Career Decisions (IT Professionals please read!)

If your more interested in the hardware side etc. I'd strongly suggest a Computer Engineering or Electronic Engineering degree as opposed to CompSci. Its generally a lot more practically based and steers you away from server support etc. and more to real development of embedded systems etc.

Definitely bare it in mind.
 
MrLOL said:
Interesting to see how few of us have IT degrees!
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I've worked in IT for 20 years and dont have a degree. Though to be honest as I have never had a single employer ever ask me to show proof of my qualifications I probably could have said at some stage that I did have one :)

Just hard graft, knowledge and learning got me to where I am today :)
 
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Job Title/Description:
IT Support Engineer for the NHS.

Typical day-to-day work:
Work as part of a team of 8 IT Engineers, covering a very large area of East Lancs, Maintaing hardware and software for both GP (including clinical prescribing systems, Emis, Isoft & Microtest etc...) and Community (District Nurses, HR, Finance etc) based users. This is a heck of a lot of hardware installs for GP's including servers and desktops.

Highest qualification (GCSE/Diploma etc):
A Levels and MCSE.

Job satisifaction (do you enjoy your day-to-day work):
No, i actually cant stand the way the deparment is run at the moment, things have been a lot better in the past and im sure will get better in the future.

Job security(do you feel you are at risk of having your job outsourced to india?):
Very unsusre at the moment, been there for 7 years but things are very unstable in the NHS at the moment and could go wrong in 2013 when GP's get control of budgets.

Salary(optional):
£25K
 
Tombstone said:
Just hard graft, knowledge and learning got me to where I am today :)
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I have been lambasted on previous occasions in this forum for insinuating that a degree wasn't necessary and that in IT, experience, and the ability to prove that experience is everything, and bits of paper and qualifications count for little.

I just find it interesting that most of us here proove that theory.
 
Job Title/Description: Senior Unix Technical Specialist

Typical day-to-day work: Review of incoming solutions for technical correctness, supportability and suitability. Liaise with Vendors and our CTO office. Escalations from 3rd Line Support and Projects. Investigate, test and document new technologies. Create standards, reference architectures and cookbooks.

Highest qualification (GCSE/Diploma etc): Masters Degree. Note that I come from a science background though and my IT training has all been Vendor courses once I was in employment.

Job satisifaction (do you enjoy your day-to-day work): Quite good some of the time but can be very frustrating.

Job security(do you feel you are at risk of having your job outsourced to india?): Currently not to bad but may change in the future. We tend to be dealing with stuff which they don't have the skills to handle anyway, (in my experience they are barely up to second line standard let alone decent 3rd line).

Salary(optional): £30k+ (although most of my colleagues are probably on £40k+)
 
MrLOL said:
I have been lambasted on previous occasions in this forum for insinuating that a degree wasn't necessary and that in IT, experience, and the ability to prove that experience is everything, and bits of paper and qualifications count for little.

I just find it interesting that most of us here proove that theory.
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Indeed, its funny that each person I have hired over the years , I have ended up giving the jobs to the experienced candidate rather than the graduate candidate. Its just been the case with each set of interviews that the experienced guy has been able to do the task set before them and the graduate has "known" how to do the task set before them but havent been as adept at completing it (if at all in some cases), which has made my choices fairly easy to make. Now I am not saying thats always the case, just saying that as yet I've never been disappointed with an appointment using my methods. The end result has been that today I lend more weight to the 4 years of experience candidate than the 4 years of studying candidate. (generally speaking)
 
Aaron445 said:
Long story short, could you guys fill out the little questionnaire below for me, I'm trying to get an idea of what the job market is like in IT at the moment. Thanks all
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Thanks for making the thread, currently in first year of my degree and always good to see how the industry I see myself in is currently looking. :)
 
Tombstone said:
I've worked in IT for 20 years and dont have a degree. Though to be honest as I have never had a single employer ever ask me to show proof of my qualifications I probably could have said at some stage that I did have one :)

Just hard graft, knowledge and learning got me to where I am today :)
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But you've not really answered the OP or outlined where you are today?

I'm presuming you're in some form of senior technical role as opposed to say software development etc... ?
 
dowie said:
But you've not really answered the OP or outlined where you are today?

I'm presuming you're in some form of senior technical role as opposed to say software development etc... ?
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No I havent, nor am I going to. I'm not one for revealing , what I consider to be personal details, on message forums.
 
MrLOL said:
I have been lambasted on previous occasions in this forum for insinuating that a degree wasn't necessary and that in IT, experience, and the ability to prove that experience is everything, and bits of paper and qualifications count for little.

I just find it interesting that most of us here proove that theory.
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Completely meaningless statement really - 'IT' can cover any range of jobs from printer monkey to quant and require anything from no qualifications to a PhD.

To make a generalisation and argue that you do or don't need a degree to work in 'IT' is silly. If you're going to argue that you need or don't need a degree then you'd probably need to narrow it down a bit. I'd certainly agree that for a large portion of support/techie roles a degree is less useful than experience and vendor certificates.

If you want to support/configure stuff - plug wires into boxes etc.. then certificates and experience is useful. If you want to work for IBM, Dell, HP etc.. and design what goes inside the boxes then chances are you'll need at least an MEng from a good university...
 
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dowie said:
So essentially:

Doesn't mean anything as you've given no context to your post.
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It doesnt have to mean anything, it was a self analysis. A sentence constructed from my own thoughts on myself if you like. Contrary to popular opinion not everything that I write is directly aimed at other people.
 
dowie said:
So why bother replying to a thread where the OP has asked for that sort of information?
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To be fair, I didnt reply to the OP, I replied to the person I quoted. However, if my presence is so disturbing you have but to say the word and I will happily exit, my wish is not to cause upset.
 
Not really disturbing, not quite sure why you'd think that. Rather I was just curious why someone would seemingly contribute to a discussion without actually contributing anything at all.
 
dowie said:
Not really disturbing, not quite sure why you'd think that. Rather I was just curious why someone would seemingly contribute to a discussion without actually contributing anything at all.
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Not sure, I guess its a matter of perspective. I consider that I did contribute to the discussion in respect of the person to whom I was replying, I consider that forum threads are much like a room of people, with a dynamic of several seperate mini-conversations and sub-topics under the overall thread title. If I am wrong on that I will endeavour in future to only reply to threads in relation to the OP and not become entangled in any underlying aspects of the threads. (Which I know is ironic as this very sub-topic with yourself actually fits that bill :) my apologies.)
 
Thanks to everyone who replied. Much appreciated!

Chris1712 said:
If your more interested in the hardware side etc. I'd strongly suggest a Computer Engineering or Electronic Engineering degree as opposed to CompSci. Its generally a lot more practically based and steers you away from server support etc. and more to real development of embedded systems etc.

Definitely bare it in mind.
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Thanks for that! I probably will end up going for CE rather than CS. As much as I enjoy programming it is something I can teach myself, there are 10,000s of books out there on the stuff and if I one day did decide to get a job in programming wouldn't a good portfolio of code show a lot more than a degree in CS?
 
Aaron445 said:
Thanks for that! I probably will end up going for CE rather than CS. As much as I enjoy programming it is something I can teach myself, there are 10,000s of books out there on the stuff and if I one day did decide to get a job in programming wouldn't a good portfolio of code show a lot more than a degree in CS?
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You could get a maths, physics or EE degree too and still end up in a development role. If you can code and do hard maths then you'll be very employable in future. A degree certainly can open doors for you, I wouldn't advise paying too much attention to unsubstantiated posts stating otherwise.
 
dowie said:
If you can code and do hard maths then you'll be very employable in future.
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I certainly agree with that part.

dowie said:
A degree certainly can open doors for you, I wouldn't advise paying too much attention to unsubstantiated posts stating otherwise.
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I dont think too many people disagree that a degree can open doors for you. I think its more a case that people think that its also possible to open doors without necessarily having to have one. That it can be a helping factor is clear imo, just not that its the be all and end all. (depending upon specifics of course)
 
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