New IT career advise

085cheeky

Hi all,
apologies if this is the incorrect place to post this thread but looking for advise from people in the field.

I am currently at retail management level in my career and always had a big interest in the IT industry. So i made a decision to change career and begin studying for CISCO CENET and later CCNA i am also registered to begin college from next September too to study towards a degree.

In the mean time i am trying to get some experience in the industry and have been applying for tech support entry jobs but have not heard anything back from recruiters etc. so what i am asking for is advise basicly am i applying for the right entry jobs for the industry or am i barking down the wrong tree here? id really like somebody that knows what its like to start out to be able to give me pointers or any help towards my new venture

Pollymike

What's the degree in? Getting your CCNA exam is the ticket to getting a foot in the door, doing a relevant IT degree, will show you have commitment to follow through.

jadun

If recruiters see if you have no qualifications yet your C.V will be put in the bin. The IT trade is not booming as some people think. Graduates with additional certs are finding it nearly impossible to find work. It's booming for people with 5+ years expierence. If you can a jobbridge scheme or something it will help or apply directly to companies to see but very unlikely

Pollymike

Forget about IT recruiters at this stage and concentrate on studying, thats my advice. I work full time in IT and only finished my degree this year, started it by distance learning 3 years ago. I have a ccna, mcp in various technologies and lots of experience. But careers will stall without a degree. So you have made a good choice. best of luck with it. In 4 years or so you will be in demand.

DieselPowered

What part do you want to get into? Tech support can rely on having some experience and allow you to provide support based on understanding what is happening thinking logically etc.

You should consider going down the desktop support route for a year or two or three, it will give you a great understanding of supporting technologies which will allow you to move with confidence into networking/tech support.

The CCNA can be a handful when you don't have practical use to reflect on what you are studying, you should be able to get some help online for the courses (youtube) and consider Dynamips/GNS3 which is an emulator to help you put some of your learning into practice.

The CCNA while the beginner Cisco exam, is also very difficult as it covers quite a wide course content. You should also consider some of the HP Networking courses, for the Procurves and HPN (former H3C) devices in parallel as they are relevant these days also.

baddebt

actually considering a career in IT myself ,
was thinking of starting with A+ , Net + and security +
good choice bad choice of starting point ?

jadun

Mcsa in windows server is a must in my opinion.

Cuddlesworth

DieselPowered wrote: »

You should also consider some of the HP Networking courses, for the Procurves and HPN (former H3C) devices in parallel as they are relevant these days also.

As much as I would like to say otherwise, they are not relevant at all.

Moonbeam

baddebt wrote: »

actually considering a career in IT myself ,
was thinking of starting with A+ , Net + and security +
good choice bad choice of starting point ?

What area do you want to get in to?
Programming/Networking/System Administration?
A+ and N+ are a very good starting point for Desktop support.
Coursera run some technical courses that are worth looking at.

DieselPowered

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

As much as I would like to say otherwise, they are not relevant at all.

I take it you're not up to date on network standards and hardware alternatives companies are requesting these days.They are relevant. If you think otherwise, No problem.

baddebt

Moonbeam wrote: »

What area do you want to get in to?
Programming/Networking/System Administration?
A+ and N+ are a very good starting point for Desktop support.
Coursera run some technical courses that are worth looking at.

desktop support/system admin are the areas I would like to start off in , see where I can progress from there to.
will be tough to study ...with FT job (not IT) ,2.5hour round trip to work , 2 kids , managing my own website
but i need a change of career badly

Cuddlesworth

DieselPowered wrote: »

I take it you're not up to date on network standards and hardware alternatives companies are requesting these days.They are relevant. If you think otherwise, No problem.

It doesn't matter if people are tired of being charged ridiculous prices by Cisco or that HP's modular designs on the procurves and amazing warranty's make them the far better products. The certifications themselves are not valued in Ireland at all or globally. The time and effort invested would be far better spent getting higher Cisco certification or branching out into other Cisco cert routes(voice, wireless and security).

yeppydeppy

When you say recruiters are you talking about recruitment agencies? If so and you've no experience I' avoid them - go direct to companies. Use recruitireland.ie and irishjobs.ie and select to do searches excluding the agencies.

npwinter

Until you have 2+ years experience Recruitment Agencies won't really be able to help you! You are on the right track studying for your vendor exams (Cisco and Microsoft are the best options but any certifications in HP, IBM, VMware, Citrix will be valued). My advice would be to study for your Microsoft MCSA, then MCSE if you want to get working in IT quickly. You may need to do a 3 month internship (any IT support company would be happy to have MS qualified junior engineers for free) and when you can say I have worked 3 months in tech support and am Microsoft qualified MCSA I would be surprised if you didn't have a choice of 5-10 jobs in IT support. From there you should be able to build your career (and salary) by specialising in a particular area.

Good Luck!