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I'm 30 years old living in Bristol. I graduated 4 years ago with a Psychology BSc and have been playing online poker since as sole source of income.
It's been a fun few years but it's time for me to move on and get a real job. I've always been interested in computers and IT in general, had internet access since 1995 and have taught myself a lot (system builds, overclocking, watercooling, troubleshooting own computers and friends and family's, home networking and being active in computer forums, reading IT blogs etc)
In a bid to get my foot in the door, I've passed A+ and Network+ exams (A+ was easy as i knew most of the material already, Network+ required a little bit of self-study).
However, due to my lack of commercial experience and, i suspect, the stigma attached to being a professional poker player for so long I'm finding it difficult to get interviews. I've been applying for over 6 months and over 100 jobs and have only had one.
To increase my chances further, I'm planning on sitting MCDST in the next couple of weeks.

I've attached my CV and would be grateful for advice on that or on anything else. Thank you.

 

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Firstly.. Welcome!!

I've got no idea what you've been applying for so you may be trying to hit above your weight, metaphorically speaking. I found during my career progression that the way into 1st, 2nd, and then 3rd line support, was via the helpdesk.

So the helpdesk doesn't have the greatest pay in the world, but think it's a fantastic journey for anyone in the IT game. It'll help you appreciate how difficult people can be, it'll develop your angry people management skills (know you already have a BSc in Psych). It'll help you get used to the kind of problems a corporation has on a day to day basis and help you understand resolutions to those faults.

I did this for about 6 to 12 months and from there moving into 1st line (non-helpdesk) support was easy because I had the experience AND the knowledge, more importantly the background helped me excel. More importantly as I moved up in my career, I never treated the helpdesk guys like plebs, because I'd walked a mile in their shoes and understood their challenges, and taught me not to look down my nose at people.

It's just one option, most people I suggest this to feel that it's below them somehow, and smirk at me like I'm nuts.

I personally think that this would do more for your prospects than another qualification (especially if you'd been doing it for the last 6 months). However if you achieved the qualification too, it'd help you to no end.

Just my tuppence.

Cheers

T

 

Hi Consultant,

Thank you for your response.
I have been mostly applying for helpdesk jobs and some other IT/network support roles. I definitely don't think it's below me and would jump at the opportunity. Unfortunately, i haven't had much success with my applications.
I have only had one interview and it was only because they needed somebody who was fluent in French (didn't get the job unfortunately because of lack of commercial experience)
I'm desperate to get some experience and have started applying to volunteering jobs. Hopefully that will give me the experience i need.
Thanks again for the advice.

 

OK.

Here's what to do (assuming you've not already done it).

1. Go to Jobserve.co.uk
2. Create an Account
3. Upload CV
4. Make it searchable (instructions on the site)
5. Set your status to "Actively Seeking"
6. Include the number of your mobile or anywhere you can be reached (i.e. don't let voicemail pickup the call)

For about the last 10 years jobserve has been amongst the Top 5 IT recruitment sites. This will have an upside and a down side.

The upside is within a week your CV will be in front of hundreds of recruiters...
The downside is the same.... your phone will be ringing for ages after you have a job, and unless you keep it up to date you'll get agencies ringing you for years, offering you stuff based on stale CV data.

This will almost always get results.

More in a moment.

Regards

Tony.

 

I forgot to say, if you haven't done so yet, go get yourself a linkedin.com account, and get all of your relevant IT info onto there, build up your profile. Recruiters will want to network with you when they talk to you about work, and they're useful people to be linked to (assuming they're decent recruiters) you can always remove them later if they're not.

Recruiters are using LinkedIn a lot these days.

Additionally find people you have worked with in the past that you believe will give you a genuine, good recommendation, don't get someone to do a fake recommendation for you, lies always catch up with you in this game.

Make your linkedin profile public, it's indexed well by google and all the other big search engines and will help recruiters outside of linkedin to find you.

This all helping to make you more visible.

Tony.

 

Jobserve and Linked in. Love it.

2 things i hadn't done yet. (well i got a linkedin account but it's not up to date or public).

Awesome. Thanks Tony a lot for this practical advice. Will be doing this tomorrow.