One Foot in the Door

Hey All, i realize this is probably a question that comes up often but every situation is different and quite frankly when i read other people's troubles with employment barriers, their situation has fared better than my own. A little background info:-

I've been interested in having a career in IT for a long time, it's a field that has my personal interest as well as my professional one. To that end, i have attended numerous night courses at college and earned a reasonable amount of certs such as CompTIA A+, Net+, Sec+, Linux LPIC-1 and a few others. I feel that i have more than enough certifications to earn me an entry level position with a company, but my IT employment history so far has been a single 6 month placement with a small IT support company and that's it. I send my CV out to prospective employers and recruitment agencies and i very rarely get contacted by either, in fact my most recent interview was a referral from one of their employees that i attended college with!!

I feel like i'm getting nowhere with any of them, they keep moving the goalpost as far as the qualifications/experience they request for in job postings and of course the old as time catch 22: Can't get job without experience, Can't get experience without job. And yes i have even tried asking employers would they consider taking me on as a volunteer placement and that hasn't worked out well either, they do in fact hold placement positions but they are only granted to recent university graduates or students on track to receiving their degree.

My current trend to combating unemployment is to continue furnishing my CV with certificates and accolades in the hopes that someone will find it very attractive and hire me, to that end i have been studying towards the RHCSA/RHCE qualifications and also looking at DevOps. There's alot of work involved in both areas and it was the route i was planning to pursue but only after i was employed so i could learn by working as well as free time study and naturally having the funds to pay for exams.

Is there any advice you guys/gals can give to help improve this dire situation, somewhere i have went wrong or a better IT route to pursue for potential employment?

Thank you for taking the time to read my article.

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Comments

mikey88

Where are you located? Your location is a major factor for landing entry level IT employment.

Heisenbug

Northern Ireland. Would be looking for work mainly in Belfast, which has in recent years become a growing IT hub for IT security/Software companies.

MontagueVandervort

I see one potential problem here...

Are you currently working at all?
You mention that you had a 6-month placement but how long ago was that?
Have you worked since that job at all (doesn't have to be IT, just any job at all)?

Heisenbug

Nope, not working and that placement was quite some time ago. Your thinking i am not considered a good candidate for employment because i have been unemployed for a protracted period of time, if that is the case then i'm trapped in a jobless loop.

Jon_Cisco

Trapped until you get your first opportunity.

At which point it is up to you to maximize. Nobody was born with experience. Long term unemployment is most damaging because people give up. If you are studying and improving you will increase your value which will increase your chances.

Don't get trapped in the wrong mindset. Life changes considerably once you land that opportunity.

techie2018

Also another issue is you are trying to jump straight to devops with no experience. What type of positions are you applying for? Hopefully not devops, because it will be frustrating for you.

Devops a tough sell unless you have a B.S. in computer science or just an extremely natural gifted programmer. Otherwise you are most likely going to have to start at a lower position(help desk, desktop support, NOC, etc) and work your way up to a system admin, then once you are a system admin you can try to make the move to devops.

But with no B.S. in computer science, no work experience at all, let alone no work experience in systems administration you won't be getting any calls for devops roles. The same can be said for many of the high end positions in IT(devops, programming/development, system admin, network admin). It's the reason many folks start out on the dreaded help desk. No one like the help desk but assuming you have certs and can interview well you should be able to land a help desk job without any experience. So that's probably going to be the easier path to break into IT.

MontagueVandervort

Heisenbug said:

Nope, not working and that placement was quite some time ago. Your thinking i am not considered a good candidate for employment because i have been unemployed for a protracted period of time, if that is the case then i'm trapped in a jobless loop.

Yes, I would highly advise you to get a job... any job, so you can close up that window on your resume.

Heisenbug

Thank you everyone for your replies, i appreciate it.

Jon_Cisco said:

Long term unemployment is most damaging because people give up. If you are studying and improving you will increase your value which will increase your chances.

That's my plan at the moment, to keep studying and improving my skillset. To that end, i took up a sub @ linuxacademy for a year, i can show off my progress on LinkedIn for prospective employers. Hopefully, i can complete a course that coincides with a need and someone bites.

techie2018 said:

Also another issue is you are trying to jump straight to devops with no experience. What type of positions are you applying for? Hopefully not devops, because it will be frustrating for you.

Devops a tough sell unless you have a B.S. in computer science or just an extremely natural gifted programmer. Otherwise you are most likely going to have to start at a lower position(help desk, desktop support, NOC, etc) and work your way up to a system admin, then once you are a system admin you can try to make the move to devops.

But with no B.S. in computer science, no work experience at all, let alone no work experience in systems administration you won't be getting any calls for devops roles. The same can be said for many of the high end positions in IT(devops, programming/development, system admin, network admin). It's the reason many folks start out on the dreaded help desk. No one like the help desk but assuming you have certs and can interview well you should be able to land a help desk job without any experience. So that's probably going to be the easier path to break into IT.

Oh goodness no, i'm not applying for DevOps positions but it's part of a long term plan for me to transition into that field after the dreaded help desk lol. My ultimate goal in my career path would be an SRE position with a respectable company, but i'm not expecting any of it to just get handed to me along the way out of some disillusioned sense of entitlement, i plan on working hard for it.

MontagueVandervort said:

Heisenbug said:

Nope, not working and that placement was quite some time ago. Your thinking i am not considered a good candidate for employment because i have been unemployed for a protracted period of time, if that is the case then i'm trapped in a jobless loop.

Yes, I would highly advise you to get a job... any job, so you can close up that window on your resume.

I have my own difficulties about taking on any job, but i understand the point your making, your advice is sound. For the moment i will take advantage of my unemployment to study hard, and I'll look around for something applicable.

Heisenbug

Thank you everyone for your replies, i appreciate it.

Jon_Cisco said:

Long term unemployment is most damaging because people give up. If you are studying and improving you will increase your value which will increase your chances.

techie2018 said:

Also another issue is you are trying to jump straight to devops with no experience. What type of positions are you applying for? Hopefully not devops, because it will be frustrating for you.

Devops a tough sell unless you have a B.S. in computer science or just an extremely natural gifted programmer. Otherwise you are most likely going to have to start at a lower position(help desk, desktop support, NOC, etc) and work your way up to a system admin, then once you are a system admin you can try to make the move to devops.

But with no B.S. in computer science, no work experience at all, let alone no work experience in systems administration you won't be getting any calls for devops roles. The same can be said for many of the high end positions in IT(devops, programming/development, system admin, network admin). It's the reason many folks start out on the dreaded help desk. No one like the help desk but assuming you have certs and can interview well you should be able to land a help desk job without any experience. So that's probably going to be the easier path to break into IT.

MontagueVandervort said:

Heisenbug said:

Nope, not working and that placement was quite some time ago. Your thinking i am not considered a good candidate for employment because i have been unemployed for a protracted period of time, if that is the case then i'm trapped in a jobless loop.

Yes, I would highly advise you to get a job... any job, so you can close up that window on your resume.