Career Prospects in a Company

Mattitude · 22 Jan 2011 at 10:25

Hello guys,

I need some advice on my career and where its taking me.

I started working for a company 6 months ago in a 1st/2nd line role, after those 6 months i was promoted to 2nd line, now as part of my promotion they said we are going to have a meeting in 3 months time to discuss your future and career prospects within the company :eek:

so when i asked what they were talking about they want to give me some training so i can be pushed up to 3rd to go into infrastructure or networking.

They said there is no boundaries and you can pick a couple, obviously doing one at a time. All i have to do is do them successfully and i will be pushed into a 3rd line junior role by the end of this year or start of the next.

Now we as a company have all our networking cisco based, phones, switches routers soon our video conferencing kit will too. So i could go down the cisco route.

We are very very Microsoft based we have SCCM, Sharepoint, SQL Servers, the whole lot i administer AD, SCCM and Sharepoint already in my 2nd line role.

So i was thinking of doing Virtualisation.... As thats where its all going and that is where the gap is in expertise within 3rd line.

What abut data storage and SANs? good to work with, good money?

Citrix the head of 3rd line was asking the other guys opinions on this and none really knew much about it infact no one did. So why not a citrix?

I want to go on something thats different, and these 3 so far sound like what i need to be looking at.

What do you guys think?

pepp77 · 22 Jan 2011 at 10:29

Out of those I would probably go the Cisco route - very good qualifications to have.

brainchylde · 22 Jan 2011 at 11:00

I'm doing the CCNA at the moment (with work), but out of interest rather than necessity. The general consensus in our training class is the value of the CCNA has diminished, especially in the regions. There was a time when CCNA certs would almost guarantee you a job - now, not so. You need to go to a higher level in order for that sort of guarantee. So the Cisco route is great, providing you are willing to push yourself deep into that route.

VMWare - the few people I know with Virtualisation Certs are doing very well, but they are placed in companies with large virtual infrastructures. If your company wants someone full time in the virtual sphere - great, but most companies dabbling in virtualisation have it set up by consultants (and in reality it's not that difficult) and in my experience, a well installed setup will almost run itself.

Microsoft... now, being as your company is very Microsoft centric (and a lot of places are), the Microsoft route would be good for you. However, once again, the Microsoft certs are becoming increasingly specialised. Nothing stopping you doing a few of them, but again, that's just a matter of how far you want to push youself.

Personally I would do VM mixed with Cisco. That'll cover you if there isn't enough VM stuff to go around in your company, but additionally you will be well versed in the network sides of things (which can be important with VMWare setups). It'll make you a very attractive individual to a lot of companies IMO.

Best of luck!

droyden · 22 Jan 2011 at 12:50

You could go down the route of cisco voice as I guess more and more will be switching to voip and associated technologies when their older phone tech packs in.
Storage is probably an additional one to have unless you plan to do consultancy.

zetec452 · 22 Jan 2011 at 15:49

What do you want to do?

If there is a gap then I'd be inclined to go for the Virtualization and Citrix route. However, this happens to be where my interest lies.

.

Besty · 22 Jan 2011 at 20:43

Why not learn them all and then look to move into Strategy & Architecture?

Bandwagon's come and go, good Network and Storage specialists are like rocking horse ****.