Some folks need a reality check....

wolverene13

thenjduke wrote: »

I been in the field for a long time and dam 75k for NOC. I will take the job Yeah it is funny alot of the things people have on their resume. I love asking people how layer 1 works and they are like what?

$75k is realistic for a NOC, it just depends on which one. We start our Tier I folks out at about 50k-60k. One of them actually clears 100k a year being that he's been here 9 years and works overnights and Sundays (15% pay differential after 7pm, time and 1/2 on Sunday). Tier II starts at about $65-70k so $75k is not unheard of.

phantasm

wolverene13 wrote: »

$75k is realistic for a NOC, it just depends on which one. We start our Tier I folks out at about 50k-60k. One of them actually clears 100k a year being that he's been here 9 years and works overnights and Sundays (15% pay differential after 7pm, time and 1/2 on Sunday). Tier II starts at about $65-70k so $75k is not unheard of.

Then they got me cheap!! roflmao. I wasn't even clearing $45k at that place.

N2IT

Turgon wrote: »

Its a problem I noticed circa 2002. With everything being rationalised and carved up I feared for the new people entering the field. They just wouldn't get the exposure and the chances that I had to do things. Helpdesk is a flytrap these days. Ideally you would shortcircuit it completely and get on the fast track. But if you have to do it, get in, get on and get out. I don't think anymore than one year is necessary unless you plan on being a helpdesk supervisor or manager.

I would agree with you, but one year imo is a little light. I was thinking more like 2-3 in an enterprised environment. After that you have learned all you can learn and now you are losing as much as you are gaining, at least that is my personal opinion and the opinion of some of the others I have worked with. But to say you can't do 1 year or 5 years for that matter and make something of yourself isn't always accurate either. I do know a few guys who I consider lifers, who have been in the helpdesk for about 10 years. They really aren't much more knowledgable than I.

But again for the record I agree you want to get out as fast as you can.

erpadmin

wolverene13 wrote: »

$75k is realistic for a NOC, it just depends on which one. We start our Tier I folks out at about 50k-60k. One of them actually clears 100k a year being that he's been here 9 years and works overnights and Sundays (15% pay differential after 7pm, time and 1/2 on Sunday). Tier II starts at about $65-70k so $75k is not unheard of.

If this is Florida, then your company must be a huge multi-national...

$50k-$60k in Florida is a lot of money. It is almost comparable (by like +/- a few grand) to someone making $75-$85k in the metro-NYC area. The only exception to this would be the Miami area (and by that I mean South Beach). Cost of Living [COL] is pretty high around there....but outside of that, most places in Florida is pretty cheap. I understand though that the housing market in South Beach took a very huge hit...but I wonder how that might have affected COL, generally.

phantasm

erpadmin wrote: »

If this is Florida, then your company must be a huge multi-national...

$50k-$60k in Florida is a lot of money. It is almost comparable (by like +/- a few grand) to someone making $75-$85k in the metro-NYC area. The only exception to this would be the Miami area (and by that I mean South Beach). Cost of Living [COL] is pretty high around there....but outside of that, most places in Florida is pretty cheap. I understand though that the housing market in South Beach took a very huge hit...but I wonder how that might have affected COL, generally.

It's in Central Florida... right around the corner from Mickey Mouse and the rest of the gang.

Turgon

N2IT wrote: »

I would agree with you, but one year imo is a little light. I was thinking more like 2-3 in an enterprised environment. After that you have learned all you can learn and now you are losing as much as you are gaining, at least that is my personal opinion and the opinion of some of the others I have worked with. But to say you can't do 1 year or 5 years for that matter and make something of yourself isn't always accurate either. I do know a few guys who I consider lifers, who have been in the helpdesk for about 10 years. They really aren't much more knowledgable than I.

But again for the record I agree you want to get out as fast as you can.

It's a springboard for either better things within the helpdesk genre, supervisor and what have you, or without. Either way you need to navigate a way forward if you want to get on. The helpdesk environments Im familar with you have closed the circle in about one year. Mileage can vary elsewhere. But once done you go around in circles if the progression out isn't there for you and the job gets very old for many people. Some people don't mind. It's a job and if you stick around the work is like shelling peas.

shodown

wolverene13 wrote: »

$75k is realistic for a NOC, it just depends on which one. We start our Tier I folks out at about 50k-60k. One of them actually clears 100k a year being that he's been here 9 years and works overnights and Sundays (15% pay differential after 7pm, time and 1/2 on Sunday). Tier II starts at about $65-70k so $75k is not unheard of.

I made my killing working the 3rd shift. I was pulling a easy 90K plus with no OT. We didn't get the work load of the 1st/2nd shift, so I used the free time to get my CCNP and learn Juniper.

erpadmin

phantasm wrote: »

It's in Central Florida... right around the corner from Mickey Mouse and the rest of the gang.

Yup...huge multi-national and/or one that supports the evil Rat and crew....lmao....


Nothing says money like Disney money....


(The wife doesn't want me feeding my anti-Disney rants on our kids, if we ever have them...I have made no promises.... )

cyberguypr

Similar to Daniel333's situation. Interviewed a guy yesterday that looked great on paper. The position is Helpdesk Team Lead but very hands on. Requirements clearly stated knowledge of TCP/IP, DNS, DHCP, AD, Win Server 2K3/2K8.

Me: What is 127.0.0.1
Guy: No idea. Never heard of it.


Me: If a PC cant access network resources and has an IP of 169.254.x.x, what can you tell me about it?
Guy: No idea. Never seen that issue before

Cert he listed included A+, some Microsoft stuff and in progress CCNA. Amazing.

Hypntick

cyberguypr wrote: »

Similar to Daniel333's situation. Interviewed a guy yesterday that looked great on paper. The position is Helpdesk Team Lead but very hands on. Requirements clearly stated knowledge of TCP/IP, DNS, DHCP, AD, Win Server 2K3/2K8.

Me: What is 127.0.0.1
Guy: No idea. Never heard of it.


Me: If a PC cant access network resources and has an IP of 169.254.x.x, what can you tell me about it?
Guy: No idea. Never seen that issue before

Cert he listed included A+, some Microsoft stuff and in progress CCNA. Amazing.

That pays how much and when can I interview?

gosh1976

cyberguypr wrote: »

Similar to Daniel333's situation. Interviewed a guy yesterday that looked great on paper. The position is Helpdesk Team Lead but very hands on. Requirements clearly stated knowledge of TCP/IP, DNS, DHCP, AD, Win Server 2K3/2K8.

Me: What is 127.0.0.1
Guy: No idea. Never heard of it.


Me: If a PC cant access network resources and has an IP of 169.254.x.x, what can you tell me about it?
Guy: No idea. Never seen that issue before

Cert he listed included A+, some Microsoft stuff and in progress CCNA. Amazing.

I am absolutely amazed at this. One of my biggest issues going into interviews in the past has been confidence. I'm much more confident in my abilities these days and posts like this just go to show that my concerns are largely exaggerated and only holding me back. I've gotten such positive feedback on such simple interviews and technical questions this week that it makes me wonder what kind of morons are applying for these jobs.

I probably wouldn't even bother applying for a help desk team lead position right now because I'm not qualified but I sure as hell know what a gateway is, not only what 127.0.0.1 is but also ::1, and I know that an address of 169.254.x.x is an APIPA IP and means that the client isn't getting an address from the DHCP.

erpadmin

I don't know what's funnier: these stories about IT certified folks not knowing what a loopback address is or similar items, or "Celebrity Jeopardy"?

mikedisd2

Turgon wrote: »

... and anyone with 5 years experience with Exchange who doesn't know what an MX record is might be able to setup mailboxes but do little else. You wouldn't want them migrating or designing new hosted mail infrastructure.

Glad someone finally said it. 5 years experience could just be doing that one simple thing over and over again. It's not lying, it's just misleading.

genXrcist

I like that these sorts of people exist because it just makes it even easier to rise to the top. I'm now the Sr. Systems Engineer for a local managed service provider in my area and one thing that continues to shock me is how little some of my peers know in the industry. One engineer recently told me that he only had one certification but it was the Microsoft Network certification. I was truly impressed I mean, there I was standing next to MNC #01.

On another note, I agree that a good career path is to start out with or move towards small company IT shops where you can get hands on experience in multiple areas and most importantly learn how it alls comes together. Having worked for years in large corporate environments I barely moved. After moving to the mid-sized business space I dramatically increased my learning curve and the experience I'm gaining is priceless.

za3bour

mikedisd2 wrote: »

Glad someone finally said it. 5 years experience could just be doing that one simple thing over and over again. It's not lying, it's just misleading.

But setting up maiboxes in Exchange doesn't give you the "five years experience" statement that you put on your CV does it?.

cisco_certs

i have lots of stories but its hard to post all the negative ones since it might backfire. lol

But here's one story that I can safely talked about... After I got hired, i asked my co worker what did they talk about before I got hired. He said that the manager and the network architect that interviewed me was so impress and that thought that I was the best, that they interviewed people that has 5 years experience but cant answer all the questions. He even told me that there was one guy and they asked him what is VLAN? The guy has said he had 5 years experience but his answer was " yeah , I installed that in my computer".

Btw, when they interviewed me, the network architect asked me atleast 25 technical (networking) questions and I know i answered all of them right.

The good part is im in a good spot to learn. My network architect, senior network engineer, and admin that has 5 yrs experience are all willing to teach show me the ropes. Also my Sr network engineer is pushing me to take ccnp and continue collecting cisco certs. Furthermore, my Sr Senior security analyst here will have his CISSP soon and agreed to sponsor me when i take it. The spot that I have is so valuable that im ok taking a big pay cut. We also have a lab that I can play around after work or weekends (talk about Free CCIE lab)

I think 75k is NOC is the right price. I dont know about NOC that only work to reset password but I do pretty much everythinggggggg in NOC that Sr Network Engineer does & network admin. If i list the work that I do then I can easily say that Im doing a network engineer job but I dont complain on the pay nor the title since I dont have 5 years experience. Furthermore, the best part is this is my passion and I can tell that Im doing what I LOVE!

Chris:/*

This is a great thread and has shown a perspective from both the employer and the outrageous requirements that you often see on job boards. I have had to advise a number of people that many of the requirements for certifications and degrees are for the ideal applicant not to qualify. That is not to say that when the job says it requires something it doesn't but if it list 30 certifications from different domains they are likely not delineating factors of the job.

As it has been mentioned about how hard it is to break out of help desk or basic NOC positions, it really does show how a short stint in the Armed Forces can really help an IT professional. I myself gained an enormous amount of skill in a variety of domains thanks to the military. Hearing of the difficulties many have had in the entry-level civilian market encourages me to suggest that avenue to people. The military will not make you an expert but it can get you to a professional level of competence if you push yourself.

rsutton

Some good comments in this thread. I will add that x years of experience certainly does not mean you understand the underlying fundamental concepts. Positions in large companies are so niched out that you may not get that type of exposure. If you get the opportunity to work in a small company that services lots of different types of technologies you can fast track your experience, gain that fundamental knowledge as a generalist and really open up a lot of doors down the road in a well paying niche.

Turgon

rsutton wrote: »

Some good comments in this thread. I will add that x years of experience certainly does not mean you understand the underlying fundamental concepts. Positions in large companies are so niched out that you may not get that type of exposure. If you get the opportunity to work in a small company that services lots of different types of technologies you can fast track your experience, gain that fundamental knowledge as a generalist and really open up a lot of doors down the road in a well paying niche.

That's precisely why I have said for years go for a generalist small shop gig starting out or a solution provider and then go enterprise. Stops you ending up in a foxhole where opportunities to get experience are thwarted by red tape and politics. The underlying concepts thing cuts both ways though. If you are working 12 - 15 hours flat out each day you dont go home and read books.

N2IT

Turgon wrote: »

It's a springboard for either better things within the helpdesk genre, supervisor and what have you, or without. Either way you need to navigate a way forward if you want to get on. The helpdesk environments Im familar with you have closed the circle in about one year. Mileage can vary elsewhere. But once done you go around in circles if the progression out isn't there for you and the job gets very old for many people. Some people don't mind. It's a job and if you stick around the work is like shelling peas.

Shelling peas!

Great analogy!

Repo Man

I agree with all of your points beside the salary requests. I place that blame on companies who refuse to put a pay scale on the job posting IMO. I've seen jobs with the same exact job description have a huge difference in salary so if you are applying to a job that doesn't specify why cost yourself a chance at a higher salary by low-balling what the company is willing to pay.

N2IT

Turgon wrote: »

That's precisely why I have said for years go for a generalist small shop gig starting out or a solution provider and then go enterprise. Stops you ending up in a foxhole where opportunities to get experience are thwarted by red tape and politics. The underlying concepts thing cuts both ways though. If you are working 12 - 15 hours flat out each day you dont go home and read books.

Great points

I think there are pros and cons to both shops. I find the smaller one is better for experience, but also requires more of your time, which sometimes leads to unpaid hours.

I think the ideal situation is a small shop for 1-2 years then hit a specialization in an enterprise. At least in my mind that would be a very nice scenario. Either way you need to keep your eye out for the next best thing, unless you have already found "it".

Turgon

N2IT wrote: »

Great points

I think there are pros and cons to both shops. I find the smaller one is better for experience, but also requires more of your time, which sometimes leads to unpaid hours.



I think the ideal situation is a small shop for 1-2 years then hit a specialization in an enterprise. At least in my mind that would be a very nice scenario. Either way you need to keep your eye out for the next best thing, unless you have already found "it".

Your best starter is to work like an elephant the first two years at least. I did.

A small shop with less process or if you can a service provider or solution provider. The last two offer tremendous experience if you can hack it. Fast paced with hundreds of customers and little or no time for hand holding. They tend to be picky about who they take on but there's usually opportunities to get on if someone can demonstrate they can be trusted and gets useful stuff done. There's always plenty of work in those environments with dire consequences for customer relationship if things slip up or are delayed. Once you have a couple of years in you either stay as you are and simply become more competant, or you push on to a more senior role with more responsibilities or a specialist role. Or you go contracting and make some money.

Pratt2

I'm confused whether we're talking about people who completely make up positions or whether we're talking about cert cheaters or Just dumb people. Either way I'm pissed that these people get interviews and I do not

erpadmin

Pratt2 wrote: »

I'm confused whether we're talking about people who completely make up positions or whether we're talking about cert cheaters or Just dumb people. Either way I'm pissed that these people get interviews and I do not

This thread is talking about people who say they're A+ certified and has 5 years of experience (for example), but yet can differentiate between a RAM chip and a CPU in an interview. Or someone who is Network+ certified (again, for example) but yet can't give an example of an IP address (IPv4, of course), or can't explain what ipconfig is.

I wouldn't expect lay people to know what any of that is, but if you dare call yourself an "experienced IT professional", then you should know the basics.

Anonymouse

erpadmin wrote: »

This thread is talking about people who say they're A+ certified and has 5 years of experience (for example), but yet can differentiate between a RAM chip and a CPU in an interview. Or someone who is Network+ certified (again, for example) but yet can't give an example of an IP address (IPv4, of course), or can't explain what ipconfig is.

I wouldn't expect lay people to know what any of that is, but if you dare call yourself an "experienced IT professional", then you should know the basics.

Wow I think most of the users at my company who can't even figure out how to restart their computers would at least know that stuff...

Forsaken_GA

aethereos wrote: »

Look, it goes both ways. As an employer I'd expect my guys to know their technical stuffs, but the focus on this thread is too one-sided. Technical skills (like Turgon stated above) are not difficult to teach and learn. You can always teach an old dog new tricks; why get all fussed up in arms because 30 of your applicants can't tell you what BGP is? WTF? Do you think guys like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg know everything there is to know about computer? No!

That's great an all, but Gates and Zuckerberg don't work in operations. I do. You know what they do when something breaks and they need it fixed? They pay people like me to do it, and if BGP breaks, I need to know how to fix it.

So if my applicants list BGP on their resume, and the job needs BGP skills, and they can't talk to me about BGP, I care *quite* a bit. Dude could be the nicest person in the world, and yeah, we can teach skills, but I'm not hiring for entry level, and I don't have the time to train up the equivalent of 3 years of neteng experience in 3 months. I need someone who can hit the ground running and catch up, and then keep up.

Some of you guys say 'but this is clearly for a NOC job' --- yeah, I know --- but as any experienced manager knows, you wanna pick the right people for your team based on their soft skills...as in, can you really trust them to 1) stay awake between 9 PM - 6 AM? 2) do their job, 3) be a crucial part of the team? 4) be of at least average intelligence and can learn what BGP is? If yes, then give him job and teach him what BGP is and how it works --- there's always a wiki for that!

I think you got my post confused somewhat. I work in network engineering. My department is hiring, and I'm not entry level. My buddy in the NOC is also hiring, and his positions are entry level. You don't need to know about BGP for those positions, you won't be touching any network gear. You just need to know that when Solarwinds alerts for a BGP transition, you need to call me or someone on my team.

However, basic Linux skills are a requirement from the NOC. And the NOC lead had folks listing 3 and 5+ years of linux system administration experience, yet these people could not explain what load average is. Or how to display the arp cache. Or how to show *hidden files*. If you've worked with Linux for over 3 years, and you do not know that ls -a will show you hidden files, you're either full of it, or your capability to learn is severely impaired. Given that these people will have root access on some VERY important systems, we need to make sure they have a basic foundation in linux so that they don't accidentally use rm -f in the wrong place. I don't think that's unreasonable.

Turgon

totally agree with that. When you need bgp skills you bring them with you

mikedisd2

za3bour wrote: »

But setting up maiboxes in Exchange doesn't give you the "five years experience" statement that you put on your CV does it?.

5x years is just a time frame. This example is a bit extreme and one would expect alot more from 5x years experience. This shouldn't be something you would boast about on your resume.

Competence on any topic ought to be covered in your skillset, work history and achievement sections.

ccie15672

First let me just say, Turgon, you and I are in sync. As I was reading this thread and thinking to myself that I was going to reply and say this or that, I found you had already posted what I was going to say. Get out of my head!

I don't like grilling people with explicit technical fact questions. I've given up on this. I try to ascertain whether or not this person is motivated and will figure it out. "Figure it out." I've posted about this before somewhere on this forum. I mean, they should be able to tell me some absolute basics about things, but really I'm wondering if this person knows how to move from square zero on their own. Ok, so you know nothing about BGP except the "router bgp xxx" and "network xxxx mask xxxx." BUT if you are sitting there at 3AM trying to work an issue: (a) are you going to walk away from it or (b) are you going to read some docs, gather the info you need, and figure it out? Thats what I want. I prefer extending an outage 20 minutes if I can get away with it so that someone can have an "ah ha!" moment.

I'm not saying its easy identifying those people, but I'd rather have that than someone who still has 500+ flashcard questions in his head from the CCNP exam he just took. Nothing like a blob of information with no context. The human mind doesn't like carrying that around, it will jettison that **** as soon as possible.


One other thing I'd like to comment on... Oppurtunities and the NOC. If you are stuck in the NOC and your lifestyle can support it... choose to work overnight and certainly overnight on the weekends. On your own, get into contact with the upper-tier folks running projects and volunteer to execute/coordinate changes for them during outage windows. This is what I did when I was in the NOC years ago. I got lucky I guess because this was my first strategy and it worked for me... I pretty quickly became a sort of unofficial Tier 2 engineer that always worked during change windows and it did earn me some decent pay. It also enabled me to become familiar with the project history and network layout of some very important customers.

If you sit and think about it, you could come up with some strategies like this. Its a long game usually.

Good point on the upper Tier folks not engaging NOC/helpdesk personnel to do some of the work. I am frequently guilty of that, but it is true as said here in this thread that it seems all of my timelines are compressed so badly I just don't have time to train people AND do the design/testing/etc. Its pretty much... "go go go!" and when the work is done then I get to go back and train people on what was already done. Its not ideal, but it is what happens a lot. Thats one of my current challenges... how can I fold the people who are going to support this into the process earlier and still work with these compressed timelines?

Enough rambling from me!