How did you break into your IT role?

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

I noticed that Si (simongrahamuk) mentioned this in another post and thought it would be a good topic to start.

Si has granted me his permission to start this… cheers fella!

_______________________________________

How did I ‘break’ into the IT industry…

By luck to be honest!

I was working at McDonalds to pay my way through college and university and I was asked by my Dad to help out at his EPOS company at weekends boxing up kit ready to be shipped out that their IT staff had pre-configured.

One weekend the system administrator was in pulling his hair out as a set of windows based tills hadn’t been configured correctly so he was in to sort it out all out. Having messed around with PC’s and configurations I offered to help him in any way I could.

He handed me a Windows 95 boot disk and said get on with it then son.

I got it done, he was impressed and the rest is history as they say!

As you can imagine 8 years on and he is still one of my CV references!

 

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

Well, for me it was by accident!

I was at a training organisation training to be an electrician. Whilst I was waiting for a work placement to come up I was told that there was an IT company who were after someone, and was I interested. I of course said yes.

Started off there as a trainee, they then took me onto an apprenticeship, and I went from there.

Sometimes though I wish I'd satyed an electrician, I think they get paid more!

 

My love of games got me into it
when I was 13 - 14 I went to a Net Cafe in new oxford street with mates regularly to play games, this is sort of the Pre Quake era, (quake was 96 i think) and I loved it, when work experiance came up at school I chose that place and they said yes, I worked for every weekend and most of the summer for a few years after that, did my MCSE whilst I was working there, my first system upgrade from NT 3.51 to NT 4 and moved the network from 10 to 100mbps

Havnt looked back since, that will be 10 years ago in april/may time

 

Job/career loss. I lost my job as a social worker and couldn't find anything around that would support my family. Decided to bag the whole thing and put myself through school to take another degree.

How I got into my *current* IT role (some would argue that I don't work in IT because I don't maintain a network...I just write about it) would take a long time to relate.

 

I’ve always had a passion for anything to do with games consoles/computers etc, starting with the likes of an Atari 2600 console & progressing onto a Commodore Vic 20, Commodore 64, Atari St and then onto Pc’s.

So on leaving school with 4 O Levels and a few CSE’s decided to enrol at the local college on the BTEC national diploma in computing course. 2Years later I left college having passed with merits & distinctions. At that time I had the chance to go to University (one of my biggest regrets) to obtain a degree in programming, but believed that I would easily get a job in IT. Whilst applying for jobs I took a part time job at the local supermarket to pay the bills (beer mostly), but I found myself in the situation of employers wanting experience as well as qualifications.

Almost 13 years passed by, and I was still at the supermarket (working nights filling the freezer cabinets on 11.5k a year), & one night thought there has to be a better way to earn money – preferably doing a job I love rather than hate. I quit my job and set about looking for IT training companies and finally settled on AMRAF’s MCSE course for £5000. The course included Network+, CCNA & MCSE 2000 plus a guarantee of a job after finishing the course of at least 16k.

So I enrolled and took the MCP 215 & 216 courses, the Network+ and the CCNA courses as well. I passed all these but in the meantime AMRAF went into liquidation, leaving me and a hell of a lot of others out of pocket. By this time I had been out of work 11 months so stepped applying for jobs, whilst buying the Mike Myers A+ book and getting A+ certified.

After quite a few knock backs on the interview front (i.e. ‘we really want somebody who has experience’) , I got a job in a small company as IT support technician on 10k (less than I was on at the supermarket).
Now 4 years later I’m still with the same company but now an Application developer.

Aplologies for being so long winded but its took me a hell of a long time to get the career I always wanted.

Cheers
NB

 

Well I sort of fell into IT. I have always worked in the service industry, firstly as a Radio and TV engineer and then later as an office equipment technician. Fixing things has always come natural to me, I have 35 years of experience involving servicing and repairing of electronic and computerised kit.

Then about 15 years ago, I saw my young brother-in-law programing his ZX81 for a school project. He was doing a GCE in computing. He taught me how to program in Basic and I was hooked. Got a spectrum and started really delving into it, wrote some good little programs for stock control, expenses and even the odd lame game.

Years later the company I was working for went computerised. There was one young guy there that did know his stuff about networks and I started off by helping him out or covering for him when he was away. Then he left to do his own thing and I took over the support of the network.

By the time I left in 2001 (to emigrate) I was responsible for 2 Novel 3.12 file servers, I NT4 Server, another server that was running Mentor Pro running the company's bespoke software which used PicLan over IPX/SPX and a Unix server which I only knew how to shut down and re-start. Oh and the 50 or so workstations running Windows 98, and then there were the computers in my office, including W2K and a Mac. all of which (except the Apple) were upgraded, configured and repaired by me.

As time passed the office equipment sector and the computer networking field started to merge. Now customers were being sold digital copiers, digital colour copiers, scanners and networked fax equipment and again I was one of the first people in our company to be involved in this. This was really good experience because I got to play with our customers print servers etc and got hands on experience with a huge variety of systems, inc NT, Novel 4, DOS, Windows 3.11. I can tell you it was a difficult era

I had no formal qualifications, so I thought it would be good to get some certs once I was in Oz.

Now I run my own small business, not always busy but fun just the same.

 

Maybe you can start offering a 2003 to NT4 migration service to clients!

'I guarantee you will have no security problems Mr Smith, noone develops hacks for this old stuff any more ...'

 

I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

 

I was doing anything i could to earn money, ended up working for my present company (through an agency!) doing a bit of data entry. Worked my little socks off and left them my C.V when my temporary contract was up. A few months later they rang and offered me my present role as 1st and 2nd line network administrator, been doing the same job for 2 years now starting to get itchy feet!!! lol

 

Im still trying!

 

I started work for a big government organisation around 1999, and after a year of dealing with people face to face, I was asked if I wanted to be the 'PC guy', as they put it, because I had A levels in Computing.

It really was a hands on job role, even though on paper, all we could do was call a 'real helpdesk' to fix our equipment and software, if it wasn't easily fixed.

I managed roll-outs from NT to Win 2k, helped plan and install whole new servers/cabling/computers in fresh new sites. I managed sites remotely, acted as a help desk, trained staff on Microsoft products, patched phones and computers, kept them tidy (lmao - right!) . . . . . etc etc etc.

But in 2004, they decided that the office needed a change around, so someone else (Someone who barely knew how to turn the pc on) was going to do the job. So I left . . .

After a bit of pondering, I decided It was IT i still wanted to do, so I've been studying ever since. (Taking my time, that is ) So now I'm trying to get back onto the first rung of the ladder. I don't really cherish the thought of helpdesk work, but I suppose it is the best way to progress.

 

I've generally been lucky in work (and life), having had only three real jobs in 43 years, in one of these (the Royal Mail), I got noticed by an IT guy who had come to fix and maintain (scandisk/defrag) a workstation in my little office.
He tried setting up several other drives on the system (Win NT4), and couldn't, I showed him the "Lastdrive=Z" was missing in config.sys, and he entered this and it worked.
He was so impressed, plus I told him what i did for a hobby (System Builds,Configure and basic networking), that he recommended me to his manager in Reading (the IT Department), and I gained a six month secondment. The snag came with the general turndown (crash) in IT in the mid 90's, and I was re-instated into the Transport side of Royal Mail (now poshly re-branded as Logistics).
I then suffered a few personal setbacks in life, and took some time out to consider what i wanted to do, which direction to take.
I eventually invested into a Microsoft partner training provider, took thier exam in London (Cerco),after an intensive month's hands on course and passed with three 100% grades, They also handle recruitment, But my location (the south coast of england), Is going to mean that it'll take a bit more time for me to gain employment, although I am willing to travel within an 80 mile radius. Not in yet, but I have got an interview soon!!!

Baron210

 

Hi, again I'm one of the lucky one's who just happened to fall into it. Got given a promotion to one dept, writing and publishing electronic specifications. Made it known to everyone that I'd love to go into IT. Girl in IT goes on Maternity leave, I get offered the job of covering for her and supporting the IT manager. She never came back, so got made permanent. Hallelujah!. Now if they would only start paying me the salary I think I should be on, I'd be well happy.
At least I got them to pay for my A+Cert course, taking exams soon, so maybe I'll get that rise then. Who knows.

 

I got 'noticed' while washing cars !!!

Had just finished my comp science degree but didn't really want a 'proper' job yet, so got a job working for Avis car hire - washing and delivering their cars. This Avis franshise was owned by car dealership (whom my dad worked for at the time - hence me getting the job with Avis). Was out washing cars one day when the Managing Director of the car dealership arrived, had never spoken to him before. We started talking, when he found out I had computer experience (well a degree), he said there was some work I could do in their headoffice and to come see him on Monday. Turned up on Monday, he showed me about 20 new PCs they had just bought that needed setting up i.e. software installed (wished I'd known about disk imaging then !) delivered to their other premises and setup on the network.
Eventually ended up doing about 24 hours a week work for them for a year. Suited me well, as it moved me gradually from being a student to working full time.
I still do contract work for the company in the evenings now 5 years later (only now I charge them about 5 times what they paid me when I first started).

 

Blimey, normally its the women that gets noticed in the car wash!

 

Dont normally notice the women just bits of em!

 

I was doing Web design on and off.
Then someone approached me to do some serious development stuff which I struggled with, but it started me off on my MCSD.
Now, having completed my MCSD I find that I am working as a network administrator.
It's like playing catch-up all the time!