About to take my A+ cert, I don't know where to go from there.

PongoRadcliffe

Hello! Just signed up on these forums! I wish I found these forums before i started studying for the A+ cert. Sounds like it's pointless to have for someone looking to get into the IT field.

I recently just graduated from school in December 2012 to be an MRI Tech. Unfortunately, I still have not found a job. As a result, I started to look into other jobs that I might be able to take. Before doing the whole MRI thing, I was a customer service/web designer. I would talk to customers and make changes to their websites over the phone for the most part. Now I'm looking to get into the IT field and hopefully I'll have better luck with it than the healthcare industry.

So initially I was looking at Help Desk type jobs, and for that reason, I decided to go for the A+ Certification. Paid for training videos over at CBT Nuggets and i'm almost complete. I plan to take the exam within this month and i'm pretty confident I will pass. But now, i'm not too sure where to go from there. It seems like Help Desk is a low paying job with not many career advancements,

So my question to you is, what field in IT should I go for and what certs should I take? The only reason I chose help desk initially is because I have my whole life built, repaired, and maintained many computers for friends and family as well as my own and felt I could do that for a job and I would be pretty good at it. Thank you in advance for any advice you can give me.

N2IT

I think a lot of your questions you answered. Help desk specific to the a health care industry would be a good place to end up.

A+ is a solid start for people not familiar with IT. One really hot item that is still happening is Windows 7 roll outs. Getting a certication that says to the potential employer you have skills in Windows 7 is a good thing.

A+ then Windows 7 certification should get you into a Health Care support position IMO.

Another approach could be with HIPAA security training. I am not sure if you went through that when you went through MRI training, but it might be something to leverage if you have it already. I know hospitals really think highly of HIPAA knowledge and quality knowledge regardless of the position.

PongoRadcliffe

Thank you for the response!

I did get HIPPA certified while going through school. If I was to go through the healthcare route, do you think it would be best to get CompTIA Healthcare IT Technician cert? I believe in the past I did search for this certification on Job sites to see if anyone was looking for it and found very little.

As for the Windows 7, would that certification be the MCSA: WIndows 7 Exam 680 and 685 Certification?