Getting restarted in IT

Quartz said:
Have you considered starting your own business?
Click to expand...
Start a laptop/pc/electronics repair/slavage business.

Start buying dead things and fixing them. Set up a FB page offering to fix screens etc. You could always repair phones etc as well.
 
Last edited:
Sorry I didn't reply earlier, have a look at the learning paths for the az-900 as mentioned above, and also look up the virtual training days. These are just prerecorded from my experience, so even if you can't stay the entire time it may be worth just recording the session and revisiting it later. It won't be any additional information vs the learning path on ms learn, but many learn best with multiple different input types. I personally find ms learn quite difficult to focus on at times.

It's an easy cert for sure, I did an in person training day at Microsoft UK HQ as part of my forces leaver preparation, and walked straight in to the exam and passed it easy. I did however have years as a sys admin, A+/Net+ CCNA Cyber Ops behind me, which gives quite a bit of general background to bounce off.
 
Last edited:
DEL 707 said:
Thanks, I know nothing about cloud based tech, but I'll start looking into this.
Click to expand...

Other cloud services exist too, for example, AWS is six times bigger than Azure.

In the meantime here is an easy hack based on this:
DEL 707 said:
I used to work in a shop repairing PC's and laptops, did it since I left school.
Click to expand...

You could probably set up a website next weekend (register a domain, put up a basic website, contact details, brand name, logo) and set yourself up as an IT repair man, join your local FB groups and you'll find some customers. This isn't so much to start a business (though could be a useful side hustle if you're into it) but rather to have something recent for your CV.

If you want to do basic IT support in an office then doing IT support yourself recently (as well as previously having worked doing repairs in a shop) would be quite useful. In plenty of offices, there is some group of IT guys tucked away in some corner or some back office and while some of them may be focused on other things (managing or dealing with issues with local or remote servers or indeed cloud-based stuff) some will have exactly the same sort of grunt work to do... a large company may well fix laptops in house and deal with all sorts of trivial user issues from various people in the office (I had a broken laptop screen once and an IT guy swapped it out for me with a news screen in a couple of minutes).

Just getting into a very entry-level support role in some IT team like that might be worthwhile, especially if you're keen to progress and study other things.
 
Oi oi.
I was in a similar situ last year.
Decades of experience, but no certs or quals.

Land yourself a 1st line service desk job. The tech tests are stupid easy, you'll laugh at the questions.

Once you're in, chill and learn the companies processes.

Start being proactive and take ownership of tickets, follow them from start to finish.

Dive into the aged tickets, or those where no one will accept responsibility for fixing something.

Within 6mths you'll be pulled from the front line and plonked into a self managed, stat-less, kpi-less job where stuff gets proper juicy.

Then you can start getting certs and quals on the company's dime.

That's my story anyway.
I'm still with the same company doing cool stuff with a crazy security clearance level.

I hope this helps you in some way, I genuinely do.

Stick with it, stay cool and have faith in your own abilities.
 
Last edited:
DEL 707 said:
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?
Click to expand...
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??

I work in IT, bit of a vague sort of title really, more like an infrastructure engineer. Basically need to start off with the the fundamentals of Active Directory, exchange (365 admin) along with some basic networking. I’ll be honest, avoid intense networking, it is a dieing area of IT so stay well clear!

Security, I wouldn’t bother either just on the basis everything such as security will be overseen by MS Azure and AWS anyway who are way more experienced than all of us!

Advice Imade to one apprentice was to look ten years ahead, he said networking (this was 6 years ago), I said avoid at the time. When Covid hit, people working from home and most servers in azure, no real need for it any more and demand has dropped, so networking is a no no personally.

Myself, currently implementing Windows autopilot at the moment and w365, great areas to look into as that is future tech.

I would say avoid -

Networking (everything going to the cloud)
Security (MS and AWS take care of this..)
Desktop engineering role (will be replaced by windows auto pilot) Google windows autopilot, pretty scary so avoid desktop engineer roles.

Go for -

Cloud engineering roles that involve -

Azure, AWS, VMWare, O365, W365, Active Directory, Exchange, autopilot, SCCM, powershell, Intune, virtualisation in general. Look into how to create virtual machines in VMware, azure, creating group policies in Active Directory. Some udemy videos go other these all in one where they show you how to create a Lab using a virtual machine so you can apply gpos to test VMs

Check out udemy videos. I can share ones if need be that will be of 100 percent use. I never got the advice myself, but I always help when I hear someone who asks.

Arm yourself with all that knowledge, go for a 1st-2nd line role in a company for that follows ITIL change procedures. (Get an ITIL v3 cert by the way!,)

Give me a shout anytime if you want any info.
 
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.
 
It is definitely a bit of a sales pitch, the fundamentals certs are also aimed at management who won't ever have to get hands on but need to understand the concepts.
 
Yeah I've done 4 different Azure fundamentals certs but getting those doesn't really need you to do anything hands-on. It's probably what you make of it though, you could fire up a lab environment and try out the theory you are learning if you wanted to.

I would disagree with the comment about avoiding Security. Even in a cloud environment, people still need an understanding of security concepts like what's the right model to secure access to data, how to configure firewalls appropriately, how to audit that there is adequate security in place etc. Modern architectures are often integrating many systems and this comes with some challenges that Azure/AWS won't automatically address without adequate inputs. The cloud platforms have the infrastructure to apply security effectively but there is a level of design / configuration needed at least in environments with a reasonable level of complexity. Or to put it another way, the technical implementation might be easier now but you still need to do the thinking behind it.
 
I also disagree about avoiding networking, you need to know at least the fundamentals. Regardless if its going to the cloud, companies still need people to manage the backend network and there are plenty of jobs for people to work in data centers, such as the big tech companies. The data center by me is always busy, these engineers wont be jobless anytime soon. I havent worked for any company who are 100% going to the cloud, its hybrid.

Security is getting bigger not smaller. Amazon, Microsoft, Google are not bullet proof and they need people in cyber security. Part of Azure went down a few weeks back due to an DDOS attack. You can never have enough people to combat crime.
 
Last edited:
malachi said:
I also disagree about avoiding networking, you need to know at least the fundamentals. Regardless if its going to the cloud, companies still need people to manage the backend network and there are plenty of jobs for people to work in data centers, such as the big tech companies. The data center by me is always busy, these engineers wont be jobless anytime soon. I havent worked for any company who are 100% going to the cloud, its hybrid.

Security is getting bigger not smaller. Amazon, Microsoft, Google are not bullet proof and they need people in cyber security. Part of Azure went down a few weeks back due to an DDOS attack. You can never have enough people to combat crime.
Click to expand...
I’m just basing it all in the last three years. One place where I worked (ftse100 company) during the pandemic (which I left) they have now more than halved their networking staff because the physical on premises kit has been made completely redundant. No requirement for Cisco APs, switches etc anymore along with Cisco iOS cli expertise nor cisco meraki because the building is empty with people all fully remote working from home. Literally no physical kit at all to support…

The cisco any connect vpn solution they had, gone, replaced by far superior zpa too.

Everything they have now is practically xaas. Fair play to the company though, a lot of them got retrained to go into infra roles from what I heard so didn’t actually get laid off.

Do need the fundamentals though, but personally wouldn’t want to be a Subject matter expert in networking for the above reason.
 
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?
 
I don't know of any open roles, but reading this thread, you would slot into a big organisation who need desktop and local hardware support.

So hitting up places like computacenter, IBM, infosys etc. who do IT for other companies often in massive buildings [and therefore always a steady stream of issues to resolve], you may find an opening that isnt helpdesk support but more hands-on, replacing drives, imaging PCs, prepping and rolling out laptops etc. which would mirror a lot of the skills you've demostrated in dealling with joe publics issues in a repair shop.

If you want to get experience and basic knowledge, most of those technologies are available on places like udemy just to get you started [if stuff is on offer]. And there is no substitute for throwing together a basic PC, lobbing a virtualisation platform on it, and installing things to learn stuff. Download trial versions of most things and blow them away when you don't need them anymore.
The advantage of a virtualisation platform being you can snapshot or clone stuff before you do something uncomfortable.

Best of luck.
 
DEL 707 said:
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?
Click to expand...

What level are you looking at? Even a 2nd line role won't have you accessing or making changes in AD or the GPMC. Maybe a bit of an understanding for how group policies are applied and troubleshooting.

You can get a lab running on a mid-spec PC or laptop. Use the built-in free Hyper-V and download the evaluation ISOs from MS. One VM with Windows server + AD, DNS, DHCP and GPMC and the other for your Windows client. Within a few weeks you'll have more than enough knowledge for a 2nd line role.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom