Long time lurker, first time poster.

Discussion in 'New Members Introduction' started by Pseudonym, May 26, 2015.

  1. Pseudonym

    Pseudonym Kilobyte Poster

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    So hey, I've been lurking these forums for the past two years and I decided I'd make a post to say thanks.

    Background. Decided I wanted to get into IT a couple of years back in 2013, when I had an IT issue, ended up troubleshooting with the systems manager and realised that it was the career for me. I had some experience repairing and modding games consoles a few years back which I really just did as a hobby, but that also helped me realise that IT was where I wanted to be. After that encounter I went home that night and found certforums. From what I could gather, if you want to get into IT then the best way (at least in the UK) is to get your A+, Network +, doing unpaid work and taking on repair jobs at home. It's taken me a while to get here, cause I've had a crazy few years, but...

    I passed my A+ back in February 2014. I then went onto do some unpaid work after work at a 1 man PC repair shop/ IT support company. I left my full time job to do that full time (still unpaid) in October last year and also started studying for my Network+. I also started buying broken laptops and phones, repairing them and selling them on as well as the odd repair job. Last week I started a full time job as a desktop support engineer at a growing, medium sized company where I'm going to get lots of experience from hardware repairs, to server administration to helping rewire the entire network, to helping virtualise all of the servers. I'm loving it so far and I'm already learning a lot... And finally I passed my Network+ today! :D Next stop is ITIL foundation, and I've been told I can help implement the ITIL stuff I learn at work.

    So yeah, thank you everyone for all of the advice. I've really turned my life around and this forum has given me all of the tools I needed to do that.
     
  2. JK2447
    Highly Decorated Member Award 500 Likes Award

    JK2447 Petabyte Poster Administrator Premium Member

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    Welcome to certforums. One thing I would say is you already have all the tools you need. You deserve all of the credit but if reading the thoughts of like minded professionals helped you in your studies, even better. Well done
     
    Certifications: VCP4, 5, 6, 6.5, 6.7, 7, 8, VCAP DCV Design, VMConAWS Skill, Google Cloud Digital Leader, BSc (Hons), HND IT, HND Computing, ITIL-F, MBCS CITP, MCP (270,290,291,293,294,298,299,410,411,412) MCTS (401,620,624,652) MCSA:Security, MCSE: Security, Security+, CPTS, CCA (XenApp6.5), MCSA 2012, VSP, VTSP
    WIP: Google Cloud Certs
  3. SimonV
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    SimonV Petabyte Poster Gold Member

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    Welcome, great story Pseudonym. Its great to know CF is still helping people. :)
     
    Certifications: MOS Master 2003, CompTIA A+, MCSA:M, MCSE
    WIP: Keeping CF Alive...
  4. SimonD
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    SimonD Terabyte Poster

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    Welcome and congratulations :)

    Just a word of advice on ITIL, it's a Framework so not everything will fit your company, there also has to be a willingness to adopt that framework, the idea of Change Advisory Boards, Trouble Tickets, Change Tickets etc may take some time to adopt (as might the idea of Incident Managers, PIR's (Post Incident Reviews) and the various roles that are required to adopt ITIL (it's not just about change and release management etc).
     
    Certifications: CNA | CNE | CCNA | MCP | MCP+I | MCSE NT4 | MCSA 2003 | Security+ | MCSA:S 2003 | MCSE:S 2003 | MCTS:SCCM 2007 | MCTS:Win 7 | MCITP:EDA7 | MCITP:SA | MCITP:EA | MCTS:Hyper-V | VCP 4 | ITIL v3 Foundation | VCP 5 DCV | VCP 5 Cloud | VCP6 NV | VCP6 DCV | VCAP 5.5 DCA
  5. Apexes

    Apexes Gigabyte Poster

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    Nailed it - congrats mate.

    Goes to show that there's method in the madness :) i hope you're enjoying the career change, and it sounds like you're onto a winner in your new job. All the best
     
    Certifications: 70-243 MCTS: ConfigMgr 2012 | MCSE: Private Cloud
  6. Kopite_21

    Kopite_21 Gigabyte Poster

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    Welcome to CF!
     
    Certifications: National Diploma IT Advanced ECDL
    WIP: A+
  7. Pseudonym

    Pseudonym Kilobyte Poster

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    Cheers fellas. :D SimonD, thanks for the advice. I've been having a brief read through a study guide and the foundation level doesn't really seem comprehensive enough for me to try to use any of the concepts anyway really. I'm starting on my Windows 7 and server 2008 MCSA as well now. Figured I may as well study while I'm working and it'll help me pick things up quicker when I've actually got to do them in a real environment. Still loving the job as well.
     
  8. SimonD
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    SimonD Terabyte Poster

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    Foundation is exactly that, it's the building blocks, as long as you understand them you should be fine. Moving forwards with ITIL (in to Service Management etc) is where the deeper material comes up and that's where lots of study and experience comes in.

    I tend to think that people new to IT should have ITIL as one of their first certifications, it's actually one course that I think best prepares people for a job in enterprise IT, where it gives them the building blocks in understanding incidents, change management, service management, delivery etc. Even having basic foundation level certification gives you that edge over people who don't know of the ITIL frame work, don't know why they would want to implement change, incident or problem management, or of implementing a ticketing solution for handling those things.

    As for the Microsoft technologies, just letting you know that Microsoft have their own implementation of the ITIL type framework called MOF (Microsoft Operations Framework).
     
    Certifications: CNA | CNE | CCNA | MCP | MCP+I | MCSE NT4 | MCSA 2003 | Security+ | MCSA:S 2003 | MCSE:S 2003 | MCTS:SCCM 2007 | MCTS:Win 7 | MCITP:EDA7 | MCITP:SA | MCITP:EA | MCTS:Hyper-V | VCP 4 | ITIL v3 Foundation | VCP 5 DCV | VCP 5 Cloud | VCP6 NV | VCP6 DCV | VCAP 5.5 DCA
  9. Pseudonym

    Pseudonym Kilobyte Poster

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    Cool, yeah I'm still going to do the foundation exam. I'm actually finding it slightly more interesting than people make it out to be. I'll probably hit the intermediate level a year or 2 down the line.
     
  10. SimonD
    Honorary Member

    SimonD Terabyte Poster

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    That should depend on the role you're doing, as a techy doing Windows work you really shouldn't need to go much beyond foundation, if you want to do change or release management, service delivery etc then going beyond foundation is a must.
     
    Certifications: CNA | CNE | CCNA | MCP | MCP+I | MCSE NT4 | MCSA 2003 | Security+ | MCSA:S 2003 | MCSE:S 2003 | MCTS:SCCM 2007 | MCTS:Win 7 | MCITP:EDA7 | MCITP:SA | MCITP:EA | MCTS:Hyper-V | VCP 4 | ITIL v3 Foundation | VCP 5 DCV | VCP 5 Cloud | VCP6 NV | VCP6 DCV | VCAP 5.5 DCA
  11. Pseudonym

    Pseudonym Kilobyte Poster

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    Yeah I guess I'll have to see what happens. I'll probably end up having a better idea about where I'll be headed careerwise as time goes on.
     
  12. SimonD
    Honorary Member

    SimonD Terabyte Poster

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    Mate, that's the funny thing with a career, it changes, 5 years ago I was very definitely a Windows guy (doing a lot of SCCM work etc), now I am definitely a VMware guy doing a lot of virtualisation, ITIL is just one part of what I do, I also dabble with KANBAN from a job tasking perspective as well.
     
    Certifications: CNA | CNE | CCNA | MCP | MCP+I | MCSE NT4 | MCSA 2003 | Security+ | MCSA:S 2003 | MCSE:S 2003 | MCTS:SCCM 2007 | MCTS:Win 7 | MCITP:EDA7 | MCITP:SA | MCITP:EA | MCTS:Hyper-V | VCP 4 | ITIL v3 Foundation | VCP 5 DCV | VCP 5 Cloud | VCP6 NV | VCP6 DCV | VCAP 5.5 DCA

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