Getting That FIRST CONTRACT

[Xenophon]

Eventually.....maybe one day it will lead to becoming a Business Objects Consultant.

Aim higher.

[iib900316a]

LOL ,

I was thinking of putting down Business Intelligence Consultant, but I thought i'd leave that for another time.



Imran.

[iib900316a]

OK, Maybe i'm asking the wrong questions.

What was your first contract and what was it doing?

Was it a good experience?

thanks,

Imran.

[malvolio]

It's not IT because all you're doing is building something limited on someone else's data.

Real IT is about either application development (all of it, not just coding) or Service Management (which they don't even understand at Uni/College). Even the glory boys in web development are actually still doing applications, but with a much prettier face (the results, not the developers, that is, although I know a couple of exceptions..) Locking yourself into any specialisation that is not core IT when you don't yet understand what IT is about may look easy but it isn't and it's not going to pay the mortgage in five year's time.
You want to be contractor, learn the basics, or you'll either get eaten or left behind. Graduate training might look like more college grind, but it will teach you the basic skills that, no matter how good your degree, you just haven't got.

[iib900316a]

Hmm, interesting... thanks mal. Looks like I will have to reconsider my options.

Thanks,

Imran.

[Lucifer Box]

BO will be dead and buried and everyone will be onto "the next thing" by the time you have a few years' experience under your belt. Don't specialise too early. A broad suite of general skills will serve you better in your first couple of years (at least).

Anyways, wasn't Arkwright looking for someone to do some Crystal reports for him?

[iib900316a]

Thanks all,

It makes things much clearer for me.

I feel alot more confident now

LOL

By the way, who is Arkwright?

...is there a way I can search him?

Thanks again,

Imran.

[Lucifer Box]

By the way, who is Arkwright?

The board's resident shopkeeper, MarillionFan. Now I think about it, I recall his Crystal reports requirement was shoved up his last client's arse, but if you're in the market for some furniture he can probably sort you out.

[thunderlizard]

Imran, I reckon you're on track. I started contracting mid-Uni doing something similar to Crystal Reports writing, have never been perm and am doing tolerably well. In contracting it's pretty easy to move from, say, report writing to development to architecture because you move between projects so quickly. Anyway what'll probably happen (as you seem to have sussed) is you'll get fed up of Crystal reports writing after a couple of years.

Let the hobby-horse people witter on about "proper IT". Stick to giving the customers what they want and you'll be first to the decent projects.

One thing I would say is that if you ever want to go into management it's very hard to do that purely by contracting, so it might be worth putting in about 5 years perm first in that case.

[malvolio]

Oh right, so that's what I've been doing wrong for the last 35 years.

It's seems it's easy really - the job will be there, just take it and skip on to something completely different when you get bored. But if I have to say if I really wanted to get into serious development work and database architecture, I personally wouldn't want to start with a bitsa semi-4GL report writing tool as my core expertise. But clearly I'm wrong. I really thought I understood what IT was all about. Obviously not.

What a pillock.