[thelist] Career Q's

hi adrian,

> 1) Does it count against you if you have no formal quailifications?
> obviously it would depend on the qual'.

not necessarily. as others have mentioned, practical experience is also very
important. if you can do the work, i don't care where you learnt it from.
personally, i think practical experience can give someone the edge over a
graduate - there are some tricks and tweaks that graduates don't learn. but, on
the otherhand graduates may learn the proper way to do things, which has its
advantages. :p

my only post-high school educational qualification was a traineeship in
interactive multimedia. as part of the traineeship, i did 1 year on the job
training, and was then reemployed for another year or so after that.

that gives me enough experience (realworld and resumé) to either get a job for a
company, or freelance confidently.

i have now been freelancing f/t (sharing a business name and portfolio with a
friend) for 9 months. some busy patches. some quiet patches. things are
definitely picking up now though, so im feeling positive about the whole
situation.

> 2) For getting experience, are you better to try and develop for clients
> directly, or work for another company?

i did a mixture, and i would suggest the same for others, but start with a
company first if possible (or a traineeship/internship). you don't wanna go
making mistakes on clients who are expecting a professional job.

> 3) how seriously do poeple take hand-coders?
> If your a WD company, do you perfer hand-coders or not, or do you
> avoid them?

i wouldn't hire someone who used a wysiwyg. if you can't hand-code a complex
table, without drawing it out on paper first or whatever, i would be put off
hiring you.

also see aardvark's reasons for avoiding wysiwygs.


personally, and this has nothing to do with your question, from a perspective of
"feeling" while coding (and people are gonna hate this analogy - ignore side
perspectives of safety and responsibility for the purpose of this analogy please
:P):

using a wysiwyg is like wearing a condom - you might get results, but you just
don't get the *real* experience.

;)

it's like running through cool grass on a nice day in summer wearing shoes, when
you could be doing it barefoot...

> 4) How essentail is Database experience?
> Are other skills have a higher priority?
> IE - Javascript?

i would make database experience your top priority if you wanted to learn more
than either straightforward HTML, or designing. i would learn at least basic SQL
and any/all of CF, ASP, PHP, etc. i went for CF and have never regretted it.
from a freelance perspective, having database experience can get you bigger,
higher paying, and more impressive jobs. a web application programming language
like those listed above allows you to do virtually anything.


isaac