Thread: What's the best way to look for a job?

Think outside of the box... After I graduated I looked forever applying to every tech job on every website, newspaper...even walked into offices on every floor of 2 buildings in downtown asking if they were hiring computer support, then I thought maybe be a file clerk in a small office that didn't have a tech, I could wear 2 hats, get some experience...
Finally I just started sending resumes to companies like Alarm Installers, the cable company, any job that needed some kind of technical background. One of them was for a Solar electric distributor looking for a general tech like handyman with basic knowledge of DC power, electric, networking, wiring, etc.... I sent my resume and the owner noticed my skills from the Navy and Computer Tech school fit the bill just right. So he hired me and my first couple weeks I installed the security camera system, but also hung around the Photovoltaics guys a while and realized "Holy shit, I know Ohms Law and thats all they are using to figure out PV system sizing, soon I was fitting right in and around the second month one of the guys decided he wanted to look for greener grass and next thing I know I go from a general techy-man doing odd jobs for $10 an hr to $18 an hr as a full fledged PV Sales/Consultant with my own desk, computer, nice comfy leather chair, business cards everything....

An internship isn't a terrible thing if a good one comes your way. I did an internship at IBM as a Systems Administrator and gained a ton of experience from it - it actually resulted in a job offer as well, though I didn't accept that one.

What is your primary area of interest in IT? It's a pretty broad field as I'm sure you know.

Honestly, I'm not sure. I do like to build computers, but I have a fairly large basic skill set beyond that. I don't always want to be a tech cause that salary caps out at about 50k. I don't like programming at all, I do know that much. I have this listed as my skill set on my resume.


Past experience covers:

1. Operating system experience in Windows 7, Vista, XP, Mint 9, Ubuntu 9.04-10.10 and Ubuntu Server.

2. Hardware configuration, installation, de-installation, moves, adds and changes and troubleshooting broken hardware.

3. Customer service.

4. Building computers from scratch.

5. Changing and upgrading PC operating systems.

6. Microsoft Office Suite experience.

7. Trouble shooting Internet connections and software malfunctions.

8. Security updates and removal of viruses on business and personal computers.

9. Experience dealing with basic server tasks, such as FTP and SSH protocol etc.

10. I have experience installing, duel booting and removing Linux/Windows operating systems.

11. I have terminal experience with Ubuntu and basic Ubuntu Server terminal knowledge.

12. I have experience with imaging .ISOs for backing up a system, and ghost imaging.

13. I have basic experience creating web-sites.

14. Experience setting up Linux and Microsoft systems in a virtual box machine.

Originally Posted by ihateschoolmt

Honestly, I'm not sure. I do like to build computers, but I have a fairly large basic skill set beyond that. I don't always want to be a tech cause that salary caps out at about 50k. I don't like programming at all, I do know that much. I have this listed as my skill set on my resume.


Past experience covers:

1. Operating system experience in Windows 7, Vista, XP, Mint 9, Ubuntu 9.04-10.10 and Ubuntu Server.

2. Hardware configuration, installation, de-installation, moves, adds and changes and troubleshooting broken hardware.

3. Customer service.

4. Building computers from scratch.

5. Changing and upgrading PC operating systems.

6. Microsoft Office Suite experience.

7. Trouble shooting Internet connections and software malfunctions.

8. Security updates and removal of viruses on business and personal computers.

9. Experience dealing with basic server tasks, such as FTP and SSH protocol etc.

10. I have experience installing, duel booting and removing Linux/Windows operating systems.

11. I have terminal experience with Ubuntu and basic Ubuntu Server terminal knowledge.

12. I have experience with imaging .ISOs for backing up a system, and ghost imaging.

13. I have basic experience creating web-sites.

14. Experience setting up Linux and Microsoft systems in a virtual box machine.

honestly post your resume. exactly how it looks minus your name, address, phone. let us see what it looks like so we can give you pointers. you may have good quals, but if your resume looks like shit it doesn't set you apart as someone to call in for an interview

Alright. Answer me a few questions - these are real interview questions that I ask people interviewing for positions that are exactly what you're looking for (I transitioned out of it a month ago). I'd recommend not using the internet to look up these answers if you don't know as you're only cheating yourself.

1. I can't get to Google. My computer's OS is in perfect working order and has a good physical connection. What might be wrong?

2. What's a pagefile or swap partition and what is it used for?

3. What's the difference between Active and Passive FTP?

4. What are the some of the benefits of a 64 bit environment versus a 32bit environment? Are there any cons?

5. How did you SSH into your server (password/certificates)? What's the benefit to each of them?

These are all questions that I would probably ask you (amongst others) had you interviewed at the company I work for. Assuming you can answer stuff like that, there's no reason you wouldn't be able to get a good position out the door.

Originally Posted by danzik17

Alright. Answer me a few questions - these are real interview questions that I ask people interviewing for positions that are exactly what you're looking for (I transitioned out of it a month ago). I'd recommend not using the internet to look up these answers if you don't know as you're only cheating yourself.

1. I can't get to Google. My computer's OS is in perfect working order and has a good physical connection. What might be wrong?

2. What's a pagefile or swap partition and what is it used for?

3. What's the difference between Active and Passive FTP?

4. What are the some of the benefits of a 64 bit environment versus a 32bit environment? Are there any cons?

5. How did you SSH into your server (password/certificates)? What's the benefit to each of them?

These are all questions that I would probably ask you (amongst others) had you interviewed at the company I work for. Assuming you can answer stuff like that, there's no reason you wouldn't be able to get a good position out the door.

1. I assume you mean can't get to the internet all together? Sometimes antivirus programs put up conflicting firewalls, sometimes avast will keep people from getting online in XP if one of the shields is on. I would check that, and if that all seemed good, I would check to see if "work offline" was enabled in the browser. Would try to ping the loop-back address and then outside the network. If it was a linux machine I would do sudo dhclient eth and see if it reset. Plenty of over little things to try but there's a few.

2. A swap partition is like RAM kind of, I should know I better answer to that honestly. I think it's memory on the harddrive the OS uses when RAM is low?

3. Fail, I know I was taught this in school but I really need to brush up FTP and SSH and just terminal in general.

4. 64 bit is larger and more uses more system resources to run, about 4 gigs of RAM for a 64 bit is needed. But the pro is that it processes faster if your computer can support the extra requirements.

5. When I did SSH it was from a ubuntu server into a ubutnu workstation. I just had to use the superuser name and password for that workstation. I don't think I ever did anything with a certificate, and my experience is pretty minimal in SSH, but the password just keeps any random guy from SSHing into the computer.

Man maybe I should stick to building computers, I'm good at that. But that was hard haha.

Originally Posted by bio-chem

honestly post your resume. exactly how it looks minus your name, address, phone. let us see what it looks like so we can give you pointers. you may have good quals, but if your resume looks like shit it doesn't set you apart as someone to call in for an interview

"Objective
To obtain a challenging position in the Information Technology field with the possibility of career advancement in this company.

Summary of Skills

Skills include developing Information Technology projects and networks infrastructures. Past experience covers:

1. Operating system experience in Windows 7, Vista, XP, Mint 9, Ubuntu 9.04-10.10 and Ubuntu Server.

2. Hardware configuration, installation, de-installation, moves, adds and changes and troubleshooting broken hardware.

3. Customer service.

4. Building computers from scratch.

5. Changing and upgrading PC operating systems.

6. Microsoft Office Suite experience.

7. Trouble shooting Internet connections and software malfunctions.

8. Security updates and removal of viruses on business and personal computers.

9. Experience dealing with basic server tasks, such as FTP and SSH protocol etc.

10. I have experience installing, duel booting and removing Linux/Windows operating systems.

11. I have terminal experience with Ubuntu and basic Ubuntu Server terminal knowledge.

12. I have experience with imaging .ISOs for backing up a system, and ghost imaging.

13. I have basic experience creating web-sites.

14. Experience setting up Linux and Microsoft systems in a virtual box machine.


Education

AAS Degree from GTCC Jamestown campus in Computer Information Technology. 3.5 GPA, and 3.7 GPA in computer related classes.


Experience and Significant Achievements

Owner of “Computer Doctor” business. I have been running it for about a year. My job duties at Computer Doctor include everything listed in the skills section of my resume, I have done work on business and home PCs. I have a wide variety of basic level experience, along with the actual technical skills, running my business has taught me to fix things with no outside help. It has helped me learn to be resourceful. I consider myself a leader and very self motivated which is why I started my own business. However I am ready to get a steady full time job so I don’t have to worry about finding work.

References

Name Phone years known Job Relationship"

there are 3 references but obviously not going to post that one here. I probably could use a lot of work on this resume, because I didn't know what I was doing, so go easy on me. Oh and it's formatted to look nice but it didn't copy over quite the same.

Originally Posted by ihateschoolmt

1. I assume you mean can't get to the internet all together? Sometimes antivirus programs put up conflicting firewalls, sometimes avast will keep people from getting online in XP if one of the shields is on. I would check that, and if that all seemed good, I would check to see if "work offline" was enabled in the browser. Would try to ping the loop-back address and then outside the network. If it was a linux machine I would do sudo dhclient eth and see if it reset. Plenty of over little things to try but there's a few.

2. A swap partition is like RAM kind of, I should know I better answer to that honestly. I think it's memory on the harddrive the OS uses when RAM is low?

3. Fail, I know I was taught this in school but I really need to brush up FTP and SSH and just terminal in general.

4. 64 bit is larger and more uses more system resources to run, about 4 gigs of RAM for a 64 bit is needed. But the pro is that it processes faster if your computer can support the extra requirements.

5. When I did SSH it was from a ubuntu server into a ubutnu workstation. I just had to use the superuser name and password for that workstation. I don't think I ever did anything with a certificate, and my experience is pretty minimal in SSH, but the password just keeps any random guy from SSHing into the computer.

Man maybe I should stick to building computers, I'm good at that. But that was hard haha.

Only the top 2 questions I asked were relevant to stuff you actually would have been doing in my position.

I have a habit on grilling people on whatever they put on their resume regardless of it it's applicable or not to determine whether or not they're trying to bullshit. A perfect example was the person who was a Teaching Assistance in a Java Development course, but couldn't explain to me what the benefits of encapsulation were (don't worry, you won't know this since you don't program and I wouldn't have asked it).

One of the points I was trying to make was that (I think) an experience level should be given for the overall sets of knowledge. You just need to be honest because if you get an interviewer that knows something about everything, it's going to be hard to BS your way through that.

I need some sleep so I'll look over the resume in the morning (or afternoon, I sleep a lot )

Can you post it as a PDF and share it via DropBox/SkyDrive/whatever?

It definitely needs some grammar and formatting love.

Originally Posted by danzik17

Only the top 2 questions I asked were relevant to stuff you actually would have been doing in my position.

One of the points I was trying to make was that (I think) an experience level should be given for the overall sets of knowledge. You just need to be honest because if you get an interviewer that knows something about everything, it's going to be hard to BS your way through that.

Ya, I've heard that before. I tried to put basic knowledge next to the stuff I know only a little about. I actually tried to be pretty honest, maybe I should arrange my skills advanced, average, and basic knowledge on my resume.

Originally Posted by danzik17

I need some sleep so I'll look over the resume in the morning (or afternoon, I sleep a lot )

Can you post it as a PDF and share it via DropBox/SkyDrive/whatever?

It definitely needs some grammar and formatting love.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/26390694/resumeedit.doc

You're a recent grad, but only have a one liner dealing with your education. Since you have limited experience, you're primarily selling your education - you need to put more of a focus on that for your first job such as as a few of your top IT related classes, skills, projects you headed up.

Your skills are kind of unorganized and seem to be in a random order. I'd try to group this into related skills. You should also never use the words "I have experience" in that section. This is your resume, of course you're the one with experience (or should be).

For the side business you run, you need to just list that in an experience section and make a bullet pointed list. Each point should be a sentence or so about your responsibilities for that job. A hiring manager needs to be able to quickly skim your resume and get what you're all about - a paragraph won't do that.

Does your college have an office of careers and advancement? If it does, take advantage of it and have them give you resume tips - that's what I did (spend days working on mine to get it right).

Thanks man, I'll work on it tomorrow or later tonight and repost.

For reference, here's my resume as it was when I was submitting it straight out of college. Some info was redacted obviously.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9369507/Resume.20080218.pdf

Sucks to be you. I had to slug it out in the trenches to get noticed. I did start out at $12.00 along with my college classmates. They are making about $14.00 two years later. I had to work two jobs just to stay a afloat because the job I was at when I graduated paid so much more than entry level at an IT company.

It's a tough field to be entering right now.

craigslist

Networking and connect with old college buddies and alumni, jobfairs

I found this site this week. Some of the articles should be useful.

New Grad Life | College Grad Resources: job hunting, interviews, resumes, networking, financial advice, an entry-level job board, and more!

Originally Posted by Mooksman

craigslist

when I first started working for myself in 2007 I got every single contract initially from jobs on Craigslist.