questions about the job market

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bobcrotch

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Mar 12, 2003
Messages
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Well i've been thinking for a long time of getting off my ass and going back to school. Fresh outa high school i got my MCSE for NT4 and that was fun (and a waste of time and money). I learned quickly that being fresh out of highschool with no experince and a cert doesn't bring much. But now i've got almost 3 years experince as a lead technician/systems engineer/minor network management.

Er anyhow the university here www.sou.edu has implimented a security/data assurance program as part of their CS line. I've always wanted to be a network engineer/systems engineer, but i don't know where to look for jobs really. All i ever find is admin positions that require programing experince and what not. Of course this is mostly monster.com and other online places. But what kind of work do you guys do? I love networking and hardware in general but i just don't really know what to look for in a job. Of course i'll have 4 years of school to deal with first but i'm looking forward to that. I just always get kind of confused and depressed when i actually look for jobs related in the field.

Perhaps some insight from the guys who actually work in the positions i desire would be helpfull hehe
 
But now i've got almost 3 years experince as a lead technician/systems engineer/minor network management.
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I've always wanted to be a network engineer/systems engineer
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???

Sounds like your already on the right road...anyway it all depends on where you live and your job market. You maybe have to consider moving to find a better job, luckily i got a job i wanted in my area but there aren't many like it. But I coulda moved to a number of cities within 8 hours of myself and found a job a lot easier.

But as for where to find jobs. Classifieds, monster.com like you said, people you know in the industry, and if you go back to school hopefully your instructor will be a good source of jobs.
 
where to get jobs:
1) people you know
2) local job sites (for me- washingtonjobs.com)
3) monster.com, computerjobs.com and the like
4) classifieds

sounds like you are doing well though. you're getting to the point where your experience is going to start opening up some doors for you. once you are in that 3-5 year range you can take the next step from the lower level positions.

learning to program will be the best skill ever. seriously. knowing how to do everything is great and all. but knowing how to transform those tasks into handy dandy little programs you can run at regular intervals will make you some sort of network superadmin. going back to school for a CS degree will pay of for me even if i stay in network administration instead of moving to programming.

you should get a college degree at some point. there will come a time where you will hit a ceiling because of your lack of a college degree. there was a guy at my old job who knew a lot, had about 20 years of experience, and was very motivated. but he lacked a college degree so being up at the top as IT Director or CTO was simply not an option for him. hell, you don't even need to have a computer degree, just a bachelors of something.
 
yeah i even thought about going to school just for business so if the tech field dried up i had something else to go with. I notice that almost none of the jobs even say CS, they say bachelors degree heh.

plus i want to goto school, i want to learn how to program, and going to college is something i've wanted to do. Thats about one of the last things i can say i don't know that much about.
 
Its quite hard to get a half descent job in IT, i would not be surprised in seeing 'to being able to walk on water' as an entry requirement for a job.

Personally im going to print out loads of Cv's next week and go into every large business or IT company in town and sell myself. In October im going to start IT degree although part time it will take around 5-6 years to complete im sure it will be worth it. Mean while I am going to get experience and certification to my target for the next few years are a MSCE with maybe a specialization and CCNP/CCDP (I’m getting really interested in networking). I realise the next few years will be VERY hard but in the long run it will be worth it.
 
yeah i'm going to get some info for the things i want to do and see if my work schedual can work arround it. In the meen time i think i'm going to pickup some CCIE books and the like on ebay and see what i can learn in that area. I'll definatly work on some cisco stuff after i get out of school or while i'm in school. I'd have to say that the only certs worth getting as far as marketability are MS and cisco at this point, more so the cisco.
 
In the meen time i think i'm going to pickup some CCIE books and the like on ebay and see what i can learn in that area.
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Might wanta start with ccna ;) .
 
Originally posted by Wiseguy2001
Its quite hard to get a half descent job in IT, i would not be surprised in seeing 'to being able to walk on water' as an entry requirement for a job.
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Come to Chicago if you can walk on water -- some IT jobs might hire you. LOL
 
The job market in Central Texas seems to be pretty good. I haven't had any shortage of job offerings. I've actually turned a couple down. I've got a good job right now, I'm waiting for an opportunity that will pay the rest of my way through college. I've got about 2 years left.

The funny thing is, they think because I'm a college student that I'm gonna take whatever pay they give me. I have to bite my tongue to keep from laughing when I'm offered 8, or 10 per hour. Their reasoning is that the cost of living here is lower than a city such as Houston. Yeah, thats accurate...for my apartment, its about 30/month less than an equivalent apartment in Houston. :rolleyes:
 
The cost of living within 20-30 miles of Chicago city limits is high. Good luck finding a house for less than 150k that isn't in the projects. Or a 1-bedroom apartment for less than 700. Or a 2-bedroom for 900! Dammit, I hate this city.
 
Ya i meen i turned down a job offer the other day actually, they wanted to pay me 14 bucks an hour with full benifits and 2 weeks paid vacation. But thats only .25 more than i have now, and i'm pretty happy with what i got now. It's just convincing my boss man that me going to college is doable somehow.
 
Dude,

I dont know what you do exactly...but you're getting ripped it sounds like.

Maybe night classes? Or correspondence courses you can do on your own time. I'd take as many of those as possible.
 
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