I just got the call from URS Corporation that they'd decided to go with another candidate for the summer. I'm a little bummed out about it, but not too badly because I realize that there is nothing more I could have done to secure my position. The lady who called me told me that I had done well on both of my interviews and that I actually came out as being their second pick, but the guy they ended up taking had more relevant experience to the work that they had planned for their intern this summer. When she dropped that on me, I knew there was nothing I could have done to have changed my past work experience, so I charged it to the game.
For all of you former hardcore techies out there who are considering business school, be prepared for getting this sort of feedback from companies when you look for jobs. I've had several companies make knocks against the fact that I didn't have much face-to-face client interaction experience or that I hadn't worked in a particular industry that was related to the work that they did. You know, I enjoyed my time plugging away at Java code, but I wish I'd jumped out of it and into something else sooner so I would have ended up with a more diverse set of work experiences before getting here. I've still got other leads that I'm chasing down, so I'm not trippin', but it is EXTRA humbling to face these repeated setbacks.
One more thing for the former techies (specifically software engineers)...make sure you stay in practice with your coding because those skills go away quickly. A couple of days ago, I decided to try to code up something simple just for fun (yeah, I know that's mad nerdy, but it's something I used to do every now and then to keep my skills sharp). I was fine with designing what I wanted to create, but, when it came to actually implementing, I drew a blank. I actually had to hit some books to figure out how to even start the programming and then had to hit the books even harder to remember the classes that i wanted to use in my code. I eventually ended up ditching the idea of coding that day because one of the Elite 8 games was coming on TV. This was the first time that I'd tried to do any coding for over a year and my skills had gone away very quickly...if any of you want to keep your development skills once you've left your jobs, you've got to make sure you keep on coding regularly.
Posted by marquis930 at March 29, 2005 01:41 AM