Will i be able to get a job?

[Feonix762]

Considering the different TLAs that visit this board, you may want to limit public access to personal information..

Oh, it's all quite legal. Close friend of mine is a tax lawyer. they helped me figure it all out.

[pr0zac0x2a]

From what I've seen so far, as other people have said, the most important thing as far as getting IT jobs is who you know and how well you are at dealing with people. Computer skills will help you keep the job, but people skills will get you it in the first place. A friend of mine for instance, missed the job/intern fair at his school, then ended up getting offered a summer internship at Microsoft because he ended up drinking with a bunch of the recruiters at a bar later that night, and they thought he was a cool guy. Personally I'm riding my father's coat tails into the industry. He knows people, so now I know people. Will probably cause some people to think I lack ability, but thats the way life works. So yeah, that cert will help a little bit, but if your references are people who you worked with at Best Buy, its not going to make much of a difference. On the other hand, the "word" in the industry is that around the time I'm getting out of school (couple years from now) there will be shortage of highly skilled tech people. Things may be easier for our breed soon.

-zac

[spahkle]

Kind of funny, I'm making $100,000 a year right now tax free selling virtual money/items in MMORPGs by reverse engineering structs and offsets to use with my personally written multi-game MMORPG macroing software

Considering the different TLAs that visit this board, you may want to limit public access to personal information..

hth

[TheCotMan]

From what I've heard the MCSE is only a starting point, general resume fodder at best once you've attained some experience in your field.

In the early years, when MS offered MCSE for NT, they had such awful questions on their exams, we would consider anyone with only MCSE as a bad selection. If the candidate had *NIX, Novell Netware, or VAX/VMS experience then we would consider MCSE a plus.
Early exams had questions like:

"The ideal mail service solution for a small, medium or large business is:"
Their "correct" answer was "MS Exchange"

Then there were questions where they defined things different from industry standards, de feacto standards, and RFC.

will an associates degree, 2 1/2 years data entry, 6 months IT experience, and a CCNA be enough to land a decent job?

What is, "decent?" With regional +/- up to 30%, 24k to 50k sounds possible depending on your skills and experience.

Where I work, experience can be substituted (to some extent) for a degree. However, people with degrees get promoted more quickly, and get more money and starting salary. They also tend to be awarded more advanced projects.

Kind of funny, I'm making $100,000 a year right now tax free

Unless you are very skilled and specialized in a field, or self employed/own a business, I do not see $100,000 jobs as being *likely*... (that does not mean impossible.)

Oh, and sorry for my gigantic post.. I like to type too much.

Ah-Hah! Competition!
/me watches forum members roll their eyes.
Oh! Just kidding!

[Feonix762]

From what I've heard the MCSE is only a starting point, general resume fodder at best once you've attained some experience in your field. I have no experience in the IT field but I'm working hard to get where I want to be, so I know how you feel. I worked at my college in their computer labs for 2 1/2 years and one of my co-workers did alot of contract work. All he has was his MCSE but he was landing jobs that payed $20 an hour but they were only for a week or two at a time, just to help with large projects when a company needed a few more people for the grunt work.

I think you need to take your geographical location into consideration as well, I live in a major shipping/warehouse area so there are almost no tech jobs. Having only an MCSE I couldn't see myself doing anything here, but I'm sure there are areas where I could get a job easily with that lone cert.

Anyway, I figured I'd use this thread to get some advice on my current path to IT glory. During my High School years I was sleeping through class, passing all my tests, failing all my homework do to inactivity as I'm sure some people here can relate to. I decided long before that I would drop out of High School at 16 and take the CHSPE (California High School Proficency Exam) then go to community college for 2 years for my associates, transfer to a University for my bachelors, pick up a few certs on the way, and find my spot in front of a few of those servers I've been dreaming of, all 2 years earlier than my peers due to starting college at 16 rather than 18. Well, I started on the right path, got my CHSPE at 16, then I started going to college but much to my disappointment I found that the classes there were just as boring and slow paced as High School. To make a long story short, for the past 4 years I took about one class a semester, no real goals or anything in my class work, and worked data entry jobs.

So, now I find myself at 20 years old with no formal schooling complete, I have a couple years of data entry experience, but nothing really to speak of. Just recently I've decided to get very serious about my schooling, I'm taking 22 units this semester, and plan to finish my associates in exactly one year to make up for the time I wasted. Unfortunatly they're not offering an internship this semester so I'll only get about 6 months of actual hands on IT experience at the time I graduate, and hopefully I will pick up my CCNA on the way. With an end goal of working in Information Security. I also plan to pick up my GIAC certification maybe 5 years down the line from now when I feel I have the knowledge to work well in Information Security.

I'm really curious what others think based on their experiences, will an associates degree, 2 1/2 years data entry, 6 months IT experience, and a CCNA be enough to land a decent job? I'm also leaving open the possibility of getting my bachelors from a University but at the moment I just really want to get my career started and I'm confident in my abilities that if I could just land a nice entry level IT job I'd have no problem advancing from there.

Kind of funny, I'm making $100,000 a year right now tax free selling virtual money/items in MMORPGs by reverse engineering structs and offsets to use with my personally written multi-game MMORPG macroing software but I'm having problems landing an entry-level IT job that will probably pay 1/6th of that. Oh well, gotta start somewhere to do what you love.

Oh, and sorry for my gigantic post.. I like to type too much.

[mikedc1760]

my 13 year old cousin has msce (jk)

yah your pretty late for getting a job but it helps..you do need some practical experiance and you need to know people if you really want to work in IT.

cisco stuff would help alot since they are harder and not that many people go for iir or ever finish it

Am I missing something?

[binaryking]

my 13 year old cousin has msce (jk)

yah your pretty late for getting a job but it helps..you do need some practical experiance and you need to know people if you really want to work in IT.

cisco stuff would help alot since they are harder and not that many people go for iir or ever finish it

[FleshToFester]

As a 20 year old fairly fresh out of school with a CCNA I know how you feel. In my opinion a Intership is the best thing you can do for yourself.. I would be nowhere with out the 3 that I have done.. Mind you I was just hired as a SysAdmin only because of my intership work(how I got it? I have no idea.) Real world training is your best resource.. I knwo that I could get just as far without my CCNA, but without my hands-on training.. I would still be living in rural Pennsylvania at a dead end job in a printing plant.

[astcell]

I think getting the MCSE is a personal thing. If you enjoy the classes and the work, then the job is for you, Just like studying to be an undertaker. You have to enjoy it.

About three years ago I interviewed a candidate for employment. I had 25 questions to ask him. He had an MCSE, so I only asked him 20 questions, I gave him the other 5 based on him completing the course and probably knowing the book answers.

If you want the MCSE, get it. I went through MCSE clsses and 4 years of college because I wanted to. That way I amnot let down if I never use the sheepskin.

[Clp727]

Give it a shot. There are several test that are required to get the MCSE. Get the books from your school book store. Learn as much as you can.

[mikedc1760]

That I am only 18 and have no real world experience do you think its to early do get a MCSE certification? I haven't even received my Associates degree yet but I am eager to start getting ahead of the game early. This topic has been very helpful to me. Thank You.

[Floydr47]

The MCSE is a start. Everyone has to start somewhere, it doesn't matter what you do in life. With an MCSE and a help desk job you are starting to gain the experiecnce necessary to begin climbing the corporate ladder. A McJob is the start of a career, you don't have to stay in a McJob, but you can get some good work experience there and develop a work history. I am thinking that you are fairly young, possibly attending school full time...have you considered trying to find an internship? That is another way to develop "hands on" experience that can be used to fill in the blanks of a resume. Just my thoughts...I will return to lurking now.

[Clp727]

This is a really good thread. I decided over a year ago to make a career change from being a state and nationally certified machinist, to move into an IT career. I have only worked for two companies since I graduated from high school in '86'. I got off my rear and went to a local college. I picked up a hand full of certs and graduated the year long IT coarse (no degree). I got a job with a bank that participates in tax refund loans. It was a contract job. Eight months later, I found myself back at that same machine shop. I decided to run a computer repair add in the local paper to kinda keep my self in the IT loop. My little repair jobs yield about 1-2 repairs a week.
To make a long story short... I kept sending out resumes. Finally, I landed a fulltime job! On Dec. 16 I will be providing network and computer support for a Cardiovascular medical office in Kentucky. I will be one of 4 in thier IT staff (including the IT supervisor). The network has about two hundred nodes within the main office and there are seven hospitals that are tied into the network.
I got lucky! I plan on getting back into school to get the needed degrees for future use.
I think if people want to get into any IT career they should do it because they love what they do. Dont do it for the money, do it because you like it.

[Voltage Spike]

I dropped out of HS at age of 16.

Really? You could have fooled me as you seem to have years of formal education under your belt.

I'm sorry, but "Cirts"? The mistake wasn't even on the right hand... (Well, technically it was the right hand, but it wasn't the correct one.)

You seem very eager to participate, but I (and probably others) would appreciate it if you took a little more care when crafting your posts.

Ignoring the above, I found it interesting to read what someone on the other side of the educational experience (or lack thereof) feels. We tend to justify our own decisions, so I'm glad to hear more than "you should do $x because I did and I'm doing well".

[Knoppix]

MCSE is DOA without Exp......

hmm, reading this kinda pisses me off... Alot of the replys where dead on as for a good reply.. But let me also give my free 2 cents.

As an MCSE Instructor at our local Adult Education center i tell my students whom ask the same questions. WITH OUT the "HANDS-ON" exp... your DOA....

Hears where even I am at.
Im now 28, 29 in Dec,.. 15 years behind me in the field. And no Cirts besides MCSE.
NOT EVEN A+. Where i am F*cked is... I dropped out of HS at age of 16. Lied on my State Teachers application just to get the contract and im now "stuck".
Stuck without my GED, or a JOB. Or real JOB.... Our field is flooded with techs and I myself have the Past Exp but the MCSE is getting old... And again brought up.. Its an Entry level Cirt....

I have been talking to my wife JUST this past week about going back to the books and getting my GED so i, like you can follow the $$$$$ Game. Sure I teach MCSE at $25.00 Per hour but its a Contracted job and could end at any time... NOT to mention that if they really knew about my education they would drop the contract anyways. So FROM a teachers stand point with the EXP behind me... but lacking the education... Im screwed too.... Depending on where you live, the market could be FULL of techies fighting for that 1 job at $20.00 Per hour.

- My 2 cents.
15 years EXP, But missing the Papers.... - Im in the boat with you... dude...