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Thread: [Serious] Help Me!!! Programmer With No Experience Seeking a Job!!!

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    College Grad!!! Jacob Roman's Avatar
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    [Serious] Help Me!!! Programmer With No Experience Seeking a Job!!!

    Well I'm stuck in a visuous cycle. I work two dead end jobs, have no degree, and I'm not happy. Yet I've been programming as a hobbyist for 25 years now since I was 10. I'm 35 now. I've never been able to get a job in it unfortunately. Yet I apply everywhere here in Miami with zero success. As most of you know, I code in C++, C, C#, VB.Net, Java, Android based Java, and VB6. My resume looks awful. Its graphically impressive but not impressive with whats written. So when I apply for programming jobs, I'm in competition with other programmers with bachelors degrees and experience. Another thing that really ticks me off is that 90 percent of the programming jobs here are web based programming mixed with SQL data base programming. Problem with that for me is, its not what I want to do. I want to make software, and that is what I'm good at. I don't wanna resort to learn Ruby on Rails, SQL scripting, CSS, HTML5, javascript, Angular JS, JQuery, with a mix of ASP.Net just to be stuck doing what I don't wanna do.

    So with no real world job experience in programming, what do you people recommend I do? I do have some college. Only 8 classes to go just to get an Associates degree, but I work so much that there is no time for me to go sadly, which is why I'm heavily looking for a job in making software. Thanks

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    Super Moderator Shaggy Hiker's Avatar
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    Re: [Serious] Help Me!!! Programmer With No Experience Seeking a Job!!!

    A degree doesn't mean a thing if they know what you can do. Your problem sounds like it's an inability to show what you can do. A resume is a sheet of paper. It's dead and static, unlike a program. Even worse, it's going to an HR person in many cases, who will be checking off boxes. You don't meet the criteria for some of those boxes, so if all they know is checking off boxes, you won't do well.

    Do you know where you want to work? For example, are there some companies that you'd like to work for because of the kinds of things they do? If so, you might try to figure out the organizational structure of the place and ask somebody for a chance to talk to them. Of course, people are all different. You'll encounter people who are just putting in the time, or people who have an agenda, but if you can find a king maker in some organization, a person who is looking for people with the skills to advance either them or the company, then you'd have a much better shot, especially if you have a portfolio of things you can show.

    Basically, if you don't have the paper credentials, then you have to be more than a sheet of paper to the people who are hiring, even if those people aren't hiring today.

    EDIT: This thread makes more sense in General Developer than in Chit Chat. It fits with other threads in this forum.
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    Re: [Serious] Help Me!!! Programmer With No Experience Seeking a Job!!!

    If I include a portfolio, do I include all the BS games and demos that I've made to prove I can code? Or could I include weblinks of VBForums uploads? I heard showing a Stack Overflow score could mean something. So including that I have over 5k posts on helping others could mean the same thing.

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    Smooth Moperator techgnome's Avatar
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    Re: [Serious] Help Me!!! Programmer With No Experience Seeking a Job!!!

    Get in contact with a local headhunter. they should be able to help you out with your resume, as well as help finding opportunities. Pick up some contracting jobs, build up the practical experience. One of them may end up being a contract to hire, where at the end of the contract they have the option to hire you full time.

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    Super Moderator Shaggy Hiker's Avatar
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    Re: [Serious] Help Me!!! Programmer With No Experience Seeking a Job!!!

    Quote Originally Posted by techgnome View Post
    Get in contact with a local headhunter. they should be able to help you out with your resume, as well as help finding opportunities. Pick up some contracting jobs, build up the practical experience. One of them may end up being a contract to hire, where at the end of the contract they have the option to hire you full time.

    -tg
    Since JR is down in south Florida, you should be clear here: By "headhunter", you mean a person who finds people to fill jobs, not the other kind.
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    MS SQL Powerposter szlamany's Avatar
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    Re: [Serious] Help Me!!! Programmer With No Experience Seeking a Job!!!

    Quote Originally Posted by techgnome View Post
    Get in contact with a local headhunter. they should be able to help you out with your resume, as well as help finding opportunities. Pick up some contracting jobs, build up the practical experience. One of them may end up being a contract to hire, where at the end of the contract they have the option to hire you full time.

    -tg
    I agree with this whole heartedly.

    This will get you coding jobs - even those you might dislike a bit. Regardless they get on your resume and makes presentations in future go that much better.

    You might even find you get placed in an industry that interests you.

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    Re: [Serious] Help Me!!! Programmer With No Experience Seeking a Job!!!

    If it where me i would be looking at smaller companies, because your more likely to speak directly with the person who is going to hire you.

    Also doing some small pieces of contract work in your own time might not be a bad idea also.

    If your not interested in Web or Mobile work that will rule out a lot of jobs as that the direction of travel in developer based jobs, so like Shaggy said find out which companies in your area do the kind of development that your interested and approach them direct. Maybe even ask for some work experience so you can show what you can do!
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    Re: [Serious] Help Me!!! Programmer With No Experience Seeking a Job!!!

    Maybe I should stay away from Monster, Indeed, and CareerBuilder. I literally applied to 100s of jobs and didnt get even an interview. A lot of it goes through job hiring agencies such as KForce, Ascendo Resources, CyberCoders, etc. And even then probably goes though a system checking off boxes as Shaggy pointed out.

    Another thing I should probably do is create a website about me and post my past projects I've created. It was mentioned on Simple Programmer on Youtube on how to get a programming job with no experience. He also mentioned making Blog posts on programming but I'm sure VBForums could count in that regard.

    Another possibility is to go entrepreneur and create mobile apps, which I can do, but Im a one man crew sadly and could take a really long time. Even then, thats something I could put on my resume, and even create my own company by buying an LLC name through sunbiz.org.

    And youre right. I have tremendous difficulty showing on proving I can code. And it is difficult when you never had a coding job let alone a desk job. Having a work history showing you worked at Pizza Hut, Wendys, Tiger Direct, and SunTek Skylights doesnt help either, with having only some college. Im in a bit of a hurdle, and it sucks.

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    Re: [Serious] Help Me!!! Programmer With No Experience Seeking a Job!!!

    The vast majority of tech jobs are only hired through recruiting agencies and contract to hire. Rare is it to find a job directly being offered by a company. Get in touch with a few recruiters and get some insight on what they recommend to spice up your resume towards programming.

    Most entry level positions will require 1-2 years of experience. Catch 22. Join a user group, pick up some rent a coder contract jobs even if you have to do them for free. Having some professional coding experience on your resume will help greatly. Showing a passion for programming is also part of getting your foot in the door.

    Ive been in your position back when I was younger. Its a tough position to be in. You cant afford to work only 1 job and cant afford the time to take some classes to help get you into a better career. Sometimes if we are motivated enough we find a way. Perhaps budgeting and seeing how you can make working 1 job work for you is what it will take. Maybe moving in with a relative temporarily to get schooling done and pay down bills etc. Then you will have more possibilities available to you?
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    Re: [Serious] Help Me!!! Programmer With No Experience Seeking a Job!!!

    If it where me i would be looking at smaller companies, because your more likely to speak directly with the person who is going to hire you.
    I second this. When I first finished my degree agencies wouldn't give me the time of day because I didn't have any experience. My solution was to go through the yellow pages (our equivalent of your business pages) and just phoned up every software company and asked to speak to a development manager. If you can get past the receptionist you find that dev managers are usually more than happy to give you a few minutes and you just straight out ask them if they can use you. This landed me my first 2 or 3 roles.
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    Re: [Serious] Help Me!!! Programmer With No Experience Seeking a Job!!!

    As a first step, a lot of recruitment agencies use a 'technical interview' where the applicant can be asked tricky questions about the particular programming language involved - maybe via a particular web site - as an exam. Make sure you revise your particular language skills so that you are competent in the intricacies of the language. You'll probably get no further in the process if you don't pass these - and if administered by an agency, probably nothing more from that agency. They can also used by HR departments of larger companies. There are books available which purport to provide sample questions and answers.

    You say you haven't got professional IT qualifications nor industry programming experience. But you say you're been programming as a hobbyist for 25 years. Great! Then you must have written a whole bunch of programs. Get a professional IT CV company to work some of these larger projects into your CV (but never tell outright lies in a CV!). Be prepared to say, in a few minutes, what your strengths are as a programmer. What can you bring to a company? Why should you be hired over another person? Also include this kind of stuff in your CV. Make sure you are up-to-date with the latest standards for your language(s) (eg for c++ - my language - this is c++14 with c++17 due to be issued shortly).

    Have you worked on any open-source projects? Many open-source projects want interested developers - search the web. Even large projects such as Firefox are always looking for new developers. You'll get to work on large projects (something simple at first until you prove yourself) and then more complex aspects. Again that looks good on a CV. Also read-up on related aspects such as project management (eg Agile) so that you can talk about these aspects and convince that you'll fit into a team.

    The problem with no industry experience is that no-one knows from the CV how good you are at programming (saying so yourself doesn't count unfortunately!). So you're going to have to become a salesperson - selling yourself. I agree with FunckyDextor in post #10. Get your CV polished and hit the phones cold-calling any company that just might use programmer. Do you have any particular vertical expertise (eg knowledge of a particular industry sector)? If yes, then try companies in that sector first.

    Good luck!
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    Re: [Serious] Help Me!!! Programmer With No Experience Seeking a Job!!!

    In the old days people used to apply to be placed on hiring lists through Civil Service organizations. Those usually involved a written knowledge and skills test as well as a resume covering your education.

    Since this was a true "merit" system if you had viable skills you'd at least get interviews. After being hired a lot of people would get a couple of years of experience and then they had work experience useful in getting jobs in the private sector.

    Sadly most governmental hiring no longer works that way. Post-Reagan it seems to be all about factors like nepotism and "connections" in general. Instead of education being taken into consideration meaningfully, they simply ignore your major and minor areas of study. They have turned into monolithic checkboxes: 2-year certificate, 4-year degree, etc. So a degree in Basket Weaving counts the same as a degree in Computer Science.

    So basically it is the same as being hired in private industry.

    You need impressive (at least "claimed") experience, with references who will back up your story. This filters through the Ferengi Hoo-mann Resources folks, often outsourced to hiring agencies. Only after you con your way over that hurdle might you see interviews. If you get that far and things go well you ability to do the job might be evaluated as part of a hiring decision.

    So what you need if you have no actual job experience is (a.) a lot of luck, (b.) connections, and (c.) don't forget to dress and talk like the interviewers. The latter varies a lot by region and by industry. For example if you are job hunting in L.A., Redmond, NYC, etc. you'll want a woebegone depressed look and an "I'm With Her" tattoo on your forehead.

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    MS SQL Powerposter szlamany's Avatar
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    Re: [Serious] Help Me!!! Programmer With No Experience Seeking a Job!!!

    This is why my suggestion to find a Robert Half type of "staffing agency" was made.

    These people help you develop your resume.

    These people help coach you on the interview process - up to the day it happens. I've watched them do it!

    If they take you on they will get you a job.

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    Re: [Serious] Help Me!!! Programmer With No Experience Seeking a Job!!!

    Quote Originally Posted by szlamany View Post
    This is why my suggestion to find a Robert Half type of "staffing agency" was made.

    These people help you develop your resume.

    These people help coach you on the interview process - up to the day it happens. I've watched them do it!

    If they take you on they will get you a job.
    Sounds like you are recommending Half measures.
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    Re: [Serious] Help Me!!! Programmer With No Experience Seeking a Job!!!

    Quote Originally Posted by szlamany View Post
    This is why my suggestion to find a Robert Half type of "staffing agency" was made.

    These people help you develop your resume.

    These people help coach you on the interview process - up to the day it happens. I've watched them do it!

    If they take you on they will get you a job.
    Ive worked with them and maybe they used to be good back in teh day but Ive found that working with many different agencies and your own efforts on the technical job boards is best.

    Also, forgot in my other post, since you have the experience and knowledge, study for and take at least 1 of the Microsoft Certification exams. You can become a MCP with just 1 passed exam. That will prove you know something and possibly set yourself apart from recent college grads with no experience and no certifications
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    Re: [Serious] Help Me!!! Programmer With No Experience Seeking a Job!!!

    No patent medicine "certificate" is a substitute for a degree. They don't hurt, but they don't carry a lot of weight for programming jobs.

    These get more traction in the blue collar world, i.e. computer operations jobs (PC techs and such).

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    Re: [Serious] Help Me!!! Programmer With No Experience Seeking a Job!!!

    If he cant get back to school then getting some certs is all he has left
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    Re: [Serious] Help Me!!! Programmer With No Experience Seeking a Job!!!

    I don't see how holding out false hope and fooling him into wasting time, effort, and possibly even money helps him. Everyone in a hiring role knows that people just cram for certs, which is why they mean so little.

    The job market is tough and there is a lot of artificial competition due to excessively permissive L1 and H1-B visa programs. Who can say? Maybe Trump will do something about that and things might change after a while. I wouldn't hold my breath.

    But no education credentials and no work experience leaves the job seeker very low in the deep pile of applications.

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    Re: [Serious] Help Me!!! Programmer With No Experience Seeking a Job!!!

    True but when he has nothing else doing a qualified exam like a MS cert is more than he currently has and also says hes serious, to a point, about getting into teh industry

    I would take someone with a MS cert and no degree over someone with no certs or degree
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    Re: [Serious] Help Me!!! Programmer With No Experience Seeking a Job!!!

    For c/c++ rather than the MS certs, I would be considering cppinstitute certification which offers 3 levels. See http://cppinstitute.org/certification
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    Re: [Serious] Help Me!!! Programmer With No Experience Seeking a Job!!!

    I would take someone with a MS cert and no degree over someone with no certs or degree
    Me to, when i have recruited for entree level developer jobs, CVs that have no experience and no qualifications rarely even make it in front of me.

    I think that getting an MS Cert could be a good idea in your case especially as you have no formal qualifications, this gives you one that is recognised and shows that you are prepared to invest in yourself in order to get a job in technology.

    Its not a guarantee but it will likely help.
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    Re: [Serious] Help Me!!! Programmer With No Experience Seeking a Job!!!

    I think having an MCP is better than not having one... but not by much. If you can find somewhere that'll let you sit it for cheap then go for it. I wouldn't throw much money at it though. (If you can get an employer to pay for it then definitely go for it - I know that doesn't apply here).

    From what I've seen you've got plenty enough experience to pass it so it won't be much effort but do be aware that the Microsoft exams are as much about testing your knowledge of MS products as they are about testing your ability to program. A decent knowledge of which features are available in which versions of visual studio will get you further than knowing how to do a bitwise shift.
    Last edited by FunkyDexter; Jan 30th, 2017 at 11:46 AM.
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    Re: [Serious] Help Me!!! Programmer With No Experience Seeking a Job!!!

    Question is does it cost money to get an MCP? What about an MVP?

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    Re: [Serious] Help Me!!! Programmer With No Experience Seeking a Job!!!

    Quote Originally Posted by Jacob Roman View Post
    Question is does it cost money to get an MCP? What about an MVP?
    MS cert exams do cost money and vary in price. Its the price to prove you have knowledge since you have no professionally paid experience.

    An MVP award "may" help and "may" also hurt. It can be viewed two ways

    1. Oh this guy knows his stuff and is validated/backed by MS.

    2. Oh this guy spends all his time on programming boards and if we hire him he may just remain on hte boards instead of working.

    However if your MVP is awarded from books you have written or in person speaking engagements etc it may be weighed differently as those are harder to obtain and could be viewed as above online forum awards
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    Re: [Serious] Help Me!!! Programmer With No Experience Seeking a Job!!!

    MCP costs money but I'm not sure how much. I think the cost is set by the examining centre rather than MS so it varies. I'm not 100% sure about that though so check out some centres in your area.

    MVP doesn't cost anything. It's a discretionary award given out by MS to people who contribute to the community. Quite what "contribute" and "community" mean is a bit vague though. Mostly it seems to be people who contribute a lot on MS orientated forums (like this one, SQL Server Central, MSDN forums etc.) and I gather that getting nominated by a few folks helps. There's a few MVPs on the forum who could probably fill in the gaps.
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    Re: [Serious] Help Me!!! Programmer With No Experience Seeking a Job!!!

    The problem is that certification programs long ago turned into corporate profit centers for those selling cram-for-the-exam books and training.

    For rote blue collar jobs like unboxing new PCs, replacing keyboards, changing server fan filters, pulling cables, and resetting users' lost passwords this is probably good enough. My son hires these people and he finds it actually does help in separating the wheat from the pure chaff. So many people have bought a kit of parts and assembled a PC that eventually worked, or plugged in a cable modem and got online... that everyone seems to see himself as a PC tech.

    But people hiring software developers know about these exam scams and they have little tangible value there. Software development involves too much breadth and depth for coverage in certification exams. At best something like a programming language cert might lend a little bit more weight to a resume's claim of knowledge of the language. But they simply aren't comprehensive tests of knowledge.

    The certification mills know this, so they focus on the non-degreed technician roles.


    One guy got fed up. His management insisted he give programming certs more weight in interview selection and he found the resulting parade of misfits was a complete waste of interview panel time. He got another gig a while back, and he created this spoof page:

    http://www.ambysoft.com/certification/scam.html

    I was surprised to see that he hasn't taken it down yet.

  27. #27
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    Re: [Serious] Help Me!!! Programmer With No Experience Seeking a Job!!!

    Quote Originally Posted by dilettante View Post
    ...
    One guy got fed up. His management insisted he give programming certs more weight in interview selection and he found the resulting parade of misfits was a complete waste of interview panel time. He got another gig a while back, and he created this spoof page:

    http://www.ambysoft.com/certification/scam.html

    I was surprised to see that he hasn't taken it down yet.
    That link leads down a rabbit hole, doesn't it?
    "Ok, my response to that is pending a Google search" - Bucky Katt.
    "There are two types of people in the world: Those who can extrapolate from incomplete data sets." - Unk.
    "Before you can 'think outside the box' you need to understand where the box is."

  28. #28
    You don't want to know.
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    Re: [Serious] Help Me!!! Programmer With No Experience Seeking a Job!!!

    This is a highly competitive field and it's hard to measure how "good" a person is. You need to look attractive, and the way to do that is to groom yourself.

    College grads are attractive because they can tick off a list of awards acquired and activities done while also maintaining a high BPA. That shows they're motivated and able to manage time. The even better candidates have a list of projects published online for the interviewer to sample. They're also attractive because retirement's more than 30 years away, and they have no clue what an "appropriate" salary might be, so there's a lot of value in fresh graduates to offset the risk of "what if this person's just book-smart?"

    People with 5-10 years of experience are also attractive. They tend to have both technical and managerial skills, and can tick off a list of projects they led and tell interesting stories about the people problems involved. That makes them less of a risk than a college graduate, but they tend to want a higher salary to go with that, or stock awards, etc.

    Another problem is ageism. At 60, the company figures you'll retire before they get their return on training you, so it's hard for a person with exceptional credentials to get a new job. 40 is kind of a midpoint. Mark Zuckerberg has said (potentially illegally) he'd never hire anyone over 30. Between 30 and 40, some employers believe you lose a lot of your talent. You don't really want to work for people that stupid, but sometimes you don't have a choice because you need grocery money.

    So you need to fight back against all of those things and make yourself look damn good compared to either a fresh recruit or a grizzled veteran. So follow the golden rule: a good candidate can DO, and can prove it. If you aren't working on a publishable project last month, you should start last month. Pick something you can finish THIS month and finish it. Put it on the internet for free. With a couple of weeks of skill investment, there's a million varieties of mobile app that can be pooped out in a week or less by a skilled developer. That's four projects per month! Don't want to learn another language? That's a good way to get your resume sent, unread, to the recycle bin.

    Start an open-source tool. Promote it. Make it popular and manage the project. Post like crazy on Stack Overflow. Write tutorial/blog articles and try to get published on sites. You need a Google search for your name to scream "programmer" and dazzle people. But they aren't going to bother Google searching you if your resume doesn't make it clear that search will be fruitful. If you aren't writing code to publish RIGHT NOW, do it. People with dirty hands are never wrong.

    I don't know how much stock I put in certifications. They're more "classroom" than "code", and many places that do the exams guarantee you'll receive them if you pay for the class. That tends to mean they give you standardized-test-style training, where you learn more about "how to pass the test" than "how to do the job". It's still "doing something", and you'll be better off than someone who doesn't have it. So it's not worthless, but I can't tell you how worthwhile it is. It's been at least 6 years since I worked with someone MS-certified, if that helps.

    Another thing you can do to considerably increase your odds is move. Move to a city with a dearth of programming jobs. There might be one paying job for a developer in Fish Camp, Mississippi. My company's got hundreds of open positions between Atlanta, San Diego, Austin, etc. Big cities have jobs. Smaller cities, not so much. It also costs a freakin' lot to live in a big city, so weigh that. It's a big risk. It might pay off. Or you could accumulate an impressive amount of debt in a hurry.

    Don't be stuck to any one language or technology. MS said themselves in a recent blog article: C# has millions of developers, VB has hundreds of thousands. So if you're looking for a VB job, and you'll never consider C#, you've eliminated hundreds of thousands of possibilities from your pool and narrowed it to tens of thousands. Don't shoot yourself in the foot. If you can't at least dabble in Ruby, Python, JavaScript, HTML/CSS, you're closing a lot of doors before getting a chance to stick your foot in. Any one of these languages might be a dead-end in 5-10 years. So if you were planning a long career with one language, you might want to reconsider.

    I wouldn't worry about competition with H-1B holders. People with agendas make it sound like we dole them out more than 50/50. It's cheaper and easier to hire an entire offshore team than it is to take on a single H-1B employee. Why?

    We only give out 65,000 of these visas annually. That's shared between a LOT of fields: chemistry, architecture, physics, etc. There's millions of open programming jobs. They aren't distributed well, geographically, which is why it can dramatically change your prospects to move.

    For the company to hire the H-1B applicant, the government wants to instill a penalty to make double-extra sure a US worker is attractive. So a fee of up to $100k is applied to the process. Every year, the visa has to be renewed, but all current holders go in a lottery pool with new applicants. So every year, the US government might lay off your worker, and you have no recourse! And every year, you have to re-pay that post-tax renewal fee! On top of that, you have to be offering a salary competitive with all of the other companies interested in the candidate. This has to go on for about 5 years before the employee can start the citizenship process, and continue for 2 more years while they complete it.

    So it costs $100k/year, you might lose ALL of your investment, and it takes $700k total to keep this person as a permanent employee. So H-1B applicants tend to be your 4.0 GPA, "I wrote a paper that saved a company $10m/month" kind of candidates. I can't compete with those people, any position they're after isn't generally a position you have a chance at anyway.

    The visa exists at all because it is very good for our country to steal the best talent from other countries and stunt their growth. There's millions of jobs for "programmers", and everyone wants a superstar grad student, but there's only hundreds of superstar grad students. So we added a way to steal the best superstars from other countries, and made it expensive to make sure we hire the US superstars AND we don't bother trying to hire mediocre foreign employees.

    It was brought up by a person who is hyper-focused on VB6, which has dwindling opportunities in 2017 and even less in 2018. It's really easy to blame external factors like immigration law, and hard to admit things like, "I made a career-limiting move when I decided to halt my personal development in 1997". A lot of America is in this state, and they'd rather see us stop stealing the talent of other nations so they can entertain fantasies like "If only a person who invented a strip of paper that can detect cancer hadn't been hired at Pfizer, I would've landed a sweet gig writing invoice software in VB6".

    So, in short:
    • The worst thing you can do is nothing.
    • Look at the job market where you live. Learn what is hired the most and be that candidate.
    • If your job market stinks, find a city with one that doesn't and move there, if possible.
    • DO things. Publish projects. Even if they aren't the ones that sell.
    • Make friends. Go to code lunches, most major cities have them. Referrals get higher priority than random applicants.
    • Learn more than one language. DO things in more than one language.
    • Some jobs are for high-end college grads only, and many jobs want impossible experience. That means "we want high performers", and you have to look the part to get the part.
    • DO things.
    • Never get up. Never get old and bitter.

  29. #29
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    Re: [Serious] Help Me!!! Programmer With No Experience Seeking a Job!!!

    Quote Originally Posted by Jacob Roman View Post
    Well I'm stuck in a visuous cycle. I work two dead end jobs, have no degree, and I'm not happy. Yet I've been programming as a hobbyist for 25 years now since I was 10. I'm 35 now. I've never been able to get a job in it unfortunately. Yet I apply everywhere here in Miami with zero success. As most of you know, I code in C++, C, C#, VB.Net, Java, Android based Java, and VB6. My resume looks awful. Its graphically impressive but not impressive with whats written. So when I apply for programming jobs, I'm in competition with other programmers with bachelors degrees and experience. Another thing that really ticks me off is that 90 percent of the programming jobs here are web based programming mixed with SQL data base programming. Problem with that for me is, its not what I want to do. I want to make software, and that is what I'm good at. I don't wanna resort to learn Ruby on Rails, SQL scripting, CSS, HTML5, javascript, Angular JS, JQuery, with a mix of ASP.Net just to be stuck doing what I don't wanna do.

    So with no real world job experience in programming, what do you people recommend I do? I do have some college. Only 8 classes to go just to get an Associates degree, but I work so much that there is no time for me to go sadly, which is why I'm heavily looking for a job in making software. Thanks
    I have a job for you

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