IT Career Advice Thread?

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Dryden

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Hello good people

I tried searching to see if there's a general career advice thread where people can ask questions but I'm not able to find one. I'm in IT infrastructure and would like some advice so can someone point me to the right thread or do I simply ask in here?

Thanks
 
What advice do you need? I should be able to help depending on what is required

You can just ask here,it shouldnt be a problem
 
My gods honest advice to you is - Unless you are 150% passionate about IT, don't bother pursuing it... It's a massively over flooded market, You will spend the rest of your life re-newing certificates and re-writing tests every couple of years (assuming you actually want to make money doing it), and I'll say it again, it's MASSIVELY over flooded. Every guy and his cousin does IT now. Either be the best or just stagnate, not getting anywhere because there's 50x other people in any given role at any given time who are more qualified.

Sounds super negative but unless you genuinely love the IT sector and are willing to fight year after year after year to be the absolute best, do something else...
 
carstensdj said:
My gods honest advice to you is - Unless you are 150% passionate about IT, don't bother pursuing it... It's a massively over flooded market, You will spend the rest of your life re-newing certificates and re-writing tests every couple of years (assuming you actually want to make money doing it), and I'll say it again, it's MASSIVELY over flooded. Every guy and his cousin does IT now. Either be the best or just stagnate, not getting anywhere because there's 50x other people in any given role at any given time who are more qualified.

Sounds super negative but unless you genuinely love the IT sector and are willing to fight year after year after year to be the absolute best, do something else...
Click to expand...

I've been doing IT for 12 years+ now and I wholeheartedly agree! I love my job, but some days it is hard as nails to find the positive in customer interactions :laugh:
 
NeonNinja said:
Do a degree. Proper qualification.
Click to expand...
If only making it in the world of IT was as easy as just getting a degree... Tune the guy what he's really in for... He will be studying and writing exams for the rest of his life to 1) Stay current and 2) Specialize in something. With just a degree his options are to either work as a techie, a call centre agent or start his own company. That's about it.
 
carstensdj said:
If only making it in the world of IT was as easy as just getting a degree... Tune the guy what he's really in for... He will be studying and writing exams for the rest of his life to 1) Stay current and 2) Specialize in something. With just a degree his options are to either work as a techie, a call centre agent or start his own company. That's about it.
Click to expand...

I’ve been in IT for over 20 years now. After my degrees I did one (useless) certificate about 18 years ago, and that’s it. My skill set isn’t out of date, since I learned the fundamentals well.

My degrees helped me to get a job as a software engineer, move overseas and become very very successful at my job.
 
cguy said:
I’ve been in IT for over 20 years now. After my degrees I did one (useless) certificate about 18 years ago, and that’s it. My skill set isn’t out of date, since I learned the fundamentals well.

My degrees helped me to get a job as a software engineer, move overseas and become very very successful at my job.
Click to expand...
Congrats to you (I'm being genuine here, not sarcastic), although, 20yrs ago it was a lot easier to establish yourself in IT than what it is today. One can't compare what happened then to what's happening now. You had already 'made' yourself before the influx of people wanting to get into IT started. Try do what you did then, today and I'm pretty sure that your life wouldn't have gone the same route...
 
carstensdj said:
If only making it in the world of IT was as easy as just getting a degree... Tune the guy what he's really in for... He will be studying and writing exams for the rest of his life to 1) Stay current and 2) Specialize in something. With just a degree his options are to either work as a techie, a call centre agent or start his own company. That's about it.
Click to expand...
Ok.
 
carstensdj said:
Congrats to you (I'm being genuine here, not sarcastic), although, 20yrs ago it was a lot easier to establish yourself in IT than what it is today. One can't compare what happened then to what's happening now. You had already 'made' yourself before the influx of people wanting to get into IT started. Try do what you did then, today and I'm pretty sure that your life wouldn't have gone the same route...
Click to expand...

I have been hiring people for 20+ years too, many of them straight out of university. For software engineering at least, we don’t care about certificates, but we do filter such that candidates need either a good degree or exceptional experience. It’s no different to how it was “back in the day”, except that now the demand for talent is higher, which works in favor of the candidates.

It sounds like you took the wrong IT career path. What field are you in?
 
carstensdj said:
My gods honest advice to you is - Unless you are 150% passionate about IT, don't bother pursuing it... It's a massively over flooded market, You will spend the rest of your life re-newing certificates and re-writing tests every couple of years (assuming you actually want to make money doing it), and I'll say it again, it's MASSIVELY over flooded. Every guy and his cousin does IT now. Either be the best or just stagnate, not getting anywhere because there's 50x other people in any given role at any given time who are more qualified.

Sounds super negative but unless you genuinely love the IT sector and are willing to fight year after year after year to be the absolute best, do something else...
Click to expand...
Wow, OP don't listen to this guy. IT is too broad. Which part is overcrowded? There is a great need for skills like software development.
 
carstensdj said:
My gods honest advice to you is - Unless you are 150% passionate about IT, don't bother pursuing it... It's a massively over flooded market, You will spend the rest of your life re-newing certificates and re-writing tests every couple of years (assuming you actually want to make money doing it), and I'll say it again, it's MASSIVELY over flooded. Every guy and his cousin does IT now. Either be the best or just stagnate, not getting anywhere because there's 50x other people in any given role at any given time who are more qualified.

Sounds super negative but unless you genuinely love the IT sector and are willing to fight year after year after year to be the absolute best, do something else...
Click to expand...

I've never done a cert or test and I am doing well.

There are loads of choices within the IT space.

But yes, you must enjoy it ....
 
jack_spratt said:
I've never done a cert or test and I am doing well.

There are loads of choices within the IT space.

But yes, you must enjoy it ....
Click to expand...

I have the same, I don't even have an A+, nevermind an MCITP or MCSE or whatever and numerous times Iv'e sat in a boardroom with super qualified people trying to explain to them that if you don't actually do the Exchange maintenance it is going to fall over and you won't be able to recover it. Iv'e helped too many qualified people with the basics for me to be able to confirm a qualification means skill or knowledge
 
cguy said:
I have been hiring people for 20+ years too, many of them straight out of university. For software engineering at least, we don’t care about certificates, but we do filter such that candidates need either a good degree or exceptional experience. It’s no different to how it was “back in the day”, except that now the demand for talent is higher, which works in favor of the candidates.

It sounds like you took the wrong IT career path. What field are you in?
Click to expand...

phil77 said:
Wow, OP don't listen to this guy. IT is too broad. Which part is overcrowded? There is a great need for skills like software development.
Click to expand...
If you guys paid attention to what the OP said, you'd realise that he's not looking at going into software dev and is looking at Infrastructure. I've been around long enough and have enough friends in the industry to tell you that it ain't easy on the Networking/Infrastructure side to make it anymore. It's flooded...

I fully agree that there's space in the software dev and cloud side of things but let's stay on topic with the OP and discuss what they are actually looking at going into...
 
carstensdj said:
If you guys paid attention to what the OP said, you'd realise that he's not looking at going into software dev and is looking at Infrastructure. I've been around long enough and have enough friends in the industry to tell you that it ain't easy on the Networking/Infrastructure side to make it anymore. It's flooded...

I fully agree that there's space in the software dev and cloud side of things but let's stay on topic with the OP and discuss what they are actually looking at going into...
Click to expand...

You are making too many assumptions. There’s nothing about the OPs post that says that software development is not a consideration. In fact, it sounds like the most valuable advice the OP is going to get, is to move into software development.
 
R4ziel said:
I have the same, I don't even have an A+, nevermind an MCITP or MCSE or whatever and numerous times Iv'e sat in a boardroom with super qualified people trying to explain to them that if you don't actually do the Exchange maintenance it is going to fall over and you won't be able to recover it. Iv'e helped too many qualified people with the basics for me to be able to confirm a qualification means skill or knowledge
Click to expand...

A high qualification level typically does not make a person the smartest person in the room, but it usually does determine which room they're in.
 
cguy said:
You are making too many assumptions. There’s nothing about the OPs post that says that software development is not a consideration. In fact, it sounds like the most valuable advice the OP is going to get, is to move into software development.
Click to expand...
I would agree with you here! If OP does want to go the IT route, I'd highly recommend going into development as opposed to infrastructure.
 
OP it seems that the IT industry is very convoluted, and if a degree lands you a humble call center agent job (apparently) then screw it, do something else, become a race driver or a brick layer or a prostitute, whatever makes you happy.
 
The only advice that I can give OP is to steer away from Support and Maintenance for as long as possible, or else you will become unmarketable.
Unless you want to stay at your current company forever.
 
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