I need your help

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As the title says I need help.

I seem to be aimlessly wandering from job to job and I seem to be putting off a lot of employers when I say that my ideal job is in IT.

However when I look through all of the job descriptions online, they all say you need between 6-12 months experience on average and that tends to put me off even though I have applied for lots of IT jobs and had no joy.

I'll give you all a little background how I managed to gain some experience.

It came up in one of my performance reviews a few years ago that I had interest in IT, so as part of my development it was agreed that I would spend some time working for the IT department as part time local support for the depot I worked at, along side my normal duties.

Now I'll give a little background into the IT infrastructure then I'll go back to what I was able to do at my local depot.

IT Infrastructure

HQ based in Rugby

Several depots around the country all having thin client terminals connecting to one or more switches (depending on the size of the depot). Then the switch connecting to a router and then a dedicated phone line from the depot to the HQ.

So basically all of the main IT infrastructure i.e. servers were based in the HQ in Rugby.

Normally problems could be solved by shadowing a users session on the terminal server. However there were times when this wasn't possible, e.g. a thin client terminal had stopped working/lost its configuration.

This would have meant one of the IT guys would have to come all the way from Rugby just to check the problem with the thin client terminal.

This is where I came in at my local depot, so they didn't have to travel all the way from Rugby to solve the problems. I would solve the problems for them.

This would mean swapping out thin client terminals with any spares we had at the depot or re-configuring the terminal that was already in place and replacing any other hardware at the user's desk that needed swapping out at the time.

I would also go to user's desks and help them with any software issues they were having.

I have also helped set up a new depot with exactly the same infrastructure.

I also dealt with fixing the phone system, i.e. resetting the phone system as instructed by the 3rd party supplier and setting up new phones for users and making sure they were patched into the cabinet properly.

I also liaised with 3rd party vendors to arrange repairs of our printers and to supply us with new pre-configured thin clients if we didn't have any spare on site.

So I've never worked on a formal helpdesk before and that's where I would like to start off on.

However I seem to be running into a dead end with the experience issue as I feel that I haven't had experience on a formal helpdesk before.

I am even thinking about the volunteer route along side receiving my job seekers allowance.

I don't have any experience of resetting users passwords, AD etc., however I am a quick learner.

So do you have any ideas as to what I can do in my situation? Before I get to the tearing out hair stage

 

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How long did you do this for exactly? I'm assuming you are putting this on your CV and making it stand out. Technically you were working for the company of which a lot of your duties for the IT department would help with going for 1st line support roles.

Examples of which I'm sure you're aware:-

Hardware support. List it in your CV.

Software support, user interaction and assistance. List it in your CV.

Communicating with clients and third parties specific to the IT department. List it in.... well, you get the picture.

From reading all of what you've done mate it sounds like you've covered a good proportion of what I do on a daily basis, and therefore you do have experience. Just make sure that you make employers aware of this, focus your CV towards the IT side of your past experiences.

This could help, but it depends on how focused you are towards doing it and the specific type of volunteer work involved.

Log into AD - Find User - Rightclick name - Reset password.

You're worrying about nothing Everyone has holes in their experience. I had never used AD myself prior to my current job and as long as you have the drive to learn as you say you do, you'll get it in no time.

Yeah, take a good hard look at your CV and focus it more towards the technical side of things you have done in the past for the aforementioned company. (This can also be done in the form of a cover note).

(Read some of the CV posts on the forum and try to keep it up to date and fresh, you'll feel more confident about it for sure. )

Finally believe in yourself! From reading what you've put it seems as though you have done a lot of the aspects of a 1st line support techie anyway so just keep the faith!

The best of luck matey.

 

You say that companies want 6-12 months of experience. How is what you've been doing not considered experience?

 

Maybe it's just something in my head

 

I notice a pattern... ^^

 

It's the voices