Did the A+ help you get your foot in the door?

I'm getting ready to take the OS part this upcoming monday and hopefully after that i'll be A+ certified, So i'm really hoping it'll get my resume noticed for some of these help Desk,Pc technician, you know something entry-level.

I know the A+ isn't a magic bullet, but i'm having a very hard time getting that first-chance job. Did it help you?

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TeKniques

typically the A+ will help you get one of those entry-level positions you mentioned above. Don't expect to get paid a lot though, but at least you could get some experience.

Good luck.

avx

yeah, i'm not really expecting more then 13/hr. but thats ok with me cause the experience is what counts the most..

Go Bucks

Depending on where you live and the competition, you might want to lower your expectations to $9 or $10 an hour. Even just a few months experience will start to open more and more doors though.

Ricka182

A+ was a requirement for my current position. I don't really use a lot of the skills learned, but some are just basics to know anyway when dealing with IT stuff.

avx

Go Bucks wrote:

Depending on where you live and the competition, you might want to lower your expectations to $9 or $10 an hour. Even just a few months experience will start to open more and more doors though.

I'll be happy with that also.lol:)

matts5074

I have to admit I didn't expect it to be that noticed, however after getting my current job my boss mentioned to me he noticed I had A+ and asked me questions about it, ect. Apparently he had heard of it before so I would say that yes it did help me get a job.

It also helped me in combination with Net+ as credit toward MCSA.

Is it likely to land you a Network Administrator position? Nope.

c-nap

I was lucky and had gotten a position I had seen in the classifieds. I already knew alot about computers, networking, and technology in general but didn't have the experience or the credentials to put down on my resume. So I was the perfect fit for what they were looking for: cheap, knowledgeable and also a naive college kid trying to break into the business. I was paid $8/hr (in Daytona, that is pretty decent) for desktop support, my official job description -- trust me I did a whole lot more than that. Fortunately, I was laid off which was the best thing that has happened to young my career. The moment I started putting resumes on the job boards, like Monster, CareerBuilder and I mentioned my A+ certification (remember these guys do keyword searches, and usually just type in the qualifications they're looking for into a search engine) I was getting calls from staffing companies (I know not glamorious) to do jobs just about everyday paying $15 or $16/hr. Now with all the consulting that I do, I've beefed up my resume with all the different environments I've been in and different toys I've gotten to play with, plus I'm pulling in over $600/week. Not bad for a full time college student

Sosa79

I just recently got A+ certified, and dont have a lot of relevant IT background in terms of work experience, so I was hoping someone could help me edit my resume or point me to some resources? I'm not sure what to put in terms of specific skills in order to land that entry-level job.

c-nap

Sosa79 wrote:

I just recently got A+ certified, and dont have a lot of relevant IT background in terms of work experience, so I was hoping someone could help me edit my resume or point me to some resources? I'm not sure what to put in terms of specific skills in order to land that entry-level job.

Well post your resume on here and I'm sure you'll get alot of recommendations some harsh/constructive criticism.

crap I forgot my old pwd

Hey some places are real suckers. I got a $60/hr job with just A+ at some Xray and MRI center about an hour from my house. All I do is troubleshoot users on their 5 PC network.

Matt_Smi

crap I forgot my old pwd wrote:

Hey some places are real suckers. I got a $60/hr job with just A+ at some Xray and MRI center about an hour from my house. All I do is troubleshoot users on their 5 PC network.

Damn talk about getting luckly! That is what I would like to do starting out, troubleshoot computers on a small network. But I am prob going to have to get a job at a place like CompUSA first to get some experience on my resume.

crap I forgot my old pwd

lol, the funny thing is I had no experience when I got this job. I just knew someone in good standing with the company and he recommended me. These people saw A+ and we amazed like it was an MCSE or something. But yeah, these people have called me to fix their email, and they just couldn't spell their email address.

certificationjourney [ban

crap I forgot my old pwd wrote:

Hey some places are real suckers. I got a $60/hr job with just A+ at some Xray and MRI center about an hour from my house. All I do is troubleshoot users on their 5 PC network.

Holy crap. How many hrs did you work per week? Do you still have this job?

Opi

C-NAP wrote:

I was lucky and had gotten a position I had seen in the classifieds. I already knew alot about computers, networking, and technology in general but didn't have the experience or the credentials to put down on my resume. So I was the perfect fit for what they were looking for: cheap, knowledgeable and also a naive college kid trying to break into the business. I was paid $8/hr (in Daytona, that is pretty decent) for desktop support, my official job description -- trust me I did a whole lot more than that. Fortunately, I was laid off which was the best thing that has happened to young my career. The moment I started putting resumes on the job boards, like Monster, CareerBuilder and I mentioned my A+ certification (remember these guys do keyword searches, and usually just type in the qualifications they're looking for into a search engine) I was getting calls from staffing companies (I know not glamorious) to do jobs just about everyday paying $15 or $16/hr. Now with all the consulting that I do, I've beefed up my resume with all the different environments I've been in and different toys I've gotten to play with, plus I'm pulling in over $600/week. Not bad for a full time college student

How do you combinate this with school ?
Are you still many hours at school ?

c-nap

Opi wrote:

How do you combinate this with school ?
Are you still many hours at school ?

LOL, with absolutely no life! i'm taking 14 credit hours a semester. Here's my daily schedule:

6:15am GET UP
7:15am OUT THE DOOR AND OFF TO WORK
7:45AM - 4PM AT WORK (ANY DOWNTIME I GET IT'S SPENT STUDYING FOR CLASS OR ONLINE DOING PRACTICE EXAMS)
4:30PM - GET HOME AND RUN 4 MILES
5:15PM - SHOWER AND OFF TO CLASS
6PM - 9:30PM AT CLASS
9:30PM - 12AM STUDYING AT GIRLFRIEND'S HOUSE (GOTTA PUT TIME THERE TOO)

Since I'm a professional soccer referee I travel extensively on the weekends so at the hotel or on the plane I'm constantly reading. Or I'll download one of those Audiowhiz CD's for the cert I'm studying and listen to it on the drive to the game if it's local.

crap I forgot my old pwd

still have the job. I work at that job whenever they need my assistance (which is often). If you are looking into getting this type of work, let me make some suggestions.

1. Come up with a service that you can offer a company
2. Get certified for your resume
3. Create a maintenace contract dictating how many hours per week/month you shall visit
4. Give other guidelines such as an emergency # or contact info incase they have a crisis and need you right away.
5. Go door to door to businesses in strip malls and offer your contract.
6. Do the work!

This way, you can give a store a few hours of your time per week or even per month, and usually at a high rate. If you can get several different stores to sign up with you, you make more $$ while still only spending a few hours at each location.

One more note, make sure this is more than a 1 person operation. It would suck if you were busy and a client had a dead server

Don't bite off more than you can chew, you can get some companies to sign up for a lot of $$ per hour (like $60/hr) so make sure they get what they pay for.

(make your contracts legal too!!!)

thats my 2 cents