CAREER ADVISOR

“Your Career Advisor” is responding this week to the following inquiry:
"

All reasonable questions related to careers, skill development or employment related issues – sent to advisor@skill-link.com - would be addressed in this section every week.

Q1: I am a fresh graduate in application development, what is next for me?
I am 21 years old, just graduated from City University with good skills as a C++ Programmer. What do I do next? I know of a job in a petroleum company that can offer me salary of around USD 2000 to USD 3000... is this a good salary for a holder of a university degree in programming? Or would you suggest a different direction?

How about Cisco? MSCE? Oracle and all these fancy diplomas EVERYONE is talking about? Should my career head in those directions or are such degrees going to loose my focus? I know these are too many questions but I haven't met anyone qualified enough to answer them … not even my colleagues!

So what would you suggest at this point in time? What about a Masters degree? And if yes, in what field? Computer Science as well? Or should I shift to Management? (Which has a better salary?)

I currently live in the Gulf and have a residency there; however as an Egyptian I can easily go back and live in Cairo if that is to be your suggestion.

What is next for me?

Name provided but wishes to remain anonymous (the Gulf)

Replying:

Dear Sir,

You have not even started your professional career to be talking about switching… establish yourself first in a good job and then start considering subsequent options. For a fresh graduate the salary you mentioned is too good to be true; especially for an expatriate and not a national of a Gulf state. However if it is true - which we highly doubt - do not let it go.

Once you are in your first job, you can consider the next steps. Cisco, MSCE, Oracle etc… are not diplomas but rather certifications. They are definitely of added value once you know what field you want to specialize in (networking, applications, technical support etc…). We do not think a Master degree in IT or Computer Sciences is necessary at this stage. An advanced degree in management would be of added value, but not now after two to three years of work experience.

We have addressed some aspects of this message in further details in previous issues of Your Career Advisor. Thus have a look at the first question on top of the archive below..

We hope the above was of some use.
Good Luck.

Note from the editor: 
Employer names and inquiry sender names were withheld for confidentiality

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