What pay to look for?

mistabrumley89

Just based off of my current certifications and job experience. I am slowly beginning my transition out of the military. I was a network administrator working at the distribution layer supporting around 7500 users for 2 years. Now I am currently working a help desk position (not sure how many users we support.. Couple thousand?). I will have 3 years working help desk/system admin by the time i get out. Just wondering if you all could throw out some ballpark figures to expect.
1. Current certifications
2. If I had CCNP and ITIL Foundation on top of current certs
thanks for your time
Oh and I'm not sure what area I'm looking to move to. Probably Washington state or florida

W Stewart

1. That depends on what type of job you're looking for. I live in Florida and I'd guess most companies would pay somewhere around $16-$18/hr with your current certs and experience on the systems side of things unless you were to pick up a few other certs that seem to be more in demand around here. I would recommend some virtualization certs along with a server os certification (i.e., mcse or rhce) and you could probably land a job somewhere around 60k/yr if you played your cards right.

2. Not sure what kind of networking experience you have under your belt. Most of the job postings that I see around here that even mention the CCNP wants some years of experience with ospf and bgp along with some other miscellaneous requirements but I haven't looked to hard at networking jobs specifically.


Edit: Forgot about the ITIL cert. I've never really seen anybody ask for that cert so I'm not too sure if it would even matter unless you were applying for some type of leadership role.

Also I think with your Security+ and military experience, you could find some decent paying jobs in the DC area as well. I would recommend checking out dice.com monster.com careerbuilder.com indeed linkedin and craigslist to see what employers are looking for and what they're willing to pay for what you already bring to the table. You've got some time to learn the skills that you need to be marketable.

NinjaBoy

One thing that I would say is don't only look at the bottom $ per hour, also look at any additional benefits that you may gain. As you may find yourself better off with a slightly lower wage and higher benefits

Evrae

mistabrumley89 wrote: »

Just based off of my current certifications and job experience. I am slowly beginning my transition out of the military. I was a network administrator working at the distribution layer supporting around 7500 users for 2 years. Now I am currently working a help desk position (not sure how many users we support.. Couple thousand?). I will have 3 years working help desk/system admin by the time i get out. Just wondering if you all could throw out some ballpark figures to expect.
1. Current certifications
2. If I had CCNP and ITIL Foundation on top of current certs
thanks for your time
Oh and I'm not sure what area I'm looking to move to. Probably Washington state or florida

I'm transitioning military as well so I'll tell you what I've gathered. First, any chance you have TS? That can help out quite a bit. I was about to separate two years (@ 4 Years AD) and was looking at the 50-60k range in Nebraska with Desktop Support/Jr. System admin type roles. I haven't heard good things about Florida in terms of IT wages.. Not sure why, but I have heard great things about Washington State.

When do you get out?

NetworkVeteran

Probably Washington state or florida

I'd prefer Washington for the technology employers and the seasons.

mistabrumley89 wrote: »

1. Current certifications
2. If I had CCNP and ITIL Foundation on top of current certs (A+, Net+, Sec+, CCENT, BCNE, CCNA: R&S)
thanks for your time

You have several entry-level certifications and help desk experience--that should be enough to land you an entry-level networking position. A CCNP without routing/switching experience isn't going to open up intermediate positions. You can pass ITIL in a weekend, but that would also have little/no impact on your starting compensation.

The clearance suggestion is a good one, if you can move somewhere that matters.

mistabrumley89

The networking experience I have is mostly OSPF. I'm not even close to being an expert at it, but I understand how it works and how to configure it. I worked with multi-vendor devices. Mostly Brocade/Foundry devices, but still a good amount of cisco. My experience was with distribution level devices, but we still had some major core routers we would have to configure. I guess I worked with everything except the ISR. My team of 4 managed close to 1000 network devices, but none of the devices that would actually touch the service provider directly.

mistabrumley89

And I don't have a TS... only SEC =/

W Stewart

Evrae wrote: »

I haven't heard good things about Florida in terms of IT wages.. Not sure why, but I have heard great things about Washington State.

When do you get out?

You're probably right there. One of these days I'm planning on relocating to Virginia or Georgia just to be around larger cities with more technology.

W Stewart

mistabrumley89 wrote: »

The networking experience I have is mostly OSPF. I'm not even close to being an expert at it, but I understand how it works and how to configure it. I worked with multi-vendor devices. Mostly Brocade/Foundry devices, but still a good amount of cisco. My experience was with distribution level devices, but we still had some major core routers we would have to configure. I guess I worked with everything except the ISR. My team of 4 managed close to 1000 network devices, but none of the devices that would actually touch the service provider directly.

I think that routing experience can go a pretty good way towards a decent paying job. Like another poster said, FL isn't the best when it comes to wages. It's not completely dead down here but you'd probably have a much easier time finding a job in washington state.

w00t

I have lived in FL my whole life and the wages suck here. Plus there are not many IT jobs down here. I am relocating to Atlanta in a few weeks because of it. I have a job here in FL but it does not pay very well.