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 It took 4 interviews with the company, but I've now met everybody in the building and they all want to work with me. Should be a great opportunity. Working flat-rate managed IT so instead of the break / yell / fix environment, I'll spend more of my time monitoring systems and working with benign tickets. At least that's what the other guys described it as so who knows if it's close to reality. It is more than possible to take yourself from 0 to salary in less than a year in the IT field if you study your rear end off for certifications. I don't even have an associates degree yet (graduating next semester).
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Sep 26, 2013 14:41
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I got really drunk at a tech conference last night and have been throwing up calamari all morning. Still better shape than my boss. What a night.
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Sep 26, 2013 15:49
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GreenNight posted:I got really drunk at a tech conference last night and have been throwing up calamari all morning. Still better shape than my boss. What a night. Seafood, especially salmon, is at the top of my list of poo poo to not ever throw up. Vile.
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Sep 26, 2013 15:58
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Just handed in my letter of resignation today. ing the dream, with 50% more money and a workplace that's a 40-foot walk from my bed. Stepping down from a management role to pure engineering for awhile, but I'm getting some much-needed startup experience under my belt.
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Sep 26, 2013 16:02
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^^^^ Congrats, Misogynist! I'm hoping someone here can help. I'd rather not pay  for a new resume/CV, but I've never really had to write a CV for a job in IT before; only sales.How far into my current job experience should I go? I'm applying for helpdesk/jnr sysadmin roles, so do I need to go into specific software (Backup Exec for example), or would "Good at backups" suffice? How much should I be writing about my current job? DrAlexanderTobacco fucked around with this message at 17:20 on Sep 26, 2013 |
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Sep 26, 2013 17:16
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DrAlexanderTobacco posted:^^^^ Congrats, Misogynist! Don't fall into the trap of overlisting skills or specific software. I'd put no more than a handful of generic skills with no specific software suites that you're ready to speak to. "I see you have experience in backups, tell me about that" "Okay, I did this this and this in my environment that uses backup exec" "We use product x, have you ever used that?" "No, but I don't anticipate it would take me long to get used to it's methods if it uses good practices" pass.
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Sep 26, 2013 17:22
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Paladine_PSoT posted:Don't fall into the trap of overlisting skills or specific software. I'd put no more than a handful of generic skills with no specific software suites that you're ready to speak to. Thanks for the reply. I guess the one thing I'm worried about is only having one job to talk about. It's not like I can rely on 2 or 3 other jobs to pad out my experience.
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Sep 26, 2013 17:30
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DrAlexanderTobacco posted:Thanks for the reply. I guess the one thing I'm worried about is only having one job to talk about. It's not like I can rely on 2 or 3 other jobs to pad out my experience. Don't worry about only having 1 job to talk about for what amounts to an entry level or slight step up from an entry level position, that's expected. If management is good they're looking at your growth in the previous job and weighing how much you can grow into the jr position.
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Sep 26, 2013 17:37
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Congrats to both of you!
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Sep 26, 2013 17:47
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I've worked at the same place for the past... 6 years? 2.5 as a student worker and now 3.5 as a grown up real employee. I've technically had the same awful job title, "InfoTech Professional" the whole time I've been a full time employee, but I've had drastically different responsibilities in that time. My bosses let me put whatever I want on my business card, so they don't really care about my official job title. Would I list all my full time experience as 1 job or as multiple (3 I guess so far) jobs, since I've had 3 distinct roles as time has gone on.
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Sep 26, 2013 17:58
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FISHMANPET posted:I've worked at the same place for the past... 6 years? 2.5 as a student worker and now 3.5 as a grown up real employee. I've technically had the same awful job title, "InfoTech Professional" the whole time I've been a full time employee, but I've had drastically different responsibilities in that time. My bosses let me put whatever I want on my business card, so they don't really care about my official job title. Would I list all my full time experience as 1 job or as multiple (3 I guess so far) jobs, since I've had 3 distinct roles as time has gone on. Been in this position before; I was a Production Support Analyst, Operations Center Analyst, and finally Senior NOC Engineer for the same company. Unless the jobs were wildly different you can just roll them into one entry using the latest (best) title.
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Sep 26, 2013 18:03
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I split them up so it's obvious you've been promoted a couple of times, it's a good thing to show.
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Sep 26, 2013 18:05
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Misogynist posted:Just handed in my letter of resignation today.
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Sep 26, 2013 18:05
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Paladine_PSoT posted:Don't fall into the trap of overlisting skills or specific software. I'd put no more than a handful of generic skills with no specific software suites that you're ready to speak to. You can't always count on a interviewer to do that. And you should tailor your resume to the job, especially if the description lists specific programs/hardware that you've got experience with. Put specifics, but only stuff you've actually used quite a bit. Not 'well once I added a route to a Cisco router so I'll list Cisco'. I've basically gotten jobs before because the interviewer said "Oh so you've used Foo Bar?" My current job, however, is more like, "Backup Exec? Exchange? We don't use any of that stuff. Ever hear of RetroSpect or iMail?"
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Sep 26, 2013 18:09
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Well I passed the first round of phone interviews, onto the 2nd. I'm nervous as hell. I'd *love* to work at this job but have to fight this terrible inferiority complex I have. The it's for a TPM role that I think I'd be great at but I'm just worried the T part might be beyond my current technical experience. But hey I thought after round 1 I wouldn't be hearing back from them so I guess there's that.
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Sep 26, 2013 18:14
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smokmnky posted:Well I passed the first round of phone interviews, onto the 2nd. I'm nervous as hell. I'd *love* to work at this job but have to fight this terrible inferiority complex I have. The it's for a TPM role that I think I'd be great at but I'm just worried the T part might be beyond my current technical experience. But hey I thought after round 1 I wouldn't be hearing back from them so I guess there's that. I successfully transitioned to a TPM role from a support manager role last year. I'm close to celebrating 1 year now. I enjoy it greatly, and it's always challenging and interesting.
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Sep 26, 2013 18:35
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HatfulOfHollow posted:Been in this position before; I was a Production Support Analyst, Operations Center Analyst, and finally Senior NOC Engineer for the same company. Unless the jobs were wildly different you can just roll them into one entry using the latest (best) title. My problem is that if I lump it into one job, then it's basically the only job I've got. The job I had before I was a student employee in the IT department was working at a home improvement store, and before that my high school job(s). I'm 26 and have been working in IT in some respect for 6 years now, so my 1 job has to reflect the entirety of my experience (which is actually quite a bit at this point). Also, everyone raves about the goon resume service, but I have to say I was really unhappy with it. He kept trying to make me look like a help desk technician, despite me saying over and over that I was much more skilled than that (and had the experience to prove it).
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Sep 26, 2013 18:35
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Paladine_PSoT posted:I successfully transitioned to a TPM role from a support manager role last year. I'm close to celebrating 1 year now. I enjoy it greatly, and it's always challenging and interesting. and advice you can give me on interviewing? My current role I've basically had to make this all up. We have no project management team at all in the company and over the last 5 years I've basically had to grow it myself. I took my PMP and pass this July but from a formal PM team standpoint I don't have much experience. In PMI terms our company is the lost level Functional Management structure that the idea of a traditional PM is lost on everyone. Yet another reason for me to YOTJ.
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Sep 26, 2013 18:39
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Misogynist posted:Just handed in my letter of resignation today. How does your new job feel about DevOps?
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Sep 26, 2013 18:51
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three posted:How does your new job feel about DevOps? I've heard that DevOps guys write code in the morning, program routers on their lunch break, solve customer tickets during tea, and then administrate servers in the afternoon. DevOps.
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Sep 26, 2013 19:34
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three posted:How does your new job feel about DevOps?
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Sep 26, 2013 20:37
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Misogynist posted:I report to a developer. I take it back. Goondolences  Just giving you poo poo
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Sep 26, 2013 20:43
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Misogynist posted:We're a DevOps shop. Yay! I report to a developer. I like to imagine DevOps as "developing operations" like a farmer, you plant your baby Ops and then water and nurture them until they grow up to be adult Ops and then you release them to your customers.
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Sep 26, 2013 22:09
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Misogynist posted:We're a DevOps shop. Yay! I report to a developer. As an engineer, "Yay!" would be the absolute last thing on my mind if I found out I was going to be working for a developer.
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Sep 26, 2013 23:48
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HatfulOfHollow posted:As an engineer, "Yay!" would be the absolute last thing on my mind if I found out I was going to be working for a developer.
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Sep 27, 2013 00:16
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I have my annual review coming up in a little over a month and I have been considering using that opportunity to ask for a raise. In speaking with others here they typically give raises annually that are cost of living + a little bit extra. Is it considered bad form to "counter-offer" on something like that? Has anyone here been successful in renegotiating salary at an annual review (full time, non-contracted employee) and if so what kind of phrasing and language did you use? I'm not sure how to be firm in requesting a raise without sounding like I'm ready to walk if it doesn't happen. I work for a really great company that has some pretty good fringe benefits and I really enjoy working for them, so I don't want to sour the relationship in any way or lead them to believe I'm looking elsewhere (I'm not). I think they will agree to give me something if I can find the right way to ask, can anyone who has made this work offer some advice?
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Sep 27, 2013 00:39
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Traffic Reporter posted:I have my annual review coming up in a little over a month and I have been considering using that opportunity to ask for a raise. In speaking with others here they typically give raises annually that are cost of living + a little bit extra. Is it considered bad form to "counter-offer" on something like that? Has anyone here been successful in renegotiating salary at an annual review (full time, non-contracted employee) and if so what kind of phrasing and language did you use? I'm not sure how to be firm in requesting a raise without sounding like I'm ready to walk if it doesn't happen. I work for a really great company that has some pretty good fringe benefits and I really enjoy working for them, so I don't want to sour the relationship in any way or lead them to believe I'm looking elsewhere (I'm not). I think they will agree to give me something if I can find the right way to ask, can anyone who has made this work offer some advice? Don't be a dick about it and justify yourself, worst case reaction should be a "no" unless you work for unreasonable people. Explain whats steps you've taken to develop yourself since you were hired, what additional responsibilities you've taken on beyond the role you were hired for, and highlight any specific projects you've completed that benefit the business. It can also be an opportunity to discuss what role you want to move towards and what they would want to see from you to get you there (and give you the commensurate pay).
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Sep 27, 2013 01:01
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Someone suggested a rather ballsy move. You hopefully have a list of your accomplishments and new skills for the year, it's a great resource to give to your supervisor a month or two before your review and have it on hand at your review. The ballsy version is to write it in the form of a resume.
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Sep 27, 2013 01:19
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I write up a full page synopsis of my accomplishments for the year and provide it to my management prior to my anniversary every year. Every year, my direct supervisor puts me in for a raise larger than the guidelines suggest is the maximum.
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Sep 27, 2013 01:35
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Misogynist posted:The job of IT is to react to (and later, to anticipate) the needs of the business. In traditional business IT, this means that the CIO reports to the CEO or someone else who's directly tied to the realization of business initiatives. When the entire focus of the company is to deploy an always-on software product, nobody is more clued into what the business is actually doing than the head of development. I'd much rather report to development than some middleman who's going to businessplain the product direction to me. Hush you, the job of IT is get in everybody's way.
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Sep 27, 2013 02:07
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Dr. Arbitrary posted:The ballsy version is to write it in the form of a resume. I guess I know what I'm doing next year 
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Sep 27, 2013 02:17
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Dr. Arbitrary posted:The ballsy version is to write it in the form of a resume. Not to say that the less ballsy version wouldn't have also worked, but they never forgot it. Traffic Reporter posted:I have my annual review coming up in a little over a month and I have been considering using that opportunity to ask for a raise. In speaking with others here they typically give raises annually that are cost of living + a little bit extra. Is it considered bad form to "counter-offer" on something like that? Has anyone here been successful in renegotiating salary at an annual review (full time, non-contracted employee) and if so what kind of phrasing and language did you use? I'm not sure how to be firm in requesting a raise without sounding like I'm ready to walk if it doesn't happen. I work for a really great company that has some pretty good fringe benefits and I really enjoy working for them, so I don't want to sour the relationship in any way or lead them to believe I'm looking elsewhere (I'm not). I think they will agree to give me something if I can find the right way to ask, can anyone who has made this work offer some advice? If your supervisors are good, they already know what you're doing and what your value is to the organization. If you did especially well on a project more than six months ago, a refresher might be helpful. But just explain that here's what you bring to the table, here's why you saved/made the company more money than the raise you're asking for, and a good manager will be receptive. Vulture Culture fucked around with this message at 04:43 on Sep 27, 2013 |
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Sep 27, 2013 04:40
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Does anyone have any guidance or advice for a 16 year old graduating high school at the end of June to get into a networking job. What sort of basic education would I need to even be looked at? What would be an entry position? What sort of investments would I need to make? Unfortunately I live in the middle of buttfucking nowhere Canada and my job counsellors at my school are useless when it comes to anything involving technology. Despite them being no help I'm sure there is a demand for networking specialists because the extremely rural area I live in has recently approved a plan for the government to enable every single canadian citizen to have at least a 5mbps connection by 2020 (no really). A lot of these places out here have either nothing at all or are living off of 1995 quality dialup. Its going to take a huge work force to actually set up all the exchanges, nodes, laying the wires and so on in such remote places. So I think this is absolutely 100% worth persuing but I really don't know where to start. I'm not aiming for anything more specific than just "internet telecommuncations" right now. Anything that falls within that broad range would be a dream job to me. I've always been great at math and logic related sciences (I got my Precalc 30 credit when I was 15 and I finished the class with an 90% average) and had a passion for computers and networking in particular. But again living in the middle of nowhere my school offers absolutely nothing in terms of programming classes or anything of the sort. My experience with networking so far basically consists of me setting up LANs for like 3 people or troubleshooting general internet connectivity problems. I've done a few fixes involving routers where for some reason they weren't properly handling DHCP renewal requests so I just made a macyvery fix and forced the router to treat the connection as if it was a Static IP, even though it wasn't. Any input, anecdotes, experiences would be hugely appreciated for helping me get my poo poo together.
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Sep 27, 2013 22:35
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Methanar posted:Any input, anecdotes, experiences would be hugely appreciated for helping me get my poo poo together. You sound like a fine candidate for an entry level position in a NOC, which would expose you to enterprise gear and get you situated to work on your CCNA. But companies are going to be reluctant to take on a 16 year old - maybe that's different in Canada?
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Sep 27, 2013 23:54
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Methanar posted:Does anyone have any guidance or advice for a 16 year old graduating high school at the end of June to get into a networking job. Here's your chance to learn a ton of different crap and get your name out there as the 'smart computer kid' and start charging $60/hr. Other than that, take every computer class you can get at school or at your local community college. Cisco, Microsoft, anything.
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Sep 28, 2013 00:02
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Methanar posted:Does anyone have any guidance or advice for a 16 year old graduating high school at the end of June to get into a networking job. From my perspective, I would have no problem hiring a 16 year old with a high school diploma, but would start them off the same place everyone else starts -- entry level helpdesk.
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Sep 28, 2013 00:08
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:You sound like a fine candidate for an entry level position in a NOC, which would expose you to enterprise gear and get you situated to work on your CCNA. But companies are going to be reluctant to take on a 16 year old - maybe that's different in Canada? Unfortunately its probably not. Also I live in a lovely redneck town of about 20k people. There is nothing here. I don't even know where the nearest NOC, or manned node would be. At best there might be a few in the capital city (still population 100k) Its going to be a huge investment for me to actually do anything because its going to involve a 300km+ move.
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Sep 28, 2013 00:11
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adorai posted:I'm not making GBS threads on you here, at least not intentionally, but why would someone who is graduating high school at 16 (seemingly at least 1 year early) not going to college? I am the first one to poo poo on going to college for the sake of going to college, but if you are smart enough to graduate that early, you are probably smart enough to actually accomplish something in college. My local college has nothing technology related. At most its the really generic stuff like Heavy Oil Field certification, agriculture, and higher level math like calc I and II.
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Sep 28, 2013 00:13
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Methanar posted:Unfortunately its probably not. Also I live in a lovely redneck town of about 20k people. There is nothing here. I don't even know where the nearest NOC, or manned node would be. At best there might be a few in the capital city (still population 100k) If your plan is to work in IT in any sort of depth, you will be relocating to a larger city anyway - is that not an option for a couple years? But as others have said, perhaps reconsider jumping into the workforce. You're in a shoe-in for college, you can do meaningful part-time IT work while getting a degree, and no one is going to take a teenager seriously (sorry). You won't be too far behind in a few years when you graduate and then you might be able to hop a couple rungs when starting full time work. Not to mention, a degree can be essential in some places if you want to move to management in time.
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Sep 28, 2013 00:16
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If you have internet there, there are people who get it to you. You're gonna have to go work at it to get it. You're coming up with great obstacles but not much in the way of ways around them. Network guys are good at that. e: constructive, ok http://he.net/ will help you find the companies that get internet to you. I heartily advise you to go to a university and get a BA/BS whatever level of prestige or cost you can accommodate, while ensuring you can actually finish. 33 year old you will not hate 16 year old you for bypassing the traditional routes and leaving a hole in your credentials. There are jobs at the university which will teach you skills you will use in IT, while the university classes will not. Might as well major in your passion, it doesn't matter -- if your ultimate goal is to work in IT. I don't have much faith in US secondary education, but the reality is a lack of a BA/BS is a serious hindrance in mid-career and may force one into getting that and a masters to get into late career. I would love for the current level of reliance on education as work credentials to reduce drastically, but other measurements are challenging and I don't have a better idea. But don't go straight to the job market unless you really have to -- sick, kids, taking care of ailing family or something really close to you. If you just wanna good life etc. go to college. ee: not that young guys can't do it or that I prefer people with a B[AS] to anyone else. I've worked with a 16 year old who kicked all kinds of rear end and was ready to make major decisions. But I've worked with exactly one of them in my 16 years as a network guy. Hell, look at WGU and get a job someplace fixing their computers. bort fucked around with this message at 00:40 on Sep 28, 2013 |
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