Entry Level Jobs in IT

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Hello, I am new wondering what is the best type of job to look for to enter a well established or possibly not so well established company. I am currently enrolled in school for my Associate in Applied Science degree in Information Technology with an emphasis in Network Systems Administration with one more quarter to go.

I have been in a internship for the past year and a half while enrolled at the school in their IT department helping troubleshoot and maintain the network. I have maintained a 4.0 and also got my A+ certification while enrolled. I and am currently working on getting CCENT/CCNA ICND1 640-822. Since I am getting ready to graduate I am curious as to what is the best type of job to look for to enter and work my way up.

I have heard that getting in at a call center is a good way to get started but besides this I am looking for ideas about other possibilities. I am looking to stay in the networking field but am not entirely opposed to others. Any advice is appreciated.

D Thanks!

 

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That's exactly how I started.

But you may be able to skip the call centre part I worked for an ISP worked my way up through the lines after a year. Got ICND1, and this combined with some networking experience landed me in a Junior networking job.

Once you are in networking you can move pretty much anywhere you like, the only downside I saw was taking 5k pay decrease to get me into networking from my role at the call centre.

But, if I were you I would do ICND1 whilst you are still in work. When you graduate start looking for Junior network engineer roles.

Good luck!

 

Awesome thanks for the info.

So the way I understand it you joined a call center for a ISP provider and then worked up from there? That sounds like a pretty good idea. Any particular skill set needed to be a eligible candidate for a call center? I will defiantly by pass the call center if possible but if not what is a day to day job requirements for a typical positions. I appreciate your input.

 

Good communication and customer service, always on a job application for those (and most) IT jobs.

 

Thank you for you replies! D

These are awesome tips and advice and I appreciate them. I have since learned that a valuable tool to get your foot in the door is to locate volunteer agency's in your area and advertise yourself for any IT related positions. Not only is this helping to build your work history (Especially When fresh out of school) It also helps you to be able to gain decent fast experience in a low stress environment which may also help to enter a entry level job elsewhere.

Any other tips on how to acquire entry level jobs is appreciated ( Recruitment site, Job titles to look for, Types of companies to target, etc etc )

Thank you all who post

 

If you complete your CCNA etc by the time you get out of school, then you may be able to find a role in Network support straight away, however it is not necessarily a bad idea to get a job on the call centre or operations side, as you will get a lot of exposure to different areas and IMO it will help you relate issues and systems together as they occur.

To be honest, it's a case of apply for anything you think you can do and try and get your foot in the door, but in terms of job titles etc if it were me I would be looking at things such as Servicedesk Analyst, 1st line support, entry level support and Operations helpdesk type roles. Use a mixture of these as keywords and you should find plenty of potential roles that you could potentially snap up.

Personally I started as a 1st line helpdesk analyst, then moved up to 2nd line with that same company within 6 months and moved onto shift as they trusted me to be able to manage situations should they occur out of hours etc. Then I moved on to another company as an Operations Analyst, now working in Network Support with that same company (Well, kinda. I was outsourced, so work for a different company now, but in the same place and same environment).

To further back up what Freshen Up said as well, do not under estimate how important it is to highlight your soft skills as well as technical, so give examples of your good customer service and communications skills (Which most definitely means no typos/Spelling errors or text talk in any of your communication with the potential employers.)

Good luck with the search.