Struggling to get to an interview...

[rashm2k]

Seems like I'll need to blag certainly on my CV to get the agents attention. I can pick up stuff quickly so between applying and the interview I'll have time to prepare for the interview and can learn the language on the job.

I've also not been tailoring my cv either - which I just did now and the guy called me instantly. Maybe thats the key?

Anyway I'll see what happens from now on - mental note ALWAYS tailor CV! Thanks for your input folks.

[stek]

Most contract developers started with computers when they were young and most can tell anecdotes of things they did (none of these anecdotes can be verified).

Saying that you can 'hold your own' against programmers with lots of experience means nothing, for all I know it just means you have never realised how out of your depth you are or that you work with senior programmers who are very gentle with you (not saying that this is the case and I cannot verify otherwise).

Saying you have written an app which is quite complicated means nothing, your opinion of quite complicated might be vastly different to mine.

Therefore once we get down to verifiable facts - you have less experience than most of your competitors and hence agents are less likely to put your forward as they know clients are more likely to chose someone more experienced.



These are not really niches. Could you specialise within them (or at least blag it)? For example I thinking of something like this level of detail "4 years of experience writing low level, fast throughput data plugins for investment banks in C++".

If a client wants someone doing that then you might have more experience, at 4 years, than other people despite having less experience overall and this *might* be enough to get you in.

Until the usual "Must have Banking experience..."

[TheFaQQer]

Having a similar issue here, my current role I've done quite a bit of collateral management in finance, but can't seem to get an interview. Got a call from one agency but the pricks just wanted references really. Gave them only a name, no number.

I've even tweaked my CV to be better and added the table at the top listing my skills, but to no avail.

Care to swap CV's to take a look at? I'm also trying the Java space too - but about 3 years experience (but I'm good at what I do!)

Three years of Java experience is unlikely to be enough to get a contract, unless you cut your rate to such a ridiculous level that you can compete with the off-shore resources. One of the reasons that Oracle have moved a lot of development away from PL/SQL for Fusion is because Indian Universities can churn out Java developers who work for peanuts compared to what an on-shore PL/SQL developer would charge.

The only real exception I can think of is that within those three years you have done something which is pretty spectacular or has niche skills that clients are looking for that only you can provide.

[TheFaQQer]

I could bump it up to 4 years, as thats how long i've been out of Uni, I just need to get to the interview stage, once I'm there I generally have plenty of experiences that show I bring something unique to the game.

What if I lowered my rate? I mean I must be able to get something at £300 per day in the north west?

Sounds like the CV needs rewording - if you have the experience but can't get an interview, then there is something wrong with the CV.

What the agent and the client are looking for is a clear example of what you have done in a business environment that meets the skills that they are looking for. Being able to explain how you knocked up something in your spare time or at university isn't interesting enough - unless that's the skill that they are looking for and they can't find anyone with real-world experience.

I've seen roles advertised below £300 for experienced developers in the north-west, but it depends on what your skills really are (I skip over those, to be honest) - you may need to go even lower to try and entice someone to take a risk on you.

[TheFaQQer]

Generally I'm able to hold my own even against programmers with lots of experience (I've been messing with computers since I was 14 - started with x86 assembly!).

If you're four years out of university, then you're around 24/25. So even if you take the "playing with computers since I was 14" as experience, that gets you to ten years in total.

More recently I've built my own (quite complicated) mobile app with Qt on the N9/Blackberry 10, to show I didn't just 'fall into' programmer mode, but what I always wanted to do.

Agents really don't care whether this is what you've always wanted to do. Nor do clients. That kind of attitude may be important if you are looking at permanent employment ("oh, I've always wanted to be a C# developer at Acme Co since I was a little boy...") but for a contract, all they want to know is whether you can do the job, do it well, do it on time, and are cheap enough to meet the budget.

Collateral management, Risk Management and Middle Office stuff would be my main niche skill set and maybe Tableau too.

Is that a niche?

[SueEllen]

Generally I'm able to hold my own even against programmers with lots of experience (I've been messing with computers since I was 14 - started with x86 assembly!).

Agents, while generally thick, can work out whether you are their age or not and I'm afraid a lot of the people who first shift through CVs are your age. They can work out your age from when you did your degree and your work experience.

Clients' while interested in your computer skills like to know you have a life outside computing. So have a hobby or two you can talk about preferably one not to do with computers. (Any form of exercise is always a good one.)

More recently I've built my own (quite complicated) mobile app with Qt on the N9/Blackberry 10, to show I didn't just 'fall into' programmer mode, but what I always wanted to do.

Get your app on android (or IOS if you can be bothered to go through the procedure), ask all your mates to download it and ask a few of them to give feedback that is good and average, put it on your CV and you will more likely get a contract.

Make sure you know the relevant language rather than just using a converter. (And there are no major bugs.)

I'm just not sure how I can get this across to the client, once I'm at the interview I'll be OK.

Agents tend to get to put 3 CVs across for each role (at a time). Some or all of the people will be interviewed.

How CVs are shifted depends on the firm but in a lot of firms there is someone technical who finally shifts through CVs. If this person decides that the client doesn't need someone young to make up their "diversity" then you won't get an interview. (And yes I've done the shifting and yes I am really female.)

Collateral management, Risk Management and Middle Office stuff would be my main niche skill set and maybe Tableau too.

Unless your CV shows that this is also with a niche technology you are fighting against older people who are more experienced.

Lots of companies have outsourced projects over the last 10 years and found the quality wanting so even if the agent puts you forward the technical shifter (if it gets that far) will bin your CV due to "lack of experience". I am aware not all experience is equal as I've worked for some firms where you learn and do a lot in 3 months, and others you do SFA in a year due to the company culture, but when a permie shifts your CV they do it on the company culture.

Personally I would suggest that you get a permanent job, whether it's here or abroad, where you can learn a few skills, bag some training and get promoted to a more senior level then go contracting.

[doodab]

Generally I'm able to hold my own even against programmers with lots of experience (I've been messing with computers since I was 14 - started with x86 assembly!). More recently I've built my own (quite complicated) mobile app with Qt on the N9/Blackberry 10, to show I didn't just 'fall into' programmer mode, but what I always wanted to do.

I'm just not sure how I can get this across to the client, once I'm at the interview I'll be OK.

Collateral management, Risk Management and Middle Office stuff would be my main niche skill set and maybe Tableau too.

TBH as someone who does a fair bit of CV sifting and interviewing of Java programmers I wouldn't touch someone 4 years out of uni as a contractor unless they had a very solid academic record (desmond or a first in comp sci) and had walked into a good programming job and spent most or all of that time working with the specific technologies I was looking for + JEE, spring and other every day tools of the trade. I doubt an agency would even put them through in the first place TBH, unless we were seeking a particularly hard to find niche skill.

Having said that I got my first contract at the age of 23 with about 18 months experience under my belt. The fact I knew C and SQL and had used both commercially, Java (though it hadn't caught on as a commercial language then, this was before JEE came along), and had the hard to find the skills for niche product they were looking for got me the interview. The fact I got lucky with some really good old school IT guys who were willing to give me a break got me the job. I got offered a lower rate than they were willing to pay for an experienced guy, but still more than I asked for (and more than £300 as well!). I was there 4 years in the end (this was before IR35 as well so none of that to worry about), and I have those guys to thank for helping me learn my craft.

That was a long time ago though, and in general I'd say hiring managers are much less willing to take a risk than that.

[raphal]

Indian Universities can churn out Java developers who work for peanuts compared to what an on-shore PL/SQL developer would charge.

I read somewhere that the Indian company tcs are hiring 55K this fiscal. Can't imagine that happening here even if all uk registered companies are considered.

[SpontaneousOrder]

Generally I'm able to hold my own even against programmers with lots of experience (I've been messing with computers since I was 14 - started with x86 assembly!). More recently I've built my own (quite complicated) mobile app with Qt on the N9/Blackberry 10, to show I didn't just 'fall into' programmer mode, but what I always wanted to do.

I'm just not sure how I can get this across to the client, once I'm at the interview I'll be OK.

Collateral management, Risk Management and Middle Office stuff would be my main niche skill set and maybe Tableau too.

Are we asking about finding an 'enterprise' Java gig (as opposed to desktop or apps)?

Without having a quick look-up, i.e. answering right now -

If I asked you about SOLID principles would you be able to explain all 5 confidently?
Do you have experience integrating systems? (JMS, RESTful/SOAP interfaces etc)?
Do you understand the difference between TDD and test-first development? BDD? Are you fluent in developing that way?
Could you talk confidently about different design patterns?
Any 'Agile' experience? Could you tell me the difference between 'Scrum' & 'Agile'?
Multithreading?
Frameworks? (might sound daft but current clientCo have hand-rolled EVERYTHING. A fresh graduate would, after 4 years, have never touched any standard IoC/ORM/AOP/JMS/MVC frameworks or standards)
Experience working on projects contributed to by multiple teams concurrently?

[rashm2k]

Are we asking about finding an 'enterprise' Java gig (as opposed to desktop or apps)?

Without having a quick look-up, i.e. answering right now -

If I asked you about SOLID principles would you be able to explain all 5 confidently?
Do you have experience integrating systems? (JMS, RESTful/SOAP interfaces etc)?
Do you understand the difference between TDD and test-first development? BDD? Are you fluent in developing that way?
Could you talk confidently about different design patterns?
Any 'Agile' experience? Could you tell me the difference between 'Scrum' & 'Agile'?
Multithreading?
Frameworks? (might sound daft but current clientCo have hand-rolled EVERYTHING. A fresh graduate would, after 4 years, have never touched any standard IoC/ORM/AOP/JMS/MVC frameworks or standards)
Experience working on projects contributed to by multiple teams concurrently?

JMS - Some experience (current co uses sonic MQ), REST/SOAP hell yes! Why isn't everybody using these? At current co integrated with their REST/WSDL interface to pull data. On my personal projects interacted with 1 simple REST service for mobile app a, for the second more complex one used the WSDL file to generate proxy objects, xml databinding objects in Apache Axis2C/WSF WSO2 (and also hand rolled my own scratchbox cross compilation toolkit for this purpose), so I'm heavily PRO REST!

TDD vs BDD - no not really - guess thats a weak point.

Design patterns - most probably yes, singleton pattern, broker/worker etc are patterns I have used. But appreciate my understanding is a little weak.

Agile - yes did agile at previous co and current co too, agile is to do with the way you do things and scrum is how you do them?

Multithreading - yes, current co and previous co too.

IoC - have been looking at spring, and built a spring proof of concept with apache and single sign on (windows), ORM - yes used hibernate and nhibernate, AOP - no. MVC -yes, my app built with QML uses this heavily, current co uses it, previous did too, but MVC is a natural design pattern becoming even more apparent and used - all the new funky JS libraries work on this principle, i.e. rather than using JSP to do the heavy lifting and then JS to fill in the gaps, JS does all the heavy lifting on the client machine, that way the server is a just a bunch of web services, and the client can be a mobile website, a mobile app etc. So rather than designing for html first and then tacking on web services (like many many companies used to do), design for web services first!

Yes - do have experience of projects with many teams, that what CI (and now Continuous deployment), is there to help.

As a developer though I have realised for quite some time now; design patterns and IoC (mainly spring for me) are the skills that are important, the language doesn't matter. Which I've been trying to fill by reading the books and doing the examples. I did have a weakness that I'd never done any C/C++ but quickly fixed that with my mobile app which uses Qt/C++, QML & Javascript - I had to worry about the linked libraries, rpath set up, header file dependency etc, so it wasn't a trivial exercise.