The document provides guidance for recent graduates seeking their first job in the IT industry, highlighting the challenges faced due to a lack of fundamental skills and practical experience. It emphasizes the importance of standing out from other candidates through strong fundamentals, effective communication skills, and relevant certifications. Additionally, it advises students to explore diverse career options beyond coding and to participate in open source projects to enhance their employability.

1. 90 | june 2012 | LINUX For You | www.LinuxForU.com
Joy of Programming Guest Column
S.G.Ganesh
I
get numerous mails from students just out of college
looking for help in getting their first job. So I thought
it would be useful if I offered some guidance in this
column so that it reached a larger number of those just out
of college and searching for jobs.
When I was studying in college 10 years back, there
were only a handful of engineering colleges in the whole of
Tamil Nadu (my native state). Today, there are a few hundred
colleges and merely getting a pass mark in +2 is enough
to get an engineering seat! The situation is similar in other
states as well. Most colleges don’t have good placements,
and even if they do, it is impossible to get all the students
placed. Those who don’t get jobs in their city or town, head
for cities like Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, Gurgaon, Noida
and Chennai, mostly to IT companies. With the large number
of job aspirants, it is not at all easy landing your first job,
without which life becomes difficult. Some students opt
for higher studies while others look for alternative jobs and
find them. Many keep searching for jobs, failing which they
join courses in less-reputed private institutes and waste their
parents’hard-earned money. Most students complain about
the policies of IT companies that ask for prior job experience
from job applicants. They say that, “If we don’t get our first
job, how will we get the experience?”
Now, if you look at the IT industry, you’ll find a
stark contrast: HR managers are interested in recruiting
talented freshers because that helps reduce their costs.
However, they are unable to find suitable/qualified
candidates for most positions! Specifically, at the entry-
level, they find that most applicants are unemployable
because they lack the necessary (basic or fundamental)
skills. My experience with interviewing freshers leads
me to completely agree with that view.
Unfortunately, most freshers are weak in the
fundamentals of computing, such as data structures,
algorithms and C programming (ask them to write a simple
string reverse function in C, for example, and you’ll
understand what I mean). Except for some theoretical
knowledge, they lack any practical experience whatsoever
on writing code or testing (which gets exposed when they’re
asked to set a break point in a debugger, for instance). Most
freshers also have poor communication skills. Their writing
skills are usually bad; many cannot write even a few sentences
without grammatical or spelling mistakes. The average CV
lacks substance, and worse, is ridden with mistakes and bad
formatting. To cut a long story short, the lack of soft skills and
technical skills are the two main reasons that hinder a student
from being absorbed into the workforce.
If you’re a student searching for or planning to search for
a job, don’t panic. Getting your first job can be easy – you just
have to understand what a prospective employer looks for in
candidates and make sure you meet those requirements. To
put it succinctly—if you can demonstrate that you’re strong in
fundamentals, have good communication skills PLUS stand
out of the crowd, you’re sure to get a job.
So how do you ‘stand out from the crowd’? Every
interviewer has one question in mind when interviewing you:
“Why should I select you and not someone else who is waiting
outside to attend this interview for the very same job?” You
need to address this question by differentiating yourself from
the rest of the crowd. There are many differentiators, like an
exceptional academic performance, the relevant certifications,
the niche skills that the employer is specifically looking for,
or some advanced technical skills that indicate that you’re an
expert in a particular field. To give you an example, assume
you’ve contributed to an open source project (say Linux) for
a period of two years. This prior experience with working
on projects reveals many aspects about you—that you’re a
committed developer (since you’ve contributed for two years),
that you understand how distributed development works
(since all major open source projects follow this model of
development), that you’re strong on fundamentals (how else
will you be able to make commits to Linux source code), etc.
This is a clear differentiator, and a suitable employer will be
more than happy to offer you a job with a good salary package.
There are some common mistakes that freshers make,
which I would like to discuss now.
Most students think that having ‘good soft skills’ means
speaking excellent English. That’s not at all true. What you
need is to just be able to express yourself clearly; further, you
need to have good writing skills, a pleasing personality, etc.
Most freshers think that they need to follow the latest
technologies to get a good job. That’s not true either. For
example, cloud computing is popular today, but don’t pay a
Getting Your First Job
In this month’s column,we take a break from discussing technical topics
and talk about what most students care about—getting a job.

2. www.LinuxForU.com | LINUX For You | june 2012 | 91
Guest Column Joy of Programming
hefty sum to join a course in a private institute to master that.
Instead, focus on the fundamentals first. For example, a good
grasp of data structures and algorithms is important to get any
entry-level job. Similarly, focus on honing your C skills if
you’re not too good at it.
Once you have a reasonably good grounding in the
fundamentals, find out what area in computing motivates
you and what you would like to do in the future. In other
words, you should choose an area that you’re passionate
about. It may be network programming, device driver
development, Web programming, distributed computing, or
database administration. Don’t limit yourself, and it often
takes time to figure out what kind of IT job you would
like, particularly if you’re not from an IT background.
For example, if you’re from the electronics field and
love playing with resistors and capacitors (i.e., you have
fun with circuit design), you might like low-level device
driver programming. If you love reading books and have
good writing skills, you might find technical writing to
be interesting. Most students have a misconception that
getting a job in the IT industry means a programming job
that involves writing code. It’s not at all true. There are
a wide range of jobs that you can consider—as a tester, a
configuration engineer, a Web designer, a technical writer,
or a database administrator. If you have specialised or niche
skills that are relevant to the industry, it’s easy to find a job.
If you don’t like any of the IT jobs, and hate computers,
perhaps you should look out for a job in an area that you
like. Think about it: if you get an IT job that you hate,
what’s good in that job for you in the long run? Perhaps, you
Make sure you’re strong in
fundamentals such as data structures
& algorithms and C programming.
E.g., if you find GUI programming interesting,
learn how to create Eclipse plug-ins; if you like
operating systems, gain specialization in niche
topic like distributed file systems,...
Contributing to FOSS not just helps
you get experience in real worl
projects, but also adds to your resume
Try doing a project from a reputed organization.
Never pay for getting or doing a project
Improve your communication skills,
presentation skilss, learn foreign
languages (Japanese, French, German)
Make sure the companies that are looking
for new recruits have your resume
Read classics such as “the practice
of programming”, “the c programming
language”, as well as well-known
books such as “the pragmatic
programmer” and “effective java”.
Ask them to forward your resume
to their HRs or requiest for project
internship in their organizations
Learn new languages (objective-C, Ruby, Python,
Scala, Go), Operating Systems (Unix, Linux),
applications (Tally), DBMS (MySql, Oracle) etc.
Attend courses on advanced or niche topics such as
Linux internals, kernel debugging, device driver
development, Android development, ...
E.g., Software testing, technical writing,Unix with C
E.g., Advanced diploma course from C-DAC
E.g., If you have a bachelor’s degree,
consider doing a master’s degree.
E.G., CCNA, SCJP, ISTQB’s CTFL,
RHCE, OCA, CSDA, OCUP ...
Contribute to Open Source
Enroll in ever-green job oriented courses
Do software projects
Improve soft skilss
Send your CV to companies
Read more computing books
Network with your collage
seniors, relatives, friends
Acquire new computing skills
Take some specialized courses
Get revelant certifications
Consider joining in advanced courcses
Consider doing higher studies
Find an area that interests you and
get specialization on that domain
Options-getting
your first job!
Focus on fundamentals

3. 92 | june 2012 | LINUX For You | www.LinuxForU.com
Joy of Programming Guest Column
can do higher studies in an area that interests you and get a
job that you would love to do for free.
Sometimes, even when you have everything that
qualifies you as the ideal candidate for a job, there
could be many reasons why you might not get hired. For
example, the IT industry might be in recession with all new
recruitments frozen (it happened twice in the last decade).
Or, it might be that you’ve not sent resumes to the right
companies, where your skills will be valued. In the case
of a recession, your options are limited. You can opt for
higher studies or just wait longer for things to improve,
using that time fruitfully to hone your existing skills or
acquire new ones. In the second case, you need to network
more and reach out to the right people.
In the figure, I’ve outlined various options that you
have to improve your job prospects, using a ‘mind-map’.
Though the options in the diagram look obvious, I’ve seen
that most freshers don’t actually explore these options. Let
me give you an example.
Recently, I suggested to a student that he try contributing
to open source projects to improve his job prospects. He
simply replied that it was not possible for him to do so.
When I probed further, I found that he thought contributing
to open source meant contributing to the Linux kernel (and
he didn’t have system programming skills in C)! That’s
a clear misconception – there are numerous open source
projects, ranging from testing tools to messaging software.
There is no dearth of opportunities to contribute in whatever
topic or domain you’re comfortable with. Even if you
can test the software thoroughly and report bugs, that’s a
contribution to the open source community. So, don’t limit
yourself when exploring the options before you.
Take this mind-map image as a tool for brainstorming
about which options will work best for you. For example,
getting the relevant certification is certainly one of the best
ways to boost your job prospects. While certifications don't
assure you a job, there are many advantages in getting certified.
First, it distinguishes you from the rest of the crowd. Second,
the interviewers can clearly see you as prepared and more
focused than other candidates. Third, for yourself, preparing
for certification gives you a focus and passing the test will
give you a sense of achievement, which in turn improves your
confidence. For these reasons, it is better to get certified.
Believe me: searching for a job can be a memorable
experience, if done in the right way. You have the freedom
and time to explore what you like and can spend more time
with family and friends. If you approach the task of searching
for a job with a positive attitude and take it as a challenge,
you’ll come out as a stronger person no matter whether you
get the job or not. Research findings show that human beings
are happiest when they challenge themselves, stretch their
limits and explore new ideas and possibilities.
Finally, here’s a warning. I’ve seen many freshers
going the wrong way when they meet a dead-end and don’t
get a job for a few years. For example, some pay to get
fake experience certificates. Don’t do that. You might end
up getting a job that shows you have prior experience. But
in the long run, this might embolden you to take bigger
risks and make mistakes with more serious repercussions.
That could land you in situations that you’ll have
enormous difficulties recovering from.
Believe in hard work, be honest, prepare well and give
your best, and I am sure you will land a good job (sooner
or later).
By: S G Ganesh
The author works for Siemens (Corporate Research and
Technologies), Bengaluru. You can reach him at sgganesh
at gmail dot com.
Month Theme Featured List
May 2012 Virtualisation Certification & Training Solution Providers
June 2012 Android Virtualisation Solution Providers
July 2012 Open Source in Medicine Web Hosting Providers
August 2012 Open Source on Windows Top Tablets
September 2012 Open Source on Mac Top Smart Phones
October 2012 Kernel Development CLOUD Solution Providers
November 2012 Open Source Businesses Android Solution Providers
December 2012 Linux & Open Source Powered Network Security Network Security Solutions Providers
January 2013 Linux & Open Source Powered Data Storage Network Storage Solutions Providers
February 2013 Top 10 of Everything on Open Source IPv6 Solution Providers
LFY Magazine Attractions During 2012-13