Re: FN-FORUM: Qualifications

date posted 21st March 2006 15:07

> That's what I've been getting. I'd like a full time job and do a bit of
> freelancing on the side. But when looking for jobs, they all want
> qualifications. Seeing as my degree is in Computer Science, it's not
> specific to web development. Added to that, I will be a graduate looking =
for
> his first full-time job (not including placement), so something specific =
to
> the field would hopefully give a cutting edge, or at least help to compet=
e
> against developers with 10+ years of experience!

6 months ago I was in this position. I had a Computer Science degree
and no commercial experience. If you've done any industry placements
you're already going to be one step ahead of where I was!

I made a great number of job applications as an experiment to see how
I fared in the graduate job market (I didn't really intend to take any
job offers as I was also setting up shop as a freelancer). I guess I
probably applied for about 50 web development positions. With a 1st
class CompSci degree from Exeter University (which is top ranking for
graduate employablilty) I got one interview offer, which also happened
to be the only acknowledgement I got for any of my applications. So
that was quite an interesting experiment!

The overriding factor IHMO is that almost every employer will prefer
someone with 1 or 2 years experience over a graduate, however
qualified, because they can still offer them a relatively low starting
salary, safe in the knowledge that their candidate has real-world
experience, whereas a fresh graduate probably has none. So my advice
is to get as much evidence of your web development skills together as
possible, do Really Good websites for the SU, student societies, your
own projects, etc - because they'll be a better and cheaper use of
your free time than another qualification.

No more waffling now, I'm procrastinating...