Re: [edlug] How to get a job?

[Steve Kemp <edlug@xxx.xxx.xxx>]

On Fri, Apr 02, 2004 at 08:18:38PM +0100, Daniel Munckton wrote:

> Personally I am currently blitzing all sources for the _few_ and
> _occasional_ jobs that look even slightly graduate friendly ie
> newspapers, recruitment sites, company websites... 

  Me too!

  And yet again I'm coming to hate recruitment companies with
 a passion.  Half of them seem to delight in advertising non-existant
 vacancies, and the other half won't tell you a thing.

  Over the past week I've had several conversations with recruitment
 companies each of whom would start with the loaded question
 "What kind of salary are you looking for?" - answer this one
 wrongly and you never hear back from them.

  I've also noticed a lot of companies offering positions without
 telling you anything important like the name of the company it's
 with - which leads to you applying to companies you'd not want
 to bother with, and also repeatedly applying to the same company
 for different positions.

  Sorry I'm ranting now.

> > 2. What certifications would increase my chances? (LPI, MCSE?)

> I would also be interested to hear peoples opinions on this.

  I think that without a lot of real experience the certifications
 tend to be pretty much irrelevent.  When I was looking for staff
 the certifications would only ever come into play after taking
 into account real world experience.

  Of course this is one of those things that will vary from
 agency to agency, and company to company.

> > 3. What area is most lucrative? (Web programming, Sys admin?)

  SysAdmin can be good, but right now I've only seen junior
 level positions which haven't been paying much.

  Web programming is one of those areas which is very broad
 and ranges from penuts to millions as far as I can tell!

  There does seem to be a range of security consultant roles
 available at the moment, although they seem to be more focused
 upon people who have real experience and certification.
 (I guess this is an area which is set to rise locally given
 the large number of financial companies in Edinburgh).

> 4. Java: I studied java as my main prog lang at Uni, but don't see
> anything but Junior (ie 1->3 yrs experience) and Senior (4->) Java /
> J2EE jobs. If there are any Java programmers on this list I would be
> interested in hearing where people visualise the entry routes to Java
> work are these days, someone must be getting a start somewhere.

  There have been a few positions advertised locally for java web
 programmers.  By this I mean people doing servlet programming 
 working with Jakarta/Tomcat.

  In on of those humours recruitment company interactions I ranted
 about earlier on I started applying to one company as a Debian
 developer doing Linux things with an angle on security.  Within
 the time it took me to express interest and have an interview
 the job had changed into a Java servlet developer who might
 sometimes do some database administration.

  Since then a few friends have landed mid-level Java programming
 jobs for various local companies, and I discovered tonight that
 one former colleague had found a Java job working for Future
 Publishing in Bath.

Steve
--
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