How to Get IT Experience

markulous

So there's obviously a lot of people that have a tough time breaking into the field. Jobs often ask for experience, even for an entry level position. While getting certs and/or a degree is often necessary, it also doesn't necessarily guarantee you a job. While the military can be an option, it is not always realistic as not everyone can be deployed nor wants to do that. The best answer, in my opinion, is to volunteer your services so you can add that to your resume. I found the following article on Tech Republic today and it has some links to a couple of good sites: How techies can volunteer their skills to help nonprofits - TechRepublic

One site I wasn't even aware of is Catchafire.org. Basically, you put in there which cause you want to support (you can put Any) then state that you are skilled in IT. They have different projects listed that are either onsite or remote. Something like this would be a huge boon to your resume as that plus certs would give you a huge leg up on entry level IT jobs.

I personally volunteered on Protonic.com. It's a website that offers free IT support to people. Basically, you can take a test to verify your level of IT expertise and then you can start working tickets. Since the tickets are trackable, you can easily show this to an employer if they need to verify it. I put this on my resume back when I applied for a help desk job a year and a half ago and they brought it up in the interview so I know it helped me a lot.

While the best way is probably just to know someone, volunteering is easily attainable for people and can only help your resume.

Good luck!

Jose243

Didn't know about any of these sites, thanks for the good info!

nascar_paul

Great idea all around! Thanks!

Chadius

Thanks for the post! I applied and took the test thru Protronics. I am also setup thru a couple of other sites for volunteering.