[BetaWar]

Welcome to the time of the year when everyone needs to start looking for summer jobs and internships. It is nothing new, however this is the first time we here at </Dream In Code> have put something together to help you make sure your resume is the best that it can be prior to handing it out to potential employers.

Feel free to ask questions, look for feedback and see what professionals around the world are looking for in a potential new recruit. Get pointers on resume expectations, what is worth adding and what is simply better kept to yourself. And don't forget to upload your resume to here for all of </DIC> to see.

Remember, resumes are all about selling yourself to potential employers. Everything you put on your resume counts, either for or against you.

If by chance you are a person, or represent a company, which is looking to hire don't forget to post your jobs! How else will people know you're hiring?

[NewbCoder]

What languages are good to know? I'm currently learning a little bit of C#.

[dawmail333]

NewbCoder, on 20 January 2012 - 04:13 AM, said:

What languages are good to know? I'm currently learning a little bit of C#.

I did a quick comparison on careers.stackoverflow.com, and just did a few searches to see how popular different programming languages are, in terms of job postings. Obviously this is just one site on the net, but it should give a decent indication.

Java - 220
C# - 164 (note that you could also respond to .Net job postings)
Python - 151
PHP - 129
Ruby - 127
C++ - 119
Perl - 59

I'm sure there are other languages I didn't consider at the time, but that should give you a indication of which languages seem to be doing the best in the industry, even if this data is only from one site.

C# is a good choice to learn, it has a lot of application and use: XNA for the Xbox, Windows Phone development, Windows and ASP.Net development, and then Mono allows you to use subsets of the language on Linux and Mac, and there are some commercial tools that allow you to build iOS and Android apps in C#. C# is considered as a stable and balanced language inside Windows based environments, but is a little newer than Java.

Java is another highly popular language, and is natively multi-platform. Java is also used for web technologies, including the Google Web Toolkit, which actually is quite an interesting development. I haven't tried it though, and I haven't had much reason to use Java, but I might in a future product. Java has the reputation of being a very enterprise-oriented language, and is used in many internal systems, particularly older ones.

Python and Ruby are languages that have recently hit a spike in popularity. These scripting languages are used mainly by newer companies/startups, and have a different focus to programming (i.e. are highly dynamic and much more free-form). Ruby on Rails is a particularly popular web-development framework, whereas Python's Django is not quite so much. They both are highly usable though, in many situations (desktop and web), and Python is a favourite of mine. IIRC, Youtube was built on Python.

PHP is an older, but very common web design language. It's very common on webservers, and there is a lot of open source software developed for it. If you have PHP skills, you might find a job modifying these systems, or building plugins for it, as PHP apps are generally quite open. I don't know much else about PHP in the industry, but it is a language I use. It's pretty easy to get started with, but there's a lot of old information on the web about (now defunct) best practices, so you'll want to brush up with recent information before you try job hunting with it.

The last one I'll talk about, C++, is a somewhat elite language. The trick to it is you get to manage everything: pointers, memory addresses, memory allocation/de-allocation. These means you can squeeze every bit of performance out of your program, and it is truly cross-platform (unless you make platform-specific API calls). It's pretty much the most universal language, but it is very very rarely used for web development, and is a very challenging language for most to pick up.

Ultimately, it mostly comes down to you as to which language to use. If any of my fellow D.I.C. heads want to chip in (or correct me!), feel free. I hope I provided a decent overview.

[NewbCoder]

Alright, Thanks a lot!

[ishkabible]

I would like to know more about internships(specifically remote internships if possible).

[Shane Hudson]

What is the general opinion of online resumes? Normally it would be tailored to a specific company or job but if it is available for all to see then it would require different/more information... being an infinite page would it be appropriate to just have a longer resume/CV than if it were printed?

[BBuschRN]

I find it also depends what you want to do that results in what language you should know. For example, I really want to program video games and most of the job posting there require C/C++.

Or Apple, which would be Objective-C... so I guess it all depends on if you know where you want to work.

[Vexx]

Really helpful information here. Will be sure to keep all this in mind when building a resume. I am rather curious about the internships that ishkabible mentioned as well.

[carnivroar]

How much do employers care about non-CS related skills? Foreign languages for example.

[Gungnir]

carnivroar, on 15 May 2012 - 07:46 PM, said:

How much do employers care about non-CS related skills? Foreign languages for example.

it depends on the job.

A better way to phrase your question might be:
How much do employers care about skills not related to the job?

The answer would of course be that they don't at all.
___

I'm not surprised that Java wins out for demand. It's the most versatile language that I've ever learned.

This post has been edited by Gungnir: 29 May 2012 - 10:39 PM

[murume]

I am doing a Physics honours degree and programming is obviously mandatory. We have it as core courses. One of our lecturers always try to tell us how special Physics is and I want to inquire about one claim he made.

Is it true that with a Physics degreeone has an upper hand when it comes to game developping? How do I compare with someone with a CS degree?

[jjl]

Quote

Is it true that with a Physics degreeone has an upper hand when it comes to game developping? How do I compare with someone with a CS degree?

Video games are an attempt to virtualize reality, or some other world. This involves modeling many physical interactions. There are companies that specialize in this, they create what is known as a Physics Engine. So to answer your question, yes physics is very important in game development.

You can't really compare a CS and a Physics major. Yes you may of have had a little programming experience, but think about how in-depth you have had to go in some of your physics material. CS majors do the same thing, however they do this with material ranging from algorithm analysis, to operating system design.

This post has been edited by jjl: 09 December 2012 - 03:01 PM

[bstfrmdamidaeast]

What type of internships should I be taking? Right now, I'm in my 4th semester at College(spring semester of sophomore year). What kind of internships should I be seeking out for a job as a programmer in the field?


My parents know a lot of people who work in the IT field at various schools, would an internship there be of any worth? Or should I be looking for more programming focused internships?