how do i?

steveo1985

get a job if they all want experience? its kind of a catch 22, i mean most of the jobs ask for experiance in the field.... to get a job you need experience but i need a job to get experience.

At this rate i'll have the CCNP, CCDP, MCSE and specialist wireless design exams and wont be able to put them to good use.

Am i going to have to get higher certs to get a call back? What type of jobs would they consider experience because obviously you can't get a job that requires a CCNA or equivalent because they want experience.

its a huge bummer for me

any adive will be helpfull

many thanks

networker050184

Certifications are to supplement your experience not to substitute it. The reason all the jobs you see want experience is because they are not entry level positions. You need to find an entry level job doing help desk or field tech. You can't get a job working soley with networks with no experience in IT (some people get lucky, but most end up in your situation). You might want to try you local ISPs as well for a low level tech position. It probably won't be what you are looking for, but it is a start. You can go for the CCNP, CCDP and MCSE if you want, but you will more than likley be in the same boat you are in now. Its been said a million times but people refuse to listen, certifications alone will not get you a job.

Netstudent

These days you have to start lower down the totum poll than ever before. There is a lot more people in IT than there was 10 years ago. Less and less companies are willing to take chances on inexperienced applicants. It sucks to know that you have the aptitude to get certifications and learn difficult concepts, yet you have to start with a job that someone without those credentials can get as well. Do you have a degree? Certs and a degree are usually the ticket for jobs that aren't pro level, but aren't totally newbie either. Thats my experience anyways. Just keep looking and something will eventually fall into place. Good luck.

steveo1985

yeah i know.... im going for the entry level jobs lol £14K a year etc... one near me in gloucestershire (ISP job) that says "working towards your CCNA" basic understanding of mpls etc..... Still nothing, i curranty work at customer support for fedex but, a none IT role. Maybe having the CCNA before getting the entry level job is the wrong way to go... they might be put off it. wanting to train someone up from scratch etc.. not wanting the employee to move on after a six month stint.

I understand the need to get experience and im happy to get any job to get some. I would work for free to gain experience to get a better job or a shot at jobs in the future. lol should put "will work for free" on my cv :P jokes

steveo1985

no degree either.

JDMurray

At TechExams.net, we stress that education, certification, and experience are all necessary elements for finding a job, and no one of these elements is a substitute for the other two. However, in the real world, there are two additional elements: who you know and luck. These two elements can have just as much influence as the other three. There's not much you can do about luck, but increasing your circle of job-related networking contacts (the who you know) is something you should always be doing too. One day it may pay off in a new, better job.

bighornsheep

JDMurray wrote:

At TechExams.net, we stress that education, certification, and experience are all necessary elements for finding a job, and no one of these elements is a substitute for the other two. However, in the real world, there are two additional elements: who you know and luck. These two elements can have just as much influence as the other three. There's not much you can do about luck, but increasing your circle of job-related networking contacts (the who you know) is something you should always be doing too. One day it may pay off in a new, better job.

I agree and I also think that with education, certification, and experience it doesn't necessarily have to be in that order. Just make sure you have to good approach to strive towards all three. The other thing is that I think when we say "who you know", it's more like "who knows you", which goes hand-in-hand, meet people and get to know people so that they can get to know you!

Turgon

steveo1985 wrote:

get a job if they all want experience? its kind of a catch 22, i mean most of the jobs ask for experiance in the field.... to get a job you need experience but i need a job to get experience.

At this rate i'll have the CCNP, CCDP, MCSE and specialist wireless design exams and wont be able to put them to good use.

Am i going to have to get higher certs to get a call back? What type of jobs would they consider experience because obviously you can't get a job that requires a CCNA or equivalent because they want experience.

its a huge bummer for me

any adive will be helpfull

many thanks

You will get something. Keep plugging away.

You keep applying for the self starter entry level jobs until you get one, just like I did in 1997. I left University with a Masters Degree in IT but with no experience it took me a long time to get a start with anyone so I had to do office work. But I kept plugging away with my applications and 18 months later I found a company that wanted someone out of college they could mould gave a great interview and got my first job and I never looked back. I can tell you that back then even if I had already obtained CCNA and MCP I would still have struggled in that first job as real world support is very different from classroom and books! It's an experience you gotta go through.

A few years later I remember being on another board, I had advanced from my first job to Network Manager in my second and was then IT Manager in my third job. This was back in 2001. At the time I was working towards my CCNP. There was someone else on the forum called Widgewaam who was also shooting for that cert but he wasn't working in IT. He wasn't prepared to take a cut in pay from whatever job he presently had selling something to take an entry level job in IT. He simply battered away acquiring more and more exams. Last I heard he had CCNP, CCDP and was even thinking about doing the CCIE written! Still without experience!!!

He felt that getting more certs would help him land a high paid job but eventually by his own admission he said that 'He didn't buy into the Cisco Cert bull anymore because without experience you can't get jack'. Well you can get a start, just not the highly paid job you think certs will get you without experience. I think at one point the message was starting to get through to him and he was looking at A+ to help him get some entry level tech experience.

But Im afraid it was too late! During the three or four years he held off taking an entry level gig to get experience guys like me where running productions networks, because we started out low and worked our way up. I would finish a very busy day involving supporting infrastructure and users, Solaris, Exchange, Cisco, BGP, planning an entire office relocation and logon to the forum in the evening to chat away while I turned over my notes for my next Cisco challenge after obtaining another priceless day of experience in the IT world. He couldn't say the same and with each day that passed he was certainly falling further behind in the employability stakes. High level certs without experience are not the way to go and it can certainly turn recruiters off. They regard you as book learned and greedy, with misplaced expectations of a great job by obtaining paper as opposed to cutting your teeth in the frontline. Not someone prepared to put the graft in and work their way up, and possibly not someone you could rely on in a crisis. You need dependable people in IT. Over the years I have worked alongside some very capable people with experience and far fewer certificates so the sooner you start to get some the better off you will be.

You are better off taking helpdesk and getting your hands dirty that way than trying to hold out in hope that more certs will land you a 'good' job. Get an education, get a job, get experience and build your portfolio of certificates along the way.

Take what you can to get your foot in the door and work your way up. Just get in.

I hope you get a break.

sthomas

If you don't have experience you will have to get it one way or another. Either by starting out at the very bottom or perhaps volunteering your time somewhere to gain experience or doing an internship. Also I agree that luck and who you know sometimes has a part in getting hired. Go out there and start meeting people who work in IT, not just the Tech's but also the IT Directors. Tell them who you are and that you are looking for a position in the company they work for. Persistence pays off, sometimes you may have to contact them every few months to see if anything comes up. Another thing you can do is differentiate yourself from the crowd by learning something that a lot of people don't usually know. A good example would be to learn Linux and Unix. Of course you want to do what interests you the most. Good Luck!

steveo1985

Thanks to everyone who has answered. You have all been very helpful, I already know some people in the cisco world thats the reason i got started. I work in a huge cisco warehouse that also has a training centre for cisco certs. Although i work for the delivery company within that warehouse.... my girlfriend's dad works with cisco and is a contracter, he's worked for fujitsu etc... Im going to keep apply for the entry level jobs and hope one of them picks me up.

I don't mind taking a pay cut or having to move to a different area to get the job.

Thanks to everyone who has posted, im not too bummed out now and feel something must be around the corner Im working on the ccda cert at the moment to complement the ccna.

What makes me sad is i know people doing ISP jobs and IT helpdesk support and they dont have any certs or anything and aren't even going to try for them. I would love to have a job like they've got to get the experience.... someone should say before taking the ccna get a entry level job in IT support, then get the cert and you can use it to further your career.

famosbrown

If you do end up getting the entry-level help desk, continue to work on your high-level certs. Try to apply what you are learning to work everyday by either offering suggestions to the network team, system admins, solving issues that would usually be escalated to personnel with your skill level, etc.

IMO, the certifications will eventually catch the eye of at least HR, and get you that interview. In that interview, it will be up to you to sell yourself, and prove that although you don't have the working experience doing the things in this position, you can do the job. How else do people move up from Help Desk...someone had to give them the opportunity to prove and learn how to help run a network.

You will not get the experience unless someone gives you the opportunity...period! You can volunteer or something along the lines, but someone will have to take a gamble on you one of these days. Get the certifications so when the opportunity comes, you will be ready with the knowledge and certification to do the job. Even the experience don't know everything, so you will learn as you go, but the the stuff you learn from studying, practicing, and certifying will be the foundation block.

I speak from experience, and I've stepped in environments where even the most experience miss the simple things because they have forgotten...me being the fresh material minded, I then contribute. I went a different route...programming, to Supervising a Help Desk Environment, to running networks.