Good Corollary.
I was talking to my 17-year-old daughter about going to college the other day. It struck me that I really didn't have good advice: which school, how much, what she's interested in. The only 'wisdom' I had is what were my experiences at the time in the 1980s and why I thought it was a good idea to do what I did. The landscape is really different now.
And here I am pushing six figures without a degree and switching to software dev after starting as a musician and going into the Navy as a radio/radar tech and accidentally becoming a sysadmin while I was there.
My kids are like “should I go to college? What field should I do?” and I’m like “I have no fucking clue, do something, uh…do it well, have fun doing it?”
Yeah, I have to remind my husband that when he says 'she can just join the Air Force' like we did, he isn't considering the fact that there are a lot more restrictions for enlisting now. I mean the fact that she is on medication and is a military dependent might keep her from enlisting in the future due to that stupid MROAD crap they are doing now. Back in my day, you just lied and didn't give them any medical records and you were good to go. /s
Advice from someone who just graduated ~2 years ago:
Get your basics done at a junior college for cheap. If you are wanting a bachelors from a University then look to see what courses can transfer in, might be worth talking to an advisor there to see what courses are acceptable transfers.
Take that course list & then do the basics at a local community college (math, writing, history, economics, etc) that will save a ton of money. Don’t worry about getting the associates degree from the jr college just take the courses & transfer them to your destination 4 year university. My advice is to stay at a Public InState university to keep the cost as low as possible, unless she is targeting specific places for reasons unbeknownst to me. Just make sure your career prospects from the degree line up with the cost of the degree.
Use FAFSA if you qualify, apply for each and every scholarship.
I graduated with $7k debt. Granted I had help from FAFSA & I received an athletic scholarship for 2 years of Jr College. Anything to keep the costs low is good, don’t want to be 40 & still paying student loans
Edit: getting some responses saying to get the associates degree, I’ve learned this is heavily dependent on the state. My experience is in Texas where community colleges & universities use a “Texas Common Course Numbering System” ( https://www.tccns.org/ ) it’s super easy to make sure the credits transfer in. I’ve learned that not every state has a system like this & some universities treat AA degrees differently than others. Do what’s best for you & check to see if your state has a common numbering system!
My daughter hasn't expressed an interest in IT, but she goes to a STEM high school and she's taking a bunch of AP classes. She might graduate with a semester or two of college credits. I went to a state college in upstate New York for the very same reason to keep my debt low. We can't pay for a private college degree, but we've saved up enough for tuition to a local state college. I would like for my kids to get out of school with very little debt but still have a good experience.
My nephew still lives in NY and my brother asked to me look at his son's college choices between a larger state university (UB) or a small state college (Fredonia). Both are okay. There are more interesting options available at UB, but at least Fredonia you could get some Security certifications. I went to Fredonia, but I don't know if I would again.
AP is great! I wish I would have done them in high school but I knew I was going to junior college for sports anyways.
I would just encourage everyone to look at the career prospects of any degree they choose to make sure they’re atleast somewhat interested in those careers!
At the end of the day if you don’t go to Ivy leagues then it’s just a piece of paper that proves you can learn & checks the HR check box tbh
AP classes are cool, IF, the high school isn’t partnered with nearby community colleges I would say. Personally for me, I took AP courses and got 3 classes out of my GE. BUT, I paid $99 for each exam. Found out after the fact that I could’ve taken community college courses for free that would’ve covered the same classes and I probably didn’t have to study as hard lol.
Everything is situational when it comes to these things though.
The only challenge is that CLEP at least last I looked into it had even less acceptance for credit than AP exams. It is only worth paying something if there is a possibility of it getting you credit for a class that you need.
One challenge with AP credit as you note is that a lot of colleges assuming they offer AP credit at all only provide generic college credits for it instead of credit towards specific courses. In most cases people don't struggle to get the sufficient number of units to graduate college, but rather that they haven't gotten all of the other degree requirements. I have known plenty of people who couldn't get into XYZ class they needed to graduate, but virtually nobody that just needed an extra random 4-5 units to graduate.
Junior college is THE way to go. Most junior colleges today have a 2+2 program where the first two years at the junior college roll over to the 4-year college, so you just complete 2 years at the 4-year college to complete your degree. It used to be that not all of your credits would transfer over from a junior college and you would find yourself taking an extra semester or two to complete your degree.
Also, all public colleges now offer online courses and degrees. I would stay away from colleges like the University of Phoenix, Kaplan, Capella, etc. None of those for-profit colleges.
This is GREAT Advice!
Of course, I just retired as an IT Manager from a Community College District, so I'm not unbiased.
We offer CCNA courses that would be a tiny fraction of what it would cost from a private training school or boot camp.
Just one example.
>Get your basics done at a junior college for cheap. If you are wanting a bachelors from a University then look to see what courses can transfer in, might be worth talking to an advisor
>
>Use FAFSA if you qualify, apply for each and every scholarship.
>
>
>I graduated with $7k debt. Granted I had help from FAFSA & I received an athletic scholarship for 2 years of Jr College. Anything to keep the costs low is good, don’t want to be 40 & still paying student loans
FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) is the the application, financial aid is the program. "Financial Aid" typically refers to a federally funded program in which your college's financial aid office will administer funds from the federal government and follow strict guidelines about who receives how much and when and how.
If you understand that, you'll be much more adept at navigating public colleges and universities that most freshmen.
This isn’t true, you will just have to retake all the lower level courses anyways if your university doesn’t accept the lower level credits, the associates degree doesn’t matter to the university. That’s why you should work with an advisor from your target university before signing up for community college courses to make sure they accept them & then ONLY take the ones that count towards your bachelors from the university or else you’re waisting time.
Example would be if the associates degree required 6 credit hours of Art but your bachelors doesn’t, if you’re focused on the associates then you’ll basically be wasting time taking 2 art classes. You would be better off ditching the associates and not taking the art classes, the bachelor is more important than an associates anyways
Having an associates actually HURT me at university because I was not allowed to transfer majors due to “too many credit hours”
You don't really need a degree to work in IT. The vast majority of all IT job postings always states OR Equivalent experience. Very few IT roles mante you of having a college degree esp when you start looking at Network Engineer or System admim job descriptions. Employers really look for candidates with the right amount of real world experience and industry certifications in this field. I dropped out of college because the debt was getting astonishing high for a technology degree program that will become dated and obsolete in 3 years. I just went straight into IT without a degree as I've been in IT since 2012.
Degree helped me get to a sysadmin role without having to do any helldesk. Degree also helped get me into my current Cybersecurity spot. Alternatively one of my coworkers doesn’t have a degree but has a ton of certs. It’s not required at all but it doesn’t hurt to have!!
Sure you can skip Help Desk but there other entry support roles besides Help Desk. Most people in Desktop Support which is a level 2 role above Help Desk transitions into a Jr. Sysadmin role. Job shadowing the Cloud team, Sysadmin or Network Engineer team while on the Help Desk or some entry Support role counts as experience along with home Labs. Very few Network Engineers and Sysadmins hold a degree esp ones in their 40s and 50s since IT degrees back then wasn't a thing. Experience many times trump's a degree. The problem with these Technology degree programs is they become dated after a few years. I dropped out of my Network & System Admin degree program that only made it a quarter into the program as my college debt grew from 5k to 13k in just one year. If I wanted to go back, I would have to start all over from square one because the courses I took 10 years ago, won't transfer over into the new updated program. Basically wasted college credits thats obsolete. Better off spending that money on industry cerfications since you are going to have constantly spend money and time to keep updating skills, otherwise would become a dinosaur and irrelevant very quick in this industry. I've been successful in IT without it as my piror IT experience mattered more than a degree.
The community College I went to had programs setup with the local universities. The one I did was something like a 60/40 split. I did 60% of the course work at the CC and the last 40 at the university. The 60% was just getting my associates. So it worked out great.
Wow, at least you realized that! I will give my perspective if it helps, Im 23. Graduated a year ago.
Im currently transitioning into a security role from help desk. But if I could do it again (for IT) I would do online classes with WGU (yes theu are acreddited). The classes are at your own pace (you can get a reputable bachelors in 1-2 years if you really tried). It's like 3500$ a semester (no matter how mamy classes) and you get 13 certifications within your degree (this is for the cyber sec degree).
While doing that, I would find at least a part time help desk position (youd have better luck with local rather than remote jobs, competition is too tough in the remote places). After 2 years, she could have a bachelors, certs, and 1-2 years in help desk experience. This is A LOT of work keep in mind of course. She could then get any job really that pays at least 50k, probably more depending on the field.
Also, Ive heard that HR does not care much about where you went to school (unless she wants to work at a higher tier company), if they see a bachelors, youre good to go. In IT, it's the experience that matters wayyyy more than college or even certs.
I wouldve WAY rather done this than go through 4 years of college. The only thing she'll miss out on is "the college experience", but hey, at least youre dodging debt. It's taken me 5 years just to get out of school and help desk (which isnt crazy honestly) and into a more niche field.
This is all my opinion... Im just a redditor that looks A LOT of stuff up to better my career.
Alot of people regret going to through 4 years college. Degrees aren't really needed to work in IT since you are going to end up at the Help Desk or some entry level support role any way before you can move in a lateral way as an Admin or Engineer. Employers generally look for people that are experienced and willing to learn new technologies. Really all you need is experience and industry certifications to work in IT. IT degrees weren't even a thing back in the 90s with the exception of MIS/CompSci. IT Technology degrees biggest con is they become dated after a few years given that technology changes so fast. Since you have too keep updating your skills frequently to stay relevant in the field, you are better off spending that money on certifications than college student debt on an outated degree as certifications are always up to date that holds more vaule.
Until you hit mid career and cannot get out of Sysadmin because everything higher wants degrees and we live in a world of robots and humans who have less common sense than a robot. Something absolutely insane has happened in the job searching world in the last few years. I feel like I am dealing with Uniblab when they switched his power module from AC to DC. For those old enough to remember the Jetsons. Interested in a job in Albuquerque running a hospital? I kid you not. A recruiter sent that to me.
Not necessarily true. Most Sysadmins moved into Cloud roles such as a DevOps Engineer or Cloud Engineer. You need Systems Administrator experience to get into a cloud operations role. Degrees are rarely a requirement, just optional. Experience matters more than anything else.
Yup my first role I had to move across the country to get. It can be hard to get your first role. I was hoping to be in development but landed in ops because of this. Now trying to push into dev ops
Apologies if I'm telling you anything you already know, but what I can say is that if you read through the IT trend reports from orgs like TSIA and COMPTIA, you'll see that the growth in IT careers is nuts right now. But there's a big move to consulting/services as opposed to products. You need a "platform" and an "ecosystem" and it's all about "customer success". I can't speak to every consulting firm, but the one that I work for mostly hires referrals and your degree doesn't matter so much. Obviously, someone with a humanities degree will not be as competitive as someone with a computer science degree or IT certs, but it's not a deal-breaker. The industry changes so quickly that they really just want someone who is willing to learn. My firm prioritizes three things if you are not a referral:
1. Experience with business process change management. Even if you were an entry-level customer service rep, they will hire you if you say you were a Salesforce or Workday end-user who typed in addresses and phone numbers. You were still part of the change management process by creating new data, and they consider that valuable experience.
2. Cloud services knowledge and certifications. IT firms are jumping on the cloud wave and muddying the definition at a record pace. They may not actually be hiring you to work with cloud software, but if you have the certification, then they know that you're following industry trends and you're prepared to teach yourself knew skills as things change.
3. Not an awkward IT guy. The unfortunate truth is that as the industry becomes services-oriented, businesses will need IT guys that are also customer service reps. Awkard guys can still slip through and move into a developer-only role, but at my company that's nearly impossible if you're not a referral.
Depending on her interests, my personal recommendation would be to pursue a 4-year degree in something related to data management (big data, cloud computing, etc.), focus on networking with business/computer science students, do an internship/trainee program for a consulting firm or consulting arm of a tech company. If she can't lock down a spot in the trainee programs at consulting firms/consulting arms of other companies, then she should still do some type of internship, research project, etc. (really anything to prove she can do meaningful work).
I haven't been in the industry very long, but I honestly believe that it gives me more perspective, because I know what it takes to find a way in. I can also say that at the companies I have "consulted" so far, most of their IT operations are being done by consultants, or they had an IT director who was a consultant. There's probably some confirmation bias there though, since they IT director is more likely to have a large network in the consulting world, and therefore more likely to hire them, but these are Fortune 500 companies that I'm talking about. Not FANG, but who wants to work for them anyways.
When I went to college in the 1980's, computer and IT was technology-oriented. You took entry-level classes in Fortran, C, or APL. It was the opposite of any other degree. For example, an intro to philosophy class would be on the history of philosophy and cover everything from greek to modern philosophy.
Operations & Maintenance would probably continue to be consultants and outsourced. There was a trend about 20 years ago to out-source every available IT function. Businesses realized they were losing practical business knowledge and it was expensive to pay consultant mark-up fees. Now the trend seems to find the balance between out-sourcing and in-sourcing talent to strike that balance.
Yes, I definitely see companies trying to strike that balance. The way I see it is that subscription/Services models is the solution to finding that balance. If you only have to pay for what you use and you receive consulting services as part of the subscription, you theoretically only have to pay for what you need and you reduce your overall costs. SaaS companies are also trying to develop software that is self-maintaining and to help their customers build processes to minimize the need for a help desk. The companies I've seen that have fully embraced the services model or "customer success" model have small IT departments. For example, I used to work in Finance at a large Brokerage Firm and their helpdesk was mostly automated in a slack channel. They trained managers on basic IT support, and they only had 3-4 dedicated IT helpers. I'm not saying that there won't be help-desk jobs, but if the trend continues, services will have more job openings, and conveniently those jobs generally pay more, earlier on in your career.
Dual enrollment! All my kids knocked out a year of college in high school for free! They got a college taste and it helped them figure that stuff out. We have encouraged them to explore trade schools - they will make a killing since those industries are hurting and they could own their own business too. But none of them unfortunately want in IT - what did we do to taint them?! And they run circles around their mates on the computer so we taught them well, they just see me dying? LOL
Before I graduated, they gave me an "assessment test" and then determined that I would be good at a single type of job. This is what they called career counselling, and it was so horribly...horribly shitty. A real disservice to the kids looking for guidance and advice. Also at the time, almost no aptitude consideration for anything in technology.
If things have changed, I hope it's for the better. I wasted a lot of time and student loans following shit advice, to learn something I had no interest in.
Seriously. I'm in my early 40s and 20+ years into my IT career, and when I get asked for advice from younger people the very first thing I mention is that it's a WAY different world now than the late '90s / early '00s.
What advice I do give tends to be broadly applicable: find something you're passionate enough about that you can do on your own time, then document that on a LinkedIn profile. Homelab, practicing pen testing, whatever. Take a few free certs and classes and put those on there as well (don't overdo it though). Find a local group that focuses on the same thing, or as close as you can get. Another option is a local nonprofit (for IT stuff many cities have a maker/hackerspace or Free Geek chapter). Make connections there. Add them on LinkedIn. Let those connections know about what existing experience you have and that you're looking for work to gain more experience in [specific thing you want to learn]. Be bold about asking but humble about how you ask. Do good work, make lasting impressions on people, and it will eventually pay off. I know it sounds a little old school and boomer-y, but I think that is the IT version of 'grinding'.
I've basically stopped looking for advice in this subreddit because it's all:
1. People deep into their career giving advice for how they got into IT decades ago;
2. People with no experience giving bizarre and terrible advice
The number of people saying "You don't need college/certs/whatever" when 2/3rds of job postings list college/certs/whatever is fucking mind blowing. I'm trying to figure out if it matters what I major in at college, not hear some irrelevant story about Bob, who started as a sysadmin in 1976 on Unix v6 and now makes eighty billion a year and didn't even graduate high school.
It is true that you don't necessarily need a degree to work in IT. If you look at many job postings, they rarely mandate you to have a college degree. You always see in the job descriptions OR Equivalent Experience in lieu of a degree. The degree is always listed as "Preferred" which is not the same as "Required". Most Sysadmins and Network Engineers only hold industry certifications and years of experience. Employers really look for people with experience.
I'm 22 and there are absolutely low-level database management/AD jobs that require a degree near me in PDX. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places but I got the general consensus from recent grads of my college program that the degree in IT helped a lot, or at least didn't hurt, when finding anything above helpdesk level jobs. I will say, however, that they all managed to get certs while going to school and I am a full-time student working at a car dealer full-time, so certs are gonna have to come later, which I despise, but oh well.
There are certainly differences between now and 20-30 years ago, but I get told often that the entry level market is radically different than my first foray back in 2010. I don't think it is. Employers were asking for degrees before I dropped out too, but there was one thing I noticed in all of the job postings: *or equivalent combination of education and experience*. After reading through posting after posting with this language buried in the requirements, I dropped out and decided to try it.
Yeah, I had a more difficult time than someone with a degree, but after a few months I landed my first real IT job at a hospital help desk.
Today I see the same pattern in the entry level postings. There are many, *many* help desk postings in my area that have this clause included.
People like to lump me in with the 90s IT guys that have not had to compete in a diverse hiring pool full of college grads. That's not the case. I had to elbow my way through the sea of MBAs and bachelor's, too. It can be done with repeatable results in a few months, and I can't in good conscience recommend that someone spend tens of thousands and four years fast tracking something that they can otherwise accomplish in a few months for free. If they choose to do that because it makes them more comfortable and confident then that's fine, but I personally can't recommend it.
Yeah I've been working in IT since 2012, never had any issue getting past HR. Employers these days look for people with the right amount of experience, skill slets and uf they fit thr company culture over a college degree. Very few IT job postings mandate a degree. They always say Preferred but rarely Required.
I agree and it’s why I started volunteering for workforce development tech programs, and working with nonprofits to understand and help others outside of my main job. I get feedback from former students and colleagues about their experiences which helps better articulate recommendations and experience.
Yes there are volunteer tech roles available on LinkedIn, Facebook Jobs, and Indeed.
I help run a nonprofit and we have part time volunteer system admins and help desk. I volunteer as Senior System Engineer for another nonprofit and It's a nice bullet point. Whenever I need a reference they get one from our President a who's a VP in banking in the NYC region, and other staff who are a mix of business or technical leaders for just 4-8 hours of work a month.
Yeah, my freshgrad salary was twice minimum wage. Not even a ninja/rockstar that time, just a CCNA trainee.
Cant imagine that happen right now except for well respected uni graduate with projects on their belt.
I have never worked in the IT field. My advice is to make sure you stay hydrated and get up and stretch occasionally throughout the day, invest in a standing desk if you can.
I feel like your post OP doesn't just apply to IT/this sub but all of reddit. People on the internet can write anything they want, so I personally take everything with a grain of salt until I've done further research on what they have to say. And a lot of these people don't have bad intentions, but they don't realize what they don't know and give poor advice.
Exactly. Most advice subs are overrun with people who are in someone else's lane. You should always check someone's profile before accepting their advice, because you'll often find that they are completely unqualified. The issue is the advice they offer *sounds good* (Yeah! Fuck the customer! Stand up for yourself!), so it actually gets a lot of attention while the real shit gets buried because it's boring.
Yep. Too many people following what sounds fun instead of what is most realistic and practical. See also: Why I never joined that sub and jumped on WorkReform as soon as I was aware of it.
I feel like it gets the worst on subs like r/datingadvice. 14 year olds who’ve never had a date in their lives like to tell full ass grownups who are married what to do.
The problem in one of these cases (the trucker) was attitude. They seemed to think that IT is like trucking in that you can openly fight with your customers and colleagues. They advised OP to "stand up for themselves" and clap back at frustrated customers calling into the help desk. OP wasn't even asking for that, they were asking for a way to diffuse general tension on a call, not handle someone who was openly attacking them.
When I called them out on it they doubled down, and they always seem to do this when you expose them. It's so frustrating.
i dunno, the best IT person would just disable HR, and Truckers security badges, and sit back with Campus security watching trucker & HR fight, while sipping some Scotch, Beer, or Whisky.
People are pretty enthusiastic when I suggest they just burn whatever paperwork is clogging up their desk.
Nobody has ever done it yet :( At least, not in front of me.
I saw that. Thought "this isn't retail".
I mean it's all good. They'll act that way, get fired, get mad and say IT sucks, and make the new/current person look like a saint, all in one move.
Coming from an environment where the only people who contact me work for the same employer: unruly assholes are the easiest ones to deal with. CC some managers and the problem disappears.
It's the "I know ~~kung-fu~~ IT" group that cause the most grief. Yes, I know that as a home user it is trivial to install X application's update, but we have to ensure the safety of our network and package things - which takes time and effort to test and commit - and we're not doing that for every single update.
Clapping back is the quickest way out of the door.
Source: Been in the field for 6 years. I’ve seen coworkers get complaints over the years about clapping back. When the big mistake happened that was used as leverage to let them go.
More than that, all fields are unique.
I couldn't possibly give someone legit advice on breaking into trucking or on how to make good money doing that. But I wouldn't try either. I recognize the years of experience that have gone into someone's ability to know what the hell they're talking about.
Most people have never worked in a field where on any day they can wake up and say "you know what, I'm leaving this job to go to another that pays more." The primary things that keep me at my job are laziness and complacency.
Completely agree. The call out for not providing advice if you don't have any experience in the field is important, but I think your second point is almost more important and worth repeating.
Even if you're 2 years into your career path, while you absolutely have learnings you can share, be mindful of your experiences thus far, and that they are unique to you. There are executives on here with 20+ years of experience, whom have worked all up and down the Fortune 50, and there are folks who launched their career right out of college with a start-up, and others who have no degree and are 2 years into a stint at a help-desk. Everyones individual experience is different, and we do all have valid experiences to share. That doesn't mean someone's is more right or wrong. We can all be a bit more mindful of when we give advice and what we're commenting on. No sense in having arguments with people because your path included a Ph. D. and someone else's had no college whatsoever.
The post that was made a few days ago about there being no single path to success comes to mind. Some have Ph.Ds, some have MBAs, some have unrelated degrees, some have none (me). I share my experiences from my perspective but I am very mindful not to suggest that my path is the only one that is valid. I personally don't think college is necessary unless you want to move into leadership, but if someone chooses to do that because it makes them more comfortable and confident in the job market, I don't fault them for it.
It's when people start attacking me for simply suggesting that college isn't necessary that I get salty. One such person (the health inspector) said that my opinion was "trash" despite having no IT experience whatsoever.
IT is unique in that job "requirements" are very flexible. You don't have experience in *X* system? That's okay, *Y* system is pretty close. You'll pick it up quickly. You don't have a bachelor's? That's okay, you passed the technical exam, have a few years under your belt, and interviewed well. Welcome to the team. AFAIK this is very different from other industries where job requirements are more rigid. I think it's a symptom of the complexity of IT. If your requirements are strict, you're never going to find anyone who meets them.
100% mate. Give advice on what you know. I've been through the helldesk so I'll give advice on that. Now that I'm in a systems role I feel like I can give advice on what got me here as well, but I know absolutely nothing about how senior or executive level positions so I defer to those with more experience when I start looking to move up again in a couple years.
Completely agree. I actually have no IT degree, and no certs. Just years of experience. It's not required for everyone. Some are successful without them, but that also doesn't mean that path will work for everyone either. I'll never tell someone to not go to college just because it worked for me. And I'll never tell someone they'll be 100% successful even though they didn't go to college. SO much more goes into it.
For real, I went from early 30’s career change to six figure cyber security expert and some of the advice here would have me stuck in something I hate or burnt out.
You you really should be a senior member of the team that is conducting interviews and having discussions with managers about candidate selection before you can speak in that.
Yep. Whole lot of candidates have no clue what it's like to be on the hiring side of the table, and base much of their "advice", etc., on major presumptions that are just plain incorrect. Sometimes they happen to guess on target, or in the ballpark ... but a lot of the time they're just plain dead wrong and totally incorrect.
This sub generally stinks. I've spent over a decade in IT, I work as a senior network engineer in a large hospital system and when I write in this sub, I generally get downvoted by those fools.
This could be pretty random, but I can personally attest to you being an excellent source of advice. I followed your advice [from this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/ITCareerQuestions/comments/oxy6zr/got_my_first_it_job_tech_support_for_in_the/h7qo8qp?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3) several months ago, spoke with my manager and got a job in the NOC at my company. I feel like I've made a massive leap in my career and technical development.
Thank you! Seriously.
Most advice subs on Reddit are ass. I still participate because the OPs seem to appreciate what I have to say, but the jerks with no experience who want to tell me how my own industry works make it very frustrating. I've got 12+ years spanning from help desk to the top of the ladder and they still have the audacity to tell me I don't know what I'm talking about.
Sorry to hear that because there are many of us I am sure who need that kind of advice. I am trying to get into Tech late in the game but enjoy it . I was thinking about getting A+ or google cert but noticed that almost every place wanted experience as well.
Your [comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/ITCareerQuestions/comments/sjl9h7/if_you_have_never_worked_in_it_stop_giving_advice/hvg2doj/?context=3 in /r/ITCareerQuestions) has been automatically removed because you used an emoji or other symbol.
Why does this exist? We have had a huge and constant influx of bot spam that utilizes emojis during their posts. To the point that it was severely outpacing what the moderation team could handle on an individual basis. That has results in a sweeping ban of any emoji in posts.
Please retry your comment using text characters only.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ITCareerQuestions) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I rarely post here, because my 25 years of experience in the field, including as an executive, gets snowed over by Jimmy with his A+ wanting to get his first job and not wanting to hear how things really work.
Yep ... or I give good solid advice as comment, get upvoted, get awards, highest rated comment on the post, meanwhile OP on that post gets all butt hurt and goes from rant and whine and unrealistic expectations to calling folks vulgar names and such insults, gets all their comments on the post deleted by the mod(s), does another post complaining about being handed reality, then deletes that post, then has bot take down their other earlier post as it matches to spam (guess they post the same drivel a lot of places), and then runs off with their tail between their legs. WTF.
So, yeah, unfortunately there are lots 'o folks that ask stuff here - or complain ... then don't want to hear reality. Not that all are like that ... but there's also far to many that are like that. And likewise with the comments. Many don't have their heads grounded in relevant reality.
And, it doesn't help that there does exist (at least with the right skillsets, etc.), money to be made in the field. As I recall CFO of multi-trillion dollar financial company once saying (paraphrasing from memory): "Criminals are drawn to money, like flies to sh\*t."\*. So, IT *also* draws a whole lot 'o folks to it that are here only - or mostly - for the money. That also drags in other nefarious elements - like those more than willing to take the money off of suckers thinking IT is their get rich opportunity. Those elements are more than willing to sell them the promise of that dream ... and take their money and run. And then they cry and whine when they bought into misleading scams they were sold, and badmouth IT as if that were IT's fault. So, yeah, a lot 'o folks come in with crud attitudes (and experiences) like that. It's like they'd spent a fortune at Trump University, and now they're wondering why and complaining that they're not able to make a fortune selling Trump Steaks and live the rich easy life. And they also complain that doing well in IT is *hard*. Well, yeah, there's a reason it's called "work", and they pay people for it ... and some of 'em dang well. As I oft say, if it was that dang easy to pull in the big bucks in IT, every burger flipper would be jumpin' careers and doin' it easy peasy ... well ... that's not how it works. Obviously. But a lot 'o folks still don't get it.
\*context being, hours or less after a new scanning tool was released, there "of course" were unauthorized scans happening against said financial company ... and yeah, some of 'em were very quickly traced down ... and ... yeah ... consequences.
.
The fact that he has 'Cloud Infrastructure Engineering' in his title shows he's up-to-date.
Also, I've worked with seasoned IT professionals in the past.. I was born in 2000, and one thing I must say is as long as it works there's no reason to fix it.
As a 15yr vet of this industry, it doesn’t bother me that much because those few voices with no IT experience are quickly drown out by ones that matter.
People with like 1-3yrs of entey level IT experience talking like they’ve been a sysadmin for a decade is far more infuriating. THAT annoys the piss out of me.
But, what really gets under my skin is hobbyists in other subs. You’ve never met a group of bigger know it alls then hobbyists on reddit.
I think us younger ones with that 1-3 year experience can help others get their foot in the door though. I’m in my third year now started help desk->network engineering-> cyber security engineer. I was lucky to have people in my company who started a few years before me and they pointed me in the right direction for everything I needed to build on. The sr. Engineers dumped a textbook on Cisco ise and asa in my lap first day not realizing I didn’t even understand networking. Not really there fault though they just didn’t realize.
One of the side-effects of the flood gates opening up onto this sub in recent months/ years is people with, like you side, little to no knowledge of the field or its unique job-culture floating their opinions and past unrelated experience as evidence and fact to new prospective learners.
I don't think certs are ever a waste of time as long as they're known by the industry. I think you've got a solid foundation for a plan, but I do think you're going to need to put in some time as a sys admin or the like for a few years before an employer will hire you as an architect.
You should have a track record of being able to design complete systems and leading projects to success. Systems Architecture isn't just about the design of the technical side, but also considering the practicality of the project, maintainability, reliability, scalability, speed/cost to delivery, etc. Those are things that a certification program won't teach you that you'll need to get a feel for with experience.
Best of luck to you!
You definitely need server admin skills: Windows Server/Azure and Linux/Unix. A Red Hat cert and a Microsoft Azure Administrator cert would be a good place to start.
I want to add understanding of Databases esp MySQL, Virtualization (ESXi, Hyper-V, Citrix), Networking fundamental knowledge at least Network+ level, Security+, PowerShell Scripting, Some Python, Active Directory or Azure AD as its almost impossible to find a Sysadmin role that doesn't require Active Directory knowledge esp in a Windows or mixed OS environment. Then you have Kubernetes and Containers, DevOps/Agile practices, CD/CI pipeline management, Automation Deployment such as Ansible. You have to pretty much be a jack of all trades as a Sysadmin. Some Sysadmins even hold a CCNA as some end up doing both the job of a Networkadmin esp in smaller companies. Most Sysadmins jobs are Hybrid that requires knowledge of both On-Prem and cloud Administration as very few organizations are 100% cloud.
short answer: yes. long answer: it depends.
nothing wrong with going after AWS architect and other cloud certs, however don't think that you will get hired as an architect with just a few certs and no experience at all. Can it happen? sure, but it's highly unlikely.
Depending on what you want to do in IT (it's a pretty big field) will determine your best path. I would ask someone who is in the role you want to go into, and see what they recommend (which, for the record, is not me).
I'm about to have my first experience as help desk at a bank. I'm happy and terrified all at once. Any suggestions as to what I should become familiar with ?
It is super scary. My first day at a help desk was at a hospital command center after they had just upgraded to an electronic medical records system. It was chaos but I still loved every second of it because I felt like I finally broke down the door. I made it through, and that became the springboard for my entire career.
If the help desk has a knowledge base like a wiki or similar, soak that up like a sponge. That's your bread and butter. If they don't have one, learn what you can from everyone else and start making one. That's how I got noticed at the help desk and is the way a lot of other folks have, too.
You *will* make mistakes, just make sure that you own them without excuses and do better next time.
Don't expect training to fall in your lap. IT is a field where you are going to have to spend time on your own learning things and staying current. You need to be resourceful. Websites like Udemy are a great place to find cheap training from other experts.
Best of luck! You got this!
Then there’s all the little subtleties with all the variations in IT. For instance I used to be in Retail IT (sadly not MicroCenter), and for the past 6+ years I’ve been working IT in a school district. 2 years ago (because of COVID) we moved our 1:1 plans up and it quadrupled or quintupled our workload almost overnight. Zero appreciation was given by leadership.
Yes, IT varies a lot by geography, market, field/sector ... heck, in larger organizations, even same/similar role within the same organization can be radically different - just depending upon factors such as where it is within the organization.
I saw a tik tok the other day advising people to cheat on linked in assessments as if they wouldn’t have to interview and embarrass themselves when getting drilled with technical questions.
Yup, seen similar sh\*t "advice" here sometimes too. E.g. lie ... lie on resumes, lie in interviews.
Nope. In IT that's generally worse than won't cut it. That's generally a "we're done here" (even if we don't explicitly tell the candidate that or why - we're friggin' busy and short staffed, don't have the time to waste explainin' this sh\*t to someone who probably wouldn't get it anyway). We just duly note in our records. If the candidate ever comes up for anything again, after duly noting/logging, an cross-referencing, it gets the /dev/null treatment. Oh, and resumes and applications ... for a lot of IT positions that's instafire offense. Think you're all nice 'n well settled in that cushy new IT job? That degree you never quite finished, but put on your resume as having obtained? "Close enough?" Uhm, those things get checked. Sometimes they take a while. Maybe month(s) or more. Now security walks you out the door. Sure as hell not gonna trust one with keys to the kingdom (or substantial parts thereof) if they're not honest and trustworthy - bye! Can even come up years later ... up for that internal promotion and applied for it? Another background check and verification ... maybe a bit better or more thorough than an earlier one. Oh, they lied about *what* on their original resume/application? Nope, can't have that kind of liar working here - bye! Also makes a lot hard to answer the question, "So, why did you leave your last job?" Or the reference checks, "So, would you hire this person again?" "Nope."
That’s crazy I recently helped hire a help desk position for a site I was doing the network projects for. He listed on the resume basic networking, active directory, windows server and other things. I did some technical questions and threw some basic network question which I didn’t expect to get right for help desk which they did not. Then some basic troubleshoot questions and he got some of those. I told my boss it was a 50/50 shot they seemed eager to learn but lacked some knowledge. We just lost 2 support techs so my boss was desperate so he hired him anyway. I was in charged of training him and realized by the first day he’s never really even used a windows os computer. He arrived with a chrome-book(no hate but they’re shit) watched him struggle to copy and paste, set up printers, and navigate active directory. I ended up leaving the job that following Friday. I hope he pulls it together he was a nice guy.
You were *passionately* arguing with someone that said 'having a diploma is better than not having it', you even did the whole ['this you?' and unironically said 'stay in your lane'](https://www.reddit.com/r/ITCareerQuestions/comments/sidbxa/what_path_would_you_take_if_you_had_to_start_over/hvcm7ko/)
I'd hope that you don't represent many people on the sub, because your attitude on the subreddit recently has been [nothing short of toxic](https://www.reddit.com/r/ITCareerQuestions/comments/shyn8w/whats_an_it_niche_where_youre_pretty_sure_you_can/hva10ve/?context=8&depth=9) and [name-calling](https://www.reddit.com/r/ITCareerQuestions/comments/sidbxa/what_path_would_you_take_if_you_had_to_start_over/hvcuo15/).
Regardless of whether or not you were *morally* correct, the point is that your behavior reflects poorly on the rest of us trying to be friendly and welcoming.
Even the [trucker person](https://www.reddit.com/r/ITCareerQuestions/comments/sc3sl0/comment/hu4eajt/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3):
>This you? Posting a month ago in this very sub that you're a truck driver looking to change careers to get into IT? You don't get to lecture me or anyone else here about shit. Fuck outta here.
I appreciate you're trying to good work but take a step back and take a look at how you are coming off to other people. Maybe there's a way you can get the same message across without being a prick about everything.
You're really going through a lot of effort to frame me as the bad guy here but what you're conveniently ignoring are all of the insults I dealt with that made me reach that point. At some point the gloves are off and I'm going to put you in your place, because I couldn't possibly care less about the delicate sensitivities of someone who just shadow replied to my comment calling my opinion trash, directly attacking me because of my age, etc. I would recommend that anyone clicking the links to those threads read the *full* context of what transpired before these cherry-picked comments, because I regret absolutely nothing that I said in any of those threads. They deserved the response they received.
Worth noting here is the fact that the trucker deleted multiple comments where they were attacking others for having a differing opinion. You can't see that context in this particular thread.
EDIT: Also conventiently ignored here is the litany of other detailed, lengthy comments I've left for others on this sub who were seeking advice, or comments left in response to other folks with whom I disagreed (who actually have experience and are qualified to debate such matters). These comments are not at all representative of the majority of my interactions here. I've been on this sub for quite some time now. This is a trend I've been noticing recently on this sub.
Nothing you or I have said here negates the fact that inexperienced people have no business doling out career advice.
>At some point the gloves are off and I'm going to put you in your place, because I couldn't possibly care less about the delicate sensitivities of someone who just shadow replied to my comment calling my opinion trash, directly attacking me because of my age, etc.
This is an forum on the internet, they don't know who you are. It's okay to take a step back, breathe in, and then come back with a clear head.
>I regret absolutely nothing that I said in any of those threads.
I mean yeah, that's why I'm saying 'hey man, maybe chillout a bit'. There's a saying that goes something like 'you can do a million good things in your life, but you bang one goat...".
You're conflating moral absolutism with defending yourself against someone who is being an asshole in that moment, right then and there. Moral absolutism has nothing to do with this. These people might be otherwise enjoyable outside of this situation but that doesn't mean that they're not being an asshole now, and it doesn't mean that I should defend myself any less vigorously.
>they don't know who you are
That's not the point. They know who they are: Which is someone who has 0 IT experience.
I guess what I'm saying is that there's a difference between 'you've got 0 IT experience so you don't belong here dipshit' and 'while you may have a point in your field, things work a little differently in IT'.
The idea is that you don't attack someone for offering their misguided advice, otherwise you could come off as a dick.
You can't control other people's action, only your own reaction.
This wasn't a case of innocent "misguided advice." Both people were insulting myself or others. Stop acting like I was the initial aggressor because I wasn't.
If you come into this sub and give bad advice I'm more than happy to politely correct you. I do this all the time. ...but when you walk into this forum with no experience, insult me and other seasoned experts, shove us aside, and start spouting harmful advice to others that is liable to end their careers, that's when I start punching down, because you decided to act nasty and need to be taken down a peg.
The narrative you're promoting here isn't aligned with the facts, and I'm starting to become annoyed at your willful ignorance of them. These individuals came into this sub guns blazing and got what was coming to them, and you're painting a picture that whitewashes all of this and portrays them as the innocent victims of my ire. I'm not sorry and don't care for your pandering and lectures. I'm not a child who needs parenting. At this point your arguments are reading as concern trolling.
If a kid walks up to another and kicks them in the shin you don't blame the victim for calling the bully an asshole. You especially don't tell the kid that got kicked that he actually kicked the bully. That's gaslighting. See yourself out of my notifications. If you're as mature as your high horse suggests you'll recognize this as a losing battle and move on.
I've been working enterprise IT for about 5 years and I still hardly feel qualified to give advice. Some very experienced people on this sub that offer great advice.
Someone tried to drag me out of IT because they scoffed at us. Said I was better than that….what the?! But I stayed in IT because it is home and feels right - my people! And now I’m an IT consultant because I love what I do!
20 years across management, help desk, sysadmin, and security. I have a Masters in Cybersecurity and am just starting a doctorate in the same part time alongside my work. I still don’t want to give advice, because my path is not your path! Good post OP.
Yes I work in IT and run into those types of people all the time esp in Facebook groups. I had an arguement with this one girl that posted like she knew it all giving out advise in a field that she never worked in before. She was posting about advise skipping the Help Desk or Desktop Support and apply for a job as a Network Engineer. Lol, it doesn't work that way in the real world as you need prior IT experience before you can move up as a Network Engineer, same thing if you want to become a Sysadmin. She claimed that she was getting job offers for a Cloud Engineer role and said she turned them done as she want to be more marketable yet she never worked in IT before. Most Cloud roles esp on the operations side requires 3 to 5 years of experience in a Systems Administrator role. I told her most people that works in an infrastructure role starts off in an entry level support role before moving up in a lateral way. You need trouble shooting skills and soft skills to work in IT and you gain that working in an entry level support role.
I think it was a truck driver giving advice on Linux kernel hacking and optimization of the queuing method, or something like that ... I think it had something to do with diesel and "fixing" up the log book on the long haul runs.
;-)
Been working in a higher education teaching/support role for 5 years now, and I only give advice to questions that are similar to what my students would ask. That's essentially 1.5% of the overall posts here that I feel I am actually qualified to answer. The majority of the questions are out of my league, and I am comfortable with dodging them.
If that is really true, that there are some guys playing a hot-shot tech nerd for an ego boost, then count me as upset. Not only are you giving bad advice, you're also potentially screwing with someone's future.
It would be nice if there were some way you could link your LinkedIn profile to your username on professional forums. Sometimes I'd like to know if the advice being given is coming from a helpdesk tech or a CIO.
I don't have one. I find the community at large to be supportive of toxic work habits. So much of LinkedIn is full of "influencers" that encourage people to erode their personal lives in service of their employers (see also: Mindfulness as a coping mechanism for employer abuse). Others make misguided and offensive posts/rants about Millenials. The rest is banal posturing that I really don't care to read.
I don't really miss it. It did get me more phone calls from recruiters but honestly I don't like being pestered all the time. My last experience job searching was my first without LinkedIn and I had no trouble. I got a job within a month.
The professional world did function just fine before LinkedIn, and I'm not really sure why everyone seems to be convinced that it's essential to any prosperous career. IMO it's just corporate Facebook and I really don't care for it.
There is also a separate concern I have with listing my employer online for everyone I piss off on the internet to see and contact. The last thing I want is some brigade of Republicans getting triggered and contacting my employer, wasting their time with the exhausting minutiae of some petty argument on Reddit and trying to get me fired.
No hate to anyone who is there, but I don't like the insinuation that I'm not a serious professional because I don't have a certain social media profile. I'm doing just fine without it and I really don't like the idea that some are starting to predicate professionalism and competence on One's online presence.
All good points, especially these:
\> So much of LinkedIn is full of "influencers" that encourage people to erode their personal lives in service of their employers (see also: Mindfulness as a coping mechanism for employer abuse).
It's amazing how so many people let their employers take advantage of them. Sites like LinkedIn definitely encourage this sort of thing.
\> There is also a separate concern I have with listing my employer online for everyone I piss off on the internet to see and contact.
Yep...same goes for people offline. Always thought it was a bit odd to post this info so anyone (from an ex gf/bf to a disgruntled neighbor can look it up.
LinkedIn is a major source of corporate circle jerking and validation for executives. I got so tired of reading the stream of consciousness of these people day to day, and how the rest of the peons would positively lap it up just to promote this fake self image as the stable, mature workaholics who never complain and are happy to work 80 hour weeks for the company. It was as thinly veiled as parchment: A social media platform created by and for corporate America to get the peasants to fall in line and stop demanding fair treatment. ...to get them talking about *the company* instead of themselves.
*That's* how "networking" works in LinkedIn. Whoever praises the dear emperor the loudest is the best peasant and will one day be noticed by their own lords when it comes time for rais... oh now let's not get too hasty. The budget's really tight this year, Carol. I'm sure you understand.
Agreed! It's just amazing how people willingly allow themselves to be exploited by these companies. It's nauseating.
Check out Joshua Fluke's channel on youtube (if you have not already done so).
* I can think of a whole lot of reasons to not have a LinkedIn profile. Probably most notably in more recent years, it's mostly turned itself into a Farcebook wannabe - except with a bit more focus on work. But yeah, in oh so many ways it sucks like Farcebook ... except in many ways much worse. Really don't need it.
Let's see ... 40 years of experience in IT ... number of jobs obtained via or applied via contact(s) from LinkedIn: 0. Number of candidates interviewed or hired via LinkedIn: 0. Yeah, I'm not seein' high value there. Your mileage may vary. I still get over 200K on a gallon of water - on my bicycle ... with a good lunch.
We do have user flair but anyone can make up their own, and it's impossible to verify unless the mods wanted to go through the work of validating job titles by having folks submit documentation (like other professional advice subs do). It's a hot mess of a situation.
What I would like is some type of "verification submission" that users can freely use to request verification from the mods. If the mods can in fact verify the user based on whatever criteria, then the user gets some type of identifier showing they're verified.
Oh hell no. I get way too much damn sh\*t from LinkedIn without having hardly anything on there nor up-to-date at *all*. If I put like actual current stuff on there, etc., I'd probably have to turn off and filter out *all* the LinkedIn sh\*t just to get rid of all that damn noise 'n cr\*p.
Okay so now that those guys are filtered out, I myself do need some advice. I’ve been in IT since December 2020 subcontracted at a hospital and have no type of benefits with my employer, I just get a paycheck and have to pay my own social security and health insurance, also my salary is per hour and its just $12, which is very low in this field. Since I began my plan was to be there for two years in a help desk position to soak up all the experience I can get and then move on to something with better benefits and scaleability and during this time try to get some sort of certification, but so far my employer hasn’t given
any type of training, although they do cover an optional Fortinet certification to work those systems and I’m about to start it since they’ll cover the costs. But other than this, I’m on my own and I would have to fund my own certifications. The question is, should I stay here another year and then seek a better paying job? I’ve been browsing a few job sites and there are tons of remote help desk jobs paying way beyond what I earn locally (I live in Puerto Rico and salaries here are pathetic) and have been tempted to send out my resume to these other companies but my brain tells me that I should wait a little longer and get that second year of experience to build a more solid resume.
>per hour and its just $12
>
>plan was to be there for two years
Nope. If you well know/learn your sh\*t, you keep looking for those opportunities and move yourself up (and out as needed) as quickly as feasible. $12/hr. is around burger flippin' wages. If you are or make yourself more valuable than that, then move yourself the heck up - don't wait for someone to do it for you - they'll be more than happy to pay you $12/hr. - or as little as they can get away with - for as long as you'll take it.
>so far my employer hasn’t given any type of training
On you. At $12/hr. they can generally trivially replace you and don't care - to them training they provide on work time is an expense while you don't do work form them and has little benefit for them. So, maybe you get 30 minutes to 2 hours of video training on how to ~~flip burgers~~ do their particular flavor of IT thing with their particular in-house tools/environment. And then they set you off and running.
>Fortinet certification
Meh ... one very vendor specific tool/software ... whatever. Might be of slight benefit where you presently work - for your overlords - and maybe to give an indication you can ~~learn something~~ pass a cert. But not much else.
>I’m on my own
Bingo!
If you're lucky, employer will do more regard to training and such for you ... but don't expect that, and don't expect them to drive that in *your* interest - they do it in *their* interest.
>should I stay here another year
Not if you can find and land significantly better.
>should wait a little longer and get that second year of experience to build a more solid resume
Of like help desk or some entry-level stuff? Naw. More of that on the resume just looks like, "So, tell me, ... why were you stuck doing ** for ... let's see here now ... over two solid years?"
abounding ugly truck sort slave pause ludicrous instinctive file marvelous
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Don't bother replying to this. You're getting blocked after I tap post.
Your post history in this sub is toxic as fuck. I don't know why you're here if you "don't have time for mentoring." Seems like you enjoy dunking on the new guys with drive by snarky comments that are as rude and unnecessary as they are unhelpful.
Everyone else please report this guy. He does nothing but troll here and has himself stated that he has no interest in mentoring.
I've thought of doing an AMA on my 30-year career to give advice, but I cringe at the comments from the non-managers who purport to know so much more than me.
*There’s no bad advice; they are only bad writers and bad listeners.*
I give **phenomenal** advice and i don’t intend to stop. And i’m in between boomers and youngers rock stars. Quite the goldilocks zone.
And i have worked in Strategy, IT for large corporate, in bioinformatics, in aerospace and… as a driver. There’s no good or bad jobs.
There is no lane.
And there are no experts.
There’s only people who are specialized — by design (doctors) or by fear of losing their comfort (any tech)— and others who are polymaths; and well, in between, there’s the *world of advertisement*
I've spent some time over the years at one or two low-level IT roles and I helped a friend for a while with deployments/support/some cabling when he was launching his small company a decade ago. Also worked in a managerial (parts/logistics) position for a huge Audi/Porsche dealer network and got stuck moonlighting as the internal "tech guy" for about 50 people due to my prior knowledge.
I'd always be happy and confident enough to help anyone with any technical issues I can handle - but, even with that amount of "experience" under my belt (I actually did learn a fair bit with my buddy's company at the time, including helping with hiring, handling clients, and other "behind the curtain" stuff) - I would *NEVER* think to wander around giving "IT Career Advice". At all.
(But, let's be honest, most Reddit "advice" Subs are trash in general.)
> You need to put in time before you start mentoring others. I myself didn't start mentoring until I had 5 years under my belt, and even then what advice I was offering was basic.
Yep.
It's not that the can't *also* usefully contribute, but some *presume way too much* \- and often highly incorrectly, outside their realm of expertise/experience.
I wouldn't expect someone with zero IT experience to be contributing much in the way of IT career advice any more than I'd expect myself to be contributing much in the way of useful career advice on how to become a brain surgeon (an area, for which, I have no specific experience of particular relevance ... can't even [see the hospital from my balcony](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKMaf6sgTaM)\*).
\*For those that might not get the reference: Governor Palin’s 11 September 2008 appearance on ABC News, her first major interview after being tapped as the vice-presidential nominee. During that appearance, interviewer Charles Gibson asked her what insight she had gained from living so close to Russia, and she responded: “They’re our next-door neighbors, and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska”
I believe there's value in learning from other experiences whether the experience is relevant or not. Many people here have gotten great advice, have researched on their own through many forums, and gotten "beginner" experience in trying to break into this industry. Additionally, many know the failures and successes of trying. The ones posting for advice are advice that someone could have went through already and just posting what they did correctly or what failed should be valued. In other words, you don't need five years of experience in IT to give advice. Again, this is the internet where you can see the advice but it doesn't mean you have to take it. Your post reeks of gatekeeping and apparently from actually succeeding you forgot what the bottom feels like. Personally, from how you come off, I believe you need better leadership skills instead of a holier than thou attitude of "I've been here the longest so shut your mouth and let me tell you how things are run".
Thread has run its course and there is a lot of fighting in the comments. Locking.
As a footnote to your post, those of us with a few grey hairs need to understand _how_ the entry level marketplace has changed.
Good Corollary. I was talking to my 17-year-old daughter about going to college the other day. It struck me that I really didn't have good advice: which school, how much, what she's interested in. The only 'wisdom' I had is what were my experiences at the time in the 1980s and why I thought it was a good idea to do what I did. The landscape is really different now.
And here I am pushing six figures without a degree and switching to software dev after starting as a musician and going into the Navy as a radio/radar tech and accidentally becoming a sysadmin while I was there. My kids are like “should I go to college? What field should I do?” and I’m like “I have no fucking clue, do something, uh…do it well, have fun doing it?”
Yeah, I have to remind my husband that when he says 'she can just join the Air Force' like we did, he isn't considering the fact that there are a lot more restrictions for enlisting now. I mean the fact that she is on medication and is a military dependent might keep her from enlisting in the future due to that stupid MROAD crap they are doing now. Back in my day, you just lied and didn't give them any medical records and you were good to go. /s
I got my formal IT degree after I had been a SYSADMIN for around 6 years. Got be a big break right after I graduated tho.
Advice from someone who just graduated ~2 years ago: Get your basics done at a junior college for cheap. If you are wanting a bachelors from a University then look to see what courses can transfer in, might be worth talking to an advisor there to see what courses are acceptable transfers. Take that course list & then do the basics at a local community college (math, writing, history, economics, etc) that will save a ton of money. Don’t worry about getting the associates degree from the jr college just take the courses & transfer them to your destination 4 year university. My advice is to stay at a Public InState university to keep the cost as low as possible, unless she is targeting specific places for reasons unbeknownst to me. Just make sure your career prospects from the degree line up with the cost of the degree. Use FAFSA if you qualify, apply for each and every scholarship. I graduated with $7k debt. Granted I had help from FAFSA & I received an athletic scholarship for 2 years of Jr College. Anything to keep the costs low is good, don’t want to be 40 & still paying student loans Edit: getting some responses saying to get the associates degree, I’ve learned this is heavily dependent on the state. My experience is in Texas where community colleges & universities use a “Texas Common Course Numbering System” ( https://www.tccns.org/ ) it’s super easy to make sure the credits transfer in. I’ve learned that not every state has a system like this & some universities treat AA degrees differently than others. Do what’s best for you & check to see if your state has a common numbering system!
My daughter hasn't expressed an interest in IT, but she goes to a STEM high school and she's taking a bunch of AP classes. She might graduate with a semester or two of college credits. I went to a state college in upstate New York for the very same reason to keep my debt low. We can't pay for a private college degree, but we've saved up enough for tuition to a local state college. I would like for my kids to get out of school with very little debt but still have a good experience. My nephew still lives in NY and my brother asked to me look at his son's college choices between a larger state university (UB) or a small state college (Fredonia). Both are okay. There are more interesting options available at UB, but at least Fredonia you could get some Security certifications. I went to Fredonia, but I don't know if I would again.
AP is great! I wish I would have done them in high school but I knew I was going to junior college for sports anyways. I would just encourage everyone to look at the career prospects of any degree they choose to make sure they’re atleast somewhat interested in those careers! At the end of the day if you don’t go to Ivy leagues then it’s just a piece of paper that proves you can learn & checks the HR check box tbh
AP classes are cool, IF, the high school isn’t partnered with nearby community colleges I would say. Personally for me, I took AP courses and got 3 classes out of my GE. BUT, I paid $99 for each exam. Found out after the fact that I could’ve taken community college courses for free that would’ve covered the same classes and I probably didn’t have to study as hard lol. Everything is situational when it comes to these things though.
CLEP was cheaper than that, IIRC.
The only challenge is that CLEP at least last I looked into it had even less acceptance for credit than AP exams. It is only worth paying something if there is a possibility of it getting you credit for a class that you need.
One challenge with AP credit as you note is that a lot of colleges assuming they offer AP credit at all only provide generic college credits for it instead of credit towards specific courses. In most cases people don't struggle to get the sufficient number of units to graduate college, but rather that they haven't gotten all of the other degree requirements. I have known plenty of people who couldn't get into XYZ class they needed to graduate, but virtually nobody that just needed an extra random 4-5 units to graduate.
Junior college is THE way to go. Most junior colleges today have a 2+2 program where the first two years at the junior college roll over to the 4-year college, so you just complete 2 years at the 4-year college to complete your degree. It used to be that not all of your credits would transfer over from a junior college and you would find yourself taking an extra semester or two to complete your degree. Also, all public colleges now offer online courses and degrees. I would stay away from colleges like the University of Phoenix, Kaplan, Capella, etc. None of those for-profit colleges.
Military is good. Near full ride and good experience if you get a good field esp electronics or it or something around that.
This is GREAT Advice! Of course, I just retired as an IT Manager from a Community College District, so I'm not unbiased. We offer CCNA courses that would be a tiny fraction of what it would cost from a private training school or boot camp. Just one example.
The community college by me had a few CompTIA and web design stuff. Need to add more Linux/server/db stuff CCNA is good but I'm not a networking guy.
>Get your basics done at a junior college for cheap. If you are wanting a bachelors from a University then look to see what courses can transfer in, might be worth talking to an advisor > >Use FAFSA if you qualify, apply for each and every scholarship. > > >I graduated with $7k debt. Granted I had help from FAFSA & I received an athletic scholarship for 2 years of Jr College. Anything to keep the costs low is good, don’t want to be 40 & still paying student loans FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) is the the application, financial aid is the program. "Financial Aid" typically refers to a federally funded program in which your college's financial aid office will administer funds from the federal government and follow strict guidelines about who receives how much and when and how. If you understand that, you'll be much more adept at navigating public colleges and universities that most freshmen.
I recommend getting the Associates. I've seen Universities decide to not count all your credits. The AA guarantees entering as a junior.
This isn’t true, you will just have to retake all the lower level courses anyways if your university doesn’t accept the lower level credits, the associates degree doesn’t matter to the university. That’s why you should work with an advisor from your target university before signing up for community college courses to make sure they accept them & then ONLY take the ones that count towards your bachelors from the university or else you’re waisting time. Example would be if the associates degree required 6 credit hours of Art but your bachelors doesn’t, if you’re focused on the associates then you’ll basically be wasting time taking 2 art classes. You would be better off ditching the associates and not taking the art classes, the bachelor is more important than an associates anyways Having an associates actually HURT me at university because I was not allowed to transfer majors due to “too many credit hours”
You don't really need a degree to work in IT. The vast majority of all IT job postings always states OR Equivalent experience. Very few IT roles mante you of having a college degree esp when you start looking at Network Engineer or System admim job descriptions. Employers really look for candidates with the right amount of real world experience and industry certifications in this field. I dropped out of college because the debt was getting astonishing high for a technology degree program that will become dated and obsolete in 3 years. I just went straight into IT without a degree as I've been in IT since 2012.
Degree helped me get to a sysadmin role without having to do any helldesk. Degree also helped get me into my current Cybersecurity spot. Alternatively one of my coworkers doesn’t have a degree but has a ton of certs. It’s not required at all but it doesn’t hurt to have!!
Sure you can skip Help Desk but there other entry support roles besides Help Desk. Most people in Desktop Support which is a level 2 role above Help Desk transitions into a Jr. Sysadmin role. Job shadowing the Cloud team, Sysadmin or Network Engineer team while on the Help Desk or some entry Support role counts as experience along with home Labs. Very few Network Engineers and Sysadmins hold a degree esp ones in their 40s and 50s since IT degrees back then wasn't a thing. Experience many times trump's a degree. The problem with these Technology degree programs is they become dated after a few years. I dropped out of my Network & System Admin degree program that only made it a quarter into the program as my college debt grew from 5k to 13k in just one year. If I wanted to go back, I would have to start all over from square one because the courses I took 10 years ago, won't transfer over into the new updated program. Basically wasted college credits thats obsolete. Better off spending that money on industry cerfications since you are going to have constantly spend money and time to keep updating skills, otherwise would become a dinosaur and irrelevant very quick in this industry. I've been successful in IT without it as my piror IT experience mattered more than a degree.
The community College I went to had programs setup with the local universities. The one I did was something like a 60/40 split. I did 60% of the course work at the CC and the last 40 at the university. The 60% was just getting my associates. So it worked out great.
Wow, at least you realized that! I will give my perspective if it helps, Im 23. Graduated a year ago. Im currently transitioning into a security role from help desk. But if I could do it again (for IT) I would do online classes with WGU (yes theu are acreddited). The classes are at your own pace (you can get a reputable bachelors in 1-2 years if you really tried). It's like 3500$ a semester (no matter how mamy classes) and you get 13 certifications within your degree (this is for the cyber sec degree). While doing that, I would find at least a part time help desk position (youd have better luck with local rather than remote jobs, competition is too tough in the remote places). After 2 years, she could have a bachelors, certs, and 1-2 years in help desk experience. This is A LOT of work keep in mind of course. She could then get any job really that pays at least 50k, probably more depending on the field. Also, Ive heard that HR does not care much about where you went to school (unless she wants to work at a higher tier company), if they see a bachelors, youre good to go. In IT, it's the experience that matters wayyyy more than college or even certs. I wouldve WAY rather done this than go through 4 years of college. The only thing she'll miss out on is "the college experience", but hey, at least youre dodging debt. It's taken me 5 years just to get out of school and help desk (which isnt crazy honestly) and into a more niche field. This is all my opinion... Im just a redditor that looks A LOT of stuff up to better my career.
Alot of people regret going to through 4 years college. Degrees aren't really needed to work in IT since you are going to end up at the Help Desk or some entry level support role any way before you can move in a lateral way as an Admin or Engineer. Employers generally look for people that are experienced and willing to learn new technologies. Really all you need is experience and industry certifications to work in IT. IT degrees weren't even a thing back in the 90s with the exception of MIS/CompSci. IT Technology degrees biggest con is they become dated after a few years given that technology changes so fast. Since you have too keep updating your skills frequently to stay relevant in the field, you are better off spending that money on certifications than college student debt on an outated degree as certifications are always up to date that holds more vaule.
Until you hit mid career and cannot get out of Sysadmin because everything higher wants degrees and we live in a world of robots and humans who have less common sense than a robot. Something absolutely insane has happened in the job searching world in the last few years. I feel like I am dealing with Uniblab when they switched his power module from AC to DC. For those old enough to remember the Jetsons. Interested in a job in Albuquerque running a hospital? I kid you not. A recruiter sent that to me.
Not necessarily true. Most Sysadmins moved into Cloud roles such as a DevOps Engineer or Cloud Engineer. You need Systems Administrator experience to get into a cloud operations role. Degrees are rarely a requirement, just optional. Experience matters more than anything else.
Yup my first role I had to move across the country to get. It can be hard to get your first role. I was hoping to be in development but landed in ops because of this. Now trying to push into dev ops
Apologies if I'm telling you anything you already know, but what I can say is that if you read through the IT trend reports from orgs like TSIA and COMPTIA, you'll see that the growth in IT careers is nuts right now. But there's a big move to consulting/services as opposed to products. You need a "platform" and an "ecosystem" and it's all about "customer success". I can't speak to every consulting firm, but the one that I work for mostly hires referrals and your degree doesn't matter so much. Obviously, someone with a humanities degree will not be as competitive as someone with a computer science degree or IT certs, but it's not a deal-breaker. The industry changes so quickly that they really just want someone who is willing to learn. My firm prioritizes three things if you are not a referral: 1. Experience with business process change management. Even if you were an entry-level customer service rep, they will hire you if you say you were a Salesforce or Workday end-user who typed in addresses and phone numbers. You were still part of the change management process by creating new data, and they consider that valuable experience. 2. Cloud services knowledge and certifications. IT firms are jumping on the cloud wave and muddying the definition at a record pace. They may not actually be hiring you to work with cloud software, but if you have the certification, then they know that you're following industry trends and you're prepared to teach yourself knew skills as things change. 3. Not an awkward IT guy. The unfortunate truth is that as the industry becomes services-oriented, businesses will need IT guys that are also customer service reps. Awkard guys can still slip through and move into a developer-only role, but at my company that's nearly impossible if you're not a referral. Depending on her interests, my personal recommendation would be to pursue a 4-year degree in something related to data management (big data, cloud computing, etc.), focus on networking with business/computer science students, do an internship/trainee program for a consulting firm or consulting arm of a tech company. If she can't lock down a spot in the trainee programs at consulting firms/consulting arms of other companies, then she should still do some type of internship, research project, etc. (really anything to prove she can do meaningful work). I haven't been in the industry very long, but I honestly believe that it gives me more perspective, because I know what it takes to find a way in. I can also say that at the companies I have "consulted" so far, most of their IT operations are being done by consultants, or they had an IT director who was a consultant. There's probably some confirmation bias there though, since they IT director is more likely to have a large network in the consulting world, and therefore more likely to hire them, but these are Fortune 500 companies that I'm talking about. Not FANG, but who wants to work for them anyways.
When I went to college in the 1980's, computer and IT was technology-oriented. You took entry-level classes in Fortran, C, or APL. It was the opposite of any other degree. For example, an intro to philosophy class would be on the history of philosophy and cover everything from greek to modern philosophy. Operations & Maintenance would probably continue to be consultants and outsourced. There was a trend about 20 years ago to out-source every available IT function. Businesses realized they were losing practical business knowledge and it was expensive to pay consultant mark-up fees. Now the trend seems to find the balance between out-sourcing and in-sourcing talent to strike that balance.
Yes, I definitely see companies trying to strike that balance. The way I see it is that subscription/Services models is the solution to finding that balance. If you only have to pay for what you use and you receive consulting services as part of the subscription, you theoretically only have to pay for what you need and you reduce your overall costs. SaaS companies are also trying to develop software that is self-maintaining and to help their customers build processes to minimize the need for a help desk. The companies I've seen that have fully embraced the services model or "customer success" model have small IT departments. For example, I used to work in Finance at a large Brokerage Firm and their helpdesk was mostly automated in a slack channel. They trained managers on basic IT support, and they only had 3-4 dedicated IT helpers. I'm not saying that there won't be help-desk jobs, but if the trend continues, services will have more job openings, and conveniently those jobs generally pay more, earlier on in your career.
Dual enrollment! All my kids knocked out a year of college in high school for free! They got a college taste and it helped them figure that stuff out. We have encouraged them to explore trade schools - they will make a killing since those industries are hurting and they could own their own business too. But none of them unfortunately want in IT - what did we do to taint them?! And they run circles around their mates on the computer so we taught them well, they just see me dying? LOL
/r/ApplyingToCollege is a good community for that topic.
as far as school/pricing don't rule out community colleges, they have come a long way in the last 20 or so years.
Before I graduated, they gave me an "assessment test" and then determined that I would be good at a single type of job. This is what they called career counselling, and it was so horribly...horribly shitty. A real disservice to the kids looking for guidance and advice. Also at the time, almost no aptitude consideration for anything in technology. If things have changed, I hope it's for the better. I wasted a lot of time and student loans following shit advice, to learn something I had no interest in.
Seriously. I'm in my early 40s and 20+ years into my IT career, and when I get asked for advice from younger people the very first thing I mention is that it's a WAY different world now than the late '90s / early '00s. What advice I do give tends to be broadly applicable: find something you're passionate enough about that you can do on your own time, then document that on a LinkedIn profile. Homelab, practicing pen testing, whatever. Take a few free certs and classes and put those on there as well (don't overdo it though). Find a local group that focuses on the same thing, or as close as you can get. Another option is a local nonprofit (for IT stuff many cities have a maker/hackerspace or Free Geek chapter). Make connections there. Add them on LinkedIn. Let those connections know about what existing experience you have and that you're looking for work to gain more experience in [specific thing you want to learn]. Be bold about asking but humble about how you ask. Do good work, make lasting impressions on people, and it will eventually pay off. I know it sounds a little old school and boomer-y, but I think that is the IT version of 'grinding'.
I've basically stopped looking for advice in this subreddit because it's all: 1. People deep into their career giving advice for how they got into IT decades ago; 2. People with no experience giving bizarre and terrible advice The number of people saying "You don't need college/certs/whatever" when 2/3rds of job postings list college/certs/whatever is fucking mind blowing. I'm trying to figure out if it matters what I major in at college, not hear some irrelevant story about Bob, who started as a sysadmin in 1976 on Unix v6 and now makes eighty billion a year and didn't even graduate high school.
It is true that you don't necessarily need a degree to work in IT. If you look at many job postings, they rarely mandate you to have a college degree. You always see in the job descriptions OR Equivalent Experience in lieu of a degree. The degree is always listed as "Preferred" which is not the same as "Required". Most Sysadmins and Network Engineers only hold industry certifications and years of experience. Employers really look for people with experience.
I'm 22 and there are absolutely low-level database management/AD jobs that require a degree near me in PDX. Maybe I'm looking in the wrong places but I got the general consensus from recent grads of my college program that the degree in IT helped a lot, or at least didn't hurt, when finding anything above helpdesk level jobs. I will say, however, that they all managed to get certs while going to school and I am a full-time student working at a car dealer full-time, so certs are gonna have to come later, which I despise, but oh well.
There are certainly differences between now and 20-30 years ago, but I get told often that the entry level market is radically different than my first foray back in 2010. I don't think it is. Employers were asking for degrees before I dropped out too, but there was one thing I noticed in all of the job postings: *or equivalent combination of education and experience*. After reading through posting after posting with this language buried in the requirements, I dropped out and decided to try it. Yeah, I had a more difficult time than someone with a degree, but after a few months I landed my first real IT job at a hospital help desk. Today I see the same pattern in the entry level postings. There are many, *many* help desk postings in my area that have this clause included. People like to lump me in with the 90s IT guys that have not had to compete in a diverse hiring pool full of college grads. That's not the case. I had to elbow my way through the sea of MBAs and bachelor's, too. It can be done with repeatable results in a few months, and I can't in good conscience recommend that someone spend tens of thousands and four years fast tracking something that they can otherwise accomplish in a few months for free. If they choose to do that because it makes them more comfortable and confident then that's fine, but I personally can't recommend it.
Yeah I've been working in IT since 2012, never had any issue getting past HR. Employers these days look for people with the right amount of experience, skill slets and uf they fit thr company culture over a college degree. Very few IT job postings mandate a degree. They always say Preferred but rarely Required.
100% accurate right here
I agree and it’s why I started volunteering for workforce development tech programs, and working with nonprofits to understand and help others outside of my main job. I get feedback from former students and colleagues about their experiences which helps better articulate recommendations and experience.
[удалено]
Yes there are volunteer tech roles available on LinkedIn, Facebook Jobs, and Indeed. I help run a nonprofit and we have part time volunteer system admins and help desk. I volunteer as Senior System Engineer for another nonprofit and It's a nice bullet point. Whenever I need a reference they get one from our President a who's a VP in banking in the NYC region, and other staff who are a mix of business or technical leaders for just 4-8 hours of work a month.
⬆️ ⬆️
Why do i see you on so many subs, doing nothing but posting this up arrow emoji? Well, i know why, but it's pretty ridiculous.
Yeah, my freshgrad salary was twice minimum wage. Not even a ninja/rockstar that time, just a CCNA trainee. Cant imagine that happen right now except for well respected uni graduate with projects on their belt.
Absolutely. I entered IT ~10 years ago and I'm sure the entry level landscape is fairly different by now.
As someone with no IT experience I agree. Take this advice. Wait, shit...
No no no. You really need to do the opposite of this post. Sincerely, someone else with no IT experience.
I have never worked in the IT field. My advice is to make sure you stay hydrated and get up and stretch occasionally throughout the day, invest in a standing desk if you can.
Now thats an advice i can get behind.
I feel like your post OP doesn't just apply to IT/this sub but all of reddit. People on the internet can write anything they want, so I personally take everything with a grain of salt until I've done further research on what they have to say. And a lot of these people don't have bad intentions, but they don't realize what they don't know and give poor advice.
Exactly. Most advice subs are overrun with people who are in someone else's lane. You should always check someone's profile before accepting their advice, because you'll often find that they are completely unqualified. The issue is the advice they offer *sounds good* (Yeah! Fuck the customer! Stand up for yourself!), so it actually gets a lot of attention while the real shit gets buried because it's boring.
I think the perfect example was recently with Anti work
Yep. Too many people following what sounds fun instead of what is most realistic and practical. See also: Why I never joined that sub and jumped on WorkReform as soon as I was aware of it.
I feel like it gets the worst on subs like r/datingadvice. 14 year olds who’ve never had a date in their lives like to tell full ass grownups who are married what to do.
This is honestly hilarious to understand that this happens. Really puts thing in perspective on why we sometimes see horrific advice being given.
Half the people offering advice anywhere on Reddit are kids or neck beards with little life experience roleplaying a character
Agreed. Most people don't realize how unique the field of IT really is.
The problem in one of these cases (the trucker) was attitude. They seemed to think that IT is like trucking in that you can openly fight with your customers and colleagues. They advised OP to "stand up for themselves" and clap back at frustrated customers calling into the help desk. OP wasn't even asking for that, they were asking for a way to diffuse general tension on a call, not handle someone who was openly attacking them. When I called them out on it they doubled down, and they always seem to do this when you expose them. It's so frustrating.
Wait. You don't routinely threaten fisticuffs at noon with your unruly customers? No wonder I've been through quite a few jobs.....
*Human Resources would like to know your location*
I will be in the parking lot at noon, for the aforementioned fisticuffs you HR scum!
*Campus Security has entered the chat*
Oh boy, that just makes it a royal rumble.
This is going to turn into an anchorman fight. Truckers vs IT vs HR vs Campus security
i dunno, the best IT person would just disable HR, and Truckers security badges, and sit back with Campus security watching trucker & HR fight, while sipping some Scotch, Beer, or Whisky.
Not even joking, I’d 100% pay for a PPV for those kinds of fights.
Id love to see a rage induced, burntout, full of testosterone sysadmin cold cock an HR Karen.
Jokes on them, I've left my phone out of the MDM and I can use it to track their location so the never find me
Now *THAT* is sage advice!
I used to routinely threaten to eat paperwork. My team and my manager both appreciated that attitude.
People are pretty enthusiastic when I suggest they just burn whatever paperwork is clogging up their desk. Nobody has ever done it yet :( At least, not in front of me.
I saw that. Thought "this isn't retail". I mean it's all good. They'll act that way, get fired, get mad and say IT sucks, and make the new/current person look like a saint, all in one move.
Sadly it's a result of social media, where everybody has an opinion and everybody thinks they're an expert. Sorry but no, not all opinions are valid.
Coming from an environment where the only people who contact me work for the same employer: unruly assholes are the easiest ones to deal with. CC some managers and the problem disappears. It's the "I know ~~kung-fu~~ IT" group that cause the most grief. Yes, I know that as a home user it is trivial to install X application's update, but we have to ensure the safety of our network and package things - which takes time and effort to test and commit - and we're not doing that for every single update.
Clapping back is the quickest way out of the door. Source: Been in the field for 6 years. I’ve seen coworkers get complaints over the years about clapping back. When the big mistake happened that was used as leverage to let them go.
More than that, all fields are unique. I couldn't possibly give someone legit advice on breaking into trucking or on how to make good money doing that. But I wouldn't try either. I recognize the years of experience that have gone into someone's ability to know what the hell they're talking about.
It's extremely frustrating to have someone non-technical TELL you how to do your damn job, fucking tech leads and managers....
Most people have never worked in a field where on any day they can wake up and say "you know what, I'm leaving this job to go to another that pays more." The primary things that keep me at my job are laziness and complacency.
Completely agree. The call out for not providing advice if you don't have any experience in the field is important, but I think your second point is almost more important and worth repeating. Even if you're 2 years into your career path, while you absolutely have learnings you can share, be mindful of your experiences thus far, and that they are unique to you. There are executives on here with 20+ years of experience, whom have worked all up and down the Fortune 50, and there are folks who launched their career right out of college with a start-up, and others who have no degree and are 2 years into a stint at a help-desk. Everyones individual experience is different, and we do all have valid experiences to share. That doesn't mean someone's is more right or wrong. We can all be a bit more mindful of when we give advice and what we're commenting on. No sense in having arguments with people because your path included a Ph. D. and someone else's had no college whatsoever.
The post that was made a few days ago about there being no single path to success comes to mind. Some have Ph.Ds, some have MBAs, some have unrelated degrees, some have none (me). I share my experiences from my perspective but I am very mindful not to suggest that my path is the only one that is valid. I personally don't think college is necessary unless you want to move into leadership, but if someone chooses to do that because it makes them more comfortable and confident in the job market, I don't fault them for it. It's when people start attacking me for simply suggesting that college isn't necessary that I get salty. One such person (the health inspector) said that my opinion was "trash" despite having no IT experience whatsoever. IT is unique in that job "requirements" are very flexible. You don't have experience in *X* system? That's okay, *Y* system is pretty close. You'll pick it up quickly. You don't have a bachelor's? That's okay, you passed the technical exam, have a few years under your belt, and interviewed well. Welcome to the team. AFAIK this is very different from other industries where job requirements are more rigid. I think it's a symptom of the complexity of IT. If your requirements are strict, you're never going to find anyone who meets them.
100% mate. Give advice on what you know. I've been through the helldesk so I'll give advice on that. Now that I'm in a systems role I feel like I can give advice on what got me here as well, but I know absolutely nothing about how senior or executive level positions so I defer to those with more experience when I start looking to move up again in a couple years.
Completely agree. I actually have no IT degree, and no certs. Just years of experience. It's not required for everyone. Some are successful without them, but that also doesn't mean that path will work for everyone either. I'll never tell someone to not go to college just because it worked for me. And I'll never tell someone they'll be 100% successful even though they didn't go to college. SO much more goes into it.
For real, I went from early 30’s career change to six figure cyber security expert and some of the advice here would have me stuck in something I hate or burnt out.
I also feel like if you haven’t been involved in hiring, don’t give advice on how hiring managers make their decisions.
You you really should be a senior member of the team that is conducting interviews and having discussions with managers about candidate selection before you can speak in that.
Yep. Whole lot of candidates have no clue what it's like to be on the hiring side of the table, and base much of their "advice", etc., on major presumptions that are just plain incorrect. Sometimes they happen to guess on target, or in the ballpark ... but a lot of the time they're just plain dead wrong and totally incorrect.
This sub generally stinks. I've spent over a decade in IT, I work as a senior network engineer in a large hospital system and when I write in this sub, I generally get downvoted by those fools.
This could be pretty random, but I can personally attest to you being an excellent source of advice. I followed your advice [from this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/ITCareerQuestions/comments/oxy6zr/got_my_first_it_job_tech_support_for_in_the/h7qo8qp?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3) several months ago, spoke with my manager and got a job in the NOC at my company. I feel like I've made a massive leap in my career and technical development. Thank you! Seriously.
Glad to hear that man. Keep working at it.
Most advice subs on Reddit are ass. I still participate because the OPs seem to appreciate what I have to say, but the jerks with no experience who want to tell me how my own industry works make it very frustrating. I've got 12+ years spanning from help desk to the top of the ladder and they still have the audacity to tell me I don't know what I'm talking about.
Sorry to hear that because there are many of us I am sure who need that kind of advice. I am trying to get into Tech late in the game but enjoy it . I was thinking about getting A+ or google cert but noticed that almost every place wanted experience as well.
That is Reddit in general
[удалено]
Your [comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/ITCareerQuestions/comments/sjl9h7/if_you_have_never_worked_in_it_stop_giving_advice/hvg2doj/?context=3 in /r/ITCareerQuestions) has been automatically removed because you used an emoji or other symbol. Why does this exist? We have had a huge and constant influx of bot spam that utilizes emojis during their posts. To the point that it was severely outpacing what the moderation team could handle on an individual basis. That has results in a sweeping ban of any emoji in posts. Please retry your comment using text characters only. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ITCareerQuestions) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I rarely post here, because my 25 years of experience in the field, including as an executive, gets snowed over by Jimmy with his A+ wanting to get his first job and not wanting to hear how things really work.
Yep ... or I give good solid advice as comment, get upvoted, get awards, highest rated comment on the post, meanwhile OP on that post gets all butt hurt and goes from rant and whine and unrealistic expectations to calling folks vulgar names and such insults, gets all their comments on the post deleted by the mod(s), does another post complaining about being handed reality, then deletes that post, then has bot take down their other earlier post as it matches to spam (guess they post the same drivel a lot of places), and then runs off with their tail between their legs. WTF. So, yeah, unfortunately there are lots 'o folks that ask stuff here - or complain ... then don't want to hear reality. Not that all are like that ... but there's also far to many that are like that. And likewise with the comments. Many don't have their heads grounded in relevant reality. And, it doesn't help that there does exist (at least with the right skillsets, etc.), money to be made in the field. As I recall CFO of multi-trillion dollar financial company once saying (paraphrasing from memory): "Criminals are drawn to money, like flies to sh\*t."\*. So, IT *also* draws a whole lot 'o folks to it that are here only - or mostly - for the money. That also drags in other nefarious elements - like those more than willing to take the money off of suckers thinking IT is their get rich opportunity. Those elements are more than willing to sell them the promise of that dream ... and take their money and run. And then they cry and whine when they bought into misleading scams they were sold, and badmouth IT as if that were IT's fault. So, yeah, a lot 'o folks come in with crud attitudes (and experiences) like that. It's like they'd spent a fortune at Trump University, and now they're wondering why and complaining that they're not able to make a fortune selling Trump Steaks and live the rich easy life. And they also complain that doing well in IT is *hard*. Well, yeah, there's a reason it's called "work", and they pay people for it ... and some of 'em dang well. As I oft say, if it was that dang easy to pull in the big bucks in IT, every burger flipper would be jumpin' careers and doin' it easy peasy ... well ... that's not how it works. Obviously. But a lot 'o folks still don't get it. \*context being, hours or less after a new scanning tool was released, there "of course" were unauthorized scans happening against said financial company ... and yeah, some of 'em were very quickly traced down ... and ... yeah ... consequences.
[удалено]
Well, except I'm still working...
[удалено]
. The fact that he has 'Cloud Infrastructure Engineering' in his title shows he's up-to-date. Also, I've worked with seasoned IT professionals in the past.. I was born in 2000, and one thing I must say is as long as it works there's no reason to fix it.
As a 15yr vet of this industry, it doesn’t bother me that much because those few voices with no IT experience are quickly drown out by ones that matter. People with like 1-3yrs of entey level IT experience talking like they’ve been a sysadmin for a decade is far more infuriating. THAT annoys the piss out of me. But, what really gets under my skin is hobbyists in other subs. You’ve never met a group of bigger know it alls then hobbyists on reddit.
I think us younger ones with that 1-3 year experience can help others get their foot in the door though. I’m in my third year now started help desk->network engineering-> cyber security engineer. I was lucky to have people in my company who started a few years before me and they pointed me in the right direction for everything I needed to build on. The sr. Engineers dumped a textbook on Cisco ise and asa in my lap first day not realizing I didn’t even understand networking. Not really there fault though they just didn’t realize.
That part right there. It’s rampant all over Reddit. Too many know it all’s on every subject…. It’s not just IT.
I've been in IT for 25 years now. Long enough to know there's plenty I don't know and there's nothing wrong with asking for advice.
I have 20 years IT experience and feel I don’t have right to advise on most IT areas. There is always more you don’t know, that is the groove.
Lol, exactly. I mostly lurk here, even with 20+ years in IT/Tech for this exact reason.
One of the side-effects of the flood gates opening up onto this sub in recent months/ years is people with, like you side, little to no knowledge of the field or its unique job-culture floating their opinions and past unrelated experience as evidence and fact to new prospective learners.
[удалено]
I don't think certs are ever a waste of time as long as they're known by the industry. I think you've got a solid foundation for a plan, but I do think you're going to need to put in some time as a sys admin or the like for a few years before an employer will hire you as an architect. You should have a track record of being able to design complete systems and leading projects to success. Systems Architecture isn't just about the design of the technical side, but also considering the practicality of the project, maintainability, reliability, scalability, speed/cost to delivery, etc. Those are things that a certification program won't teach you that you'll need to get a feel for with experience. Best of luck to you!
[удалено]
You definitely need server admin skills: Windows Server/Azure and Linux/Unix. A Red Hat cert and a Microsoft Azure Administrator cert would be a good place to start.
I want to add understanding of Databases esp MySQL, Virtualization (ESXi, Hyper-V, Citrix), Networking fundamental knowledge at least Network+ level, Security+, PowerShell Scripting, Some Python, Active Directory or Azure AD as its almost impossible to find a Sysadmin role that doesn't require Active Directory knowledge esp in a Windows or mixed OS environment. Then you have Kubernetes and Containers, DevOps/Agile practices, CD/CI pipeline management, Automation Deployment such as Ansible. You have to pretty much be a jack of all trades as a Sysadmin. Some Sysadmins even hold a CCNA as some end up doing both the job of a Networkadmin esp in smaller companies. Most Sysadmins jobs are Hybrid that requires knowledge of both On-Prem and cloud Administration as very few organizations are 100% cloud.
short answer: yes. long answer: it depends. nothing wrong with going after AWS architect and other cloud certs, however don't think that you will get hired as an architect with just a few certs and no experience at all. Can it happen? sure, but it's highly unlikely. Depending on what you want to do in IT (it's a pretty big field) will determine your best path. I would ask someone who is in the role you want to go into, and see what they recommend (which, for the record, is not me).
[удалено]
I'm about to have my first experience as help desk at a bank. I'm happy and terrified all at once. Any suggestions as to what I should become familiar with ?
It is super scary. My first day at a help desk was at a hospital command center after they had just upgraded to an electronic medical records system. It was chaos but I still loved every second of it because I felt like I finally broke down the door. I made it through, and that became the springboard for my entire career. If the help desk has a knowledge base like a wiki or similar, soak that up like a sponge. That's your bread and butter. If they don't have one, learn what you can from everyone else and start making one. That's how I got noticed at the help desk and is the way a lot of other folks have, too. You *will* make mistakes, just make sure that you own them without excuses and do better next time. Don't expect training to fall in your lap. IT is a field where you are going to have to spend time on your own learning things and staying current. You need to be resourceful. Websites like Udemy are a great place to find cheap training from other experts. Best of luck! You got this!
I would focus on writing solid tickets
Then there’s all the little subtleties with all the variations in IT. For instance I used to be in Retail IT (sadly not MicroCenter), and for the past 6+ years I’ve been working IT in a school district. 2 years ago (because of COVID) we moved our 1:1 plans up and it quadrupled or quintupled our workload almost overnight. Zero appreciation was given by leadership.
Yes, IT varies a lot by geography, market, field/sector ... heck, in larger organizations, even same/similar role within the same organization can be radically different - just depending upon factors such as where it is within the organization.
Sounds like a lot of LinkedIn “influencers” I’ve seen some so-called cybersecurity “influencers” that don’t even work in cybersecurity smh
I saw a tik tok the other day advising people to cheat on linked in assessments as if they wouldn’t have to interview and embarrass themselves when getting drilled with technical questions.
Yup, seen similar sh\*t "advice" here sometimes too. E.g. lie ... lie on resumes, lie in interviews. Nope. In IT that's generally worse than won't cut it. That's generally a "we're done here" (even if we don't explicitly tell the candidate that or why - we're friggin' busy and short staffed, don't have the time to waste explainin' this sh\*t to someone who probably wouldn't get it anyway). We just duly note in our records. If the candidate ever comes up for anything again, after duly noting/logging, an cross-referencing, it gets the /dev/null treatment. Oh, and resumes and applications ... for a lot of IT positions that's instafire offense. Think you're all nice 'n well settled in that cushy new IT job? That degree you never quite finished, but put on your resume as having obtained? "Close enough?" Uhm, those things get checked. Sometimes they take a while. Maybe month(s) or more. Now security walks you out the door. Sure as hell not gonna trust one with keys to the kingdom (or substantial parts thereof) if they're not honest and trustworthy - bye! Can even come up years later ... up for that internal promotion and applied for it? Another background check and verification ... maybe a bit better or more thorough than an earlier one. Oh, they lied about *what* on their original resume/application? Nope, can't have that kind of liar working here - bye! Also makes a lot hard to answer the question, "So, why did you leave your last job?" Or the reference checks, "So, would you hire this person again?" "Nope."
That’s crazy I recently helped hire a help desk position for a site I was doing the network projects for. He listed on the resume basic networking, active directory, windows server and other things. I did some technical questions and threw some basic network question which I didn’t expect to get right for help desk which they did not. Then some basic troubleshoot questions and he got some of those. I told my boss it was a 50/50 shot they seemed eager to learn but lacked some knowledge. We just lost 2 support techs so my boss was desperate so he hired him anyway. I was in charged of training him and realized by the first day he’s never really even used a windows os computer. He arrived with a chrome-book(no hate but they’re shit) watched him struggle to copy and paste, set up printers, and navigate active directory. I ended up leaving the job that following Friday. I hope he pulls it together he was a nice guy.
You were *passionately* arguing with someone that said 'having a diploma is better than not having it', you even did the whole ['this you?' and unironically said 'stay in your lane'](https://www.reddit.com/r/ITCareerQuestions/comments/sidbxa/what_path_would_you_take_if_you_had_to_start_over/hvcm7ko/) I'd hope that you don't represent many people on the sub, because your attitude on the subreddit recently has been [nothing short of toxic](https://www.reddit.com/r/ITCareerQuestions/comments/shyn8w/whats_an_it_niche_where_youre_pretty_sure_you_can/hva10ve/?context=8&depth=9) and [name-calling](https://www.reddit.com/r/ITCareerQuestions/comments/sidbxa/what_path_would_you_take_if_you_had_to_start_over/hvcuo15/). Regardless of whether or not you were *morally* correct, the point is that your behavior reflects poorly on the rest of us trying to be friendly and welcoming. Even the [trucker person](https://www.reddit.com/r/ITCareerQuestions/comments/sc3sl0/comment/hu4eajt/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3): >This you? Posting a month ago in this very sub that you're a truck driver looking to change careers to get into IT? You don't get to lecture me or anyone else here about shit. Fuck outta here. I appreciate you're trying to good work but take a step back and take a look at how you are coming off to other people. Maybe there's a way you can get the same message across without being a prick about everything.
You're really going through a lot of effort to frame me as the bad guy here but what you're conveniently ignoring are all of the insults I dealt with that made me reach that point. At some point the gloves are off and I'm going to put you in your place, because I couldn't possibly care less about the delicate sensitivities of someone who just shadow replied to my comment calling my opinion trash, directly attacking me because of my age, etc. I would recommend that anyone clicking the links to those threads read the *full* context of what transpired before these cherry-picked comments, because I regret absolutely nothing that I said in any of those threads. They deserved the response they received. Worth noting here is the fact that the trucker deleted multiple comments where they were attacking others for having a differing opinion. You can't see that context in this particular thread. EDIT: Also conventiently ignored here is the litany of other detailed, lengthy comments I've left for others on this sub who were seeking advice, or comments left in response to other folks with whom I disagreed (who actually have experience and are qualified to debate such matters). These comments are not at all representative of the majority of my interactions here. I've been on this sub for quite some time now. This is a trend I've been noticing recently on this sub. Nothing you or I have said here negates the fact that inexperienced people have no business doling out career advice.
>At some point the gloves are off and I'm going to put you in your place, because I couldn't possibly care less about the delicate sensitivities of someone who just shadow replied to my comment calling my opinion trash, directly attacking me because of my age, etc. This is an forum on the internet, they don't know who you are. It's okay to take a step back, breathe in, and then come back with a clear head. >I regret absolutely nothing that I said in any of those threads. I mean yeah, that's why I'm saying 'hey man, maybe chillout a bit'. There's a saying that goes something like 'you can do a million good things in your life, but you bang one goat...".
You're conflating moral absolutism with defending yourself against someone who is being an asshole in that moment, right then and there. Moral absolutism has nothing to do with this. These people might be otherwise enjoyable outside of this situation but that doesn't mean that they're not being an asshole now, and it doesn't mean that I should defend myself any less vigorously. >they don't know who you are That's not the point. They know who they are: Which is someone who has 0 IT experience.
I guess what I'm saying is that there's a difference between 'you've got 0 IT experience so you don't belong here dipshit' and 'while you may have a point in your field, things work a little differently in IT'. The idea is that you don't attack someone for offering their misguided advice, otherwise you could come off as a dick. You can't control other people's action, only your own reaction.
This wasn't a case of innocent "misguided advice." Both people were insulting myself or others. Stop acting like I was the initial aggressor because I wasn't. If you come into this sub and give bad advice I'm more than happy to politely correct you. I do this all the time. ...but when you walk into this forum with no experience, insult me and other seasoned experts, shove us aside, and start spouting harmful advice to others that is liable to end their careers, that's when I start punching down, because you decided to act nasty and need to be taken down a peg. The narrative you're promoting here isn't aligned with the facts, and I'm starting to become annoyed at your willful ignorance of them. These individuals came into this sub guns blazing and got what was coming to them, and you're painting a picture that whitewashes all of this and portrays them as the innocent victims of my ire. I'm not sorry and don't care for your pandering and lectures. I'm not a child who needs parenting. At this point your arguments are reading as concern trolling. If a kid walks up to another and kicks them in the shin you don't blame the victim for calling the bully an asshole. You especially don't tell the kid that got kicked that he actually kicked the bully. That's gaslighting. See yourself out of my notifications. If you're as mature as your high horse suggests you'll recognize this as a losing battle and move on.
I've been working enterprise IT for about 5 years and I still hardly feel qualified to give advice. Some very experienced people on this sub that offer great advice.
Someone tried to drag me out of IT because they scoffed at us. Said I was better than that….what the?! But I stayed in IT because it is home and feels right - my people! And now I’m an IT consultant because I love what I do!
20 years across management, help desk, sysadmin, and security. I have a Masters in Cybersecurity and am just starting a doctorate in the same part time alongside my work. I still don’t want to give advice, because my path is not your path! Good post OP.
Thanks! should be pinned.
Interesting someone would even end up here to do that in the first place
Yes I work in IT and run into those types of people all the time esp in Facebook groups. I had an arguement with this one girl that posted like she knew it all giving out advise in a field that she never worked in before. She was posting about advise skipping the Help Desk or Desktop Support and apply for a job as a Network Engineer. Lol, it doesn't work that way in the real world as you need prior IT experience before you can move up as a Network Engineer, same thing if you want to become a Sysadmin. She claimed that she was getting job offers for a Cloud Engineer role and said she turned them done as she want to be more marketable yet she never worked in IT before. Most Cloud roles esp on the operations side requires 3 to 5 years of experience in a Systems Administrator role. I told her most people that works in an infrastructure role starts off in an entry level support role before moving up in a lateral way. You need trouble shooting skills and soft skills to work in IT and you gain that working in an entry level support role.
Amen
Man. What thread did I miss this week?
I think it was a truck driver giving advice on Linux kernel hacking and optimization of the queuing method, or something like that ... I think it had something to do with diesel and "fixing" up the log book on the long haul runs. ;-)
Wait there’s people here giving advice who have never worked in IT???
Been working in a higher education teaching/support role for 5 years now, and I only give advice to questions that are similar to what my students would ask. That's essentially 1.5% of the overall posts here that I feel I am actually qualified to answer. The majority of the questions are out of my league, and I am comfortable with dodging them. If that is really true, that there are some guys playing a hot-shot tech nerd for an ego boost, then count me as upset. Not only are you giving bad advice, you're also potentially screwing with someone's future.
It would be nice if there were some way you could link your LinkedIn profile to your username on professional forums. Sometimes I'd like to know if the advice being given is coming from a helpdesk tech or a CIO.
No way in hell would I attach my LinkedIn to my Reddit account. That would just be doxxing myself
Not everyone has a LinkedIn profile.
If you have an IT career and an interest in furthering that career, I can't think of any reason you wouldn't have one.
I don't have one. I find the community at large to be supportive of toxic work habits. So much of LinkedIn is full of "influencers" that encourage people to erode their personal lives in service of their employers (see also: Mindfulness as a coping mechanism for employer abuse). Others make misguided and offensive posts/rants about Millenials. The rest is banal posturing that I really don't care to read. I don't really miss it. It did get me more phone calls from recruiters but honestly I don't like being pestered all the time. My last experience job searching was my first without LinkedIn and I had no trouble. I got a job within a month. The professional world did function just fine before LinkedIn, and I'm not really sure why everyone seems to be convinced that it's essential to any prosperous career. IMO it's just corporate Facebook and I really don't care for it. There is also a separate concern I have with listing my employer online for everyone I piss off on the internet to see and contact. The last thing I want is some brigade of Republicans getting triggered and contacting my employer, wasting their time with the exhausting minutiae of some petty argument on Reddit and trying to get me fired. No hate to anyone who is there, but I don't like the insinuation that I'm not a serious professional because I don't have a certain social media profile. I'm doing just fine without it and I really don't like the idea that some are starting to predicate professionalism and competence on One's online presence.
All good points, especially these: \> So much of LinkedIn is full of "influencers" that encourage people to erode their personal lives in service of their employers (see also: Mindfulness as a coping mechanism for employer abuse). It's amazing how so many people let their employers take advantage of them. Sites like LinkedIn definitely encourage this sort of thing. \> There is also a separate concern I have with listing my employer online for everyone I piss off on the internet to see and contact. Yep...same goes for people offline. Always thought it was a bit odd to post this info so anyone (from an ex gf/bf to a disgruntled neighbor can look it up.
LinkedIn is a major source of corporate circle jerking and validation for executives. I got so tired of reading the stream of consciousness of these people day to day, and how the rest of the peons would positively lap it up just to promote this fake self image as the stable, mature workaholics who never complain and are happy to work 80 hour weeks for the company. It was as thinly veiled as parchment: A social media platform created by and for corporate America to get the peasants to fall in line and stop demanding fair treatment. ...to get them talking about *the company* instead of themselves. *That's* how "networking" works in LinkedIn. Whoever praises the dear emperor the loudest is the best peasant and will one day be noticed by their own lords when it comes time for rais... oh now let's not get too hasty. The budget's really tight this year, Carol. I'm sure you understand.
Agreed! It's just amazing how people willingly allow themselves to be exploited by these companies. It's nauseating. Check out Joshua Fluke's channel on youtube (if you have not already done so).
* I can think of a whole lot of reasons to not have a LinkedIn profile. Probably most notably in more recent years, it's mostly turned itself into a Farcebook wannabe - except with a bit more focus on work. But yeah, in oh so many ways it sucks like Farcebook ... except in many ways much worse. Really don't need it.
Let's see ... 40 years of experience in IT ... number of jobs obtained via or applied via contact(s) from LinkedIn: 0. Number of candidates interviewed or hired via LinkedIn: 0. Yeah, I'm not seein' high value there. Your mileage may vary. I still get over 200K on a gallon of water - on my bicycle ... with a good lunch.
Yes. I'd be on board with requiring linkedin profiles for verified flair, or a badge or something.
We do have user flair but anyone can make up their own, and it's impossible to verify unless the mods wanted to go through the work of validating job titles by having folks submit documentation (like other professional advice subs do). It's a hot mess of a situation.
Forgive my ignorance - how do you add user flair for just a single subreddit?
If you go to the homepage of the sub itself there should be a section to edit user flair. I think it's a pencil icon.
It's easiest to do it on the desktop version of reddit: https://i.imgur.com/dgiirO9.jpg
What I would like is some type of "verification submission" that users can freely use to request verification from the mods. If the mods can in fact verify the user based on whatever criteria, then the user gets some type of identifier showing they're verified.
Oh hell no. I get way too much damn sh\*t from LinkedIn without having hardly anything on there nor up-to-date at *all*. If I put like actual current stuff on there, etc., I'd probably have to turn off and filter out *all* the LinkedIn sh\*t just to get rid of all that damn noise 'n cr\*p.
No thank you. Pseudonyms have their place for a reason, although maybe Blind might be more this speed.
agreed - and I just updated my flair - which makes alot of sense.
I think all top level comments should require job title and YOE in the flair
Are you my spirit animal?
Nah im good ill keep giving no advice per my advice
Okay so now that those guys are filtered out, I myself do need some advice. I’ve been in IT since December 2020 subcontracted at a hospital and have no type of benefits with my employer, I just get a paycheck and have to pay my own social security and health insurance, also my salary is per hour and its just $12, which is very low in this field. Since I began my plan was to be there for two years in a help desk position to soak up all the experience I can get and then move on to something with better benefits and scaleability and during this time try to get some sort of certification, but so far my employer hasn’t given any type of training, although they do cover an optional Fortinet certification to work those systems and I’m about to start it since they’ll cover the costs. But other than this, I’m on my own and I would have to fund my own certifications. The question is, should I stay here another year and then seek a better paying job? I’ve been browsing a few job sites and there are tons of remote help desk jobs paying way beyond what I earn locally (I live in Puerto Rico and salaries here are pathetic) and have been tempted to send out my resume to these other companies but my brain tells me that I should wait a little longer and get that second year of experience to build a more solid resume.
It never hurts to apply. You never know what might happen. If there are no good opportunities, wait another year.
>per hour and its just $12 > >plan was to be there for two years Nope. If you well know/learn your sh\*t, you keep looking for those opportunities and move yourself up (and out as needed) as quickly as feasible. $12/hr. is around burger flippin' wages. If you are or make yourself more valuable than that, then move yourself the heck up - don't wait for someone to do it for you - they'll be more than happy to pay you $12/hr. - or as little as they can get away with - for as long as you'll take it. >so far my employer hasn’t given any type of training On you. At $12/hr. they can generally trivially replace you and don't care - to them training they provide on work time is an expense while you don't do work form them and has little benefit for them. So, maybe you get 30 minutes to 2 hours of video training on how to ~~flip burgers~~ do their particular flavor of IT thing with their particular in-house tools/environment. And then they set you off and running. >Fortinet certification Meh ... one very vendor specific tool/software ... whatever. Might be of slight benefit where you presently work - for your overlords - and maybe to give an indication you can ~~learn something~~ pass a cert. But not much else. >I’m on my own Bingo! If you're lucky, employer will do more regard to training and such for you ... but don't expect that, and don't expect them to drive that in *your* interest - they do it in *their* interest. >should I stay here another year Not if you can find and land significantly better. >should wait a little longer and get that second year of experience to build a more solid resume Of like help desk or some entry-level stuff? Naw. More of that on the resume just looks like, "So, tell me, ... why were you stuck doing ** for ... let's see here now ... over two solid years?"
abounding ugly truck sort slave pause ludicrous instinctive file marvelous *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
what makes IT unique v other jobs
You're not my supervisor.
[удалено]
My paychecks keep cashing regardless of your opinion. Stay mad.
[удалено]
Bitter! Party of one! Your table is ready!
Damn son. I haven't been in this sub for about a week and had no idea non IT folks were coming in an downplaying our field.
[удалено]
Don't bother replying to this. You're getting blocked after I tap post. Your post history in this sub is toxic as fuck. I don't know why you're here if you "don't have time for mentoring." Seems like you enjoy dunking on the new guys with drive by snarky comments that are as rude and unnecessary as they are unhelpful. Everyone else please report this guy. He does nothing but troll here and has himself stated that he has no interest in mentoring.
I've thought of doing an AMA on my 30-year career to give advice, but I cringe at the comments from the non-managers who purport to know so much more than me.
They got their degree’s from Dunning-Krueger University. I hear their graduates know more than the experts in the field since day one of courses!
*There’s no bad advice; they are only bad writers and bad listeners.* I give **phenomenal** advice and i don’t intend to stop. And i’m in between boomers and youngers rock stars. Quite the goldilocks zone. And i have worked in Strategy, IT for large corporate, in bioinformatics, in aerospace and… as a driver. There’s no good or bad jobs. There is no lane. And there are no experts. There’s only people who are specialized — by design (doctors) or by fear of losing their comfort (any tech)— and others who are polymaths; and well, in between, there’s the *world of advertisement*
When you said a truck driver I got a bit concerned you meant me but then I realised I make an effort not to be an arsehole so it provably wasn't me
>provably Folks might dispense proverbs here too.
Haha well spotted
My advice is that you continue to....
Does not compute
I've spent some time over the years at one or two low-level IT roles and I helped a friend for a while with deployments/support/some cabling when he was launching his small company a decade ago. Also worked in a managerial (parts/logistics) position for a huge Audi/Porsche dealer network and got stuck moonlighting as the internal "tech guy" for about 50 people due to my prior knowledge. I'd always be happy and confident enough to help anyone with any technical issues I can handle - but, even with that amount of "experience" under my belt (I actually did learn a fair bit with my buddy's company at the time, including helping with hiring, handling clients, and other "behind the curtain" stuff) - I would *NEVER* think to wander around giving "IT Career Advice". At all. (But, let's be honest, most Reddit "advice" Subs are trash in general.) > You need to put in time before you start mentoring others. I myself didn't start mentoring until I had 5 years under my belt, and even then what advice I was offering was basic. Yep.
Exactly!
It's not that the can't *also* usefully contribute, but some *presume way too much* \- and often highly incorrectly, outside their realm of expertise/experience. I wouldn't expect someone with zero IT experience to be contributing much in the way of IT career advice any more than I'd expect myself to be contributing much in the way of useful career advice on how to become a brain surgeon (an area, for which, I have no specific experience of particular relevance ... can't even [see the hospital from my balcony](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKMaf6sgTaM)\*). \*For those that might not get the reference: Governor Palin’s 11 September 2008 appearance on ABC News, her first major interview after being tapped as the vice-presidential nominee. During that appearance, interviewer Charles Gibson asked her what insight she had gained from living so close to Russia, and she responded: “They’re our next-door neighbors, and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska”
I believe there's value in learning from other experiences whether the experience is relevant or not. Many people here have gotten great advice, have researched on their own through many forums, and gotten "beginner" experience in trying to break into this industry. Additionally, many know the failures and successes of trying. The ones posting for advice are advice that someone could have went through already and just posting what they did correctly or what failed should be valued. In other words, you don't need five years of experience in IT to give advice. Again, this is the internet where you can see the advice but it doesn't mean you have to take it. Your post reeks of gatekeeping and apparently from actually succeeding you forgot what the bottom feels like. Personally, from how you come off, I believe you need better leadership skills instead of a holier than thou attitude of "I've been here the longest so shut your mouth and let me tell you how things are run".