My background.. I've just turned 27 and have been working as a 1st line support engineer for almost a year now. Previously I worked at CEX for 3 years as the main tester and previously worked odd jobs in the dock yard after finishing University with a 2:2 in computer games technology. Was so fed up with the job at CEX, it was a laugh it however but was going nowhere so thought I have to get out. Passed my driving and took my comptia A+, few months later got a call from an agency for an EPOS software + hardware company and here I am now. I am quite late on with getting a career started but my options were always, either get into the games industry or IT. Games industry isn't easy and my portfolio stuff doesn't keep as i'm my own worst critic so it gets deleted or binned. IT was hard to get into as I've only done IT at A level (C) and had no real work place related experience to back up my computer knowledge apart from my limited stuff at CEX and for friends. I now have this 1st line job which is great, nice friendly company and good experience, but I don't know where to go from here. I have looked at lots of other courses to take but its hard to know what qualifications to aim for. All I know is that I don't want to stay on first line. The work is fine but the constant phone calls are driving me mad! Speaking to customers and ringing them up is okay but I like to get into my work and it's hard when the phone is ringing every few minutes. Also the pay isn't too good. I'm on approx 15k which is much better than what CEX paid me but its still a struggle with money. I've had nothing but praise from my manager and peers who have said I've taken to the job extremely well and after 6 months I was closing the same amount if not more calls than people who had been at the company for way more years. I was just wondering if anyone can offer some advice on what I should to to focus my skills and aim to getting my salary up..eventually My job at the moment consists of: 1. Software base trouble shooting. Torex Epos software and in house software. 2. Hardware troubleshooting, usual PC stuff as well as special Till systems, chip pin pads, scanners, scales, label printers, receipt printers, switches and hubs etc 3. Windows problems. Sharing, permissions, networking, schedule tasks. General errors. 4. SQL. Database management, reports, investigating database errors. Most of this is done over the phone/e-mail with remote desktop logmein access. On occasion I do get out of the office and get to the use the company cars to visit sites for hardware installation, but this doesn't happen often.
Probably too much too read. Basically any advice on a useful course that I can consider to help me get out of first line. Or anyone here who's been stuck/is stuck in first line at the moment. Love IT support, don't like the phones
Getting some Microsoft certs is the way to go, likely 680/685/686 (http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/certification/mcsa-windows-7.aspx) to give you a Windows 7 Qualification, this will be the valuable to an employer as Windows 7 is the biggest migration a business will be going through at the moment. The other one that will help set you apart from other candidates in the future is ITIL, it's not a technical qualification, more theoretical but it is valued highly by enterprise level businesses as most (if not all) will follow a lot of ITIL processes. http://www.itil-officialsite.com/Qualifications/ITILQualificationLevels/ITILFoundation.aspx I guess you need to think if you want to stay in user support or move into something more specialist as qualifications will vary depending on where you go...
My Advice would be... Do some microsoft certs - it puts you above the rest when applying for jobs. Read it from books or watch CBT nuggets videos or something. The exams are about £100 each(inc a free retake atm). Also try and get a 1st line support job where you can also go onsite and get some hands on experience. Once you have 2 years experience and 1 year hands on and a few certs - you will then have alot more job opportunities.
as above unfortunately at the moment std qualifications and unqualified are massively underpaid at the moment. Ive seen jobs posted for certified MS professionals with a salary of around 15-17K depending on experience. Ive also seen 1st line support jobs around 10-13K !!!! its quite bad really considering 3-4 years ago an MS techy could command mid 20's and up and 1st line was around 15K+ Its the reason i went to distribution sales as that does still pay.
Time under the belt will do you well, also picking up a few MS certs while working won't hurt. But you will also have to think about what is the final goal/job because you will need very certain skills depending on that. In what I am currently doing ATM I am using SQL, SAS, SPSS & C# currently a very stato/data type role. But these mean nothing in other jobs I have done. So without sounding to preachy you need to plan out what you want to achieve and how to get there. Just being able to code is never enough these days as you will lose out to specialists who have all the extra bases covered as well. All that said be prepared to start lowish paid due to experience. But once you are in and prove you can do / stick at it, your worth will go up.:thumbup: Sent on my CM10 JB powered i9100 by TapaTalk 2
Thanks for the advice I know I need to specialise, it's just hard to know what in, at least I can build the experience. Think i'll look at the ms certs and try to narrow down some areas I prefer.
70-640 windows 7 is always a good one to start on. Once you learn it (get MS press book) and CBT nuggets series. Then get the hang of how you need to answer each question. Once you get the hang of it and some experience plan your MS route. Also! A big one is setup a virtual environment using VMware Esxi for test and play with real server and machines without harming anything. Best of luck
I feel your pain. I'm in the same boat, i qualified as an assistant manager in a national hotel chain when I left 6th form. Then jacked it in for a 9 to 5 in IT. After 7 years I'm still almost where I started, I've gone from admin to tech. Work have bought me a book on windows 7 but I have no time in work to study and outside of work my family, 2 small kids and wife dog etc take a lot of my time. So by the time I've eaten in the evening it is gone 8pm and having been up and busy since 6.30 I can't be bothered to study. Good luck, and if you do start the win 7 and it is the same course I'll drop you my email, it could be motivational for us both?
Hardware trouble shooting is such a huge area that you need to pick an area inside of it and usaully stick with it. Server management / Building is where the money is your problem is lack of relivent experience to go with your comptia A+ cert. ( depending on which bits you did ) Most people recruiting in this area pick fresh out of uni people as they are usauly quiet cheap to employ and they may even of been on 1years work placement with the company. I know we have got a few on 1 year work placements from uni. ( newcastle uni to be more accurate ) If you can get a comptia you can get the MS certs as they are a joke in comparison. Virtually every CV that we get has the MS certs but no comptia for hardware the later is more important than the MS certs. So if its hardware you want to go into make sure your comptia is fully up to date with the relivent server and hardware management sections. Ms Certs whilst useful will only get you specific jobs that they cover. ( 680, 685, 686 would be the 3 id recommend ) Your big issue nobody in this sector is over employing any more. We used to have a department of 12 to handle the operation of our Main Servers and Hardware around the building, Now its down to 6 and people who have left have not been replaced the others are just expected to pick up the slack. This is the economy that we live in now and its a pretty bad one at that. Ignoring uni students we have 6 full time employees. ( 3 uni students wether they will last to christmas we shall see) I got a job here by knowing the managers son from playing football with him for years. Ask your friends who work in big buildings if there IT management of the building is recruiting is how id go about it, You will rarely see a job advertised in the field your looking to enter.
Some good advice. I had an appraisal recently, and work are keen to keep me on, its a small company but they have said give it another year and they can see me in 3rd line (bit more coding and behind the scenes stuff) so I would be off the phones and left to my self for the most part. I'll try for a pay raise come new year but ill see how it goes. Think software based IT support such as server maintenance and scripting pays more then the hardware/engineer support side of things. But tbh in this work climate I'm pretty happy that I've got a job
You're right about the last part. Hardware and support engineer jobs are becoming thin on the ground and the 'old school' fix-things-up approach is practically dead. It's all become a 'service' today whereby you just RMA broken stuff or replace it with new. Server and scripting/programming has a good future and as a rule is paid more. I started at 17 and still have no qualifications apart from ITIL v3 (this alone has got me a few jobs and if you want to go in to bigger business' - I'd recommend it) but I started in a company where you had to get hands on and the old approach was still valid. This was invaluable. Experience and a gift of the gab has got me in everywhere I needed, even in Denmark where most jobs love you to have some bits of paper in your hand. I'm in the opposite position though now, I want to get out of IT and do something more physical but those jobs won't pay near enough now I have a mortgage and re-training isn't possible for the same reason! Good luck..
