which is more demanding

[featured_spectre]

SC First (for interview)

CTC (for 2nd phase interview)

DV (if appointed to the job)

[jdoyle]

having worked in both, my own experience is that corporate is more demanding technically and has more pressure for successful project completion. The companies I've worked for have had IT as fairly critical for supporting growth/managing costs and as such IT was firmly part of company strategy. Often the reason for and impacts of projects is clearer than in education.

 

However, in education you generally have poorer management/leadership and internal communications which puts on a quite different set of demands; training is not as forthcoming requiring more research on your own part; the user base often works against you (student hackers and some teachers) and teachers are more resistant to change than employees in corporate environments. While a lot of IT is ploughed into schools a lot is fad driven which remains under utilised or patchily adopted which generally wouldn't be the case in corporate (IWBs, projectors, VLEs, video conference kit, educational gadgets, Vivo Miles, digital signage......).

 

Having been back in education for 4.5 years now, working 8:30 to 5 Mon to Thurs and 8:30 to 4:30 Fri is great. No more working Saturdays and Sundays or long week days. Motorway, trains, tube and international travel are things of the past. Stressed that my skillset is rusting and that training is virtually non-existent but can't have everything.

[DarrenM]

In a business you have one logon per computer per day, in school its 6 or so, as most problems occur at boot or login its fair to say we have support demands 4 to 5 times more than a similar sized business. But as said above projects in schools are very much more erm flexible and often have no evaluation afterwards.

 

I think that particularly in the current climate its unlikely you can move from school into a higher position in a business best bet is to do what you are doing at school in a business and then try to rapidly move up. I have worked in both schools and businesses.

[Jiser]

You work in education and when going to business alot will put it down - 'not the real world' or some sort. Worked in both education and business in IT, there are differences but I would say your more a generalist in education. Companies still have these as sys admins but as you get into the big corps specialised teams deal in specialised stuff.

 

The pace in business can be a bit faster than education for example timings, deadlines etc.

[pcstru]

Education market or corporate market? Reason I ask is one of the jobs I have applied for said the education market is not anywhere near as demanding as. He corporate market for IT, and I want to show that its just as demanding if not more so.

 

Demanding in what way? My experience is that the private sector is more narrowly focused, you tend to specialise/single task more and perhaps because of that, deadlines are less ... 'forgiving'. In Education you tend to get a wide brief, the day to day is more disrupted by 'unplanned' activities and as a consequence deadlines are reasonably flexible for the majority of tasks. Stress wise, private sector can be much more stressful, job security in Education is quite good and people tend to be sticklers for procedure. In the private sector you are much more vulnerable and perceived poor performance will get you fired.

[dwhyte85]

I've found corporate companies that have a real structure you are very orientated towards one area like pcstru has said, I found in Schools people didn't know what you did and didn't necessarily appreciate the work/time it takes to get things done.

 

Working at a startup I've found I've had to work 24 hours straight a couple of times, unsociable hours and do tasks I'd never thought I'd have to but better rewarded than I was in corporate or in a school.

 

I don't think people can say that working in a school is a bad thing, often you cover alot more ground than most people, for instance the amount of AV you'll do as second nature and the amount of customer service you have to give everyday - the corporate world for me was a little stagnant and faceless, like you could not turn up and nobody would really care - just around to make up numbers in some cases, you weren't that relied upon like a school where they see you as a god for fixing a printer, something that maybe simple but has a massive impact on a school.

 

I bet you can do far more off the top of your head than someone who's been first line for a corp for 2 years... ask them to go repair a server hands-on without a knowledgebase, second line support or a work instruction and see them crumble.

Edited August 7, 2011 by dwhyte85