Career changer returning to an old love. I have a couple of questions.

Hey guys. Long time lurker. first-time poster. I want to relocate from NY to MN and I have a few questions about resuming my IT career there.

I hear conflicting opinions about a Bachelor’s degree. I want to know if my liberal arts bachelors (Classics) will be taken into account when looking for entry-level IT positions or should I pursue an IT specific one. I just recently heard about WGU. I was considering their network admin degree. Good Idea or unnecessary?

What do I do about experience? Reading the site, I’ve learned that experience trumps all in regards to certain positions. [FONT=&amp]The only official IT experience I was able to get was a six month desktop support internship, a year of level one troubleshooting at Kinko's (installing software, running antivirus programs, adding printers to the network, replacing mice and keyboards, reporting to Kinko’s corporate help desk center over the phone if the problem couldn’t be resolved in the store, etc.)[/FONT], and the unofficial troubleshooting I did at my current clerical job for about 10 years. Should I include the previous examples in my resume even though it wasn’t my official title?

I was planning on going for the A+, Network+, and Security+ certs. Will these help me in my search for an entry level position or would this be a waste of time without the experience?

I’m considering both network admin and database admin eventually. What path should I take in terms of certs (CCNA, MCSE, etc.) and education after I get my first position?

And finally, a bit of a philosophical question. An old professor of mine suggested that when going into IT, that I should not specialize. What he meant by this was although I want to deal with networks that I should have knowledge of databases as well as a little programming (though I’ll admit I’m not into to coding that much, never moved me) in order to always be in demand. What do you guys think?

I appreciate any insight that you guys can give me in regards to my questions. Thanks in advance.

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Comments

Williamknights

bump...because I cut some of the extraneous info out and would like as much help as I can get lol.

N2IT

First of all MN especially in the Twin Cities area is a great IT market to get into. It sounds like you have a total of 1.5 years of IT experience, which could be beneficial. I would capture that on your resume and really highlight it.

It sounds like you aren't exactly sure what you want to do and before you start dropping cash on exams I would recommend obtaining the A+ while looking for a pure IT support role. Hopefully something that provides you with lots of exposure to a lot of different technologies. Think a mile wide and a inch deep.

From there you can start to mold your career path.

The quick and skinny

Apply for IT support jobs, service desk, etc

Take the A+ and then reevaluate.

WGU is one way to approach the market, but honestly if you already have a degree I would focus on A+ and go for the IT support job. MN is job rich and it shouldn't take you to long to find a job.

Mid term goal WGU sounds like a solid idea.

Williamknights

Sounds good, N2IT.

I'm just glad that I actually have job prospects with the experience and education I have already. That was my main concern. Now I'll focus on the A+ and tailoring my resume to highlight my experiences. Someone else told me that Minnesota is great on the IT front with lots of room to grow.

As far as my interests, I have a two year tech degree with a focus on networking but recently the security side of things seems interesting but I guess it goes back to what you said about reevaluating my interests.

Thank you for the great advice!

ptilsen

IMO two bachelor's degrees are not much better than one. Any bachelor's degree adds value. You can make up what you lack in an IT-related degree with certifications. The CompTIA trio is not a bad start. You can also get a master's degree later, from WGU, elsewhere, or from a local school geared towards working adults. Online IT-related master's degrees are getting to be fairly common, so don't feel limited to WGU. I just personally wouldn't bother without another bachelor's at this point. The certifications can show technical proficiency -- better than the degree will, frankly -- and at a lot of organizations, your liberal arts degree, while not demonstrating much in the way of useful skills, at least shows you're smart and teachable.

MN is a great choice, by the way. Call me biased (because I am extremely biased), but I'm sure you'll love it here*. There are lots of big companies based here or with big IT presences here (Target, General Mills, IBM, Cargill, US Bank, Wells Fargo, United Health Group, Best Buy, Blue Cross, Lifetouch and so on) and plenty of jobs in this field. Unemployment is really low in general and, going on my baseless conjecture, probably less than 2% in IT-related fields. There are ostensibly a lot of people who've relocated here that seem to enjoy it. My fiance is from central Jersey and absolutely loves it, and says she'll never go back to the East coast no matter what happens. I don't know what's driving you to relocate, but I'm betting you won't regret the decision.

As far as whether to specialize, my advise is to do what you enjoy. You'll definitely want to be general to start with, but if you find you're really into one area, it's perfectly fine to focus on that.

*Seven months out of the year

Williamknights

Good to hear, ptilsen.

I didn't know about Metropolitan State. That Masters program seems cool so I'll definitely check it out. So that's +2 for CompTIA so that's what I'll focus on. What about the Microsoft series? What's your take on it?

ptilsen wrote: »

MN is a great choice, by the way. Call me biased (because I am extremely biased), but I'm sure you'll love it here*.

*Seven months out of the year

Hilarious!

Yes, except for the blistering cold during the winter, Minneapolis is fantastic. The missus currently lives out there which is the reason for the relocation. I've been out there several times throughout the year so I've experienced the good and the bad.

It's great to know that my IT career will flourish in the area.

Thanks for the informative post.

ptilsen

MS certs are definitely a good pick. An MCSA in 2008, 2012, or both can add a lot of value both to your resume on your skillset. IMO, an MCSE or something of that level is somewhat of a commitment to MS platform as a career focus, but you can still get that far and be pretty general. I'm fairly invested in MS from a career perspective (and, frankly, pretty successful), even though I haven't finished an MCSE/MCITP:EA or even my MCSA 2008, so I personally wouldn't recommend an MCSE unless you really find yourself at a point where you're either working with those technologies or really want to. There are lots of other areas to look into both to generalize and to consider specializations.

A pretty standard infrastructure generalization starting path might be something like this:
A+/Net+/Sec+
MCSA 2008 or 2012
CCNA

That gets you well-versed in the more common technologies that make up most IT infrastructures without getting you so deep you can't go do something else without having wasted time and brain space.

If you look at CCNA and find it interesting and achievable, you could skip Net+. If you're more interested in the systems path, I still think Net+ can be a good foundation layer for your MCSA.