New career in I.T

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A course or qualification doesn't guarantee there will be a job at the end, they often end up as a very expensive mistake, especially if funded by a loan. Better to try to find a bottom of the rung role, and work your way up, and get the employer to pay for training if you can, and use the web or books (far cheaper than a correspondence course) to increase your knowledge in the meantime. HR departments and recruitment agencies place far more emphasis on qualifications than people doing the job, so it might get you an interview, but if you have little experience or knowledge outside the course material, it will become apparent at interview stage.

There is a lot of competition, cost cutting, outsourcing, and offshoring going on, it's not an easy path to take.

There is plenty of pressure in the IT industry too.

Caroline_a

Totally agree with lots of competition statement. Before XP came out most companies had oodles of IT support people. I worked for one of these companies, we had 15 then to cover one large office (1000 people) plus another smaller office. That same office now has around 3500 staff on site and only 3 support engineers. More stable platforms, remote desktop and tougher SLAs have made a lot of IT support people redundant.

Jules2012

I changed careers a few years ago. I was a bar manager now I work in Access Management, which is user administration in AD, Exchange, UNIX, Lotus Notes and over 100 bespoke applications.

It's developed into 2nd and 3rd line support.

I knew nothing about IT or IT related issues, I worked as a temp as a Facilities assistant then an Archivist (both for Accountancy firms) before my current role for an Investment bank.

Nov 2008-April 2010 was the length of time it took me, sometimes it's about taking a risk and luck to get the job/career you want.

dlea555

I currently work in a 1st line desktop support role (though I can't really call it just that as it has taken on a lot more responsibility over the last 3 years) I was given a chance with no work experience or qualifications due to my friend working at the company. My background was really just building/fixing machines for friends and a Level 3 Diploma for IT practitioners at college.

The MCSE certification is not a starting point. If you wished to get an MCSE: Desktop Infrastructure (Windows Server 2012) you need the MCSA as a pre-requisite so that means a minimum of 5 exams (3 for MCSA and 2 for MCSE) and quite a lot of knowledge backed up by solid experience which would be out of the realms of someone new to IT.

Microsofts entry level certification is called an MTA (Microsoft Technology Associate) There are several different 'flavours' but one to look at for desktop support may be exam 98-349 (Windows Operating System Fundamentals) but its worth comparing the MTA against the Comptia equivalents.

Being in my current role its giving me a chance to change career path and work towards an MCSA in SQL Server 2012. I have managed to get my employer to pay for the exams but the training I am doing myself through a variety of books and online video training (CBT Nuggets, Trainsignal) as the 3x 5 day Microsoft courses would have set the company back £2000 but you can usually find a decent amount of free material on the internet such as the Microsoft Virtual Academy.

If you want to take a Microsoft exam then they are currently doing a special offer until the end of May where you get a free second shot if you fail first time around. Exams are generally £99 each though if you went for an MCSA you can get 15% off the pack of 3 exams to save a few more £££.

National_Careers_Service

Hi pinkllama,

It’s great to see so many responses which outline individual experiences, a lot of them from people already working within the IT industry. Bear in mind though that these are just a flavour of individual experiences and routes into IT; consider whether all the information is current and applies to all companies and roles. Employers could vary in what they look for in applicants. For example, one large organisation might employ IT staff with different roles, each with a narrow focus of responsibilities. Whereas another small company might prefer to employ people capable of turning their hand to a wider spectrum of responsibilities and issues. This is just an example though; it’s a good idea to carry out some research into what’s going on locally to you.

Perhaps you could develop your decision-making strategy further to help you to keep focused in your research?

As InsideInsurance mentioned, you might find it useful at this stage to find out more about different roles within IT. You could then dig around a bit further to see if you can find out what real employers are looking for, for different roles. You could use the National Careers Service’s Information technology and information management Job profilesto get started with this.

The profiles can help you to find out what jobs involve, possible routes in and where you can find out more. You could also use the information in the ‘Opportunities’ sections of each profile to search for live vacancies to take your research to the next level. What are real employers looking for? Is there a particular qualification that keeps cropping up? Can you get any insight into the specific skills and experiences that they are asking for?

You might also find it useful to use the search facility on the Job profiles page to search for key words. For example, I searched for MCSE and it brought up the following roles which mentioned the MCSE:

IT security coordinator
IT support technician
Network engineer

When you’re working your way through the profiles, you could think about making a list of pros and cons as you go along. Do you know why you are interested in some roles and not others? Building up a good understanding of what makes you tick and what you are willing and not willing to do in the future could be the key to making sure that you feel confident about making choices that suit your needs.

As an example, you mentioned that you find your current role unrewarding; have you thought about what you might be looking for in a change of career which would make your career more rewarding? Are you able to put your finger on it? Asking yourself questions like this could help you to narrow down the specific areas of IT that you might prefer to work in and help you to take steps towards figuring out the best way forward for you.

Once you have a better idea about different IT roles and what local employers are looking for, you might find yourself in a more confident position to make decisions about whether or not taking a course could help you to further develop skills that could help you find work.
Have you had chance yet to look at the content of the different courses you’re considering? After having researched the skills and knowledge employers are looking for, do you feel the content of any particular qualification would help you to develop these?
Another point worth raising, when it comes to deciding who to study with, is to think about the amount of support that you might need. You could find out about the level of support offered by different training providers, to figure out if they are likely to be able to meet your support needs.
Good luck with it all – hopefully some further research will help you to narrow things down further and help you to find a way into the rewarding career that you’re looking for!

falko89

I don't mean to hijack this thread but no point posting another when on a similar subject, but what exactly will get you further in I.T or indeed gives you a better chance of getting into I.T, a degree or one of the above mentioned qualifications?

directdebiter

falko89 wrote: »

I don't mean to hijack this thread but no point posting another when on a similar subject, but what exactly will get you further in I.T or indeed gives you a better chance of getting into I.T, a degree or one of the above mentioned qualifications?

Hard question. At the moment there is generally an IT Skills gap although IT is very fragmented so quite hard to generalise. Long term a degree would be good. Top employers are scrambling over good computer science grads.

However IT is one area where you can learn yourself and upskill over time. Unless you want long term study, I think the qualifications and importantly experience willl get you on the IT Ladder. Always try and get and then quote experience - even if it is building a network at home or helping a small business you know with its set up. Its shows an interest and starter knowledge.

To the OP - MCSE is much more widely asked for - just check a load of relevant IT Support job adverts. Otherwise look to evolve to learning a programming language such as PHP which is really in demand.

HTH.

directdebiter

In summary both will get you into IT and dont think it is a choice - more about the long term career route and short term financial circumstances.

TrickyWicky

falko89 wrote: »

You've had more luck than me, I like you had been doing repairs, setups etc for family and friends but apart from getting a sales assistant role in a computer shop

Well you've had more luck than me

falko89 wrote: »

We have done programming such as HTML, XML, Java and their own language Sense based based on scratch. If it was all based on computers it might not be so bad but it seems to cover everything that has a micro chip in it.

I'm now very confused because just earlier you said:

falko89 wrote: »

I haven't learned anything yet that I would class as useful

HTML, XML, JAVA are all used by businesses. Java is used in many embedded devices such as freeview boxes. HTML is often used on company internal systems and intranets. Instead of using a windows application (which you then need to roll out and update on every system), you can update your company application on one machine (the server) and it has an almost instantaneous effect when the users make their next http request.

So which is it? You're learning nothing useful or learning about almost everything you'll need in the working world of IT?

Your first post almost put me right off signing up to the OU so when I found your second post saying you've pretty much studied anything with a chip, you've left me with a lot of confusion as to what I should do

chuckalicious_2

Some good advice already in this thread but thought I'd add my own tuppence.

I have worked in IT for 11 years now after leaving uni (with a geology degree) with little experience other than enjoying upgrading PCs and doing reinstalls etc.

As people have said, there is so much more to IT than just tech support, or hardware etc. You will encounter things you didn't know existed, because every company does things a little different and every company has a bit of software or hardware that was made by a company that doesn't exist any more.

As for your qualifications, it's a tricky one. MCSE/A are expensive and only of any real use if you want to go into a Systems Administration role. Even then if that's the role you want you need to look at things like the Cisco exams too, as many companies would expect you to look after their routers/firewalls too which may well be Cisco kit.

There is also the software development route. This is as broad as IT is in general. There are so many languages. The bonus of development though, is if you have the time and the will, you can learn pretty much any language, from scratch, for free, all on the web, or by buying a couple of books. From there it's experimentation and trial and error. However development is highly pressured - all the time, so if you don't want to be pushed for targets, it may not be for you. In saying that, the whole point of IT is to make a system, or keep a system running. There's a bit of pressure there and if something goes wrong there's a lot of pressure.

In terms of getting a job, if you got the opportunity to work in a smaller company, I would go for that. Smaller teams need to do broader tasks, in my experience. I was in a team of 3 and started in support but ended up doing sys admin and then onto software development. If you go into a big firm, you may never get the chance to try something different.

I was made redundant last week so am testing the waters to see what is currently being looked for. There are (in my opinion), very few sys admin jobs, meaning your MCSE would be useless. All "IT" jobs these days seem to be looking for Java, SQL, PHP, Ruby, C# and of course HTML/Javascript. You can make a !!!! load of money if you're good at these languages.

Good luck and I hope you find something.