respected qualification for I.T jobs- NOT UNI
- Thread starter shuzzbutt
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Amen to that brother.
Software, hardware and services (I.e. people) generally.
Usually on commission which if working somewhere with some meaty sales means you can earn a lot.
I know a chap who is a techy at a bit reseller and he always says how the majority of their sales people end up earning 6 figures. They sell servers, storage systems, software, consultancy services, managed service offerings etc.
Being an architect/techy helps I guess in the ore sales type roles, but the normal sales roles usually need you to be a good salesman over a techy.
IME this is invariably someone who has come from a technical/semi-technical background and has a decent level of business/application knowledge too - R&D analyst, consultant, technical account manager etc...
Anything IT.
VMware wants to sell its software. Oracle want to sell their databases. HP, Dell, IBM all want to sell their servers. EMC wants to sell its storage. They have targets and they g out
All this is pricey kit. A server can cost between £500 and £1million. A storage array can cost between £5k and £10 Million.
We're talking big money. JPmorgan's annual IT budget is around $2bn a year, Walmart is about $4.5bn, Morgan Stanley $2.5bn - talking serious cash. To put this into perspective Marks and Spencer made $1.1bn profit in 2011.
In IT sales? No. They are not technical. They have a good understanding of the product but they are not techies.
IT Sales people may have done computer studies or just business management at Uni. They went straight into some junior sales role and worked their way up.
They have targets, they manage senior level relationships and it's a very stressful job. Not something i'd like to do...that or Project Management. Both evil evil jobs.
Basically what Evo said.
Indeed. The perfect Pre-sales example would be Conanius above (who has a great job by the sound of it, being the link between the business and IT is a valuable role).
Taking the technical and aligning it to the business. Tell someone how many ports a SAN has isn't going to get them to buy it but proving to them it's going to accelerate a certain database by 50%-200% will.
And actually, if you have half a personality and the ability to talk to people AND LISTEN... isn't that difficult.
If you want my honest opinion... Consider the long term plan. I used to work in sales, but it was home electricals. I earned more with commision (by about £6k a year) than my first IT Job. You might need to take a step down.
I started out on an IT Service Desk, answering calls, resetting passwords, changing printer cartridges, cleaning mice for directors, literally the lowest of the low job spec wise.
I kept my head down, worked hard, had a good first line fix rate, didn't mess around between calls, and after 6 months in the job started to get project work improving our services (specing requirements for online forms to request new software and all that sort of jazz).
It got me out into the IT business, and importantly, got my face known. I got a few lucky breaks, got on some really useful training courses, and it just sort of went from there.
I'd strongly recommend an IT Service Desk as a great first IT job. You learn a lot about the good and bad support areas if you want to get technical, and if you are good at your job, some of these will let you have permissions to do their work for them if you prove yourself, further increasing your skills (maybe something basic like a file restore, but its a start). It's all about doing hard graft and getting opportunities.
I'm speaking here like I've made it or something, far from it. I'm 9 years in to my career in IT and I'm not too proud to say its stalled at the moment. I've sort of plateau'd a bit, and I think in part thats because I need to move to a different organisation.
So you get an idea of what I've done:
IT Service Desk Analyst
Problem Manager (3 Months to help improve processes)
IT Service Desk Management Team
*swapped departments*
IT Service Desk Team Leader
Service Delivery Manager (by far my favourite job, amazing amounts of authority to just get the job done)
Technical Operations Manager
and now.. IT Service Manager
They all sound like 'nothingness' jobs really, and to be honest, the last 3 were basically doing the same thing. Managing a team of other people to get a job done and ensure IT does what they need it to do for them.
So... if all that was TLDR, consider starting off on an IT Service Desk. Its a great way to know how a company works, and its a fantastic foot in the door. If I had my way EVERYONE who joined IT would have to do at least 1 month on their new companies IT Service Desk so they can get that overview of IT Health, Customer Demands and generally a good old look at what the IT world looks like.
Routes into I.T. are strangely varied, just been chatting to a couple of mates and here's one of their routes:
Uni - studying chemistry. (got a second).
Classroom assistant (at the time he was thinking of going into teaching)
IT technician for a school
IT manager in same school
3rd line support in a local company
IT incidents manager at a different company.
My own is a little different.
Apprentice engineer/CAD draughtsman
Engineer (fully qualified - my fallback profession!)
IT technician (same pay as engineer - same company as I just "had a knack for it".)
3rd line support - local council
Network manager - local high school + feeder primaries (with two staff to manage).
Senior IT advisor - NHS
Now I'm leaving to enter an IT security role for Information Governance, so I no longer do support for the first time in 15 years.
Genuinely think the people who whinge about working in IT and constantly say how they're going to leave are exactly the sort of people who never will, who'll sit in the **** and fester whilst jealously watching others progress around them. I have NO I.T. qualifications other than a handful of MS certs, no degree and terrible school results yet I'm progressing far above my peers who have both degrees in IT, MS certifications coming out of their ears but who continually hold themselves back with a poor attitude.
Note to whinging IT people - rather than bitch about it actually go get another job, you'll be happier and so will your then ex-workmates. win, win, loser.
@OP Get yourself on the ladder ASAP, have a good attitude and don't get mixed up in daft office politics, you'll progress quickly.
Conanius - Your comment about the service desk hits the nail on the head, we use to do 1 week in 8 on the service desk even when in 3rd line support. I never minded it as it was a break from other duties but it was a complete eye opener. Shame few organisations consider it worthwhile.
Uni - studying chemistry. (got a second).
Classroom assistant (at the time he was thinking of going into teaching)
IT technician for a school
IT manager in same school
3rd line support in a local company
IT incidents manager at a different company.
My own is a little different.
Apprentice engineer/CAD draughtsman
Engineer (fully qualified - my fallback profession!)
IT technician (same pay as engineer - same company as I just "had a knack for it".)
3rd line support - local council
Network manager - local high school + feeder primaries (with two staff to manage).
Senior IT advisor - NHS
Now I'm leaving to enter an IT security role for Information Governance, so I no longer do support for the first time in 15 years.
Genuinely think the people who whinge about working in IT and constantly say how they're going to leave are exactly the sort of people who never will, who'll sit in the **** and fester whilst jealously watching others progress around them. I have NO I.T. qualifications other than a handful of MS certs, no degree and terrible school results yet I'm progressing far above my peers who have both degrees in IT, MS certifications coming out of their ears but who continually hold themselves back with a poor attitude.
Note to whinging IT people - rather than bitch about it actually go get another job, you'll be happier and so will your then ex-workmates. win, win, loser.
@OP Get yourself on the ladder ASAP, have a good attitude and don't get mixed up in daft office politics, you'll progress quickly.
Conanius - Your comment about the service desk hits the nail on the head, we use to do 1 week in 8 on the service desk even when in 3rd line support. I never minded it as it was a break from other duties but it was a complete eye opener. Shame few organisations consider it worthwhile.
Halfmad said:
I'm one of the moaners in recent years (used to love it though). No degree here either. Been in IT 25 years and also progressed in most cases faster than peers with good degrees. When I interview people I ignore their qualifications and it's the persons attitude that sells me on them or not.
Now running teams across several countries... and it's still crap
I won't leave though as it has given me a good salary for those years (the Y2K era was fabulous but it has been downhill since then). And I generally think I'm one of the more jolly people in the office.The stress and long hours can be insane though. I appreciate every role is different but 50+ hours a week is now starting to irritate me. And the last time I had Christmas off with my family was in 2003. Given a choice I'd probably move back to being more technical again, shrug off all responsibility, and simply go contracting.
To the OP though, despite the moaning that people like myself do, if you want to give it a try then it can be a great career. Like I said above, it is often the attitude that someone displays, rather than the actual qualifications, that can land them the job. Good luck.
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Be interesting to hear about your role at the NHS. I'm involved in the NHS/BT project.
IT support genuinely is the most soul destroying work, ever
Helpdesk, 1st line, 2nd line, all the same. You take a lot of flak and get no thanks. I used to think it would be great, until I'd been doing it a while.It's not great. It's awful. I'd go elsewhere but have no qualifications for anything else. Seriously, I'd love to get out.
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It depends where you work. I have worked in some bad 1st/2nd line jobs where anyone would hate the job. I would probably say most 1st/2nd line jobs are gonna suck big time. Currently I work one site mon,wed, friday and another site tuesday and thursday. Both sites are exactly the same size and industry but the one is a lot worse than the other because of the people that work there and their attitude and the bad state of the system which leads to more work and annoying tasks. The one I am at three days a week, when I was doing 1st/2nd still does suck sometimes but definitely better than a lot of other types of jobs imo. Easy to do and you get a lot of none work time where you can connect to your home pc or work on the servers at your leisure etc. But then you also get some realy interesting tasks that come through that you can spend some time on and learn from it. But now i work 3rd line which I prefer but also has its problems.
The company I work for sells software and managed services and they have a big sales department. They spend a lot time behind the desk but they also visit clients and do a lot of video conferences.
The company I work for sells software and managed services and they have a big sales department. They spend a lot time behind the desk but they also visit clients and do a lot of video conferences.
Conanius - Interesting you mention starting on a service desk. Down here, if you want a job on a service desk with no experience in the same role before..... they just don't hire you.
I found this time and time again, and eventually went down the se route. I'd gladly take paid employment in that role, but it just seemed a nightmare for me and I'd imagine the OP may find a similar problem.
I found this time and time again, and eventually went down the se route. I'd gladly take paid employment in that role, but it just seemed a nightmare for me and I'd imagine the OP may find a similar problem.
Just wondering what would be respected qualifications to pick up for a 31y.o salesman to pick up if they fancied a career in I.T??
Can't afford a degree so please bear that in mind and if it's not going to be affordable/realistic then please be honest and say so
You can do a degree for less the 5k.
http://www.londoninternational.ac.uk/busadmin#fees
And if you live near a University you can just sit in the classes, like I did doing my conversion degree. If fact I even went to see the lectures to get help however never told them that i was not emrolled.
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I went in with enthusiasm, a willingness to learn, a keen interest in IT and no qualifications at all of speak of.
Getting a lucky break is key, but I always recruit on attitude and willingness to learn. You can teach people anything, changing behaviour is far harder.
The lucky break can be imperative. I managed to convince people that I had the ability to learn anything that they put in front of me with a keyboard even though I'd no work experience or IT qualifications.
6 months later I like to think I've proved my point!
