What can I do to prepare for an entry-level programming job?
For experience, you might look into some internships, if you can swing them, while you are looking for a job. There are paid internships out there – anything to give you some experience. This will also help you figure out what kind of environment you want to work in. From what I’ve seen, a good intern is worth more then a crappy regular employee with years of experience. It’s all about showing people what you can do in those situations – if you perform like a star, they’ll hire you. Despite what people say, at least in Washington DC, it’s VERY hard to find really good candidates at any level. At least that’s my experience. I see a ton of resumes for software development jobs (I’m a manager) – make sure your resume is PERFECT. Have somebody else look at it. Write a cover letter that makes you sound like a human being who is *really* interested in the job you for which you are applying. Don’t copy one out of a book, and don’t do the mass-emailing thing to every job on Monster. Those coup
mischief++ I’m a self-taught programmer. I probably couldn’t squeeze every last bit of byte-level performance out of my code, but my company (an advertising firm) is interested in solving business problems through technology, not optimizing performance. I’m good at mapping real-world processes to software, which I’ve found to be a much more valuable skill than raw programming talent, because it can map to almost any language. I don’t think the converse is necessarily true. When I hire, I also value practical problem-solving over raw knowledge. I can teach someone SQL, but teaching someone how to think constructively about problem solving is a long, arduous process. Of course, throw all this advice out the window if your goal is to work for a pure software company. Oh, and don’t work anywhere where you’re the sole programmer. You’re just out of school, and you need mentoring.
