1st Line IT Support Officer

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Hi.

9 Months ago I was working as an electronics bench technician. It was for an AV rental company (think 'buy as you view' or 'bright house') and I had been there for 4 years. As the company branched out, they decided to add PCs and laptops to their sales brochures.

Unfortunately for them, they did not think about what would happen when things began to go wrong with the equipment.....d'uh

Fortunately for me, I had wanted to get into IT since leaving school but had, for several reasons, not been successful. In our workshop, there was myself and an older gentleman who had no experience whatsoever with IT, despite being a highly skilled and experienced TV/VCR/DVD technician.

This, as I saw it, was a perfect opportunity to get my hands dirty with the hardware side of things whilst providing a modicum of support via the phone. I spent my final year with the company doing just that before I was swiftly made redundant.

In the few weeks before said redundancy, I had enrolled at my local college on an MCDST course (of which I still need to complete part 2) and began looking for an 'IT Job'.

IT Support Technician: In my first interview (an agency put me forward for the vacancy) things were going well as I talked about how I was extremely experienced with Windows and Microsoft office software and the duties I performed in my previous role. Then I was asked about Active Directory, Mapping drives, Assigning IP addresses and troubleshooting in a corporate/office environment. I was stuck. I had never done any of that before and I felt I should just be honest, rather than look like more of a fool.
Needless to say, I didn't get the job.

A couple of weeks or so passed by and I noticed a job on the website of a small, local agency's website. By this time, I had been studying hard and learning a lot from my college course. The job was listed as 1st Line IT Support Officer and was in the public sector (local government). Not expecting too much, I applied - thinking that if I was lucky enough to get an interview, at least it would be good experience.

Imagine my surprise when I landed the job! It was a temporary contract role to last for 3 months...and i'm still there 9 months later, acting as the interim Senior 1st line support officer!

Obviously i've still a way to go, but I feel like i've acheived such a lot, in such a short space of time. I'm now looking at various other certs to boost my knowledge and skills even further, confident of looking for other jobs and I know now that this the job/industry that i'm meant be in.

I'd just like to say to all those that are struggling, trying to get into IT, that it can be done - you can escape the "Catch 22" where you need experience to get a job, but need a job to get experience. You just have to try hard, be proactive and have a little luck along the way.

Don't give up!

 

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Good to hear a success story. Well done

 

Great story, thanks. And welcome to the forums!

 

Pleased to hear about your success and welcome to CF!

 

Hi & welcome to CF

Congrats on your success.

NB