Getting restarted in IT

DEL 707

DEL 707

DEL 707

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Joined
20 Mar 2004
Posts
4,580
I used to work in a shop repairing PC's and laptops, did it since I left school.
Now I'm out of a job with only GCSE's to my name.

I'm job hunting but I'm looking for certificates to get some knowledge and pad out my CV.
I'm mainly looking at online courses but I'm not sure what kind of courses I should be looking for.

I'm looking for an IT support role, possible networking.

A quick google search recommend Comp TIA A+ and Comp TIA Network+, are these worth pursuing?
Are there other courses I should know about or pursue?
Are they any free courses I could consider to start?
 
Zefan said:
Can you list a little more about your experience? You say you've been in the PC shop since leaving school, how long has this been?
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I worked in the shop from 1999 till 2020, I was laid off doing all the covid lockdowns. I've been unemployed for the last few years due to personal health issues.

Started off in the early days just working on PC's, building, upgrading and repairing. Then we started working on laptops.
During the last few years I would say a good 99% of my time was spent on laptops, mainly dealing with hardware issues. Replacing screens, keyboards and motherboards. Cleaning up spillage damage, ultrasonic baths and occasional soldering work, replacing dc jacks and other ports. I used to do GPU chip reflowing, but in the end we outsourced that to another engineer who had better equiptment.
Software wise, I didn't go too deep, I would fix login issues, boot issues and problems with wifi. Too be honest, if a software issue was too troublesome, we just backed up the customer data and reinstalled Windows. I worked out quicker and cheaper.

Nearly all my experience is with Windows, I did used to work on Macs, but that stopped around the Snow Leppord era when another engineer took that role. I still occasional worked on macs, but only with hardware faults.

I honestly don't know what I want to do job wise. I love taking things apart, repairing them and putting them back together, but I understand that's not much of a career path.
I REALLY don't want to end up on some tech support phoneline, but I realise I might need to start there.
 
Been looking at courses all over the weekend, I'm still very uncertain about what I want to do, but I saw this bundle on Reed.

www.reed.co.uk

Comptia : CompTIA A+ Bundle

Start your career in IT with the IT Support Technician Job Programme Was £1951, Now £749.00. Instalment option available from just £121 over 7 months Make an impact immediately with the IT Technician / 1st Line IT Support Programme offered by IT Certify: - Seven New to IT essential courses worth...
www.reed.co.uk www.reed.co.uk

Bit pricey for me and I don't have money to burn. But if it's good value for money and helps me get my foot in the door, I'll do it.
 
Thank you all for taking the time to reply.

So Comptia is off the table now, I watched a few of those video, and yeah, the knowledge is pretty basic.
Because of health reasons, I won't be applying for anymore jobs for the next 2-3 months, so I would like to get some sort of certificate to give sort of advantage over some school leaver who's got the same GSCE's I have.
Zefan, you mention Microsoft certs, can you recommend a good course to pursue to get the ball rolling? I'm looking at 1st Line IT support to get my started in the field again.

Zefan said:
What's your server knowledge like?
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Unfortunately it's pretty minimum, plug wires into a router and hope everything works.
I would really like to pursue a career in network engineering/administration, but my knowledge is definately lacking. Would CCNA be a good start down that path?
There don't seem to be many network engineer trainee jobs in Kent and I can't stomach the commute to London anymore.

Again, thank you everyone for helping out, I'm sorry I'm so clueless.
 
Hatchet_Harry said:
Are you the same Del707 back in the Wireplay CS days by any chance? Literally came across this post via a random search and saw your name and also your situation (you was good back in the day!!!). Clan RA was it??
Click to expand...

Yep, same guy. My skills and reaction time went out the window years ago, along with my hair!

Few other guys on here from Wireplay/Blueyonder, check out this thread :)

anyone used to play on Wireplay ?

Ahh the good old days of 1p a min dial up fantastic games of TFC, and a huge phone bill lol. anyone else play TFC on it ? and if so were you in a clan ?
forums.overclockers.co.uk forums.overclockers.co.uk

Thanks for all that info.
Feeling like I've jumped into the deep end of the pool here. Still working my way through this Azure AZ-900 stuff, feels like a bit of a sales pitch sometimes, but if it does what it says on the tin, I can see why people are switching to cloud based servers.
 
I'm more actively job hunting at the moment and I'm having a bit of trouble finding an IT support position that doesn't require some previous experience.

The basics needed seem to be stuff like, active directory, group policy, microsoft exchange and Office 365. Where I have no experience.

I'm applying for jobs, but I am going to need to look for some sort of apprenticeship?
 
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