• Despite my degree being in psychology, I have an immense interest in computers and the typical ‘hard science’ fields. How can one with a degree that is not related to computers acquire a job that is centered around computers? At the moment, I am self-taught and can easily keep up in a conversation of computer science majors. I also do a decent amount of programming in C, Perl, and Python and have contributed to small open source projects. Would Slashdot users recommend receiving a formal computer science education (only about two years, since the nonsensical general education requirements are already completed) before attempting to get such a job? Anybody else in a similar situation?

Motard (Slashdot user name) replied:

• Look around at what software, systems and/or online services you’re currently using and are well familiar with. Then look for a job at one of these companies doing phone (or other) support. Your psychology degree will help to establish you has someone who can help people. Once you get in the door and can get your hands on the internals, you can use what you learn talking to customers to propose improvements (including offering to develop them yourself).

From RWA2:

• I’ve known plenty of people in IT without CS degrees, including English majors. They’re great co-workers and seem quite happy getting things like technical documentation and training, which companies always need to handle their attrition, and are a hella more respected than the phone support / QA “infantry”.

  You might want to look into getting some technical certs to help get your foot in the door… just look at what kinds of requirements some of your job reqs have and invest in some of those certs. You could likely cinch one in maybe a month of cramming with a study guide and an exam for a few hundred $$. If you have a couple thousand to invest, you could even do one of those 1-2 week-long prep courses and get it done faster.

  Preferably once you have a nice job, they would be happy to help put you through further certs and degree programs to strengthen their workforce (and your credentials), so try to take advantage of that situation.

ohnocitizen says:

• I didn’t major in Computer Science myself (a mix of pyschology, philosophy and other subjects made up my degree). I was able to get my first job by trading on work I’d done in the FOSS community. Rather than going for another degree of any sort – go for experience and build a portfolio. A lot of programming jobs these days ask to see code you’ve written. If you have a slick portfolio page, a well written project on github, or have submitted patches to a FOSS project related to the job you want – you are giving yourself an edge over someone with a seemingly more relevant degree. Also, don’t be afraid to sell the value of having a non-related degree. With an unusual background you will bring novel problem-solving tools to the table.

The consensus seems to be that if you can demonstrate strong IT skills, ideally through work on an open source project where prospective employers can look at code you wrote, you’re in better shape than someone who has a CS degree and little or no real experience. Of course, a lot of HR departments aren’t smart enough to realize this, so — several responders say — you may want to look for your first job or two in smaller companies that don’t have obstructionist HR people.

And, some Slashdot users say, after a few years of provable experience the lack of a CS degree won’t really matter.

• Meet them on their home ground. This is a great time and place to meet the HR people who have been passing over your resume and show them, in person, just how bright and wonderful you are. Take lots of copies of your resume with you. Perhaps even have some business cards printed with links to your resume online. But wait! That’s not all!
• This is an HR Technology conference. It’s about technology in HR. In my last post, I quoted Foote Partners CEO David Foote, who told us IT has become so decentralized that you’re more likely to find an “IT job” in another department than in a department with “IT” on the door. HR people obviously have technology needs, same as everyone else — as witnessed by the fact that they have a whole conference devoted to HR technology. And wouldn’t you make a great (GREAT, I say) in-house techie for some lucky HR department?

The expo portion of the “conference and expo” costs $150 — but with a bit of adroit online form-filling, and any real or perceived HR job connection, even if it’s with your own one-person consulting operation, you can get that waived.

The full conference costs $1345. You probably shouldn’t spend that; if you go to this shebang, you’re there to meet people, not attend sessions other than the “hallway sessions” that always spring up at conferences — and are often a source of more knowledge than the formal ones, anyway.

So you’ll spend between $0 and $150 on the conference itself, plus transportation to and from and lodging in Las Vegas.

But those costs may not be as brutal as in most other places. A big reason a lot of conferences are held in Vegas is that it’s just about the cheapest big American city for airfares and hotels, plus there are cheap belly-filling buffets at almost all the hotels.

The catch is that this cheapness is to entice you into the casinos, which can be decidedly un-cheap if you’re not careful. So stay out of those casinos!

But hey! A good excuse for a trip to Vegas? And a chance to find a job at the same time?

Not shabby, neighbor.