Getting back to ITrated

[regza]

Hi all,

Brief story is I left IT in 2003 to start another career in Art and antiques, this has led me to going out of business due to the recession and I want to get back to IT, I've always kept reasonably up to date on current technology and have done some coding from time to time in relation to my art business (e-commerce).

My general skills which still seem sharpish in my own head are, SQL, ASP, VB, PHP.

My question is how to get back to the contracting market, I can learn C# and ASP.net at home and produce some example projects, will this be sufficient to reenter to contracting market or would I be best getting a Job to start?

[stek]

Hi all,

Brief story is I left IT in 2003 to start another career in Art and antiques, this has led me to going out of business due to the recession and I want to get back to IT, I've always kept reasonably up to date on current technology and have done some coding from time to time in relation to my art business (e-commerce).

My general skills which still seem sharpish in my own head are, SQL, ASP, VB, PHP.

My question is how to get back to the contracting market, I can learn C# and ASP.net at home and produce some example projects, will this be sufficient to reenter to contracting market or would I be best getting a Job to start?

IMHO, very little, too much has changed and you've no real-world experience anymore. Sorry.

[NotAllThere]

All you can do is apply for various contracts, make your CV look as good as you can, and hope. Applying for permie positions in parallel would seem sensible.

[jmo21]

I'm not sure why any agent would put you forward for a contract if you haven't been in IT since 03, but maybe you can outright lie/ blag it.

[thunderlizard]

You could do with a lucky break of sorts. I suggest you sell yourself dirt cheap for 6 months to a cash-strapped client who has some legacy VB/ASP stuff to do; then after 6 months move to a client who needs hybrid VB/C#; then you'll be able to call yourself a reasonable junior dev.
SQL doesn't really count as a skill unless you're a full-on SQL Server/Oracle developer/DBA. Fortunately, most of the best people working nowadays won't touch classic ASP or pre-.NET VB with a bargepole, so there's a gap there for you.

[eek]

You could do with a lucky break of sorts. I suggest you sell yourself dirt cheap for 6 months to a cash-strapped client who has some legacy VB/ASP stuff to do; then after 6 months move to a client who needs hybrid VB/C#; then you'll be able to call yourself a reasonable junior dev.
SQL doesn't really count as a skill unless you're a full-on SQL Server/Oracle developer/DBA. Fortunately, most of the best people working nowadays won't touch classic ASP or pre-.NET VB with a bargepole, so there's a gap there for you.

Having spent today fixing tulip classic ASP I can agree with that. Unfortunately its a mission critical system, a rewrite would take 4 man years and no one will bite the bullet.

I'm not risking going there again so I'm not taking the renewal that's now been offered.

[SueEllen]

Having spent today fixing tulip classic ASP I can agree with that. Unfortunately its a mission critical system, a rewrite would take 4 man years and no one will bite the bullet.

I'm not risking going there again so I'm not taking the renewal that's now been offered.

May be you should PM each other?

[eek]

May be you should PM each other?

Sadly its going to be left to the permies. They really don't like contractors but I had SME that they needed. I can substitute but its the SME stuff they really want not the 40 or so languages I can vaguely code in.

[swamp]

You could do with a lucky break of sorts. I suggest you sell yourself dirt cheap for 6 months to a cash-strapped client who has some legacy VB/ASP stuff to do; then after 6 months move to a client who needs hybrid VB/C#; then you'll be able to call yourself a reasonable junior dev.
SQL doesn't really count as a skill unless you're a full-on SQL Server/Oracle developer/DBA. Fortunately, most of the best people working nowadays won't touch classic ASP or pre-.NET VB with a bargepole, so there's a gap there for you.

^^ WTLS.

If you expect any form of work after 8 years out it will be in the nitty-gritty sh*t that nobody else wants to touch. And probably at 'temporary' perm rates at that. Meanwhile maybe get some certs, but try and be good at whatever you do. People can make good money on crap technologies.

[tarbera]

Try a permie council Job

Hi all,

Brief story is I left IT in 2003 to start another career in Art and antiques, this has led me to going out of business due to the recession and I want to get back to IT, I've always kept reasonably up to date on current technology and have done some coding from time to time in relation to my art business (e-commerce).

My general skills which still seem sharpish in my own head are, SQL, ASP, VB, PHP.

My question is how to get back to the contracting market, I can learn C# and ASP.net at home and produce some example projects, will this be sufficient to reenter to contracting market or would I be best getting a Job to start?

To get you back in the door, this will bring you up till at least 2005, after a few years you can quit as a permie and get a council contract and a few years after that perhaps you can blag it in the real world.