Is the employer's Or is it me

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Hi
I have being looking for IT jobs for some time now and would be particularly interested to work as a Network Tech, I have worked for a national company (BT) in IT support and the job involved installing Cisco switches and rollouts and installation of Cisco 7960 series phones, and troubleshooting, I also did some patching. That was my first proper IT job and I got it through an agency and I was learning things everyday while doing that job and I can’t express how happy I was back then. That job was temporary contract and and like all good things it soon came to an end in 4 months: and since then I have applied for a lot of similar jobs but haven’t had any luck, my background of employment has majority of work in Admin/Customer service, I have worked as Web Administrator as well. I am determine to go back into IT no matter what it takes Or what I have to take (I mean certification exams ..)
To the point now when I look for jobs like network tech Or network administrator or even some 1st line support jobs and some of the skills they want you to have are
LAN/WAN, TCP/IP, routers and switches – installation and troubleshooting, Microsoft server 2003, Active directory, Lotus notes, Unix and more.
What I can’t understand is what certification should I study towards – if I did only Comptia A+ and N+ and then I still wouldn’t know about AD and server 2003 – so A+ and N+ are good starting points but some employers ask for a lot more then that.

I am already studying towards CompTIA N+ and want to pursue the CCNA after that as I want to work in networking. Would really appreciate some advise and guidance on this.

 

I totally agree with the above.

Most people do not walk into networking positions without a good few years experience behind them regardless of what certs they have.

What this agency has done and I hope you don't mind me saying is that they have given you false expectations of what your first IT job should be.

You should be going for A+,N+ and MCDST and 1st/2nd line support and when you have experience and have progressed then go for more advanced certs like the CCNA but only after you have experience with CISCO equipment.

Having high level certs without the experience can go against you when looking for jobs.

 

Thanks for that much appreciate it, and it is just as I had thought it to be to start in !st line support that’s why I’m already studying for the N+ exam and then one or two other entry level exams.

 

By reading many posts here I noticed that everyone is reccommending to start as 1/2 line support to begin IT career.
I have just remembered someone who never worked in that job.
He first worked at the college mainly teaching and then dealing with networking and servers, passed i - net +. Then he moved on to another company, passed mcsa/mcse and changed company again and so on.

 

I know someone that left university and didn't do first line either, he went straight into a field based role dealing with servers. He told me that it was down to luck more than anything.

 

In my friend's case that was just gradual progression in networking, but then today, probably 5 years after his forst job, he is into ITL, six sigma etc.There are other examples where people studied ASP.NET and moved into programming though that is developing. Also friend of mine didn't have qualifications at start (maybe some certificate) when she worked maintaining network for small business and nowadays, 7 years after she is working for international bank as global intranet operations manager among other roles.She also never done any 1 line support or A+ cert.. So I am trying to say that 1 line support job is not compulsory to start esspecialy in the case of Loca1hero as he started with networking.

 

1st Line is not compulsory, but it is the more common path. Particularly in todays job market you'll find it difficult to move into IT at anything other than the lowest level.

Its a buyers market remember, IT managers have got 100s of candidates to choose from for every job. If you were in that situation who would you pick? The guy with a few years experience and supporting certs, or the guy who had a 4 month contract with BT?

 

I think the OP should maybe give a better description of what his job entailed as he may not have been doing any configuring at all and just physically installing the equipment and being told to put this cable here and that cable there.

In my previous job there was people in the network team taken straight from the call centre and trained specifically to deal with the typpe of enquiries they would get. This is totally fine, but some of them didnt even know basic stuff about hardware and operating systems which will be a major hinderence to them if they decide to move to another company. I think it would be a good idea to have a good understanding of the basics by doing an A+ or mcdst. While doing this you could apply for roll out type jobs if you dont want to do first line.

 

I hope employers see that people with years of experience are overqualified for 1 line sup. or similar jobs because it is hopeless for us all who are trying to get into IT to look for a job which are outnumbered in this recession...

.

 

I think he meant for networking jobs.
It's doubtful they would hire someone who previously held a significantly better paid job because they know they'll be off as soon as something better comes along.

Unfortunately at the first-line level we're competing against all the people who do have 1st or 1st/2nd line experience and, due to the pyramidal (is that a word?) nature of the support business it means there's an awful lot more of them.

 

Yep.

 

Great, I can relax a bit now I've ticked off "Learn something new every day" on my to-do list

 

Happy to help

Qs

 

I thought that as well but was extending subject from networking to other entry level jobs as situation is the same.

 

The mindset is the same, but the answers are completely different depending on the job. For a 1st line tech job, employers will generally hire people who have little-to-no experience, because, as you correctly stated, someone with years of experience will be overqualified (and therefore considered a "flight risk"). For a network admin job, employers will almost always hire someone with experience.