Career Change: Teacher to Tech

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Hi all,

I have decided to change career paths and I am looking for some advice from people already in the IT sector.

I am 26 and 2 years ago I qualified as a High School ICT teacher, and I have been teaching this subject ever since. I graduated from university with a First class degree in ICT in Education. But before I became a teacher I spent approx 5 years working as an IT Help Desk advisor in a Call Centre working for Broadband suppliers and also software support for the financial sector.

I am wanting to get into the hands on networking and server support roles. Before I became a teacher I studied at night school the CCNA v3 course, but did NOT actually get round to taking the 640-801 exam.

I am just wondering if the best route into this part of the sector would be maybe getting the Network+ and a MCP (thinking 70-270)????

Would any employers take into account my previous Help Desk roles or would they be put off by the fact that I've spent nearly 2 years in education?

Sorry for the long post, but thanks for reading

Karl

 

Network+ would be a great place to start. Not many people walk into a networking job unless they have experience in that area and not many people in a networking job start dealing with CISCO kit so having the CCNA can actually be counter production if you dont have the experience to go with the cert.

Most people have to work upto a networking position so this usually stems from help desk or genral IT tech role. I am not sure how well your teaching qualification will help but it definetley will when applying for jobs. I would think that you may have to start at the bottom to get where you want to be and this will unfortunatley involve a pay drop.

general starting certifications are A+,N+ and MCDST now the compTIA certs (A+ and N+) have a new policy after DEC 31st which the highest one you have requires renewing every 3 years and the MCDST cert is retiring March 31st after you pass the MCDST then you could do 70-270 but no further until you have experience.

 

Thanks guys for your thoughts. I think you're right about having to start back in Help Desk 1st/2nd line roles.
I've actually just went through the free sample question tests on the official CompTIA site for both the A+ and N+. Without any revision at all I managed to pass them all first time, so hopefully that has given me some idea of where my knowledge stands.

I have seen the Mike Meyers books mentioned on other topics, so I think i'll go pick up a few from amazon and get revising.

Thanks for all your advice!

Cheers,
Karl

 

Interesting explain more! I am interested in why you wanted to teach and now why you want to quit?

Why drop it all for an ok salary and good holiday. I would say generally a pretty dynamic work environment with sometimes a good sense of satisfaction.

 

I have never done any help desk roles, at 19 years of age i went into my first IT job whilst in college as a network engineer. It is possible. You reap the rewards you seek is my firm belief. Don't get focused on leading your certs to progress.