Career Path?

Hi Guys

Just wandering which route to go

I'm 21 years old

I have worked as a help desk technician for 2 years which involved first level support. You know the daily drill of solving minor issues and troubleshooting low end network issues.

I left that postion and have since worked as a IT Technician for the last year I currently work for a charity called Jamies Computer Club basically we take in old IT equipment and refurbish the equipment for sale

My role involes building and repairing computers working alongside clients with difficult backgrounds and learning difficulties I help then gain the knowledge and computer experience for them to enter the working world.

My role also involes computer sales and looking after the internal order system which could involve me building a network for a new project or just general support issues

( I help resolve issues at our sister company)

I would consider myself a allrounder I have excellent experience with a range of O/S's

Windows,Mac Os,Linux,BSD

And I have found that i enjoy the networking side of computing the best I have scheduled to undertake the CCNA exam in October this year. I am also implementing a home network to gain some more network knowledge.

I have also found shadowing the Sys admin a great help to improve my knowledge

After I have aqquired the CCNA which paths would be open for me I also hope to complete the CCNP and Network+

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Comments

hackdugood

Well what routes are there? Seems like you can either be a level 3 Helpdesk, or a Network administrator/support/engineer... It's entirely up to you. Down the road I'd suggest Networking because it's a higher salary range, but if you need income now, then of course go for helpdesk level 1 or 2.... It's all up to you, options are still open... and that's a great thing!

tony0101

Keep your options open. Good advice. Do you like hacking? Be a CEH. If you like plan old networking, be a network admin. Choose your career based on your likes and dislikes, but first comes the money. Start with a jr admin and work your way up.

Kaminsky

With your sales background, what about pre-sales networking. I keep seeing a lot of these type of vacancies in the UK.

ally_uk

I would say that i am more orientated towards the networking side

I enjoy interacting with network technologies I especially like overcoming gaps in my knowledge when working with unfamiliar technologies.

For the past year or so I have been focusing on improving my network knowledge I am actually thinking of building a small website as a means of storing tutorials and passing on any gained knowledge to others.

In terms of my Career I am heading towards the CCNA route with the aim of following it up with a CCNP would it also be a good idea for me to combine this with a Microsoft qualification such as a MCSE?

malcybood

The more skills you have the more demand you will be in. Any combination of skills/certs is going to make you more in demand.

If you have a combination of CCNA/NP, MCSA/E and say Linux + or a Novell Suse Linux cert recruiters will be banging your door down to hire you if you have exp .

Linux certs and experience make you "stand out from the crowd" nowadays and it is also projected within the industry that alot of organisations will be implementing Linux desktop as a replacement for Windows within the next 5 years. Wether this happens or not remains to be seen, but it's the word that is buzzing around!

Munich council implemented Suse Linux in the last quarter of 2006 and were working on implementation since 2004 so this shows how much work is involved in a rollout of Linux. If more workplaces decide to do this and you have Linux skills you will never be short of work (for a while anyway)

Google "linux munich council" and you will get some information on their particular case study

Malc

ally_uk

Yeah since I started my new postion i was one of those ignorant Windows users who hadn't heard the term Macintosh or Open Source

So after a few months of slowly getting myself used to the Open Source way of thinking I have since sucessfully used the following O/S's

Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Debian Sarge, Mac Os 10, DSL, Austrumi, BSD, SUSE

Sure at first it was a daunting task to make the switch but in less than a year I have gained the knowledge to install and carry out simple Terminal commands and general use of these O/S's

Using Open source equipment has advantages because where I work we deal with mainly older type hardware it keeps the cost and power hungry hardware requirements down

I generally find the use of windows rather tedious thesedays

What kinda Linux certs are availible which are fairly straightforward to pass?

malcybood

ally_uk wrote:

...........
What kinda Linux certs are availible which are fairly straightforward to pass?

I have not sat it myself but I would say that the CompTAI Linux+ is a good place to start as it is a vendor neutral exam. http://www.techexams.net/co_linuxplus.shtml

On completion of that there are a few routes you can go down including Red Hat certifications, Suse Linux both do official certs and debian is also another widely implemented distro.

I am no expert myself, but I do plan to pursue linux when I have a base of a couple of Cisco certs (ccna and ccda) as I know that Linux and Cisco is what's most in demand (where I am anyway) at the moment.

I would suggest you visit the Linux forums on this site http://www.techexams.net/forums/viewforum.php?f=46 and do a bit of background research as to what is the best path for you on the web for Suse, red hat, fedora and debian etc to get an idea of which route you want to go down.