For those with IT jobs...

[kleraudio]

hey everyone, ive been interested in the IT field for some time now. What certifications do i need to at least get my foot in the door.

As for education, only an associates degree, are certs enough to get me into the door??

Thanks alot for your help

Jim

[eyedetail]

Originally Posted by kleraudio

hey everyone, ive been interested in the IT field for some time now. What certifications do i need to at least get my foot in the door.

As for education, only an associates degree, are certs enough to get me into the door??

Thanks alot for your help

Jim

It really depends on what you need to be making and what hours you want to work etc...
Certifications are great for the 9-13 an hour range and working like help desk jobs. anything above that is going to have to be schooling and knowing someone who will give you a crack at a job. Network administrators work long hours and are in high demand but it takes alot of hands on expereince and school like PDR does to get those jobs. Many cities and government jobs higher network admins in the low 40-50,000 range to start on up to 70,000 for like police departments. I just missed getting city It job in a small town of 30,000 for 23.00 an hour becasue my expereince was not recent. Corporate big companies usually pay about 60-75,000 for a Network Admin but expect to get asked to be ther after hours allot.
I do allot of solo work like detailing on the side in the 20-30 hr range to get buy when it's wet,cold and raining out.
Hope that helps

[PrinzII]

The key with any IT job is how much experience you have along with the certs/degrees. In the industry, people who are certs and education without any relevant experience are known as "paper tigers."

However, what exactly do you want to get your experience in? Development? Database Administration? Technical Support? Help Desk? Once you answer those questions, we can point you in the right direction.

[MorBid]

I got my start back in '93 doing Desktop Support and Help Desk at the Junior College I was attending at the time. It was only a part-time Student Job

I had already been building bare bones systems and writing Cobol and RPG programs for years before that so one day I was just goofing off in one of the Computer Labs and the IT Director saw I had some talent and asked me if I wanted a job.

When I transferred to University in another town in '97 I got a job as a Systems Engineer with a company (doing installs and providing support) and got bumped up to $35K.

I bounced around to a few other positions similar till I finally got to the place I'm at now in my Senior Year in 2000 and am the Network Administrator pulling close to $70K. And yes I'm on Salary and on call basically whenever it's not 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM Monday - Friday (weekend's and holiday's personal/vacation days included)

I have no certifications but a 2 year degree in Electrical Engineering and a B.S in Telecommunications Engineering. That with over a decade of experience gets me by nicely.

Back in the early days you had to know your stuff, then that tech bubble hit and people were getting certified without ever seeing a Server or having worked on a Network before and getting paid big time.

What soon became evident was that they always had to call in someone else to do anything that wasn't in the certification books they studied so that mostly came to an end when the Tech Bubble burst.

Now things have sorta switched to you need experience to get the jobs (like it was back in the day) but I'll tell you something.

People who hire technical staff and are technically inclined themselves will always look for experience and education over some silly certificate.

People who aren't technically qualified and do the hiring will look more for the certifications as they have no other means to establish a baseline as to your qualifications.

If you want to go the Cert route I would start with A+, Networking+, and work towards your MCSE. You wont be any more special than the hundreds of thousands of other people who already have them (your talent and skills will make that distinction) but at least you can get your resume seen.

MorBiD

[kleraudio]

Thanks alot for the help everyone!

Prinz - I would like to get experience in stuff like Network Administration, and I dont know the proper term, but basically fix things when they dont work, someone cant logon, cant find their files, password doesnt work, vid card is shot, i believe thats all network admin stuff....??

Do you think starting with A+ is the way to go??

My goal is to work at a nice office and be the "network" guy, making some nice money to support a family.

Thanks again

Jim

[pgp]

The A+ and Net+ are put out by Comptia ,comptia.org? Look at totalsem.com for some good material and computer forums. Be advised the A+ test will change this June or July, so get current material.

CompTIA A+® Certification

Total Seminars: Home

[paradigm]

I would like to get experience in stuff like Network Administration, and I dont know the proper term, but basically fix things when they dont work, someone cant logon, cant find their files, password doesnt work, vid card is shot, i believe thats all network admin stuff....??

that is pretty much level 1 support...help desk responsibilities. there are varying degrees of what a help desk will do. some places have a help desk that only answers a phone, opens a ticket, and escalates to the next team. other companies (like mine) have the help desk do much more...everything up to building servers and working with cisco routers/switches, etc.

i worked on a help desk for 4 years and then moved on to being a network engineer. i went from doing desktop support, a/v support, etc on to network admin, some design, and more project based work.

as others said above, certs are great to get past the HR department's "filter"...that'll get you a phone interview and/or a first face-to-face interview. after that, you need to prove yourself. if you do not have experience, expect to work on a help desk and start from the bottom...pay your dues...volunteer for anything and everything and learn as much as you can.

i'm very fortunate that my company greatly promotes training and certs. i have a great training budget and pretty much can go to anything i want if time allows (which is becoming more and more difficult). i have my A+, Security+, and MCSE 2003. i'd say i've fogotten 50%+ of whati learned for the exams...hands on means much more.

.02

[kleraudio]

Thanks for the input paradigm!

when you say start at the bottom on a help desk, what exactly do you mean? does every company have a help desk??

Any suggestions of where to start, should i even consider starting to get certs, or start applying for "help desk" jobs.

Im sorry im very new at this.

Thanks

Jim

[PrinzII]

Originally Posted by kleraudio

Thanks alot for the help everyone!

Prinz - I would like to get experience in stuff like Network Administration, and I dont know the proper term, but basically fix things when they dont work, someone cant logon, cant find their files, password doesnt work, vid card is shot, i believe thats all network admin stuff....??

Do you think starting with A+ is the way to go??

My goal is to work at a nice office and be the "network" guy, making some nice money to support a family.

Thanks again

Jim

A little about me:

I have been in Help Desk/Technical Support for 6+ years and I have supported both Mac and IBM systems. As for certs, I am in the process of getting my MCSE (Win Server 2003/Exchange 2003) and MCDBA (SQL Server 2000). As for my experience, I started with Macs in 1988 and it grew from there.

If you are in college, I would definitely suggest working with your school's IT department to get your feet wet.

As for the A+, it is the way to go because it gives you the foundation for what you need in the industry. Additionally, many places will not look at you w/o the cert because some of their vendors (e.g. Dell) require that techs have the cert before they can repair their systems. As paradigm said, start with the A+ and then go to the Network+, Server+ and MCSE.

If you are interested in taking those classes, check out your local community college or technical school. For my cert classes, I went to Computer Training Chicago, Chicago Computer Consulting, Training Room Rentals in Chicago but also looked at Moraine Valley Community College because they had some other certs I was interested in (e.g. Certified Ethical Hacker).

[kleraudio]

Hey thanks alot fot the help again everyone. I plan on picking up the A+ book this weekend, and taking the test in a month or two.

If i want to pursue a bachelors in the IT field, is the AA in Computer Information Systems the first step??

If so, what kind of bachelors would you guys suggest? The adviser at the comm. college said i should get the AA in CIS??

I dunno...

thanks again in advance

Jim

[MorBid]

Comp Sci is a tough nut to crack. Most people who take that as a major are going for Programming or software design and development.

The University I went to had a Information Tech program (ridiculously simple if you ask me) but it was more in-line for what you've been describing.

MorBiD

[kleraudio]

Morbid, was that a bachelors degree, if so can you tell me the name of the degree so i can look into it a little more??

Ireally dont want to go the comp sci route....

Thanks

Jim