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Hey kellyjd83, you seem to be in the same situation I found myself in just a few years back only I had zero IT experience to fall back on with all my employment being in other industries. I got myself A+ and Network+ certified which opened the door into a temporary school IT technician role. I progressed from this into a first-line support role on a service desk. Now two years on from that I've been working as a network engineer for a Managed Service Provider for the last 6 months. It's a steep learning curve for me with CCENT-level networking knowledge but there's no better way to learn when I'm actually doing networking day in day out now. The only advise I can give is to keep plugging away at the job applications, especially for first-line service-desk or support work. If you are prepared to do the first-line support role for 1-2 years the certificates you are working towards now will certainly open doors for you alongside the job experience. Good luck.

kellyjd83

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TheFORCE

Remove all positions that are not relavant to the IT field. Painter, landscaper etc etc

fmitawaps

As someone who has developed a pessimistic attitude from years of contract IT jobs and then having to apply to more jobs to get the next one, I must say that having the absolute truth on your resume isn't a good idea. Especially with things like painter and bricklayer in the last few years. In this case, the truth will only hurt you.

Therefore, I suggest looking at other IT resumes of people with significant experience and "optimizing" yours to obtain better results. Don't go overboard with it and claim you are a data center architect or some such thing, but show a decent base and history of experience in desktop support and maybe some slightly higher skilled things. Just make sure you can back up the words with actions.

Keep the employment gaps small and specify contract positions if you choose to have any. Helps avoid the question of "why aren't you there anymore?".

And this part:

I'm an experienced, honest and hard-working professional highly motivated with good experience in the
industry. I have excellent interpersonal skills with the ability to communicate confidently at all levels. I am a
reliable, self-starting person, who has lots to offer in terms of enthusiasm for life with the ability to bring
high standards to the workplace. The experience I have gained from working within the hospitality &
construction industries has developed my people skills, my customer service skills, my team working skills
and the will to get my hands dirty when the time calls for it.
To further my passion in IT, I'm enrolled on a self-funded course to achieve qualifications and to develop
skills and knowledge I know I will be able to use and become more of an asset to any team.
My aim for the future is to continue building & developing my knowledge and skills within Support, Server,
Network & Security Infrastructure.

Is WWWAAAAYYY TOOOOOO LLOONNGG!!! Get it down to two sentences, three at the most.

doctorlexus

TheFORCE wrote: »

Remove all positions that are not relavant to the IT field. Painter, landscaper etc etc

Ehhh... I would agree if the positions were old, say more than 10 years old. But leaving big unexplained gaps isn't so great. One alternative is to make two work history headings. Put "IT Employment" first, and then have an "Other Employment" section afterwards. Then you leave no gaps, and the person looking at the resume is able to easily see what's relevant.

TheFORCE

doctorlexus wrote: »

Ehhh... I would agree if the positions were old, say more than 10 years old. But leaving big unexplained gaps isn't so great. One alternative is to make two work history headings. Put "IT Employment" first, and then have an "Other Employment" section afterwards. Then you leave no gaps, and the person looking at the resume is able to easily see what's relevant.

It's a lot better and easier to explain the gap of your work history in person during an interview than having it placed on the resume which will quickly disqualify you from even being called. When you lack relavant experience you can still show passion during the interview. Having gaps is not as bad as having unrelated jobs on your resume, especially with position like painter and landscaper and demolition.

As a side note, i worked for a good 2 years as a field tech, after my 4th year in IT i removed the position leaving me with only 2 years of experience only because I was aiming for a specific job. So the point is, you need to be as relavant as possible with your experience and as specific as possible.

doctorlexus

TheFORCE wrote: »

It's a lot better and easier to explain the gap of your work history in person during an interview

Maybe it depends on the hiring person, but I really wouldn't see myself even getting an interview if I had a large unexplained work gap on my resume.

fmitawaps

If he follows my advice and "optimizes" his resume, there will be no gaps in employment, just a years-long steady progression of IT job responsibilities.

bettsy584

Don't choke yourself mate trying to learn everything in a short space of time, I did that early in my career and it's only now I am realizing it was not really worth the effort. Unless you work in a very diverse consultancy (and usually a small consultancy) you don't need to go quite as broad.

I did Cisco, Microsoft, Citrix, Google, VMware etc and only use about 50% of it in my day job (the stuff I actually know).

If your in London, go mad around cloud, I would pay less attention to networking etc. Although the skills are good, get MCSA 365, MCSD Azure and you will have recruiters going mad for you.