Open source technology is hungry for new college grads
Many college graduates are finding it difficult to enter the information technology world with little or no work experience.
There is no such thing as an entry-level position anymore, and more and more graduates are finding themselves in a catch-22 situation because of this.
Searching the numerous jobseeker Web sites, such as dice.com, will return thousands of positions available in the IT field. But when you look closely, most positions, such as an entry-level software engineer, have a minimum requirement of at least one year's work experience in a related field. The search field criterion doesn't even offer a selection for graduates with less than one year's experience.
You will find that some major companies, such as Microsoft, offer paid training courses to students pursuing a degree, but out of five positions listed at the time this article was written, only one would accept students who only had classroom coding experience. The remaining positions required one to two years of experience, and there were no positions available for recent graduates. When you consider the number of students searching for that "dream job" at a big corporation, you soon realize that your chances of getting a response to your application are slim to none -- especially if you don't have work experience. We have all heard, over and over, that there will always be a need for workers in technology, but getting your foot in the door is a whole 'nuther ballgame.
So what do you do next? Go get a job at a pizza joint, Taco Bell or Burger King until you land that dream job you are so desperately seeking? Stop right there. There are plenty of options available to you in open source technology. Developers in open source technology are always looking for someone who is going to help create the next new groundbreaking application that will take the world by storm. And the best part is, it's free and, in most cases, you can work from the comfort of your own home.
The key to being successful in the IT industry is interning while still attending college and taking some certification courses after graduation. Do some research. Find an open source technology company that will provide you with the tools and resources you will need to build your career. Open source spans platforms, middleware and applications from data centers to desktops. There are many companies that offer internship programs and certification courses.
Google and Red Hat are major contributors to Linux and open source technology. According to Google, each time you use the Google search engine, you are using open source software, which relies on the Linux kernel, GCC, Python and Samba, and commits code into each of those projects. Google maintains a healthy relationship with the open source software development community by releasing Google-created code, providing vital infrastructure, and by creating new open source software developers through programs such as the Google Summer of Code. Red Hat offers a summer intern program and certification courses for undergraduates, graduates, and candidates who hold a master's degree in business administration.
