[sclug] I'd like to pick your brains...

[lug at assursys.co.uk]

On Tue, 1 Jul 2003, Andy Arbon wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> I've just graduated from Uni in Software Engineering and the time has
> come when I need to think about finding a job of some sorts..
> 
> I'm sure most people on this list have been in a position like this at
> some point - I'm not tied to any location as I'll be moving out of home,
> I'm not tied to any particular career path and I have very few
> limitations on what I try and do next.
> 
> Really I have two questions - what did you do in this position, and what
> strategies worked best for you in finding your first IT job?

You've chosen a fine time to graduate! Much like 1990-1995, in fact (I
graduated in 1995).

My first job was a one year contract for Bristol Uni supporting PCs and the
Sun PCNFSpro TCP/IP stack for Windows. The contract was renewed, but I made
no secret of the fact I was looking around for about the last year I was
there. Eventually, I ended up being there about 20 months.

I registered my CV with Jobserve, but I also hit the ads in local papers.
Agencies probably won't be interested until you have some commercial
experience (particularly in this climate), so you're better off going for
direct contact. Look through the Yellow Pages and surf round the websites of
companies you'd like to work for. Going direct is usually cheaper for the
employer too, so they're happy.

With hindsight, I'd recommend trying to get your first job with a large,
well-structured company - e.g. EDS, Logica, BAe, HP, etc. It may not be
entirely pleasant, but you should get some decent career development (i.e.
mentoring and suchlike) which I feel I missed out on, compared with some of
my peers.

If you want to be writing code, try to avoid drifting into tech support; it
seems to be quite hard to get out again! OTOH, if needs (and the beer
budget) must, there are worse jobs. If you do end up doing support, pick a
company with /lots/ of products, rather than just one or two.

For support work, Reading and the Thames Valley is pretty reasonable, but
there isn't much development work there, IMHO. The South-West, Oxford,
Cambridge and the North-West seem to be best for development. London is a
fair old mish-mash, but a high proportion of sysadmin/network admin roles
for the financial organisations.

Oh, if you interview for a job in a new town or city, make sure that you can
reasonably afford at least a houseshare on ~72% of your monthly pay. Pick up
a copy of Loot, or Trade-It, or whatever other local paper in order to get
an idea of what rents are like.

> Any advice or war stories would be greatly appreciated ;)
> Cheers,
> Andy

Hope that helps - best of luck!
Alex.
-- 
Alex Butcher      Brainbench MVP for Internet Security: www.brainbench.com
Bristol, UK                      Need reliable and secure network systems?
PGP/GnuPG ID:0x271fd950                         <http://www.assursys.com/>