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Switching career focus
PolarBear
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hiyas
I was laid off from my job on Monday. I graduated in 05 with a BS in Computer Science - with a Software Engineering concentration. I got a job with my company (Government Contractor) in January 06 and worked there for 5.5 years. All that time I was really doing System Integration type stuff. I did the design/planning, prototyping, installing, configuring, etc for all the commercial products that were used on the system.
Problem is - now I want to get back into a more programming / software oriented role. While I enjoyed what I was doing I was never really appreciated / recognized for the work while all the people working on the coding/db/testing got all the recognition, bigger raises, and congrats. What can I do to go about that? I see a lot of job postings for Senior Software Engineers where they want 5 years of experience. I have 5 years of experience but not all in programming. I did some scripting here and there, a bit of testing with junit on someone elses code after they left the company, and I've lately been getting into Android development on my own. I have of course built up all the "soft skills" being on big software projects, but is that plus what I have enough? Should I go for something requiring less experience?
Basically I'm freaking out on if I would have to drop back down to new grad pay to get back on track or if I can expect to go for a higher job title. Also, any tips for representing that on my resume? Part of my layoff included a career transition service but I won't get to meet with them until next week and I've got a close friend in HR that is asking for my resume right now for a company that I'm interested in.
I was laid off from my job on Monday. I graduated in 05 with a BS in Computer Science - with a Software Engineering concentration. I got a job with my company (Government Contractor) in January 06 and worked there for 5.5 years. All that time I was really doing System Integration type stuff. I did the design/planning, prototyping, installing, configuring, etc for all the commercial products that were used on the system.
Problem is - now I want to get back into a more programming / software oriented role. While I enjoyed what I was doing I was never really appreciated / recognized for the work while all the people working on the coding/db/testing got all the recognition, bigger raises, and congrats. What can I do to go about that? I see a lot of job postings for Senior Software Engineers where they want 5 years of experience. I have 5 years of experience but not all in programming. I did some scripting here and there, a bit of testing with junit on someone elses code after they left the company, and I've lately been getting into Android development on my own. I have of course built up all the "soft skills" being on big software projects, but is that plus what I have enough? Should I go for something requiring less experience?
Basically I'm freaking out on if I would have to drop back down to new grad pay to get back on track or if I can expect to go for a higher job title. Also, any tips for representing that on my resume? Part of my layoff included a career transition service but I won't get to meet with them until next week and I've got a close friend in HR that is asking for my resume right now for a company that I'm interested in.
PolarBear on
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A. you won't get a call back
B. You'll interview then they'll tell you some of your weaknesses
C. You'll get the job
Having that sort of varied experience would be helpful, I imagine, as I notice way too many Senior software people who just want to make their own version of something instead of assessing build vs. buy. You've done all that, and can probably bring a level of effort evaluation of that buy vs. build question and spot possible maintenance bugaboos in the process.
If you can do that, go ahead and claim your experience. Most of those requirements are just bullshit to filter out new grads anyways.
I'm not bitter...
I got the notice for my Career Transition service Friday while I was at the gym, so I'm going to call and try and get into the thing they have setup for next week and try to get my resume etc in top form.