Can You Really Get Programming Job w/ No Experience?

[jakeny]

My mom sent me this:
Coding boot camps promise to launch tech careers

Apparently, her friend's son, who has a background in political science of all majors, got a job as a programmer. Is it really possible to get a good job (not a scam of some sort) as a programmer with zero experience? Is it just all on-job training?

I might consider this if so!

 

[strollin]

It's not OJT, these schools are very intensive. My son is planning to go to one of them. He's currently a software salesman but wants to become a programmer/software engineer without paying $$$ for a 4 year college degree. He should be starting a 3 month class in Dec and be done by Feb of next year.

I attended something similar back in 1986. I was accepted into a programmer training program at IBM where we went to programming school for 6 months learning 370 Assembler Language for IBM mainframes. It was very intensive, often requiring lots of late night and weekend work to complete the projects and other homework. 27 of us started the program but only 9 graduated. This was different in that we were guaranteed jobs upon graduation. In fact, we were interviewed for jobs before the training and had those jobs waiting for us provided we graduated. I've worked as a programmer/software engineer since.

 

[Draygoes]

I am sure that you can... but I would not recommend it.
If you can learn the basic terminology, then you are likely to be able to fake you way through the interview process in smaller companies. That will work for you until your tasked with anything...

 

[strollin]

I am sure that you can... but I would not recommend it.
If you can learn the basic terminology, then you are likely to be able to fake you way through the interview process in smaller companies. That will work for you until your tasked with anything...

That's a shaky way to do things. I have seen people do this and then when they are finally tasked to do something and can't do it then they are shown the door. This is very poor advice.

 

[Draygoes]

That's a shaky way to do things. I have seen people do this and then when they are finally tasked to do something and can't do it then they are shown the door. This is very poor advice.

That was not advice.
From my first sentence alone you can tell that I was not trying to give advice...

I am sure that you can... but I would not recommend it.

 

[strollin]

I read it that your first sentence was in response to the OPs post where he asked if the Coding Boot camp was a way to get a job with no experience. You then proceeded to explain how someone might be able to get a job by just learning some basic terminology and faking their way into a job.

Sure came off to me as advising against the boot camp and advising the OP to just attempt to BS his way into a job. Maybe others read it different. Sorry I misinterpreted what you said.

 

[Draygoes]

It ok, this happens a lot.
I have trouble wording my posts sometimes, which can hurt my cause. No, I was not advising against the boot camp, I actually have no opinion on it at this point as I am a self taught coder anyway.

I was advising very much against using any sort of tricks to get in. I used an example as to how someone could trick their way into a business, and then mentioned that it would fail as soon as you are given a task to complete.

I am sorry that I did not word it better. As stated above, this happens a lot.