Just landed my first NOC position!
I wanted to post a little something because I get a lot of help and encouragement here. I'm a Networking student at the local tech college and will graduate next year. My experience so far, had been help desk jobs, with the most recent being an intern for an NFL team. If anyone is on the fence about pursing a degree, I highly recommend it. I am going to be completing my Associates, but will most likely keep going. My school helps a lot of students out with internships, which is great. Adds to the resume and makes a guy/gal more marketable. If you are a student, and looking for experience, perhaps talk to your academic advisor. I found some great interships through my school.
Anyway, I had an interview this past Monday. I talked to the companies HR person during the phone interview and she told me to show up in business professional attire. Not knowing what that exactly meant, I broke out a suit and tie. Which, I also got from school. Anyway, the interview took almost 4 hours. I met with 5 people total. It was one on one where they asked me a bunch of questions, however, the conversation was laid back and fun. For a 4 hour interview, I have to say it was a great experience and went by fast. One guy I met with was the head of the data center and he told me all about the Cisco gear they use and how they are getting in some Nexus equipment. He said he loves to hire from within and if I made it through the hiring process would be happy to follow my career. The woman I would be directly reporting to saw CCENT on my resume and was very impressed! It was great to see my certification stick out and be recognized! Looks like the hard work paid off and gives me extra motivation for my CCNA. I mentioned my home lab and how I am going to be taking the CCNA exam in August, and she was very impressed by that. Apparently, she was a programming student but wants to pursue networking and is pushing the current staff to pursue networking education.
The position is shift work. 2 days on, 2 days off, 3 days on, 3 days off... rinse and repeat. That will take some getting used to but I feel it is worth it. My manager said the position is monitoring WAN links, with some basic troubleshooting off of processes. If the process doesn't work, then make a call to someone in order to escalate the issue. Pretty much the same as all the other NOC positions I see people talk about here. The two things that really pushed me into accepting was that they will work around my school schedule and they do hire from within. There are a lot of different teams, such as desktop support, network engineering, server side... and the data center manager said they do promote. Figure when I graduate, I'll have my CCNA and then look for that promotion and pay increase. Although, the pay already is a lot better than internship wages! I spoke it over with my wife before taking it to make sure she was onboard with the hours. We agreed it is too good of an opportunity to pass up.
I just have some advice for others out there. (I am not a life coach, so this is just from my personal experience.) First, is don't give up. If you are truly passionate about working in IT, then give it your all. This was NOT the first and only interview I had done. I was told 'we found someone more qualified' via emails/letters/phone calls a lot more than invited in for interviews. Keep at it. I applied for all sorts of positions and this one just happen to like that I had some drive, enthusiasm, and was motivated... oh, and I had a certification! There are some companies out there willing to take a chance on you so keep working at it. Second, if you are on the fence about schooling, I highly recommend it. As I already mentioned, my school offered free services for paid internships to students. These are not offered to the general public. One of my Cisco instructors said she gets emails from the local schools looking for help during summers with cabling, installations, hardware upgrades... you name it. Also, my school has professional interview clothes that any student can pick out and have for free. You can get 2 outfits per semester. I have two suits that I otherwise wouldn't have. I find that schools out there offer a lot of services, take advantage of it! I go to a smaller school so I doubt these types of offerings aren't out there. Not only that, but employers love education. Third, since this is a certification board, I highly recommend you keep up the studies and try to stay motivated! In my case, it really stuck out and it was mentioned more than once during the interview. Fourth, you might have to take risks. I've never done shift work, so we will see how this goes. The important thing is to absorb everything you can from the experience. If this doesn't work out, I know it will lead to bigger opportunities for me. You have to start somewhere. Make the best of it. Oh, and if married, it might be good to get your partner involved in your opportunities and long term plans. My wife wasn't too fond of shift work, but she understands what I am trying to accomplish and were I want to be in my career.
Lastly, I say work on the communication skills. Whenever someone entered or left the interview room, I stood up and shook their hand. Made good eye contact and said thank you for your time. I made sure to ask questions, made them know I was interested, was very confident, and showed them there is more to me than just computer networking. You are going to have to work with these people and spend a lot of time with them. When I was called with the offer, the HR rep said that the team was impressed by our conversations and looked forward to working together. It was nice to hear that.
Sorry for the long winded post, but riding a high at the moment... I wish you all the best!
