Mate unemployed seeks new career - IT?

Is it a candidates market?? With the uncertainty of Brexit seems to be less jobs available at the minute. Almost all jobs that are advertised require plenty of experience as well.

It really isn't there's far too many people looking for work, the wife has just been telling me that they advertised for a 1st line analyst recently and on the original sift they counted 187 applicants, immediately the discarded any applications that had a personal statement of less than 700 words (the upper limit was 1250) which took it down to a more manageable 70ish applications of which they've selected 8 for interviews, I can't imagine you friend would make it through the 1st sift never mind as far as interview stage.
 
From my experiences it is definitely a candidates market.

I've always had at least two offers at the same time every time I've moved. With like 25+ voicemails on my phone which I just cannot answer.

Even now, 6 months in to this job, I still get 4-5 calls a day from recruiters, emails via jobsites and linkin as well as direct calls form companies as well.

I had one call me up and when I said I had just started a new job they asked me how much are they offering you?

I didn't reply.

So with the right skill set you can pick and choose whatever you want essentially.

Just a quick Google. Have a read of some of the links.

Taken from the FT:

Information technology Information technology was last year the sector with the second highest proportion of hard-to-fill vacancies, the Employers Skills Survey found. IT is the most in-demand skills set this year across multiple industries, according to a survey published last month by the Recruitment and Employment Confederation, an industry trade body. Software engineers and programmers were particularly sought after, with many respondents to the survey mentioning automation, the C++ and C# programming languages and cyber security as key skills. “It’s a high growth area, the tech sector specifically, and we’re not producing the right skills domestically,” said Vinous Ali, head of policy at Tech UK, a trade body. IT workers from overseas were frequently finding they were unable to move to the UK last year, she added, as the sector bumped up against a cap on so-called Tier 2 visas issued by the UK government to skilled workers. “Businesses [will go] elsewhere if they can’t get access to the right people here in the UK,” said Ms Ali."
 
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I think for now we are gonna ignore the issue of GCSEs.

My question more specifically is, can someone study for say the RHCSA, RHCE and Ansible and get a junior engineering role?

I know the RHCE is as tough as nails, but having studied the material myself I thought it was a good learning exercise.

It's a chicken and an egg scenario. He needs experience to get a job. And needs a job to get experience.

But I do know the market is hunger. It's a candidate's market. There is a technical skills gap and companies are willing to take people who are not the finished articles.

I'm just trying to save him time and money. Because if he goes down the RH routes and keeps getting rejected because of no experience that's a waste of time and money. And on the flip side, no point in him going and doing A+ and Microsoft certs if he could just study the RH stuff and start off in a better job at a higher level on better pay.

No, I would not recommend doing this. Both RHCSA and RHCE (the latter in particular) expect you to have experience with using the platform for a reasonable amount of time. It is not something that should be considered as a starting point to learn from nothing for. With his lack of experience even if by some quirk of fate he managed to get an RHCE it wouldn't help him get a job because the sort of places which want someone with that qualification want people with real world experience.

He needs to look at more entry level qualifications and roles and build up some experience. Then he can consider more advanced qualifications later. Yes there are vacancies for people with technical skills but having a qualification with no experience does not equal a having a skill.
 
No, I would not recommend doing this. Both RHCSA and RHCE (the latter in particular) expect you to have experience with using the platform for a reasonable amount of time. It is not something that should be considered as a starting point to learn from nothing for. With his lack of experience even if by some quirk of fate he managed to get an RHCE it wouldn't help him get a job because the sort of places which want someone with that qualification want people with real world experience.

He needs to look at more entry level qualifications and roles and build up some experience. Then he can consider more advanced qualifications later. Yes there are vacancies for people with technical skills but having a qualification with no experience does not equal a having a skill.

That's all I wanted to know. Thanks
 
I would also recommend looking at qualifications away from pure OS qualifications, be there Windows or Linux related. Cloud and devops technologies are good things to do courses in as well as things like Scrum and large companies HR department's favourite ITIL. Something like AWS Cloud Practioner is relatively easy and cheap to do and would be a good introduction to cloud technologies and principles.
 
I would also recommend looking at qualifications away from pure OS qualifications, be there Windows or Linux related. Cloud and devops technologies are good things to do courses in as well as things like Scrum and large companies HR department's favourite ITIL. Something like AWS Cloud Practioner is relatively easy and cheap to do and would be a good introduction to cloud technologies and principles.

Agree. But maybe not for an out right beginner with no experience. I'm trying to get him in to a job as soon as possible.
 
He needs to look at more entry level qualifications and roles and build up some experience. Then he can consider more advanced qualifications later.
I'd agree with this tbh. Entry positions is where he's going to need to start, so the more advanced stuff would be overlooked without that experience. I'd definitely start with the entry stuff, and even MS Win10 stuff would be really useful for him to get into places I'd say.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/learning/modern-desktop-exams.aspx
 
From my experiences it is definitely a candidates market.

I've always had at least two offers at the same time every time I've moved. With like 25+ voicemails on my phone which I just cannot answer.

Even now, 6 months in to this job, I still get 4-5 calls a day from recruiters, emails via jobsites and linkin as well as direct calls form companies as well.

I had one call me up and when I said I had just started a new job they asked me how much are they offering you?

I didn't reply.

So with the right skill set you can pick and choose whatever you want essentially.

Just a quick Google. Have a read of some of the links.

Taken from the FT:

Information technology Information technology was last year the sector with the second highest proportion of hard-to-fill vacancies, the Employers Skills Survey found. IT is the most in-demand skills set this year across multiple industries, according to a survey published last month by the Recruitment and Employment Confederation, an industry trade body. Software engineers and programmers were particularly sought after, with many respondents to the survey mentioning automation, the C++ and C# programming languages and cyber security as key skills. “It’s a high growth area, the tech sector specifically, and we’re not producing the right skills domestically,” said Vinous Ali, head of policy at Tech UK, a trade body. IT workers from overseas were frequently finding they were unable to move to the UK last year, she added, as the sector bumped up against a cap on so-called Tier 2 visas issued by the UK government to skilled workers. “Businesses [will go] elsewhere if they can’t get access to the right people here in the UK,” said Ms Ali."

But as you said he has no experience or skillset so I'm not sure you quoting the fact that you keep getting contacted is relevant to this guy getting a job, I'm currently in a 4 way tug of war with some contract and permanent posts (got a meeting a 1.30 today with one manager about a 6 month contract position he needs to recruit for asap) but I have a bit more experience and skills than your mate.

If you have a good CV on LinkedIn and a couple of other jobsites you'll always get contacted by recruiters, unfortunately from what you have described this chap hasn't really got anything at all to put on a CV that will make him 'employable'.

As randomshenans has mention get him doing the A+ and once he's got that he can look at Network+ or/and Security+, once he has those the lack of GCSE's will be overlooked for entry level positions as he'll have something to put on the qualifications sections of applications (fwiw I only have 1 C GCSE and all others are below but I've nearly 30 years in the IT sectorat various levels)
 
It's a candidates market if you're not a unqualified no experience unemployed person. Entry level jobs are a whole difference ball game.

^^^ this

It really isn't there's far too many people looking for work, the wife has just been telling me that they advertised for a 1st line analyst recently and on the original sift they counted 187 applicants, immediately the discarded any applications that had a personal statement of less than 700 words (the upper limit was 1250) which took it down to a more manageable 70ish applications of which they've selected 8 for interviews, I can't imagine you friend would make it through the 1st sift never mind as far as interview stage.

That's a bit arbitrary? Wonder why they didn't just look at relevant qualifications first? Key word searches are quite common for example for an initial filter of CVs at least that is what HR tend to have done. For that sort of role you're always going to get completely chancers and also people with some relevant quals that you could pick out.
 
That's a bit arbitrary?

I've certainly heard a number of different methods that hiring managers choose to thin down the pile of applicants, to one where the manager just splits the pile of applications in half, and bins one half. You could have had an amazing candidate in the binned half, and just out of pure luck/chance, they never got a look in.
 
I'm just trying to save him time and money. Because if he goes down the RH routes and keeps getting rejected because of no experience that's a waste of time and money. And on the flip side, no point in him going and doing A+ and Microsoft certs if he could just study the RH stuff and start off in a better job at a higher level on better pay.

I appreciate you're trying to shortcut him into a career without wasting his time and money getting certs in things that either make no difference, or don't even get looked at when hiring. And i'm sure if your friend had some qualifications this wouldn't be so much of an issue. You've got to consider that junior engineering roles are typically grad territory and he'll end up competing against a market that is saturated with grads looking to get into these types of roles.

I work for one of the big IT companies, and i know for a fact we wouldn't even consider an applicant without a degree for one of our junior engineering roles.

Yes you might say that a degree doesn't give you everything, and i wouldn't disagree with you there. But it's a very easy variable to filter people out from.
 
If he wants to get into IT if I was in his position I'd offer to do volunteer work anywhere that would have me.

I had a basic IT college qualification, think it was an IT Practitioner Diploma I did. Found it basically impossible to get jobs as I had no experience. I was fortunate that I was able to get a bit of experience with my cousin and then I asked a few schools if they'd take on a IT Tech on a voluntary basis. Think I did about 3 months of voluntary work, 8-12 hours a week whenever I could and that helped me get jobs much easier. In fact I think after a few months of voluntary work most applications I sent off got back in touch for interviews.

If you don't have the paper to back it up you need to show you're willing to put yourself out as it shows it's something you're serious about. Good luck!
 
I asked a few schools if they'd take on a IT Tech on a voluntary basis. Think I did about 3 months of voluntary work, 8-12 hours a week whenever I could and that helped me get jobs much easier. In fact I think after a few months of voluntary work most applications I sent off got back in touch for interviews.

How long ago was this out of interest? It can be legally dubious to work for free, though in the past a blind eye used to be turned at times over unpaid interns even though min wage laws have been in place for some time. It was notorious in media/PR companies a few years ago etc..

I guess independent schools are generally charities and state schools are obvs non-profit organisations so that might well be why they can still have "volunteers".
 
How long ago was this out of interest? It can be legally dubious to work for free, though in the past a blind eye used to be turned at times over unpaid interns even though min wage laws have been in place for some time. It was notorious in media/PR companies a few years ago etc..

I guess independent schools are generally charities and state schools are obvs non-profit organisations so that might well be why they can still have "volunteers".

Did the voluntary work in a state school. Was about 10 years ago and everything was legal. I was working part time at the time so I'd do mornings whenever I could. No idea how I would've got a job without volunteering
 
I would generally only put highest level of education on any application / CV. If in this case it would be technical certification relevant to the job role he wanted to apply for, I'd be putting that on and nothing about school.
 
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