Advice on applying for work experience

[DeludedGuy]

I have never applied for work experience and have no idea how long I should ask for, or how many days a week.

Ideally I would like to apply for 3 months unpaid work experience with the Networking department, 3 days a week. This would allow me to work 2 days a week in my current job which would be enough for me to live on for now.

Is that an unusual request? I'm not in the know but I seem to remember work experience lasting no more than a month, so if I ask for 3 months they may turn it down. I could always write in my letter than I would be willing to accept what ever they can offer.

Any advice is appreciated.

[Agent]

If you don't mind me asking -what's your age range?

[DeludedGuy]

If you don't mind me asking -what's your age range?

Sorry, forgot to give some details about me.

Im 24 and trying to get into a computer networking career, I have no experience and am finding it difficult to actually get a job with just my CCNA qualification. As much as I dont mind messing around with Cisco routers and switches I would also like to get some Microsoft qualifications in the near future.

[Whiternoise]

I suspect it'll depend very much on where you apply to. A larger organisation will probably have a hierarchy of network engineers, into which they'd slot you. As such if you needed to be out in 3 months, they probably wouldn't have a problem as you're replaceable. A smaller company might only have two or three people who do the majority of the work and taking someone on may require more commitment - but then again they might appreciate the offer of unpaid assistance.

I think it would be a bad idea to write that you'll accept anything that they can offer, you'd be better off saying that you'll consider.

With work placements, the longer ones tend to be things like internships - which you may wish to look into if you can find a paid one - lasting anywhere from 10 weeks over the summer (they're mainly aimed at undergrads) to 18 month stints. What I mean is, if you're not looking for a specific program, 3 months is probably going to be OK, but again it depends where you look. Large companies will have specific programs that you can apply to, smaller outfits may be happy for you to do more flexible stuff.

If it all goes to pot, you could always try to get a job somewhere and then hand in your notice when you need to - it's a bit impolite if you don't warn your employers (to secretly decide to run away), but provided you tell them far enough in advance it's legal.

Just be determined and ask loads of places, especially smaller local businesses (who likely won't have an HR rep to shred your application). But for God's sake tailor your requests for each company, nothing worse than a copy-paste personal statement.


Do you have a degree?

[DeludedGuy]

Nope, don’t have a degree. I left college with a BTEC National Diploma in ICT, circumstances meant I couldn’t go to university and went straight into a dead end admin job that had nothing to do with IT.

Yup, I will definitely tailor all my cover letters and CV’s and I'm going to apply to a rather large organisation first as its where I am currently working and they know of me, just not that I am more of an IT guy than an admin guy.

Should I mention what I hope to gain from the experience? Ideally I dont want my cover letter to be longer than 2 paragraphs, but maybe 3 is ok if I describe my technical abilities...or may not as that would be on my CV...

Thanks for the advice, anymore from anyone would be apreciated too.