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0 pointsjohannes12343214y ago0 comments

"I would do anything" moves quickly to the bottom of the stack. In there I see (maybe wrongly, but when hiring first impression matters) no motivation. I look for people passionate about the work, who have skills and interest on using those. But help desk or programming require very different skills and are quite broad.

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decafninja4y ago

I'm not sure if this is still the case, but at least back then (10+ years ago), quite a few people working helpdesk and IT (system admin, network admin, etc.) were CS majors. Or at least it seemed so from my own network. CS was seen as the gateway degree to any kind of computer related career, not just SWE. Are things different now?

I am actually not a CS major - I'm an information systems major. Funny enough, another IS major friend and I ended up as SWEs (him at a FAANG at that), while a whole bunch of CS major friends are working in IT as system or network admins or helpdesk managers.

johannes1234321OP4y ago

Such roles still exist and a bunch of people like it. Instead of sitting in front of their own computer and hacking code and a amazing problems there it's finding problems in an application with communication with a different person. Depending on organisation and level this can be quite technical as well.

But when hiring I look for other skills and other interests depending on the role and a key qualification is interest in the kind of role.

the_only_law4y ago

> Are things different now?

For me personally, if I were going to go into some other IT fields tomorrow, I’d skip the expensive ass degree period. A lot of IT feels closer to a modern trade than anything.

decafninja4y ago

A lot of jobs require a degree just to get past the HR filter though. In fact, I distinctly remember seeing a even a lot of helpdesk jobs requiring "degree in computer science or related technical major". Again, this is 10 years ago, not sure what the landscape is like today.

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decafninja4y ago

johannes1234321OP4y ago

But when hiring I look for other skills and other interests depending on the role and a key qualification is interest in the kind of role.

the_only_law4y ago

> Are things different now?

For me personally, if I were going to go into some other IT fields tomorrow, I’d skip the expensive ass degree period. A lot of IT feels closer to a modern trade than anything.

decafninja4y ago

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