Hey Geeks

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 Stuart and I'm from Glasgow!

Anyway, thought I'd come here as I'm looking for some advice on career progression.

I'm currently out of work having been honoured with redundancy in January - can't complain too much, got a nice little pay off that helped clear the credit cards and the overdraft.

The thing is, I've never worked in IT. I have some pretty good user experience with Word, Excel and Publisher, I done a NT4 Server / Workstation course a few years back also. Most of my jobs have been in accountancy / admin. My last position was as an assistant manager in a hotel.

So, I'm sitting at home wondering what to do next. I've got hold of various training courses in Photoshop / Dreamweaver so I can teach myself some basics, as well as Office 2007 training courses.

Initially I'm going to go through the ECDL advanced course, then possibly onto MOS certification. There is also another course (EUCIP?) which is a progression of the ECDL programme, which I'm looking at

Anyone got any comments on my plans? What will actually lead to getting a decent IT position somewhere? I'm not looking for a great salary, maybe around £18K starting.
Is there another way to land a decent starting position? I'm willing to spend 8 hours a day for the next few weeks teaching myself, but I'm just not sure what area to jump into.

Any advice much appreciated!

 

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 Welcome

Sounds like you have a good plan but to expect 18k on your first IT job is pushing it a bit. You could be lucky but you will probably start in whatever field you go into with 14k-16k to start with. If it its just admin work it could be lower unless you have experience.

 

Thanks for the quick reply. Maybe £18K is being a bit optimistic.

You got any thoughts on A+? What's the chance of landing a job(£14k?) with just the A+ and no IT experience?

I've been thinking of going the MOS way mainly because it could lead to me getting an admin job with some IT responsibility, possibly in a small company with no dedicated IT department.

Am I being realistic?

 

A+ and 14K sounds more than likely, you could get higher it all depends on what job your doing, your experience and your employer.

I have applied for trainee desktop support role and that is pay 20k but they did want someone with a HND and someone who is willing to get certified. I expect there'll be a lot of competition for that so I am not holding my breath.

I have applied for other trainee support jobs which are all paying 14-17k depending on experience.

The A+ will be a great cert for you to learn, two books I would recommend are compTIA A+ all in one exam guide 6th edition by Mike Meyers and PC Technician Street Smarts by Jame Pyles (Tripwire45 on this forum).

 

Thanks

I have ordered both books from Amazon, and plan on getting stuck into them from Monday.

Is a home network necessary for getting a good grasp of the A+?

 

Not really, an old PC to take to bits and mess about with is a good idea though. I have a network at home but I have that in preparation for when I do the N+.

BTW doing A+, N+ and MCDST would probably be best in the long run but start applying for jobs as soon as you get a little knowledge. Knowledge with Experience go along way in employers eyes.

 

I have an 2nd PC lying around - just upgraded last week.

I'm comfortable replacing drives and graphics cards, adding RAM etc, so I think I'm fairly comfortable with that side of things.

Looking forward to getting stuck into the A+. Should have done it years ago.

I have £200 from my learning account to spend on training, just wondering how I should invest it, A+ or Advanced ECDL

 

I should have aswell instead of getting into £££££££££££s worth of debt at uni.

 

Yeah, I'd be alright with 14K, would probably need to take a part time job in a bar or something to get by the 1st year or so

 

Welcome to CF!

I would concentrate on the A+.

There are two A+ exams - the Essentials and (usually) the IT Technician. They cost about £220 to £240 for the pair. I would save the £200 for those, unless you can get them paid for by the Learning fund, or similar.

 

Yeah, I've pretty much decided A+ is the way to go.

Can anyone give me a rough idea how long it would take to study? Considering I'm confident upgrading hardware, installing software etc etc? I plan on doing about 5 hours a day, and would hope to do the 1st exam sometime early March. Is this realistic?

 

I've joined this conversation a bit late, but just in case you have any second thoughts - don't do the ECDL!! (sounds like A+ and beyond is far more your kind of thing anyway...)

Welcome to the forum, and lots of luck in getting started!

 

I was only thinking about the ECDL cos I wanted an easy-to-obtain entry level qualification. I guess I'll just brush up on my Office skills and hope that's enough for a future employer. I kinda knew it was pretty worthless anyway!

 

I can't offer much advice about salaries in your neck of the woods... Starting with A+ is a good way to go.
Welcome to the forums...

 

Welcome to the forum Redcard - some great advice given already

 

Study will take as long as it takes. It could take you month it could take you a year, it all depends on how much of the information you can take in and there is a lot.

Study until you understand the concepts.

 

Stick with the A+, and start pluggin for entry-level jobs straight away.
First step would probably be 1st-line (answering telephones and such like) and you've obviously got customer relation experience from your last job so you've got no worries there.

Isn't BT call centre in Glasgow? (I think I remember another poster mentioning this before)

 

ECDL might help with a very low-tech helpdesk role, and anyway, as you said, you can learn all that by yourself

My only experience with ECDL has been installing it a few times, but it seemed pretty basic to me - think of PCs waiting to be dismantled instead!

 

All good advice already given. Welcome to the forums!