Self-Taught Skills on CV

qspeechc

Quote by StatGuy2000

Therefore, teaching yourself the language is more than sufficient, and if you feel like you have a decent command of the language (enough so that you can do actual work in the language when asked), you can and should put it on your CV. Of course, having a way to demonstrate your skills in your language can only help, so I'd recommend working on some open source projects in the language of your choice if at all possible.

I have no idea what open source is, so I'll have to look into it.

Quote by AsianSensationK

You should learn a programming language, it's just a certification exam isn't the best way to learn a language.

Build something. It doesn't have to be perfect or terribly complex (shouldn't be the garden variety stuff from an intro CS course though). Learn a language and make a program that interests you. Then you have something to talk about when people ask you what you did with those technical skills.

That's a good idea. I obviously don't know just yet what sort of project I can do, I suppose I'll only know once I know a bit about programming.

Quote by HepMan

I don't think so - if you did no courses, but can prove you used in your job to write good software that others used it could be enough (or if not your job, some kind of open source project - e.g. a friend of mine wrote a hike planning sw for a very large local hiking group that was used for many years by them, which got him is current job in IT, despite having no programming qualifications)

Sounds like I just have to show I can do something useful in a language, which may be enough.

Thanks for the advice everyone.

Lastly, are there any languages you can recommend I should learn? Or is that question too broad? When I was looking at job adverts the most common languages I saw were (in no particular order):

c, c#, c++, .net, microsoft.net, sql, oracle, java, sas, html, xml, ajax, python, acl, php, cache,...

and some others. Any suggestions? I really don't know where to start, just to learn some general programming skills.

HepMan

Quote by qspeechc

I have no idea what open source is, so I'll have to look into it.

That's a good idea. I obviously don't know just yet what sort of project I can do, I suppose I'll only know once I know a bit about programming.

Sounds like I just have to show I can do something useful in a language, which may be enough.

Thanks for the advice everyone.

Lastly, are there any languages you can recommend I should learn? Or is that question too broad? When I was looking at job adverts the most common languages I saw were (in no particular order):

c, c#, c++, .net, microsoft.net, sql, oracle, java, sas, html, xml, ajax, python, acl, php, cache,...

and some others. Any suggestions? I really don't know where to start, just to learn some general programming skills.

Those are all really different languages, used for very different applications....depends what you want to do really.

e.g. html is used to make webpages which is really different to writing databases (mysql) or developing scientific software, games software etc (often C++).

I think you should think about what kind of IT job you want and then work out what kind of skills you need.

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