cos i'm looking for advice from other programmers. fresh out of college, looking for a job ... networking with other people hasn't got me far ... applying to a lot of places online, and all i have received are 'submission confirmations'. looking at all the offerings, it seems more towards the MS technologies side than unix for a recent grad. Most of the unix jobs are sysadmins, and the programming jobs for it seem to require a lot of experience. i kinda feel right-in-the-middle, with my most recent work on unix, and past on windows. and i have also noticed speaking to people that when they look for programmers on win32, if i dont mention .NET or VB or ASP, they think I cant do any work on it. and i obviously cant back it up with my resume cos well, it shows linux and solaris ahead of win32.

a bit lost and confused now. heh.

suggestions/ideas/thoughts/experiences all welcome.

What is you major?

Have you any exposure in Java?

well, computer science masters. and java was worked on many times here.
it seems like most ppl either want a bachelors so they can pay less, or say "ph.d preffered" or desired. i would like to go for my ph.d, but not at the moment, and want to take a break from school, and work. come to think of it, i have seen very few positions requiring MS holders.
hmm.

ironically, someone (no, not me - heh) posted something similar on slashdot a while ago.

I am in much the same boat as you - actually I don't officially have the Master's degree, due to a small paperwork oversight, but I have the education. Anyway, same deal though - everyone wants people with 5+ years of experience, or (since I live in Colorado Springs) active DoD security clearance, or a statement of Christian faith, none of which I can supply

You're right, it's hard to try and give a good picture of what you can do in a 2-page resume; if I crammed all the IT-related stuff I know into my resume, it'd be a dozen pages, and even more if I include all the non-IT-related stuff I know. I think it's just a matter of being at the right place at the right time, knowing the right people, etc.

yeah, same here. i was in the same boat after my undergrad, and got a job after a year. and when i did, i didnt think i would have to go through the same thing again, ever. although i did learn what i wanted by stopping work and being a full-time student, i wonder if the degree is worth more than the paper it's on. i don't know the hiring policies, but one would think that people who do the hiring are people who themselves have these degrees and can reasonably make a good judgement about someone who bullshits and someone who knows his stuff. doesnt seem to be the case. also, i have noticed that it's the people who realllly know their stuff (i dont mean me) who seem to be in this position. the ones who mention in bold, J2EE/Struts/VB.NET and the likes, are the ones who get the jobs; while others writing about writing compilers in OCaml, kernel-level code, and the likes - "sorry , we dont think you're the right candidate"(well, now that i wrote it and read what i wrote, i see their point too.)

for some stupid reason, the syntax of the code you write seems to be more important than the ability to understand the semantics of any language. and whats with the "enterprise" buzzword anyway (i dont get it personally).

hey wapcaplet - maybe we (or anyone else interested) can do something later on eh?

What did you have in mind?

I think being in the right place at the right time definitly has a great deal to do with it. When I was in college I was messing around with a little linux program I wrote to communicate with a radio we had that could be controlled via a serial protocol. An alumni came in and saw me tuning the radio with a laptop running linux and was impressed and gave me a little part time work doing some programming for embedded linux systems and now I work full time designing embedded devices and doing some software work on them, which was exactly what I wanted to do.

I also know a lot of linux/unix people that generated a lot of interest at companies like IBM, HP, and Apple for development jobs.

lol - well, i didn't have anything in mind "right now" cos im just busy sending out my resume. heh. that's why i had used "later on".
so ... later on ...

yeah, i know that route jtshaw. in fact, i did some work like that the past semester. but you see, i'm not a citizen of this country who can spend anymore time on stuff like that.
hence, although i have some really interesting work that i can work on, i can;t because i have to spend all my time lookin for that elusive full-time job that sponsors me.
and also, that's the reason i said "later on" there.

oh well ...