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I have one suggestion for the OP as this comes up constantly. Certifications. You're new to IT and you want to take some first steps towards advancing your career. Great, we have a certification megathread here that can answer most of your questions and give you some idea of what they cover and where they can lead to. But what I want to mention is that talk is cheap! I think a lot of new people make the mistake of planning out their entire career and what certs they will get in what order and spend all of their time on this instead of hitting the books and just working on what's in front of you. Decide on a cert and work on it! Don't let up until you're done and then take the time to plan your next step. The perfect plan is useless if you never put it in motion.
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Jul 28, 2014 19:49
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Thinking of going to Office 365. I'm worried about moving our exchange, sharepoint, and lync hosting off site. Anyone have any experience migrating? Any annoying day to day outages?
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Jul 28, 2014 21:09
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lampey posted:If you are comparing O365 to rackspace/apptix/appriver hosting it is better than most at a similar cost. Compared to an on premises server you are making a lot of trade offs. For a small organization the fixed costs like licensing and hardware combined with the ongoing infrastructure needed to support it make hosted a more cost effective solution. Then you have to consider the ongoing costs like the power bill and potential for expansion. The benefit is that you can save bandwidth for internal mail, you have more flexibility with exchange add ons like CodeTwo, and when something breaks you don't have to wait on a third party to fix it. O365 has good integration with Microsofts other offerings like EOP for spam, archiving, encryption, sharepoint, lync. The Lync hosting is great compared to what is required to do it yourself. Thanks, the exchange hosting doesn't seem like to big of a deal for us and I've worked with Exchange for so long now I don't even really think all that much more about it. Still one less thing for us to have to worry about and we could easily ramp up our storage. Lync would be huge for us. I hate dealing with the million little problems that seem to point up with our Lync server or the user client. Mostly I was just worried about outages. I've heard of the national outages of course but hear horror stories about some small businesses having monthly 4 hour outages.
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Jul 28, 2014 22:43
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I know that good recruiters exist, or want to believe they do, but I've never actually met one first hand. The last one I had was OK, got me my current gig but I never met them face to face, had all of 3 phone calls with them and that was it. Not bad at all but I felt that all they brought to the table was the job opening that was it. On the other hand a single recruiter in my office has placed roughly 6-7 people in high up spots because HR and management trust her judgement so much. She's the first person they look towards when they get a hard to fill spot. This recruiter has probably made a fortune off from us by being honest and producing good candidates.
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Jul 29, 2014 15:39
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psydude posted:Quick informal survey: how many of you work for companies that do 100% tuition reimbursement? I'm not talking $5000 in tuition assistance, I'm talking the entire degree paid for. $6000 a year in tuition reimbursement. I was bullshitting with a guy at the dog park who is in IT project management and had 30+ years of experience. Told him I just took a promotion as an assistant manager and the systems I worked with, my experience, what I was working towards, etc. He said that without fail CIO/CTO's are the first people to be cut when times get tough. They were in his experience totally interchangeable. His recommendation was to become a specialist in something you enjoyed and ride that gravy train to retirement. He's an outside contractor and had gotten to work with a lot of different companies. When times get tough businesses either cut management down to a bare minimum and overwork the people doing the day to day operations or bring in a new CIO/CTO who cleans house and brings in replacements at 2/3 cost of those who they replaced.
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Aug 1, 2014 14:52
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I've managed to work my way into lower management at good pay/benefits without a degree. Seems like I could go as high as a departmental manager without a degree too. If I ever wanted to go any higher I would definitely need a degree though. If I was able to go back in time and do it over I'd work towards a business degree of some sort. Seems like once you get to a certain point all of your technical skills matter less than your business skills. Or you can go the alternate route and become an expert in some IT niche and just make bank as you get better and better.
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Aug 15, 2014 19:19
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lampey posted:Wages are going up mostly because there is a tech bubble. You don't need a degree to have soft skills, and many people with and without degrees have terrible soft skills. It is a stereotype in general that many people in IT have poor soft skills. Well, look, I already told you. I deal with the goddamn customers so the engineers don't have to. I have people skills. I am good at dealing with people! Can't you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?!
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Aug 20, 2014 17:37
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MC Fruit Stripe posted:It took me a long time to realize that I need to care about my title, because while I don't care about my title, other people do. This has been a painful realization for me. I've done work far and above my job title. Configured all of new cisco switches and ASA's as they came in as a Helpdesk Tech. Helped rewrite the company IT policy with the IT director and company president as a Helpdesk Tech. Then when I finally look to move on it's hard to get people to accept you at that next level because they just glance at your job title and then move on. My last company that I loved working at gave me the go ahead to just make up whatever job title and that they would %100 back me but I just havent had the gall to try it yet.
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Aug 29, 2014 15:43
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Dick Trauma posted:I'm not looking forward to the deluge of iPhone 6/6+ demands I'm going to receive. That and I also hate these giant new phones. Not only do they fit poorly in a pocket but they're so skinny they're a bitch to hold. It's already started in my office. We had some sales users who have been working with busted phones just waiting for today. The look on their faces when I told them that today they were just announcing the release date was priceless.
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Sep 9, 2014 20:06
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Dilbert As gently caress posted:suprisingly most people just want to work 9-5 and give it up about any thing related to job... It's funny. I just want to help the people in the engineering but all they want to do is drink and go home. Can't blame them, most good engineers are alcoholics or fail to understand money/people/etc and focusing on what they love. Well yeah I mean even people who love their job/career and are out there learning new things and researching subjects in their field still want to unwind after work and do something else. I really love IT and like learning as much about it as I can because it's my career and I want to the best that I can in it. That doesnt mean that I want to just do that 24/7 burn myself out and cry alone in some dark corner hovered over a bottle of scotch.
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Sep 11, 2014 14:59
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psydude posted:Hello! I am having of great opportunity in Carlisle, PA for a 6 months contract working as an Sr. Network Engineer! And then they wonder why the job goes unfilled for months. I've been getting spammed a bunch recently for a 6 month VM gig in Rhode Island. I forgot who said it here but basically the more remote the job location the crappier the recruiter/job.
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Sep 17, 2014 20:07
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hackedaccount posted:Gonna ask here too: How do you guys keep up on cutting-edge'ish technologies? Not learning them, but just hearing about them. I got into OpenStack in early 2012 so it wasn't exactly ground floor but it was fairly early. Right now I'm getting into Mesos and evidently it's been around for several years, I had no idea. This forum, reddit, spiceworks, checking Ars every couple of days and just general browsing. I'm not sure that makes me cutting edge though, usually a step or two behind it seems.
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Sep 18, 2014 16:06
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I need to start up at WGU, I have enough certs that I could get a lot of credits already by the looks of it. How difficult was the course load for you at first? I'm going to be super busy at work for the next 3-6 months and dont know that I could juggle that and an intensive course load.
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Sep 25, 2014 16:35
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I have been fighting getting some form of ms updates rolled out on a regular basis at this place. Currently WSUS is turned off completely. No computers receive updates unless they get a virus or something and are brought in for a re-image at which point the help desk team installs all of the latest updates. So using SCCM I create a nice overly cautious (in my opinion) update schedule in which we wait two weeks then get any new updates which are applied to a test group of pc's in the IT dept. If those are fine they get rolled out to another test group of volunteers representing a person in each department. The idea being if that group after an additional two weeks of testing is fine they get rolled out company wide. This has been shot down and delayed again and again. Our ERP team is afraid of any updates breaking their lovely software. Never mind the fact that I'm not touching any of their servers and some pc's are getting updated anyway. I understand being cautious but this just seems asinine.
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Oct 13, 2014 21:42
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along the way posted:WSUS is dead easy to implement. Might want to setup a small test group too so you can roll out the updates to them first before approving them for the whole office. Not fun coming into work realizing an overnight update caused every other client PC to not boot/do weird poo poo. At least once a year Microsoft has to rollback a patch that they sent out that ends up loving something up. Just be like a week behind on your updates and you'll be fine. I'm about to head to my 5th meeting about getting automatic updates pushed out. 5th! Why does something so simple have to take forever?
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Oct 16, 2014 14:50
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Drunk Orc posted:How well do public schools (K-12) pay? Is it largely dependent on the location and district, or do they tend to compensate IT staff pretty well? I've got an interview for a "Primary Technology Support Technician" position tomorrow. The extremely wordy job names I keep seeing never stop being funny to me. I worked for a high school for a few short miserable months. Pay was average with good benefits and the people were nice. I had to get out though because they had NO money for IT. I went in as a Network Admin and ended up swapping out keyboards in old Dell laptops that were out of warranty but still in day to day use. I got to learn all about Novell NetWare 4.0 and other such exciting new technologies.
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Nov 13, 2014 16:43
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Chickenwalker posted:Does anyone have any experience with their hardware specifically? Their hardware is rock solid. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them. I used them for wireless bridges in some pretty harsh areas in the arctic and they held up well. The only real problem we had with them was delivery times. Seemed like a lot of their equipment was always on backorder.
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Nov 24, 2014 16:41
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http://www.zdnet.com/cios-make-progress-but-still-get-no-respect-7000035990/quote:The survey results showed most CEOs still regard their CIOs as itinerant specialists.… Most CEOs thought the best next step for their CIOs would be to do the same job in the same industry or in another industry. Few thought they would move on to a business leadership role. It's been reading things like this, and the general feeling I get from sitting in on some meetings with executives that make me think I shouldn't try to be the IT generalist with some business background. More and more I think I should focus on networking or SCCM or something else and just go as deep as I can in that one niche. I was talking to some old IT warhorse project managers and they mentioned that CIO's/IT directors are always the first to go when budget cuts happen or the company decides to shake things up. I guess the article isn't really a surprise, but it's still an interesting read.
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Nov 26, 2014 00:54
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FISHMANPET posted:To me the class felt like a rubber stamp, I learned virtually nothing, and while I haven't taken the test yet, the studying I Have done shows me that the class tought me basically nothing. Basically this. Also dont but the book that they recommend. Go with the Scott Lowe book instead if you want to eventually sit for the exam.
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Nov 26, 2014 18:38
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Ah man he edited his post about only needing 108k to live off of! And how it's not about the money but is somehow? I'm not following you tonight. Maybe throw in something about trying to help all those plebs out there learn something? DAF go outside and find something cool to do or hang out with some people. I know a lot of tech people who never thought they would enjoy hiking/outdoors who turn out to love it because they can just unplug and relax for a while.
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Nov 27, 2014 04:21
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Those of you who work from home, what do you do for work and what's your job title? Right now I seem to mostly do SCCM work and help out help desk when times get busy. On the few days that I have been able to work from home I've gotten way more done. I'd like to start working from home at least half time in my next position and want to know where to focus my efforts. Honestly right now in my normal day to day work there is nothing that I do that I need to be in office for. I have a networking background and use to do plenty of ASA configurations and remote site work and wouldn't mind doing that again either. Just getting tired of getting bugged for annoying small poo poo from execs and or anyone else who passes by.
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Dec 4, 2014 16:30
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Drunk Orc posted:Just officially accepted my first IT position working primary support at an elementary school. I took a small pay cut but the regular schedule and hours coupled with getting the experience I need is invaluable. At least that's what I'm going to tell myself! Oh god, I hope your school has a decent enough budget. Otherwise get use to dealing with ancient software/hardware and cutting corners everywhere. Do you at least get summers off? At the very least you might have a chance at going rogue and making a name for yourself coming up with complicated free solutions that a paid one could fix easily.
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Dec 10, 2014 17:45
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skipdogg posted:Does Lenovo have an equivalent to Dell gold support? Or is it all mail in service to the depot? NBD onsite techs rule. I think the hardware is a bit nicer but that's more of a personal preference. Seems like we end up depoting and mailing out laptops more than they come to fix them than we did with Dell. That said they've never messed up a repair like some of the Dell techs have.
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Feb 11, 2015 17:38
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Any advice for someone who wants to get out of the Windows admin world into AWS? I feel like I dont even know where to start. I bought a udemy course on AWS that I want to start going through but AWS seems like it's more a platform to launch other services that I have no clue about. I read all about the cool puppet/chef a lot of folks on here get to work with and would like to start learning how to do some of that but haven't the faintest clue on how to begin. I know it's all various versions of linux so I guess I just need to start there by launching some vm's and labbing around. What should I be labbing though? Ages ago when I was kid I remember getting a cheap domain and setting up a linux box to run sendmail and untangle but never really pursued it after everything was setup. The only thing that really gets me interested in windows anymore is powershell and SCCM so I just want to dip my toes in the linux water and see if it's something I want to invest a lot of time in.
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Feb 13, 2015 17:44
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MagnumOpus posted:If you've got a free hour, there's a quick set of tutorials that will get you spinning up a VM and playing with Chef very fast. Nothing earthshaking but it'll break the ice for you. Thanks for this! I have some time this weekend, I'll go through this as starting point. [quote="Fiendish Dr. Wu" post="post441525849"] My advise: do it and do it now. I am in the same spot. I just got my AWS subscription set up last week, and just got turned down a job because my experience was mostly in Microsoft stuff - even though I have the technical skills (in the interview I got sat down in front of a macbook with a linux terminal up and asked to write a shell script. Never had to do that 'under the gun' like that, but I nailed it.) Start up your free AWS account and start spinning up some AMI's. If you're into powershell already, python is cake. Get into python and shell scripting. I'm new at all this but (aside from studying for VCP) I'm working on this a lot so if you want someone to work together with, let me know. [/quote] Thanks for the offer. I've never really worked with Python before, any suggestions on books or training materials? Here is the course I mentioned before: https://www.udemy.com/aws-certified-solutions-architect-associate-2015/#/ Had pretty good reviews and it's on sale still as far as I know for $20. Maybe AWS is new enough it would warrant starting a new thread?
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Feb 13, 2015 18:53
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I think I've finally had enough of management at my work. They've known we've needed people badly for months and haven't hired anyone. Now they're trying to offer me a raise and a promotion which would make us even more short handed. The promotion wouldnt do me any good because I still end up getting stuck doing a lot of helpdesk and tier 1-2 network support since were so short handed. I've been putting in 60 hour weeks the last few weeks, and while I've been given comp time for the overtime, I wont be able to use it for months. Everything moves at a glacial place here, myself and other techs along with paid outside consultants have recommended a bunch of things to help ease our rapid growth only to see projects stagnate. I'm starting to work on my resume and getting it updated and want to start sending some out next week. The only thing I'm not sure how to handle is a 3 month employment gap. I moved cross country and helped out my grandparents on the farm with harvest for those months as they were in a desperate need for help and it gave me a nice break from the IT world to get re-energized. Any advice? Do I just list tractor driver as my job for those 3 months?
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Mar 12, 2015 20:52
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Really it was more like 10 weeks. I even did some IT stuff in between! I figured then was as good as time as any to get my A+ since I was worried about getting past the HR gatekeepers. Hopefully no one presses to hard and if they do maybe they'll think it's interesting. People in the midwest generally seem to like farmers, especially old crotchety HR types.
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Mar 12, 2015 22:04
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I think it's been this thread that I've been bitching more and more about my job. A few months ago it was talk of an IT re-org, lately it's been the crazy 60 hour weeks. We've had directors hesitant to make moves based on recommendations from our IT staff as well as outside paid consultants. Well the big picture is slowly starting to materialize. As part of the IT re-org the original IT Director left (he put in his resignation mostly due to the re-org and crazy work hours), meaning there's no one clear decision makers. Meetings get held where everyone goes in circles saying someone needs to decide and no decisions ever get made because at this point we have 4 interim managers at equal level all arguing among themselves on what to do. I think I've finally had enough. The big picture is making itself clear. As part of an overall business move we're trying to go from crazy growth, we've doubled in size this year and probably will again, to profitability. To the powers that be that means they've decided that no matter how much the company grows the IT department will stay at our current numbers. That means that whatever we cant outsource we will get stuck doing. And oh by the way we dont have the budget to outsource. So that means that all of us are going to start getting stuck with more poo poo work. One example: for the two years I've been here we've been trying to get sales off of iPads and on to laptops. Not going to happen because we dont have the budget to buy them laptops so were stuck with iPads. Also "they need to be able to work on excel sheets with macros and go to sites that need flash why cant you IT nerds just make that work"? Now more recently it's been, "hey helpdesk and erp and networking you will do your normal jobs but also facilities work like moving desks and furniture and handling anything with a power cord". We are now responsible for all offsite AV needs. They seriously made one of my guys go offsite to setup cable and internet for an executives apartment today. What loving bullshit! I'm just fuming now today. Little piddly crap is setting me off. The company that used to handle our furniture and desk setups used the wrong colored power cables for another executives office so another guy had to go out to best buy and purchase black power cables right this drat second before he got back in lest the execs eyes were scarred by the white power cable. I can not get out of here soon enough. Everyone in IT is getting scheduled to have one on ones with the 4 interim managers over the next two weeks. I hope I can have another job lined up by then.
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Mar 17, 2015 18:32
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KillHour posted:WTF, Chromebooks are like $200. Get them that and use the Pro version of Google Docs or Office 365. That would work except for the fact that for some reason the prior bigwigs signed a 3 year contract with another cloud storage provider so that we are stuck using that, and the fact that our stupid sales app was created by some idiot outside marketing agency and only works in iOS devices.
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Mar 17, 2015 22:43
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I'm poor. Please tell me how to get the skillz to pay the billz. Seriously I got a %4 raise this year and some stock options that should be worth a fair amount. I feel like I'm over qualified for this position but under qualified for the next tier up in my career. Ready to get out of my current company ASAP. How much does it hurt your ultimate earnings or set you back if you make a lateral move into another position? I feel like I get a job like that much quicker. At the same time I'd probably be better off sticking it out here, studying and then trying to move on.
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Mar 20, 2015 21:00
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Mine's two pages. About half is work history and the other half is certs and skills. Don't discount having a list of all of your technical skills. It makes it easy for recruiters and HR folks to just quickly scan and see if you have a skill listed that's a requirement for them. Inevitability it will lead to you getting calls and emails about jobs you aren't a fit for. I'd take that over no calls though.
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Apr 7, 2015 16:17
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So I've been trying to jump ship from my current company the last few weeks. I havent gone full bore job search yet just kind of casually applying to jobs that have an easy application process and let me just upload my resume. Also only looking at jobs that would be a step-up for me money and responsibility wise. Got an interview at a place and seemed to impress them. Came in for a second interview and met the president and went way over my scheduled time, was there almost 3 hours touring the place and just bullshitting with everyone. They asked me for a list of references last week. I provided them with them expecting them to just call the people I had listed. Instead they sent out this questionnaire via email:quote:I would like to know your impression of xxxxxx? Is it just me or is this crazy? I'm worried that for legal reasons a lot of my references wont even reply? One person did and forwarded me their glowing responses but still kind of makes me a worry that I might not be dealing with as professional of an organization as I thought.
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Apr 9, 2015 16:44
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You guys are looking at this derail all wrong. Apparently people pay top dollar for daycare. That inevitably means there is some lovely niche software that daycares run. Let's focus on that crappy software some poor rear end in a top hat has to support. Of course Im going to go ahead and assume that any computer running this software is stuffed full of crayons and connected to an early 00's HP inkjet printer.
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Apr 9, 2015 23:13
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NZAmoeba posted:This looks like they outsourced their reference checking. Our company did the same because we started hiring way more people than our HR dept could reasonably keep up with, and reference checking takes time. However the people we outsource to make this a phone conversation, not just a "fill out this survey" suddenly appearing in someone's inbox unexpectedly. I wouldn't read too much into it, I know we ask similar questions, and it just means they actually care about making sure you're not a serial killer. Just got a call with an offer late last night as a matter of fact! They've offered me $5k less than what it will take to get me to jump ship so I'm going to call back and make a counter offer. Hopefully I can get everything wrapped up by end of day and have a formal offer letter sent so I can finally get out of my current gig.
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Apr 10, 2015 14:32
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BaseballPCHiker posted:Just got a call with an offer late last night as a matter of fact! They've offered me $5k less than what it will take to get me to jump ship so I'm going to call back and make a counter offer. Hopefully I can get everything wrapped up by end of day and have a formal offer letter sent so I can finally get out of my current gig. A word to all those who are afraid to negotiate when accepting a new job. Do it! It totally paid off. Called back the new place and was able to get a $10k more then I am now, plus a guaranteed %10 bonus this year and extra PTO days. Was not combative in the least. Just mentioned how excited I was to potentially come and all of the great ideas I had to bring value to the company. The guy said he would call me back and I was a bit worried I overplayed my hand, but he said he just talked it over with the CIO and that he agreed to the terms. So happy to get out of the current mess that I'm in. Going to write up a long list of entertaining posts that I was waiting to get off my chest.
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Apr 10, 2015 19:05
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Daylen Drazzi posted:Christ, please tell me how to even get a response from those folks - I've been firing out 3-5 resumes and applications a day for like 2 weeks now, and even with a security clearance I don't hear a thing from them. I did, however, find a posting for a position in Key West. I made a personalized cover letter begging them to let me talk to them about the position because I'm such an avid scuba diver and love fishing and the Florida Keys are my dream spot to live and work. I hope it's enough of an incentive that they'll at least hear me out. gently caress relocation assistance - I'll just hook a goddamn trailer to my truck and drive down with everything I own (and still have room in the trailer). I'd live out of a tent for as long as it took for me to find a place. I've always had much better luck putting a local address on resumes that I send out of state. When I moved from Alaska back to the midwest I put my sisters address down and just explained that I was on my way back and just finishing up some projects at my current job. For whatever reason no one ever had a problem with that explanation. Always got plenty of skype interviews and then in face interviews later on if I felt like pursuing the job.
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Apr 11, 2015 22:34
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Dr. Arbitrary posted:Is it common for companies to offer paid training in exchange for a contract, e.g., we pay for a $3000 training and you agree to stay for x years or pay back the training? I've had something similar at other jobs. Like you have to work a full year after training to not be financially liable. Although from talking to some HR co-workers it's all but unenforceable. If some company had the balls to actually take it out of your last paycheck they can open themselves up legal action.
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Apr 13, 2015 22:20
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I've been reading it off and on for while also using some online videos. It really is a great book. What's really helped me is having that open on one monitor and the shell window in another. Nothing like getting immediate feedback as you learn. Oh and here's the link to that SCCM disaster. Never use the All Computers container! http://windowsitpro.com/windows-7/aggressive-configmgr-based-windows-7-deployment-takes-down-emory-university
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Apr 29, 2015 19:04
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NPR did a story on yearly physicals recently. Basically they said the benefits of doctors getting to know their patients and checking on them is outweighed by the false positives created from testing like blood work. Essentially if you're under 40 and in good health dont bother unless you want to talk to your doctor about something.
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May 1, 2015 15:17
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I get the opposite of impostor syndrome sometimes. I feel like I've accomplished and done all of the low hanging fruit in IT. I've become basically a good generalist. OK at and at least semi-knowledgeable on most things. The problem comes when it's time to troubleshoot or when poo poo goes wrong. I wont know the answer off the top of my head and I will have to spend time researching and reaching out to others for help. I hate that feeling of not knowing though, and not being able to give a good answer on the spot. It's why I think I need to start specializing in one area of IT. I've got the solid broad foundation now I need to find the one thing I can spend the rest of my career diving down deep into. Be it networking, SCCM, storage, Windows admin whatever. I need to decide on an area and focus on it wholeheartedly.
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May 4, 2015 14:36
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