[ajug-members] Entry Level Java Jobs
Berlin Brown
BBrown at khafra.com
Wed Sep 22 21:47:03 EDT 2004
A question for Burr Sutter or anyone else who has experience with this.
What defines that you 'know' technology, for example, I use linux every
day for several years, I can say I know about linux, I have been using
the core java api for several years-every day, I know POJOs.
I have used commons-logging(prefer log4j) a couple of times for different
projects, I fumbled around with it on a application or two, but I couldnt
tell you the exact steps for using it in an application, without
re-reading the documention(and of course logging is not that hard, bad
example). Question, what level of experience do I have with
commons-logging, 'familiar?' obviously not 'super-advanced'. How you
do rate your experience with something? Time is an indicator people use
a lot, (I have X number of years experience with this), but even that is
hard to guage
I guess this is a tough question for all managers or recruiters.
-----Original Message-----
From: "Tom Boyce" <tom.boyce at wellfound.com>
To: "'General AJUG membership forum \(100-200 messages/month\)'"
<ajug-members at ajug.org>
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2004 20:13:47 -0400
Subject: RE: [ajug-members] Entry Level Java Jobs
> I am in the 0-2 year category, but fortunately, employed. My skills
> are
> rudimentary at best so to help build them, I have taken on a project
> for a
> non-profit to build a statistical tracking program. It is browser
> based
> (jsp/Servlet) using Tomcat 5 and MySQL and I am developing it in
> NetBeans3.6. It is a fairly complicated application and I will be
> employing
> XML, EJB's, struts and, down the road, Web Services. I want to use
> every
> technology that makes sense. This is a totally volunteer project (no
> money), but if you'd like to learn, I'll take on a couple of people.
> If
> you're experienced and want to help - I can use you too - especially if
> you're willing to guide the rest of us and/or provide architectural
> guidance.
>
> I generally work on this every evening and at least one weekend day. I
> may
> start to travel as part of my job, so the work will be done
> independently
> with only periodic weekend meetings when I'm in town. It may be
> possible to
> do Web-ex meetings should the need arise.
>
> If anyone is truly interested, email me directly at
> boycet at bellsouth.net
> with any questions or if you want greater detail.
>
> Tom Boyce
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ajug-members-bounces at ajug.org
> [mailto:ajug-members-bounces at ajug.org]
> On Behalf Of Burr Sutter
> Sent: Wednesday, September 22, 2004 7:06 PM
> To: ajug-members at ajug.org
> Subject: Re: [ajug-members] Entry Level Java Jobs
>
>
> Hello AJUG'ers,
>
> Based upon simple observation of the number of recruiters
> and number of job postings on the AJUG website
> (www.ajug.org/jobs) it seems that experienced people are
> in high demand. There are normally several jobs a week
> being posted. Most "senior" (5+ years Java) resources are
> well employeed. Most "medium" (2 to 5 years
> Java)resources also seem to be busy as well assuming them
> have some key skills (e.g. J2EE, Struts, JUnit, Ant,
> Commons Logging/Log4J, XML, JAXP, and Hibernate is working
> its way up in important)
> At some point employers can't hold out for the experienced
> people and will need to dip down into the 0 to 2 year
> range. If they don't start to utilize the more "junior"
> people they'll have to postpone their Java-based projects.
> And C# people are also in fairly high demand (it is
> basically the same crowd).
>
> Here are some thoughts for those people in the 0 to 2 year
> range looking to break into the Java development game.
> - Build some applications on your own with Tomcat, Struts,
> Hibernate. Throw in some various flavors of EJB using
> JBoss as a container. While your future project may not
> use EJB you need to be able to speak intelligently about
> the topic.
> Don't build a recipe database for your wife.
> Do find a friend who runs a small business and build
> something for him/her. Deploy it for real. Even if you
> don't get paid you now have a real reference.
> - Join an open source project as a committer.
> - If you can get an interview be prepared to demonstrate
> your applications, show off your code and chalk-talk
> (whiteboard) your chosen architecture.
>
> The hard part is getting the interview. For that you need
> to find a way to bypass the HR/recruiter person and get to
> the hiring manager. Do follow up with emails and phone
> calls! Find a way to let them know that you want the job,
> you'll work for very little money just to get experience
> and guess what you've built and deployed real software for
> real users (even if it is your father-in-law's landscaping
> business).
>
> I've recently been in the hiring manager mode and was able
> to screen over 20 candidate resumes, bring in 10 people
> for interviews, pick 4 of the best candidates for the
> money and if we needed one more person it would have
> gotten down into that below 1 year range of experience.
> Some were considered.
>
> Also be prepared for a real technical interview. I used to
> give written tests but now I simply ask some very specific
> questions and ask the candidate to put the answers up on
> the white board. One example might be to place three
> strings "blue,green,red" in a collection and then iterate
> through it. You would be amazed as to how many people who
> have Java on their resume get knocked out by this simple
> test. Another personal favorite is to decribe the various
> mechanisms needed to maintain the state of user's
> in-process order (e.g. shopping cart) in a web-based
> application. Again, you easily find the people who have
> really built a web application vs simply put it on their
> resumes. Some are lucky and after a few moments of the
> sweating and squirming in their chairs they blurt out
> session. I then respond with a smile and say "yes, now
> how does the session work?".
> There are more but you get the basic (er, I mean Java)
> picture.
>
> Burr
> On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 17:40:54 -0400
> "Berlin Brown" <bbrown at khafra.com> wrote:
> >I have gone through a lot of this stuff, (I could be
> >wrong), but saying you
> >know 'java' or 'C#' is 'ok' but knowing what industries
> >are doing with
> >specific things, frameworks will really get you ahead. I
> >actually got to
> >look at some resumes for a position for projects with our
> >team and everyone
> >had 'java', the DBA I work with has java and C++ on his
> >resume and he doenst
> >even know it(he did take a class). The point, find out
> >what companies with
> >enterprise software are doing, for example
> >JDBC(low-level),
> >Hibernate(higher-level), learn J2EE or at least get
> >familiar with them, show
> >you know more than just java or more than just the
> >language. And Struts is
> >a big resume bullet, I havent seen too many web or J2EE
> >jobs that dont have
> >Struts somewhere in the description.
> >
> >I am not an expert at this, but that is what people tell
> >me, so I am just
> >passing it along to you.
> >
> >And on .NET, I know nothing about it, sorry, I dont think
> >you will lose too
> >much with spending most your time with java(but I could
> >be wrong).
> >
> >----- Original Message -----
> >From: <jimsbuddog at juno.com>
> >To: <ajug-members at ajug.org>
> >Sent: Wednesday, September 22, 2004 5:03 PM
> >Subject: [ajug-members] Entry Level Java Jobs
> >
> >
> >>
> >> Dear AJUG Members:
> >> The day has finally come. I've finished and now
> >>have my Associates
> >Degree in Computer Programming (with a 3.84+ average). I
> >majored in Java,
> >with minors in Perl, JavaScript, HTML, and C#.
> >> I now need a job. Does anybody know of any
> >>companies hiring entry
> >level positions for Java, etc? I've got 20+ years
> >programming in Cobol
> >behind me, with all the extras (design, testing, etc), so
> >I'm not really a
> >rookie.
> >> Thanks for any help you can give me. I know
> >>recruiters don't handle
> >entry level jobs, so this is one way that might work
> >toward me getting a
> >job.
> >>
> >> Jim Sladek
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> ajug-members mailing list
> >> ajug-members at ajug.org
> >> http://www.ajug.org/mailman/listinfo/ajug-members
> >>
> >
> >
> >_______________________________________________
> >ajug-members mailing list
> >ajug-members at ajug.org
> http://www.ajug.org/mailman/listinfo/ajug-members
>
> _______________________________________________
> ajug-members mailing list
> ajug-members at ajug.org http://www.ajug.org/mailman/listinfo/ajug-members
>
> ---
> Incoming mail is certified Virus Free.
> Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
> Version: 6.0.767 / Virus Database: 514 - Release Date: 9/21/2004
>
>
> ---
> Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
> Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
> Version: 6.0.767 / Virus Database: 514 - Release Date: 9/21/2004
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> ajug-members mailing list
> ajug-members at ajug.org
> http://www.ajug.org/mailman/listinfo/ajug-members
More information about the ajug-members
mailing list