What was your first IT job?

jryantech

Simple questions:

What was your first IT job, how old were you and how did you find the job?

paintb4707

IT Help Desk. Found it from a job posting on my school portal. Also found my current job the same way.

Pretty sure I started at 18 right before turning 19.

nielpeel

PC Repair Tech in a privately owned (small) chain of local computer shops. I think I was 26 then. Previous job was selling adverts in AutoTrader!

The shop closed down about 6 months after I left, turned out to be a good move!

scheistermeister

First real IT job was Help Desk for The Answer Group in Florida. Was doing Gateway tech support.

"Thank you for calling Gateway tech support. My name is *** badge number 3378, may I have you first and last name please?"

cbigbrick

I was 35 and landed a job as a Computer Support Tech for a DNA company. I learned the best of both worlds and made great friends. Had to run both Windows and Apples in the same environment.

I spent 10 years in construction before that.

darkerosxx

Computer Operator for mainframes that ran Carrier Access Billing programs. I worked every Saturday and Sunday 8am to midnight, ugh! Did that for five years before I got an internship while in college.

"ex programname"

wait 3 hours

"ex program2name"

wait 3 hours

etc....

malcybood

1st line support - voluntary for university around studies.

Main stuff was password resets and MS office issues in the computer lab that held 500 students. Central support desk. Was in 3rd year of uni so I was 20!

whistler

I started as the guy who ran the burster/decollator and sorter in the backroom of a Data Processing for hire company. Have mainframe 370/135 will DP. 32 years old or so.

drainey

Operations/Help Desk at local hospital. Midnite to noon on Sat. and Sun. and 4p-midnite on Wed. Mostly data entry, report distrobution, and easy help desk stuff -- pw resets, application questions, etc. I was 31 at the time.

Silentsoul

I guess you could count it as IT. I was 20-21 installing Telecom infrastructure, running fiber and Catv and 6 then punching down all the 100 pair and terminations. Worked in a lot of large warehouses for a well known brown delivery company.... wasn't to bad except for the long hours on concrete and being on the lifts 30 feet in the air, for those of you that don't know, propane fumes ride to the top of the building which is where you run the cable and what not. Had a lot of headaches and forgot a lot in that 9 months.

xwesleyxwillisx

Geek Squad. You have to start somewhere.

As others have mentioned, help desk is the status quot for starting an IT career.

If you haven't already, look for some unpaid/internship work. It is experience you can put on your resume that employers will value more than just an A+ cert.

Good luck!

btowntech

I also started in Operations/Help Desk at a hospital, but when I was 22. Worked with AS/400 and trust me I know all about the burster/decollator (pain in the butt).

swabbies

Noc Operator. I was 23 and pretty much had no idea what I was doing. The company was nice enough to train me along. I was working from 7pm-7am. I do not miss that shift at all!

I got the job by knowing someone who worked there.

stlsmoore

Interned for a Radio Station when I was 17 for their "IT" department, crazy how it worked out. In my case it was about who you knew, they pretty much created an intern position there becuase they didn't have an IT intern position before me! I'm now 21 about to be 22 and have just about 5 years experience working in neat environments from Radio Station, Major Police Department, and now a very large Casino/Resort.

learningtofly22

Electronics Technician(communications), US Navy, at age 22.

TryPingingTheServer

Help Desk Support . Age 20. Loved every minute of it as it was a valuable experience at the time.

cgrimaldo

Help Desk for a major ISP. Started around 20 yrs old. It was a 24 hour call center and there was plenty of OT. Used to work 18 hours at a time. College isn't cheap!

lokey79

Did Car Audio stuff before the Army and then Started my IT career as a Soldier on the help desk....GREAT experience!!! A lot of the grunts in the Army break stuff.

gojericho0

PC and Server support. I was 19 and it was for a summer internship

mike3

I started off when I was 16 working for a computer store building computers and helping customers.

snadam

'Cable monkey', age 19. I ran cat5 in various office buildings and tested routers/switches connectivity. Opened my eyes to the world of networking. Too bad I had a really bad owner/boss and the company went under in about 8 months from my hire date.

ddoud

PC Tech for a small hospital. It was only me and 1 other person. Great way to start out.
I was 25.

Darren

slideoff

scheistermeister wrote:

First real IT job was Help Desk for The Answer Group in Florida. Was doing Gateway tech support.

I too have survived the IT sweat shop/phone job known as TAG. I was on the bestbuy/geeksquad account though. Wow that place was horrible.

scheistermeister

slideoff wrote:

scheistermeister wrote:

First real IT job was Help Desk for The Answer Group in Florida. Was doing Gateway tech support.

I too have survived the IT sweat shop/phone job known as TAG. I was on the bestbuy/geeksquad account though. Wow that place was horrible.

LOL! I knew there HAD to be someone else that worked there here! Just about everyone in South FL has worked for TAG at some time. I have know at least one person from every account there. It wasn't bad straight out of high school.

Personally I didn't mind it since I worked as a rover and also did call backs. Nothing like coming in and the team leader saying "Ok, today your task is to beat my high score in Pinball."

Daniel333

Geek Squad...

eMeS

Operating IBM 3800 and 4245 printers connected to multiple IBM 3090's.

This was in 1988 and I was 17 years old when I started (straight out of high school). I worked from 11pm to 7am Monday - Friday.

This was a very entry-level job in IT at the time (which was then called "data processing") . I got it through my mother/father knowing the director of that data center.

MS

stlsmoore

Yea I was only 2 years old...crazy stuff

Slowhand

My first computer-related W2 gig was working as an A+ tech for CompUSA back in 2004, but I'd been doing PC repair and home/small office networking for about five years prior to that. My first "IT as we know it" job was working as an IT contractor for Kaiser Pemanente, doing a combination of security auditing/patching and some helpdesk work in order to fill the hours, (which was about the same time I joined TechExams.net).

Ironically, I spent those first six years doing little more than PC repair and basic SOHO networking. I studied for my MCSA, but I hadn't done any real enterprise-level IT. . . until 2006, when I applied for work with a tier-1 ISP/datacenter and actually got the job. I was breaking the internet (via being the upstream for Level 3 and downstream for nLayer,) and screwing up servers for credit card companies and aircraft manufacturers before I could say "odeska?".

dynamik

Slowhand, this thread has already gotten off topic, quit trying to reclaim it. You now have to state your age in 1988. I was 5.

scheistermeister

In 1988 I was 4.

Slowhand

dynamik wrote:

Slowhand, this thread has already gotten off topic, quit trying to reclaim it. You now have to state your age in 1988. I was 5.

Not a problem. I was ??, going on ???.