Need some Career Change Advice

Hi Mar,

I've got two books that I think will help:

(1) Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi; and (2) Job Quest by Sheila Markin Nielsen.

While there's no secret path to getting a job in any professional, the best way (in my opinion) is to start meeting people who already have the job you want. It's surprisingly easy. Just search the web for companies/developers near you, find some email address, and send a quick/polite note. I did it way back when to get my first job out of school. Basically I wrote:

Subject: 5 minutes for a student?

Message: Hi, I'm Jeremiah. I know you through X, you and I both went to/did Y. I'm currently learning to code and want to learn more about the industry. Do you have five minutes to talk? To be clear, I'm not looking for a job. I'd just like to learn more about Z.

If you're genuine, and respectful of people's time, they will meet with you. Start by reaching out to 5 people a week. And don't be afraid to follow up ONCE if they don't respond. Eventually, people will say yes. Sit down for coffee, beers, whatever and chat. If you make a good impression, good things will happen. Trust me on this.

And please don't take an unpaid internship. I know your job is boring, but it pays the bills. Keep it until you can find something new and interesting.

I hope this helps. Good luck and feel free to reach out if you want to chat more.

Cheers, Jeremiah

I have been working in IT for over 15 years in many different roles ranging from, network admin, tech support, large scale DR specalist, ITCM Admin, Project leading bla bla and same as you I took up programming and was hooked.

I carried on with my career that I was in because it was stable, but I started freelancing on the side (it didn't breach any mutual interest points in my full time jobs contract).

I now work full time and develop large scale database driven websites on the side, hopefully soon to do the full transition into a full time freelance web developer.

My only advice I would give is whatever programming you are planning on doing, start networking, start referring to yourself as that role, for example I started reffering to myself as a web developer (changed my linkedin etc to show this, social networks, social occasions with strangers and friends to).

I dropped my prices well below what other web developers of the same skillset were charging for my first 5 projects, this enabled me the chance to get a proffesional portfolio together with real world examples of my work being used by large companies (They were more than happy because I charged no deposit fees, told them they didn't have to use it if they didn't like the outcome and they got a job done at budget price), this was and is still is one of the most valuable assets of my new web developer career.