What's expected in an entry level job?

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Hi all,

I'm on the verge of making a total change in career and moving to IT. I have no formal qualifications or IT experience. The only part i'm sure of is that i love working with pc's, repairing, building, troubleshooting ect.

I'm currently a manager in manufacturing and have been for the last 4yrs.(been working with same company for 17yrs) I'm 33 want to do something that i'll genuinely enjoy doing for the rest of my days.

I'm thinking of starting with some basic stuff then moving onto perhaps A+ N+ then progressing onto a mcse.

My questions are these:
What kind of job titles would i be best applying for giving what i like doing?
What kind of things would i be doing on a day to day basis in an entry level job in IT?

At some point i'd like my job duties to be based around what i like doing. (don't wanna sit at a desk on a telephone all day!)

Hope all that makes sense and look forward to all your comments.

 

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Entry-level jobs, by definition, don't require experience - it's a job in which you *enter* the IT field.. Some companies will post in their job listings that they want experience... but if that's the case, then that's not an entry-level job, right?

The A+ and N+ are certainly worthwhile to help set yourself apart from your competition, provided they also lack real-world IT experience. That said, don't wait until you get your A+... start looking now, while you're studying. The A+, once you get it, will only help your efforts.

If you enjoy working with PCs, you might look for a job as a PC repair tech or a field service tech - both are usually entry-level jobs and will give you experience to move up the career ladder... to a desktop support tech, then systems admin, then network admin.

Sure, you may not want to be stuck on a telephone, but help desk tech positions are also entry-level jobs. Getting into IT is one of the hardest things you'll ever do in IT, so if there's an opportunity to do help desk work for a little while (nobody says you have to do help desk work for years), then you might consider it.

What will you be doing on a daily basis? That's as varied as the companies that employ entry-level techs... it depends on the job you take. You might walk people through problems over the phone, you might do PC repair, you might do virus scanning, you might do application installation, you might do hardware installs, you might reset passwords... who knows? There's plenty of variety out there.

Hope this helps.

 

help desk is usually the first step, requires no experience, lowly paid and can get rather repetitive and annoying with customers. you gotta start somewhere and then work your way up with qualifications and experience. unfortunitely wages usually start at around £14k.

grim

 

you will learn alot from first line support, i know i have. customers can get annoying but the good thing is they ask loads of questions which helps you learn. once you have mastered the basics, time for promotion or a change of job

 

Thanks guys, your info is much appreciated.

My only concern there is that i couldn't really drop to 14k.
I was thinking along the lines that once i get my A+ and N+ then i would look for a starting salary of 18k - 20k.
Do you think this is unreasonable?

The rest seems pretty cool, i guess we all gotta start somewhere....

 

best bet is to look on the job web sites such as monster and reed and see what sort of job you can get with your experience and qualifications in your area. only real way of checking your possible salary. you gotta realise though there are thousands of people at the lower end of the IT scale and you gotta fight your way off the bottom and put your self in the position where you're in demand

grim

 

Unfortunately, we don't get to pick our salaries... we get what the market will pay. Fortunately, we don't have to stay on the bottom forever... climb up the ladder as quickly as opportunities are given to you.