Member Avatar for majestic0110

Hi all just a general question.....how many years have you been working in the IT industry? (degrees/education counts as experience)!I myself have been in IT for 5 years this year

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Dani AI

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Fun question, and it comes up a lot. The short answer to is: yes, school can count, but label it clearly. Many folks do what describes and include academic projects, co-ops, and capstones as experience. Recruiters usually distinguish between professional (paid, full-time) and relevant (internships, coursework, open source, labs). Both matter; just do not mix them together without context.

A practical way to tally is to normalize to full-time equivalents (FTE). Roughly, 2,000 hours ~= 1 full-time year. So an internship of 20 hours/week for 6 months is about 0.5 FTE. Do not double-count overlapping time (two part-time gigs at the same time are still the same months on a calendar). If you want to present one number, say something like: X years professional; Y total including academic/internships.

Quick tips you can use right now:

  • Separate sections: Professional Experience; Internships/Co-ops; Academic Projects; Open Source/Volunteering.
  • For each entry, show scope and impact, not just time (e.g., team size, tech, measurable outcomes).
  • Be precise for short stints (use months), and avoid rounding up.
  • Keep a simple log of hours/weeks as you go; it makes FTE math easy.
  • If your experience spans different areas (IT support vs. software dev), give both: e.g., systems admin since 2020; programming since 2022.
  • On profiles, consider writing “Working in IT since YEAR” to avoid constantly updating a raw year count.

Bottom line: include what made you competent, be transparent about the type of experience, and do not inflate by stacking overlapping time.

Recommended Answers

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Member Avatar for invisal

Is learning at school count? If it's not then 0 years for me

Member Avatar for majestic0110

sure I don't see why not how does that affect your tally then lol

Member Avatar for jwenting

including graduation work, almost 12 years. If you include school and university programming projects, something like 18 years.

Member Avatar for majestic0110

cool thats great. Popular thread this one lol!

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