Ask YC: Transition from College to Work Advice

What I did, waaaay back in 1996 without a college degree, is call a headhunter in Boston. I had a job at a start-up company in two weeks, and all I needed to get the job was the ability to spell "HTML" and "C". In two years, I managed to triple my salary. All these years later, things are good. I didn't become a dotcom millionaire, but I make an excellent living and I love what I do.

Your portfolio should consist of: one web app (in any language) you wrote for yourself, not school. That one thing will put you head and shoulders above the vast majority of candidates for any entry level programming position. I hire, I know.

one web app (in any language) you wrote for yourself, not school

That counts for a lot with YC too.

Yeah, I appreciate the feedback. After a majority of the comments have said, I think it is in my best interest to focus on and finish my web app. If it is a success, then great, if not it will look great on my resume.

I was often told this back in university, and you've probably heard it a lot, but it's worth repeating: connections can be incredibly useful. Having been on both sides of the interview table, I can tell you that having the recommendation of someone already on the team can make a huge difference. It's not enough, of course - you still have to know what you're talking about and do well on the interview(s) - but having someone vouch for you that you are reliable and not a psycho can give you the edge you need, especially if your resume isn't outstanding. I think this can be especially true for small, tightly knit teams - a middle manager at BigCo. might not even care who they're hiring, but a manager of a small, good team will be more paranoid about who they bring on board.

Working on personal projects is also great. It shows that you actually enjoy what you're doing and you're not just going through the motions of getting your degree and a job. If you don't think you'll have something to show with your commercial projects, consider getting involved in an open-source project - you won't have to develop the entire project from beginning to end, and you'll get experience working in a large team which you can't really get by working on your own.

Programming certifications... useless or worse than useless for a "small up-and-coming organization" (at worst, they might be seen as a red flag that you don't really know what you're doing and are trying to hide behind a certification).

First, find your school's career center. Every undergrad has the same problem, and your school will try to help you get established -- look for an internship this summer if there's time. Companies are wary of unemployed, inexperienced twentysomethings, but they do like hiring right out of school, often.

You're allowed to list open-source projects on your resume. It looks good to the people you'd want to work with. Give some indication of popularity, if it's non-zero -- recruiters like having real data to look at. The main thing they'll ask you about in the interview is you final project at school, so make sure you feature it on your resume, and be ready to tell an exciting story about it during the interview.

Big orgs are usually harder to join than small companies; they tend to waste a lot of applicants' time in vetting. So don't worry about getting caught up in the machine; it's avoidable. Small, newish companies are easier to join, but harder to actually find and apply to. There are lots of recruiters floating around on the web, such as cybercoders -- remember that programmers are in demand, and there's a huge turnover rate in the first few years out of school, so companies looking for people like you are always hiring.

Certifications are worthless if you already have a Bachelor's degree in CS or IS. Sometimes they're helpful for straight IT/sysadmin jobs, but only if the employer doesn't know what else to look for. A certification means you can do that kind of grunt work, nothing more.

There's demand for every language in TIOBE's top 50. Yes, you can get work in Lisp if you're looking in the right places. But be careful about whoring yourself out too much right now -- if you establish yourself as a COBOL maintainer, recruiters will want you to spend the rest of your career maintaining COBOL systems. Java hiring seems very keyword-oriented, and that makes me feel a bit like a rat in a wheel, because the keywords change every year. Database knowledge will get you pretty far; Ruby and PHP have plenty of demand. Also, there's a lot more programming work to be done than you'd think -- web apps are only a tiny portion of it.

Your resume is what initially proves your competence in a language or system; in the interview they may quiz you on some specifics and have you write some basic code, but for an entry-level job, it won't be that hardcore. Remember how to do some sorting, reversing, maybe data-structure traversal in C++ (no library), and you're golden.

Thanks for the reply, it definitely helps. The consensus seems to be that certifications are not too beneficial which is nice know so I do not waste more time this summer on them. The only reason I focused on coding web apps is because my interest tends to gravitate towards that but I am open minded.

I used Certifications to get transfer credit's out of classes. I Spent maybe $1000 on Certifications where I would have spent $5000+ on classes. They are usefull for low end grunt work though. And if you can get a really good one like CISP or CCIE then they might matter. (both are really admin/networking certifications).

Throw caution to the wind and move to the Silicon Valley. You will figure it out here.

If you over analyze you will still be around your "midwestern state school" worrying about finding a job where there are few.

Right on. As the parent of two children living in Silicon Valley: Consider moving sooner rather than later. Once you have children, Silicon Valley is expensive. And your cost of living directly affects your risk profile, and your available time.

I have noticed a steady flow of people leaving the Valley once they have that second child (Austin seems to be a popular choice)...

Believe me, it has also been a thought in the back of my mind. Any suggestions as where to start if I went that route?

Start by finding cheap, short-term housing in the area (craigslist, personal connections, or asking on communities such as this one).

Thanks

If you lack real world experience, start building real world projects. If your projects are not ready to launch, start working on them - pick the best one, finish it, and start working hard on promoting it, monetizing it, etc. - that is a) real world experience and b) the best chance for it to make money. You kill two birds with one stone.

Believe me I am trying but the time that is usually devoted to those projects is only enough to allow for a balance between school/work/fitness/personal as well. Lately though that personal time has been non-existent. Luckily, I only have a few summer classes so I am hoping to complete the project which I think will have the highest success rate this summer.

Even not having a finished product, just work as much as possible - have proven code you can show companies, understand why it would work, understand how it would scale, etc. and it will prove you can work in the real world.

Also start ups tend to look for smart people over someone with 20 years of experience - if you kick ass at what you do, you'll get a job you want.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc

Thanks

Sounds like you're in a great position.

I would keep all my options open.

There are plenty of "entry level" jobs in IT. It's a matter of finding them. Employers are interested in finding motivated people who can get the job done. It's unlikely that you'd use much of your college experience in a first job, but important to have some kind of on-line portfolio to show the you are a builder, not a BSer. No one is going to nitpick any of your projects; they just want to know that you can build stuff.

I would definitely think about building a web-based software business of some kind. You can't lose. Either it will take off and eliminate the need for a job, or it won't, but you will have learned much more than from any class.

Don't worry about the odds, the economy, or the competition. Just keep plugging away, and most of all, have fun!

Keep us posted.

Certifications are useless.

Really? Do you speak as an employer or someone who has applied without success? It would be beneficial to know because I was planning to allot some time this summer to get at the least Java certified, but if this is true I wont waste any time.

They're useless if you want to work for a small company filled with talented developers (a startup for instance). Most of those people will actually consider it a knock against you.

If you want to work for a big company, certifications are still a plus. In my experience though, having the right combination of skills is probably more important for corporate work. I got my first job at MasterCard because I'd used vi, perl, and mysql. Nobody cared that I wasn't great at any of them, just that I could hit the ground running.