Volunteer for Open Source Projects?

james3302

Would this be considered experience, I had told that college projects are not really considered experience. I am wanting to try to gain experience that way since there are hardly any jobs out there for entry level people. This is about programming with .Net.

STexams

Volunteer experience is experience the same as paid experience is. Sometimes it is a great way to build a resume'. I have done some volunteer work myself to get something for my resume'. A lot of employers are impressed that you are willing to donate your time to other people.

bellboy

it could swing both ways.

i know that if i adding some like "i have added a few tweaks to the core of x-linux distro", i would either get a "wtf is linux?" or "linux is made up of millions of lines of code - i think you are talking a load of crap".

big boi

actually i was just reading something the other day- i think on monster.com about what to do if you are a tech worker suffering through a jobless period. how do you fill your resume gap with something good?

one of the suggestions was to volunteer to work on an open source project. as to someone not knowing what linux is- if you are applying for a job where that is going to be valuable to have on your resume then they will most likely know. just because your average joe does not know what the hell openBSD is does not mean i leave "design and maintain firewalls based on openbsd and packet filter" off the resume

when you are applying for a technical job there are often 2 people examining your resume- someone from HR who won't know alot of what is on there and someone in the tech department or a special tech recruiter. those people should know what you're talking about or be able to look into it, and they should know that even though linux is millions of lines of code the whole opensource community functions by having people like you contribute.