Breaking into IT

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

I’m looking for IT Desktop support or IT Support technician role and happy doing voluntary work, I was wondering what is the best way to acquire the skills necessary as I have only limited experience in doing IT support. I have read through Mike Meyers Comptia A+ book and reading another computer support book. It’s not that I’m that interested in getting the Comptia A+ yet, I would prefer have the skills than the certificate. I wonder if there is a better way to learn the skills of a technician any videos I should use. I’m going to get the CBT A+ Nuggets to see the role of a technician as it will let me see the inside of a desktop PC as I only have a laptop myself.I was wondering if there any other videos or ideas I could use so I have a more hands on knowledge of repairing IT issues. Maybe cert IV would be the best but I can’t find a decent hands on course for either where I live and am happy learning on my own.



I would prefer working in an IT repair store than in an office as I do not like working in offices. Also I assume most of the issues brought in would be laptop and tablets, even mobile phone issues rather than desktop, so any tips to get more knowledge on this and I would be grateful. Thankyou.

 

Oh man! Ad-blocking software has been detected! :'(

This website is run by the community, for the community... and it needs advertisements in order to keep running. Blocking our ads means your killing our stats!
Please disable your ad-block, or become a premium member to hide all advertisements and this notice.

I broke into IT without certifications or qualifications but I was fairly lucky, get yourself a desktop you can rip apart and put back together, hands on beats videos any day.

Oh and your limiting yourself massively avoiding office work, both in terms of the experience you can gain and in earning power. Remember IT in an office is very different to office admin roles, I never thought I'd enjoy office work but I was sorely mistaken!

 

hi shadow,

as suggested pick up a cheap desktop off ebay and work off that. Dismantle, rebuild, install windows again etc etc.

ive been working for a IT company similar to Dell (build cutom pcs) for about 7 years doing this type of desktop based stuff and let me tell you, you are very limited by just sticking to that. Thankfully i had a natural interest in other parts of IT so kept myself up to date on it outside of work and am now doing the Network+ to take the step up and frankly earn better money and open more doors for future progression.

Another possibilty might be to find voluntary work at a local school/college/uni and work with their IT team. I find the internet a brilliant tool for knowledge building, find a PC fault/repair forum where maybe users post up problems with their PC and read what others suggest to fix it and maybe soon u can offer contributions too. This way youll see what the fault is and the solution and familiarise yourself with problems which may not neccessarily be explained in a book or study guide.

I just passed the A+, knew most of it anyway but done it purely for certification purposes and to fill a few empty gaps where i was lacking in knowledge. I would definately suggest you study the A+ via reading, practice questions, real life scenarios which u can replicate on your laptop, and also general internet research (cbt nuggers, professor messer etc). I was being a bit narrow minded by skipped the A+ thinking i knew it all but i wa sproved wrong when some aspects of A+ were very new to me, so pretty glad i did it and its acted as a great kickstart for N+ as some of the A+ content overlaps into it.

 

Thanks for the feedback guys, that's useful to know. I was thinking I will getting skilled as a tech and work in IT support shop. I do enjoy working and repairing computers, the bits I can do. I will look into building a desktop. Although I imagine a lot of the issues from customers would be in laptops and tablets these days.

My plan would be once I'm fully skilled is to set up a business in repairing, PCs, laptops, tablets and mobile phones. Unless you both strongly believe there is no money in that anymore? Its cool you say the office helps with cash but I can't face going back into the office. I worked in one for 2 years in admin and hated most of the people. Their constant negativity and complaining really starting getting me depressed. My problem is I love IT but hate the office. I will go and complete the comptia exams in a few months, but feel getting the skills is my priority for now. Maybe working as a technician is another option as it will get me out, although like you say money may not be great for that.

 

Every office is different! I have worked in some terrible places, others though have been great! Don't judge working in IT in an office to doing Admin in an office, completely different kettle of fish. Most people you come across working in IT in an office will have similar interests to you as most likely all want to be in IT and love playing with tech and so on, where as many working admin in offices have no such interests, they are just doing a job they don't mind doing and pays the bills etc.

Also I would say there is very little money these days in computer repairs etc unless you live in an area where no-one else does it at all! Good way of earning a few quid extra on the side but most areas it's a very difficult way to try and make a living IMO!

Especially as things continually become cheaper and cheaper, and outdated so quickly, things become almost disposable as soon as an issue occurs for a lot of people!

 

agree, general pc repair is a very aged profession now, most ppl not even working in IT can do it with a few basic pointers or will know someone who can do it. This is exactly the reason why ive decided to move into a more enterprise networking based role. Even that i feel is being phased out slowly with the introduction on mainstream virtualisation technologies.

Think about it, we have smartphone, tablets and cheap laptops which negate the need for a bulky pc tower unless you need it for specific reeasons, ie gaming, graphical work etc

Then we have large companies with dedicated multiple servers and dedicated networking staff to maintain them and yet now with virtualisitation you can have just a handful of equipment and a few well trained guys to monitor the enviroments. Although this is still early days, this is the direction i feel we are heading in.

good luck with the path you choose

 

I think you'll find there is a decent amount of mileage left in being an old fashioned desktop tech yet, particularly in the SMB market, the vast majority of the small and medium businesses I come into contact with are still very much in favour of maintaining their current on-site server infrastructure with decent specced client desktops and laptops for their users. Going it alone however is a tough sell at the moment, most home users have as yp_se says "got a friend" who can help out in most cases and small businesses generally want more consistent and easy access to support than the majority of one man bands can provide.

Local repair shops can certainly help you gain experience if they can use you but there isn't a huge amount of room for development their, outsourced IT companies have got far more to offer in the long term and its in their best interest to keep you up to date with the latest technologies etc so that they can keep their clients happy.