Stuck in Tier 1 land

mgmguy1

I'be been working in different Positions in the Telecommunications industry for awhile now. I've done a-lot of Tier one work and have been assigned work over what my job description covers. I even worked my way up to a Supervisor position. My bosses like me because I am on time and dependable and don't cause drama I'm also very good at what I do. I recently interviewed for the Tier 2 Position at work and turned it down because they were looking for people from 11-7 or 12 am to 8 am. ( I did not know the hours until I was in the Interview or else I would not have wasted my time )

I have been studying for the CCNA for a-while now. While I have not passed yet I have come really close a few times.
My question is how can I gain Tier 2 experience if my employers keep offering shifts that don't work for me. The Tier 2 Bench at my job is very small and it is unlikely that a day shift will come up anytime soon. I want to learn and do more at my job but I also like being married and there is no way those shifts would fly with my wife. We would never see each-other.

Anyway, my wife thinks I may need to look outside of my company if I want the kind of experience I am looking for but I have my doubts that a perspective employer would put me in a Tier 2 role with no Tier 2 experience. I have been on a few interviews of late and been told I would make a better fit for Project Management or Supervisor work or I could be a rep in there Tier 1 department.

Any advice is appreciated.
mgmguy1

Danielm7

Titles don't mean a ton, T1 at your company might be T3 somewhere else. I agree with your wife, I'd look elsewhere if your current company only has overnight shift for T2. Write your resume to show your strengths, show that you do work above what your title might imply, then try to move upward, people do it all the time.
Good luck.

Mooseboost

If you can't move up where you are, then move out. Its as simple as that, though not always an easy choice to make. I know from experience what it is like to be in a job you enjoy but are unable to move up in. In the end, you must do what is best for you. As far as moving you into a Tier 2 role at a new company, it will depend on them. As Danielm7 said, tier structures can vary greatly. Tier 1 where I am now is equivalent to Tier 3 at my previous job. Your responsibilities should outweigh titles. If I was looking for a candidate for a position, I would be much more interested in what he did rather than what tier he worked at.

If you have difficulty moving into a more advanced role at another company, you can always take the Tier 2 spot where you are now temporarily until you find something better. Or make yourself look more valuable. I was able to move into engineering from help desk by getting my CCNA and showing strong networking skills. Tier 1 experience + certification + a strong understanding of networking is a good combination to move up. In a lot of higher tier / non-entry positions keep in mind you may be competing with their internal Tier 1 departments. Some companies bias to promote within unless they find a really strong external candidate.

LeBroke

You can always just omit the specific tier in your title, and then list your projects and more complex duties/actions performed.

I.e. instead of going "Tier 1 tech @ helpdesk. Resetting passwords, adding accounts in AD, installing programs" you can always go "Windows Technician @ Company. AD Account and group policy management, enterprise software deployment. Created a WDS server to decrease man-hours spent imaging workstations."

First one makes you seem like a helpdesk monkey. Second one makes you seem as basically a Jr. Admin.

techfiend

If you can afford to, look for support roles at smaller companies. They often allow you to get very broad experience as long as you show the initiative.

Showing that you dedicate time outside of work to advance your career with certs and labs will go a long way.

jrcarr2

What kind of Telco work do you do? This might help us give some guidance. Is it wireless, wired, enterprise, or consumer? Do you work in a NOC, or more of a transport side of the business? Are you in a service provider environment?

Telco is such a broad range of technologies and disciplines. What are you looking to move into? Are you looking at an IT related networking position or a Telco related networking position?

Your ability to get work outside of or inside your company is more dependent on skills and experience than job titles. In my company there are very few job titles that actually tell what a person does. Most of the time I have to look at a person's department to understand what piece of the puzzle they belong to.

mgmguy1

I've worked for Large and small teleco's in business and residential environments . Some of the companies I have worked for are AT&T, Broadview Networks . The work I have been doing thus far are inbound call troubleshooting, Internet,Phone,TV. E-mails clients and local area network issues. Whatever I cannot fix I pass up to Tier 2 or dispatch out on. I spend my days doing reboots and shut/no shut on Ethernet interfaces or doing simple password resets on webmail E-mail accounts. I do not have access to config anything ( That's all Tier 2) . We have a high turn over rate at my job and I am always cleaning up the mistakes the new people are making because they are learning. New people seek me out because I am approachable as other Technical Service Rep's ( TSR) are not. When I am not doing all that I am cleaning up open orders or working with Marketing to clean up our Documentation where I see mistakes or incorrect info. ( That's a battle in and of it-self to get corrected sometimes)

My dream job is to be Technical Support/Project Management. I like fixing people's issues but I also like cleaning up databases and making sure all the process are followed correctly and showing new people how to do it so we lessen the normal issues that come up in a day. I'm not sure what that job title is but it would be nice to find. I will say that I do not mind that my current bosses don't hound me on my call times or that I don't upsell on every call. As long as I fix the customers issue or make sure they are handled in the correct way and don't cause drama they tend to not care about my hour long phone calls sometimes. I hope this better explains things

nrky

You want to be a Level2 Network Engineer in a Telco, but don't want to do night shifts?
Sorry mate, you're in the wrong industry.

Every single Telco on the planet expects their engineers to work night shifts, because every single Telco on the planet operates 24/7.

This is the nature of the beast; if you can't do night shifts, don't work in Telco, simple enough.

Source: I'm working for a Telco and do night shifts.

P.S. After reading your most recent post, it sounds more like you're doing ISP call-centre work as Help Desk, not Telecommunications Network Engineer work.
Do you know the ins-and-outs of EoSDH / DWDM / FDDI? Can you rattle off the routing protocols used in presenting Ethernet in a Metro Ethernet service utilizing VPLS? Do you know the MTU of encapsulating a Jumbo Frame in to an MPLS LSP?
You need to study transmission technologies and the CCNA: Service Provider in order to even be considered for an L2 NOC role. Note, Telecommunications is not IP Network Engineering, 99% of it is OSI Layer2 and 1.