Advice sought

aquilla

Hi guys,

Your advice is dearly sought please. I went for a job interview last Friday for a support helpdesk engineer through an agency. Anyway the agency came back today with the usual bad news that I was unsucessful.

Now here's the killer. Both myself and another candidate were front runners. The company saw both of us as potential employees. The company chose the other person because he had six months experience in a helpdesk environment - that's it!

How do you break into the IT field at an entry level job to get the experience if you don't have the experience because you've never worked in the industry!??!?

I'm going for basic entry level jobs like 1st line support (don't plan to be there long - just long enough to get the experience) and I'm being told by recruitment agencies that I don't have experience!! Hellooooooooooooooo - how do I get that experience then?

Sorry for the rant, but I'm rather pee'd off at the moment.

Edit: As you can see from my profile, I hold a CCNA, but that means nothing without experience!

remyforbes777

Volunteer work is something you can look into. Experience can be a lot of things though. In an interview you have to sell yourself. Sell them what they want. They want tech support, tell them about certain things that you do daily that will give them the impression that you know what you are talking about. Tell them about your customer service skills along with tech skills.

hetty

If it means you have to work for free for 2 weeks to get your foot in the door of a company do it. But keep sending resumes out the door and pushing for a proper paying job. Keep your head up, itll come good.

HeroPsycho

Do independent work. List it is "Independent Consultant" and list everything you've done there.

I feel your pain. I was first certified in 2002, and I didn't get a full time gig until 2004. I was MCSE before that happened. Leverage contacts for internships, anything to get experience. The above suggestion to do volunteer work is a great way to get experience, too.

BigTone

Have you tried craigslist?

Think outside the box. I was in an administrative deskjob and I was so sick of it one day I put an ad in the resume section saying I was in a dead end administrative position and I had some entry level certifications and I wanted to get my foot in the door.

The same day my manager emailed me and it was history from there. I also got several other legit responses from people wanting my resume.

Give it a shot,

In Moran's IT Toolkit book he also talks about walking around to companys and selling yourself to them with your resume, I haven't done that and I'd be a little uncomfortable but I guess it depends how bad you need a job.

Daniel333

aquilla,

Volunteer, that is really important to get your resume going. I also heard the Geek Squad was rolling out over there, might be worth the effort? Finally, CCNA is awesome and all. But yes, it's worthless without experience. Something like A+ would be better. A+ even has a specialty in help desk.

good luck!

drew PD

It's definitely not for everyone, but I got my initial experience in the military. Some of the enlistment bonuses for IT type jobs are 5 digits, and a security clearance is worth a lot of money in the civilian sector.

hypnotoad

If I saw geek squad on your resume, I would shred it.

No, actually, I'd bring you in for an interview and ask you what you would do without your precious automated diagnostics CD and store full of parts that you're oh-so-eager to sell as a quick fix.

undomiel

I wouldn't think much of you shredding a resume just for having Geek Squad on it. Give the guy a fair shake, after all competent people have worked at Geek Squad before. I originally tried to get a job at Geek Squad but was turned away for not having an A+ at the time and I like to think that I'm competent.

HeroPsycho

Agreed. I've been in situations doing subcontracting work where the contract holder was doing unethical things, or they were incompetent. It doesn't mean I'm incompetent or unethical.

nel

you can look for good jobs in the UK at cwjobs or jobsite. these are both good for contract work also if you just need to get some experiance

Crunchyhippo

I agree with some others in that you should volunteer your time in order to get experience. You might want to consider getting A+ certified at this point so you can get an entry-level help desk job, which would look good to someone wanting an entry level networker at a later date. You could do help desk for a year, then send out resumes again. It could be the foot in the door for networking that you'll need.

Best wishes.

aquilla

Cheers guys. I have a few interviews lined up ranging from 1st Line Support Engineer to Support Analyst to Service Desk Supervisor.

Hopefully one of them will work out.

aquilla

Here's an update.

On the 10th April I had an interview with a company. Whilst I didn't think the interview went perfectly, they thought differently. I was called the next day by the recruitment agency and informed they wanted me back for a second interview. That was meant to be last Thursday, but due to work commitments I couldn't make it so arranged it for today.

Got back from there a couple of hours ago after spending 3 hours there. Half of that time was spent on a 100 question test involving Novell & Windows. Now I know NOTHING on Novell (and this was made clear at the first interview), so to have 30 questions on it was scary.

Anyway, they said they will feed back to the recruitment agency tomorrow.

Fingers crossed.

The job is a 1st / 2nd line support engineer.

nel

good luck man, hope you get a successful call!

vistalavista

aquilla wrote:

The job is a 1st / 2nd line support engineer.

Nothing against you but this job title irritates me. Why do people feel the need to stick the work engineer in everything?

aquilla

vistalavista wrote:

aquilla wrote:

The job is a 1st / 2nd line support engineer.

Nothing against you but this job title irritates me. Why do people feel the need to stick the work engineer in everything?

I know. I've started wondering about it in certain situations. When I was in the interview today, although the job is essentially first line tech support, there will be the opportunity to on-site visits.

Would 'technician' or 'specialist' be a better choice of words?

1st / 2nd Line Support Specialist ???
1st / 2nd Line Support Technician ???

Crunchyhippo

aquilla wrote:

Hi guys,

Your advice is dearly sought please. I went for a job interview last Friday for a support helpdesk engineer through an agency. Anyway the agency came back today with the usual bad news that I was unsucessful.

Now here's the killer. Both myself and another candidate were front runners. The company saw both of us as potential employees. The company chose the other person because he had six months experience in a helpdesk environment - that's it!

How do you break into the IT field at an entry level job to get the experience if you don't have the experience because you've never worked in the industry!??!?

I'm going for basic entry level jobs like 1st line support (don't plan to be there long - just long enough to get the experience) and I'm being told by recruitment agencies that I don't have experience!! Hellooooooooooooooo - how do I get that experience then?

Sorry for the rant, but I'm rather pee'd off at the moment.

Edit: As you can see from my profile, I hold a CCNA, but that means nothing without experience!

Yeah, it's tough with no experience. Kinda like being a leper in Old Testament days. Employers shun you.

You might want to volunteer for free for a while with some employers who are doing the kind of networking you're looking to get into. I'm sure that after six months or more (better still, a year) you'll have the stuff under your belt that you'll need to break into the field. Or you may want to just get some kind of junior helpdesk job, where you don't really have to have previous IT experience; then work your way up the totem pole until you make it to a network technician.

Best success to you.

hetty

Crunchyhippo wrote:

Yeah, it's tough with no experience. Kinda like being a leper in Old Testament days. Employers shun you.

I LOLd at that man, its just a funny analogy.

+1 with the rest of your post