Getting my Foot in the Door

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Hi,

I passed my CCNA in August last year, but have since still not found a job.

Currently I work as a Desktop Support Technician and have seven years’ experience with mainly Microsoft support, but it seems extremely difficult to break into the CISCO field. Most jobs I have applied to seem to reject me straight off because I lack much real CISCO experience.

What kind of jobs do I look for and how do I work around with the stigma of having done Microsoft stuff for the last seven years?

Thanks,
Chris.

 

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Do you capitalise Cisco on your CV? It may seem pedantic, but I've seen candidates thrown out during a CV sift for randomly capitalising things (the particularly irksome one being MAC instead of Mac).

Pedantry aside, you will probably find that the only way into a specialist networking role will be to first move into a more senior role that has some Cisco / networking involvement. With seven years experience, this sort of jump should be well within your reach, and would you put you in a good position to start applying for networking roles in 18-24 months time.

Also, I'm really not sure what stigma there is associated with Microsoft?

- Gav

 

What type of jobs are you applying for? A lot of jobs that I've been seeing they want both Microsoft and Cisco experience/knowledge. You could look for entry-level NOC jobs, they typically want someone with Cisco knowledge.

GW