Breaking out of "Support"

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.

Morning,

Back in March I wrote a post about not getting luck with roles outside of Support.
Now this isnt some 'Woe is me' post because I know I am bloody lucky to have had a job all the way through Covid. Its more of a 'Where am I going wrong and am I doing the right thing' kind of post.

So I gained my CCNA in Feb and my JNCIA in May. As yet, I have had 1 Interview for a NOC Engineer.

Interview was going really well, all getting along nicely and they asked what my Salary expectations were. I stated that within reason I would be willing to take a drop in wages (Say 5k) and stated my Salary. They then advised that I would need to take a 25k salary cut. I asked what was the point of them advertising the role at 45k then and they informed me that the salary was advertised at 25k....Until I showed them their Linked In advert that stated up to 45k. That was the end of that Interview.

The weekend, I had someone contact me about a role close to me. Again, another 5k drop but something I was willing to do. Had a chat with the recruitment consultant who advised that they thought I was a brilliant fit. The company come back and said I needed at least 2 years networking experience and they wouldn't offer me the 40k without at least 2 years experience.

The question is, how can you get the experience if no-one will give you a chance? My current role, all out networking is run out of Baltimore. All our in house networking is Meraki so pretty much all GUI based.

Ive started studying for my CCNP but not sure its worth it at the moment in all honesty. If I can generate any traction with a CCNA / JNCIA, would a CCNP really help?

Cheers

 

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.

Unless I have calculated this wrong are you getting paid over 40k currently for support work????

HOW???

Support work pays 18-30k and 30k is rare..

 

I'm running two offices on my own. London and Tel Aviv.

Though its classed as "Desktop Support" I'm also working on the Meraki WiFi System, Setting up a Door Security System, Creating Documentation, general User Support, implementing a new phone system...and that's just London

Machine builds, Purchasing, Inventories, New Starters / Leavers, as well as all the other projects going on. Will be heading out to Tel Aviv once COVID is under control as well.

 

Mate, this is all about branding.

First of all, rule of thumb for me is - never tell the recruiter or the place you're applying for your salary. If they ask why not, just say your current salary isn't relevant. Your skills dictate your market value, not your current salary.

Second, if your job title is Desktop Support, change it to IT engineer on your CV. If they do background checks, minor discrepancies like that will fly under the radar. You're not lying. You're giving a more accurate description for the job you're performing.

Third - List your certification related skills on your CV, just don't list them under your current or previous job titles. List them under key skills. If they ask you about it at interview, say you configured these things hundreds of times in your lab and you can transfer those skills to the workplace. Be confident. If you've genuinely achieved those certifications, there's no reason why you can't immediately transfer those skills to a production environment. The more confident you are in your ability, the more the interviewer will believe you.

Fourth - Brush up on weak areas before an interview. If I see technologies listed on a job spec, and I really want the job, I'll spend several days studying those areas like it's an important exam. Then when they hit you with technical questions, you'll be ready.

Finally - remember, this is all about appearances and convincing the employer and the interviewer that you can do the job they're advertising. Believe in your skills, be confident and hit them with everything you've got.

One other thing I would say is.. are you absolutely sure you want to go into networking? I mean, I personally see the industry moving away from physical network hardware. All of that stuff is already completely abstracted in places that are heavily leveraging cloud. I appreciate it if it interests you, that's why you went down that path, but personally I think you've got to balance it with what's in demand. I still do loads of network related stuff, it's just all logical.. rather than configuring routers and switches I'm configuring VNETs, firewall rules, ACLs etc in Azure/AKS.

Good luck. Hit me up if you need any more advice. Always happy to help.

 

Unless I have calculated this wrong are you getting paid over 40k currently for support work????

HOW???

Support work pays 18-30k and 30k is rare..

this isn’t standard support, looks like they’ve rolled two jobs into one tbh.. is this job not varied enough? Sounds interesting.

 

Thanks very much @Pseudonym Great points. |
Ive amended my Job title, and confirmed I have the Certs listed under Key skills.

Ive passed the Azure fundamentals a few weeks back and work with a lot of Meraki stuff in the office. I think if I can get into some sort of networking role, then I can see where it takes me from there. Maybe start out as a Network Engineer, then work on progressing from there. Maybe Wireless tech for example, Scripting etc. Does that make sense?

 

Nah its not mate. It is interesting but need to progress. IT Support / Desktop Support / IT Engineer all seem to get lobbed in together.

 

If the only networking gear you have access to is Meraki, then I would say make the most out of it that you can. Obviously that doesn't incude a lot of CLI action, but IF you are allowed to add API key generation for your org then the playground is not bare, you have a solid REST api to work with, and SNMP and syslogging options. All of these things are highly portable skills.

In december Kirk Byers is going to run his free python for network dudes couse again so maybe check that out.
https://pynet.twb-tech.com/email-signup.html

Otherwise, I would vote to widen your search and consider an all-purpose sysadmin role that does let you loose on the packet-spaffers and ether-diddlies along with all the standard cloudy/virty kit.

 

Thanks Guys, So there has been a turn of events!!

Spoke to my Manager who is US based and explained that I needed to learn more / get more hands on with networking etc and he agreed. He has put me in touch with one of the Senior Dev Ops / Network Engineers.

We dont use Cisco per se but use Arista & Nornir which I understand is all about Automation. There could be some manual work they can send my way and we have a meeting on Friday for an hour to see what we can work on. Really appreciate the link @FlashDangerpants. Signed up to that and also Cisco NetaCad Python course also!

 

That's brilliant, I've never used Arista, but I only hear good things. That Byers guy is actually a maintainer of Nornir so that's pretty cool.

 

Thanks very much @FlashDangerpants Will let you all know how it goes tomorrow!

 

So had a chat with the Network Ops guy. Explained that I want to move into Networking.

Gave me some really helpful advice. Basically get my Python knowledge up to scratch.

They have three senior engineers at the moment all based in the US. They are sick of doing stuff like ACL's and would like a Junior at some point. They would be happy for someone to be remote and would be ideal if they were in the UK as we have a DataCentre in Amsterdam.

So yesterday, I setup a couple of Linux Machine's and had one as an Ansible Server and one as a client and made sure I could SSH from the server to the client and then sent some commands from the server to the client. Going to focus on Python today, and start the Byers course in the next couple of weeks hopefully.

 

Sounds good, you may actually get a lot more out of your current employer!

Some really good advice in above posts. Tbh I understand you are into networks and stuff but maybe talk to some network engineers about how NOC work looks like, it probably would not suit someone with decent experience in other areas of IT. Network dudes I work with have very little regard for NOC work, you are there a 'ticket monkey' and that's it. Otoh, it may be just their experience, but this is still support work - you just support network gear. Whether it opens any exciting doors - I don't know, if you land well it probably does.

 

Thank you @Nyx

I spoke to a couple of friends who are NOC Engineers and it sounds a bit naff to be honest. They do 12 Hour Shifts, and as you say, literally a ticket monkey.

I have an Interview for a NOC role this afternoon...But after reading the JD, Im not sure if its what Im looking for.
We shall see!