whatever
but you know a nap real production environment really having to like
maintain and do all the maintenance and clean up with them the the MS equal I
just I just don't know I just don't have that particular skill set but that was a
funny part is like so many of these jobs you would see like this experience ms
equal and so it's like all i can do ms equal
well then then comes to find out right and this is what i've seen so many times
because ms equals 1
I know because I've seen this like 20 times and I just want to smack somebody
is so fucking stupid
so you don't need experience with ms vehicle see what they have is they have
some customized app in the company that connects back into an MS equal back end
but you never mess with that right
you install the app you . it to the database you may have to clear out some
cash or something but you don't in fact ever ever ever ever type the MS sequel
database that is somebody else's responsibility something that pays more
money than you is responsible for that you're responsible for again
installing the custom app and pointed at the MSC go well there is there there's a
massive difference between installing an app and pointed it at a sequel database
vs actually having to administer a sequel database but you see it time and
time and time again needs ms equal experience like no you don't and the
reason you see that in the job description is because you know the IT
manager is all pissed off sitting there with human resources person and human
resources person goes ok well we got that custom app right is there anything
people need to know
well it uses an MS sequel back end
oh ok so needs ms equal right so and this is the problem communication the
modern world that I tried to explain to you you have a pissed-off egotistical
head up their ass
IT manager and you have a human resources person that hasn't hasn't done
the proper preparation in order to communicate so basically you have a
dimwit and the equivalent of a dimwit and the equivalent of just this
egotistical Brad and they're trying to come together to to write this job
description and again this is where I try to communicate to you guys is this
is where communication is important
the human resources person needs to learn more about the jobs that they are
supporting and the IT managers and the other managers need to calm down every
once in a while
walk into these situations and say i am going to give the human resources person
30 minutes of honest com time I'm not going to other things on my head
I can be jacked up in too much caffeine I'm gonna walk in there
I'm going to treat the human resources person like they're an actual human
being and we're going to try to work this out
but again what you see in the modern world what happens is this mess between
universes and IT and yeah so so apply apply for every single job you want
nothing is stopping you from applying and believe me you might be surprised
what you actually get