voluntary work

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Is voluntary work a good idea for getting your foot into a company?

The reason i ask is that i sent my CV off to a local support company, the MD emailed back saying they dont have any vacencies at the moment but my experience is very relevant and they will certainly consider me when one comes up in that area.

I replied yesterday with an email updating the status of my qualifications and asking about the possibility of some voluntary work during the 6 week holidays ( as im off work for the full 6 weeks)

the email was read yesterday but i havnt had a reply yet, just wondering if ive jumped the gun sort of thing and have come accross as looking "too desperate" ?

The idea of the voluntary work was so that i could show the company what i can do and hopefully with that they would be able to see my potential value to the company.

need some proffessional opinions on this one as i really really want to work there

just hope i havnt messed things up

 

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No I think its a good i dear shows you are willing to go that extra mile if needed, Our MD here would snap your hand of but if they do take you up on the offer make sure they dont try to extend it.

 

Yes, go for it. What have you got to lose?

I did some Voluntary work for a local charity... and it just happened after a few days there local IT company manager came along to talk about business, one of the women there praised how good i was and said i was looking for a job... manager saw what i could do and give me an interview 2 days later... i got offered the job an hour after the interview.

Experience is also good! shows your willing to work or a job etc.

Without doing that... i would probably still be looking now!

 

Is a local it support company the best place to do voluntary work?

or is there other places that are better (im looking to work for an it support company ideally, not helpdesk as such though)

 

If you can get in a local IT support company doing Voluntary work do it... at least then you can show them what you can do.

Maybe try and find a charity that use a local IT company (call and explain your looking at getting into IT etc...) for there IT... it helps and you may bump into them and ask questions etc.

I used http://www.do-it.org.uk/ (I believe this was posted on here ages ago) and found Charities via there.

You want to build up loads of contacts... this helps greatly in IT and will get you along way as well as knowledge of course.

 

What do you make of these 2? theyre the only ones i could find that are IT related (if a little boring in comparison to what i normally do at work)

http://www.do-it.org.uk/oppdetails.do?id=1011383

http://www.do-it.org.uk/oppdetails.do?id=952501

 

Sounds similar to what i did... i was helping with ECDL and Clait courses. Once they trusted me they gave me there server password and did some account (AD) creating (without there IT company knowing - as they would've charged). I also hooked a presentation up to there TV for clients to see.

At the end of the day, you can get a lot more experience depending on how much they trust you. They ain't going to let you build a server and create AD accounts straight away etc...

It all helps on your CV and gives you more to talk about and draw the interviewer into you etc.

If you got the spare time, go for it.

 

hmmm, age concern though

wonder who they outsource theyre IT to


so let me get this right, you were working there for just a couple of days and their IT mager just happened to pop in and spotted you and offered a job later on?

 

Pretty much yea! was luck more than anything... but then you have to make the luck happen which i did.

I had loads of free time on my hands so took the plunge and it paid off, don't try don't get as they say.

 

ok nice one, rep given

 

just to let anyone know who may still be reading this topic, i got an email this afternoon from the company i was after doing some voluntary work for. theyve said theyre happy to consider me doing some voluntary work and have invited me for an interview next week

so looks promising i guess

 

Sounds good...

It just shows it pays to offer something for nowt sometimes.

 

Make a good impression at the interview, the reason I point out the obvious is.

My friend did the A+ a few years ago and after the certs arrived he had trouble getting into work so he requested to do volunteer work at a local computer place. He's now been there for over 2 years.

When a position became available he was given the job cause of his hands on experience within the company. Offering your service's for free can have great rewards if you show your worth keeping on.

 

I've had one lady volunteering to work for me for free for several months now. I've been saying no to her, because...

1. She's uncertified and my insurer requires that I employ only certified technicians, or that I am present at all times when uncertified techs work on machines. Since I can't babysit an "employee" (paid or unpaid) to this extent, I can't use her.
2. I don't like taking advantage of people. I do use students here and there now, and I pay them for their time. I regard it as immoral to use someone's skills to earn money and then not share it with them.
3. Her desperation creeps me out. I can't explain why, but it does.

 

She just wants to be close to you, Sean.

Yeah... you still got it...

 

Actually in my experience a lot of companies will, all the more reason to go for it I say. I started in a charity straight off the street and to be fair they had no clue about IT, so they just said there's the server(s) there's the networking cabs, make it work!

 

Except in extremely small companies that have no pre-existing IT staff, that simply doesn't happen. An IT manager, CIO, or CEO would be crazy to allow that.

Sure, a charity who doesn't have any IT staff might allow it. But "a lot of companies", as you say, will not.

 

Yes I was talking about very small companies (on the basis that there are many more very small companies of say less than 50 employees then Medium Sized Enterprises). Ideally some just starting out or expanding. They often do not have a dedicated IT Manager, so they are faced with contractors charging £1000's to run their infrastructure or it not getting done. If you had the choice what would you choose?

1) An IT Manager, costing at least £30k+ at market rates, depending on area of the country

2) Contractors costing £50 an hour, or an annual maintenance of contract of £x000 plus extra charges

3) A young person eager to make their start in IT and willing to work for peanuts


To a Manager or CEO who has many plates to spin, having someone offer to help out is a godsend. But this tactic obv. only works where you (or your friends/family) already know the people or have an "in" of some sort.

Lets face it, it's not like administering a small Windows Server 2003 system is rocket science, certainly not creating a few user accounts in a small domain, even moving from a workgroup system to a domain is something most people could master in a few months self study and is good way to understand Windows Systems when your starting out. Watching a few http://www.itidiots.com/ podcasts would give you a good grounding basic domains, networking, DNS, DHCP etc.

I am not saying you should expect that level of responsibility, just be prepared to grab every opportunity that arises.