Trying to get into C#, but have no commercial Experience (Chicken & Egg Situation)!

[r44712]

Hi all,

Here's a bit of a general question relating to IT and software:


I currently work as a Micr0s0ft Navisi0n developer (using its own native language), however due to the company I work for going bust, I am potentially going to be out of job very soon.

Thing is six months ago, the same thing happened to me again. As you can maybe appricate, every six months it seems I'm having to scrabble around to try and find work. Last time it was fortunate, this time its been far more of a struggle to try and find a new job!

With this in mind I've been thinking about trying to get into some other development technologies (thought about doing this six months ago), but the trouble is I have no real (commercial) expereince in them, to even be considered (I've tried ).

I've knowlegde (from my University days) of C, C++ (Visual and ANSI), VB (amoungst others, but those are the ones I'd like to work with). It'd be great if I could find a role that utilises C#, having played around with Visual Studio at work - and seen how simillar it was to using Visual C++ at Uni.


So can you guess the problem - I've no expereince to get the experience and its quite frustrating!

Is there anyone here who's a software developer, who might be able to shed some light on my quandry?

I'm thinking my best best might to be approach companies directly?

How did other software dev. guys get their 1st role???


Thanks for any input!

[salop75]

Hi,

First off i got into software development by building tools for unix sysadmin work and then being asked to start maintaining some RADIUS packages due to my experience in access networks. I didn't take the traditional route of programming through college/university unlike others in my team, so i would never class myself as a true software developer, i certainly don't think in assembler unlike some of my colleagues :)

Getting a programming job based in a language you have no direct experience is never going to be easy. As an employer would you take on someone for a role who has no experience?

Best tactic is to play to your strengths, show how your experience will allow you to learn knew stuff and look towards roles that include you current subset of skills. In general, in interview, employers are willing to listen, so it's the ideal opportunity to show that not only are your current skills strong but also that you can pick up new skills and aren't adverse to change. Examples such as working on partialy related work as part of a tiger team or firefighting where your experience was limited but was usefull will help demonstrate your flexibility.

Explain that you have good documentation skills, that you promote well structured code, that you attempt to write code to style guidelines to help promote re-use and readability, you have strong debugging skills and so on.
Maybe you perform code reviews on colleagues work? maybe you have helped review code in a langauge you don't have oodles of experience in. And mention you are flexible in your approach, capable of self motivating and working on your own or as part of a team or a programming pair.

I would tend to veer away from discussing the merits of one langauge or approach over others, its a minefield and to be honest nobody is right or wrong :)

And finally, might be worth mentioning Java, its popular and not disimilar from some of the languages you have experience in, even if you only have minimal experience in it.

John

[mykl]

r44712

Hi all,

Here's a bit of a general question relating to IT and software:


I currently work as a Micr0s0ft Navisi0n developer (using its own native language), however due to the company I work for going bust, I am potentially going to be out of job very soon.

Thing is six months ago, the same thing happened to me again. As you can maybe appricate, every six months it seems I'm having to scrabble around to try and find work. Last time it was fortunate, this time its been far more of a struggle to try and find a new job!

With this in mind I've been thinking about trying to get into some other development technologies (thought about doing this six months ago), but the trouble is I have no real (commercial) expereince in them, to even be considered (I've tried ).

I've knowlegde (from my University days) of C, C++ (Visual and ANSI), VB (amoungst others, but those are the ones I'd like to work with). It'd be great if I could find a role that utilises C#, having played around with Visual Studio at work - and seen how simillar it was to using Visual C++ at Uni.


So can you guess the problem - I've no expereince to get the experience and its quite frustrating!

Is there anyone here who's a software developer, who might be able to shed some light on my quandry?

I'm thinking my best best might to be approach companies directly?

How did other software dev. guys get their 1st role???


Thanks for any input!

You have a pm

[r44712]

Thanks for the replies, guys!

Best tactic is to play to your strengths, show how your experience will allow you to learn knew stuff and look towards roles that include you current subset of skills.

This is the line I'm going to play, its been suggested to me to come into a firm through "the back door" and get myself into a developer job that way. Can't say too much right now!

[JohnDotCom]

Also keep your eye on Job Vacancies in "Computer Weekly "

[Keith]

And finally, might be worth mentioning Java, its popular and not disimilar from some of the languages

John

Now John what did I tell you on Saturday about Java ... made be come over all twitchy again ;)

OP I work for EDS we are really into the retraining people on .Net at the moment.

[nairda]

I did Applications Programming courses in Pascal, COBOL and C. I literally mailshot application letters and CVs to at least 200 companies and finally, after many interviews, aptitude tests, etc, I landed a trainee developer position. I'm still there, but am a Senior Developer.

What swung it for me were all the language independent methodologies; flowcharting, Jackson Structured Programming, test plans, etc. Those tools can be applied to any language, it's just a matter of learning the syntax and constructs as you go along. I see very competent developers still thumbing through language reference books daily, myself included.