How did you get your start in IT.

Just wanted to see how some of you got your start. Thought it might be good for some of us new to IT to see what it takes.

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luke_bibby

Finished high school in 2002
Did a diploma in network engineering till 2005
Did a degree in IT security till 2008
Got a job as an IT security engineer after college
Did my CCENT, CCNA, and CCNAS certs this year

mikej412

Did you see this thread: http://www.techexams.net/forums/jobs-degrees/42268-what-got-you-started.html

brad-

daygree 4 yrs. proprietary software comany 2 yrs. Landed a job for local gov't and did a number of certs over about a 9 month span. As my duties here increased dramatically, I no longer have time at work for cert studies.

Started with just junior level college experience - so in essence, no exp. Finished the BS while at work. Left for better pay and less stress.

Its not what you know, its who...and you'll never know who that who is.

Paul Boz

I went to high school next door to the phone company's main office. The phone company was a local ILEC meaning that they owned the infrastructure. This meant that when I got a job there I could work on the actual telecom equipment rather than resell stuff.

Two days after graduating from high school I applied for an entry level position in the internet tech support department and got hired. I figured that it would be a great college job because I worked from 5pm to 10pm. Later on I got prompted to full time, working from 1:30 to 10:00pm. It killed my ability to take afternoon classes. At that point I got promoted into the NOC center because I stood out from the rest in tech support. I started working 8pm to 6am which REALLY killed my chances of finishing school. From there its history.

UnixGuy

brad- wrote: »

.... Left for better pay and less stress.
....

I'm thinking of doing the same.

What were you doing before you changed your job ? And what do you do now in the better-pay-less-stress job ?

ilcram19-2

my first Job when i got 14 working for a company call Indelcom in mexico i used to make computers and setup dial up for telmex lol those were some fun days windows 95 and windows 98 installs we used to have fantasies about how windows 2000 was gonna be we had a rumor saying that we wont use drivers for devices anymore lol i was the youngest one in there the closes to me was 25 they had all graduated from university

slinuxuzer

1. Started working for call center taking billing calls for Major Isp when I was 17

at 19 I had learned enough from doing random discovery / vulnerability analysis on their network to hack in, used RDS exploit to exploit an unpatched server cracked about five of their domains using lopht crack penetrated alot of their network but didn't damage anything, got caught and narrowly avoided serious jail time. (earned A+ network+ while here

2. Fast forward to 21 landed a job with a one man company doing as needed consulting / break fix for smaller offices. Really cut my teeth here, learned cabling, small office networking and a whole lot about other things; learned to want more out of life from this guy really.

3. Went to work for bigger consulting company; turned out to be a sespool; learned some here stayed about 3 or 4 months.

4. went to work for 5,000 node hospital for 4 months, learned a little

5. *Big Break*
Hired at fortune 500 company at a plant that supplies parts to GM, first enterprise experience, more projects and experience than i could ever hope for, stayed 2.5 years and finished MCSE started at 35k ended at 50k

6. *Bigger Break* Hired at major manufacturing facility for 68k a year. Still there, not sure I like it but its close to home and good pay, my hair is thinning though.

Piers

I got very lucky to get my start.. after doing a two year intensive course (4 years crammed into 2) and not passing thanks to some programming courses failed, I was lucky enough to get into a call center that ran and supported OS2 Warp servers and workstations. A friend of mine from school (who did graduate) let me know of the opening, and luckily OS2 Warp was one of the programming courses I *did* pass

I went to the interview, and when I got there, the HR interviewer was my babysitter from 20 years earlier. We had a quick interview, a nice chat, and I was hired a couple days later..

I'm still with that company too, although I've been off the phones for 10 years now.. we've moved from Warp to NT to 2000 to 2003 and soon to 2008 servers and only just in the past 3 years has our dept required certification, before that I was happy to just support the environemnt, stuff that I knew, now I'm a bit older and ready to expand beyond the HelpDesk+ TSA position

unandig

Thanks for the posts, helps to see i am going the right way.

brad-

UnixGuy wrote: »

I'm thinking of doing the same.

What were you doing before you changed your job ? And what do you do now in the better-pay-less-stress job ?

Before I worked for a small local company that developed hardware and software for the medical industry. Hired in low pay b/c I had no experience except my college classes. After I graduated the pay didnt go up nearly enough after I had proven my worth and gotten a B.S. Being a small software company, they also didnt hire nearly enough support, and were way oversold - good business model for the short term maybe - terrible for techs.

I put in resumes all over the place for about a year or so, finally landed a job with local government. I do a little of everything. Tech Support for about 100 users, Crysal Reports, database admin, network admin, server admin, web programming...very broad, but not very deep in any specific area. Initially I didnt have much responsibility, so I spent that time working on certs. I did A+, N+, 70-271, 70-272, 70-290, 70-621, 70-431. The more they gave me to do, the less time i had to study, and now i dont haev time at all to study...so my cert career is over for the time being. I had hoped to finish Sec+ or 291 but it just couldnt happen. No big deal for me tho. Certs arent really valued here, just whether or not you can do the job.

djhss68

brad- wrote: »

Before I worked for a small local company that developed hardware and software for the medical industry. Hired in low pay b/c I had no experience except my college classes. After I graduated the pay didnt go up nearly enough after I had proven my worth and gotten a B.S. Being a small software company, they also didnt hire nearly enough support, and were way oversold - good business model for the short term maybe - terrible for techs.

I put in resumes all over the place for about a year or so, finally landed a job with local government. I do a little of everything. Tech Support for about 100 users, Crysal Reports, database admin, network admin, server admin, web programming...very broad, but not very deep in any specific area. Initially I didnt have much responsibility, so I spent that time working on certs. I did A+, N+, 70-271, 70-272, 70-290, 70-621, 70-431. The more they gave me to do, the less time i had to study, and now i dont haev time at all to study...so my cert career is over for the time being. I had hoped to finish Sec+ or 291 but it just couldnt happen. No big deal for me tho. Certs arent really valued here, just whether or not you can do the job.

You're forgetting that all the time you've spent busy on the job is your "study" time. You should take a shot at the 291 just for the hell of it.