IT job advice???

[toobin]

Not sure if this is the best forum for this thread but here goes anyway.

I have not long started an pt (2Year) MSc in Software engineering with the aim of changing from education to the IT industry.

Although it is early in the day I have a keen eye on the future and would like to start looking for entry level jobs in the industry.

Having worked a little in recruitment before I know that agencies will steer away from me and focus more on the experienced hire.

In short when should I start looking to change industry and where should I look?

Thanks for looking.

Toobin

[dern]

toobin said:

Having worked a little in recruitment before I know that agencies will steer away from me and focus more on the experienced hire.

While that's true for a lot of jobs many places (such as IBM) will hire a large number of inexperienced people in my experience. You need to keep an eye out for graduate fairs and things like that.

It might even be worth pursuing this now if you know the areas you are going to be studying because you can then approach a company with a graduate scheme and maybe even get some sponsorship which although ties you to one place to a degree it gives you less to worry about come exam time I imagine.

Edited by dern on Wednesday 25th October 10:47

[puggit]

Have you any work experience? Sandwich year or holiday work? That would really help...

[toobin]

puggit said:

Have you any work experience? Sandwich year or holiday work? That would really help...

I have worked in education for 5 years and IT recruitment for around 2.

All my experience is mainly managerial but none of it is technical. This is all pretty new to me.

[WTFH]

Graduate fairs are good, and also consider contacting the "Big 5" as they used to be, but I think there's only 4 of them now...
PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, Ernst & Young and KPMG.

To them, if you can log in to Windows, you're a developer... (trust me, I've had to clean up code written by some of their geniuses...)

[jago]

the banks and the consultancies in the city generally recruit all year around. apply on line is the usual way for starter jobs. A few names to look at perhaps in no particular order: jpmorgan.com,gs.com,ml.com (banks) accenture.com,eds.com (consultancies)... no harm in starting to looking now. lots of others out there obv, but they might give you a flavour.

[V8 EOL]

Where are you based? If you are not already, I would concider re-locating (or commuting) to Central London, Cambridge or the Thames Valley. You are much more likely to secure a decent technical based job in those 3 places than anywhere else.

I would also steer clear of the big corporates. If you want to be challenged, feel part of something and get mentored you are much better off in a small company. Usually a STBF means you can quickly build up a network of contacts, get your hands on the full life cycle of development and potentially create something from scratch.

There are 100's about, look in the local papers and do some networking & cold calling. One door will open, I promise you. You could do worse than starting here: Cambridge Network.

[toobin]

Thanks peeps

Plenty to get my teeth into there.

I'll keep you posted on my success

[ATG]

There are several firms that specialise in providing IT to the education sector and there is quite a bit of money being kicked around from central government at the moment. Might be a way of making your previous experience relevant to your new employer.

[big_treacle]

You could try getting in touch with some local tech firms & pimping your skills out while you're learning. The company I'm contracting for right now had a phd student make some test applications for them - he had no previous software experience & doing a phd in a non-software specific area. But he was a quick learner & able to produce what they wanted for free as he wanted the experience. 2 months later & they've now taken him on fulltime as a developer doing managed c++ on windows. Any work you can do for a business has to look good when you finally look for a job. Also, I think many companies will be interested in inexperienced people who they can train up as they are cheap compared to us experienced types.

[edc]

How about considering an initial step as an IT trainer or similar to utilise as much of your experience as possible?

[bga]

WTFH said:

Graduate fairs are good, and also consider contacting the "Big 5" as they used to be, but I think there's only 4 of them now...
PricewaterhouseCoopers, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, Ernst & Young and KPMG.

To them, if you can log in to Windows, you're a developer... (trust me, I've had to clean up code written by some of their geniuses...)

You won't get much joy out of them if it's for a developer role (unless it's non-client facing)

PwC & KPMG farmed off their consultancy arms & the consulting work they now do is generally non-technical outside of ERP. Nowadays their tech resources are generally from India as they operate a bit differently in those territories.

Deloitte is also focussing on the ERP & CRM markets & E&Y sold their tech capability to Cap Gemini.

They do lots of interesting stuff, but the techie stuff is now mainly around risk management & security.