Finding Support Role/Changing to Programming

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.

Hi i passed my degree in networking and computer support and since then have worked in a call centre doing tech support for a telecoms company. I have been applying for lots of proper IT support roles but am not getting interviews and it is mainly due to lack of experiece. What can i do to improve my chances of getting into a better job?

I have also been thinking of chaning to programming as i had originally planned to do this but was told after my 1st year at college i couldnt go onto software developemnt any more and had to do networking. I did some programming classes in college like visual basic and html/ccs. I have started learning c#, if i did the certifications(MTA) would i have a similar problem getting into a programming role without the experience, i know i could make an example program to show but you cant really show that in a job application

 

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.

If you believe that your support career is stalling due to inexperience, you will be equally inexperienced for programming roles by the sound of it.

There is not as much crossover as you might expect between support and programming, you will have to learn a lot of new skills and demonstrate them to succeed.

There are things you can do to highlight any experience you do have, you can say on your CV what programs you have written and what they do. You can list your MTA on your CV, or list the programming content of your degree, or can create a programming blog, etc.

There are junior programming roles, but they are relatively rare and its probably tougher on average than landing a support role.

 

I was in similar situation as yours few months back. Was doing tech support for a major telecom company and was thinking that my career was going nowhere. I badly wanted to be in IT. Luckily I had done A+ and MCP certification. So I brushed up on MCP again. Focused on making my cv and coverletter better and started applying. I got interviews and landed an IT support job. I'm not too sure about programming.

As far as IT support is concerned, I think you should look at doing A+ and/or mcts for windows 7. Update your cv and apply again. All the best.

 

Ultimately you need to decide what kind of role you want to do and concentrate on that.

Programming is definitely an aquired skill and not everyone is capable of doing it (I count myself in that), it's a whole different ball game compared to general support roles but you're at the stage of your career where swapping between both is possible (leaving it too much longer and it 'could' cause issues where pay and level of role comes into play). To get to the stage where you're the one getting the roles does take time tho, you have to be the one doing the crappy work for a couple of years because that's where the experience comes from.. and I hate to tell you but certifications aren't the answer. Certifications should prove your ability, it's no good taking more experienced certifications if you can't actually do the work (the Comptia and Microsoft MTA's will help but too many certs too soon and that can go against you as well).

If I were you I would probably take a step back and really have a think about what it is you want from a career, unfortunately the days of walking into a role after Uni and earning big bucks is gone (it actually never existed but you would have been told otherwise). You're also at the stage where you're competing with a load of other people who may well be more experienced and certified than you.

I think the more important question is why you want to leave the current role, is it because you're bored? because you think you should be earning more? or lacking the opportunity to expand in your current role?

 

Thanks can you tell me what i could do to improve my cv, the last 2 jobs were under the same employer, could i add in i was made redundant as i was moved from a tech support role to customer service

I have created a new cv is this one better?