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I'm a recent software engineer graduate who has been job searching for around 6 months now. My results are above-average and I've had interviews from four different companies (and had moved to the next round of interviews from two of these companies).

I'm highly interested in software development of web applications and want to become better at it. As such, I've only been applying to entry-level (and intern) positions dealing with web application development. Also, I'm mostly applying for positions dealing with either .NET or JEE, since I'm most proficient with these technologies.

However, the job requirements for such positions ranges being knowledgeable in technologies I've not had the opportunity to learn (for .NET - WCF, AJAX, JQuery, ADO.net, etc. and JEE - Struts, Spring, Hibernate, AJAX , Jquery).

I'm okay with learning these technologies, but am unsure as to which I should learn as the job I'm being called for may be either .NET or JEE. So, while I'm focusing on getter better at JEE, the interviewer who calls me will be for .NET. Thus, leaving me unsure as to what I need to get better at for the interview.

Also, the interview process for these four companies have been widely different, how can I be better prepared to handle possible future interviews?

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    I'm seeing a lot of very broad questions here and this site doesn't excel at giving personal advice. Consider trimming your post down to feature a single central question that can have useful answers. In its current state this risks being closed.
    – Lilienthal ♦
    Aug 19, 2015 at 14:43
  • @Lilienthal i've edited out the second part as the above issues are my main concern..is it alright now?
    – IWTL
    Aug 19, 2015 at 14:52
  • If you're "okay" with a technology you can point that out in the interview (i.e. not highly proficient but you can work in the technology if asked to), see also this related thread workplace.stackexchange.com/questions/42190/…
    – Brandin
    Aug 19, 2015 at 17:47
  • Very much a "which skills should I learn" question, so off topic, voting to close.
    – The Wandering Dev Manager
    Aug 19, 2015 at 17:52
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    I'm afraid I have to join the others in voting to close this. Your main questions seem to be what technology path to follow and how to interview. You'd be better served looking up articles or guides on that online. As for languages that are required by recruiters: if you don't have them then isn't it rather obvious that you shouldn't be applying for that position?
    – Lilienthal ♦
    Aug 19, 2015 at 17:59

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However, the job requirements for such positions ranges being knowledgeable in technologies I've not had the opportunity to learn (for .NET - WCF, AJAX, JQuery, ADO.net, etc. and JEE - Struts, Spring, Hibernate, AJAX , Jquery).

I'm okay with learning these technologies, but am unsure as to which I should learn as the job I'm being called for may be either .NET or JEE. So, while I'm focusing on getter better at JEE, the interviewer who calls me will be for .NET. Thus, leaving me unsure as to what I need to get better at for the interview.

There are a couple of ways I could see going about this:

  1. Take where there is overlap: jQuery and AJAX are in both of what you list. Why not learn that stuff which is independent of Java or .Net? It is there in both cases and uses JavaScript which would be another language on its own.

  2. How well do you know how to learn something from scratch? If someone created a new language and you had to pick it up, could you do that? Knowing how you'd learn a new language could well be a valuable skill to use over and over. Another point is how some of JEE and .Net can have similar tools, e.g. Ant vs nAnt, jUnit vs nUnit, Hibernate vs nHibernate, etc.

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  • I'm in the process of familiarizing myself with JavaScript and then hoping to learn AJAX (which is most commonly required), followed by jQuery. I think I'm fairly capable of learning a new language - a month maybe to acquaint myself with it and around 3 months to become fairly proficient.
    – IWTL
    Aug 19, 2015 at 16:53
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    @IWTL If you learn Javascript, it would be hard not to also touch AJAX or jquery, node.js, knockout.js, HTML, HTML5, etc, though strictly speaking the JavaScript language itself is general purpose but in reality we can see the environment in which it gets used. Anyway, as a practical matter, you should put all of those things into the "Javascript bucket" as far as learning is concerned. You can even put Coffeescript into the JavaScript bucket if you want.
    – Brandin
    Aug 19, 2015 at 17:53
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Jack of all trades, master of none.

I would concentrate on on area primarily, till you are fluent and then move on.

To choose the one you do, see which one you prefer most. Whats the point in being able to do JEE if it melts your brain?

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  • JEE is not hard - there are components of it which I am capable of implementing such as JSP, Servlets, EJB, JPA. However, what I'm overwhelmed and frustrated by is that recruiters are expecting experience with a "very wide" range of technologies - both front-end as well as back-end.
    – IWTL
    Aug 19, 2015 at 16:02
  • @IWTL, they expect that because you need skill with multiple languages/technology. Real world systems are vastly complicated - much more so than anything you are generally given to while in school. At entry level you will generally have some latitude to learn some things on the job. I would concentrate on the full stack for one or the other (.Net or JEE) and then use the fact that you know nHiberate to show that you can learn HIbernate, etc. While you are learning, you need to be really solid on SQL. You can use an ORM, but you have to understand SQL to effectively deal with a database.
    – HLGEM
    Aug 19, 2015 at 19:00

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