Technical I.T Consultant

Tom|Nbk said:
Sid thanks for your advice, I may have more questions later, Im wondering is an IT helpdesk the only thing i can hope to grab if i leave college with 4 A levels :( ? . Will most likely 99% hit Uni, Im just starting to get my ideas together as my college life comes to a close. Thanks everyone else for all the advice so far, It's helped open my eyes a little.
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By the way, although I did start university, I didn't finish as I felt I could do better in the real world. I started doing short contract menial stuff (not IT) via an agency, one company started asking me back and started getting me to fix stuff, particularly Lotus Approach databases that kept breaking (they were the days). From there I applied for an IT position in a large company on project work and climbed to DBA in that company, moved as a DBA to this company then went for a Project Manager job and got it. Planning a move to Technical Architect in the next few years.
 
I work as an IT consultant and was drafted strait out of uni. The term consultant is abused in the IT sector to mean anyone client facing who works for a consultancy.

Accenture, Cap Gemini, IBM, PWC and Deloitte all draft lots of uni leavers as consultants drop them in massive projects as head count and hope for the best. Normally they leave a couple of experienced consultants to help them along a little.

The consultancy space is good to get in to but the "junior consultant" who has never worked in the client's industry space before generally will not carry as much weight nor be as successful. If you want to be a consultant without going to uni I suspect the most likely path would be to work outside the IT sector for a few years with a software package you could then consult in.

I didn't know that there were hardware consultants, I thought it was just presales and technicians.
 
You certainly won't be able to jump into a 50k technical consultant role without any experience. You'll have to work your way up, regardless of qualifications.
 
dayloon said:
You certainly won't be able to jump into a 50k technical consultant role without any experience. You'll have to work your way up, regardless of qualifications.
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This is very true. For pure money though it's better to go into the banking space. Even the techies there get paid more than normal techies.

For maximum points being a techie work as a contractor for a consultancy that consults to the banking space.
 
dayloon said:
You certainly won't be able to jump into a 50k technical consultant role without any experience. You'll have to work your way up, regardless of qualifications.
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Obviously...I didnt expect to just jump into it, was just curious as to what qualifications and experience I would need.
 
Tom|Nbk said:
Sid thanks for your advice, I may have more questions later, Im wondering is an IT helpdesk the only thing i can hope to grab if i leave college with 4 A levels :( ? . Will most likely 99% hit Uni, Im just starting to get my ideas together as my college life comes to a close. Thanks everyone else for all the advice so far, It's helped open my eyes a little.
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No problem, I myself am in a position where I could end up a consultant in a few years, so I'm learning about it a lot!

Three things:

1. Don't knock helpdesk work, it can be a useful foot in the door and valuable experience. For example, imagine working on good old fashioned first line user support. After a year there you suddenly have a year's worth of experience with Windows, Active Directory and perhaps even Exchange. If you get noticed you might find yourself promoted into a much nicer job.

2. There is not always a set route into consultancy unless you're aiming for one of those graduate scheme things, which from my personal experience can be hit and miss. From work experience and research and early industry roles work out where you want to aim. Become an expert in a set of technologies, be wary of being a 'jack of all trades' but at the same time don't focus so tightly that when the product goes out of fashion you find yourself out of work. Any Novell Netware admins still out there?

3. Again though its not always the case the degree gives you the right footing for skipping the early dogsbody roles in IT, though again don't expect it to be a ticket into a well paid job (that's a whole thread worth of debate on its own).

Regardless of where you end up I would always advocate university. Socially it's a fantastic experience and getting through it with a worthwhile degree will help in most career's you could go into.

The main thing that I fell down on was experience. I left uni and looked for work and though I reckon I am as adept as most geeks here on the forums, where was my experience I could show them? It was a hard stuggle (and still is) compared to some friends who did a placement year and had that relevant industry experience that employers always bang on about.
 
My starting point was getting the NVQ3 as all my mates said i was good at IT, but being mates i thought they were just being nice. took the NVQ, past it without any hassle and enjoyed the work. Went to an agency and said look, i have no IT work experince, but i know how to build PC's, use windows and office, have you got any contract i can do for you, not bothered about the pay.

Took 4 months of me on the dole but i got a contract, paid £7 an hour, not good money but was experince, did 3 years of basic 1st line/2nd line fixing to get experince and learn how to talk to people and leanr how to get the info you need out of people without calling them liars lol.. I now earn a lot more than £7 an hour....

Next 7 years decided i love support rolls, so thats what i do, server, network, citrix, backup systems, desktop and user support, i love them all, yup im mad!

Pick a section you love doing and get as much exposer as you can in it. a lot of people do full time work in IT, but honeslty, its not the same although you will learn tips and tricks.

Id get experence from 1st line help desk, learn as much as you can, then move up the ladder one bit at a time. Remeber the most important thing of contracting. You are only as good as your last contract.

Good luck, and hope to see you soon!

Colin
 
Chris Beard said:
This is very true. For pure money though it's better to go into the banking space. Even the techies there get paid more than normal techies.

For maximum points being a techie work as a contractor for a consultancy that consults to the banking space.
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I work at a consultancy that consults to investment banks, unfortunately not a contractor here though!

As for the OP, I got a degree in Mathematical Physics from a good university and have worked as a developer for various blue chips since then, latterly in the banking sector.
That gave me the relevant experience to go into consulting.

I actually get a higher salary being a consultant than when I was working for a bank (I do have more experience now though) but you don't get quite as good bonuses unfortunately!
 
SiD the Turtle said:
Tom I don't think you'll be able to jump into consultancy straight after college. You would need to get some experience in your chosen field for a while and then get promoted into the role. Also 'hardware and software' is a pretty big net, I understand that just coming from college its difficult to know what bit to go into but as a customer I would be asking for a specific SQL Server consultant, a DR consultant, an Oracle consultant etc.

All of this comes from that old nugget experience. Lets say you leave college and then work as a DBA for a few years. Once you have experience in that product that spans a while, you have enough to go and consult on the product. Consultants unfortunately don't walk into a role without experience, as they wouldn't be able to consult on it :p

If you have any other questions do ask, as the firm I work for is primarily a consultancy.
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I have to agree with what this chap says..

Consultancy comes with knowing your business. You can't give advice without it. Just because you have technical experience, it doesn't make you a consultant. For example, just because someone knows MS project, it doesn't make them a project manager.

There is no fast track. However, if you can get your feet in the door without any qualifications, then there's no reason within a few years you can't become "a consultant" in your chosen field.
 
Starting wage at your area would be about 14-20k a year? pretty low but you do work you way up, unless you go to UNI. More qualifications you have in the IT area the higher the salary your looking at in the long run.
 
I've just got onto the HP Graduate scheme as a Technical Consultant and I start in September. I come from a techy background but the reason I went into this type of field (rather than sys-admin etc) is to pick up some Business & Project Management skills that I really would like to learn / get into. Hopefully then branching off to become some form of technical specialist or something.

To get onto this scheme I had the following qualifications;

MCSA
ITIL Foundation
Novell CLP
Degree in Computer Network Management & Design (hopefully :p )

Perhaps that will give you a rough idea. If you want to get into consulting, its best to do a Business and IT type degree. I suppose I was quite flukey to be accepted considering I haven't done any form of businessy degree and I think it was only experience and drive that carried me through.
 
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As said, get yourself a helpdesk role, if you know your stuff you can probably get a promotion in the 1st few months. Jobs are always about half as difficult as the job description, especially at low pay grades.

Once there, get yourself a car and get studying in things you like & that the industry demands. Your job will teach you the lingo and give you a platform to work from.. you could be the best in the interview but if your "previous salary" box looks rather empty they wont take the risk with you.

If you want to climb fast focus on travelling lots, employers struggle to get skilled people who have no commitments to get in the way of 'the odd weekends overtime on the otherside of the country'.
 
Id say go for a helpdesk role. Its an excellent starting place.

Im 22 now and still on the helpdesk, but I do earn 24k a year which is better than all my mates. Hopefully moving to a datacentre role shortly.
 
Get experience over qualifications... if you can get both, even better, but being able to show you have been doing the job, counts for a lot.

Get into the IT section anyway you can, learn everything and ask when you dont know... silly questions are easier to fix than silly mistakes as they say!

Colin
 
A[L]C said:
Id say go for a helpdesk role. Its an excellent starting place.

Im 22 now and still on the helpdesk, but I do earn 24k a year which is better than all my mates. Hopefully moving to a datacentre role shortly.
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How the **** you get 24k working on a helpdesk?

I'm in the wrong helpdesk job.
 
rick827 said:
As said, get yourself a helpdesk role, if you know your stuff you can probably get a promotion in the 1st few months. Jobs are always about half as difficult as the job description, especially at low pay grades.

Once there, get yourself a car and get studying in things you like & that the industry demands. Your job will teach you the lingo and give you a platform to work from.. you could be the best in the interview but if your "previous salary" box looks rather empty they wont take the risk with you.

If you want to climb fast focus on travelling lots, employers struggle to get skilled people who have no commitments to get in the way of 'the odd weekends overtime on the otherside of the country'.
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Cheers for the advice but I've got a car already :D
 
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