I need careers advice in the field of software engineering and also any CV writting tips. The thread is in 'Non Scooby Related' but isn't doing too well. Thanks in advance!

http://www.scoobynet.co.uk/bbs/thread.asp?threadid=208590

STI,

Perhaps it would help if you tell us what your current background/situation is first? :D

Gary

Sorry! Copied from the other thread ;)

"I finish University in a few weeks and unfortunetly the company I was going back to after my placement year went under (after 25 years) so I need a job. Fingers crossed i'll graduate with a first or 2-1 in Software Engineering w/ Honours.

Could anyone give me some good advice as to what to include in my CV etc or give me any good examples or links. Management advice would be particularly helpful. I lost my old CV when my last PC died and the recriutment agencies are hassling me for them

Alternatively any advice on getting a good graduate job would also be helpful.

Thanks in advance! "

STI,

Tells you *all* you need to know about the state of the IT industry!!!

Seriously though I guess it depends what your skill set is and what area of IT/Software Dev. you want to move into. You mention software engineering which always makes me think of low level languages and doing real-time/embedded systems as opposed to a 'developer' or analyst programmer who spends their day wrestling with databases just as much as they do coding.

One of the things I like about IT (or did when I started!) was that experience is *everything*. I did things the hard way (no degree) and the further on I went the more my experience counted. I f**king hate jobs that say 'degree calibre' on the assumption that a non-degree person isnt intelligent enough and we all know what assumption is!

So to your CV make your experience detailed, put recent stuff first and IMHO forget interests and hobbies, I have sat next to managers who wont even interview people because they thought they were sad because of their interests, I kid you not!!!!

You need to decide what area you are going to go into and specialise dont generalise, look at the IT sector and try and see what skills are most in demand (typically Unix, C/C++, Java, SQL)

Of course this is all my opinion and others will probably state theirs too!

Good luck!

Gary

We normally have a yearly graduate recruitment scheme, but we've just made 200 redundancies so not sure whether we will this year. Email me and I'll find out.