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Coolreject posted:Recent college graduate here, just had my first real programming job interview at a small-ish, fast-growing tech start up type of company. After about 40 minutes or so of technical questions, which I think I did well on, despite drawing a blank on a simple SQL question out of sheer nervousness, they spent the next hour introducing me to the rest of the tech team and I got a chance to meet the rest of the programmers as well as their CEO. Everyone was way more laid back and casual than I had expected, and a large portion of the interview from that point on was them asking questions like "What do you do for fun?" "Play any good video games recently?" "What books do you like to read?" and asking me about college experiences, what my funniest story from a summer job was, etc. The programmers spent a good deal of time casually talking to me about different programming languages, what we liked and didn't like about certain ones and other geeky things regarding programming. I'll demur to someone who's spent some time in the valley, but generally start-ups are known to be super laid-back, product rather than process oriented, and concerned about cultural/team fit for early hires. Downsides are (sometimes) long hours, (sometimes) below-market comp until things take off (if they take off) (incidentally any equity offered to make up for this for an early hire will never equal the pay you're giving up in terms of expected value), and a small or nonexistent health insurance package. If you like the culture and the work and whatever their vision is, though, it can be amazing. Or so I'm told.
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Feb 22, 2012 04:51
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Otto Skorzeny posted:small or nonexistent health insurance package If the startup has raised funding you'll get reasonable insurance. They do have to compete against companies like Google, you know.
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Feb 22, 2012 05:45
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Alright, career fair at school next Thursday! I went out and blew my tax returns on 2 suits, 4 shirts, 4 ties, and 2 pairs of shoes. Tips, pointers, recommendations? I've never been to a career fair before so I don't know what to expect from an engagement with a company. Is it just a quick, "hi nice to meet you here's my resume" thing or do you actually spend time with them, generally? I did a little bit of research on the companies that will be attending and I have a list of the ones I definitely want to see / talk to, and then I'll visit everyone else after that.
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Feb 22, 2012 17:14
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Sab669 posted:Alright, career fair at school next Thursday! I went out and blew my tax returns on 2 suits, 4 shirts, 4 ties, and 2 pairs of shoes. It sort of depends on the company but it also can depend a great deal on how you present yourself and your interest in their work. When I do career fairs I try to get engaged with each person who stops by, talk about what we do, things they've worked on, what FTEs and interns do, what I do, what positions are available, all that noise. I'm guessing here but I'd say I end up spending anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes with each person with more time going to people who are obviously engaged with me and not all "my advisor said I need to get a in-tern-ship? I've been in school for two months. I went into computer engineering/science because I install Windoze for my family when it crashes which is ALWAYS! Never heard of your company by the way." That sentence and variants on it get uttered far more than you'd like to think  Keep in mind that you probably want to get there earlier rather than later if at all possible - six hours of meeting people with an extraordinary range of social skills and trying to draw each one out gets really exhausting for the poor folks at the tables. PS: be memorable. Wear both suits at the same time.
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Feb 22, 2012 17:35
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Man, even if I hadn't heard of the company I wouldn't say that. Coincidentally, that's also why I went and looked up every company on the list and made my own list of who I liked. And both suits, you say?  Black pants, grey vest, brown coat. I LIKE IT.
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Feb 22, 2012 17:45
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Wear two ties. Be extra fancy.
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Feb 22, 2012 17:56
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Go to your on-campus career center and have them look at your resume to see if there is a way to improve it. Then go to a print place (Kinko's) and have your resume printed on some nice, heavy stock paper. Ask the people working there for a paper suggestion. Make sure you have something to keep your resumes in so they don't become damaged. Bring a couple of protein bars with you in case you become hungry. Drink plenty of water so you don't become dehydrated. Have a high protein, low carb breakfast that won't make you sleepy but will keep you full for a long time. Mostly keep yourself comfortable it's going to be a very long day. When I went to my school's career fairs generally the bigger companies (Lockheed and Harris) would take resumes, and if they had an opening would do a preliminary interview on the spot generally lasting 15-30 minutes. The smaller places would do like csammis said and talk with you, answer questions, and collect resumes. Remember everyone there is interviewing you even if it's an informal chat. Ask questions about the company and seem engaged about what they are saying. As far as clothes I just keep one suit, tie, and pair of shoes. I only wear mine to funerals and job interviews so having a space isn't a big deal.
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Feb 22, 2012 17:59
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Sab669 posted:Alright, career fair at school next Thursday! I went out and blew my tax returns on 2 suits, 4 shirts, 4 ties, and 2 pairs of shoes. Ask recruiters and engineers what kind of problems they and their company solve, and how they go about solving such problems. This works even if it's a well known company - you may just need to adjust the scope of the question down to a more personal level. This can be an easy way for you to generate conversation, and it shows that you're interested in solving problems. Once you open a recruiter up a bit, they'll usually take control of the conversation from there. It kind of depends on how busy they've been at that particular fair. One mistake I hear a lot of prospective employees make at career fairs is asking "Do you use technology X? No? Oh... well bye then!". If using a specific technology matters to you that much, you should be doing a lot more research about the companies beforehand.
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Feb 22, 2012 19:42
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Also, post here with the advice your campus career centre gave you regarding your resume. I saw a lot of resumes at the last career fair I was at that were terrible, on the advice of the career / intern centre  Call out your non-school stuff. Everyone's done the same projects and taken the same classes. You need to stand out if you have that ability. Don't come off as desperate. Research the companies there and have an idea of what they do, and what you want to do. Enthusiasm is one thing, telling someone that you'll do anything just sounds a bit sad 
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Feb 22, 2012 19:51
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Sab669 posted:Alright, career fair at school next Thursday! I went out and blew my tax returns on 2 suits, 4 shirts, 4 ties, and 2 pairs of shoes. I'll reinforce a couple things csammis said, especially about getting there earlier. You have no idea how six hours on your feet constantly talking to people will tax you. And, as he said, be memorable - have some kind of hook so they can remember you later. Some project you're proud of, a hobby you've got, anything to help distinguish yourself from the flood of undergrads they will see who are all just like you. When my team does career fair trips we generally always end up grabbing beers immediately afterward. Part to take the edge off the aforementioned taxing six hours, and part to review resumes while everything's still fresh in our mind. We would refer to people at that point as "that guy with the election data visualization project up on github" or "the girl who wrote an iPhone app for her college radio station" or even just "the kid who's a drummer in a Genesis tribute band." Most college career fairs I've been to on the recruiting side would list on their website ahead of time who was recruiting. Use this to come up with an attack plan. Over the next week you should get a look at it to see who's coming, and spend some time to research the companies. If there's some project you've worked on that would maybe make you look good to one company versus another, make a custom copy of your resume to hand to the guys at that particular company and highlight that stuff. If after you've done the research and you don't want to work for a particular place, just don't go to their booth. We don't take it personally. Don't feel obligated to burn everyone's time by standing there in front of my table while I talk to you and try to discern whether you're just shy or you're really just killing time until the line at the next table over dies down. And most of all try to have some fun. You should be proud to get out there and brag about yourself. edit: Chasiubao posted:Call out your non-school stuff. Everyone's done the same projects and taken the same classes. You need to stand out if you have that ability. Don't come off as desperate. Research the companies there and have an idea of what they do, and what you want to do. Enthusiasm is one thing, telling someone that you'll do anything just sounds a bit sad Seconding this. I saw a lot of people really enthusiastically tell me "oh I wrote a system for tracking bank accounts" (or put it on their resume) as if they had interned at a bank or something big. No, that was just a standard project at in the database theory course at that school, because EVERYONE told me the same thing. kitten smoothie fucked around with this message at 20:05 on Feb 22, 2012 |
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Feb 22, 2012 19:56
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Sab669 posted:Alright, career fair at school next Thursday! I went out and blew my tax returns on 2 suits, 4 shirts, 4 ties, and 2 pairs of shoes. I always try and prep some generic questions (that don't make you sound stupid) on hand to ask recruiters in case the guy right in front of me asks the same or if I blank out. If they are actual engineers/developers at the company, it's pretty easy to ask them about company culture and how they work. If you've worked on projects in a language/framework that you know the company uses, it's best to point that out in the talk. "I did some research on your site and what really interested me the most about your company was you guys work a lot in <language/framework>, I just did a project for <Class, or Work/Company> where I worked primarily in <language/framework>." Then point it out on your resume. Essentially highlight different parts of your resume and show how they'll fit in with the company. The biggest thing is don't just hand in your resume and not say anything at all. It is important to have a rapport with the recruiter so they have a chance to remember you.
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Feb 22, 2012 20:03
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kitten smoothie posted:Seconding this. I saw a lot of people really enthusiastically tell me "oh I wrote a system for tracking bank accounts" (or put it on their resume) as if they had interned at a bank or something big. No, that was just a standard project at in the database theory course at that school, because EVERYONE told me the same thing. You wrote a tracking system? What a coincidence so did all these other people who are probably your classmates 'Sup fellow tech fair buddy? 
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Feb 22, 2012 20:11
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gariig posted:Go to your on-campus career center and have them look at your resume to see if there is a way to improve it. Then go to a print place (Kinko's) and have your resume printed on some nice, heavy stock paper. Ask the people working there for a paper suggestion. Make sure you have something to keep your resumes in so they don't become damaged. At my job they preferred people to send CVs in by email as it meant less administrative overhead, so ask if they would prefer your CV by email, it could make the difference between briefly glanced at or kept for further records.
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Feb 22, 2012 20:56
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Had my onsite at Amazon on Friday. It went really well I thought so unless I am just way off base I should be expecting an offer. Any tips on Salary negotiation? The last time I had to do this was with a small company 7 years ago and there weren't things like signing bonuses, and stock options on the table.
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Feb 26, 2012 19:49
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Roloc posted:Had my onsite at Amazon on Friday. It went really well I thought so unless I am just way off base I should be expecting an offer. I should probably just add it to the OP, it seems like good advice. If anyone feels otherwise, please say so.
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Feb 27, 2012 05:16
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This may have simply been the offer I was given, but Amazon told me flat-out that the offer they made was set and not negotiable when I tried to weasel more vacation out of them. May you have better luck than me
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Feb 27, 2012 06:12
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Dijkstracula posted:This may have simply been the offer I was given, but Amazon told me flat-out that the offer they made was set and not negotiable when I tried to weasel more vacation out of them. May you have better luck than me Depends on the company, but vacation time can be much less negotiable than salary, singing bonus, options, etc.
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Feb 27, 2012 06:29
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Dijkstracula posted:This may have simply been the offer I was given, but Amazon told me flat-out that the offer they made was set and not negotiable when I tried to weasel more vacation out of them. May you have better luck than me tk posted:Depends on the company, but vacation time can be much less negotiable than salary, singing bonus, options, etc.
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Feb 27, 2012 06:36
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Yeah, both those points are pretty reasonable now that I'm thinking about it.
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Feb 27, 2012 06:49
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Thanks for that link that was a good read and I vote it goes into the OP as well. I think if the offer isn't near what I am expecting I will try to get more of a signing bonus or stock and just amortize that over however long I initially plan on being there to get to the compensation I want to force me out of my basement in boulder, Co and pack up to Seattle. I also might try taking a crack at them to pay the taxes on the relocation expenses. Thank goodness I have dodged the what do you make now and what do you want to make questions thus far.
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Feb 27, 2012 08:16
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Roloc posted:I also might try taking a crack at them to pay the taxes on the relocation expenses.
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Feb 27, 2012 20:45
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Well that career fair was wildly disappointing  Any of the companies looking for IT students was basically looking for help desk positions. I guess I gotta start somewhere, but is it really that unfeasible to start right out of the gate in a development position? Whether it's QA or not I don't really care- I just really don't want to do support desk.
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Mar 1, 2012 20:50
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Sab669 posted:Well that career fair was wildly disappointing Did you graduate with a high end GPA from a good school and/or do you have substantial out of class projects or other work experience to show? Your resume may not be making initial cuts.
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Mar 1, 2012 20:56
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Well, I'm actually still finishing my Bachelor's degree- I'm almost done, it just seems that on any job postings I've seen the only low-level work is help desk. There seem to be very few junior/entry level actual programming positions. e; To clarify, it's not like I was anticipating finding the perfect job today... I was just surprised how all of the jobs were strictly generic "Help troubleshoot hardware / software and install software" positions.
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Mar 1, 2012 20:58
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If you're in a good location you shouldn't have any trouble finding an entry-level development position. It might be harder to find them if you're in a less tech-friendly area, but I wouldn't go for a help desk position except as an absolute last resort.
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Mar 1, 2012 21:47
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Sab669 posted:Well, I'm actually still finishing my Bachelor's degree- I'm almost done, it just seems that on any job postings I've seen the only low-level work is help desk. There seem to be very few junior/entry level actual programming positions.
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Mar 1, 2012 22:05
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There have been very few dev. internships it seems like and I check Craigslist, Monster, Dice and Indeed almost daily. Also half of the time they're unpaid internships too. As an away-from-home student, that's really not possible for me to do. I have tried to apply for some full-time jobs, I've had two interviews for full time jobs but neither of them panned out. The first one was a while ago and I completely brain farted the technical interview. The second one, I don't even know what went wrong. It was very short, he asked almost no questions. e; vvvvWarwick, Rhode Island. 20 minutes away from Providence (with minimal traffic). When I graduate I'm definitely open to relocation. Financially, ideally, I'd love to find something in Central Massachusetts so I can live with my parents for a year and throw every penny of my paycheck at loans, but I doubt that'll happen. Sab669 fucked around with this message at 22:38 on Mar 1, 2012 |
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Mar 1, 2012 22:14
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What city, county are you in.
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Mar 1, 2012 22:24
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Sab669 posted:There have been very few dev. internships it seems like and I check Craigslist, Monster, Dice and Indeed almost daily. Also half of the time they're unpaid internships too. As an away-from-home student, that's really not possible for me to do. I got my current job at Amazon not through them recruiting at my school or looking on job sites, but just by applying through their website for the generic "new college grad SDE" position, and then passing the subsequent phone screens and in-person interview. Their university recruiting site is inexplicably bad right now but it looks like this is the page for that position: https://up-amazon.icims.com/jobs/122383/job?in_iframe=1 Sab669 posted:e; vvvvWarwick, Rhode Island. 20 minutes away from Providence (with minimal traffic). When I graduate I'm definitely open to relocation. Financially, ideally, I'd love to find something in Central Massachusetts so I can live with my parents for a year and throw every penny of my paycheck at loans, but I doubt that'll happen. Cicero fucked around with this message at 23:40 on Mar 1, 2012 |
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Mar 1, 2012 23:36
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I have a question that, so far, has gotten pretty wildly differing opinions from people I've asked. I am in my fourth year of school and I'm getting a BA in English (with a couple other humanities minors, blah blah blah). However, last semester I decided to take some CS classes to bolster my resume for tech writing jobs or something similar. After I started taking them and looking into programming, I realized that dev work is something that I am definitely interested in at some point in the future. I'm now getting a CS minor and staying an extra semester in school. Will a CS minor from a liberal arts school be worth anything? Are there positions where I could leverage my mad English skills (writing, communication) alongside some CS knowledge? If I want a dev job of any sort do I need to take another year or two (probably 1.5) to finish a CS degree?* I'm doing a decent amount of work outside of class, trying to learn as much as I can about all kinds of CS topics while not falling behind in my schoolwork. I will hopefully have something of a github account to show off in 10 months when I graduate. I just don't know 1) how much this is worth on a resume and 2) how I can say "I am willing to seriously work my rear end off if I have to learn stuff on the job!" (or if people even care about that..) * Normally it wouldn't take that long to pick up a second major, especially with no other classes to take, but since my English degree is a BA and CS would obviously be a BS there are some stupid pre-reqs that I would have to take (mostly fundamental math stuff).
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Mar 2, 2012 14:27
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etcetera08 posted:Words I've been asking similar questions. Overall I've got the impression that the dev industry is very much a can you do what we need? Good enough for me. While a full on CS degree at a top tier school is a tick in that box, we all know from the other threads on here it doesn't actually prove anything, hence the need for poo poo like fizz buzz tests. Generally, I've found out that you can divde employers into two categories. One is going to be HR dominated, if you don't have X degree with Y GPA and Z buzzwords on your CV tough poo poo. The other is more Dev lead and is likely to focus on, cool this guy has contributed to these open source projects, wow that's a neat thing he has up on github. Clearly having the right degree from the right school is never going to hurt you. But if you're good at coding and you can prove you're good at it via github and FOSS stuff you will be able to get a job, it just might require a bit more work. Then once you have a couple of years under your belt people start to give no fucks.
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Mar 2, 2012 15:25
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etcetera08 posted:I have a question that, so far, has gotten pretty wildly differing opinions from people I've asked. I am in my fourth year of school and I'm getting a BA in English (with a couple other humanities minors, blah blah blah). However, last semester I decided to take some CS classes to bolster my resume for tech writing jobs or something similar. After I started taking them and looking into programming, I realized that dev work is something that I am definitely interested in at some point in the future. I'm now getting a CS minor and staying an extra semester in school. What kind of liberal arts school? There are companies that don't care if you have a degree anywhere and care more about the fact that you can produce. There are companies that just care that you went to college and graduated since it shows that you can actually commit yourself to something. There are companies that want a degree in the CS field. There are companies that want a degree in the CS field, and it would be better if it were from a top 5, or maybe top 10 CS school. MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, CMU, Cornell. If you are applying for something like "Technical Writer", having a CS minor will definitely make you look better to all four categories of companies. Having a GitHub would probably be cheaper and better IMO. If you are applying for a developer position, it is my opinion that the CS minor is probably worthless, and that having code to show them is probably more valuable. The only way I can see it benefiting you is if they have to narrow down their choices. IMO, just proving you can code trumps everything else. If you can't show them you can write code that is relatively clean and functional, it doesn't matter what kind of degree you are getting. I don't know how well you code ATM, but it may be worth a semester to learn some fundamental algorithms/data structures and maybe learn about AI/ML, but probably not worth another 2 years to get a degree in CS, especially if your LA college isn't known for much rigor in their CS courses. So in summary, it'll look good for companies that are degree focused, but probably not much elsewhere. If it's only going to take another semester then IMO you should do it just to learn the fundamentals (which are very important if you have to do interviews).
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Mar 2, 2012 19:06
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Sab669 posted:There have been very few dev. internships it seems like and I check Craigslist, Monster, Dice and Indeed almost daily. Also half of the time they're unpaid internships too. As an away-from-home student, that's really not possible for me to do. That's why they're illegal. Minimum wage laws apply to internships, unless they consist solely of training or education and in no way contribute to the employer's business. Answering phones is contributing. Making copies is contributing. Getting coffee is contributing. Anything more is really, really contributing. When you see them listed, you should say you're interested, ask about compensation, get them to come out and say "No, it's unpaid," then brightly explain that you could report them to the Department of Labor for even saying that, but you're still really interested in the position, so what was that about compensation again?
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Mar 2, 2012 23:39
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Also, use company websites, not Monster / Craigslist / whatever.
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Mar 3, 2012 00:44
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Strong Sauce posted:Cast_No_Shadow posted:Thanks to both of you for all of this. At this point I think it will be best to just finish a CS minor in December and work on a lot of independent and FOSS stuff in the meantime. I am not completely opposed to the idea of going back to school in a couple years if nothing pans out. I mean, I worked on an English degree pretty much exclusively for 3 years and didn't expect to get a posh job out of that, so anything that isn't minimum wage will be above expected value. (I also will be graduating with very little debt, making it easier to go back to school if I need to sometime.) While my school certainly isn't well known for its CS department (it's a small state liberal arts school that has a good reputation in the region but that's pretty much it), I am taking some relatively rigorous courses. I'm taking an AI class and a basic computing structures class this semester (on top of the intro-y poo poo) and will be taking a couple more theory-heavy courses next semester. I think this is a pretty good educational scenario for my situation since I can take that theory and teach myself languages or whatever.
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Mar 3, 2012 05:32
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If you're looking for a project that has reputation and needs some extra developers, the XFCE linux desktop environment has few developers working on it. The best way to find out what needs doing is to ask on their irc channel. Even without being that good at programming you can help with documentation, something a lot of FOSS projects lack; or testing, projects depend on other projects, and the upstream projects may have put out a new release, proving that it all still works with a newer C library is a valuable contribution.
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Mar 3, 2012 10:34
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Doc Hawkins posted:That's why they're illegal. Minimum wage laws apply to internships, unless they consist solely of training or education and in no way contribute to the employer's business. Answering phones is contributing. Making copies is contributing. Getting coffee is contributing. Anything more is really, really contributing. Hm, that's really interesting. I just googled it and yea, they list the requirements here: http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs71.htm I honestly don't think I'd want to intern at a company I'm "bullying" around into following the law and to pay me, though. And if they needed to be bullied into in the first place, that says something right there. Certainly good to know, though. I'll see what the guy says next time I'm told it's unpaid
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Mar 3, 2012 16:18
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Edison was a dick posted:If you're looking for a project that has reputation and needs some extra developers, the XFCE linux desktop environment has few developers working on it. Ahh, great idea. I might not try with XFCE but writing documentation for projects is something that never even occurred to me.
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Mar 3, 2012 23:03
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So, I'll be graduating I'm May with a CS degree. I have an on site interview coming up for Microsoft for a Program Manager position. I know its not strictly (at all) a programming position, but how different is it? My two concerns are: if i do get offered the position and i decide in a few years that I hate the design, coordination aspect, am I screwing myself over for a coding position in the future, and the second issue is how different is this from any of my formal training and what could I do to prepare?
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Mar 4, 2012 07:10
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Alright, so I haven't had an internship yet as a senior and I don't have any chance of getting a decent internship this summer, but I know a place where I can get an internship locally, and I've had a part-time research assistant position since the beginning of this year. I've also started working on a ray tracer and an Android game. I know what I want to do with the ray tracer and it's kind of significant overall, though not original. I'd like to implement a search engine at some point, but I don't really know anything about them right now. I've also been looking for open source projects to which to contribute, but haven't found anything that caught my interest. XFCE seems promising, though, so I'll look at that carefully and see what I can do/am interested in doing development-wise. How am I doing? Does that sound like enough to get a phone interview at companies like, say, Google? I don't know if many places care about grades but I'll have a math/CS dual major with a GPA >= 3.75, if that helps, though I'll have taken five years to graduate.
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Mar 4, 2012 08:09
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