Regarding video production, a lot of it is digital these days. Nonlinear editing (NLE) packages are cheap and abundant. They may want to try coming up to speed with modern video techniques first. It will make them much better prospects.

And if they want to combine the two, take a look at Video::Info::MPEG, FFmpeg and PDL. Using perl to process video is extremely cool :)

I know at least two people who are having to face a radical career change (as opposed to a mere job change and/or relocation) because job opportunities in their particular technical specialties (e.g. analog video production for broadcast) have dried up remarkably.

Wouldn't moving to digital video production would be easier? That's what the analog video people I know did (admittedly they started doing it ten years ago :-)

What's the consensus out there as to the feasibility of migrating from a technically oriented but deprecated field of endeavor to one involving Perl at some level? Would this mean starting over from an educational perspective, as in "yes, you have a degree but it's the wrong degree"?

First I would not orient your career around Perl. Aim to become a programmer - not a Perl programmer. You'll end up being a lot more employable.

From the education perspective an engineering degree (that doesn't include programming) is not going to get you a programming job. Especially since there is a distressing tendency to age discrimination in the tech industry.

Of course this doesn't necessarily mean that going off and doing a CS degree of some sort would be the best way. Doing some vocational courses and getting some actual experience might well be a more effective route. Dig into some open source projects, do some volunteer work, etc. Experience sells as well, or even better than, CS degrees for many people.

First I would not orient your career around Perl. Aim to become a programmer - not a Perl programmer.

Point taken. The main reason I said "involving Perl at some level" was to keep somewhat on-topic for the Monastery, but most suggestions so far appear equally applicable whatever specific language is involved.

Every employer has a different view on degrees. I'm personally of the belief that it shows that you're dedicated enough to spend 4 years of your life to get a piece of paper, which shows that you're less likely to be the type of person who will quickly jump ship.

Degrees might help where you have nothing else to differentiate you between other candidates, but there's really no substitute for social networking -- go to the relevant meetings in your area (Perl Mongers, maybe a LUG if you do that sort of thing, etc.), and let your friends know you're looking for a job change, and they'll funnel news to you. (hell, I complained about frustration about not knowing what's going on with the contract I'm under to a few people, and a week later, I had gotten 3 job leads, even though I wasn't actually looking for work).

This might seem strange, but you may want to try to push existing experience to differentiate you from other job candidates -- eg, analog video production ... how can you relate that back to programming? Maybe from a project management perspective? Maybe there are art aspects that can apply to the type of programming you'd be doing? Perhaps you should look for programming work within a similar field, as you'll already know the issues and jargon of the industry.

My advice to anyone looking for a career change -- don't oversell yourself. If you promise, and can't deliver, you're screwed. I'm not in a hiring position these days, but I'd much rather see someone who knows what their weakness are, is willing to admit to them, and seems genuinely interested in correcting them and/or improving in general. Of course, don't dwell on the weaknesses ... you want to push your strengths, just don't try to BS the recruiters. It might work on the HR people and incompetant managers, but it'll piss off technical folks.

...it shows that you're dedicated enough to spend 4 years of your life to get a piece of paper, which shows that you're less likely to be the type of person who will quickly jump ship.

My experience belies that assertion quite handily. I don't mean to imply that I think that those with degrees are inherently unreliable, or anything even remotely similar. What I mean to say is this: It's relatively easy to obtain a degree during four or more years spent living on Daddy's generosity, as contrasted with gaining substantially the same knowledge of one's chosen field, within or without academia, while coping with the struggles of the real world.

Several years ago, I had an enlightening experience. I'd landed a fairly large and technically complex project, and subcontracted some work out to two programmers with whom I had no previous experience. One was self-taught, the other sporting a Ph.D. in CS, with a Masters in mathematics for a kicker. I had to ride the latter like a rented mule to finally get some incredibly sloppy code out of him, which I then delivered to the self-taught guy and asked him for his opinion. Within minutes, he gave not only the title and page numbers of the text from which the code was mostly lifted, but pointed out the logic flaws in the more or less original contributions. The project continued without the Piledhigher.Deeper, and the self-taught individual not only persisted, but he rose to an even higher group of challenges and performed admirably.

My experience belies that assertion quite handily. I don't mean to imply that I think that those with degrees are inherently unreliable, or anything even remotely similar.

I won't get into my thoughts on grade inflation, diploma factories, etc, but your example showed my point to be true -- the guy didn't leave. Now, he didn't produce anything of value, but he didn't cut and run.

What he did do, was over promise and under deliver, which I already commented on. Personality is just as important as skill when it comes to a job -- is the person going to work towards the goals of the project? How do they handle setbacks? Do they communicate when they're running into problems and/or ask for help?

This is why it's better to get someone who admits to their failings, and is willing to ask for help. The person who thinks they know everything will assume that there's nothing more to learn, and will make no attempt at improving.

There was a question on Slashdot yesterday, with someone complaining about Behavioural interviews during job applications. They're important, be it interviews, or checking references, etc. (and for references, there are certain questions you can't ask, so start with the easiest one -- would you hire this person back?)

Every employer has a different view on degrees. I'm personally of the belief that it shows that you're dedicated enough to spend 4 years of your life to get a piece of paper, which shows that you're less likely to be the type of person who will quickly jump ship.

Or that you've learned to be cuthroat enough to know how to game the system. I know a lot of people who copied their way though university. :-(

a week later, I had gotten 3 job leads, even though I wasn't actually looking for work

It's frustratingly easy to find work when you don't want it. It's often much harder to find it when you do. I call it "The World Hates Me" theorem. ;-)

My advice to anyone looking for a career change -- don't oversell yourself. If you promise, and can't deliver, you're screwed.

*shrug* Honest people always tell the truth, and nobody wants liars to prosper. Either way, reminding people to tell the truth so they don't get caught just helps the jerks. Let the lying twits find out the hard way! I hate people who say they can do a job when they can't, especially when they poach jobs at honest people's expense. They deserve to be fired (or fired upon!). (Who me, bitter? Yup, still bitter. Yup, still cleaning up messes in production by overzealous people who couldn't pull off what they promised. :-( )

My advice to the OP is simpler: "programming" doesn't have to be hard. "Programming" can be exactly hard as you want it to be. In some sense, "programming" is just another word for "configuration". I am, in a very fragile (and unconventional) sense of the word, "programming" this message into the PerlMonks system right now; that is, I'm setting it up to be displayed when I come back to it, and to let other people view it. It's so simple that no one will pay me to do it; but in general, if you know how to to configure something that someone else is unable or unwilling to do, you can usually get paid to do it. Heck, people will pay you to program their VCRs for them!

Programming can be as simple as taking a big, long command that you type in and creating a short cut for it; or as hard as building a control system for a space shuttle.

Most of the time, programming just involves automating something that you already know how to do. Ocasionally, it involves thinking out the steps to do something non-obvious (and then, typically, publishing the results so that no one *else* wastes their time thinking as hard as you did); in very rare cases, it involves extremely hard research into the world's great unsolved problems.

Depending on the job you want, you can get paid to re-install someone's Window's drivers on a dozen computers across a network (perhaps by writing a quick Perl script to help), or you can work on control systems that make automated subway trains run. It's a big continuum; you don't have to know it all right away.

Good Luck!

--
Ytrew

Your example suggests several possible related tasks: "analog video" -- well, it's alive and well. With computers, analog connectors are still far more common than DVI. "production" -- a lot of companies need producers, though most don't call them that. "Project Manager", maybe? My company does use the term producer, and most of our producers' tasks are more organizational and have little to do with exactly what is being produced. "broadcast" implies familiarity with a number of standards, workflows, and mentalities.

On the other hand, if I see some indication that someone returned to school because they were interested in the new field of endeavour, then I'll think more highly of them than of people who got the CS degree in the first place and haven't done anything else.

Of course, my knee-jerk reaction is completely unfair, because there are many reasons that the sort of person you're describing might be unable to find work despite having strong yet flexible expertise. Recruiters and HR people rely heavily on directly relevant experience appearing on a resume (and "directly relevant" often means "matching the keywords they were fed by the hiring manager"). My best advice, such as it is (I'm not in that situation so I don't really know what it's like), is to be sure to tailor both the resume and cover letter to every job applied for. It won't help as much for a megacorporation, where automated keyword scanners rule, but if you can get someone to at least read one or the other you'll have a chance, if you're quick, to address the question "why should I hire this person when he hasn't been doing exactly this already for the last 15 years?"

After all, the main question that a hiring company is asking is "will this person perform well in the position we are hiring for?" (There are other questions, such as "...and how much do we have to pay him?", but you need to get that far first.)

Interesting. My initial thought after reading your write up was "He's going to turn away a lot of good programmers with that kind of attitude", and then I read your home node where it states "I'm starting to feel like decent Perl programmers are so hard to find..."

I don't know if many other people would have had the same reaction, so I may be in the minority, but its something to think about.