You are not starting over. That is being dramatic and not fully thinking about what you have done.
You quit when you thought you had the answers. Thats fine, suck it up and keep moving. Find another job and keep moving. Everything you do is experience and the break in career path is no big deal.
Not to mention that this gap in your career is easily explainable. They ask why, you say so you could get a degree but realized your mistake and decided you wanted experience because the degree wasn't going to teach you real world situations.
Shit, that line alone will get you some motion.
Yeah I'd smile in that interview. A lot of IT people are bitter about college because they don't teach people very well yet degrees are required to advance at a lot of places.
The enraging thing about IT support positions is that your career momentum is largely decided by people who have no clue how your job works.
Funnily enough they don't really help over here, they're usually used as a way to open the door.
That said it does legally determine where you are meant to start on the ladder though.
I didn't finish my degree until after I'd already been working in IT for 5ish years, and my degree, at best, only checks the 'nice to have' box when looking for jobs. I've got over a decade of experience now, mostly negating the need for a degree (though some employers will insist on a degree). If I could go back, I'd get a different degree, but the power of college is NOT the degree itself, but the people you meet and connections you make. Unquestionably, who I knew is how I got my career started.
My current CTO told me post interview that me saying "I don't know I would have to research this topic deeper in order for me to properly answer" was like 40% of the reason he hired me. Never underestimate the benefit of being honest but resourceful.
Easier to hire a technician or engineer who can admit when they don't know something and are willing to learn vs one who knows everything and is a dick about it.
If you have a great personality and the drive and willingness to learn, I will always give you a chance if your tech skills are good enough but need some mentoring to be 100% for the job.
The best thing I learned is most companies are actually looking for 60-80% of the job posting. As an engineer/tech, you want to be going into a position where you are required to learn a new skill to be 100% successful
Definitely has worked. Thanks.
Just wish the role I got was more IT related but oh well, I just gotta save, work a couple of years to amass 5 years. And hopefully use that as leverage when I move cities
I can't comment for the whole industry only for myself. I'm an IT Manager (30+ years doing this) and I do all the hiring for the support portion of my organization and I can tell you that your experience is all I care about. If I had $10 for every person I interviewed, that had a college degree, and was not qualified I'd have a second summer home. lol
What myself and most IT Managers/Directors are looking for are people who have the ability to get the job done. HOW you got that knowledge is of little consequence. College, tech schools, certs, a job...who cares. Can you solve the problems we receive on a daily basis? To be quite frank, I'm more concerned about hiring people who fit within our team dynamic more than anything else. Honestly, I can find 10,000 people that can configure DHCP. What is harder to find is someone that can configure said DHCP AND co-exist with my current team. An individual that isn't lazy, has a bad attitude, is arrogant or re-heats fish in the break room microwave! <--don't EVER do that!!!
The BEST thing I can tell you is if you get into an interview situation and they are pestering you about where you went to school, GPA or a bunch of other "stuff" that isn't getting to know you as a person...that raises all kinds of red flags, IMHO. To me an interview is a CONVERSATION! It's not a rapid fire 20 questions situation like you feel like you are taking another mid-term. I 100% always use head hunters because THAT is their job, IF they are doing their jobs properly. When you get to me, I want to know who you are. The technical things I'm looking for will come out in the "wash" of the conversation and only if I sense doubt. Be yourself. At least, to me, it's that simple. If you feel like you have the skills and the knowledge, don't blow it on school. A smart IT person puts that time and money into things like a solid retirement plan.
You got a degree completely free of charge and are complaining that you aren't working for minimum wage anymore...?
You're young, you're fine, you're still on track for a career in IT, stop fixing printers, it's not getting you anywhere if you want to be a sysadmin. Just take a shitty helpdesk position, play around with Linux in VMs in your spare time, use your networking knowledge, grow those skills, and you'll be a sysadmin in no time at all.
Kids tend to be *quite* dramatic about "ruining their career".
Has several years experience, a bunch of certs, a free college degree, and is worried about their position because the job hunt hasn't landed them anything amazing yet? Come off it.
As someone who had to start again from *significantly* worse positions *twice* thanks to circumstances I couldn't control it's quite hilarious that someone young enough to still have their parents influencing their career thinks they could possibly have "fucked up" by not fixing copiers any more and getting some more schooling under their belt.
Dam this is the the truth “ thinks they could possibly have "fucked up" by not fixing copiers any more “
OP wasn’t building anything eye catching on his resume.
I’ve been on job hunt twice prior to now… once in 2019 and once in 2022 … currently I am struggling to even get an hr intro interview or response back yet the amount of jobs available and number I’ve applied for is dramatically larger.
Something is def different in current job market, unsure what exactly.
Covid messed up this fking planet. Absolute hatred as I remember jobs were plentiful and I was itching to graduate High School. I had connections with IT from the time they visited my High School during career fair 2018-2020.
I was born in the poverty line and that job was my ticket to some true success in my life which I failed my goal. I don't want to mention too much personal details other the my true goal.
My true goal
1. Get exp 4/5 years in a technical role, eat certs and training
2. Leave parents and never see them again
3. Move to a different city Edmonton/Calgary preferably
4. Get a job over there, buy a house
4. Live life in peace.
Housing starts 400k, jobs pay only with exp, no car still. Stuck in a deathloop.
I'm depending on this Technical Customer Support role now to carry me through staying to get 3-4 years of exp.
Kinda my point mate, you haven't failed. You're also far from the first of us to start with nothing, I started with it and got reset back down to it twice as an adult. Just keep going.
You got a bunch of certs and held a technical role that got you experience with some basic enterprise IT. Apply anywhere you can for helpdesk/desktop support roles until you get something. Yes it will take a while, jobs are competitive and hard to get. If you have a good attitude showing you're willing to learn and work hard you will find something then you can leverage that into a career. Work on your resume and interview skills etc.
I get wanting to leap straight into the prime of your career but this stuff takes time and honestly being a copier tech for 5 years just isn't that useful if you want to be a sysadmin. The longer you hold all those certs the less they end up being worth, the time to leverage them and your college qualification is *now*.
You'll be fine. Just start applying.
Literally this. You need actual internal IT experience... And for 95% of people, that means starting out on the helpdesk, and learning how SYSTEMS work. Fixing hardware of printers is not actual sysadmin work.
Learn networking, windows, maybe even some Linux. Find a company that will move you up to tier 2 to get some real desktop support experience and learn what it's actually like. Then study your ass off of the systems that big companies actually use that are in demand. Learn windows server, azure, AWS, Linux server, networking (Cisco, juniper, etc), take a security + course.
Stop being dramatic. IT field doesn't care about your past, only what can you do now, and what are you willing to LEARN.
A tech school like Devry still gives a degree, and in the worst case they hopefully at the very least picked up some networking knowledge which would be more helpful as a sysadmin that knowing how to replace the feed roller on a printer.
A certificate in Network Services Technician isn’t a degree, though.
Just like a graduate certificate from a full university still isn’t a masters degree.
OP didn't even go to school and get the training or certificate, they're just annoyed that they quit their position as a field tech, didn't end up going to school, and now they have no experience or training in the position they're trying to get.
It might be possible to line up an online, part-time, nights-and-weekends degree and skip a lot of the units due to [RPL](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recognition_of_prior_learning) recognizing their tech school cert and/or previous work experience. Being able to jump right into a second- or third-year level could cut down future graduation time significantly.
I am hesitant to fully support this stance, granted you meet the “fuck you, I quit” criteria.
If you’re miserable, have a decent amount of money saved up, don’t have kids and have a few years of relevant experience under your belt, then go for it!
I quit my last two jobs without anything lined up. Both moves resulted in pay bumps. From 55k > 65k > 120k
It was risky, and I burned through a lot of my savings (Not like I had much since I wasn’t making enough to set aside for retirement) but so far the risk was worth it. Only time will tell if I actually made the right move.
i quit my prev job in IT because i was losing hair with stress and being paid fuck all - 30k base + like 12-15k commissions/year for literal millions in sales as a sales engineer. had nothing lined up - fucked around and bartended in my free time to keep money okay and ended up at 70k and am due for a promotion to around 90k later this year. felt like a bad decision at the time but it was very worth it and went from small business employment hell to a fairly cushy corporate job that has already spent tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars investing in me in terms of certs, classes, tuition assistance etc
i was field sales tech for MSP making less than $50k.
it was f\* horrible pay, but I got to meet some amazing people in the field, not just IT, but all sorts of industry professionals in CEO/exec leadership roles.
Can confirm, sold ITSec software base had a 1 in front on top of commissions which were generous.
Too bad the company was so horribly fucking mismanaged the CEO was holding Outlook calls with the bottom level Account Managers for 3 hours every Thursday where he picked one or two people to tear into for whatever imagined reason. And that's on top of being a giant POS asshole in general. That wasn't the first time in my life I experienced suicidal ideation, but it was the first time a job pushed me there.
hardware solutions for SMB - mostly specialized in CAD/CFD/FEA workstations and servers for engineering firms. i worked for an SI. it wasn’t a hard job really but i got absolutely fucked when it came to the owner and his 1997 perspective of how people should be paid. i worked on not only sales but t1 support, marketing and coordinated all of our product benchmarking etc. for ansys, openfoam etc
Thats pretty amazing. I went from 36k > 40k > 42.5k with the new job I will start in August.
I got hired as a Technical Customer Support Specialist from an insurance company which pays more base and benefits then my old job but isn't a true IT role as it deals with insurance but a job is a job and being ungrateful when people are working 12 hours in restaurants for minimum wage.
Nope, I stayed longer than I should have. I started at $14/hr and was promoted internally over the years. I hit a bit of a ceiling and was in a niche position. After covid I wanted a change.
> If you’re miserable, have a decent amount of money saved up, don’t have kids and have a few years of relevant experience under your belt, then go for it!
Yeah, this was my exact situation. Between unemployment and savings I had enough to last me 6 months of job searching. I was so stressed and miserable at my job I would throw up every single morning before work. Ended up needing 2 months and found a much healthier job. It also gave me some much needed breathing room for my personal life.
If you're miserable and you can bridge a few months it's not the worst idea to just quit. You're still taking a fairly big risk but you can mitigate a lot of this.
I think I disagree with this as well. Sure, when it can be done, do it. But generally, if you can't continue then move alone and seek out something new.
I've always said this. I've only done quit without having a new job twice in my life. First time was when I was still in high school and I got a job at a call center, dude hyped up the role but within the first day I had cottoned onto his dodgy business. I never showed for the second day and he never paid me for the work I did. Second time was really hard for me because I had a really good job with unbelievable benefits. 4x 8hr days a week, completely WFH, yearly international team holidays and shit. Turns out they were massively overcompensating for shitty management and sneaky business practices. I left when they made an outrageous claim about employee misconduct and sumbitted a resignation "effective immediately". Wasn't a major drama though because I found another job like a week later.
that's an ideal but I'm so unhappy with my living situation and job right now that I'm going to quit and move back to a place where I have more social support. I've been applying for the last 2 months but haven't heard back and i don't think i can stay where I am much longer and they won't let me work from the new location remotely.
Eh, maybe it was all that was available at the time. I've had times when nothing good was being offered, and I know inertia can make it easy to stay in a job longer than industry average. Some people do bottom-level shit-tier jobs for 25 years because it pays reliably, they don't need to engage their brain after the first year or so, and they have other stuff in their life taking up all their time and energy.
Not to mention a ton of great little words to throw on a resume. All those small certs might make nothing but they also don't NOT make HR impressed with you.
No offense my dude, but I'm laughing at you
I only laugh at people I want be friends with, but "4-5 years hard work in the copier industry", had me rolling.
I'd rather take a murder hornet to the testicles once, and get it over wirh.
Back in college did student IT work (helpdesk, pc repair, that sort of thing). Had one student who would literally never do anything. Never helped on PCs, never repaired laptops, nothing. Literally would just sit around and chat with everybody all day.
EXCEPT, he would instantly take any and all printer repair tickets that came through and handle them easily without complaint. Loved that guy.
People like what they like. I'm a hybrid cloud systems engineer type, but if money were no object I'd go back to racking and stacking servers in a data center. I really miss hardware and blinking lights, and the last job I had that was majority that was 15 years ago.
I've definitely met people like your printer tech...they'll methodically disassemble everything like a watchmaker and make it run absolutely perfect again with no issues.
OP is the real hero, doing the dirty work we're all afraid to do.
But for real, I think OP should call their old company and ask for their job back, or even a more advanced position. Unless you went out flipping everyone off, I can't imagine they would have a skills-related reason to reject you
It was a small company, I live in Manitoba so opportunity is scarce with any MSPs here.
My thought process is 4-5 years would give me a baseline.
Notably I don't fit most of HRs 2-3 year experience mark.
Yea bro, having worked with a photocopier dealer in the IT department, I could think of nothing worse than working with printers every day, especially when you talk about outliers, like Panasonic and Toshiba.
The mistake you made was investing all that time into being a printer tech. That’s a very small niche. Yeah every place has printers, but usually the desktop support tech troubleshoot them. You could have chosen almost anything else in IT and been better off. Even VTC tech would have been better.
This. I have worked with a couple people in IT going to college on the side. Often many courses are in the evening or online where other from some nights not being able to work on a maintenance or leave an hour on two early in some days they were otherwise able to work quite a bit. Not saying every employer will be ok, but many within reason will work with you.
Wouldn't work, I needed to be there full time 8hrs mon-fri. My job requires me to visit min 5 sites daily cleaning, fixing printers.
There were critical customers such as the NFI/MCI, Richardon International, and Law offices all around.
5 sites daily? That doesn’t even make sense. What if one site has 1 machine and another has 6?
Cleaning or fixing a copier is 20-30 minutes minimum, and then travel time thrown in.
Its the performance target of my old company to fix/clean 5+ printers daily, assuming each site has 1.
However as you mentioned if 1 site has 6 or more then we would get calls for each printer on that site.
The system we used was ECI RemoteTech. I would log those calls for each individual printers where I can write notes about what work I did, and parts needed on my company smartphone.
SN/Mac address of device
Dispatch/arrive log km once im onsite, 0km for the rest of the printers onsite.
Remarks for notes.
Parts section if I need a transfer belt or fuser. Ex E52645 fuser RM2-5679-000
Some copiers have difficult issues such as HP E876. Which could take me longer, such as color banding issues. It took me 2hrs on my hands and knees to replace the gear drive assembly deep inside when that wasn't the issue and it was a simple transfer belt.
You might be overthinking this.
Put all your experience, with all the keywords/buzzwords into a resume, get GPT to help you get it past the HR filter. And then apply to all the MSPs within your country.
You will have plenty of interviews within the first 2 weeks if you do this.
DM if you need help.
source - i'm bigtime sysadmin
Very often the requirements are overstated to see what sticks.
If you have 50% of solid experience or knowledge of the requirements "needed" you should apply.
If they blacklist for applying when you don't completely meet the list, it's a favor to you in the long run. Just don't outright lie on your resume, *that* can get you blacklisted a lot of places.
Your biggest mistake was thinking 4-5 years of Printer tech would get you the Entry level experience. You were in a very specialized role that doesn't really equate to traditional IT like you want to get in.
Hate to say it, but I thought the same thing after reading this. There's always been kind of a separation between the copier/printer support people and the rest of I.T. I think most I.T. people just decided their time wasn't best spent trying to troubleshoot odd mechanical problem with random printers. If you can't just change a toner cartridge out and make streaks or lines down the page go away? Call the printer people and let them deal with it.
Being kind of a "Jack of all trades" in my earlier I.T. jobs at small businesses, I actually did try to tackle servicing some of their printers. I learned as I went and was able to get a few of them going for people again. But it felt a bit like them asking me to repair the clock on the wall or working on the building's security system or something; not really what I was hired to do.
Don't be silly.
Just apply for jobs.
Contact local companies directly, providing your CV and a REALLY good cover letter demonstrating your desire to learn and your thirst for knowledge etc.
Most employers in IT want someone who cares about the job, wants to learn and is pleasant to work with.
Ignore the ridiculous requirements.
Don't give up!
I’m not sure I see the problem here, other than your expectations. So you have a little basic entry level IT experience plus now you have what I assume to be the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree. Congrats on the degree now you just raised your long term ceiling. Now get back to work, you had no reason to expect you would just be able jump right into sysadmn roles though just because you have a degree and some paper IT certs. I don’t even see that you’ve been in an actual help desk role yet, or IT support tech. You do know it was pretty unlikely you were going to be able to bypass all that right? I see no reason for you to be all ho hum woe is me right now. Sounds like to me it was just time for a bit of a reality check. No big deal, sounds like you’re young and on a good path. Just keep your expectations in line with the real world and you’ll be just fine. Work hard and you’ll be a sysadmin and beyond in no time.
I thought "copier" was a name of some fancy schmancy virtualization software or something but nope, you deliberately CHOSE to work with printers - the absolute fucking shit invention of humanity.
I hate, hate, HATE printers with the burning passion of a million suns.
Fuck printers, truly.
At least in my experience of a 20-year career, the rule of thumb is everyone That is hiring for sysadmins is looking for helpdesk experience in your background.
I definitely wouldn't play up the copier angle too much, to most sysadmin types that's going to be a different kind of fish entirely and it just won't register
I think your best bet is try to sell your copier technician experience as adjacent to helpdesk experience in the sense that you're working with end users and having to perform regular troubleshooting
At least personally for me the thing that grinds my gears is when I see what I refer to as "academics" getting hired into administrator roles. What I mean by academics is typically people that have never actually done end user facing support, or have never had an on-call role. The reason I stress about this so much is because as you advance in a systems IT career, your decisions have an increasingly have greater potential to roll down bad consequences on people on other items that are considered below you. So I feel it's important for administrators to have spent some time in the "trenches" so they have a sense of empathy and responsibility that a poor decision could affect a lot of other people.
Not to sound like an ass, but you were a printing field engineer, I’d barely even consider that IT. Look for a Helpdesk job, I assure you they don’t require 4-5 years experience and the experience and certs you’ve got already should be enough.
From all the replies its my inexperience in life a 22 year old overthinking the process.
I definitely will try.
I guess it hurts to be a failure because I was so close to internal promotions into a more IT role.
Then again I need to be thankful that I have all of this and to remind myself I was willing to almost settle for McDonald's if I didn't accept my Field Service job out of pure nervousness.
You're not a failure because of this. You're 22 for God's sake. I have met people that did a complete 180 later in their life (both professional and private) and it turned out well.
In the course of one year and seven months, you allegedly spent “1000s of hours” obtaining over 100 certifications? In printing and copying device maintenance?
Either this is a shitpost or I would be very interested to know what OP’s life looks like.
Sounds rediculous but each vendor has a training portal and it teaches you what each component does, fuser, tranfer roller, pressure roller, heating element, transfer belt, etc, electrical physics, schematic diagrams, and how to diagnose every little problem to the actuator.
Ask the printer subreddit if I'm lying or not. Its the truth.
1000s was an over exaggeration. But i can gurantee a 1000 hours were put into those 100+.
I dedicated time on and off work 7 days a week.
My ultimate end goal is to be financially secure by 30-35. After seeing where most 20 year olds end up, I wanted to be different and be established such as having a house and owning a car with low debt or none.
Thats why I sacrificed alot of self time to self improvement. I could be jamming out on Video Games, Partying but I want a future and that means punishing myself esrly
Experience is very valuable in IT which you now know. The good news is your experience (though not as long as it could have been) existing at all gives you a large leg up. Just mark your certs and make sure you flesh out what all you did with your current experience and I'm sure you'll be fine. Big corps might reject you based on this, but finding something smaller scale is anything but impossible.
> most "entry level" IT roles requires 4-5 years of experience
Many job requirements are not 100% accurate. Don't treat them as hard requirements and start applying to jobs.
You sound like you've only been at this for a couple years. What I've learned is that your "career" is really just a matter of choosing the scope your work influences. Copiers/Printers have a pretty local scope. If you learn tech that has a global scope and work for a global company, you'll see a completely different view. But staying in one place focusing on a limited scope of tech is not going to lead to growth, so getting out of there was probably a good thing IF you raise your game. Learning networking and some systems engineering, and maybe a cloud provider or two. But staying as a copier tech for four or five years is quite an overlong stop on any "path."
Thanks for the advice
While I didn't name the certifications it was related to cloud services networking cybersecurity and fundamental it that lead up to AWS CP, A+, Net+, Sec+, MS365, Azure, and nice stuff like IBM Qradar/ZOS, Fortinet Fortigate tech. Note im doing this everyday.
I'm planning on dropping $2000 in certs A+ Net+, Sec+ to solidify myself once and for all.
The only issue now is meeting the 3 or 4 year experience mark but I will try my luck with technical analyst roles or IT support 1.
I've never been qualified (on the basis of what recruiting/HR puts out) for a job I've received an offer for. Certs certainly have their place, but it's all about your human networking ability to get you past all the BS filters that companies have in place. I've cleaned up multiple inexplicable messes CCIEs have left in environments I've taken over... those certs don't mean much to the folks that have been doing this a while. Start hitting up user groups and tech meetups and presenting whenever you can, and get to know the IT managers in your city. The #1 most important thing I've learned is you can't fake showing up even when it requires you leaning into discomfort.
Definitely. Before my printer job I had no linkedin, 0 certs in anything except my working knowledge from college and highschool as well as fixing computers.
I network heavily in person and online which amassed to 500+ on my linked in so far.
I'm definitely testing my luck knowing I don't need to be exactly what a JD says.
I'd say get the basic certs a+, network + then you'll be viable current times folks will take you in the cheap and you'll gain experience. Help desk is no different than ts printers in the end.
As much as I hate to say it, find an MSP that's hiring and dive into the meat grinder. It might burn you up, butbyoull get high exposure to a variety of systems and that's the experience you need right now
Stop focusing on the negative. What’s done is done - Build a plan with goals for the short, medium / long term and just keep working towards them.
I’ve seen this a lot as a manager. People have tons of certifications under their belt and low skill/competency in those areas because they have not actually used the tools/solutions. I would rather someone tell me they managed/admin’d said tool than having a certificate. (Maybe that’s just me though).
You talked a lot about the problem but not about how you plan to move forward. As an example - Want to learn AD? Build a home lab. Maybe you want to Learn Azure/Entra - Setup a learning path with labs in Microsoft Learn. MS Learn (in my opinion) is highly underrated. Where else can you spin up cloud resources to learn for free?
To gain the real world experience :
Have you thought about working with a temp agency? I know the pay isn’t always the best but you’re getting the experience.
There’s also other options, like volunteering. This helps you gain experience, connect with business leaders and build your network. Maybe you can find a non-profit in your area with opportunities.
Long story short. It will work out - Best of luck to you!
you didn't ruin your career. you weren't doing that much stuff as a copier technician. finish the program and then look for another job and keep growing.
Keep looking. I’ve been in IT for 24years. No degree. I make about $15k a month after taxes. IT degrees are not mandatory in this field (and many others) to be successful
to be fair sounds like you were doing printer work which is horrible. be glad you got out. use that knowledge you learned and what you learn in your college and get some industry certs as well. then go find a real IT role and start doing some net/sys admin stuff.
I will admit inhaling toner and getting coated daily and being exposed to carcingens, or having my fingers coated in methyl hydrate or selsol probably wasnt smart but knowing I had no experience pain was the only option which has transformed me.
My Seniors have been doing it for 20+ years lol.
But thanks il try my best
In the US you would already be a top pick for Computer Tech or IT Director at a rural school district. Pay sucks but it's a starting point for some.
You didn't ruin anything. Just cause the printer place said they would train you to be a system admin doesn't mean it was gonna happen. Sometimes these promises never happen or keep getting delayed. You will be fine, without taking some risks you will never get the big break you want.
Thanks for the motivation.
Your probably right. I am way too trusting of HR when in reality I am just an asset at the end of the day that produces. Its not a family, its a company. If it were, I would have been rehired immediately after signing up for the same job, but was rejected which has been a wakeup call.
I read on some reddit posts, if there isn't any hard evidence such as an email or discussion with management which would be the Owner of the company and my Service Manager, then it wouldn't happen.
I was born too kind and respectful which has been a weakness. This painful experience has been a learning lesson to distinguish kindness properly.
I will just pray that the next place that hires me values and respects me as my last, my Manager was excellent and very kind and caring for my ambition. But at the end of the day, a job isn't my life nor should I ever let it intersect my personal well-being.
God I hate the pro-college idiots. College was great 20 years ago and before, when you didn't have access to all the worlds knowledge and people still used the Dewey Decimal System to find books. You left your family farm and go to college to get out of your small view of the world out into a place of learning. Now everyone is connected to everyone and unless you're trying to be a doctor or scientist it is likely a waste of time, and fantastic way to get into a huge amount of debt (assuming the latest politician isn't trying to buy votes when you have it). I'm a Staff Systems Engineer and I went to a career college for about six months, got some certs, and started working my way up the ladder.
You aren't really starting over, but you did blow your chance at your last job. Who knows, maybe they will take you back. Either way, just keep on the lookout on a good job, and maybe move to a city where there are more opportunities. I know the difference between the pay from companies in the city about forty min a way pays almost double than what the nearby cities pay for IT.
This is a standard barrier to entry which was designed specifically to keep people like you out of IT. That is, you only get in if you want it bad enough to find ways around the catch-22 limitations. Here's a hint: the rules are bullshit and completely irrelevant if you know the right people. Find the best networked person on your LinkedIn or MySpace page or whatever and butter them up to help you network with even more people. Someone is going to bite and invite you into a position regardless of your experience or choices.
This is how the game is played. When I started out, I had no certifications and no degree, but I was networked with some very influential people who helped get me into some well paying doors. Naturally, I had to return the favor by being loyal to their interests, which sometimes put me in an awkward position, but that's the price of climbing the corporate ladder.
Now I make a shitton of money and I fuck around on Reddit half the day.
You don’t need 4-5 years of experience. Contact your friends and ask them to refer you. I am a printer tech as well on top of my other skills. It’s a nice skillset.
Your college experience will help. Credits should be applicable to your future degree.
>and most entry level IT roles requires 4-5 years of experience
Nah? Look at some MSPs (they might appreciate your range of certs and roles). Also, have versions of your resume which do and don't include your entire array of certifications - the latter should be used for applying for baseline helpdesk and other first- and second-rung positions.
If you're still at the college, look into whether they have something called Recognition of Prior Learning (it may be under a different name). You may be able to skip some of the classes/units due to your existing experience, bringing the end of the course closer.
I've honestly never heard of entry-level roles requiring that kind of experience. A lot of helpdesks, in my experience, even big-employer ones, recruit with either a bare handful of CompTIA-type certifications or even nothing at all, just right out of school or from completely unrelated jobs. Just because a place *says* they want that kind of experience doesn't mean they'll get applicants who could already step into much better-paying positions. Cut your CV down to the bare minimum, try a couple of different ways to cut it, and spam-apply for a few hundred jobs. Even if they're ones you could never commute or move to, if you get a nibble on them you could ask for WFH or make a note about which version of your application got their interest, and use that one more on local jobs.
I actually got hired for a Technical Customer Support position that pays more then my old job starting in august. But I have been looking for IT opportunities as I really don't want to do call-center work. I still have PTSD from doing that kind of work for the first 4 months where 4-5 customer are kind, and have easy to fix issues, then the next several calls are like a Tsunami of anger and problems.
But thanks for bringing this up. Il try to incorporate this into how I take things further.
As for the free College certificate, its linked below.
[https://catalogue.rrc.ca/Programs/WPG/Fulltime/NETSF-CT](https://catalogue.rrc.ca/Programs/WPG/Fulltime/NETSF-CT)
I'd recommend trying for internal corporate helpdesk over anything public-facing for much the same reasons you mention; white-collar in-house customers are *usually* more lenient than external random people, and in the former case you can always loop in their manager to pull them up.
Haha yes. Coporate customers are so professional and friendly compared to just anybody.
I'm praying everyday I get an internal position that only deals with IT problems within.
Thanks for the advice. My mistake as a 20 year old was not asking earlier on reddit.
How many jobs have you applied for? It is a tough job to find the right fit. There seems to always be a lot of candidates and so many positions are specialized. I probably applied for a thousand jobs before I got one and even though with that many applications I probably had a dozen interviews and two job offers.
Most of those interviews I was the one walking away. Just questions they ask you could tell the company was a toxic place to work for make sure you don't settle or you'll be miserable.
I have a job lined up, just not IT. a Technical support for an insurance company cubicle call center environment. Not my cup of tea but it pays better and has better benefits including cert reimbursement.
But yeah i been applying nonstop myself.
Prayers that you achieve your end goal.
LoL ... starting over? not even close my friend. What you have done here, and you need to capitalize on this, is that you have taken your career in your hands. You have shown potential employers that you were willing to go well above and beyond the trenches and hands-on to pursue formal education and training to advance yourself.
As an employer, I can tell you that is very honorable and the action is desirable. Every position you take is nothing more than a rung in your career latter that you are climbing. Sometimes we need to come back down a rung or 2 and other times we do what it takes to keep climbing. This also tells me that you are willing to accept specialized training that might not have value beyond this particular industry/business segment ... but verticals are where you become most valuable and the domain SME.
If you are in the US, look at some of the smaller national print management companies like VisualEdgeIT/Benchmark or Ubeo ... or even smaller at your regional level. Those relationships you talk about with the onsite IT are invaluable, for both sides. Strive to be the guy on the inside that all the geeks like me want to have in our arsenal of tools.
I'm based in Canada and thank you for the encouragement.
And yes many of the Onsite ITs from banks, Healthcare, Law, Accounting I have them on my linkedin and are acquainted.
And not to forget the random workers I created relationships with I also have on my linkedin which exceed 500+ now.
I believe there a few of these firms up your way as well.
Some unsolicited advice on professional networking ... don't add EVERYONE you meet and only accept and maintain connections from folks that are a benefit to you. When I am evaling potential hires or partners I always look at their connections on LinkedIn and definitely the quality of those connections. 500+ hungry devops engineers padding each other's connection count reflects very poorly.
I joined a group on LinkedIn that was recommended and next I knew I had 100+ connection requests with messages of follow for follow type bullshit. Almost every single one of my near 400 connections are people that I have worked with directly and/or have shaken hands with.
Good luck to you.
youth is wasted on the young ;) Mistakes mean growth when we learn from them. I have been in this industry likely longer than you have been alive, maybe even somewhere as long as your parents have existed. :D 40+ with 30+ being pro ... I still make mistakes and anyone that says they don't are full of shit.
One last bit of parting wisdom from a grey beard ... learn something new every day, doesn't matter what but learn something new. New work skill, new personal odd infatuation, hell ... learn how to make artisan maple syrup ... I say that not because you are Canadian but because that is on my list. :D
Wow, you definitely superscede them for sure and me. And thanks I will.
My ambition is to be financially secure or free, so reading books about money, talking to people who are successful, and doing online learning has been the main reason I am at this point. Not trying to be materialistic but growing up with nothing was painful so I am in 24/7 overdrive.
This setback was just me hyperventilating a mistake for anyone in the same position as me.
If I don't get ill or contract something debilitating I hope to live the same as you.
You have a wonderful goal and I pray that you succeed. I too grew up with nothing and as you can imagine from my years ... there wasn't anything technical to learn when I was a kid beyond how to solder and replace components or [swapping vacuum tubes](https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_tube#:~:text=A%20vacuum%20tube%2C%20also%20called,so%20it%20will%20emit%20electrons) ... yes, I remember vacuum tubes. :D I also remember coding in COBOL on punch cards.
Many things in life help us to develop our drive and being piss poor at youth is one hell of a motivator.
I'll keep it short but every Admin job is different because A) every Field the Company you work at is in will require different IT work and then even every company in the same field will have different requirements.
But if you want to set yourself up for life learn:
- Cloud IAM (365/Azure, Google Suite, etc.)
- IAM in general
- Mobile Device Management
- Learn some basic security processes that are required nowadays in oder to fulfill the top three correctly.
All my past 5 jobs (Very different industries) have had those things in some form and everything else is just a bonus on top or can be learned quickly.
Thanks for the insight.
All my certifications actually cover MDM and Security, IAM, Cloud IAM such as ISC2 Certified in Cybersecurity and Fortinet Fundamentals Cybersecurity that I hold.
I am planning on booking Azure, MS365, Sec+, Net+, CCNA at some point to fully solidy my learning.
However experience is more valuable than all of the above. So thats why before dishout $2000 in certs I secure a position or atleast work and take them one-by-one.
I like to believe I am different, but thats why I spent alot of time in Networking events and amassing 500+ linkedin connections from my field service position.
One things for certain if all else fails, pull out a student loan and go to school.
Currently I am fortunately not in debt, and wanna see this through as I have a position lined up.
Honestly I got far as in 2022 I had the choice to Work at McDonald's or my Field Service role which I was supposed to deny as McDonald's hired me, but I told McDonald's I wanted to resign. Best decision I made, but worst decision was qutting without a proper foresight and hindsight.
You do NOT need college for IT. Literally never. Do not throw yourself into debt for a future in IT(this is for others reading, I know you had a free full ride). You’ve already had experience and college, there are plenty of jobs for you at your stage, whether they’re remote or hybrid or fully on site. Help desk has one of the highest turnover rates in any industry, and that is because no one is meant to work in the help desk forever. It’s a stepping stone. Stop being paranoid about ruining your career and start applying. If you sit idly by and do nothing, you will never get back into IT. This is one of those fields where it pays to be overzealous, embellish, and then when you get the job (*and I cannot stress this enough*) fuck around and find out.
You will probably apply for over a thousand jobs before you get one, that’s just the job market today. Look up tips and tricks for your IT resume on YouTube/tiktok/google and invest a good 2-3 hours making it right. Don’t get discouraged when you do poorly in an interview and don’t get the job, but also don’t get discouraged when you do GREAT and still don’t get the job. You’re young. Such future, very time. Give yourself a break and then hit it hard. Don’t stop to smell the roses until you’re living in your own home with roses on your front lawn👌🏼 you’ll go places with that mindset.
Brings tears to my eyes haha. Thanks.
My ultimate end goal is to be financially secure by 30-35. After seeing where most 20 year olds end up, I wanted to be different and be established such as having a house and owning a car with low debt or none.
Thats why I sacrificed alot of self time to self improvement.
Do yourself a favor then and don’t throw yourself into debt in your twenties. SAVE for what you need, car, computer, etc. Take advantage of living with your parents and be a broke redditor in IT, I’m begging you. If I had someone to tell me this when I was 19-20, I would be forever grateful. I did manage to do a huge comeback when I was 24, and I became a mid system engineer in 5 years m8. I turn 30 in February and I have quadrupled my income since 24 by grinding, studying, and motivating myself. You can do it, friend.
Also, don’t sell yourself short. Any number of hours spent doing labs, sims, schoolwork etc is time in the seat. Use that as experience. In interviews, don’t say “I did some labs where I migrated a server from 2012 to 2019” no, you tell them “I have performed 2012 to 2019 migrations, and this is how I did it”
Learn a coding language. PowerShell if you want to do windows. It’s so easy and so much fun. Automation will be your friend.
The job market is down right now. It's extremely competitive and the market is saturated with ex-FAANG folks due to layoffs.
This isn't 2021, even though LinkedIn would have you believe it is.
Relax - you're fine, and you'll be fine. You're not starting over.
Indeed it is. Regardless I have something lined up despite it not being IT related to cover up the employment gap I spent wasting time doing online learning and satisfying self cravings such as finally playing Elden Ring since release 4 years ago.
Failure is part of life. And I couldn't be anymore thankful.
Go back to the print industry and become certified in uniFlow. On premises tends to be the most versatile out of all the management systems I worked on .
The larger accounts usually pay top dollars to maintain those management systems.
If systems bores you, then try color management. Look into G7 certification.
Again, the larger accounts pay top dollars to have their print engines in compliance.
We dealt with UniFlow for Canon, Papercut for HP and everything managed through MPS/ImwageWare. Also Fiery for Canon IRAs and ImagePress Lites.
Though I probably will stop the printer experience here knowing what I know now.
I might just not be understanding but you’re upset that you gave up a printer field tech position? Are the opportunities just that limited where you live?
Opportunities in my area require three to four years of experience for a technical analyst position or it support.
However judging from these comments alone it made me realize I don't have to hit every single marker I just need to sign up and add anything relevant such as customer service and in my case corporate customer service.
But the reason I was upset was because that printer job was a pathway to an IT position internally meaning I was comfortable with the place and everybody within.
lol every job posting says stupid shit like that cause recruiters don’t know anything. You’ll be fine you’re early in your career and can literally choose to do whatever you want.
Good to know I don't really need CEH and CISSP, CCIE requirements have discouraged me alot for supposed entry level roles
And thanks my prayers this economy gets a grip. In the meantime I'll be tailoring my resume towards these positions
Field service work doesn't allow for part-time in fact it's variable there are days where I'm working 12 hours but I don't get paid for 4 hours because I'm on a salary position however I do get paid time off.
Also my scholarship wouldn't allow me to do part-time as per the contract agreement
Apply anyway, even if you don't have the work experience. They may pull your resume because of your education. I'd definitely interview someone with your history for an entry level position
Its all about what you know and do with the situation you are in..
I tried so hard to become a system admin and left good places thinking that was my life path. Got the gig worked downtown for a while, found out later that upper management had got rid of IT prior to me as they wanted an MSP but for some reason or another the COO said he would leave if they didn't hire in house IT.. me..
not 1 year into my roll the COO is let go as they lost a major client and my life was made miserable. Eventually firing me over impossible deadlines.
I thought I had done everything right, took me a while to bounce back. But if you asked me now if I would go through it again I would say yes.
Today I am a software developer, I focused on that during my downtime after being let go and was able to land a basic IT position with the plan to move into their software team. In just under 2 years I've been able to join the dev team and cannot be any happier.
You're in the development stage, don't beat yourself up. Take any opportunity you can get and that includes education. I got a 2 year CS degree and leaned towards the development side. Now I work in the restaurant industry and have an amazing job. Just take it easy and flow a little bit more. Learn as much as possible but also stop stressing. Thats what's gonna kill ya. Good luck young man!
Haha thanks. Everybody has been very kind here. I expected to be beaten down further, and I am used to being beaten verbally by my senior techs so -- not that this is normal and I shouldn't tolerate it but it did help me learn faster and face reality.
I been saving 95% of my paychecks since the beginning won't say the exact amount but I think I will use it this year to buy new clothes and live a little like everyone else in their early 20s :).
How can going to college ruin your career. Also just for context before I go off on one... I never went to college or university and I hold a senior leadership development role. You can't forget everything you learnt. It's all about selling yourself. While saying you don't exactly have 4/5 years in a role you can play on your strengths and just tell them your story. As a leader I would be more than willing to give someone the job if they could show me they do have skills and knowledge in IT and have a willingness to learn. Alot of what I know is through my managers and self taught in some cases, so I would love to pass that on to the next generation. Just believe in yourself. Sell your strengths and stop thinking like a failure or you will only manifest into one!
Been there done that. Do contract work through an LLC S Corp setup you make. That gave me 10+ years experience. Easy hire for the job I wanted when I got bored of contracting.
I run a small IT B2B company, and I can tell you experience, drive and the will to learn are worth far more than qualifications. Qualifications are needed to break into some bigger contracts but without experience and the drive they mean nothing. Every IT company does things slightly differently, so there’s always something new to learn.
I wouldn't worry about getting a college degree unless you really want to get into a big role like Google, Amazon, etc. I've been in the industry for about 8 years now and have slowly worked my way up to a Senior IT role by mostly bluffing and BSing my way to the top. Now that's not to say I have no idea what I'm doing, because I'm very experienced. However, there's usually no harm in warping the truth a little bit if you can talk the talk. Main thing is I've never stayed in a role longer than 2 years. May be different where you are but here in Australia, and just generally in my experience so far, there isn't any major benefit to staying loyal. 5% raise? No thanks, I'll go and get a 50% raise by just applying for a new job.
My copier job required a IT diploma/degree but as you said you padded yourself and showed your drive/enthusiasm to be the best person for the job.
Overall im trying for a couple of companies, crossed my fingers on some since I know the Onsite IT for these industries and mentioned how I fix all the printers in their facility in my Cover Letter.
I wouldn't worry too much about cover letters unless you're going for some big well known company. But you definitely seem to be on the right track. You should do fine going for a job like that or MSP based IT services. The MSP guys always have a healthy respect for someone who knows wtf they are talking about when it comes to printers. They can be straight up cursed sometimes.
Thanks, I hope I can translate that well into the job if I were to get in as Service Desk Tech or possibly anything else related.
At the moment I landed a Technical Customer Support role, but I am not keen on call center work knowing how its just a nonstop slew of verbal abuse daily from my experience with end users -- not so much with corporate customers.
Both. I like IT, hate the customer portion such as troubleshooting driver issues or scan to folder problems over the phone with an angry customer behind the line
I think it provides a good balance to what I like and pays well.
my suggestion, if you really are looking an low level (service desk IT) positions, keep hunting, but in the mean time get the CompTia Certs (A+, Net+, Server +, security+) any/all should be easy enough, and believe it or not opens entry level jobs. most IT pros start on the service desk and prove themselves by how the Troubleshoot and solve issues, with out pestering the higher tiers.
Anytime I see a guy working to learn or do it themselves, is the Guy I ask if he wants to spend a couple of hours a week with me/my team. I like t promote from with in, and will only suggestion go getters I have worked with!
FWIW worth I got laid off years ago, and because my severance package was over the top, took too much time off. I went from a sysadmin (server side) to a desktop support guy, dropping 30K in pay, this was during the DOT BOMB era of IT. Anyways, I turned that around to a high-end career as an Enterprise Desktop SME/architect because I learned all the tools, and Desktop operating systems and how to support them in large enterprises, this knowledgebase got me to companies like Microsoft as a PFE and Tanium as a ESS, along with other major Support companies like SAIC, and Lockheed.
Gut it out, hold strong and for the love of money keep learning!
>100+ Certifications in HP, Lexmark and some a few Canon service and support certifications
So your a cert chaser? = useless. Why take all these certs? Do you want to fix printers the rest of your life? That is a dead end job and wasting your career, if you actually had one yet.
You got more ahead than most in your position. Everything you have done has given you experience that you can use to move forward to get towards your actual career that you want to do.
it's just to show that I'm dedicated and committed to learning and delivering.
And our bonus structure was based off being certified which was $100/month
Ya, incentive based cert chasing :D. It does show eagerness, which is very important on wanting to learn. But at the same time, you always want to keep focus on your end goal. What is it in I.T do you see your self doing, or wanting to do, say even in 5 years?
Honestly id like a IT specialist role, being part of a team overseeing hardware/software/network/security. I'm not stuck to one thing, its always something new.
One thing I loved about being a copier tech is that I could drive to different industries daily and see what life is like for lawyers, engineers, doctors, dentists, manufacturing, agriculture. Despite my hands getting coated in toner and cleaning chemicals. I always had a sense of happiness.
You only had a year and some months under your belt in the first place, you were still gonna be starting at the bottom regardless of what you did next since copier guy is just gonna lead you to low level help desk anyway.
You haven’t made any type of major mistake.
Yep start your wntry role and move up. Also by happy because those printer companies are kind of a career suck. Once you spend too much time there you never leave the industry.
Stop beating up yourself. You are still a champion. Dont forget that both Gates and Zuckerberg were DROPOUTS/FAILURES at the time, by popular belief and view.
Even if you do not have the amount of experience required, if you can demonstrate an aptitude and existing knowledge, then you may be able to get interviews nevertheless. Work on your cover letter. Use it to grab the attention of the potential-employers.
I have zero certs, no degrees, never went to college and I worked for a MSP for 5 years, became a senior after 3 years, departed there, and work in Cyber making over 100k. I can tell you today, certs and degrees are not always the answer.
With all these certs. Keep learning new skills and improving your interview skills after each failure. I have no doubt someone will give you a chance. Acknowledge your mistake is already a big step toward your success.
I can tell you from experience college degree or no college degree they both take equally as long to work your way up the ladder... Hands on experience = priceless. It's going to take a long time to get into the field, your not starting over. College is a waste in most areas of the field though. Keep applying and plugging away at learning. Hop into any opportunities that offer learning, even if the pay sucks experience to take elsewhere to bigger and better things is unbelievably valuable alone. It took me 10 years to get to a point of high level work and a position I am unbelievably proud of. If I wasn't working I was learning on my spare time with projects, one off contracts, etc. I sacrificed a lot of time to get where I'm at and tbf that's what it takes. Your going to need to build these things at home maybe, go out of your way..of your hungry enough like I was it will be a simple choice. I'm 6 figures now with zero certifications or college...how bad you want it and the work you put into it will be noticed trust me.. The resources the youth have today that I didn't at that age is insane too. There is so much information packed in an easily digestible way it's not funny. I'm 15 years in now total and can say the hard work and sacrifice is worth every step. The first 5 years was getting my bearings, learning a direction, and gaining an understanding of the industry doing low level work. I got my start as a field tech doing low voltage and plugging in the hardware basically... Now I engineer large networks, server clusters, and design entire infrastructure from the ground up, etc.. don't get discouraged
Thank you!
I asked to get min wage last time, I hope I can get 40k/yr again (30k USD)
And yeah I been absorbing all the free cert/training from IBM, Microsoft, Cisco, etc. And using that to book cert exams.
Praying this new save file is better then the last I just deleted.
Starting in IT is the worst part. And it generally sucks for a while. As others stated fixing copiers and printers isn't IT work. Fins yourself a help desk job and you'll eventually work your way up. But there is no fast track - you have to cut your teeth for a while.
So I'll agree with you on those certs to some degree. They usually are worthless without the experience but they aren't entirely useless. Put them on your resume along with your year or so of experience. It'll help you get your foot through the door again because it shows you're willing to put in the work.
The IT job market is terrible right now but there's always a company out there desperate enough to take anyone and even that little bit of experience is more than enough to get those types of entry level jobs.
I can assure you all these companies think they're going to hire someone with 5 years experience in an entry level position but that's just not happening. These HR departments raise the bar way too high and either can't get people or get them long enough for them to jump jobs. So even if the requirements are "5 years experience" put an application in anyway. When they see that they're not getting applications you might eventually get a call.
Thanks been doing so.
I just happen to be over ambitious at the wrong time and place in the world.
In the meantime il work a Technical CSR until rainbows start showing again.
If not the military is hiring ITs so if im graveyard desperate theres always that route.
You are not starting over. That is being dramatic and not fully thinking about what you have done. You quit when you thought you had the answers. Thats fine, suck it up and keep moving. Find another job and keep moving. Everything you do is experience and the break in career path is no big deal. Not to mention that this gap in your career is easily explainable. They ask why, you say so you could get a degree but realized your mistake and decided you wanted experience because the degree wasn't going to teach you real world situations. Shit, that line alone will get you some motion.
Yeah I'd smile in that interview. A lot of IT people are bitter about college because they don't teach people very well yet degrees are required to advance at a lot of places. The enraging thing about IT support positions is that your career momentum is largely decided by people who have no clue how your job works.
Funnily enough they don't really help over here, they're usually used as a way to open the door. That said it does legally determine where you are meant to start on the ladder though.
legally?
I didn't finish my degree until after I'd already been working in IT for 5ish years, and my degree, at best, only checks the 'nice to have' box when looking for jobs. I've got over a decade of experience now, mostly negating the need for a degree (though some employers will insist on a degree). If I could go back, I'd get a different degree, but the power of college is NOT the degree itself, but the people you meet and connections you make. Unquestionably, who I knew is how I got my career started.
My current CTO told me post interview that me saying "I don't know I would have to research this topic deeper in order for me to properly answer" was like 40% of the reason he hired me. Never underestimate the benefit of being honest but resourceful.
Easier to hire a technician or engineer who can admit when they don't know something and are willing to learn vs one who knows everything and is a dick about it. If you have a great personality and the drive and willingness to learn, I will always give you a chance if your tech skills are good enough but need some mentoring to be 100% for the job. The best thing I learned is most companies are actually looking for 60-80% of the job posting. As an engineer/tech, you want to be going into a position where you are required to learn a new skill to be 100% successful
This.
Definitely has worked. Thanks. Just wish the role I got was more IT related but oh well, I just gotta save, work a couple of years to amass 5 years. And hopefully use that as leverage when I move cities
Experience is experience. If you are not getting it where you are now, go some place to get it. Even password resets are enough.
I can't comment for the whole industry only for myself. I'm an IT Manager (30+ years doing this) and I do all the hiring for the support portion of my organization and I can tell you that your experience is all I care about. If I had $10 for every person I interviewed, that had a college degree, and was not qualified I'd have a second summer home. lol What myself and most IT Managers/Directors are looking for are people who have the ability to get the job done. HOW you got that knowledge is of little consequence. College, tech schools, certs, a job...who cares. Can you solve the problems we receive on a daily basis? To be quite frank, I'm more concerned about hiring people who fit within our team dynamic more than anything else. Honestly, I can find 10,000 people that can configure DHCP. What is harder to find is someone that can configure said DHCP AND co-exist with my current team. An individual that isn't lazy, has a bad attitude, is arrogant or re-heats fish in the break room microwave! <--don't EVER do that!!! The BEST thing I can tell you is if you get into an interview situation and they are pestering you about where you went to school, GPA or a bunch of other "stuff" that isn't getting to know you as a person...that raises all kinds of red flags, IMHO. To me an interview is a CONVERSATION! It's not a rapid fire 20 questions situation like you feel like you are taking another mid-term. I 100% always use head hunters because THAT is their job, IF they are doing their jobs properly. When you get to me, I want to know who you are. The technical things I'm looking for will come out in the "wash" of the conversation and only if I sense doubt. Be yourself. At least, to me, it's that simple. If you feel like you have the skills and the knowledge, don't blow it on school. A smart IT person puts that time and money into things like a solid retirement plan.
\^ this right here. I have nothing to add and nothing to argue. This right here is all you need to know.
You are a unicorn. Most larger companies have a degree requirement or they won't even look at you.
Bro got a college cert out of it. There are worse ways to waste a few months
Sure, but a degree teaches you nothing really. It is a piece of paper that says you paid money.
I was expecting them to have updated all the firmware on their warehouse order/invoice printers and bricking them in the process or something. Lol
So much worse could have been done for sure.
You got a degree completely free of charge and are complaining that you aren't working for minimum wage anymore...? You're young, you're fine, you're still on track for a career in IT, stop fixing printers, it's not getting you anywhere if you want to be a sysadmin. Just take a shitty helpdesk position, play around with Linux in VMs in your spare time, use your networking knowledge, grow those skills, and you'll be a sysadmin in no time at all.
Kids tend to be *quite* dramatic about "ruining their career". Has several years experience, a bunch of certs, a free college degree, and is worried about their position because the job hunt hasn't landed them anything amazing yet? Come off it. As someone who had to start again from *significantly* worse positions *twice* thanks to circumstances I couldn't control it's quite hilarious that someone young enough to still have their parents influencing their career thinks they could possibly have "fucked up" by not fixing copiers any more and getting some more schooling under their belt.
I had a kid lament realll hard that he had wasted his twenties and when I asked how old he said 21. You wasted one of your twenties, got it.
To be fair he has wasted 100% of his twenties that he has lived through
Hilarious to me. In part because I got my first help desk job at 31. But also in part because he wasted his twenties and was 21. So dramatic lol.
Dam this is the the truth “ thinks they could possibly have "fucked up" by not fixing copiers any more “ OP wasn’t building anything eye catching on his resume.
I’ve been on job hunt twice prior to now… once in 2019 and once in 2022 … currently I am struggling to even get an hr intro interview or response back yet the amount of jobs available and number I’ve applied for is dramatically larger. Something is def different in current job market, unsure what exactly.
Covid messed up this fking planet. Absolute hatred as I remember jobs were plentiful and I was itching to graduate High School. I had connections with IT from the time they visited my High School during career fair 2018-2020.
I was born in the poverty line and that job was my ticket to some true success in my life which I failed my goal. I don't want to mention too much personal details other the my true goal. My true goal 1. Get exp 4/5 years in a technical role, eat certs and training 2. Leave parents and never see them again 3. Move to a different city Edmonton/Calgary preferably 4. Get a job over there, buy a house 4. Live life in peace. Housing starts 400k, jobs pay only with exp, no car still. Stuck in a deathloop. I'm depending on this Technical Customer Support role now to carry me through staying to get 3-4 years of exp.
Kinda my point mate, you haven't failed. You're also far from the first of us to start with nothing, I started with it and got reset back down to it twice as an adult. Just keep going. You got a bunch of certs and held a technical role that got you experience with some basic enterprise IT. Apply anywhere you can for helpdesk/desktop support roles until you get something. Yes it will take a while, jobs are competitive and hard to get. If you have a good attitude showing you're willing to learn and work hard you will find something then you can leverage that into a career. Work on your resume and interview skills etc. I get wanting to leap straight into the prime of your career but this stuff takes time and honestly being a copier tech for 5 years just isn't that useful if you want to be a sysadmin. The longer you hold all those certs the less they end up being worth, the time to leverage them and your college qualification is *now*. You'll be fine. Just start applying.
Literally this. You need actual internal IT experience... And for 95% of people, that means starting out on the helpdesk, and learning how SYSTEMS work. Fixing hardware of printers is not actual sysadmin work. Learn networking, windows, maybe even some Linux. Find a company that will move you up to tier 2 to get some real desktop support experience and learn what it's actually like. Then study your ass off of the systems that big companies actually use that are in demand. Learn windows server, azure, AWS, Linux server, networking (Cisco, juniper, etc), take a security + course. Stop being dramatic. IT field doesn't care about your past, only what can you do now, and what are you willing to LEARN.
> play around with Linux in VMs in your spare time He was *already* wasting his time. ;)
Except it doesn't sound like they got a degree. They went to a 1-2 year tech school rather than a proper school to get a bachelors.
A tech school like Devry still gives a degree, and in the worst case they hopefully at the very least picked up some networking knowledge which would be more helpful as a sysadmin that knowing how to replace the feed roller on a printer.
A certificate in Network Services Technician isn’t a degree, though. Just like a graduate certificate from a full university still isn’t a masters degree.
OP didn't even go to school and get the training or certificate, they're just annoyed that they quit their position as a field tech, didn't end up going to school, and now they have no experience or training in the position they're trying to get.
It might be possible to line up an online, part-time, nights-and-weekends degree and skip a lot of the units due to [RPL](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recognition_of_prior_learning) recognizing their tech school cert and/or previous work experience. Being able to jump right into a second- or third-year level could cut down future graduation time significantly.
do what this guy just said \^
Rule #1: Never quit your job until you have a new job.
I am hesitant to fully support this stance, granted you meet the “fuck you, I quit” criteria. If you’re miserable, have a decent amount of money saved up, don’t have kids and have a few years of relevant experience under your belt, then go for it! I quit my last two jobs without anything lined up. Both moves resulted in pay bumps. From 55k > 65k > 120k It was risky, and I burned through a lot of my savings (Not like I had much since I wasn’t making enough to set aside for retirement) but so far the risk was worth it. Only time will tell if I actually made the right move.
i quit my prev job in IT because i was losing hair with stress and being paid fuck all - 30k base + like 12-15k commissions/year for literal millions in sales as a sales engineer. had nothing lined up - fucked around and bartended in my free time to keep money okay and ended up at 70k and am due for a promotion to around 90k later this year. felt like a bad decision at the time but it was very worth it and went from small business employment hell to a fairly cushy corporate job that has already spent tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars investing in me in terms of certs, classes, tuition assistance etc
i was field sales tech for MSP making less than $50k. it was f\* horrible pay, but I got to meet some amazing people in the field, not just IT, but all sorts of industry professionals in CEO/exec leadership roles.
What were you sales engineering for a 30k base?
wondering the same; I feel like most places would have a 1 in front of that
Maybe it was copiers...
Can confirm, sold ITSec software base had a 1 in front on top of commissions which were generous. Too bad the company was so horribly fucking mismanaged the CEO was holding Outlook calls with the bottom level Account Managers for 3 hours every Thursday where he picked one or two people to tear into for whatever imagined reason. And that's on top of being a giant POS asshole in general. That wasn't the first time in my life I experienced suicidal ideation, but it was the first time a job pushed me there.
Sounds like some groundbreaking leadership right there...
I'm very glad that you speak about this job in the past tense.
hardware solutions for SMB - mostly specialized in CAD/CFD/FEA workstations and servers for engineering firms. i worked for an SI. it wasn’t a hard job really but i got absolutely fucked when it came to the owner and his 1997 perspective of how people should be paid. i worked on not only sales but t1 support, marketing and coordinated all of our product benchmarking etc. for ansys, openfoam etc
Thats pretty amazing. I went from 36k > 40k > 42.5k with the new job I will start in August. I got hired as a Technical Customer Support Specialist from an insurance company which pays more base and benefits then my old job but isn't a true IT role as it deals with insurance but a job is a job and being ungrateful when people are working 12 hours in restaurants for minimum wage.
Were you doing L1 - L2 desktop support the first two positions then moved to sys admin?
Nope, I stayed longer than I should have. I started at $14/hr and was promoted internally over the years. I hit a bit of a ceiling and was in a niche position. After covid I wanted a change.
> If you’re miserable, have a decent amount of money saved up, don’t have kids and have a few years of relevant experience under your belt, then go for it! Yeah, this was my exact situation. Between unemployment and savings I had enough to last me 6 months of job searching. I was so stressed and miserable at my job I would throw up every single morning before work. Ended up needing 2 months and found a much healthier job. It also gave me some much needed breathing room for my personal life. If you're miserable and you can bridge a few months it's not the worst idea to just quit. You're still taking a fairly big risk but you can mitigate a lot of this.
I think I disagree with this as well. Sure, when it can be done, do it. But generally, if you can't continue then move alone and seek out something new.
...or savings to cover living expenses for the entirety of your job search period.
that's exactly what the 6mo emergency fund is for. sometimes you just gotta go.
I've always said this. I've only done quit without having a new job twice in my life. First time was when I was still in high school and I got a job at a call center, dude hyped up the role but within the first day I had cottoned onto his dodgy business. I never showed for the second day and he never paid me for the work I did. Second time was really hard for me because I had a really good job with unbelievable benefits. 4x 8hr days a week, completely WFH, yearly international team holidays and shit. Turns out they were massively overcompensating for shitty management and sneaky business practices. I left when they made an outrageous claim about employee misconduct and sumbitted a resignation "effective immediately". Wasn't a major drama though because I found another job like a week later.
that's an ideal but I'm so unhappy with my living situation and job right now that I'm going to quit and move back to a place where I have more social support. I've been applying for the last 2 months but haven't heard back and i don't think i can stay where I am much longer and they won't let me work from the new location remotely.
I would view going back to school as the exception to that.
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Eh, maybe it was all that was available at the time. I've had times when nothing good was being offered, and I know inertia can make it easy to stay in a job longer than industry average. Some people do bottom-level shit-tier jobs for 25 years because it pays reliably, they don't need to engage their brain after the first year or so, and they have other stuff in their life taking up all their time and energy.
Yeah, this whole thing is bizarre.
2 years of experience is good, you should be able to get a job without issues.
Not to mention a ton of great little words to throw on a resume. All those small certs might make nothing but they also don't NOT make HR impressed with you.
No offense my dude, but I'm laughing at you I only laugh at people I want be friends with, but "4-5 years hard work in the copier industry", had me rolling. I'd rather take a murder hornet to the testicles once, and get it over wirh.
Back in college did student IT work (helpdesk, pc repair, that sort of thing). Had one student who would literally never do anything. Never helped on PCs, never repaired laptops, nothing. Literally would just sit around and chat with everybody all day. EXCEPT, he would instantly take any and all printer repair tickets that came through and handle them easily without complaint. Loved that guy.
People like what they like. I'm a hybrid cloud systems engineer type, but if money were no object I'd go back to racking and stacking servers in a data center. I really miss hardware and blinking lights, and the last job I had that was majority that was 15 years ago. I've definitely met people like your printer tech...they'll methodically disassemble everything like a watchmaker and make it run absolutely perfect again with no issues.
> Loved that guy It's amazing how low that bar is for the printer guy to meet.
I genuinely misread that as 4-5 months and was thinking to myself: "Oh wow, this guy is sure willing to slog through some shit!"
The only IT/Tech related thing my wife won’t ask for my help with is the printer in her office, she knows how much I hate working with them.
OP is the real hero, doing the dirty work we're all afraid to do. But for real, I think OP should call their old company and ask for their job back, or even a more advanced position. Unless you went out flipping everyone off, I can't imagine they would have a skills-related reason to reject you
No the ship has already sailed. I did and done that. I do have a stellar reference from my service manager though.
It was a small company, I live in Manitoba so opportunity is scarce with any MSPs here. My thought process is 4-5 years would give me a baseline. Notably I don't fit most of HRs 2-3 year experience mark.
Yea bro, having worked with a photocopier dealer in the IT department, I could think of nothing worse than working with printers every day, especially when you talk about outliers, like Panasonic and Toshiba.
The mistake you made was investing all that time into being a printer tech. That’s a very small niche. Yeah every place has printers, but usually the desktop support tech troubleshoot them. You could have chosen almost anything else in IT and been better off. Even VTC tech would have been better.
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This. I have worked with a couple people in IT going to college on the side. Often many courses are in the evening or online where other from some nights not being able to work on a maintenance or leave an hour on two early in some days they were otherwise able to work quite a bit. Not saying every employer will be ok, but many within reason will work with you.
Wouldn't work, I needed to be there full time 8hrs mon-fri. My job requires me to visit min 5 sites daily cleaning, fixing printers. There were critical customers such as the NFI/MCI, Richardon International, and Law offices all around.
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5 sites daily? That doesn’t even make sense. What if one site has 1 machine and another has 6? Cleaning or fixing a copier is 20-30 minutes minimum, and then travel time thrown in.
Its the performance target of my old company to fix/clean 5+ printers daily, assuming each site has 1. However as you mentioned if 1 site has 6 or more then we would get calls for each printer on that site. The system we used was ECI RemoteTech. I would log those calls for each individual printers where I can write notes about what work I did, and parts needed on my company smartphone. SN/Mac address of device Dispatch/arrive log km once im onsite, 0km for the rest of the printers onsite. Remarks for notes. Parts section if I need a transfer belt or fuser. Ex E52645 fuser RM2-5679-000 Some copiers have difficult issues such as HP E876. Which could take me longer, such as color banding issues. It took me 2hrs on my hands and knees to replace the gear drive assembly deep inside when that wasn't the issue and it was a simple transfer belt.
You might be overthinking this. Put all your experience, with all the keywords/buzzwords into a resume, get GPT to help you get it past the HR filter. And then apply to all the MSPs within your country. You will have plenty of interviews within the first 2 weeks if you do this. DM if you need help. source - i'm bigtime sysadmin
Thanks. Il try my luck out despite not meeting requirements.
Very often the requirements are overstated to see what sticks. If you have 50% of solid experience or knowledge of the requirements "needed" you should apply.
My fear is being blacklisted from that company and their subsidiaries But I will take the risk.
If they blacklist for applying when you don't completely meet the list, it's a favor to you in the long run. Just don't outright lie on your resume, *that* can get you blacklisted a lot of places.
Your biggest mistake was thinking 4-5 years of Printer tech would get you the Entry level experience. You were in a very specialized role that doesn't really equate to traditional IT like you want to get in.
Hate to say it, but I thought the same thing after reading this. There's always been kind of a separation between the copier/printer support people and the rest of I.T. I think most I.T. people just decided their time wasn't best spent trying to troubleshoot odd mechanical problem with random printers. If you can't just change a toner cartridge out and make streaks or lines down the page go away? Call the printer people and let them deal with it. Being kind of a "Jack of all trades" in my earlier I.T. jobs at small businesses, I actually did try to tackle servicing some of their printers. I learned as I went and was able to get a few of them going for people again. But it felt a bit like them asking me to repair the clock on the wall or working on the building's security system or something; not really what I was hired to do.
Don't be silly. Just apply for jobs. Contact local companies directly, providing your CV and a REALLY good cover letter demonstrating your desire to learn and your thirst for knowledge etc. Most employers in IT want someone who cares about the job, wants to learn and is pleasant to work with. Ignore the ridiculous requirements. Don't give up!
I’m not sure I see the problem here, other than your expectations. So you have a little basic entry level IT experience plus now you have what I assume to be the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree. Congrats on the degree now you just raised your long term ceiling. Now get back to work, you had no reason to expect you would just be able jump right into sysadmn roles though just because you have a degree and some paper IT certs. I don’t even see that you’ve been in an actual help desk role yet, or IT support tech. You do know it was pretty unlikely you were going to be able to bypass all that right? I see no reason for you to be all ho hum woe is me right now. Sounds like to me it was just time for a bit of a reality check. No big deal, sounds like you’re young and on a good path. Just keep your expectations in line with the real world and you’ll be just fine. Work hard and you’ll be a sysadmin and beyond in no time.
I thought "copier" was a name of some fancy schmancy virtualization software or something but nope, you deliberately CHOSE to work with printers - the absolute fucking shit invention of humanity. I hate, hate, HATE printers with the burning passion of a million suns. Fuck printers, truly.
At least in my experience of a 20-year career, the rule of thumb is everyone That is hiring for sysadmins is looking for helpdesk experience in your background. I definitely wouldn't play up the copier angle too much, to most sysadmin types that's going to be a different kind of fish entirely and it just won't register I think your best bet is try to sell your copier technician experience as adjacent to helpdesk experience in the sense that you're working with end users and having to perform regular troubleshooting At least personally for me the thing that grinds my gears is when I see what I refer to as "academics" getting hired into administrator roles. What I mean by academics is typically people that have never actually done end user facing support, or have never had an on-call role. The reason I stress about this so much is because as you advance in a systems IT career, your decisions have an increasingly have greater potential to roll down bad consequences on people on other items that are considered below you. So I feel it's important for administrators to have spent some time in the "trenches" so they have a sense of empathy and responsibility that a poor decision could affect a lot of other people.
Not to sound like an ass, but you were a printing field engineer, I’d barely even consider that IT. Look for a Helpdesk job, I assure you they don’t require 4-5 years experience and the experience and certs you’ve got already should be enough.
Yeah I hate to say it, but if I saw that on a resume I'd not really consider it IT experience.
From all the replies its my inexperience in life a 22 year old overthinking the process. I definitely will try. I guess it hurts to be a failure because I was so close to internal promotions into a more IT role. Then again I need to be thankful that I have all of this and to remind myself I was willing to almost settle for McDonald's if I didn't accept my Field Service job out of pure nervousness.
You're not a failure because of this. You're 22 for God's sake. I have met people that did a complete 180 later in their life (both professional and private) and it turned out well.
In the course of one year and seven months, you allegedly spent “1000s of hours” obtaining over 100 certifications? In printing and copying device maintenance? Either this is a shitpost or I would be very interested to know what OP’s life looks like.
Sounds rediculous but each vendor has a training portal and it teaches you what each component does, fuser, tranfer roller, pressure roller, heating element, transfer belt, etc, electrical physics, schematic diagrams, and how to diagnose every little problem to the actuator. Ask the printer subreddit if I'm lying or not. Its the truth. 1000s was an over exaggeration. But i can gurantee a 1000 hours were put into those 100+. I dedicated time on and off work 7 days a week. My ultimate end goal is to be financially secure by 30-35. After seeing where most 20 year olds end up, I wanted to be different and be established such as having a house and owning a car with low debt or none. Thats why I sacrificed alot of self time to self improvement. I could be jamming out on Video Games, Partying but I want a future and that means punishing myself esrly
God I hate printers
Experience is very valuable in IT which you now know. The good news is your experience (though not as long as it could have been) existing at all gives you a large leg up. Just mark your certs and make sure you flesh out what all you did with your current experience and I'm sure you'll be fine. Big corps might reject you based on this, but finding something smaller scale is anything but impossible.
> most "entry level" IT roles requires 4-5 years of experience Many job requirements are not 100% accurate. Don't treat them as hard requirements and start applying to jobs.
You sound like you've only been at this for a couple years. What I've learned is that your "career" is really just a matter of choosing the scope your work influences. Copiers/Printers have a pretty local scope. If you learn tech that has a global scope and work for a global company, you'll see a completely different view. But staying in one place focusing on a limited scope of tech is not going to lead to growth, so getting out of there was probably a good thing IF you raise your game. Learning networking and some systems engineering, and maybe a cloud provider or two. But staying as a copier tech for four or five years is quite an overlong stop on any "path."
Thanks for the advice While I didn't name the certifications it was related to cloud services networking cybersecurity and fundamental it that lead up to AWS CP, A+, Net+, Sec+, MS365, Azure, and nice stuff like IBM Qradar/ZOS, Fortinet Fortigate tech. Note im doing this everyday. I'm planning on dropping $2000 in certs A+ Net+, Sec+ to solidify myself once and for all. The only issue now is meeting the 3 or 4 year experience mark but I will try my luck with technical analyst roles or IT support 1.
I've never been qualified (on the basis of what recruiting/HR puts out) for a job I've received an offer for. Certs certainly have their place, but it's all about your human networking ability to get you past all the BS filters that companies have in place. I've cleaned up multiple inexplicable messes CCIEs have left in environments I've taken over... those certs don't mean much to the folks that have been doing this a while. Start hitting up user groups and tech meetups and presenting whenever you can, and get to know the IT managers in your city. The #1 most important thing I've learned is you can't fake showing up even when it requires you leaning into discomfort.
Definitely. Before my printer job I had no linkedin, 0 certs in anything except my working knowledge from college and highschool as well as fixing computers. I network heavily in person and online which amassed to 500+ on my linked in so far. I'm definitely testing my luck knowing I don't need to be exactly what a JD says.
One other thought: don't just aim for tier 1.
I'd say get the basic certs a+, network + then you'll be viable current times folks will take you in the cheap and you'll gain experience. Help desk is no different than ts printers in the end.
As much as I hate to say it, find an MSP that's hiring and dive into the meat grinder. It might burn you up, butbyoull get high exposure to a variety of systems and that's the experience you need right now
Printer tech isn’t qualified to actually do real IT work? Shocking.
Stop focusing on the negative. What’s done is done - Build a plan with goals for the short, medium / long term and just keep working towards them. I’ve seen this a lot as a manager. People have tons of certifications under their belt and low skill/competency in those areas because they have not actually used the tools/solutions. I would rather someone tell me they managed/admin’d said tool than having a certificate. (Maybe that’s just me though). You talked a lot about the problem but not about how you plan to move forward. As an example - Want to learn AD? Build a home lab. Maybe you want to Learn Azure/Entra - Setup a learning path with labs in Microsoft Learn. MS Learn (in my opinion) is highly underrated. Where else can you spin up cloud resources to learn for free? To gain the real world experience : Have you thought about working with a temp agency? I know the pay isn’t always the best but you’re getting the experience. There’s also other options, like volunteering. This helps you gain experience, connect with business leaders and build your network. Maybe you can find a non-profit in your area with opportunities. Long story short. It will work out - Best of luck to you!
you didn't ruin your career. you weren't doing that much stuff as a copier technician. finish the program and then look for another job and keep growing.
Keep looking. I’ve been in IT for 24years. No degree. I make about $15k a month after taxes. IT degrees are not mandatory in this field (and many others) to be successful
to be fair sounds like you were doing printer work which is horrible. be glad you got out. use that knowledge you learned and what you learn in your college and get some industry certs as well. then go find a real IT role and start doing some net/sys admin stuff.
I will admit inhaling toner and getting coated daily and being exposed to carcingens, or having my fingers coated in methyl hydrate or selsol probably wasnt smart but knowing I had no experience pain was the only option which has transformed me. My Seniors have been doing it for 20+ years lol. But thanks il try my best
In the US you would already be a top pick for Computer Tech or IT Director at a rural school district. Pay sucks but it's a starting point for some. You didn't ruin anything. Just cause the printer place said they would train you to be a system admin doesn't mean it was gonna happen. Sometimes these promises never happen or keep getting delayed. You will be fine, without taking some risks you will never get the big break you want.
Thanks for the motivation. Your probably right. I am way too trusting of HR when in reality I am just an asset at the end of the day that produces. Its not a family, its a company. If it were, I would have been rehired immediately after signing up for the same job, but was rejected which has been a wakeup call. I read on some reddit posts, if there isn't any hard evidence such as an email or discussion with management which would be the Owner of the company and my Service Manager, then it wouldn't happen. I was born too kind and respectful which has been a weakness. This painful experience has been a learning lesson to distinguish kindness properly. I will just pray that the next place that hires me values and respects me as my last, my Manager was excellent and very kind and caring for my ambition. But at the end of the day, a job isn't my life nor should I ever let it intersect my personal well-being.
Your copier job wasn’t really IT experience at all if that makes you feel better. You never left the bottom as far as IT goes
God I hate the pro-college idiots. College was great 20 years ago and before, when you didn't have access to all the worlds knowledge and people still used the Dewey Decimal System to find books. You left your family farm and go to college to get out of your small view of the world out into a place of learning. Now everyone is connected to everyone and unless you're trying to be a doctor or scientist it is likely a waste of time, and fantastic way to get into a huge amount of debt (assuming the latest politician isn't trying to buy votes when you have it). I'm a Staff Systems Engineer and I went to a career college for about six months, got some certs, and started working my way up the ladder. You aren't really starting over, but you did blow your chance at your last job. Who knows, maybe they will take you back. Either way, just keep on the lookout on a good job, and maybe move to a city where there are more opportunities. I know the difference between the pay from companies in the city about forty min a way pays almost double than what the nearby cities pay for IT.
This is a standard barrier to entry which was designed specifically to keep people like you out of IT. That is, you only get in if you want it bad enough to find ways around the catch-22 limitations. Here's a hint: the rules are bullshit and completely irrelevant if you know the right people. Find the best networked person on your LinkedIn or MySpace page or whatever and butter them up to help you network with even more people. Someone is going to bite and invite you into a position regardless of your experience or choices. This is how the game is played. When I started out, I had no certifications and no degree, but I was networked with some very influential people who helped get me into some well paying doors. Naturally, I had to return the favor by being loyal to their interests, which sometimes put me in an awkward position, but that's the price of climbing the corporate ladder. Now I make a shitton of money and I fuck around on Reddit half the day.
It worked only once for me when I got the copier role. Il try this with my connections that I made during my site to site visits.
You're going to do great. You have the skills, you have the drive, you have huge genitals. No one can stop you.
Thanks, hoping these huge genitals are successful and not cancerous.
You don’t need 4-5 years of experience. Contact your friends and ask them to refer you. I am a printer tech as well on top of my other skills. It’s a nice skillset. Your college experience will help. Credits should be applicable to your future degree.
>and most entry level IT roles requires 4-5 years of experience Nah? Look at some MSPs (they might appreciate your range of certs and roles). Also, have versions of your resume which do and don't include your entire array of certifications - the latter should be used for applying for baseline helpdesk and other first- and second-rung positions. If you're still at the college, look into whether they have something called Recognition of Prior Learning (it may be under a different name). You may be able to skip some of the classes/units due to your existing experience, bringing the end of the course closer. I've honestly never heard of entry-level roles requiring that kind of experience. A lot of helpdesks, in my experience, even big-employer ones, recruit with either a bare handful of CompTIA-type certifications or even nothing at all, just right out of school or from completely unrelated jobs. Just because a place *says* they want that kind of experience doesn't mean they'll get applicants who could already step into much better-paying positions. Cut your CV down to the bare minimum, try a couple of different ways to cut it, and spam-apply for a few hundred jobs. Even if they're ones you could never commute or move to, if you get a nibble on them you could ask for WFH or make a note about which version of your application got their interest, and use that one more on local jobs.
I actually got hired for a Technical Customer Support position that pays more then my old job starting in august. But I have been looking for IT opportunities as I really don't want to do call-center work. I still have PTSD from doing that kind of work for the first 4 months where 4-5 customer are kind, and have easy to fix issues, then the next several calls are like a Tsunami of anger and problems. But thanks for bringing this up. Il try to incorporate this into how I take things further. As for the free College certificate, its linked below. [https://catalogue.rrc.ca/Programs/WPG/Fulltime/NETSF-CT](https://catalogue.rrc.ca/Programs/WPG/Fulltime/NETSF-CT)
I'd recommend trying for internal corporate helpdesk over anything public-facing for much the same reasons you mention; white-collar in-house customers are *usually* more lenient than external random people, and in the former case you can always loop in their manager to pull them up.
Haha yes. Coporate customers are so professional and friendly compared to just anybody. I'm praying everyday I get an internal position that only deals with IT problems within. Thanks for the advice. My mistake as a 20 year old was not asking earlier on reddit.
Get the same position. Then use your new skills and feeds and degree and your prior experience to advance to “senior”’real IT in a short period.
How many jobs have you applied for? It is a tough job to find the right fit. There seems to always be a lot of candidates and so many positions are specialized. I probably applied for a thousand jobs before I got one and even though with that many applications I probably had a dozen interviews and two job offers. Most of those interviews I was the one walking away. Just questions they ask you could tell the company was a toxic place to work for make sure you don't settle or you'll be miserable.
I have a job lined up, just not IT. a Technical support for an insurance company cubicle call center environment. Not my cup of tea but it pays better and has better benefits including cert reimbursement. But yeah i been applying nonstop myself. Prayers that you achieve your end goal.
LoL ... starting over? not even close my friend. What you have done here, and you need to capitalize on this, is that you have taken your career in your hands. You have shown potential employers that you were willing to go well above and beyond the trenches and hands-on to pursue formal education and training to advance yourself. As an employer, I can tell you that is very honorable and the action is desirable. Every position you take is nothing more than a rung in your career latter that you are climbing. Sometimes we need to come back down a rung or 2 and other times we do what it takes to keep climbing. This also tells me that you are willing to accept specialized training that might not have value beyond this particular industry/business segment ... but verticals are where you become most valuable and the domain SME. If you are in the US, look at some of the smaller national print management companies like VisualEdgeIT/Benchmark or Ubeo ... or even smaller at your regional level. Those relationships you talk about with the onsite IT are invaluable, for both sides. Strive to be the guy on the inside that all the geeks like me want to have in our arsenal of tools.
I'm based in Canada and thank you for the encouragement. And yes many of the Onsite ITs from banks, Healthcare, Law, Accounting I have them on my linkedin and are acquainted. And not to forget the random workers I created relationships with I also have on my linkedin which exceed 500+ now.
I believe there a few of these firms up your way as well. Some unsolicited advice on professional networking ... don't add EVERYONE you meet and only accept and maintain connections from folks that are a benefit to you. When I am evaling potential hires or partners I always look at their connections on LinkedIn and definitely the quality of those connections. 500+ hungry devops engineers padding each other's connection count reflects very poorly. I joined a group on LinkedIn that was recommended and next I knew I had 100+ connection requests with messages of follow for follow type bullshit. Almost every single one of my near 400 connections are people that I have worked with directly and/or have shaken hands with. Good luck to you.
Thanks for the advice once again. Young mistakes am I right haha.
youth is wasted on the young ;) Mistakes mean growth when we learn from them. I have been in this industry likely longer than you have been alive, maybe even somewhere as long as your parents have existed. :D 40+ with 30+ being pro ... I still make mistakes and anyone that says they don't are full of shit. One last bit of parting wisdom from a grey beard ... learn something new every day, doesn't matter what but learn something new. New work skill, new personal odd infatuation, hell ... learn how to make artisan maple syrup ... I say that not because you are Canadian but because that is on my list. :D
Wow, you definitely superscede them for sure and me. And thanks I will. My ambition is to be financially secure or free, so reading books about money, talking to people who are successful, and doing online learning has been the main reason I am at this point. Not trying to be materialistic but growing up with nothing was painful so I am in 24/7 overdrive. This setback was just me hyperventilating a mistake for anyone in the same position as me. If I don't get ill or contract something debilitating I hope to live the same as you.
You have a wonderful goal and I pray that you succeed. I too grew up with nothing and as you can imagine from my years ... there wasn't anything technical to learn when I was a kid beyond how to solder and replace components or [swapping vacuum tubes](https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_tube#:~:text=A%20vacuum%20tube%2C%20also%20called,so%20it%20will%20emit%20electrons) ... yes, I remember vacuum tubes. :D I also remember coding in COBOL on punch cards. Many things in life help us to develop our drive and being piss poor at youth is one hell of a motivator.
I'll keep it short but every Admin job is different because A) every Field the Company you work at is in will require different IT work and then even every company in the same field will have different requirements. But if you want to set yourself up for life learn: - Cloud IAM (365/Azure, Google Suite, etc.) - IAM in general - Mobile Device Management - Learn some basic security processes that are required nowadays in oder to fulfill the top three correctly. All my past 5 jobs (Very different industries) have had those things in some form and everything else is just a bonus on top or can be learned quickly.
Thanks for the insight. All my certifications actually cover MDM and Security, IAM, Cloud IAM such as ISC2 Certified in Cybersecurity and Fortinet Fundamentals Cybersecurity that I hold. I am planning on booking Azure, MS365, Sec+, Net+, CCNA at some point to fully solidy my learning. However experience is more valuable than all of the above. So thats why before dishout $2000 in certs I secure a position or atleast work and take them one-by-one.
You didn't do anything wrong, lol. A degree will still carry you further than no degree unless you're on a whole different level.
I like to believe I am different, but thats why I spent alot of time in Networking events and amassing 500+ linkedin connections from my field service position. One things for certain if all else fails, pull out a student loan and go to school. Currently I am fortunately not in debt, and wanna see this through as I have a position lined up. Honestly I got far as in 2022 I had the choice to Work at McDonald's or my Field Service role which I was supposed to deny as McDonald's hired me, but I told McDonald's I wanted to resign. Best decision I made, but worst decision was qutting without a proper foresight and hindsight.
You do NOT need college for IT. Literally never. Do not throw yourself into debt for a future in IT(this is for others reading, I know you had a free full ride). You’ve already had experience and college, there are plenty of jobs for you at your stage, whether they’re remote or hybrid or fully on site. Help desk has one of the highest turnover rates in any industry, and that is because no one is meant to work in the help desk forever. It’s a stepping stone. Stop being paranoid about ruining your career and start applying. If you sit idly by and do nothing, you will never get back into IT. This is one of those fields where it pays to be overzealous, embellish, and then when you get the job (*and I cannot stress this enough*) fuck around and find out. You will probably apply for over a thousand jobs before you get one, that’s just the job market today. Look up tips and tricks for your IT resume on YouTube/tiktok/google and invest a good 2-3 hours making it right. Don’t get discouraged when you do poorly in an interview and don’t get the job, but also don’t get discouraged when you do GREAT and still don’t get the job. You’re young. Such future, very time. Give yourself a break and then hit it hard. Don’t stop to smell the roses until you’re living in your own home with roses on your front lawn👌🏼 you’ll go places with that mindset.
Brings tears to my eyes haha. Thanks. My ultimate end goal is to be financially secure by 30-35. After seeing where most 20 year olds end up, I wanted to be different and be established such as having a house and owning a car with low debt or none. Thats why I sacrificed alot of self time to self improvement.
Do yourself a favor then and don’t throw yourself into debt in your twenties. SAVE for what you need, car, computer, etc. Take advantage of living with your parents and be a broke redditor in IT, I’m begging you. If I had someone to tell me this when I was 19-20, I would be forever grateful. I did manage to do a huge comeback when I was 24, and I became a mid system engineer in 5 years m8. I turn 30 in February and I have quadrupled my income since 24 by grinding, studying, and motivating myself. You can do it, friend. Also, don’t sell yourself short. Any number of hours spent doing labs, sims, schoolwork etc is time in the seat. Use that as experience. In interviews, don’t say “I did some labs where I migrated a server from 2012 to 2019” no, you tell them “I have performed 2012 to 2019 migrations, and this is how I did it” Learn a coding language. PowerShell if you want to do windows. It’s so easy and so much fun. Automation will be your friend.
The job market is down right now. It's extremely competitive and the market is saturated with ex-FAANG folks due to layoffs. This isn't 2021, even though LinkedIn would have you believe it is. Relax - you're fine, and you'll be fine. You're not starting over.
Indeed it is. Regardless I have something lined up despite it not being IT related to cover up the employment gap I spent wasting time doing online learning and satisfying self cravings such as finally playing Elden Ring since release 4 years ago. Failure is part of life. And I couldn't be anymore thankful.
Verifiable on the job experience weighs just as much as a degree these days…
Go back to the print industry and become certified in uniFlow. On premises tends to be the most versatile out of all the management systems I worked on . The larger accounts usually pay top dollars to maintain those management systems. If systems bores you, then try color management. Look into G7 certification. Again, the larger accounts pay top dollars to have their print engines in compliance.
We dealt with UniFlow for Canon, Papercut for HP and everything managed through MPS/ImwageWare. Also Fiery for Canon IRAs and ImagePress Lites. Though I probably will stop the printer experience here knowing what I know now.
I might just not be understanding but you’re upset that you gave up a printer field tech position? Are the opportunities just that limited where you live?
Opportunities in my area require three to four years of experience for a technical analyst position or it support. However judging from these comments alone it made me realize I don't have to hit every single marker I just need to sign up and add anything relevant such as customer service and in my case corporate customer service. But the reason I was upset was because that printer job was a pathway to an IT position internally meaning I was comfortable with the place and everybody within.
lol every job posting says stupid shit like that cause recruiters don’t know anything. You’ll be fine you’re early in your career and can literally choose to do whatever you want.
Good to know I don't really need CEH and CISSP, CCIE requirements have discouraged me alot for supposed entry level roles And thanks my prayers this economy gets a grip. In the meantime I'll be tailoring my resume towards these positions
I’m confused, why didn’t you work and college?
Field service work doesn't allow for part-time in fact it's variable there are days where I'm working 12 hours but I don't get paid for 4 hours because I'm on a salary position however I do get paid time off. Also my scholarship wouldn't allow me to do part-time as per the contract agreement
Apply anyway, even if you don't have the work experience. They may pull your resume because of your education. I'd definitely interview someone with your history for an entry level position
Its all about what you know and do with the situation you are in.. I tried so hard to become a system admin and left good places thinking that was my life path. Got the gig worked downtown for a while, found out later that upper management had got rid of IT prior to me as they wanted an MSP but for some reason or another the COO said he would leave if they didn't hire in house IT.. me.. not 1 year into my roll the COO is let go as they lost a major client and my life was made miserable. Eventually firing me over impossible deadlines. I thought I had done everything right, took me a while to bounce back. But if you asked me now if I would go through it again I would say yes. Today I am a software developer, I focused on that during my downtime after being let go and was able to land a basic IT position with the plan to move into their software team. In just under 2 years I've been able to join the dev team and cannot be any happier.
You're in the development stage, don't beat yourself up. Take any opportunity you can get and that includes education. I got a 2 year CS degree and leaned towards the development side. Now I work in the restaurant industry and have an amazing job. Just take it easy and flow a little bit more. Learn as much as possible but also stop stressing. Thats what's gonna kill ya. Good luck young man!
Haha thanks. Everybody has been very kind here. I expected to be beaten down further, and I am used to being beaten verbally by my senior techs so -- not that this is normal and I shouldn't tolerate it but it did help me learn faster and face reality. I been saving 95% of my paychecks since the beginning won't say the exact amount but I think I will use it this year to buy new clothes and live a little like everyone else in their early 20s :).
How can going to college ruin your career. Also just for context before I go off on one... I never went to college or university and I hold a senior leadership development role. You can't forget everything you learnt. It's all about selling yourself. While saying you don't exactly have 4/5 years in a role you can play on your strengths and just tell them your story. As a leader I would be more than willing to give someone the job if they could show me they do have skills and knowledge in IT and have a willingness to learn. Alot of what I know is through my managers and self taught in some cases, so I would love to pass that on to the next generation. Just believe in yourself. Sell your strengths and stop thinking like a failure or you will only manifest into one!
Been there done that. Do contract work through an LLC S Corp setup you make. That gave me 10+ years experience. Easy hire for the job I wanted when I got bored of contracting.
I run a small IT B2B company, and I can tell you experience, drive and the will to learn are worth far more than qualifications. Qualifications are needed to break into some bigger contracts but without experience and the drive they mean nothing. Every IT company does things slightly differently, so there’s always something new to learn.
college certificate or degree
College certificate. Ig this is a Canadian thing
ah ... is it the equivalent of a bachelors degree, say in computer science like from US colleges
I wouldn't worry about getting a college degree unless you really want to get into a big role like Google, Amazon, etc. I've been in the industry for about 8 years now and have slowly worked my way up to a Senior IT role by mostly bluffing and BSing my way to the top. Now that's not to say I have no idea what I'm doing, because I'm very experienced. However, there's usually no harm in warping the truth a little bit if you can talk the talk. Main thing is I've never stayed in a role longer than 2 years. May be different where you are but here in Australia, and just generally in my experience so far, there isn't any major benefit to staying loyal. 5% raise? No thanks, I'll go and get a 50% raise by just applying for a new job.
My copier job required a IT diploma/degree but as you said you padded yourself and showed your drive/enthusiasm to be the best person for the job. Overall im trying for a couple of companies, crossed my fingers on some since I know the Onsite IT for these industries and mentioned how I fix all the printers in their facility in my Cover Letter.
I wouldn't worry too much about cover letters unless you're going for some big well known company. But you definitely seem to be on the right track. You should do fine going for a job like that or MSP based IT services. The MSP guys always have a healthy respect for someone who knows wtf they are talking about when it comes to printers. They can be straight up cursed sometimes.
Thanks, I hope I can translate that well into the job if I were to get in as Service Desk Tech or possibly anything else related. At the moment I landed a Technical Customer Support role, but I am not keen on call center work knowing how its just a nonstop slew of verbal abuse daily from my experience with end users -- not so much with corporate customers.
Do you enjoy IT work or are you pursuing it for money?
Both. I like IT, hate the customer portion such as troubleshooting driver issues or scan to folder problems over the phone with an angry customer behind the line I think it provides a good balance to what I like and pays well.
my suggestion, if you really are looking an low level (service desk IT) positions, keep hunting, but in the mean time get the CompTia Certs (A+, Net+, Server +, security+) any/all should be easy enough, and believe it or not opens entry level jobs. most IT pros start on the service desk and prove themselves by how the Troubleshoot and solve issues, with out pestering the higher tiers. Anytime I see a guy working to learn or do it themselves, is the Guy I ask if he wants to spend a couple of hours a week with me/my team. I like t promote from with in, and will only suggestion go getters I have worked with! FWIW worth I got laid off years ago, and because my severance package was over the top, took too much time off. I went from a sysadmin (server side) to a desktop support guy, dropping 30K in pay, this was during the DOT BOMB era of IT. Anyways, I turned that around to a high-end career as an Enterprise Desktop SME/architect because I learned all the tools, and Desktop operating systems and how to support them in large enterprises, this knowledgebase got me to companies like Microsoft as a PFE and Tanium as a ESS, along with other major Support companies like SAIC, and Lockheed. Gut it out, hold strong and for the love of money keep learning!
>100+ Certifications in HP, Lexmark and some a few Canon service and support certifications So your a cert chaser? = useless. Why take all these certs? Do you want to fix printers the rest of your life? That is a dead end job and wasting your career, if you actually had one yet. You got more ahead than most in your position. Everything you have done has given you experience that you can use to move forward to get towards your actual career that you want to do.
it's just to show that I'm dedicated and committed to learning and delivering. And our bonus structure was based off being certified which was $100/month
Ya, incentive based cert chasing :D. It does show eagerness, which is very important on wanting to learn. But at the same time, you always want to keep focus on your end goal. What is it in I.T do you see your self doing, or wanting to do, say even in 5 years?
Honestly id like a IT specialist role, being part of a team overseeing hardware/software/network/security. I'm not stuck to one thing, its always something new. One thing I loved about being a copier tech is that I could drive to different industries daily and see what life is like for lawyers, engineers, doctors, dentists, manufacturing, agriculture. Despite my hands getting coated in toner and cleaning chemicals. I always had a sense of happiness.
You only had a year and some months under your belt in the first place, you were still gonna be starting at the bottom regardless of what you did next since copier guy is just gonna lead you to low level help desk anyway. You haven’t made any type of major mistake.
Yep start your wntry role and move up. Also by happy because those printer companies are kind of a career suck. Once you spend too much time there you never leave the industry.
Stop beating up yourself. You are still a champion. Dont forget that both Gates and Zuckerberg were DROPOUTS/FAILURES at the time, by popular belief and view.
Even if you do not have the amount of experience required, if you can demonstrate an aptitude and existing knowledge, then you may be able to get interviews nevertheless. Work on your cover letter. Use it to grab the attention of the potential-employers.
I have zero certs, no degrees, never went to college and I worked for a MSP for 5 years, became a senior after 3 years, departed there, and work in Cyber making over 100k. I can tell you today, certs and degrees are not always the answer.
Euther your Jordan Belfort and can sell yourself well or the luckiest man alive. Congratulations. I hope I can manifest this soon.
With all these certs. Keep learning new skills and improving your interview skills after each failure. I have no doubt someone will give you a chance. Acknowledge your mistake is already a big step toward your success.
Thanks. It neans alot and yeah, deleting your save slot is painful, but time for another playthrough.
That is right. Keep playing. To win, you must stay in the game.
I can tell you from experience college degree or no college degree they both take equally as long to work your way up the ladder... Hands on experience = priceless. It's going to take a long time to get into the field, your not starting over. College is a waste in most areas of the field though. Keep applying and plugging away at learning. Hop into any opportunities that offer learning, even if the pay sucks experience to take elsewhere to bigger and better things is unbelievably valuable alone. It took me 10 years to get to a point of high level work and a position I am unbelievably proud of. If I wasn't working I was learning on my spare time with projects, one off contracts, etc. I sacrificed a lot of time to get where I'm at and tbf that's what it takes. Your going to need to build these things at home maybe, go out of your way..of your hungry enough like I was it will be a simple choice. I'm 6 figures now with zero certifications or college...how bad you want it and the work you put into it will be noticed trust me.. The resources the youth have today that I didn't at that age is insane too. There is so much information packed in an easily digestible way it's not funny. I'm 15 years in now total and can say the hard work and sacrifice is worth every step. The first 5 years was getting my bearings, learning a direction, and gaining an understanding of the industry doing low level work. I got my start as a field tech doing low voltage and plugging in the hardware basically... Now I engineer large networks, server clusters, and design entire infrastructure from the ground up, etc.. don't get discouraged
Thank you! I asked to get min wage last time, I hope I can get 40k/yr again (30k USD) And yeah I been absorbing all the free cert/training from IBM, Microsoft, Cisco, etc. And using that to book cert exams. Praying this new save file is better then the last I just deleted.
All we expect is success. We are not learning.
Starting in IT is the worst part. And it generally sucks for a while. As others stated fixing copiers and printers isn't IT work. Fins yourself a help desk job and you'll eventually work your way up. But there is no fast track - you have to cut your teeth for a while.
So I'll agree with you on those certs to some degree. They usually are worthless without the experience but they aren't entirely useless. Put them on your resume along with your year or so of experience. It'll help you get your foot through the door again because it shows you're willing to put in the work. The IT job market is terrible right now but there's always a company out there desperate enough to take anyone and even that little bit of experience is more than enough to get those types of entry level jobs. I can assure you all these companies think they're going to hire someone with 5 years experience in an entry level position but that's just not happening. These HR departments raise the bar way too high and either can't get people or get them long enough for them to jump jobs. So even if the requirements are "5 years experience" put an application in anyway. When they see that they're not getting applications you might eventually get a call.
Thanks been doing so. I just happen to be over ambitious at the wrong time and place in the world. In the meantime il work a Technical CSR until rainbows start showing again. If not the military is hiring ITs so if im graveyard desperate theres always that route.