Ask HN: I'm trying to start my career over again. Any good advices?

A London company I consult with is currently looking for junior staff and having a nightmare finding anyone. I don't think you would like the work, you wouldn't learn anything, and they are not the sort of company to take the risk on you - so I can't help you there. But there is a massive lack of candidates in London at the moment, so you are probably picking a good time to come.

In terms of finding a position I think you've got two real options. 1. Hope that there is someone that is willing to spot your potential and train you up. I think this is a risky strategy because the majority of recruitment goes through recruitment agencies and/or HR departments - unless your CV says 2 years doing C++ development they aren't even going to look at you for C++ development. Personally I always think skills can be learnt, it is the candidates fit for the team/environment that is important - sadly a lot of people like to check boxes.

Your second option is to basically take the hit and try and go in as a grad - as you suggest. You wont get paid much, but you can be honest on your CV and say you got stuck in the wrong job, didn't learn new skills etc. If you get into a good company you can then start building your career. I think you'd be surprised just how much you have learnt in the past few years, coding is only a small part of a job, so you'll be miles ahead of other grads in other areas. A small step backwards can often result in a big step forwards. Obviously some companies will be hesitant as you are not a recent grad, but really they are getting more for their money because of your other experience.

Alternatively of course you could try your hand at your own startup (or try interning at another - depends if you can afford to live in London without a real income)!

I am glad to hear that it is a good time to move to London.

I have no problems whatsoever to join a company as a graduate. I have an excellent salary right now but I don't care if I even have to earn half of it. Money isn't the top priority for me right now, otherwise I would stay where I am. I was just afraid I would not be considered for such a position, but I will definitely try.

You sound like someone who most folk would welcome on board. Don't worry about limited experience so early, I know that's easy to say, but it really won't matter in the near future when you have moved on.

Remember that to recruiters you are the product, not the customer. Adjust your behaviour and thinking accordingly. There are some great recruitment folk out there, but there are far more sales-droids. Don't let them define you or your career.

Nothing is going to change until you change it. So, ...

I'd attend some local tech meet-ups, and start talking to folk. Try to get involved in anything that vaguely interests you that involves the local network.

Scan the job adds, determine the companies, then try approaching them directly. Email might work, but best would be to call them and try to get in front of the appropriate folk.

But don't worry too much about experience. Folk will see that you are starting out and set their expectations accordingly. If you've learned one bunch of tech, chances are that you can learn another. That's what we do throughout our careers, after all.

Thanks for the support! Well, I understand the business from a recruiters point of view. However, the majority of the job posts comes from recruitment companies and it is hard to avoid that. Occasionally I find a job announcement from a company but it is not easy. Once I apply for the jobs through the recruitment companies, I have the feeling that my application enters in a black hole where someone will decide if I should really apply for the job based on some checklists. I don't have any control or saying on that matter, which is frustrating...

First off, if you aren't moving away from a skill-set into another skill-set, you aren't 'changing careers'. Get that out of your head.

Second, technology is technology. Yes, it would be nicer to have newer languages on your resume, but any language is a language and having old languages on your resume is better than none.

Third, if you give up after only 6 months, it'll look really, really bad on your resume.

And finally, I have a feeling English isn't your first language. You made quite a few grammar mistakes. This wouldn't be such a problem if the rest of your text didn't seem English-native. It makes you sound uneducated, when the opposite is probably true. If you intend to work in an English-speaking company, or heavily interact with English speaking techs on the internet, brush up on your English.

As for the advice...

Keep your job. Use your free time to learn 'newer' languages. Contribute to open source projects, or start a project of your own. (Contributing is significantly easier because it has built-in direction: Just look at the bugs list and start fixing them.)

Don't rely on other people to teach you. This is a really bad lesson that school teaches and it makes improving your skills a lot harder. That's not to say you can't learn from others, just that you shouldn't be relying on it. Teach yourself and take advantage of mentors as you find them.

Your response seems overly-critical for someone who's simply looking for advice. I have a few issues:

Quitting a job within a year won't look particularly bad on your resume; quitting multiple jobs within a year will, however. I left my first job after 3 months and I've never faced a problem because of it.

There's no need to berate him on his English, especially if he's moving to London - as long as it's clear that English isn't his first language, or that he's dyslexic, then he won't be judged harshly there.

There's no point sticking with a job you hate if you have the means and freedom to move on. Being young allows you to change your mind before too much depends on you having a stable job.

@op: Look up on what's currently in demand in London (Java, probably) and start learning in your spare time. Check up on a few UK-based recruitment websites (http://reed.co.uk has a good list of programming jobs). It's totally possible to change your area of expertise; I currently work as a Ruby/PHP developer and I have a first-class degree in design :)

In my initial response I was actually going to write that judging by his written English he would have no problems getting a job in London. I've certainly interviewed and worked with loads of people with far worse English than he exhibits in his post.

Maybe I wasn't clear enough. I didn't say I would like to change career. I just said I would like to change area, meaning from old mainframe-like technologies into recent technologies.

I don't agree that technology is technology. Would you hire a developer with experience in PL/1 to code in C? Would you hire a developer with experience in Cobol to program Java? I guess you wouldn't. Yes, I know object-oriented programming, functional, logical, procedural and scripting... But is that what you read in job posts? No, you read specific languages, tools and technologies.

I didn't give up after 6 months. I had a part-time job during my MSc for 6 months in order to pay my studies/expenses. Then I have been working for 2 years for a financial institution. And now, after those 2 years, I realised I cannot find what I want inside the organisation and I want to move.

I am not English nor native in English. I understand my English isn't perfect, but I have never worked with native English speakers nor lived in the UK (or any other native-English country). My experience tells me that you will only become good at a language once you live in the country and hear it from native speakers. Nevertheless, I think my English is good enough to perform my job.

If you read my post, you will see that I already learn "newer" languages in my free time and I am already a contributor to an open source project (for 3 years).

Moreover, I don't rely on people on teach me. I strongly believe that by simply working with senior folk, you will learn day after day. That is what I want to have.

I've been working for three years and three months, and am currently working in my third company.

I started out coding PHP at company 1, continued coding in PHP for company 2 and transitioned there to working on a Python project. At Company 3 I am working on Java end to end.

Granted, all projects I have been working on are web development projects; however a senior programmer at my outfit with six years of exp started out as a embedded systems engineer.

I think the short answer to your question is : It's possible. Keep your chin up, and keep looking.

I would look into startups. Many startups are willing to have a more engaging conversation with someone, and take into consideration 'non-traditional' work experience. By demonstrating what skills you do have in this area (and being willing to work for a little less than the going rate) -- you should be able to get involved in a high-tech venture.

This would give you resume experience, expose you to the new technologies you desire, and if you learn and grow with the startup, it would be a great environment to grow in responsibility quickly as they grow.

I totally agree and I would prefer a job in a startup because of the high exposure to recent technologies and the focus in the final product. I tried to search for startups in London, however I didn't find much until now. Do you know any site (if it exists) where I could search for startup companies in London?

Don't despair cause there's still a strong search for software developers on the market. Java is still a good technology to know, since a lot of people are interested in that. Otherwise, you can just spend a couple of weekends in your room, learning a new technology and making a fun project out of it.

Also, next time you get a job, try to get it in a small company (max. 50-100 people), because those are the companies that really need to be on top of their game in order to make a profit, so you'll be learning a lot of new stuff there.

Here's a couple of websites to get you started on your job hunt:

http://startuply.com/ - startups

http://careers.stackoverflow.com/ - I actually did a search on london and quite a few companies popped up

http://jobs.github.com/positions

I follow the London craigslist and that one has some open start-up positions every now and then

And also there is www.monster.com, but the postings there are not usually startups.

I wish you good luck. If you make it big in a start-up, let us know how you did it.

Definitely, too bad Indeed.com doesn't really cover that territory in force yet. It's now the number one site in the US, and they have tons of start-up company positions in their search engine.

-Justin www.wyckwyre.com

My tuppence would be to attend events and meet people in person... as once you've established a credible relationship it's easier to convince a potential employer to give you a shot.

From their perspective it's about risk. Commercial experience de-risks you as a potential hire, but so does a relationship, even a new one.

If you make it to London get in touch with me and if I can help I will. My email is richard dot marr at empora dot com

Edit: another route would be to take part in open source projects with a strong contingent in London.

Thank you for your help and for your contact information. I will get in touch when I move to London. I understand what you suggest, however it is hard to attend events/meeting in London still having a job here. If I cannot find anything first, I am considering taking the risk of moving without a job and try to find one onsite. But that is something I really need to give a thought. On the other hand, joining another open source project with folks from London would imply perhaps another year before I could move... To be honest, I am not sure I could maintain my professionalism for such a long time and continue doing my job.

This will sound harsh, but on the off-chance that someone reading this would hire you, why don't you have your contact details in your profile? That shows something of a lack of initiative.

And that's what will never lose - showing initiative. An employers wants to know that you have some skills, are smart, don't need constant supervision, can learn on your own, will ask questions when it's the most effective way to proceed (overall, in general and in context), and that you'll do what's necessary to add value and get stuff done.

Well, I have a couple of reasons for not having my contact details here:

- Due to the nature of this post, I don't want to disclosure the name of the company I work for because even though I am not happy with my job and with their attitude towards me, I don't have the right to expose them to this situation. I respect them and I simply want to move on. If someone wants to talk with me, it is easy for them to leave a message here (as richardmarr did).

- I didn't post this in order to get a job through HN. I have concerns regarding my career and that was the only reason why I posted this.