Practical Tips for getting your first IT job

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Hi All

I've noticed more than a few people on here landing their first IT role and thought it might be a good idea to share tips, discuss how we got into IT etc so that some of our members still trying can read this thread and hopefully read something they haven't tried yet.

I got into IT by working for a company as an office admin assistant. I wasn't there for long before I saw an internal only advert for a mainframe operator. I was really fortunate as this job wasn't advertised externally so had I not taken a standard office job, who knows what I'd be doing now.
I got a place to study Biochemistry at Uni but my heart wasn't in it. I loved computers but my school/sixth form didn't do computing A'Levels so I went for sciences, which I do enjoy but computers have always been my passion. I've worked in IT for 13 years and I still love it.

My advice to getting into IT is it is always best to apply for jobs when you have a job and who knows, perhaps your current work place has an IT department that occasionally advertises internally before it looks external. What would your advice be?

Cheers
James

 

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This is a great idea for a thread James, hoping peeps can contribute some good things to this thread.

For me, it was a case of making sure you make friends with the right people. I was doing all the right things to start getting in to IT - I had my A+ and N+ and half the MCDST, but I hadn't applied for any jobs and I was quite galled at where to start.

I was friends with the IT help at the company I had worked for. When she left, they weren't going to replace her as the IT was done at the central helpdesk, but because she'd mentioned I already knew a few things I became the "go to" person when she left. Not just that - when a vacancy came up at her new place, she had no hesitation in recommending me to her new employer.

It was my first IT job interview, and I was lucky enough to land it. No doing the rounds at agencies, no farming off my CV to dozens of employers. Always been lucky in that regard.

So, who you know is often just as important as what you know. Make sure you're networking with the right people. Sometimes the conversation with the right person makes a difference between the next big step and going stale in the same employment.

 

Still a valuable lesson, persistence is the key. I think it's fair to say you are both very successful IT professionals in your own right.