How to get into I.T

[Dupont666]

XJSJohn said:

Arklight said:

Something that may be useful if your determined to go into IT and starting on the helpdesk side is your ITIL foundation certification, all procedural stuff etc and you could easily get it done in a week or so. its one of those "in" things.

If your well organised etc why not also look at project management, you can do your full prince2 for under a grand or so.

Both wise suggestions.

would also suggest to anyone starting out in the UK to look at PMI

http://www.pmi.org/Pages/default.aspx

If you are likely to look at working outside UK / Europe they generally dont have a clue about Prince and its all PMI. Buggered me up for a while.

Where abouts are the prices on that site other than $129 to join to become acreditted?

[XJSJohn]

if you look about there are various online courses for "personal improvement".

plus plenty of PMI approved courses to be had worldwide.

[SLacKer]

cs02rm0 said:

SLacKer said:

cs02rm0 said:

SLacKer said:

you will need a databbase for these so choose ORACLE not MySQL

Why?

Because MySQL is a subset of a production database like ORACLE. If you know ORACLE you know MySQL but not the other way around. Don't get me wrong MySQL has its place for forums etc. but in a commercial marketplace stick with ORACLE.

Fair enough. I'd rather have someone who was aware of which features they were using were available on other databases, or not, than someone blindly subjecting themselves and their projects to vendor lock-in because of market share. MySQL isn't a 'My first Oracle'. I'd favour people who've used both, amongst others.

Why is it that you only see typos after they have been quoted

My point is that in an interview situation you need to be able to say I have used ORACLE, SYBASE or SQL Server and also MySQL. So if you are the worlds most knowledgeable MySQL expert but need a job download the free versions of the others and get cracking on understanding them as well. Of course if you are after a role say for a web product then MySQl may well be the skill of choice.

As for vendor lock in well unless you stick to standard SQL you start to get locked in - once you have written some PL/SQL or TSQL you start to get locked in. Depends how many lines of code that are needed but you could make your system vendor none specific by not taking advantage of any of the advanced features but that would be a shame.

[SLacKer]

Dupont666 said:

SLacKer said:

cs02rm0 said:

SLacKer said:

you will need a databbase for these so choose ORACLE not MySQL

Why?

Because MySQL is a subset of a production database like ORACLE. If you know ORACLE you know MySQL but not the other way around. Don't get me wrong MySQL has its place for forums etc. but in a commercial marketplace stick with ORACLE.

Can you get away with Sybase?

You have explained exactly what I have been up to for the past 6 months, designing and building systems (recruitment) for friends on the free to just keep the mind occupied using a mixture of languages from JAVA, C# and other Java derivaties.... Im also building a wiki and creating a plugin for firefox for an online game I play so i can cheat and manipulate it

Make sure you put it on your CV as well don't be shy and be prepared to demonstrate these in the interview. It is the right approach for sure - as an employer I am more impressed by what someone did whilst they were out of work than what someone did 3 years ago as part of a large team. Of course you need to get the interview first which in the current climate is not as easy as all that.

[cs02rm0]

SLacKer said:

As for vendor lock in well unless you stick to standard SQL you start to get locked in - once you have written some PL/SQL or TSQL you start to get locked in. Depends how many lines of code that are needed but you could make your system vendor none specific by not taking advantage of any of the advanced features but that would be a shame.

Granted, but at least if you're aware that PL/SQL isn't necessarily easy (at this point in time) to port to another database vendor then you're making an informed decision. Then you can take steps to limit the damage and ring-fence the vendor-specific code so you don't have to look too far if it comes to porting your application to another vendor's database.

[Dupont666]

SLacKer said:

Dupont666 said:

SLacKer said:

cs02rm0 said:

SLacKer said:

you will need a databbase for these so choose ORACLE not MySQL

Why?

Because MySQL is a subset of a production database like ORACLE. If you know ORACLE you know MySQL but not the other way around. Don't get me wrong MySQL has its place for forums etc. but in a commercial marketplace stick with ORACLE.

Can you get away with Sybase?

You have explained exactly what I have been up to for the past 6 months, designing and building systems (recruitment) for friends on the free to just keep the mind occupied using a mixture of languages from JAVA, C# and other Java derivaties.... Im also building a wiki and creating a plugin for firefox for an online game I play so i can cheat and manipulate it

Make sure you put it on your CV as well don't be shy and be prepared to demonstrate these in the interview. It is the right approach for sure - as an employer I am more impressed by what someone did whilst they were out of work than what someone did 3 years ago as part of a large team. Of course you need to get the interview first which in the current climate is not as easy as all that.

Got the interview....

see here:

http://pistonheads.co.uk/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&amp...

well actually its 2nd round but my agent couldnt get the CEO yesterday due to heavy work load (CEO side).