Career in 1st Line support!

sreeve1993 said:
Hello tlrbeta, I hav looked into some grad schemes but noticed they mostly want people who have degrees in IT, but I suppose it doesn't stop me from applying. Maybe get out my comfort zone and stop getting myself down.

I do feel I'm a bit better than first line as in quite technical. Been self taught since of age 16. But atn getting my foot through the door is key :). I haven't thought about banks, I'm mostly looking at what is available on the websites I've signed up too
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have you considered doing an MSc - lots of universities offer a computer science MSc to non-computer science grads, you'd then open up various technical grad routes
 
craig_t said:
You don't need them, but if oyu want the courses then just use cbt nuggets etc for the learning and save money..
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Agreed for junior level courses you may be better off searching for free exam guides and training videos online then just book the exam when you're ready.

You'd make better use of your time studying programming languages and learning to code though. That's where the money is nowadays. Good luck!
 
1st Line Support shouldn't really be a target career, more the first step towards something else.

Anyway in my experience there will be companies out there looking to get in a general dogsbody who are not too fussed about qualifications. Many years ago I got rejected for a desktop support role because I was apparently "over-qualified" according to HR (probably an excuse and they didn't like me or something, but the point is they gave the job to a school leaver).

In my opinion the most important thing is to get your foot in the door and then worry about skilling up for where you want to go next; I think a lot of youngsters / newcomers to the industry have this idea that these type of jobs must just be about being good with computers, when the reality is that some employers will be just as interested in communication skills and the ability to work under pressure.
 
I am a third line server support engineer, aged 24 and although I have CompTIA A+ and MCDST for XP, I don't believe any of them got me where I am today (They certainly aren't relevant to my server role).
 
Thanks the for advise. I haven't considered Msc because I have just came out of education and the thought going back to it putting me off. Also I recently moved from Birmingham to London so I need to make sure I can fund for myself.
Before I think about doing a masters I want to get a bit more experience behind me :). At some point in my life I will definitely go for it.

@HangTime, once I learnt COMPTIA+ I am going to learn programming. I was doing it before by thought to myself to get to know the background of computers first.

@craig_t, if you don't mind me asking could you fill me in what you did to get to your role? :). You must have went to uni and studied IT?
 
Holla.

Started as a simple 1st line IT Technician at a school (independent, this makes a difference I'm sure) about 4 years ago ago now, in a relatively small team (me and NM and senior tech) on relatively awful money. Learnt a lot of stuff on the job and self-study, just reading when we weren't too busy. A lot of AV and running around classrooms.

Cue late 2013 where I get a job doing 1st and a little bit of second at a 3-13 school in Chelsea with just an NM. Very demanding, particularly as the school wasn't particularly mature in having a helpdesk system working and a tonne of AV which wore me down a fair bit. Also doing 7:45-18:00 was draining. However I did finally get my A+ and Network which they paid for; months and months of self study, practice exams etc.

November last year and I move on to a university doing solely 2nd line, travelling across various sites; although admittedly so far it's rather frustrating that the 1st line team are handing us jobs they should be more than capable of doing. Structure of the place being a university also takes a little getting used to but a lot of it so far has wound up being BAU. Now studying for MCSA Server 2012 with the intention of moving on up, from looking into it further the scope to move up grades is rather promising...

Advice? Just show you're keen in willing in your paperwork and in person, for 1st line a lot of boils down to the attitude of 'going that extra mile.
 
You don't need to do an IT course to be a 1st liner...

Get a job doing it and train while there. Look around at secondary schools and the like to get your foot in the door.
 
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