From an Unrelated Career To IT/Programming? 374
An anonymous reader writes "I hate my career of the past few years. For a long time I've wondered what I'd do after I broke even and could get into something new, and I keep coming back to computers. I'd like to get into software, since I always enjoyed coding. I have some background with C++ so I'm not starting entirely from scratch. My problem is my degrees and past employment have no practical application to the field. Where should I start? I have friends in both IT and software development who might be able to pull some strings and get me an interview or two for entry-level positions, but what can I do to make myself hireable in a short period of time? Is it possible to pick up enough of what I'd need within a couple months? If so, what and how?"
no relevant background, no problem (Score:5, Funny)
"no practical application to the field"
Try management.
You could just lie and go for it. (Score:5, Funny)
Make it all up.... the worst that could happen is that you would get fired after a few months. But, believe me, there's a lot of shoddy programmers out there, so, you'd be hard pressed to do worse than some of the "pros" that are out there.
Are you sure you wanna do that? (Score:5, Funny)
Here's what you do... (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Are you sure you wanna do that? (Score:3, Funny)
Speaking as someone who's been involved in IT for 30+ years, allow me to shout at you...."You're going the wrong way!!!"
Kara Thrace, is that you?
Re:Are you sure you wanna do that? (Score:4, Funny)
Unfortunately
Re:You could just lie and go for it. (Score:3, Funny)
And hey! After you're fired, you can *still* legitimately put that time down on your resume as professional experience! It's a win either way!
Re:Be Proactive (Score:3, Funny)
> I got my foot in the door in a similar manor
Fantastic! You'll be lord of the manor in no time...
It's a troubled industry (Score:3, Funny)
To get a feel for what IT is like try the following:
Write a useful program for some open source project. Redesign and rewrite it until you are happy it's as good as can be.
Do the above in the chimpanzee enclosure at the zoo. With the chimpanzees throwing their turds at you whilst you type. Do it in half the time it takes to do it right. Spend half of your remaining time explaining how the software works to the dumbest chimpanzee, call him the PHB. Have the second dumbest chimpanzee write every third line of code for you. Once you have finished give the chimpanzees your phone number and expect them to call you every time the software they didn't let you write correctly fails.
Seriously, working in IT for a multinational isn't in any way fun. At least stick to small sane companies.