Can't find in job

Its been 2 years since I graduated with my Bachelors in IT. Still no job. I even had the interviewers help me out and try to give me pointers during my interview. I feel hopeless. Its veru difficult to answer questions when I really don't have experience in the field. All I have is the textbook knowledge and a 6 month internship. I'm contemplating on just pursuing a Masters in Accounting and working in the Accounting field since I habe over 7 years of experience in it. I don't know what else to do. I'm burnt out on interviewing.

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gbdavidx

Do you have any certs?

petedude

New2ITinCali wrote: »

Its been 2 years since I graduated with my Bachelors in IT.

Wow. It's good that you've held up this long. I've seen people give up looking after less than three months.

Take the lowest, crummiest help desk job you can afford and use that experience for interview material. Pound hard on the doors of managed service providers, as you can get killer experience even though you might not get paid well for a long time.

snunez889

Go after certifications. Do anything and everything to be around the technology, set up home labs and keep striving to become better. I know when I was looking for a job I spent months going to interviews and submitting applications. It seemed like a hopeless process, but with every interview I learned a bit more. What have you done in the two years?

docrice

Have you volunteered your time to charities or hung out in tech-related interest groups? How many interviews have you been to and for what kind of positions? What were the pointers the interviewers provided? Do you have a lab at home to practice your skills?

New2ITinCali

No, I don't. I was contemplating on studying for them thru an intense boot camp, but they wanted to charge me $3,000! I don't have that kind of money so once again, another dead end

New2ITinCali

docrice wrote: »

Have you volunteered your time to charities or hung out in tech-related interest groups? How many interviews have you been to and for what kind of positions? What were the pointers the interviewers provided? Do you have a lab at home to practice your skills?

No. The last time I volunteered was at my current company in the Information Technology Department to complete my I.T. internship. I have been on 12 interviews. When they asked me about setting up a network or wi-fi.. they said well tell us how you set up your wifi at home? I don't have a lab.How can I create lab? I NEED all the help and feedback I can possibly get. Thanks!

New2ITinCali

In the last 2 years I've strengthened my knowledge of SQL and I I took a Web Development course at the community college as well. The most difficult part of the interview was answering the questions. I don't know how to articulate my answers.

gbdavidx

get some certs under your belt

docrice

In order to further your understanding of how IT infrastructures work, you have to invest effort outside of the classroom. Setting up a lab simply means having a basic environment with network infrastructure components and client and server hosts within them in order to practice breaking and fixing different areas. Part of developing this is dependent on your ability to research on your own and find possible answers. In time, your methodology will hone itself and become more finely-tuned, but for now you have to understand the basics of how the pieces fit together. The answers aren't going to be handed to you - there are resources which you can query upon, and there are different avenues to try and solve a problem based on other people's feedback ... but you have to be willing to dive in and get your hands dirty.

For example, if you haven't even put in experimentation time to configure a wireless access point for your home, or reinstalled an operating system several times over, or put together a working PC, it shows a lack of drive to actually gain the skills you're looking for. Employers want to see some degree of diligence on your part. If you don't do that at home, you're not increasing the odds in your favor.

The Bay Area has plenty of resources. Interest group meet-ups, conferences, places like Weird Stuff in Sunnyvale, etc.. I don't know what a Bachelor's in IT provided you from an education/training perspective, but if you haven't gotten a lot in terms of hands-on technical training, grab a used A+ study guide from a used bookstore or the library and buy some old, cheap PC components. You will inevitably struggle tons at the beginning because everything seems foreign, and it takes time to acclimatize to the details and how the parts interoperate. This is the basic essence of paying your dues and provides hard, good lessons from the ground up, the wisdom from which you can leverage at an employer and waste less time because of it.

When I first started in IT, I was lucky because I got jobs through others that I knew. But I also did my part of putting in excessive hours just to gain the hands-on experience. I read books, more books, and lots of online articles on TechNet which were way over my head and provided a vague picture on things. I spent countless hours researching into areas of which I had virtually no understanding about, but the individual pieces eventually fit together. And a long, long time before I even started in IT, I was (unintentionally) breaking my whitebox and reinstalling DOS multiple times before the dawn hours not understanding what I was doing after I botched the boot sector yet again because Norton Disk Editor provided me a way to tinker and shoot myself in the foot, all the while not knowing what an IDE controller was for. Going through these motions and gaining a better understanding instilled more confidence in my knowledge and thus the trust of the employers who interviewed me.

This is probably a good snapshot on how I developed professionally over my career so far:

I learned by discovering various seemingly-random bits and pieces of the jigsaw puzzle, not realizing what the larger picture looked like. What you have to do is gain more basic knowledge and put in effort to start connecting the dots. Studying for certifications gives you a logical, structured path to follow and passing the exams puts a bit of credibility to your resume.

You have to be hungry for this stuff. You have to go get it. Your self-confidence in this subject matter will gain as you put in the practice, and your ability to articulate in interviews will become better. But if employers aren't going to give you a chance with your current experience/personality/perceived skill set, then you have to up the odds in your favor somehow, and you have to be willing to do it every day, make the necessary sacrifices, and extract the most from your efforts.

experience.jpg

ande0255

petedude wrote: »

Wow. It's good that you've held up this long. I've seen people give up looking after less than three months.

Take the lowest, crummiest help desk job you can afford and use that experience for interview material. Pound hard on the doors of managed service providers, as you can get killer experience even though you might not get paid well for a long time.

I agree with this, MSP's will give you engineer level experience quickly if you work your tail off on the network side of managed services, and I guess really any specialization within the company.

New2ITinCali

docrice wrote: »

In order to further your understanding of how IT infrastructures work, you have to invest effort outside of the classroom. Setting up a lab simply means having a basic environment with network infrastructure components and client and server hosts within them in order to practice breaking and fixing different areas. Part of developing this is dependent on your ability to research on your own and find possible answers. In time, your methodology will hone itself and become more finely-tuned, but for now you have to understand the basics of how the pieces fit together. The answers aren't going to be handed to you - there are resources which you can query upon, and there are different avenues to try and solve a problem based on other people's feedback ... but you have to be willing to dive in and get your hands dirty.

For example, if you haven't even put in experimentation time to configure a wireless access point for your home, or reinstalled an operating system several times over, or put together a working PC, it shows a lack of drive to actually gain the skills you're looking for. Employers want to see some degree of diligence on your part. If you don't do that at home, you're not increasing the odds in your favor.

The Bay Area has plenty of resources. Interest group meet-ups, conferences, places like Weird Stuff in Sunnyvale, etc.. I don't know what a Bachelor's in IT provided you from an education/training perspective, but if you haven't gotten a lot in terms of hands-on technical training, grab a used A+ study guide from a used bookstore or the library and buy some old, cheap PC components. You will inevitably struggle tons at the beginning because everything seems foreign, and it takes time to acclimatize to the details and how the parts interoperate. This is the basic essence of paying your dues and provides hard, good lessons from the ground up, the wisdom from which you can leverage at an employer and waste less time because of it.

When I first started in IT, I was lucky because I got jobs through others that I knew. But I also did my part of putting in excessive hours just to gain the hands-on experience. I read books, more books, and lots of online articles on TechNet which were way over my head and provided a vague picture on things. I spent countless hours researching into areas of which I had virtually no understanding about, but the individual pieces eventually fit together. And a long, long time before I even started in IT, I was (unintentionally) breaking my whitebox and reinstalling DOS multiple times before the dawn hours not understanding what I was doing after I botched the boot sector yet again because Norton Disk Editor provided me a way to tinker and shoot myself in the foot, all the while not knowing what an IDE controller was for. Going through these motions and gaining a better understanding instilled more confidence in my knowledge and thus the trust of the employers who interviewed me.

This is probably a good snapshot on how I developed professionally over my career so far:

I learned by discovering various seemingly-random bits and pieces of the jigsaw puzzle, not realizing what the larger picture looked like. What you have to do is gain more basic knowledge and put in effort to start connecting the dots. Studying for certifications gives you a logical, structured path to follow and passing the exams puts a bit of credibility to your resume.

You have to be hungry for this stuff. You have to go get it. Your self-confidence in this subject matter will gain as you put in the practice, and your ability to articulate in interviews will become better. But if employers aren't going to give you a chance with your current experience/personality/perceived skill set, then you have to up the odds in your favor somehow, and you have to be willing to do it every day, make the necessary sacrifices, and extract the most from your efforts.

Thanks so much for your in-depth explanation of things! I grately appreciate the time you took to comment. You have given greater hope! I do agree I need to gain some hands-on experience, and thats what I intend on doing. My plan is to get an old desktop computer and set up and in home lab, as well as buying some cert. Books online and studying those for certification. I am going to start with A+ and find an exam location in my area. I hope that 2014 is my year to get an I.T. job

markulous

petedude wrote: »

Wow. It's good that you've held up this long. I've seen people give up looking after less than three months.

Take the lowest, crummiest help desk job you can afford and use that experience for interview material. Pound hard on the doors of managed service providers, as you can get killer experience even though you might not get paid well for a long time.

I agree with this.

This is essentially the path I took. I have an associate's degree (no certs yet), I did 3 months at a crappy help desk job that would hire anyone with a pulse, got hired onto a temp job doing hands on PC tech work for a few months, and now I start my new MSP job next week.

Experience is absolute gold in this industry. People want to hire individuals with experience. If you believe that your degree should land you a $20+ hour job with no experience, it's not going to happen. We all gotta pay our dues.

New2ITinCali

markulous wrote: »

I agree with this.

This is essentially the path I took. I have an associate's degree (no certs yet), I did 3 months at a crappy help desk job that would hire anyone with a pulse, got hired onto a temp job doing hands on PC tech work for a few months, and now I start my new MSP job next week.

Experience is absolute gold in this industry. People want to hire individuals with experience. If you believe that your degree should land you a $20+ hour job with no experience, it's not going to happen. We all gotta pay our dues.

Believe me, I have applied for ENTRY entry-level positions. My competition were people who also Bachelors degree AND experience. Also, there were people who had No education, but a lot of experience. The competition was quite stiff. I don't know if it was because it was a government job,and people want to get their foot in their door but there were a lot of people interviewing for 1 entry-level position.

markulous

New2ITinCali wrote: »

Believe me, I have applied for ENTRY entry-level positions. My competition were people who also Bachelors degree AND experience. Also, there were people who had No education, but a lot of experience. The competition was quite stiff. I don't know if it was because it was a government job,and people want to get their foot in their door but there were a lot of people interviewing for 1 entry-level position.

Look at call centers such as Teletech. These places pay very little and don't care if you don't have any technical knowledge/training/experience. There is so much turnover that they are always hiring, and you'd have to have real issues to not get past the interviews. It's not going to give you much knowledge, but it gives your next employer more comfort in hiring a rookie since you still do ticketing, customer service, and use troubleshooting steps.

cyberguypr

I've been looking at your posts since you started here back in 2011. Since day one you mentioned interest in IT, certs, etc. You got some good advice from the regulars here. Here's a recap of some advice you got:

- Own the material. Own the knowledge. (Mishra)
- Taking a near 6 month course for A+ doesn't show real "passion" in my opinion. (jason0352)
- You are completely right to be getting the A+ certification, but if you want to show that you're serious and have passion, you should be able to self study for it over 2-6 weeks, depending on your time and existing skill. (ptilsen)
- you ABSOLUTELY must work on a certification (essendon)
- I suggest volunteering at small organizations such as schools or religious organizations. (jamesleecoleman)
- If you want to increase your chances of landing a technical position, you should aim to obtain technical knowledge some other way. Like certifications! (NetworkVeteran)

See a recurring theme? I find surprising that to this day you don't have anything going. In my eyes this means you are not taking IT seriously enough. That drive and passion essential to make this jump work are just not there. What good is it doing going from interview to interview if you have nothing in your favor? If you want to show commitment you really have to bring something to the table. Experience can easily be gained by volunteering. Labbing stuff at home also is a great asset. But again, all of these have been brought up to your attention before.

When I interview people for entry-level tier I type jobs, I give extra points to people who can speak in the line of "I haven't worked with this per se, but I did play with it in my lab and saw these results." This can quickly steer the conversation in a different direction, definitely beneficial for the candidate. How do you think it's gonna look when I ask you about something and you either give me a blank stare or deviate form what I asked? I understand having no experience, I don't understand not getting.

To recap, YOU gotta make something happen. Things won't fall on your lap.

jbutler9

Hello,

I am an Army veteran and spent 9 years on Active Duty. I would recommend that you join the Army for the MOS of 25B (information technology Specialist). That was my MOS. You will get more hands-on training and real world experience than you can stand. Plus your college is paid for, your certifications are paid for, and you get a steady paycheck. It was the best decision I even made. Currently, I am looking at returning to the Army and going the Warrant officer route. Warrant Officers (the majority of whom are prior Sergeants) are technical advisors to the Commander and are well trained and well respected in the military.

Tremie24

Have you gotten any calls back?? 12 interviews and you haven't had one bite? I would suggest getting some certs but I would also suggest working on your interviewing skills most places don't care that you don't have any experience because they are still going to have to train you on the way they do things, sure you still need to know you stuff about computer hardware, software or networking.

networker050184

If you are getting interviews but not jobs then that tells me the issues lies with selling yourself. Obviously they know your lack of experience but would still consider you for the job or they wouldn't waste the precious time interviewing you. So, my advice is to really work on your interviewing skills.

beaucaldwell

New2ITinCali wrote: »

Its been 2 years since I graduated with my Bachelors in IT. Still no job. I even had the interviewers help me out and try to give me pointers during my interview. I feel hopeless. Its veru difficult to answer questions when I really don't have experience in the field. All I have is the textbook knowledge and a 6 month internship. I'm contemplating on just pursuing a Masters in Accounting and working in the Accounting field since I habe over 7 years of experience in it. I don't know what else to do. I'm burnt out on interviewing.

my first job in IT was on the help desk (call center). Not the most glamorous position, def. not the best pay, but that's where most start and will be a foot in the door, and some real-world experience to the resume. Most helpdesks just want good customer service people since you're mainly doing password resets and working troubleshooting tickets from a knowledge base article, so i say sell them your personality since you dont have the job experience. Spend 6months-1yr at the help desk and you should be able to get to a deskside role or remote tier 2 role pretty quickly if you do well.

As far as certs go, the A+ is perfect for where you're at, can always follow it up with N+/S+. S+ will open gov't/DoD contracts to you. Another option would be to get an ITIL cert which will help as well.

edit: also, if you're in the SF bay, try giving tech systems a call, (415) 343-6000, I've gotten a few gigs from them and they have tons of stuff from entry level help desk to senior level stuff and have always been pretty solid. Another good thing about them is you will get benefits from them typically even if you're just a contractor working on a project.

petedude

beaucaldwell wrote: »

As far as certs go, the A+ is perfect for where you're at, can always follow it up with N+/S+. S+ will open gov't/DoD contracts to you. Another option would be to get an ITIL cert which will help as well.

It'd be a shock to many here, but I actually saw a key networking role for a contractor that ABSOLUTELY required the N+ AND they wanted to see the paper cert!! (OK, fine by me, but don't most of the sharp guys have certs way beyond that?)

S+ is a good one for DoD contracts.

So, much previous input summed: OP should go ahead and finish S+/N+/ITIL Foundation, plus grab a bigger cert like MCITP. I'll add to all this and say a Project+ wouldn't hurt. OP should take a yucky help desk job and stick it out until something better pops up while building the resume. That should be enough to do for say, two years.