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Getting Out of Tech Support?
An anonymous reader asks: "For the last year or so I've been working in 1st line tech support at a small call centre that's part of a much larger outsourcing company and to be honest it's sucking the life out of me, I want change but I don't know what direction to take in order to get out and I really need some advice from others who have made the jump. I suppose what I'd like to know is what kind of jobs one should be looking for coming from technical support with decent knowledge of UNIX, networking, scripting and 'light coding'. Is there any hope for me or will I have to go back to school in order to even have employers look at my resume?"
I'm in my mid-twenties and I've taken a number of college-level courses, a couple of those being computer engineering courses, some math and a few others that I found interesting, in the process I also managed to procure a fairly large amount of debt in the form of student loans, nothing I can't handle but I don't really want more debt although going back to get a degree is one possibility. I'm not entirely sure what I want to do except that I want to do something a bit more "real", to actually fix problems instead of just talking to customer after customer and then submitting tickets for someone else to fix the problem. From what I've understood from older acquaintances moving from tech support to other positions was actually a good way to go back when a lot of companies handled their own tech support, but for me there isn't much of a career path at this company as we only handle 1st line support, 2nd line and all above is done by the client companies themselves.
I'd really like to get more into sysadmin type work, or at least something where you spend more time solving problems and managing systems than you do arguing with irrate customers over how they have to call customer service for billing questions as technical support can't handle those problems."
I'd really like to get more into sysadmin type work, or at least something where you spend more time solving problems and managing systems than you do arguing with irrate customers over how they have to call customer service for billing questions as technical support can't handle those problems."
A+ and Net+ to start. Go from there.
Remember:
Certifications prove you know something.
Degree's prove you can stick with something and are willing to invest time in something.
References prove you've worked with people.
Experience proves you've been trusted to do the job by someone.
Well if you want to do something more hands on. Why not look for an on-site support job.
Libertarian Leaning Political Discussion Forum.
It sounds like you should move up to a run of the mill sysadmin position. You have the basic skills, you've paid your dues with a little time in a tech support job... Look for "System Administrator I" positions on your favorite job listings site. Apply to them. See what happens.
This is a textbook career move. Why do you even need to ask us?
A friend of mine worked with me at a huge call centre, and he had enough, much like you, with the whole tech support thing babying people with basic installs etc. There is a huge demand for Sys Admins for engineering firms, and these companies cannot afford any, and I repeat any down time whatsoever! Look into it, and with the credentials that you have now I'm more that sure you'll be able to get a job! Good luck
The normal growing path for support people, at least from what I've seen is higher level support, growing into sysadmin, or for some rare cases - moving into programming. But for this you need a complany that has all of those and that offers such mobility - like most ISPs, hosting companies, etc. Probably the best option is not a really big company, as there it's easier to learn the trade, to see almost everything in action (as opposed to the big ones, where you'll probably be stuck with only a part of the stuff they're using/supporting, and not a lot of things help more than a broad view).
A thing that should help is to have a project of your own that you can show, like a hosting machine for your friends (or just for you) that's co-located somewhere and that runs some basic services as mail, dns, web and that can be used do assess your skills.
Stop screwing around and get a college degree. Your jobs will suck until you do. Work at a crappy job with crappy pay if you have to, so long as it lets you get that degree.
Time spent at school affords you the people network and insight to answer this question yourself. Plus, you will have a college degree. Choose wisely and you will need a big wooden club to keep the headhunters away. Everything starts with college, and it is never too late. Assuming you are a citizen of the United States, you get more money after you turn 24 because your parents' income cannot be considered.
FairTax baby!
Why not just check out the job market? Look at ads for interesting jobs and their requirements. I would definitely recommend you to write a few applications, even if you don't feel 100% certain that you want the job(s). Job ads can sometimes be quite misleading and going to interviews will be good experience, a chance to find out more precisely what the companies are looking for and what you can expect from them. Many companies also use psychometric tests for evaluating applicants and although alot of those are crap (especially if over interpreted (which they often are, unfortunately)) it could be interesting to be able to take such a test.
During the autumn, I was looking for a job, attended a few interviews and got the chance to take some psychometric tests. Even though I'm a bit sceptical to those tests, it was an experience and I think I got a clearer view of where I want to go and what I want to do jobwise.
Whatever you ever do, do *not* go backwards. I ended up as a security guard, for **** sake.
In retrospect, I'd get a job at a small **reputable** local computer dealer building boxes, and/or providing support. There are lots of local dealers. Work to get experience and a decent work history. >DO NOT HAVE *ANY* GAPS IN YOUR WORK HISTORY. It will sink you like you're made of granite.
You also *need* to keep up a constant learning program (at a university, or a college, or (horror of horrors) a community college) to get and to keep current with progress in your field. That is two jobs, minimum. And read all the trade news (used to be magazines, remember paper?) that you can get your browser on.
You will earn crud for 5 years, but if you have no personal life, it might get you a decent resume that will get you a decent job after that. It will show that you can stick like hot tar, and you have to be willing to be just as hard to get off.
And work every second of paying overtime that can be had. If your current employer won't pay, find one that will and milk that sucker for all it's worth. DO NOT STOP!
Work as much overtime as your poor old body can take while you're young, because you won't want to when you get up in years. Like 35.
I thank you for the opportunity to rant like this, and I hope that you will kindly forgive an old goat.
I took my first computer course at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry in 1967.
I feel old.
Are you actually able to back up those claims with evidence?
Do you have any education in those fields or can you show some direct results of your experience?
In all honesty; "1st line tech support" only proves you can speak over a telephone. 1st line tech support isn't considered a "real" IT job so you can't rely on it to get further into IT.
I know this sounds harsh, but sugarcoating it won't help you further. Get some sort of "portfolio" of work experience, certificates, examples. If you don't have anything like that yet then work on it.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
I manage a web-hosting operation for one of the largest insurance companies in the world. We are an internal department in the corporate IT division. Like your clients, we have kept the interesting work in-house and out-sourced our 1st and 2nd line support.
I would employ you based on what you've written here. Well, bring you in for interview, anyway.
I've recruited Web, Unix, network, and firewall admin roles. My best successes have all come from those first and second line support teams. They work hard, they are aware of the elements of customer service, they appreciate little things like being able to decide when your own lunch-time is going to be.
I also like the motivation you've shown in organising college-courses, and that you're clearly got an interest in learning about the technology.
A degree on top of that wouldn't sway me *that* much. I'd be impressed by anyone motiviated enough to do a degree in their own time. It's the motivation that impresses me, not the techie stuff you've may or may not have learned. There will always be learning curve when you come into a new job however good/experienced you are, and I expect to have to train people.
So don't underestimate what you've got under your belt already, and start looking for 3rd-line techie jobs with your clients and other big corporates.
-- Nick "Hallo this is Beel Gates, und I pronounce weendows as
You've only made it a year? Ptth. Wuss. ;p It took me five years of tech support, a forced move and another couple years of tech support to realize there were other valid things I could be doing with my life. We're both at an age where it's in our best interest to actually settle on a career with a descent wage so be sure admin'ing is what you really want to do. Do you read books about UNIX on the weekends? Find yourself really wanting to know when a big security patch comes out? Will you actually be happy doing it or is it just the path of least resistance? I thought I was stuck on that side of computers. It was an epiphany that I could do something else with them for a living. I went back to school for 3D modeling and game development since I love sculpture, but don't actually want to be a starving artist. I had to go the community college route due to my own loan issues, but I lucked out and there's a good program in my area. I'm graduating with an AA and lots of good, focused practice soon so it's working out for me so far. I would probably rather be a stripper than go back to being afraid I'll answer my own telephone, "Thank you for calling the IT Support Center! This is X speaking."
Here are a few pointers from a Unix sysadmin and programmer for the past 10 years.
1) Motivate yourself. Get a Unix/Linux Sysadmin book and read it
from cover to cover. Stick Linux on your PC at home and
break it/fix it/mess with it.
2) Do more at your workplace (if you can). Start helping out in
the areas that interest you. You might be surprised, people
notice these things.
3) Sell yourself. This is very important. I don't mean telling
everyone you meet how great you are, but dropping hints when
chatting to sysadmins/programmers about what you can do.
People like me usually remember people like you, and have
a little influence in recommending people to the boss.
Best of luck.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines
You owe it to yourself and the rest of us. Unless you worked for New Zealand Telecom's XTRA ISP, in which case we have to kill you ourselves.
I was going to make that same suggestion. It's still true that you can move from support into a lot of other technical roles, but this is definitely made more difficult by companies outsourcing their support to others.
If you want to leverage your support background into something else, I would start looking closely at your current client companies, and see if you can find a way to move into their in-house 3rd-tier support organization. Once you're there, depending on the company and what they do, you'll have a lot of options -- gradually moving closer to the customers (i.e. sales engineering), the product (i.e. development), or corporate operations (i.e. IT/sysadmin).
Good luck!
/* "Specialization is for insects." -Heinlein */
If I were you, I would be looking at a wider range of options than just sysadmin type roles. To be brutally honest, on the basis of your original post, your technical qualifications don't actually sound much more impressive than my own. For me, this isn't a problem - I have a decently paid white-collar job that I like a lot in a non-technical field. However, I've seen too many friends lock themselves into an IT career path despite lacking the qualifications or experience for anything other than front-line tech-support roles, for reasons that basically boil down to "I like messing around with computers in my spare time".
There are a huge number of IT graduates around right now, at least here in the UK, and many of those I was at University with here who did Computer Science or Maths with a computing flavour (I myself did Classics) are still working in tech support roles now, earning less than £20k and desperately seeking anything that could constitute the next rung up on the ladder. Assuming the situation is similar in your area, it's unlikely you'd be able to compete effectively with these people for jobs without the benefit of a degree.
Assuming that you're still fairly young and your debts aren't *too* massive, I would seriously start looking at other career paths, where technical qualifications are likely to matter less. People tend to make a big fuss about "making sure you work in a field you love", but I tend to call BS on this. The problem with making your hobby into your job is that most people who do this just end up burning out on both.
Find a local mom&pop shop with 5-10 employees that needs a part-time sysadmin to help them out with their windows machines. Find another. Start your own consulting firm and keep the two happy. Now you'll be your own boss and you will serve customers who will be truly grateful when you help them install a new printer. You can now work 60 hour weeks and get paid 50% extra. Did I mention they will be truly grateful and you will feel this? Life is good.
My advice to anyone thinking of trying something new technically? Go home and and do it. Just start. In this case, get old computers, install Linux on them and set up a network with a proxy, web and mail servers. Or get a book on programming and install a compiler. There is a world of free tools and information out there, just actively explore instead of sitting on your ass fretting about your dead end job. You'll probably find something that inspires you, and that will be the force that will pull you into doing it. A good education is best if you can get it, but you can also make good money if you take the time to teach yourself, for example how to set up office networking. *Actually having done it* and fiddled with it until you really understood it is what is going to translate into success. For example, the person who's post I'm replying to will be more impressed if you tell him you figured it out yourself. Then you can volunteer to get experience or get certs if you have to. You should at least be able to find something that makes it easier to pay off your loans and get back into school.
Disclaimer: it's easy for me to say this as I have a degree and am a senior engineer. However, I'd equate what you gain from one university course to taking on a new kind of project or reading a good technical book. And I have worked with a senior kernel engineer who'd graduated with a music degree, and an artist who became one of the best Maya programmers, recognized as a Maya Master by Alias. I also recently changed specialities by taking this advice. Try before you buy, and if you like it, it suddenly gets a lot easier to switch.
-- http://thegirlorthecar.com funny dating game for guys
Boob support? I hear that's a really hands-on and exciting job!
Hey, guys. Big gulps, huh? Cool. All right! Well, see ya later.
However, it's pretty much always a support service. Therefore you should expect that you'll end up on call. Personally I don't like that part, but can't deny the extra pay is nice.
It's also a field where experience is what really really matters. Which means it can be tough to break into. Certifications and degrees are nice, but it's my '5 years in the industry' which opens doors, not the other bits of paper.
However as a starting point in 'building your career', I will suggest you look at:
-
ITIL - IT infrastructure library. It's something that put me off initally, as it look a bit too much like icky-yuck processes and procedures. However, I've run into a _lot_ of companies that are starting to 'buy in' to the model. That wouldn't convince me, though. What did, is it's actually a fairly good way of 'doing IT'. Not the only way by any means, but one worth looking at, if only because then you have a basis for comparison.
- SAGE Systems Administrators guild, a subdivision of Usenix.
- BCS British Computer Society
- The Practice of System and Network Administration (Paperback) - A personal favourite, this is a brilliant book, because it covers the _theory_ of systems admin.
Don't neglect the 'soft' skills though. I know many hardcore techies hate the idea, but the ability to wear a suit, and look good and confident when doing so is _very_ useful. Also 'social interaction' skills. Systems admin is as much about the people (ab)using the system as the system itself.As far as I can tell, your bits of paper serve to help you secure an interview. But the field's .... well sufficiently complicated and convoluted that your ability to learn, research and innovate are far more important. As is your ability to show you can do this.
Stop answering the phone.
... I don't know what direction to take in order to get out... Simple... just take the red pill-- All Gods were immortal.
-- S. Lem
/me is a Phoenix expatriate currently living in Silicon Valley (both working full time and finishing up his BS part-time). I've also worked tech support, entry-level SA, and hybrid SA/coder for several years.
If you're in a typical backwaterish US outsourcing outpost (Boise, Phoenix, Vegas, e.g.), then getting the first piece of college paper (even an Associate's) makes a lot of sense.
If you're anywhere near Silicon Valley or the bigger SV wannabes (Seattle, Portland-Hillsboro, Austin, Denver-Broomfield, RTP, Boston, etc), you shouldn't have too much trouble transitioning to entry sysadmin or field support positions, even without the paper. Unfortunately, you might not get much past that without paper (except in SV, which is about as close to a tech meritocracy as you'll get).
Typical phone tech support turnover is about six months, so you're probably overdue for a change. If there's not a lot of obvious opportunity in your area, try hitting up your current employer for more interesting things to do. Second-level support, technical lead, or QA roles (or even partial roles) might perk you up a bit while you get some paper together (I once worked for several months as a scheduler, figuring out the work schedules for 800 people in a multi-site call center in Phoenix/Vegas/New Jersey--way less boring than answering phones).
Hit up your local community colleges--they're cheap and generally far more useful than people usually give them credit for. In California, for example, the GE Certification agreements between the community colleges and the UC and CSU systems make for a much nicer transfer. That said, make sure to file your syllabi as soon as you get 'em--you may well need them if you transfer.
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana." --Groucho Marx
Go to university. If you can't, take some distance learning courses from such universities like OU. You could also try to become self-employed by fixing your neighbours's PCs, etc.
Job offers in sales tend not to focus that much on college diplomas, but more in your ability to make your point and in your previous experience. There are plenty of alternatives you can explore and by the time you are 30, if you're good enough and have a track record to show, folks won't be asking about your college studies anymore.
where they have in-house 2nd, 3rd, .. level support; I am thinking like a big Telco NOC
-- www.globaltics.net
Political discussion for a new world
Several years ago, I was stuck in retail with a Computer Science Degree. I wasn't in a good area for IT jobs and had no idea what could be done. A Bestbuy came to town so I took up the Geek Squad thing to start working something remotely IT into my resume. But I still wasn't sure where to go from there.
That all changed when I took a Helpdesk position at a state agency. I had to move, but I found that as a great springboard into other areas. Goverment shops often have a varied IT department to cover all their bases. Mine has Networking, Help Desk, PC techs and application developers. Once in the door, I was quickly able to show them that I was capable of much more than the Helpdesk gig and am now in Application Development.
Take a look at local and state goverment positions in their area. You never know what you might find.
In the US if you attend college half time (which is usually two three credit hour courses) your student loans will go into deferment. Interest will still accrue, but you won't have to make the monthly payment until six months after you stop taking courses.
If you want to stay in the IT industry, look for an IS degree which is usually a combination of business and tech courses. The largest advantage of IS degrees is that quite a few accredited universities offer IS night programs because it usually falls into the business college. This means that you can keep your day job while you're working.
Also, ask your employer if it will offer tuition reimbursement. When I started taking night classes to finish my bachelor's degree, my employer reimbursed me for my first three semesters of part time courses. (After that I quit because my father died and I received a large enough inheritance to go back to school full time for the year I needed to finish.) So you may be able to get your employer to pay for your exit ticket.
If college doesn't feel right to you, look for certification with a product that you have experience with. Getting Oracle or Solaris certification combined with a moderate amount of experience will make you more attractive than simply having a moderate amount of experience. Do be aware, though, that without a four year degree in the overwhelming majority of cases your resume will not make the top of the list and if you do get an offer, it will be at a lesser rate than an applicant with a four year degree. There are exceptions to this, but they are just that, exceptions. When I went from software support to development at one former employer, I would have been placed into the next salary bracket which means that I would have been making five to ten thousand more per year if I had a four year degree.
Lastly, when you start looking, apply for everything that looks remotely interesting. Never decline to send your resume in because you feel unqualified. Let the person looking over your resume decide whether you are qualified or not. Aside from the fact that you don't know what they have in mind as well as they do, they may also be filling other unadvertised positions and think your resume is a good fit. Also, it's largely a numbers game. While there are some people who have such great resumes that they almost always get considered and some people have such poor resumes that they never get considered, most of us are somewhere in between and getting hired is mostly a matter of having an adequate resume that happens to be in the right place at the right time. If you send out hundreds of resumes, you're far more likely to be in the right place at the right time than if you send out tens of resumes.
Another strategy is to look for tech support positions in large multi-faceted companies that down the road will offer the chance for a lateral transfer. Either that or prepare to move up the food chain in the help desk niche by going into management.
The bottom line is that the best way to get out is to make a plan. First, decide what you want instead of just knowing what you don't want. Then take concrete steps to get there and be resolute about following through. It may take years to get there and you may fail several times along the way. But over time, achieving a realistic goal is mostly a function of how badly you really want it and your willingness to do what it takes to get there.
If you want to do development, testing is a traditional entry path. The best career path is with companies who will admit they do Extreme programming, as testing is more respected there. And you already know a lot about informal testing if you've been doing support (;-))
If you want to do sysadmin, you've already collected some of the prerequisites, so start looking for postings that say "sysadmin" and do not say either "tier 1" or "operations".
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
I went through this exact experience. I worked for a very large company doing first line tech support for about a year and a half. At the end I just couldn't take it any more. I went to my boss and explained that I was just burned out, the phone support was killing me. She told me that if a job opened up in second level support it would be mine, but I would have to be patient.
I waited a month, nothing changed so I found a new job. It was the best choice I could have made. I left a very large company doing tier 1 support to go to a *much* smaller, privately owned company doing tier 2 support. 2 years later I'm still at the same company and now I'm a sys admin II.
In my experience I've found that a degree isn't really what is going to get you the better job. Don't get me wrong, I have one. It just happens to be in Psychology so it isn't exactly that much help to me. I got a better job because I proved I knew what I was doing.
Typically opportunities don't just fall into your lap, you have to make change happen. Work hard, and work someplace where you will be appreciated and you'll do fine.
This is an easy one.
First, change companies. Take a tech support position at a small company at which other employees do the kind of technical work you're interested in.
Then, once you're at the new job, hang out with the folks doing the kind of work you want to do and identify and volunteer for small projects that can help them. If you're actually good at it then your job responsibilities will shift and they'll hire someone else to do tech support.
The "small company" part is important. Large companies hire staff for well defined positions. Small companies hire staff to do whatever needs doing.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
I worked front line support all the way through college. It was this, not my degree, that got me my a job doing front line support in a rather fast-growing organization with plenty of opportunity for advancement. I've been promoted twice in as many years, and now I'm working at a technical level that regularly uses the stuff I went to college for.
If your current job is a dead end, find a job that's not going to be a dead end, even if it's doing the same thing at first. In my case it was a fast-growing company. University IT departments are also a good option, because it gets your foot in the door for any other job at the whole university, and they tend to be quite accommodating if you want to take classes on campus.
There's no failure quite as dissatisfying as a complete and total solution to the wrong problem.
One of the biggest mistakes I've seen people make is to get certified for something which they have no professional experience. The only that does is to waste recruiters time. The cert ends up with a bunch of phone calls from headhunters that see the cert on a resume that end in this:
recruiter: how much experience do you have with X ...
applicant: none
recruiter:
phone line: click.
But having a cert + experience will get you far more interviews than experience alone and in situations where it's you being compared to others with equivalent experience but no certifications, you'll stand out from the pack in a good way
But far better than a cert is a degree from a well respected university. I earned my degree in a non-IT field in my thirties from a decent school. I was utterly surprised by how much easier it was to find an IT job with that degree than before I had it. A degree from a good school grabs eyeballs.
Get a job in the IT or data processing department of a small company and then put your skills on display. It's how I started. I went to work for fast growing local ISP as a customer support rep. (I had no work computer experience) When there, I would take canceling customer calls. If they were canceling because they couldn't get their service working, I would fix them. The ISP took notice and I started writing their Intranet Knowledge base and the tech support guys used it! Anyhow, they promised they would move me to systems, but they went public and hired a management firm. Needless to say, things change. They were going to hire from the outside. I left two weeks later with my new found tech experience for a small Wine and Spirits company as a data processing operator. Within three months, I switched them to DSL making their net service faster, brought email on site with stopped all the email problems. Within three months, they double my salary and gave me the title Systems Administrator and hired a new data processing operator. Thats how I got my foot in the door.
Find a job working for a small company where you have to install, configure, and support every aspect of the business. You will be underpaid, will work ridiculous hours, and will be stressed because there's more to do be done than you can possibly cover. You will, however, learn everything you can about what you are doing, including the ways in which computerized tools impact the business. Document everything you do in a way that ensures someone else can figure things out if you leave.
After about two years, you can start looking for serious sysadmin positions. When you get into an interview, you will be able to look the person on the other side of the desk straight in the eye and say, "I have done x, y, and z. Here is how and why I did what I did. I may not be familiar with the tools in your organization, but let me tell you about my last job, and how I taught myself to do x, y and z. I have demonstrated initiative, a strong work ethic, and an ability to solve problems, even in areas where I have no experience. Hire me."
It helps if you have samples of your work. If they want someone who can write scripts, bring a few of your scripts, even if it's only hard copies, describe why and how your wrote the script, and walk through what it does. Show them the documents you wrote describing how you set up a kickstart environment, or the VPN, or automated backups.
When you get to the new job, keep learning more. Maybe pick up a certification if you can get reimbursed for it. Keep doing this for the rest of your career, learning and finding new opportunities to expand your skills. If you work hard and you're lucky, you will not only stay employed, but you'll also find that your jobs get better and better, especially when the markets recover (as they seem to be doing a bit now in some areas).
Good luck!
After volunteering in an emergency room for over a year (on Friday nights, 8 PM to Midnight - exciting times - especially when the moon is full) I realized that my current career (IT > Programming > Java Server side & business rules XML) just isn't enough. I finished my pre-meds, took the MCAT (3 times! It was Monstrous!) and have been accepted to attend a pretty well known osteopathic school of medicine this coming fall (166 days - but who's counting?). Which is nice for me - you can bet I am pretty darn excited.
Here is my point - go find a volunteer experience in an area that intrigues you and you may find yourself blown away by how cool something is that you never before contemplated. I absolutely look forward to my volunteer time in the ER every week and I would have never found out about all of this and got on this course if I hadn't first set out to give something back to the community. There are 1000s of opportunities to get involved. Just do it!
I had a similar situation a few years back. I had taken a 16 month course in an effort to get out of retail (hell). But at the time the tech market had kinda crashed and it was hard for someone in their, um, thirtysomethings, to get in. I applied for a contract job online and finally got out of retail. I worked about 6 or 7 contracts, amassed lots of experience, knowledge and great references to land me a permanent job. Granted I am married and had insurance through my wifes job which made it easier, it might be harder for you if you don't have that luxury. But I do not regret the experience at all, it's rough at first, but if you work hard and develop some god relationships, it will pay off in the end. One contract even has me on there short list to fill in for a person who is retiring soon, that in itself was worth it.
Find a small business that needs a generic sysadmin/tech to manage their systems. You will get to touch all areas of systems, computers, telephony, networking, etc. If you show any business saavy, you might also get involved in guiding your company's IT direction and even apply technology to solving business problems. Don't necessarily target technical companies, as you will be surrounded by people who either have or think they have superior technical skills, rendering you to a more subservient role.
After a few years at a small business, you should amass a broad range of IT skills and probably have a better overall idea of how companies work than more experienced IT staff at larger companies. You may not get paid as much, but you will probably have better hours and better treatment. At least you will still be making money, as opposed to spending money on further education or certs. I'm not opposed to education/training/certs, but hands-on experience is the best way to gain skills.
In case you think I'm talking through my ass, I have worked in IT for Boeing, Verizon, and Publix (regional supermarket chain, 100K+ employees) in various IT and senior IT roles, including sysadmin. I now work for a small company with around 25 people. I manage all of our systems. To clarify, if it plugs into an electrical outlet, I'm responsible. The money and hours are significantly better than my corporate gigs, but my situation is somewhat unique.
By the way, the smaller and younger the company, the better for you (if the company seems viable). This will give you the opportunity to grow with the company. If necessary, make some financial concessions up front, especially if you can work out some type of future profit-sharing or equity stake (I wish I would have done that instead of going for the big salary).
Anyhow, there are LOTS of tech jobs at a big college and it's a very different environment from the corporate world. Each department likes to have its own jack-or-jill-of-all-trades to take care of PCs, networking, etc., and it sounds like your skill set would make you very useful. Plus you can often get additional training, classes, certifications, workshops, etc., paid for through your job as part of 'professional development.'
"downward, not across"
If you don't know what I mean google 'scary devil monastary' and read the faq.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Except for the whole manufacturers warranty from major manufacturers bit. You know which manufacturers I'm talking about, the guys who developed the CompTIA organization in the first place. It's pretty handy to know that you're not violating a warranty just to open the box and confirm that their field tech needs to come out and replace the motherboard, or the IDE cable*.
So quit bashing having an A+ cert and the bosses who want you to have one. If you don't have one, then it must be because you can't afford the fee to take the exam, so come down to where I live and I'll give you the cash to pay for the exam. Sheesh already.
*Okay, so I would replace my own IDE cable, but still, it's the point of service.
2^3 * 31 * 647
Do what i do. I found a nice Lvl2 Tech Support Company working shiftwork(its 24/7) with 4 days on, 4days off. At the same time im doing my 2nd year of University(what do you americans call it, College? ) more than half-way towards my degree.
Ive had several offers to move up or to other jobs but i stick with it so i can get my degree at same time(really important to me). Im a 20 year old Australian making around $50,000AU(30,000Euro $40,000US) and doing fulltime study. Ive never been happier.
If you can, find a University/college IT dept, that needs people. At least in the UK, most colleges and UNI's employ current and ex students as they cant afford to pay as much as private industry. Becuase of this the jobs you get to do are many and varied, and it's not really that important if you screw up once or twice.
The advice about reading books and installing Linux on your PC will only get you so far. Becuase what you lack is experience of theings that can and do go wrong in a working network of machines. Especially relevant are the interoperability issues.
Certianly in Europe and the UK, what really counts is experience, of the "hands on & in" variety. Anyone can bulshit a certificate with a brain dump, you can go on course that will virtually guarantee you come out with a cert. But again, lab work is no substitute for a real problem on a real network.
If you want to do UNIX for a living, generalise, don't specialise. Be good at one commercial distribution of UNIX, (Solaris, HP-UX, AIX, etc.) and some form of Linux. RedHat Enterprise is used widely, so Fedora may be good, but any distro will do, Gentoo is also very good from the "build it yourself" aspect, especially if you do it from the level one tar ball and a boot floppy.
You will also need some experience of the major disk systems, such as Veritas, Disksuite or some other Journalled/logical disk variant. But beyond that what you need most if just experience. Universities and small non-profit organisations are very good places to learn, the pay is lousy, (I got a 60% pay rise when I moved to the private sector) but if you love the life, they are some of the best places in the world to experiment in a non-presurised environment.
Know also that wherever you go you'll need to retrain for the environment, this usually takes about 30 days.
I managed to get transferred into an engineering job, but it helped that I was already doing some engineering work during slow periods.
Work on some OSS software, or otherwise get your name out there. Good managers believe in running code.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Knowing Unix or Linux is going to doom you to life as a consultant, eking out a life spent in constant search of billable hours. That's why most Linux/Unix people are always suggesting solutions which take a great deal of time and money to accomplish: it's all about the billable hours, and milking the client for all they're worth.
Then, if you can actually manage to con a company into putting their critical systems onto Linux/UNIX... you've just hit the con-sulting jackpot, and have that company by the balls. Since they now depend on your horded knowledge, your obscure applications, your bizarrely tweaked and obscure Linux distro, and your Frankenserver, you can now come in late, leave early, take long lunches, and walk around with the constant, haughty air of self-importance to which all Lunix/Unix admins aspire.
Otherwise, you can learn something useful (like Windows/Exchange), get a job virtually anywhere, and work a job which lets you sleep at night without having a guilty conscience about unethical behavior. As an employee, you get vacation time, stability, training, etc: things only available to a consultant who (as above) has pulled off the "mission critical" con job.
Certifications usually show breadth of knowledge, at least in my experience with the Sun Java and J2EE certifications. You can learn stuff on your own or on the job, but that tends to be much more focused than you might realize. Certifications force you to broaden your knowledge base.
That's why even "rote memorization" can be very important. Who is faster, the experienced code jockey who can whip out a set of classes within a few days, or the noob who knows that the problem has already been solved in a standard library? (As an aside, this is why I laugh at the "learn X in 7 days!" mindset. Learning a language is trivial. Learning the standard libraries -- and how to properly use them! -- will take at least 6 months, and several times that to learn the common third-party libraries.)
Would I hire anyone on the basis of certifications alone? Of course not. But I would probably go with a slightly less experienced person with certification than a slightly more experienced person without certification, all other things being equal.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
I was in a similar position to the one you sound as though you're in. When I left school I had no real IT qualifications at all apart from a GCSE and an A-Level and I found myself stuck doing admin jobs in insurance companies and the like which very quickly became extremely boring.
From there I managed to get a job on the out of hours helpdesk of a large outsourcing company with the hopes of using this to working properly in the IT industry.
At this point I think I was fairly lucky in that first of all working nights and weekends left all of us with a lot of free time where we had to answer the phone if it rang but with hours and hours between calls and secondly because the management were very supportive of people taking the initiative and finding solutions to any of the problems we saw around us.
I was able to use the "free time" I had at night to develop a web based CMS system to replace the helpdesks procedures ( which were until then kept in battered folders which no one ever updated and caused no end of problems ). As well as this I read up on the tools we were using in the call centre and wrote some VB apps to use them more efficiently. Having done this I was able to move off the help desk to do more things like this on a permanent basis and then I moved across to administer the telephony system which exposed me to a lot more tools and stuff which I live off to this very day as a consultant.
I was very lucky to find myself in a the sort of situation I was in where I could essentially make up my own job in the way I did and have people provide me with the resources and backing to make a go of it but have a look around and if you see anything you think could be done better spend some time learning about it and then explain to your management how it can be done better and also consider that your company is most likely going to have internal IT sysadmins and stuff to manage it's own systems which is an ideal place to move to because you will also understand the systems from the users point of view.
You are doomed! There is no escape from your current position. There is only death.
1) Your current job sounds like your best asset. Someone hiring for basic tech support will at least look at you more closely, as opposed to someone who might not have any troubleshooting experience. Look for a different company that needs first-level support and start there. If you find something, expect to have to start out doing more phone work while you demonstrate that you're learning enough to move up into something else.
Failing that,
2) Find somewhere to do something that demonstrates to people the knowledge and skills that you have and how well you learn. Volunteer if you need to--schools, senior organizations, community organizations, maybe even at your current job--anywhere someone can witness the value you provide. Working for free is not glamorous, but if you can't find a paying job to help you with this then you'll find out just how dedicated you are to accomplishing your goal.
3) Play at home with what you want to do. Force yourself to work on projects that you know will be difficult, and when you're done, start over and do it again better. (Yikes, I sound like Principal Skinner) Build a home network. Build a media center PC. Run a mail server. Run a web server. Learn how to image PCs. Create a hardware independent image. Build a systems management server. Host your own blog. Host your friends' blogs. Write a program. Anything technical that you might enjoy that will teach you more.
On a side note, when I was teaching basic computer classes, I was absolutely astonished at the number of students who honestly believed that just by taking community college courses they would land a dream job at US $50000/yr. Some of them didn't even have a computer at home--honestly! I tried to get through to them over and over again that unless they were passionate about learning computers independently--examples similar to what I listed above--they weren't going to learn enough to get where they were trying to go.
4) Network (socially). Tell people what you're interested in and what you're doing to get there. Someone might provide a lead to a job. Someone might have a project they would like help with. Most of the jobs I had in my life were not found in the newspaper, I was referred to them by a friend who had similar interests to mine. I even found one job at a job fair just by dropping off my resume at the booth run by a local catalog retailer. The job I was looking for wasn't available at the time of the fair, but two weeks later one opened up and I was the first person they called.
5) Continue your education, but focus more on a degree rather than certifications. In my experience, degrees become very important once you're on a career path. If you are at all considering management, finish your degree as soon as you can. Your major is not necessarily important, but completing it is. Certifications are nothing more than a bonus. I wouldn't even bother with them unless you can pass the tests right now. If you don't already know enough that you would need to take a class to pass the tests, then I refer you back to #3 above.
6) Stay off drugs. Nothing sucks more than missing out on a good job op because the company drug tests.
7) Keep your credit clean. Maybe missing out on a good job because they run a credit check sucks a little more than a drug test.
I assume you don't live in the US, so you may not have to worry about these last two, but more than once I've either skipped applying for a job or have withdrawn my application for one of those reasons. (Back in the day :)
The problem is that a lot of people look down on tech support because it's not "sexy" and the high demand for tech support positions during the boom led to a lot of bad hires (thus making it even less sexy). Any high school kid who knew how to install Win98 could get a tech support job for awhile there, in some areas this is still the case unfortunately.
Meanwhile, areas like networking, programming, and web dev became relatively glamorous. The networking guys were all battling hackers and making websites load faster and linking the billing system to the custom relations system, the programmers were busy creating new and exciting things, and the web dev guys were all hyping the money to be made from a slick web presence (and hyping themselves non-stop as well).
Management types would look to tech support and all they see is the front line support which is dominated by a bunch of kids. It's like looking at a facilities department, you've got the engineers at one end and the janitors at the other. Tech support started to be viewed as the janitors. In reality, tech support are not the janitors. There is a lot of specialized knowledge involved and tech support routinely saves the day. When tech support is doing its job well no one notices because it means there isn't a lot of broken shit and the shit that does break has minimal impact and gets fixed right away. A quality tech support department is worth it's wait in gold, but it's an incredibly rare thing since there are still a lot of people left over from the boom times who drag departments down, there are a lot of outsourcing tech support operations which focus on minimizing costs more than anything else, and there is a shortage of quality managers because the crap hires from the boom times realized they didn't know shit about computers and spent their time kissing the right asses and thus got promoted up rather than kicked out. It's ironic because if tech support got the respect it deserves it wouldn't have the systemic problems it has, but the systemic problems continue to perpetuate themselves because tech support rarely gets the attention it deserves from management because they lack any real respect for tech support.
My advice for getting out of tech support:
1) Get a tech support job for a large organization that has several different internal IT work groups doing things other than tech support.
2) Work your way up in the tech support dept. while building your other skills and establishing personal relationships with IT staff in non-tech support positions. Programmers are the easiest to network with because most of them don't know shit besides programming and thus break their computers a lot, this gives you a lot of opportunities to establish a rapport with them while demonstrating your knowledge (note: don't make them feel like an idiot for breaking their own computer! they hate to admit their ignorance).
3) Once you know the other IT department staff well, have built up a reputation as someone who knows their shit, and have worked you way beyond the tech support front line, apply for a job in one of the other departments within your organization.
I'm in the midst of step 3 myself. I've got people from other departments coming to me trying to recruit me into their work groups for nearly every IT related job opening in my org. I'm just waiting for a position that really appeals to me at this point.
Not the computer kind.
Lean on all the friends you had in high school. Sign up to a site like http://www.linkedin.com/ which is basically a job search site that uses networking to help you be more successful in your search... you'll be surprised how many people you know are "linked" with people offering jobs. (Or "linked" with people in the kind of big companies who are always hiring talent, regardless of their job listings.)
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So take it or leave it those are the two sides to the IT employment story. You have IT experience and the market is tight right now for good IT professionals. I would definitely test the waters and see what is out there. If you are not networked get a hold of a large IT placement firm and have them assist you with your search. I am also curious of how you were hired into your current role. Where you placed by a firm or did you just apply to your company and get hired on.
One last thing, I know I spoke very vaguely and very much in general in the above paragraphs. There are a lot of specifics left out, being that my lunch break is only 30 minutes long. I will reply to any questions anyone has.
AppleDave "I'm a PC, and I'm a Mac."
The things people like me look for in an applicant are:
- Ability to learn, research, and document
- Ability to design scalable systems
- Social skills - you need to fit in!
- A college degree that shows you are capable of both design and writing
- (plus the expected list of technical skills)
College is extremely important. Without it, an applicant appears to be unorganized and less disciplined. How do I know you can meet deadlines, or work on projects with others? What about your writing skills (English, not perl)? Do you understand the difference between a heavily optimized script and a highly scalable and maintainable one? One of the most important aspects of a college education is not taught in classrooms: networking, the old fashioned way. Not MySpace or Facebook (or Slashdot), but actually knowing people in the field who can help you solve your more difficult assignments, keep you up to date in knowing about the field, and possibly even get recommended for me to hire them, too. These virtual networks are great, but the networking you get at college is far more powerful.Go to school. Learn and network. There is no substitution. The money will solve itself in the long run. If you have extremely tight financial restrictions, cut your expenses -- a bag lunch every day at work, stop going to movies and eating out so often, and take night classes while working full time.
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
Sounds like you wish to follow in the footsteps of a legendary hacker (whom I see most days in downtown Palo Alto). His recipe:
Just do it and grow a moustache.
If all you're doing is talking to people, opening tickets and transferring them to somebody else, you're not doing tech support, no matter what your job title is. You're nothing but a receptionist. Get a job where you actually have to diagnose and solve problems for callers. Judging by what you wrote, that's probably "Tier II" for your company, even though you're probably over-qualified for it. (I suspect that your Tier II reads scripts, and Tier III, if there is one, is actually paid to think.) In any case, try getting a position where you get to use your skills instead of just opening trouble tickets.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
It's true that a degree doesn't imply skill, or vice versa. But why not at least finish buying what you paid for? Right now you owe money for something you don't even have. It's like putting a huge down payment on a car and then walking away without actually buying it. Why would you do that?
And look what he created. You too can do it.
First, if you have any connections with the 2nd level companies you should see if they could hire you. Since you already have a relationship they may have a better feel for your abilities than your resume shows, and they may be able to save themselves some money by hiring you directly versus using the 1st line company.
Second, try some consulting or temp work. Places like TEK-Systems will let you get some hands-on experience with administration, but won't tie you to a specific job/company for an extended period. We had a couple of admins at my last employer through a temp agency, and they can account for large variations in experience. If you don't know a whole lot but can learn, they should be able to place you somewhere that you'll have some oversight to make sure you don't break anything too badly. If they feel you do know a lot, they may place you somewhere that you can be more autonomous.
Other options have been suggested above, keep going with the job you hate for a little while and build up your resume. Find some side job that may not pay the bills, but that will give you experience. Look for entry-level sysadmin jobs, 2nd line support, anything you feel STRONGLY that you can do well. Network as much as you can, ask your geek friends if their companies are hiring or if they have suggestions.
One more that happened to work out very well for me is just get a random entry-level job. I was originally hired as a data entry clerk (or some stupid title), and managed to show my boss and theirs that I was useful enough for something more in short order. I progressed in that company from data entry to admin to executive admin to analyst and finally ended up as tech support and sysadmin. It sounds like a random stroll, but it was a series of relatively small jumps. I applied my geekdom to all of the positions and demonstrated how I could be more useful to the company in a different capacity, and it worked out better for both me and for the company - win-win.
1. go to college and spend as many spare moments ingratiating yourself to the faculty that manage the computer labs and servers. volunteer to help with everything, including wiring. get into a position where your one of the student administrators of the campus network - the best experience you could possibly get. chances are you'll be involved in administering a network larger in size or scope than almost anything you'll come across in the "real" world. this is the best route for more reasons than I care to explain
2. Interview at every possible opening and hope you get that one lucky shot. improve your odds by building up your skills and familiarity with network set-ups and issues by creating a complex home network complete with a network firewall; dns, mail servers, mixed environment of linux, freebsd, solaris, windows, etc. Spend free hours mastering your shell and the command line, compiling software, getting familiar with scripting languages such as Perl, experimenting with goofy set-ups, and writing shell scripts, etc. It's no where near running an advanced network but it will familiarize you with terminology, techniques, jargon, etc. Sounding like you know what your talking about is an early part of the interview process. Later one or some of the engineers may talk to you. When you move from HR people to real engineers, don't lie or try to bullshit your way your way through the interview - they'll know immediately and your done. They know they are going to have to train a new guy, to some extent, anyway since every network is unique. They will be impressed if you've developed a bedrock of basic network knowledge especially on your own time in your own place. They probably did the same thing when they were teenagers and/or in college and will relate. The odds of this are low except at low paying jobs, places with poor working conditions (whatever constitutes poor working conditions), or places that have bad managers who purposely hire people the manager isn't worried about showing him/her up on the job. Good places to work will fill these jobs internally or with a person vouched for by a current employee.
3. Excel at your current tech support job and look for opportunities to move up inside the organization. be prepared to take small steps such as a position like team leader. Even though you don't want to make a career out of tech support, promotions raise your profile, increase your attractiveness as a candidate for further internal promotions, and will lead to less time on the phone. Promotion/s makes it easier for others to take a chance on you - inside or outside of the company. A strong work history with promotions will rate as high or higher than someone with academic knowledge but no work experience.
Things not to do:
1. When you interview out of the company, don't act like your better than your current job. No one likes the phones but it is the job, it is essential, and a fair number of non-degreed IT people paid their dues in support. If you give off an "I'm too good for the phones" vibe, your going to piss those people off even though most of them all thought they were too good for the phones, too. In any case, the biggest concern when hiring new people isn't so much finding the most skilled. There are all sorts of skilled people looking for jobs out there. The biggest concern is finding responsive employes focused on completing priority tasks within pressing timelines and are unafraid of responsibility or accountability. Those qualities are much harder to find than network administrators.
2. Don't let internal advancement opportunities get away because your not taking your tech support job seriously. As I previously mentioned, no one likes being on the phones. Nevertheless, you performance and successes in your current position can be your greatest ally in advancement or conversely your greatest hinderance. If your supervisors and team leaders are impressed with your performance, new jobs and greater responsibility will
Honestly, I believe a degree and other formal qualifications are somewhat overrated.
While you're likely to encounter some employers who will demand a degree before even looking at your experience or giving you an interview, I find that the percentage of these employers is quite low compared to the many who will judge you upon your provable knowledge and experience.
Without formal qualifications, you absolutely need to know your area well. As well or preferably better than any stereotypical university graduate (which isn't that hard). Have an excellent CV, well written and easy for HR/recruitment to parse, so that you have the highest chance of getting it to the decision makers. If you have a real discernible talent at what you do, then a degree is just fluff.
Being a self taught expert can be a large advantage. It shows that you're quite probably smarter than the average cookie, that know your area well enough to be able to do your own research, that you love what you do and are confident enough to set your own goals and achieve them.
If you are also prepared to pursue formal education, try to keep it interesting. Let your own direction take precedence and try not to comprise on that. Good alternatives to studying a degree at college/uni are correspondence courses, or night courses offering certifications.
Coming from a technical background you're more than likely in a good position to become a full time programmer. If you wanted to do this, then decide which areas and industry you'd really like to work in and be realistic about what you know, then research and learn what you need to. The process of applying jobs and sitting their entry tests will be a valuable learning experience in itself.
You may also want to consider gaining some experience by working on, or creating a number of free/open source software projects.
Good luck, and make the most of any setbacks regardless of what you do. Always work towards improving yourself and your skills, and you will find that you will be in a good position to achieve anything you want.
This was the path I took. Building a resume in the tech sector with nothing but experience is like building a house with straw. Employers don't even consider me because I don't have a degree or any expensive certifications. HR departments datamine for resumes with the terms "BSc Computer Science" and discard everything else. I currently work at a small ISP for an employer so cheap that when our web developer begs for a new $300 computer to make Photoshop run (faster), he gets turned down.
My wife works as a manager at a call center for a bank. She makes 30% more than me.
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
Well, I've been a senior sysadmin for a fair while now, I've always done stuff at home like pascal programming and the like before I went to college. I dropped out after a while because it just didn't keep me interested in anything, so I decided to go work. First job was as a helpdesker to support people in an office with their windows problems (seeing as how I had enough experience with that just from putzing about with windows at home).
From there I went to an ISP in my local town because I was one of the few people who (at that time) knew Linux existed (think kernel versions in the 1.1.x range), and could use it. Picked up Perl there too, even though I was just the helpdesk dude.
The Perl programming sort-of got out of hand at home so figured I might as well make a career of it, which I did at a few places, only to find that whenever I mentioned I could admin any *nix box without too much problems, I got the sysadmin duties as well.
Eventually just decided, fsck it, I'll just sysadmin and save the programming for home projects.
I have been lucky with my employers, even though I have no certificates, and only graduated highschool. They just looked at the whole "what can you do, for real" picture instead of the "your certificate claims you can do X" one.
There is no sig...
In act I was searching through resumes on CareerBuilder last night and found a reasonably qualified resume for what I had in mind with the word `coomputer' in the heading.