I'd actually suggest being picky about the first job. Reason for that is that once you're younger, companies are investing in you. Once you're older, they expect a return on that investment.
However, I'd suggest being picky not about the language used, but about the difficulty/challenge/"hard-core" feeling of the position. Pick the company that had the toughest interview questions (don't even consider one that doesn't ask you to write code on the whiteboard!), uses technology that is the most challenging (rather than simply complex), solves the most difficult problems and is willing to let you work on a team solving those problems (rather than assigning you to e.g., QA).
It's always harder to go "easy->tough" than "tough->easy". I'd hire a systems programmer to write web applications (if that's indeed what he wanted to do), but I'd be hard pressed to hire a web developer to do systems programming (unless he had open source work to show for it).
Additionally, right or wrong certain large companies prefer work this way: they hire new grads from the outside for junior positions and then hire internally (i.e., promote) for core senior positions. They will, occasionally hire someone with experience from a comparable large company for a senior position (after a difficult interview), but they won't hire someone coming from a start-up for a senior and core (i.e., software engineer vs. QA) position. The argument is that large companies have certain processes and challenges which are unique to them and don't occur in start-ups.
They also won't hire an experienced person for a junior position, knowing they (statistically speaking) won't be motivated enough while earning lower pay to advance through the ranks to fill a senior role.
So if you'd like to work in certain places (e.g., you want to be at IBM Research) it's much easier to get your foot in the door as a new graduate.
I would say, there's may be a period of 2-4 years from "get your last degree" to "seen as damaged goods by big corp". In practice this means, you can try a particularly interesting start-up right out of college or (if you feel your career is going nowhere), go back for a Masters and make yourself a "college hire" again.
It's not fair and there are exceptions (I'd imagine Google generally ignores various big-company anti-patterns in hiring, although they're still seen as "favouring new grads" by ignoring experience), but it's a possible consequence of choices one makes.
Interesting. Everything you say runs directly counter to my experience. However I've also never worked at the kind of large company that you're talking about.
With one exception. My first job involved consulting at Bristol-Myers Squibb. The result of that was that for some time I was unable to enjoy Dilbert cartoons because the wounds were too raw. They were true.
Based on that experience I wouldn't want to work for that kind of large corporation. Luckily tech tends to be filled with young companies that grew up with very different cultures, so I've never again had to suffer through that kind of dysfunctional culture.
Comments
I'd actually suggest being picky about the first job. Reason for that is that once you're younger, companies are investing in you. Once you're older, they expect a return on that investment.
However, I'd suggest being picky not about the language used, but about the difficulty/challenge/"hard-core" feeling of the position. Pick the company that had the toughest interview questions (don't even consider one that doesn't ask you to write code on the whiteboard!), uses technology that is the most challenging (rather than simply complex), solves the most difficult problems and is willing to let you work on a team solving those problems (rather than assigning you to e.g., QA).
It's always harder to go "easy->tough" than "tough->easy". I'd hire a systems programmer to write web applications (if that's indeed what he wanted to do), but I'd be hard pressed to hire a web developer to do systems programming (unless he had open source work to show for it).
Additionally, right or wrong certain large companies prefer work this way: they hire new grads from the outside for junior positions and then hire internally (i.e., promote) for core senior positions. They will, occasionally hire someone with experience from a comparable large company for a senior position (after a difficult interview), but they won't hire someone coming from a start-up for a senior and core (i.e., software engineer vs. QA) position. The argument is that large companies have certain processes and challenges which are unique to them and don't occur in start-ups.
They also won't hire an experienced person for a junior position, knowing they (statistically speaking) won't be motivated enough while earning lower pay to advance through the ranks to fill a senior role.
So if you'd like to work in certain places (e.g., you want to be at IBM Research) it's much easier to get your foot in the door as a new graduate.
I would say, there's may be a period of 2-4 years from "get your last degree" to "seen as damaged goods by big corp". In practice this means, you can try a particularly interesting start-up right out of college or (if you feel your career is going nowhere), go back for a Masters and make yourself a "college hire" again.
It's not fair and there are exceptions (I'd imagine Google generally ignores various big-company anti-patterns in hiring, although they're still seen as "favouring new grads" by ignoring experience), but it's a possible consequence of choices one makes.
Interesting. Everything you say runs directly counter to my experience. However I've also never worked at the kind of large company that you're talking about.
With one exception. My first job involved consulting at Bristol-Myers Squibb. The result of that was that for some time I was unable to enjoy Dilbert cartoons because the wounds were too raw. They were true.
Based on that experience I wouldn't want to work for that kind of large corporation. Luckily tech tends to be filled with young companies that grew up with very different cultures, so I've never again had to suffer through that kind of dysfunctional culture.