I feel like I'm going backwards rather than progessing in my career

Nearly a month ago I lost my job as a support analyst. Where I did all kind of activities such as building machines/creating images, Managing Ad and performing first and on occasion second line support.

Anyway I have applied for a help desk job which is part time only 16 hours so I will receive less money. However this help desk job they have advised me is mainly answering the phone. So I won't get to visit sites and will only see a call through for so long until is it assigned to second line.

If I was to gain the position I have promise myself to finish my ccna studies which I plan on taking the exam next month. I will also start my MCSE and then hopefully can go for something which is more suitable of my technical abilities.

However I feel like I am not progressing in my life I am 22 years old and people regard in very high terms to my technical ability. Now the only job I might get is for £6,000 a year I feel I might as well just push trolleys I would earn more money. I completed my HNC in May and doing quite well at Open University however I got nothing to show for it.

I love IT but I’m not sure if the Industry is worth being in.

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Bl8ckr0uter

thomas130 wrote: »

Nearly a month ago I lost my job as a support analyst. Where I did all kind of activities such as building machines/creating images, Managing Ad and performing first and on occasion second line support.

Anyway I have applied for a help desk job which is part time only 16 hours so I will receive less money. However this help desk job they have advised me is mainly answering the phone. So I won't get to visit sites and will only see a call through for so long until is it assigned to second line.

If I was to gain the position I have promise myself to finish my ccna studies which I plan on taking the exam next month. I will also start my MCSE and then hopefully can go for something which is more suitable of my technical abilities.

However I feel like I am not progressing in my life I am 22 years old and people regard in very high terms to my technical ability. Now the only job I might get is for £6,000 a year I feel I might as well just push trolleys I would earn more money. I completed my HNC in May and doing quite well at Open University however I got nothing to show for it.

I love IT but I’m not sure if the Industry is worth being in.

****Disclaimer I am not expert:****

Sorry to hear about you luck.

I think that if you afford it, look for another job that will let you use your previously acquired skills. If you cannot, take the job and work you ass off while there. You may want to complete some certs that will both improve your resume and help you out with your current job. I think that the A+/N+/MCP/CCENT would be a good route (this is not a concrete list, just stating stuff off of the top of my head).

Where do the majority of you skills lie? Networking? Systems? Storage? Try to get certified in your area of interest and then get a job doing what you want (or at least getting you close to it) Don't get discouraged. You (WE

) are young bucks. You (we) will not start off on the top but you can get there if you work at it.

Can you perform work on the side to supplement your income? Can you work at school? If your main issue is money then take what ever job you can get be it Mcdonalds or helpdesk. IMO before career advancement, eating is the most important thing. If I had to I'd clean floors or load boxes, whatever I need to do to support myself/family.

Do you know what the job market is like? Can/would you move for the right job? Do you have any contacts at your old job? What was the nature of you losing you job at your old place?

thomas130

My main experience was in desktop support however I did more technical things then just fix simple faults and was involved in a number of projects as well for example disaster recover. I will take the job if I am offer it and will simply complete my CCNA and MCSE and carry on with website design. The main benefit is because I have so many days off I will get the chance to study and get them done asap.

Daniel333

It's a rough economy, and IT people are a dime a dozen.

Take your time, do the labs and don't rush anything. Too many people are "getting their MCSE in 3 months" but I'll tell you. I have met the guys who ran ever lab in the Microsoft Press books and met the guy who did "enough" to pass the test. One we hire, the other we don't. It shows.

So, go ahead and work a McJob if you have to, just keep at it. Every cert I have earned has always led to a better job within 3-4 months. No joke.

What kind of technology inters you might I ask? Networks? Servers? Programming?

thomas130

Networking is what I mainly interested in however I never see any junior networking positions

tpatt100

Sometimes it takes patience your only 22, I felt like sometimes I was moving backwards in my 30's

but at times I am jealous of some of the newer guys here because I wish I had their level of enthusiasm still.

human151

Your right, its almost as if the industry is not worth being in. The world depends on IT but yet its as if IT workers aren't respected on the same level as say an accountant, for example. . Kind of a funny paradox.

I only say this because this is the way I see things from my perspective. Others may feel different.

shednik

human151 wrote: »

Your right, its almost as if the industry is not worth being in. The world depends on IT but yet its as if IT workers aren't respected on the same level as say an accountant, for example. . Kind of a funny paradox.

I only say this because this is the way I see things from my perspective. Others may feel different.

It's different from company to company really from what I've seen. I have about 4 years experience now and have worked at 3 different places. 2 of them being during college and the last 2ish years at where I am at now. Each time I have gone to a bigger company, and have seen an improvement each time. To the op how long were you a support analyst for? What are you exactly studying at "Open University" I'm not sure what that is. My advice would be to take whatever experience you can get and live off of and continue your education whether that be certifications or maybe going on for a BSc if you want. It's going to take time for you to move up the ranks and with the economy being at a low point it makes things even harder. The one thing I will also recommend is decide what you like and specialize in it, become an expert. Try to get professional experience in it however you can, bug the upper level engineers and offer to help. Before I got a job in networking I would offer my help to the network admin in off hours or whatever. I actually got to test out a new data center network idea to see how well it would work. You will find your break at some point just takes time, for me it was my CCNA, my Degree, and the fact I worked full time for nearly 2 years before finishing my degree that impressed my current employer to let me be 1 of 20 out of the 400-500 they interviewed. Don't give up hope things looked pretty grim for awhile for me too. Best of luck!

thomas130

shednik wrote: »

It's different from company to company really from what I've seen. I have about 4 years experience now and have worked at 3 different places. 2 of them being during college and the last 2ish years at where I am at now. Each time I have gone to a bigger company, and have seen an improvement each time. To the op how long were you a support analyst for? What are you exactly studying at "Open University" I'm not sure what that is. My advice would be to take whatever experience you can get and live off of and continue your education whether that be certifications or maybe going on for a BSc if you want. It's going to take time for you to move up the ranks and with the economy being at a low point it makes things even harder. The one thing I will also recommend is decide what you like and specialize in it, become an expert. Try to get professional experience in it however you can, bug the upper level engineers and offer to help. Before I got a job in networking I would offer my help to the network admin in off hours or whatever. I actually got to test out a new data center network idea to see how well it would work. You will find your break at some point just takes time, for me it was my CCNA, my Degree, and the fact I worked full time for nearly 2 years before finishing my degree that impressed my current employer to let me be 1 of 20 out of the 400-500 they interviewed. Don't give up hope things looked pretty grim for awhile for me too. Best of luck!

I was a support analyst for just over two years if I was to get this job it wouldn’t be too bad as it is only part time and will allow me to get the qualifications and my degree. The courses at Open University have all been IT based this year it was networking next will be information communication.

My aim would be to do that for 2 years and if all goes well I would be able to walk out and go to interview with.

4 years IT experience
A Degree and a HNC
MCSE I would aim toward getting 2008 as well
CCNP

But at this point I would be 24 and I would want to be earning decent money so I can start looking for my own place. I just don't want to get all that and still have nothing to show for it

pipemajor

I've been going backwards for the past 7 years. I'm 57 and got laid off back in March. I used the time to gain my CCENT certification (I have nearly 20 years in networking, an MBA degree but no certs) and...

I got a job!

Of course, it's nothing to do with networking. It's as a developer where they wanted COBOL, JCL and JAVA skills. I've NEVER worked as a developer. My COBOL training was 30 years ago. I did do quite a bit of JCL but that was again, 19 years ago and I've NEVER had any JAVA experience.

I lost about $20k per year from my previous position as a technical analyst. New job is federal civil service and it's a stepped promotion schedule to GS-12 in 2 years. So... I'll eventually make up my lower starting salary and wind up about $10k to the positive - if I can convince them I still remember enough COBOL logic to analyze source code.

It's a lousy job market... Getting better, slowly. Everyone is taking this time to update/modernize their skills. With JAVA experience, I should be OK until I retire. Just don't let everyone else pass you up in training, education and ambition.

shednik

thomas130 wrote: »

I was a support analyst for just over two years if I was to get this job it wouldn’t be too bad as it is only part time and will allow me to get the qualifications and my degree. The courses at Open University have all been IT based this year it was networking next will be information communication.

My aim would be to do that for 2 years and if all goes well I would be able to walk out and go to interview with.

4 years IT experience
A Degree and a HNC
MCSE I would aim toward getting 2008 as well
CCNP

But at this point I would be 24 and I would want to be earning decent money so I can start looking for my own place. I just don't want to get all that and still have nothing to show for it

Those are great plans to have but in the next 2 years that is ALOT to get done. An MCSE and CCNP are both high level certs and tough to have the experience to back up both in a short career. I think you should choose between one of the two and really focus on that for now. You can always add the other on later on, but really mastering one of them, and a degree will bring you farther I think. Not to say the extra knowledge would hurt but I think you will benefit more that way.

thomas130

shednik wrote: »

Those are great plans to have but in the next 2 years that is ALOT to get done. An MCSE and CCNP are both high level certs and tough to have the experience to back up both in a short career. I think you should choose between one of the two and really focus on that for now. You can always add the other on later on, but really mastering one of them, and a degree will bring you farther I think. Not to say the extra knowledge would hurt but I think you will benefit more that way.

Doing the CCNP would be part of my degree the mcse would be done in the other time I have got off. At the end of the day if I was to get this job most weeks I would have 5 days off. I think I make a plan where I spend whole days on University coursework etc and 3 on Certifications.

To be Honest once I got my mcse I would be tempted just to look for another job because I would have at that point my Hnc, ccna and mcse. The good thing about Open University is because I study at home I could have a full-time job and still carry it on.

Bl8ckr0uter

thomas130 wrote: »

Doing the CCNP would be part of my degree the mcse would be done in the other time I have got off. At the end of the day if I was to get this job most weeks I would have 5 days off. I think I make a plan where I spend whole days on University coursework etc and 3 on Certifications.

To be Honest once I got my mcse I would be tempted just to look for another job because I would have at that point my Hnc, ccna and mcse. The good thing about Open University is because I study at home I could have a full-time job and still carry it on.

I am going to go against the grain:

If you feel you can do it, then do that sh1t. There are plenty of people who have done both the CCNA/P and MCP/SA/SE track within a short amount of time. Kill them. There is nothing wrong with having high hopes.

Go after it man.....

Turgon

thomas130 wrote: »

Nearly a month ago I lost my job as a support analyst. Where I did all kind of activities such as building machines/creating images, Managing Ad and performing first and on occasion second line support.

Anyway I have applied for a help desk job which is part time only 16 hours so I will receive less money. However this help desk job they have advised me is mainly answering the phone. So I won't get to visit sites and will only see a call through for so long until is it assigned to second line.

If I was to gain the position I have promise myself to finish my ccna studies which I plan on taking the exam next month. I will also start my MCSE and then hopefully can go for something which is more suitable of my technical abilities.

However I feel like I am not progressing in my life I am 22 years old and people regard in very high terms to my technical ability. Now the only job I might get is for £6,000 a year I feel I might as well just push trolleys I would earn more money. I completed my HNC in May and doing quite well at Open University however I got nothing to show for it.

I love IT but I’m not sure if the Industry is worth being in.

Thomas, have you tried mailing the Cisco Partners in your area? There is a list by City on the Cisco website. Might be worth a shot. They might also only be able to offer a part time job but you get some hands on and a chance to work on some interesting projects. You may get some support and encouragement for your certication efforts as well.

tenrou

Hey,

I appreciate that you would have done your best and worked hard for that HNC but something like 25% of the population have degrees and a company is always going to pick a degree when you're at 22 and still pretty much entry level. You've also got to understand that at the momment there are 200 people applying for the same jobs that you are going for. Do you do anything that makes you stand out over them? You NEED those certs. Plenty of people say certs aren't worth anything and 50% of employers may think this but you need a way to stand out from the crowd.

It might be an idea to knock out the certs that are going to be easier first. For example if you've done 1st and 2nd line support you could problably do 70-270 and 70-290 really quickly. It's then something you can put straight on your CV. If you want the MCSA then you can do the vista exam 70-620. It's pretty simple as well. After that you're onto teh harder exams that will need a bit more work though.

Oh, and IT is a tough industry now. It's not 10 years ago where a bit of experience working on a computer could get you straight into the industry with a good wage. You should liken it more to accounting, where unless you have a degree and are certified then you aren't likely to earn a great wage.

yurkie

shednik wrote: »

Those are great plans to have but in the next 2 years that is ALOT to get done. An MCSE and CCNP are both high level certs and tough to have the experience to back up both in a short career. I think you should choose between one of the two and really focus on that for now. You can always add the other on later on, but really mastering one of them, and a degree will bring you farther I think. Not to say the extra knowledge would hurt but I think you will benefit more that way.

I agree. In theory for some genius (or person who passes exams with learning only braindumbs instead of the actual subjects) it could be possible to get those all done in two years but it takes TIME to thoroughly adopt all that information.

Once i heard MCT instructor saying that one should not underrate MCSA when compared to MCSE, that MCSE is not necessarily better than MCSA.
"Their job roles are just different".
I disagree, it might be true from some point of view but not from mine.

One reason is simply because MCSE contains more exams to pass, and when spending more time with the materials student has more time to get 'big picture' of all this.
And of course the fact that every exam brings something more and if there is same stuff included it often brings different angle to subject.

As a person with very little working experience i started to forget things immediately after first few exams were done.
When i got my first real IT-area job after getting MCSA certified i had a feeling from the very beginning that i should repeat those studies again immediately to avoid forgetting stuff instead of concentrating to work.. -which was a bit paradoxical because getting that job was the original main goal.

Now it's about two years after i got my MCSA and from that were one year in Systems Administrator type of work. I have studied whole time in some degree.
70-294 and 299 is passed after MCSA and only now when i have kept thinking this materials whole time and doing practices in my LAB domain, i have started to really understand those materials i studied earlier.

It takes lots of time to get deep inside of this things instead of just remembering something for a while after hard studying, because that "short term knowledge" disappears quickly.

Part time job is good choice because it gives you more time to study. Much better than some offtopic work which would take all the time and energy but do not help on this subject.
And about the age thing. 20yrs is young, no worries in that section. I envy you.

Approximately in same age i made BIG mistake and really went to that 'offtopic factory work' and spent 6-7 years doing stuff i didn't like at all. I knew that i definitely am not going to do it my whole life but still went day after day to that place. =/
And best part: before that i had just got fixed-term contract in IT area but left from that because i got full time 'real job' from that factory.

Now i can only imagine what would my career look like if i would chosen differently.. kept that 1st IT job as long as possible etc.
Propably i would be rich bastard. :P

Later when i decided to change into IT business i was years behind from technology, it was year 2005 and i had to start from scratch..
It's HUGE amount of data to learn at once.
If you are going to study MCSE and some other stuff in two years it asks sacrificing whole life for studying in that time.
Unless of course -which could be very true- you are more skilled than i am.

I spent almost half year with 70-291 exam only and five months studying 70-294, and this were while i was unemployed and had time.
When i was working it took about year and three tries to pass through 70-299.

thomas130

When I do the qualifications I will make sure I will learn the material. My aims to learn MCSE is to use TestOut videos and the official Microsoft books. I will also setup a virtual infrastructure so when I for a job I can backup my qualifications and just be a paper cert.

nel

thomas130 wrote: »

When I do the qualifications I will make sure I will learn the material. My aims to learn MCSE is to use TestOut videos and the official Microsoft books. I will also setup a virtual infrastructure so when I for a job I can backup my qualifications and just be a paper cert.

Thomas stick in there mate! honestly, many of us start from the bottom and work our way up. stick with it and it will pay off. My first IT job paid approx £1 an hour! yes, that right. and this was in 2002. the money was sh*t but it was my firstjob and gave me my foot in the door. it wasnt great but i stuck with it and moved my way up the ladder. Im 23, nearly 24, and have also been doing a Bsc Hons degree and certs along the way. i also have 7 years IT experiance. im currently in my 5th and final year of uni and the hard work has just started to pay off. Im about to move into my 2nd network role as a network analyst at a bank. The whole point of me babbling is that my hard work is paying off. and yours will too if you stick at it. ive literally worked my way up from the bottom - just like many of us on these boards. So stick it out and everything will come good. Its just crap times at the moment which is something youve also got to consider.

Where in the UK do you live? have you considered possibly doing contract work for the short term to earn some cash and experiance possibly? Have you also considered looking for a NOC job to earn some network experiance? i find networking jobs to be very scarce in many parts in the UK and found most seem to crop up in southern england - mainly the london area.

thomas130

Well I have'nt heard from that company they told me they would phone either way. I have applied for a job at a school which is the basic pay which I don't mind. However I don't hold much hope.

Firemarshalbill.com

Thomas what state do you live in? I will check my companies' internal hiring website to see if there is anything coming for your area, although it is probably more focused on networks than desktop - worth looking at though.

Secondly nel how much per hour does that funny L1 mean in american dollars - forgive my ignorance

Turgon

Firemarshalbill.com wrote: »

Thomas what state do you live in? I will check my companies' internal hiring website to see if there is anything coming for your area, although it is probably more focused on networks than desktop - worth looking at though.

Secondly nel how much per hour does that funny L1 mean in american dollars - forgive my ignorance

Not to usurp Nel's pending reply but £1 = 1.5 US dollars (more or less) per hour.

thomas130

I think I spoke to soon. They phone me up to today and told me today I have been shortlisted to go back for a second interview.

Firemarshalbill.com

1.5 dollars per hour OUCH!!!!!!!

thomas130

Firemarshalbill.com wrote: »

1.5 dollars per hour OUCH!!!!!!!

I live the UK
plus this is only 16 hours per week and they told me in my first interview because of my experience I would get more money. It would do until I can get something better.