IT JOB: Lost Passion/Motivation, Need a Change

justinjustice

I have been in the IT Support (1st/2nd) sector for the past 7 years and I no longer have that spark/motivation for dealing with users at this level.

I feel its time to progress onto 3rd level - Servers, Virtulisation, Exchange etc
For the past 2-3 years I have been trying to find a job that would give me this experience to progress into the above stated areas but I have been each time unsucessful getting a perm job and instead have had long term contracts that have paid well but have had no progression what so ever.

A few months back I trialed a VMWARE course which the institute and instructor of the course advised as long as I understood basic concepts of computing support from a 2nd level perspective, I would be fine.
I was the only student in the class from a 2nd line background (all others were from 3rd line) and the teaching methods was too technical from a 3rd level perspective so I couldn't really understand certain areas or concepts and therefore keep up.

I am hopeing this was specific to my institute and there may be some companies that provide courses which, if you like, dumb it down to a 2nd level support engineers understanding...

Can any one advise me on such courses please?
I would not be able to study from home and would need to attend a class.

scheming_gypsy

To be honest I wouldn't advise any courses. I'm kind of in the same boat where I'm sick second line and would prefer moving back to third line.... but not done it for far too long.
The problem with IT technical courses is that you can't really learn a lot if you don't know it in the first place. You really need to learn it hands on and do the courses to fine tune it.

Contracting doesn't always help with getting a full time role as more often than not they'll want to know why a contractor wants a full time role.. and it can put them off as they think you'll jump ship when a decent contract comes along.
You might be better slipping back to second line and finding a role where it's mainly second line with third line exposure where you can learn on the job and then make the move.