Sometimes, you will fail.

I'm an old man now and almost ready to retire after a fairly long and successful career as an data engineer. I have a short story to tell about one of the steps along the way and a point I would like to make for anyone interested enough to read to the end.

In the early 80's, I moved from Texas to Seattle with a couple years of experience operating with IBM and Burroughs computers, but no education and no real developer experience beyond an ability to read COBOL. Seattle was an amazing place at the time with a number of tech startups as well as some already well established shops. And, there was one in particular which was looking for developers where I wanted to work, so I put on a suit, found their HR department and applied for a job as a developer.

I remember how disappointed I was when, after a quick glance at my resume, their recruiter said "Son, we prefer to hire people who have either experience or education and you have neither. Thank you for applying, but there is no point in taking this interview any further...".

But, I was sure that this was where I needed to be and wanted to work. So, after waiting a year and hoping that they would not remember turning me down the last time, I applied again. This time, I made it through the interview and actually felt pretty good about it. However, when I called after several days of waiting for an offer, I was informed that they decided not to hire me and offered the position to another candidate.

I'm pretty sure that most would have quit trying after being turned down twice but I was just determined to work there. I liked everything I had heard about that company. I could see they were growing, and I really wanted to work there. So, I waited another year and tried again. By coincidence the same man who had turned me down the last time was assigned to interview me. At the end of that interview, he said "You seem very familiar, we must have met before, but I can't remember where". I told him "I've interviewed here three times in as many years. I would think that by now you would be tired of seeing me. I'm not going away, so why not just hire me and get it over with?".

That did the trick. He found a group that might be willing to take in an entry level developer and forwarded me to them. After several of their team interviewed me over the course of a morning, they gave me the job.

Now, if you have read this far, I would like to get to the point I want to make. Persistence pays off. If you are looking at a career in IT, get used to a little frustration. It seems nothing works exactly as you expect it will on the first try. You will fail a lot. In fact, I would suggest that you should hope for failures. Keep a count. You will find that for every so many failures you will have a success. Every time you fail think to yourself "I am one closer to a success". Learn from the failure, pick yourself up and try again. That is how to turn "no education and no experience" into a career.