2nd stage of application - assessment

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Hi Guys,

Sorry if this post might be somewhat off topic. I can put this in a new thread if it should be in a new one.

I got a phone call at noon today from a recruiter at a recruitment agency for a role I applied for. I've seen Arroryn post on this thread so if you are reading this thanks to you and the others on the thread I started up, I got a job response. An appointment was arranged right away on the phone to go down and see her. I filled in the usual forms asking for my details, passed an english, maths and typing skills test and had a discussion with her about the role. I'm now through to the 2nd stage that commences on Wednesday this week.

The role title is called 'Broadband Technical Consultant' but I think that is just more a fancy name for helpdesk. It will be at a large, expanding, call centre which takes on outsourced work from a range of global organisations. In the job spec it states a dynamic and innovative employer with fantastic opportunities for career progression. The job will be providing trouble-shooting solutions to incoming calls for an ISP. It will require basic knowledge of MAC, Linux and experience using a CRMS.

The 2nd stage assessment involves me going to the company in business attire and taking part in a small group activity. One such example mentioned by the recruiter was a scenario about being on an island. I normally take a back seat approach to group discussions, mostly listening to others and offer what little views I do have. I'm not confident with this kind of situation. If I do get the job though it will give me an opportunity to improve on communication and interpersonnal skills.

• Is there any advice for the day or needed preparation you guys can provide to a rookie?
  
• If I do get the job and working in it will an A+ still be of benefit as I'm currently self-studying for it or even a CCNA in future?
  
• I don't fully understand the benefit of learning scripting for support. Anyone care to explain to a noob?
  
• What can I progress onto from this role within support? Network engineering a possibility?
  
• Finally, anyone know of any good sources to learn about MAC and Linux broadband support?

The pay is really a step back from 14k salary as a Junior Web Dev, being at 6.50phr max on a 37.5hr week but I need to start somewhere, Thanks very much for your time in reading my essay long rambling,

 

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Next time please start another thread.

1. This approach actually gives the employer the ability to see what kind of person are you. It relates to skills like team-working, ability to communicate, attitude, etc. This might be very important and if employer is looking for proactive person, sitting back and listening will not do you any good. Also shouting over others won't help too.
2. A+ will be benefit as any other certification. It will keep benefiting you until it becomes unnoticable next to other more advanced qualifications. It certainly won't do any harm.
3. Scripting, programming, database queries... Whatever it is, it's nice to know it! It's IT afterall. You never know what you'll get to work with and the more you know the more valuable you are. Few months ago I started my first IT job, IT Support for small business. I am the only one at work and because there's only 50 machines = users in the company I had plenty of time for research. Since then, I've taken over developing 4 live php applications which have been managed by external contractors. I also wrote another application which is now live and in the process of writing next one. All that to please my boss and hell yes, he is pleased as this saved company a lot of money. I never used php before (done a lot of C++ and C# (.NET) programming), but I started small by slightly modifing existing applications and learned enough to write one myself.
4. Everywhere. Learn what you can. Try to increase your duties at work to area that interest you the most so you get some real experience. Also see above as this shows up how I can now become a PHP dev (if I ever want to).
5. Linux information is everywhere on the internet. If you're new to linux in general I would suggest ubuntu as user base and forums makes every possible solution being solved by literally thousands of people.

Regards
- Luke -

 

Wow, thanks very much for all the help and really useful advice.

I'm probably jumping head over heels right now before I'm even there which is a bad trait of mine that becomes apparent to people. I will forget about the CCNA and concentrate on the A+ for now. Thinking about the future though would a Network+ be a more flexible cert to take afterwards? My reasons for this are that it is vendor neutral and I think it might be more applicable towards customer technical broadband problems. By this I mean having a detailed understanding of networking and being able to effectively trouble-shoot it, no matter what vendor. I'm probably coming across as naive, .