2 job offers after 12 months at a terrible place!

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If you go back through my comments you'll see how I spent 12 months working at a terrible company that only had one IT tech (me!) for 600 users spread across 25 offices but wouldn't think twice about issuing shiny new iPhones to management (who'd promptly walk up to my desk to ask "how do I e-mail with this?").

The place was a textbook case of "How not to run IT on a shoestring budget" but was a useful (though psychologically painful) introduction to the IT world.

After maybe 4 months of applying (getting up 2 hours early to apply for stuff online or find the e-mail address of the company and apply directly) I end up with 2 job offers:

• 12% pay cut to work Tier 1 for a local ISP (I am interested in Networking) and drive to customer locations for installs/troubleshooting.
• 11% pay rise to join an expanding media company's 4-man IT team looking after 150 users in 2 offices as well as starting to look after servers (the job title is "Systems Administrator" but I'm starting out on the helpdesk to get trained in this environment before getting eased into the job).

Although the ISP had a great reputation, the pay was laughably low ("oh but we make up for that in other ways") and in the interview, I didn't get a good vibe from the person who would be my supervisor. But the office was modern, staff were young but the location was maybe 50 minutes away.

The media company on the other hand, I got a really good vibe from the person who would be my new boss who was impressed by the fact that I was highly organised and professional (he said one of the reasons for hiring me was I had a notebook and was taking notes and actually had a list of questions). I got to take a look around what would be my new workplace and the server room alone, when compared to my prior workplace, was the engine room of the Enterprise-D compared to Del Boy's Robin Reliant (on bricks) at my last place.

Of course, I took the job at the media company (had a good explanation from my new boss as to why the job was helpdesk dressed up in "sysadmin" clothes).

Lessons Learned:

• If you want a bump in pay, MOVE JOBS.
• If, deep down, you know a place isn't right for you then LEAVE ASAP (if you can afford it). Don't stick around for 6 months longer than I should have at a great cost to my own mental health. (Not ashamed to admit this and ironically, the terrible place I worked for was a mental health charity...).
• Always ask to look at where you will be working!
• Have some sort of knowledge/certification plan (since you're on this forum, you know this already!)
• DON'T BOTHER WITH RECRUITMENT FIRMS (not a single one got back to me for positions I was actually job ready for).

Anyway, I am taking some time off between jobs to get my head back in the game and prep for what I hope is a much better place to work.

 

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One of the caveats I would add is that you really need to be able to afford to walk away, otherwise engineer your exit with a move to a new role.

There are ways to engineer pay raise, usually though it's either via promotion or market adjustments.

I have had good and bad experiences with recruitment firms, in fact the chap I went through in my current role played a large part in writing up a document to show why my market adjustment was required (I was hired in at one position and promoted into another with a vastly larger technology scope, his experience with the industry was enough to ensure my company gave me a sizeable jump in salary to equal the work I was doing).

 

Yep, in over 20 years of work I have only ever been hired twice through an agency. People's experiences may vary but I have very little good to say about IT agencies where I am (Toronto, Canada).

 

Congrats, well done and good luck!

it's a really nice feeling when you are interviewed and feel that employer seems good and you know they are happy with your application. Especially if you are desperate to change jobs!

btw it all seems easier the more experience you have.

 

Nice! usually when you land your first IT gig it's better to try to hold it down for at least a year then move on.. thats what I did anyway, my first IT job was horrible I hated going in each day. I do desktop support now working in a small team and its a lot better.

 

Apart from when you're interviewing for new roles tho hey Julez - https://www.certforums.com/threads/...when-at-a-current-job-less-than-a-year.52315/