Broke into IT! Got a job!

vCole

Cisco Inferno wrote: »

yea. his faith in me really gives me motivation. for a support role, how long am i supposed to take for a given call? im afraid ill spend time struggling and be yelled at by people in the office before i can get a fix.

People in the office will always be pissed when things don't work. I doubt you'll get yelled at too much though.

Keep calm, take notes; I can't stress this enough! Google is your friend. If you're really stuck, or have no idea - give him a call.

Congrats and good luck

drew726

congrats man, its a great feeling so go celebrate

Armor149

Congrats on the job!

PsychoFin

Yeah man, you're already ahead of the bunch of partying college kids expecting a VP position just because they have a degree.

As far as what I've learned is that never be afraid to call the more experienced guys/techs, especially when you are a new guy at the floor. It is better to ask about every single thing in the beginning than to keep asking six months down the line. And as has already been said - take notes. Don't think of any certs or other training for a while. Take at least 6 - 12 months to settle into the role and get confident. You have a chance to learn a LOT of different things. You mentioned phones, AD, XenApp... that's all good stuff!

Keep on rocking and let us know if you need any help.

Cheers,
Fin

Hypntick

Cisco Inferno wrote: »

yea. his faith in me really gives me motivation. for a support role, how long am i supposed to take for a given call? im afraid ill spend time struggling and be yelled at by people in the office before i can get a fix.

Some help desk type roles expect resolve times of 10 minutes or less. However, that's usually an average time. You're gonna get calls where you're scratching your head for an hour trying to figure out what the problem is, or you'll get someone with the slowest system on the planet which takes 20 minutes to reboot. The best person to ask this would be your boss, ask what metrics they check etc.

Good luck with it i'm sure you'll do well, you seem to have the right attitude for it.

howiehandles

Paladin wrote: »

Keep up the great work!

Remember, in the future, there will only be TWO types of IT professionals:

The Quick and The Dead.

And there are just three types of people in the world:

Those that make things happen
Those that watch things happen
and those that say, "What happened?!?"

Gee, thank you Tony Robbins! lol j/k

Congrats to the OP. Showing initiative and a can do attitude has served me well. Keep up the good attitude, and you'll do well.

Javi437

Congrats!!!!!!!!!

Andy Griffin

Congratulations. Your success further motivates me on my journey.

I'm not one to be too hard on other boards, but I can predict the reaction you would get if you posted your good news on the dice.com forums:

1. It was nice of your dad to hire you
2. They only hired you because you'll work for cheap then they'll ship your job to India
3. I invented BASIC and COBOL and I haven't had a job in YEARS. You must have bribed someone
4. You might work on a help desk, but you're not REALLY in IT like we all used to be before Windows and people with H1B Visas stole our jobs

Gotta love bitter old fools. : - )) Congratulations again.

NetworkingStudent

Cisco Inferno wrote: »

I finally broke into IT!

I've been a mad computer nerd and crazy overclocker since i was 14 but only decided to make a career out of it last summer. Since then I've earned my A+ and Network+ (sept and dec 10')thanks to some serious adherence and wonderful motivation from this community. This forum is so packed full of knowledge and has helped me set personal goals and helped paved the path I wish to follow. I want to thank all of those that post here with their questions and all those that post valuable enlightening replies as well. My girlfriend has called you guys my "e-family" for a while and I really feel that way as well.

I got an email back yesterday from this financial firm I interviewed with last week for one of two soon to be open Help Desk Technician positions. I just met with the president today and things are looking well for me. I start hopefully Friday or Monday. I'm a freshman college student and will be receiving this part time job that works well around my schedule. This was a craigslist posting too. So when I saw the stack of resumes during the interview I thought to myself that this was not worth it. Being due to the fierce competition in New York City. But I figured that if I tried and sold myself the best I could I would have just as equal of a chance as any other. During the first interview I showcased my goals and who I want to be, and honestly, they respected that very much. I discussed my motivation and my desire to learn as well. Also, I finally realized how effective a cover letter can truly be. As well as a nicely written thank you email.

By the way, this job is for a Large Financial Firm smack dab on Wall St. (hows that for breaking into IT?)

The success stories I read in these forums just motivate me more and more every day, and I am glad to finally be one of them.

Thanks Guys,
Cisco Inferno


/beer

Congrats on the new job!!!!!!! I hope to find an IT job; I have been looking since December 2010. I graduated from college in December 2010. So far I have only received interviews from jobs posted on Craigs List. Also, I have gotten the most responses from jobs posted on Craigs List. The jobs posted on Career Builder, Monster, and Dice seem to have a huge pool of candidates. One job could have 100—500 candidates, ore more…. apply for just that one job. I even had a recruiter tell me that after I applied for a job that the first day he would have 100 resumes. Think about this , that this is the first day. I really think jobs posted on craigs list have a smaller pool of candidates. I used to be skeptical of Craigs List, but so far it’s been the best place to look for jobs.
Learn as much as you can.
What kind of cover letter did you use? Mostly I have been using a T-matched cover letter
I agree, I LOVE reading the success stories on TE.

Dakinggamer87

Congrats on new IT job!!

Cisco Inferno

NetworkingStudent wrote: »

Congrats on the new job!!!!!!! I hope to find an IT job; I have been looking since December 2010. I graduated from college in December 2010. So far I have only received interviews from jobs posted on Craigs List. Also, I have gotten the most responses from jobs posted on Craigs List. The jobs posted on Career Builder, Monster, and Dice seem to have a huge pool of candidates. One job could have 100—500 candidates, ore more…. apply for just that one job. I even had a recruiter tell me that after I applied for a job that the first day he would have 100 resumes. Think about this , that this is the first day. I really think jobs posted on craigs list have a smaller pool of candidates. I used to be skeptical of Craigs List, but so far it’s been the best place to look for jobs.
Learn as much as you can.
What kind of cover letter did you use? Mostly I have been using a T-matched cover letter
I agree, I LOVE reading the success stories on TE.

Very true. also make sure to post your resume on craigslist with a short description of yourself. People dont want to bother making a new post and be bothered by having floods of people email them. theyd rather use craigslist's search function for words like "help desk" "computer" "desktop" "support" "technician" etc etc. I posted mine saying i was even interested for intern or volunteer work for exp. Within two weeks, i had about 15 or so intern and volunteer interview emails. and about 3 real job requests. (as well as the spam/scam emails you have to avoid). Make four(max duplicate post limit) for each area of your city. In my case I did the boroughs of NYC. You may also think that your listings will fall far down the list. but dont worry, employers will use the search feature.

Check your Private Messages. I am going to send you a sample of my cover letter, my thank you letter, and a link to an older resume listing I made on CL.

hope you find something positive on the drug/wierdo/hooker infested site. I sure did!

Cisco Inferno

Andy Griffin wrote: »

Congratulations. Your success further motivates me on my journey.

I'm not one to be too hard on other boards, but I can predict the reaction you would get if you posted your good news on the dice.com forums:

1. It was nice of your dad to hire you
2. They only hired you because you'll work for cheap then they'll ship your job to India
3. I invented BASIC and COBOL and I haven't had a job in YEARS. You must have bribed someone
4. You might work on a help desk, but you're not REALLY in IT like we all used to be before Windows and people with H1B Visas stole our jobs

Gotta love bitter old fools. : - )) Congratulations again.

I hate the Dice forums. Its so unlike the warm fuzzy love found here. The old dudes bothered by Indians and hemmoroids really scared people away from that place. They are oh so grumpy, especially that one dude named Herpes. or Hoapres or w.e. He constantly tells every noob looking for advice that "Original Poster should abandon IT". What a bag of suck that guy is.

edzy

Mind pming me that thank you and cover letter too?

over9000

Congrats! It's great to see success stories on TE!!! Good luck!!!

kenoo

Good move

During my freshman year of college, I got an IT job over the summer for a well known hospital in the city.. ended up working there part time with them catering to my schedules for the next 3 years until I graduated.. the experience will help you nail a great job after you graduate, it certainly helped me when I graduated last year

Cisco Inferno

kenoo wrote: »

Good move

During my freshman year of college, I got an IT job over the summer for a well known hospital in the city.. ended up working there part time with them catering to my schedules for the next 3 years until I graduated.. the experience will help you nail a great job after you graduate, it certainly helped me when I graduated last year

nice. what do you do now?

Turgon

Cisco Inferno wrote: »

holy ****.
just went through a 2hr crash course with the guy who hired me. Apparently I'm going to be going solo in the mornings.
So much stuff was went over, really intimidating if you ask me.
There's some light server work (which i have no exp with!) like Active Directory setup etc. some phone setup(Inter-tel),
Also Some hosted mail setup(intermedia), a little Xenapp stuff. and then the normal desktop problems.

he said to not be afraid to call and to keep my head up.
He obviously knows im a noob but I dont want to be calling him for every little thing.

Any tips guys? What should I expect and how should I approach this new job?

answers are appreciated. Thanks

Tips? Lifestyle management. Your first day, week, month and six months in this new job are vital. You need to be working hard on your inhouse profile and credability. All the technical stuff feeds into that but it's not enough on it's own. I suggest you diary your day each evening and do a debrief on how you think you did, and assess for yourself what you think the priorities are for the day ahead. In particular be personable, pay attention and follow up on anything you are asked to do. If you are not sure about any implementation or installation work check with your boss first and until he requests otherwise email, phone or simply tell him what works you have undertaken and for whom. If you get asked to do anything you do not understand check with your boss. So far as the infrastructure is concerned concentrate on the basic stuff first and dont go changing anything until you have discussed it with your boss no matter how bad you think it is and how much you think you can improve it. Infrastructure has a history and a memory of its own and until you are familiar with all that, change it at your peril. You may screw up someone elses plans.

On the people side, be wary of making first impressions of anyone you deal with because you are going to have to find ways to work well with a lot of people you wouldn't normally care to socialise with, as well as a few you might. Keep your opinions to yourself. Someone new is often told about 'so and so' and asked what they think. If you give an opinion it will be around the office very quickly and even if you are right some people have a real problem with opinionated new people.

You really do want to take notes about the basic systems, applications, servers and providers and learn any process you need to follow to get things done properly. Dont be late for work, dont be sick, dont start demanding time off and do take your breaks at the same time as everyone else. If you are a smoker. Quit.

Make sure you look busy at your desk. Quit the websurfing and find useful things to do. This is the same advice I have given a few on TE and they generally knuckled down and succeed. At the same time the post count on TE drops right off and with good reason, they are way too busy concentrating on their new job.

Your relationship with your boss is most important. Pucker up, be loyal and befriend that person. If they are difficult to get to know, try harder to do so.

You want to make friends and get results for people in a new job. Dont break anything.

Cisco Inferno

Turgon wrote: »

Tips? Lifestyle management. Your first day, week, month and six months in this new job are vital. You need to be working hard on your inhouse profile and credability. All the technical stuff feeds into that but it's not enough on it's own. I suggest you diary your day each evening and do a debrief on how you think you did, and assess for yourself what you think the priorities are for the day ahead. In particular be personable, pay attention and follow up on anything you are asked to do. If you are not sure about any implementation or installation work check with your boss first and until he requests otherwise email, phone or simply tell him what works you have undertaken and for whom. If you get asked to do anything you do not understand check with your boss. So far as the infrastructure is concerned concentrate on the basic stuff first and dont go changing anything until you have discussed it with your boss no matter how bad you think it is and how much you think you can improve it. Infrastructure has a history and a memory of its own and until you are familiar with all that, change it at your peril. You may screw up someone elses plans.

On the people side, be wary of making first impressions of anyone you deal with because you are going to have to find ways to work well with a lot of people you wouldn't normally care to socialise with, as well as a few you might. Keep your opinions to yourself. Someone new is often told about 'so and so' and asked what they think. If you give an opinion it will be around the office very quickly and even if you are right some people have a real problem with opinionated new people.

You really do want to take notes about the basic systems, applications, servers and providers and learn any process you need to follow to get things done properly. Dont be late for work, dont be sick, dont start demanding time off and do take your breaks at the same time as everyone else. If you are a smoker. Quit.

Make sure you look busy at your desk. Quit the websurfing and find useful things to do. This is the same advice I have given a few on TE and they generally knuckled down and succeed. At the same time the post count on TE drops right off and with good reason, they are way too busy concentrating on their new job.

Your relationship with your boss is most important. Pucker up, be loyal and befriend that person. If they are difficult to get to know, try harder to do so.

You want to make friends and get results for people in a new job. Dont break anything.

i love you dude. thanks alot. I wont let the commitment die down. I do realise how lucky I am to be here.
+rep