HOW THE FUCK ARE YOU PEOPLE GETTING I.T. JOBS!?
I keep reading posts from people working in IT who have no experience, education, or certs. I read about network admins who can't subnet too. How the hell did you guys do it? I have certs and an IT associates degree and I can't find work.
>I have certs and an IT associates degree and I can't find work.
Cause you live in a shit place with poor density of positions.
Or
You lack the basic Charisma that most humans posses, allowing you to bluff your way through an interview.
In most cases, by the time they find out you might be largely incompetent at the role, you've been there long enough for them not to be bothered enough to fire you. You just need google skills enough so you can make sure things are working.
I live 30 minutes from Manhattan, I can get contract jobs occasionally, I have no certs or degree just 3+ years experience in the field. Get your foot in the door for contract employment. It might not be long-term but building experience will go a long way over your certs and degree.
Go to an agency & say you've got experience with computers.
Sucks to be you. I live in Houston with plenty.
thistbhfam
If you can't or are uncomfortable lying about your skills, let someone else do it for you. These cunts will sell their souls and throw away their dignity to upsell you like no tomorrow to get their commission. God bless their souls.
(low paying) IT jobs are incredibly easy to get
from my experience looking for jobs, personal connections/networking are worth way more than actual skills or anything relevant to the job
I ran my own business (which did 6-20 million in annual revenue), have a masters degree, two undergraduate degrees, and graduated at the top of my class. Still can't find a fucking job after 8 months.
succeeding in life isn't about being a robot and regurgitating on command to pass a test
sometimes you just need to not be a shitty person and people will give you a chance
Unfortunately being good at the job isn't how you get the job.
>go to school for chemical engineering
>get business degree
>I now work in IT making more money than most of my mates
currently working in software and database dev and product development for a large IT company
funny how the world rolls.
why are you loooking for a job if your company made 6-20 million in revenue? either you have real shitty margins, blew it all on hookers and blow, or your business actually sucked.
> school sets up interviews for students to get jobs in IT
> fail every interview despite my honor roll grades because grades mean nothing if you're socially inept
> school just says "lol sorry user do this project instead"
> meanwhile all my peers are getting rehired once the term is finished and I have no real work experience or references
We sold commodities, so margins were rather thin. Government came in and, at the behest of a bunch of large megacorps, passed a bunch of regulations that put us and every other small business in my industry out of business.
then go apply at a megacorp that put you out of business. if your resume really covers what you say you have done, and you have really done what you say you have, I don't understand how you don't have the c onnections or interview skills to not get a relevant position
>then go apply at a megacorp that put you out of business
I have. Unfortunately, almost all of them are downsizing currently.
Seconded agency. I interviewed for a position at a company and they rejected me. Went to agency a couple weeks later and they found me a position at the same company for more money kek.
What kind of business was it?
bummer dude, and I say that with complete sincerity. I just graduated last spring, and I applied to well over 100 positions, got 2 interviews, and 1 offer. It really fucking sucks to get rejection after rejection.
I've kept a spreadsheet of my job search. I'm at over 300 applications, 5 interviews, and zero offers. 8 months in and I feel like absolute shit. Really breaks you down and kills your self confidence.
Sauce on op's drawing?
We manufactured, warehoused, transported, and processed ingredients for animal feed.
This.
Honestly you've just 1) be where those jobs are and 2) have the people already working there like you.
Also certs and IT degrees (kek) are trash.
People care about your ability to figure out problems, not whether you've learned all the right terminology or the OSI model or whatever
damn son, that's real ruff. what's your educational background ,and where are you located?
this is similar to me right now.
sometimes I can't bring myself to get out of bed
MBA in management. Dual undergrad degree in management and marketing. Graduated at the top of my class. I'm in the middle of the midwest.
This is unfortunately true.
Im so fucking sick with this networking thing. Its the prime excuse of lazy and incompetent HR staffers.
It does not care how much do you know or how much honed your skills are, but who do you know.
I had met so much of this "this person is ok in my book" new hires that doesnt know shit, does not cooperate and are unwilling to learn anything new.
Fuck networking man, seriously, it only promotes hiring your incompetent friends
>middle of the midwest
I'm sorry user. do you have connections? have you applied to east coast/west coast locations? friends from uni working on the coasts? maybe try kansas city, st louis, minneapolis, denver?
>do you have connections?
I did. Unfortunately, I've gone through all of them. Many of them are either retired or out of work as well.
> have you applied to east coast/west coast locations?
I've considered it, but I really have absolutely zero interest in living on the coasts. I'd honestly rather work a min wage job in flyover country than work out there.
>maybe try kansas city, st louis, minneapolis, denver?
I live in one of those cities, so I'm not exactly in the middle of nowhere.
desu, i'd get a wagie job on the coast. work there for 1-2 years max. save money, now you have more connections and experience, and then you can move back to the heartland. given the current economy, employers will wonder why you chose to work minimum wage over a job that fits your skills on the coasts.
You gotta take a shit job first. Maybe not Geek Squad tier, but helpdesk, a product support job, something basic to get in the door. Small companies promote title easier (but not salary). So you start as helpdesk, but you become sysadmin after working there a year. Then you update your resume, as sysadmin retroactive to when you started. boom. experience
They got lucky with stupid ass HR managers or dumb as dust hiring system.
True story. Go figure why.
Also, schmooze the HR bitch (it's always a bitch). But not too hard - no sexual harassment
I had very little professional experience and no certs, and a 4 year unrelated degree. I've just been a shiddy Sup Forums browser for almost a decade and built PCs, etc. Just picked up everything out of passion and hobby, no real formal training on IT work.
I landed a job for a government contractor and make a little over $24/hr rolling out new desktops/laptops to users and wiping old hard drives, along with some other general "pls help me hook up my monitor" type shit.
It's a temp job but goddamn does it pay well for what I do and my boss literally told me directly that they have money to open a permanent position on the contract and are considering me for it.
That said, I performed well in the interview (satisfied all their technical questions), didn't sperg out or anything, and I've been competent at everything they've had me do so far. They did train me on some enterprise software I've never worked with before, but they only had to explain it once before I had it down.
All of that said I'm working on getting some certs and just generally being as competent and eager as possible at work because it must reflect well that I'm not a fuck-up like some people they hired.
>You gotta take a shit job first. Maybe not Geek Squad tier, but helpdesk, a product support job, something basic to get in the door.
This senpai, I literally worked for Geek Squad and some godawful helpdesk jobs. It was fucking cancer and I wanted to die every waking moment of it, but it looks good on a resume and let me backup my talk with something.
Seriously, each job got slightly better than the last (godawful help desk -> Geek Squad -> Government contract job). It improved little by little in every way, more or less.
Really though OP a lot of it does have to do with what you can find in your area, and for gods sake make sure you don't have a shitty looking resume. You have to paint your previous jobs in a way that makes them look very relevant to what you're applying to.
pic unrelated
I got in through a contractor, worked under contract for 6 months and then the company offered me an actual position there with salary. It's helpdesk but I like it so far
I'm sort of in the same position. I've been doing freelance IT stuff for like 15 years, have my CCNA and an associate's degree in "computer security" from a tech school.
But I live in Oklahoma and there are fuck all jobs here, and I'm too lazy to move away from family.
skill isn't relevant for positions that aren't high level. connections and social skills matter. i guarantee there were smarter and more skilled people for every job i've had.
Those people aren't actually getting those jobs and /or they are one of 2 IT people at a company with a boss who has no knowledge.
>freelance IT stuff
I did freelance IT while I went back to college.
Freelance IT will kill your job searching prospects. They think it's fake experience, or that it's basic, low skill work, or that you can't get a job for some reason (sperglord, letch, criminal record).
Even though I had been doing IT stuff for over 10 years, mostly freelance, and had a degree in information assurance and security management, I had to take a helpdesk type job fresh out of college (also, it was 2007 and the job market was pretty shaky).
But I worked there almost 3 years, and my next job was making 25% more. 2 years there, and I moved on again making another 25% more.
Keep at it and you'll move up.
What are your certs user?
In the IT industry, there is a term for a person with a lot of certs and no experience: a paper cert.
These resumes go straight to the trash, take any non-entry level certs off your resume.
Contracting is entry level in silicon valley, this is why every job requires at least 2 years of experience.
Listen user, people that have worked out in the real world know enough to know that dealing with a personable person that maybe knows 80% as much as an attitudinal wizard is preferable.
I beat out a PhD in computer science & a masters in IT for my job because I was more personable.
wew wrong board
You must be framing your experience stupidly.
I was a contractor for my first 4 years, and I talk about it in interviews, basically telling them the reason I wanted to contract so long was so that I could get experience working on big projects without being a job hopper. Get in, do a project, go on to the next one. Everyone has responded well to this.
>I have certs and an IT associates degree and I can't find work.
Fucking millennials...
Your certs and associates degree are worthless. Experience and proven skills are all that matters. You can get your foot in the door at a help desk.
>You must be framing your experience stupidly.
2007 was a rough time. People were losing jobs left and right.
Castille looking fine as fuck lately.
If you company went under, and they are downsizing, the government didn't put you out of business for their benefit. Your industry was just going down.
The government put into place regulations which would require all businesses in my industry to invest millions of dollars in upgrading their facilities. None of the small businesses in my industry had that kind of cash on hand to upgrade, so every single small business shut down. Then came a commodities crash, which negatively effected the larger firms in the industry.
So the government put the small businesses out of business, then the market fucked the big ones.
I show what I can do and I get hired. It's not rocket science. Don't you have a CV?
>having to bluff
That means you're actually a dumb fuck who lied to get a job not actually a person who learned himself and knows the job
Dad ran cables and built patch panels and did telephone shit for 10 years on a big military base before getting a GS Job on said post.
Besides that I have a top secret security clearance, CCNA, Cisco Security, Sec/Net+
Combine that and its not hard to see how I landed a 60k job at 20 years old.
>I read about network admins who can't subnet too.
Where the fuck are you reading this?
But really, I only had my A+ and Network+ and got hired by a contracting company that does services for the federal govt. They picked me up because I listed 4+ years Unix/Linux experience and now I'm a sysadmin for 2-3 different systems. Mostly RHEL and Solaris. You don't even really have to tell them "professional" working experience unless they ask about it. As long as you've touched it and know your way around it, and can demonstrate that skill without choking or having to look at google, you're pretty much infallible in the eyes of whoever hires you unless you severely fuck up and don't know what you're doing.
>can't get a job because socially inept
its way beyond inept if you can't even hold a good conversation for a 30 minute interview user.
I have equivalent 2 years experience in my "field" but lack the formal qualifications I should have picked up while still in university. Very similar position here, and I get the depression. It's hard to get up and keep going between not being where you want to be, looking for work, and working a shitty minimum wage job to pay the bills. Keep at it.
Get basic certs get contract to hire job
I did assembly work in a healthcare and industrial pc assembly line
I then did contract to hire for a call center
Now I'm network admin for 3 companies because they liked the work I did for them in off hours and hired me full time
like 3 years to 60k and one a+ cert
2 years Associates of IT Networking
$10k fafsa loan (got half payed off by now)
Working $12/hr internship for 1 year of college
Work 1 year at Custom computer assembly
about 2 years at call center they payed for my A+ temp to hire for 6 months 43k/year
I can list 4 years of experience in 5 years with minimal debt and with more certs or more experience I could do anything I wanted
IT jobs just care about experience you could work at a local computer shop or some other shit job just so you can get experience
>Where the fuck are you reading this?
There was a really popular Downfall parody about this a few years back
Also a lot of guys on networking-forum, tech-support forum and reddit bitch about their jr admins not knowing VLSM
>In most cases, by the time they find out you might be largely incompetent at the role, you've been there long enough for them not to be bothered enough to fire you.
Holy fuck this behaviour is rampant and infuriating.
Incompetent colleagues that are attached to the company like barnacles to a boat. Co-workers that prevent me doing my job well are the worst.
Instead of wasting time while unemployed watching shitty anime, find some volunteer work to get some experience and connections. Library's often look for volunteers with IT skills to help old people with computers cause their children wont.
What were you selling? Animal bodies?
Experience trumps degrees and certs.
I got offered full time employment at my other job. If I take it, I'll be pulling around 230k a year(instead of the paltry 150 I make now), but I'll be busy as fuck.
I worked as a Systems Administrator at a casino before I joined the Air Force.
I was the Casinos bowling mechanic at first, then I got to know a lot of people that worked at the snack bar, the cage cashiers, management and everything in between because word got out that I knew how to fix computers, phones and tablets. I was fixing everyone's electronics then someone from upper management approached me and asked if I would like to take the position of a Systems Admin for 19/hr
I took it only having a High School degree and nothing else, hell the job required that I had to be 21 to have the job and I was 19 at the time and they waived the whole age requirement issue.
Was some of the best money I ever made in those 5 months and made more then than I ever did then in my 6 years in the Air Force.
I guess in my case I was just lucky because I knew how to network and meet people and talk to people and Bullshit with people.
Just talk to people and just start applying, you already have certs and that makes you more desirable than most on paper but if you know of some friends or acquaintances on the inside of an industry you would like to work for I say go for it and just start networking if you have the connections, learn how to talk to people and bullshit with people to get you where you need to be.
>I have certs and an IT associates degree and I can't find work.
What about skills?
>I keep reading posts from people working in IT who have no experience
>Be British
>Go to university
>Academic year dedicated to getting internships/"placements"
>None of these require experience
>Graduate with BSc and a year of experience
???????
Essentially, yes.
>and graduated at the top of my class
But do you know gorilla warfare?
I'm not autistic
The only solution is to look for a new job when you see this.
It's good for your career and happiness to avoid interacting with these people.
When you've found a job that's (at least seemingly) better then you can switch.
What meme is this? I've seen this plenty in Sup Forums but never really got it.
because we take showers in the morning
you are overqualified
that´s actually quite the problem especially if you have no actual work experience
It typically shows two countries that are friendly, although the one grabbing tit is portrayed as the dominant country in the relationship.
This.
>applicant has no proven track record of actually getting anything done
>they think they're worth $60k+ just because of their certs and/or degree
>even if they accept this job for $35k, they'll likely underperform and leave the company as soon as they can tell another company that they have "2+ years of experience"
nepotism
You just need the relevant certs/experience
Also IT isn't highly paid it's basically a bottom barrel office job
>visit friend at her job
>"hey are you user? femanon talks about your feats all the time"
>"yeah"
>"do you wanna work here?"
>"sure"
>"alright, you may start tomorrow"
Sorry I meant like the name of the meme
How the fuck do you network AFTER college? Not just limited to IT, but programming as well. There aren't a lot of events near me and the ones that are close are just consumer playground events where people demo VR and "coding" in HTML
I worked a dead end computer repair gig that made me absolutely miserable after getting out of college, applied to a ton of IT jobs hoping for at least a minor pay increase. Got turned down by schools, companies, etc, but it was good interview experience. If you are messing with *nix shit on your own, and have years of experience doing this, do not necessarily apply to entry level 'hay i install ur monitors and windows' type positions. I eventually did get a job working as a systems engineer, which by every metric, was an upgrade over fixing consumer PCs, but that was a matter of being able to nerd out and talk about *nix systems knowledge.
one year ago I was on the same boat...certs, CC degree and even some courses (and I have to say that knowing english around here is rly something) And in the end my Gf have to ask her cooworker to help me. End up in a small company(kinda my 2 bosses and my cooworker) that pay half the salary I should get. What did we learn here? u'r either a genius or a someone with social skills, otherwise u're dead meat
Try not being in America
>be me
>late 2015
>Midwest
>tired of dead end job
>Making $24,000 annual in customer service
>no usable degree
>no non dead end experience
>max plebian
>decide to get an A+ cert and some basic IT department job, get my foot in the door somewhere
>find nonprofit Launchcode
>Take a CS50 course with live instructors for free
>build a CRUD project
>build another one, frame it as an instant messaging platform
>Launchcode digs my shit
>They get me a job at a local realty company doing full stack development
>Co-workers coach me up, teach me more than anything else has
>2017
>Making $56K
>LinkedIn blowing up
>Startups want me
>Offers for $70K+ in my city
>Life actually acceptable for once
>mfw
>I expect too much even though my experience doesn't translate to needed skills.
Tbhfam
There's more to be said for "in the room" charisma than raw certification. You can learn on the job in most IT scenarios but if you come off as an asshole then you're going to have a bad time.
Try to not be white. As white males are being fazed out of the work place.
Yeah, running your own multi-million dollar business and handling all of its operations is just kids stuff
Nepotism.
>Good degree (in psychology lel) and exceptional upbringing
>Cannot get a good job for shit
>Move to a city; same deal
>After several years of telesales, quit for glorious A+
>Get A+ and immediately walk right into high-flying IT job paying £25,000 a year
>"Don't worry, user; we'll just teach you the rest"
>Lose that job five months later for no reason; the company got a new CEO who decided we had too many IT guys
>Assume you can just walk into any IT job so don't apply for a while and just play vidya and watch animu
>Start applying again
>Get nowhere
I've now been NEET for longer than I actually had my previous job. I've had job interviews which never even called me back after the interview. Every time there is a Sup Forums thread about this sort of thing, I tell my story. Fuck everything. If I didn't have rich parents, I'd probably be dead.
Lol
Your life sucks
just be a brown idiot with a masters degree. you'll start at $100k in cali or washington.
I'm literally you except I dont have a rich parents and I'm doing something I hate alot right now not because of the company but because of the customers I have to deal with
now I dont even know what job term to even search for and all I want is to get out of what I'm currently doing and get into something better
[spoiler]It took me less than 3 months to really hate my current job now [/spoiler]
Is it worth it to get a Comptia A+ for someone wanting to get into IT?
Half of the time I read it's a complete waste of time/money (aside from rare cases like some government jobs where it's required) and employers only pay attention to experience. Other times though, I read it's useful for getting your foot and the door and can help get promoted to better positions.
I was studying it for a while and probably have enough knowledge to pass the test, but got hesitant because I was worried I'd be throwing my money away.
I don't really like CompTIA, and I think it's complete bullshit that their certifications' validity expires now (it wasn't that way when I got mine), but if you have no experience it can be a reasonable way to get your foot in the door at an entry level job, and it's only like $150 or something. You'd make that back in 1-2 days of pretty much any job.
Even though my hometown had plenty of jobs (Western NY) I had to move in order to get my start in this industry but once I got my first job it became a lot easier. If you don't want to move I don't have much advice.
What do you do in your 150k job? What would you be doing inn your 230k job?
>Also certs and IT degrees (kek) are trash
This all depends on who issued the degree or cert.
Nepotism and personal connections > Experience > Degree from a reputable technical institute + Relevant Decent Certs > Nothing. This is the pecking order, the people you are talking about fall in the first or second category.