Careers

Back in the Day There were 2 careers – Hunter – Gatherer A few years later – Computers were invented Now there are 3 career paths – Hunter – Gatherer – Software Engineer / Manufacturing

Career Not to be confused with job Is a professional life path (or tree) Can involve many companies and positions College is just the foundation – Hopefully we’ve taught you the base-knowledge you’ll need Much discussion on what we should be doing

Career You are now looking for your first position 2-5+ years work experience – Where do you start? Entry level position means you wont do that job for the rest of your life

What do You Want to do? If you had a million dollars Prioritize your goals What do you do in your free time? Why did you choose your project for this course? Where do you want to be in 5 years? – 10 years?

What do You Want to do? What do you do in the summer? – Internship – REU – Played Counterstrike – Non-technical summer job only for the cash What do you do with the cash (do that)

Enjoy What you do And you’ll never work a day in your life

Decide What to do How are you going to get where you’re going? Are you wiling to do something you don’t want to do to get there? – Think long term – Your career will be 20+ years But you know this already – You’re spending 4 years to make your future better How far are you willing to go? – Take an intro job with poor benefits and mismatching atmosphere for experience in your desired field?

Network Not sure about an industry/company/position – Ask someone – Most people love to talk about their careers Sometimes to a fault

Entrepreneur Are you willing to take a job to build up seed funding? If not, start now! No easier time to be an entrepreneur than during college Honestly answer this one question – What is stopping you from starting? If this is really something you want to do – Identify roadblocks and remove them

Entrepreneur Most important factor for success – Execution The best software can fail as a business with poor execution Known ideas done well can be very successful – Web search – Communication – Course management system (still waiting on this one)

Career Progression Within an organization – What is the upside of a position – Can be limited in small organizations Within an industry – Much more potential if you’re willing to move around – Can make you a risky hire if you move too much

Career Outlook If you’ve been paying attention for 3.5 years and did you’re homework – You should be able to find a good job In fact – Companies are looking for you!

Name Brand Companies There will be a long line at the name brand booths on Wednesday There will be short/no lines at many other companies – They are trying to recruit you! – They have jobs for talented students

Space We live in a world where governments spend large amounts of money to see how high up we can go The people hiring you likely love tech for techs sake

Resume Tips – Compiled from Piazza Always submit as pdf – A surprising number of round 2 submissions are still doc Keep it to a page! Make you objective awesome, or remove it Don’t list a skill you’re not comfortable with Don’t claim expertise unless you’re an expert Be consistent, especially in formatting Don’t include your physical address – Or do include your physical address

Resume Tips – Compiled from Piazza 2-3 bullet points per work experience/project Bullet points should: – Start with a strong action word – Highlight the skills used – Mention impact – Quantify whenever possible

Sample Description Bullet "Authored Python script to clean up stale log files; once set up to run as a cron, it saved an average of two hours of maintenance, each week” –Mack Ward

Class Interview Question Check if two strings are anagrams of each other. ex: “anagram”, “nag a ram”

Class Interview Question Check if an integer is a power of 2

Class Interview Question - Resumes n Students submitting k Reviewers r Rounds r<k<n Schedule 1 reviewer to each student for each round No reviewer is assigned to the same student in multiple rounds All assignments should made uniformly at random for each round