Help for an inexperienced IT Technician?

[Pichi123]

Hi,


I am a 24 year old pc technician. I am qualified to the City and Guilds diploma level 3 standard, I have also undertaken a foundation degree in applied computing. Also I have taken a bachelor’s degree course which was again in applied computing. Yet it seems to be impossible to obtain a job in the ICT field! All the companies seem to want people who have 2 or more years experience. I have no experience as I have been working in retail for nearly 5 years to fund my education. The only form of experience that I suppose I do have is placements, modern apprenticeships etc. through college but no company seems to be interested in these.


I have researched into how people have made their initial break into the ICT industry. All I can seem to find is
that people have worked for company’s voluntary straight from college and have been kept on. I cannot afford to work voluntary for a company as I work full time.

I am willing to take any courses via college day release or night school etc. that a company would want me to so as to bring my knowledge up to the required standard, but I cannot seem to find the initial break.


Does anyone have any advice/ tips that I can follow?


It seems to be the usual not what you know it’s who you know scenario and I seem to know nobody.


Also it worries me that as each year passes there are more people qualifying which means more people for fewer jobs.

I am from Mansfield, Nottinghamshire and I would like to work in a school or college as I have experiecne of the enviroment. That said though I am not limiting my self to just educational establishments for employment.



Thanks in advance for any help given

Peter

[witch]

I can help you write the best CV possible if you would like. To work in a school you will need to fill in a form, but it is useful to have all the information so you can copy it onto the application. PM me for email if you are interested. Other than that - have you applied for anything lately? Dont let your lack of experience put you off, no matter what an advert says.

[Pichi123]

Pm'd you. Will an company take on an inexperienced technician even if they ask for 2 years plus?

Also thanks for any help you can give with regards my cv. Much appreciated

Peter

[wagnerk]

Apart from what Witch has already offered...

...Does anyone have any advice/ tips that I can follow?...

Just keep on applying. It took me 5 years to get my break in IT and that was before the recession...

[synaesthesia]

Use your retail experience - be a salesman for yourself. It's a bit cliched but very true. I had the opposite problem, plenty of experience but absolutely zero qualification. (Still don't, which hopefully Mr Wagner above will be able to help with in the near future! ) so I had to just keep on applying and selling myself on experience not qualification.
One thing you have which others will not is a "fresh slate". You won't have built up habits from previous employment which would carry over to your next position. Make it known that you're keen to learn and build on experience, and also that you make efforts (obviously, do!) to keep up with technology and IT support/services. Make use of virtual machines if you don't already to expand your knowledge and give you a playground, this is also a very good selling point.
Best of luck, it is difficult but a bit of hard sales and some luck you'll get that all important foot in the door.

[pete]

Pm'd you. Will an company take on an inexperienced technician even if they ask for 2 years plus?

Unless you offer something worth exchanging for two years experience, probably* not . They want someone who walk in and start doing things, not someone they'll have to teach / handhold (irrespective of your technical skills, no experience = handholding, because otherwise you'll fubar something be it technical or otherwise).

*this assumes they're not the kind of HR dept who asks for 12 years experience of Silverlight. If 2 yrs is a hard requirement set by the IT Dept, you won't get it.


What have you done to show you're trying to gain experience? How have you conveyed this in interviews?

Do you have the ability to run virtual machines / a home network to fiddle with?
Have you got a Technet sub for access to Microsoft OS and software for testing purposes (£200-ish)?
Have you helped your local pub/organisation/whatever sort out their WiFi (for example)?
Have you read The Practice of System and Network Administration by Limoncelli & Hogan?
Can you intelligently discuss current IT news topics?

You could always look here for volunteering at the weekend for example: Home - iT4Communities (Be aware charities tend to be at the wierder end of the IT spectrum).

[edutech4schools]

(Be aware charities tend to be at the wierder end of the IT spectrum)

I'll pass that on to my mate who heads up the IT dept for WWF.

[Sam_Brown]

Lie lie and lie again

[Dos_Box]

Lie lie and lie again

The big drawback with that is when you have to do something that you have said you can do, and suddenly can't. There are a few tales on here of members catching people out that way.

[pete]

I'll pass that on to my mate who heads up the IT dept for WWF.

He probably already knows and can tell you terrible stories about it

Doing volunteer IT work for charitable groups is *icky* because you'll often be clearing up a partly-finished poorly-planned project without a budget to do it properly.

[Peter220779]

I was in a similar position when I graduated University with a BSc in Computing and Information Systems. It's unfortunately one of those circles where you can't gain experience without a job and you can't get a job without the experience.

I found that schools and other educational establishments were the most understanding when it came to not having experience. It's definitely worth persuing any positions with schools in your area. Once you get that initial "foot in the door" you won't look back.

[Sam_Brown]

The big drawback with that is when you have to do something that you have said you can do, and suddenly can't. There are a few tales on here of members catching people out that way.

lol. My response was pretty tongue in cheek but I'd love to see some stories of people being cuaght out by people on here if anyone has any links

[gpe5732]

Sell yourself and tell the truth about what you know. Tell them you're eager and willing to learn, etc.

A lot of it is luck, right place - right time, but a lot of it is how you carry yourself. I've been in a few interviews where the person lies about their technical knowledge. An interview for a technology job is not a place to lie about your technical skills, because as soon as someone in the interview senses it, they're going to grill you until your head spins.

[Pichi123]

I was in a similar position when I graduated University with a BSc in Computing and Information Systems. It's unfortunately one of those circles where you can't gain experience without a job and you can't get a job without the experience.

I found that schools and other educational establishments were the most understanding when it came to not having experience. It's definitely worth persuing any positions with schools in your area. Once you get that initial "foot in the door" you won't look back.

I have written to all the colleges in my area and either got no response or a rejection letter.

[synaesthesia]

Don't let that worry you. A majority of schools have budget problems therefore probably won't give speculative job applications a second glance (unfortunately) however when they do need technical staff (obviously be vigilant with local adverts, council advertisements etc) they'll quite likely certainly listen to what you have to say.