Starting out in IT

greendevil8

I'm looking for a total change of career and was considering IT, Have a degree in business but no IT qualification or IT experience whatsoever so where would be a good place to start, would have to do it part-time but wouldnt have 4 years to invest in a degree level course, also what are the prospects of getting a job in IT at the moment, was thinking of something like the diploma in computing in griffith college 1.5 years but where would this lead to ? any suggestions?

wobblyknees

greendevil8 wrote: »

I'm looking for a total change of career and was considering IT, Have a degree in business but no IT qualification or IT experience whatsoever so where would be a good place to start, would have to do it part-time but wouldnt have 4 years to invest in a degree level course, also what are the prospects of getting a job in IT at the moment, was thinking of something like the diploma in computing in griffith college 1.5 years but where would this lead to ? any suggestions?

You have a degree in business so will catch anyones attention with that. You would need to find out what in IT you are really interested in first I would suggest. For example, is it sales, management, service delivery, networking or programming? Do you want to work on the phones or face to face? Do you want to work in a small company or big multinational? Once you answer these questions you can start to look at numerous specific short courses to get you started. As it stands, there are jobs out there, but they are difficult to get.

Royale with Cheese

There are 1 year diplomas you can do in UCD or DCU, they can also be taken part time over 2 years I believe. That combined with your business degree might be enough to start a career in technology consultancy (analyst stuff).

If you want to go for something more technical then there's a 1.5 year full time Computer Science conversion Msc that would probably be useful. If you're determined to avoid becoming a full time student again then you're limiting your options somewhat. To get to any sort of decent level doing part time courses will take you 4 years, which is something you don't want to do.

Stheno

greendevil8 wrote: »

I'm looking for a total change of career and was considering IT, Have a degree in business but no IT qualification or IT experience whatsoever so where would be a good place to start, would have to do it part-time but wouldnt have 4 years to invest in a degree level course, also what are the prospects of getting a job in IT at the moment, was thinking of something like the diploma in computing in griffith college 1.5 years but where would this lead to ? any suggestions?

TBH while qualifications are all well and good, without experience you'll struggle to find any sort of support role that is not entry level/Helpdesk if even.

I just had a work experience person who has been with my dept for three months out of the last twelve whilst doing a FAS course that has gotten her a Cisco qualification, and today she told me that she's gotten a WPP for the next nine months, so even with the three months experience and the qualification she has, she's not been able to get a paying job. Very few people on her course have gotten anything, and she was telling me that without the experience she'd gotten whilst with our department she wouldn't have been considered for the WPP.

That's support though, there may be other areas of IT where things are not so competitive, in support Level 1, 2 and in some cases three roles are being competed for by a huge amount of people at the moment.

AARRRGH

Business analyst? Doesn't require too many technical skills, but it's an IT job.

cronos

AARRRGH wrote: »

Business analyst? Doesn't require too many technical skills, but it's an IT job.

Business analyst is not a bad option. Although I hate non technical business systems analysts. Rant over lol.

Eoin

greendevil8 wrote:

I'm looking for a total change of career and was considering IT, Have a degree in business but no IT qualification or IT experience whatsoever so where would be a good place to start

What about IT do you find interesting? As wobblyknees said, that might help you decide what route to take. It's a hugely varied industry with room for people with all levels of technical ability.