looking to get into the feild

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Greetings all. I am a fellow tech guy trying to get into the feild for a job.

I am 20 years old i have had two kobs in my lifetime walmart and macdonalds respectivly.
( I have always been a hobbyist tech guy, and I was informed about how good the money is in the tech feild, which I know its not alot but for a 20 year old like me starting at 30grand a year Is a heck of alot more then double what I earn now and thats the low end of tech work)

Am in college for it at the moment. I currently hold a comptia security+ certificate. And after the holidays settle down im going to work on getting my network+ certificate. Now right now im gunning for like an entry level helpdesk or techsupport guy. Maby even a genereal tech for like an office building or something.

Now ive been pushing some resumes around and ive not gotten many call backs. And the ones I have the main problem is they want someone full time. Wich I cant really do till I get off college for the summer.

So my short term goal is to get good grades this semester and earn my network cert.

Any suggestions as to what I can do to achieve my goal?

Ps. I live in an incredibly rural area of a very poor rural state. I had to drive an hour just to take my security exam so if I consider taking a full time job I will have to consider housing expenses

And am I on target with the pay grade?

 

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So one of the things you don't mention is the country you live in, salary is very dependant on a number of things, one of which is country and location within that country.
You mention 30 grand a year but don't give any indication in what currency that's in, if you're in the UK then you're extremely unlikely at 20 to walk in to a 30k a year job but if you're in a country where 30k is equal to say a £20k then I would say you're possibly looking at the right area.

Gone are the days where IT pays the best in the market, yes salaries are decent but they expect you to have decent experience, so someone just starting out won't be earning a decent salary because quite frankly why should they?

One thing I will advise, having a network cert (I am going to assume a CCNA just because that's the de-facto one) won't automatically get you a role, in fact any network manager who gives a freshly certified engineer lacking in real world experience free reign on their network is just asking for trouble and I for one wouldn't want to be working there.

Networking in my experience isn't an entry level role, certainly not at the level the CCNA should be pitched at (and after all the CCNA is designed to prove experience, that's ultimately the goals for a lot of IT certifications (with the exception to things like the VMware VCA and Microsoft MTA), you need to work up to the Networking team rather than just fall in to it (I work in a large e-gaming company that has in the past had a networking team of over 20 people, any failures they incur can quite literally cost the company millions in lost revenue, as you may imagine that's not something they want to trust an inexperienced engineer with).

 

I live In the united states.

So 30 grand would be on par with like 20k pounds sterling. Which honestly seems reasonable for starting out. My parents have there masters in there respective feilds and after 30 years in only earn like 60k US. if I've been doing my reasearch properly thats not an unreasonable pay grade for someone with the same 30 years experience in the it feild. But without any degree. Now I do want to get my degree without a doubt becuase that will only help me land jobs and on the pay grade.

So you suggest as far as certs go to not pick up networking as a second? Should I go for maby an A+ then? It would be alot easier then networking

 

Using a quick currency converter for a reference I make almost 5 British pounds per hour. And I only have part time hours right now. Its close but not quite enough to live on. Becuase I want to move out as soon as I can.

Thats why im so intrested In trying to get into the tech feild.

If I could get a real fulltime job and do a semester of school a semester of work. I could live by myself and graduate debt free. Admittedly longer then what im expecting to now.


Also im completely entry level so i wouldn't even attempt any Cisco stuff. Its going tobe comptia for me

 

Only 5 quid an hour, that's illegal in the UK

Jokes aside, I think SimonD was a bit harsh. I can't offer you much advice as I'm in a pretty similar situation as you but the best advice I can give you is to probably get a degree at all cost and leave certs aside. Graduates in computer science will walk into much higher paying entry level positions and you'd be able to work in many other countries. A lot of people join this website because they passed up the opportunity to go university and are now trying to get into I.T. using certs.

 

https://www.gov.uk/national-minimum-wage-rates
Hes on pretty much the current UK min wage for 20 year olds.

I've seen IT jobs in US for 140-200k probably after 10-15 years experience, 60k is low balling it.

 

Location varies in the US too...

I'm about to move into a new role in Dallas, Texas - they pay a hell of a lot more than other states within IT, no idea why mind you.

 

Agree with Simon, CompTIA A+, then Network+. When I started out I had the A+ and I think that helped me get the foot in the door.