Its been a year....

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....since I got the job I'm in and although I'm enjoying it, I know there really isn't much chance for any form of progression, there are three of us that look after 1600 users. At times the stuff I do is not IT at all, like help out with exams, ie making sure people use wordpad and then save their work, then at the end of the exam, i have to go back to make sure they have saved correctly, other times we are setting up for assemblies and events, which can take a good few hours. When all this is going on, IT seems to take a back seat and that should not be the case.

I know that there is the possibility of a job coming up in the future, one which I applied for 3 years ago, but didn't get a look in, however this time i have real experience and also confidence, also if I don't get it, I still have what I have got.

I have a few questions as how to put across to the interview panel that I want to leave where I am, because of this. I don't want to come across as if I am slating my current employer and i don't want to look like someone who has spat the dummy out either, as i like where I am working, its just the times where we are not doing the IT side of things that are really starting to irritate me. I would chat with the line manager but i already know the answer.

Also leaving somewhere after a year and a half, does that look bad. The place in question is a 20 minute walk from where I live, the place I work now is 30 mins via motorcycle, however I wont be saying to my new employer that one reason I want to work for them is because it's closer.

Any thoughts would be welcome

Zx

 

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Just be honest, tell them that you really enjoy the IT aspects of the job, however you often have to do work that is not IT related at all, and although you accept there is always going to be some non IT related work it seems that you are doing more other stuff than IT.

No harm in being honest I don't think. Also make very clear that you feel there is no room for progression where you are, and you would like to move into a company where not only is it a little more IT focused, but where there is more potential movement and progression further down the line.

Might also want to add a "I know that I am not yet ready to move but I hope with a good IT focused role within a strong company then in a year or two I would be ready to make that next step, hopefully within the same company" blah blah blah. You know the sort of thing.

Balancing act between showing you want to progress, but making clear you wont jump ship in 6 months time to progress etc.

 

Cheers for that, the advice really helps.

I seem to have one foot out of the door in my head and the job im lining up is still dependent on a few things. Firstly the bloke leaving as at the moment hes only 'seriously' contemplating moving on, until he does, I would be wise not to count my chickens.

Then there's the interview process etc blah blah. A long way to go with ifs and buts along the way but no harm in keeping a look out.

Cheers

ZX

 

sounds similar to my place, we keep on being told that one day we will be replaced by thin clients... plus there doesn't appear to be any room for progression unless go in to management if a position comes up but I don't really fancy that so I guess it's a case of updating skills, learning new skills, trying to memorise as much as I can as this is an area I sometimes struggle with, and seeing what happens. Good luck to you with the progression at your place.

 

Nothing wrong with moving on after a year and a half - if it's a regular occurrence then yeah i guess the new company could take issue with it

I've been in my current role now for just over a year, previous job was 4 years - However, with the experience I've gained in this role the last year, i know i can go on to bigger and better within my field.

With regards to the interview, just be honest with them and explain your missing real IT work and fed up of the other stuff you're doing.

 

Gone are the days where a job is for life (well unless you work for a local or central government department), moving on after a relatively short period of time is expect, especially if there is now career progression possibility.

18 months in a role is fairly standard, the more senior you become it's likely to move upwards, when you're a C level executive you generally stay for 3 years (usually there is a loyalty bonus attached to being with the company for over 3 years and you will lose that if you walk sooner).

In the 29 years that I have been out of school this is the 2nd longest job I have been in, when you consider that I was in the forces for over 10 years this makes my current role the longest IT role I have ever done and I have been here nearly 4 years.

As someone who hires people the only time I would be concerned with a short period between roles is if the person isn't a contractor but to be honest with you it can be simply down to personality didn't fit in the last role.

If you don't make a habit of moving every 12 months or so then you should be fine, after all people want to invest in both you and their company and would shy away from someone who repeatedly moves on every 12 months or so.

Last piece of advice is this, you are the person in control of your destiny, if the current role isn't doing it for you any more then you have to look at what will do it for you and if that means moving on then do it. Staying put because you think it's too soon to move on damages both you and the job because you may start to resent the work and then your performance could start to slip.

 

I get what your saying Simon, and to be fair I am starting to not like certain parts of the job, mainly when we get called out to do exams and general dogsbody stuff. However I went back to work on Thurs after a 2 and a half week crimbo break, so we didnt have anything to set up for, we just had IT, as well as some great problems to deal with. I had 2 laptops that were getting a self assigned address, but the other 18 laptops which connected to the COD network, were ok. I did a lot of diagnostics like flush dns, release/renew ip etc, none worked. IT was a case of resetting the access point, which was my first thought from the start, however i wont do that stuff without some sort of clearance from the network admin etc. After it was reset, it worked as it should.

The other one we had today was an issue with AB tutor. I have a MAC at work and i run vmware fusion, windows 8 64 bit. I did have windows 7. So when i came to install AB tutor i saved all my settings in an xml file, then imported them in. Now bear in mind that this was done before crimbo and everything was working as it should. However today i could not see a classroom, but i could see the staff pc in that room, what I had inadvertently done in when i set up the VM, the default setting went to NAT, when it should have been a bridged connection. I did ipconfig , i was getting a 192 address, when i should of been getting a 10 address.

Sorry for the waffle, but I suppose my point at the end of that is I was working along side the network admin and learning, not justt what was wrong, but why it was wrong what the fix was and what to do next time. These 2 days after being off for a while went fast and I really enjoyed them, and i still managed to run the helpdesk.

Waffle over ha ha

ZX