Advice needed on career in IT

[RVF500]

Just had this sent to me by an agency:

Position: Permanent
Industry: Information Technology
Role: Network Engineer
Skills: CCNA Cisco - IT TCP/IP BGP
Location: Oxfordshire
Duration(wks): PERMANENT
Start Date: ASAP
Rate: £30-£35k + on call allow

Ok, not an entry level position but they are only after a CCNA, one with experience. Just gives you some idea of the kind of positions that are around. As I don't really pay attention to permanent positions I'm not the best to ask about permie rates but I'll leave you to decide if it's a decent wage or not.

[tiggerai]

Wow... now i'd have that....

I'm seriously looking into doing CCNP or whatever after my degree... as i don't think the masters is going to be as valuable...

thanks for the advice in this thread, it's opened up lots of doors to me.

[RVF500]

You have to have a valid CCNA before you can take the CCNP tiggerai. There are 3 professional level certifications. CCNP, CCIP and CCSP. Decide on your career path. CCNP is traditional routing and switching. CCIP is ISP orientated. Large routed internetworks, geared towards Quality of Service, WAN technologies and incorporating ADSL, ATM for example. CCSP is network security, firewalls, VPN and IDS. I hold CCNP and CCSP though I'm doing more routing and switching than security and do a lot of work also on the CCIP track but have not taken that exam, it's just worked out that way.

Funnily enough you don't need to have either to attempt the CCIE lab exam but have to take the written exam to qualify for that. However unless you have extensive experience you will never pass the lab exam. To get the experience you proabably won't get a job unless you have one or some of the other certificates. Catch 22

[tiggerai]

What the annoying thing is that i will have done most of that stuff in my degree... (revising it tonight) so it's gonna be repeating stuff, which isn't a problem i suppose. but thanks for the tips... muchos appreciatedlyness.

Definitely wanna go down the networking/switching routes, i find it all fascinating.

Gotta get my degree first!

[RVF500]

Well if you do it for your degree then it'll be a piece of p*ss to take the certifications. Look on the bright side

Do you get hands on experience with the hardware on your degree course? If so then that will all be very useful.

[wedge22]

That is a very decent wage, I cannot believe that position is being offered to someone that only needs a CCNA certificate, plus experience of course. I am definately going to get my CCNA.

[tiggerai]

well we've only done the protocols so far... network technologies is this semester, not as much practical as i'd like, but enough.
*potters off to exam mumbling about multicast IP and BGP routing for AS.

[Paul Adams]

This question does seem to crop up periodically it seems.

A thread from last year probably still has applicable info in it:
http://forums.hexus.net/showthread.php?t=11030


Prepare to spend time getting practical experience and developing or proving your troubleshooting skills on a helpdesk.
First step is interfacing with the customer and having a realisation of how their problem is affecting them, and get the skills to quickly identify and resolve the problem.

Eventually you get sick of talking to end users and the job becomes trivial, but you will have gained useful skills and experience in the real world.

Then you can look at the next step and focus your career - want to go in the direction of 2nd, 3rd line support? Programmer maybe? Networking support? Pure sysadmin? System design? Consultancy?

I had the vague idea that I wanted to do "something with computers" from age 11, through GCSEs, through A levels, through my (CompSci) degree and into my first 1st-line support job - then through doing that job I figured out networks are fun and present lots of challenges.

During my degree I figured I would get into programming for a career, but I'd not even attempt it now as I realised my enjoyment came from setting my own goals and achieving them on sole projects - and I got bored once the project was complete

[5cupa]

when i interview people for IT jobs there attitude is definetly important. way too many people think they know it all just becasue they can network windowsXP etc.

be open, polite and willing to learn but also self efficient

[wedge22]

Well in my current profession i have to be polite and courteous to my customers as I am a car salesman. I am also definately confident, its an important pre requisite of a salesman.
I am definately going to try and go the self learn route and purchase some routers and a switch from ebay, as I have at least 6 months until we emmigrate.
I hope that I enjoy networking as my main hobby is computers and I believe that working in a career hich is also my hobby may be an enjoyable one.
Do you guys enjoy your jobs?

[RVF500]

*potters off to exam mumbling about multicast IP and BGP routing for AS.

I thought I knew BGP pretty damn well, that is until I landed in a network of over 2000 devices with up to 200 000 BGP routes in the routing tables (the more astute of you will say...but that's how many routes there are on the net....correct). Which is why ISPs the world over are having to ugrade the memory in their peering and core routers. With the rise of MPLS we now have the delight of Multicast BGP which is something else I have to go and get my head around ASP. Not even had a look at it yet.

The point of this post? Well as anyone who is inthe industry will tell you, it's never ending. As soon as you get your head around something, something else jumps in to 'improve' it. But.....you still have toknow the old stuff for legacy systems and also customers take up technology in dribs and drabs. Never a dull moment......for a geek

[wedge22]

Never a dull moment......for a geek

So you do enjoy your job then

I am on my way to CCNA now as I am learning from the Sybex ebook, which is very good. Just need to get myself some hardware now.

[RVF500]

I do enjoy what I do. It's a very dynamic environment largely. Because I work freelance I don't get bogged down anywhere dull. Which is also why my CV is crammed with different technologies. I've worked on projects from small firewall implementations to large routed networks for a major ISP. Also because of the freelancing I get to go places I wouldn't normally. Not that that's always a good thing. Also, as I'm more on the network engineering side it's not quite as geeky as you might think.

Now that I have begun to amass contacts throughout the industry I'm moving closer to when I can procure my own business and get into end-to-end solution provision. I'm already loosely alligned with colleague's businesses to provide services on such projects as their companies can unearth. Or provide a service that one of them can't. For example; A friend supplies and services a number of small businesses. If one of his customers decides they want a hardware firewall such as Cisco PIX or Checkpoint, he doesn't have the expertise to do that but I do. So he contacts me and arranges a time window I can do that. I then invoice him directly through my own company. So potentially the future is looking pretty exciting. Like you, I started off with little more than an idea and took it from there.

[wedge22]

Wow I am glad to hear all is going well for you mate.
Running your own business sounds fun and a little scary, if you need a short term trainee let me know.

[tiggerai]

With the rise of MPLS we now have the delight of Multicast BGP which is something else I have to go and get my head around ASP. Not even had a look at it yet.

Done a bit about Multicast BGP, one of our lecturers is in love with multicast.
but then all the IPv6 is going to be multicast stuff anyway so it's good to know the basics.

I've sort of decided to not bother with the Masters in the end, i'm just going to work next year and work my way through the CCNA and beyond.
Thinking about it for value added-ness and value for money, the CCNA and Microsoft Qualifications are gonna be worth so much more. (and worth more if I emigrate, which is a half-plan at the moment)

RVF500 - Which agency did you sign up for to get the job post above? It's something I should think about watching over the next year or so.
Wedge - keep me posted on how you're getting on!

[yamangman]

Why does CCNA have to be a prerequisite of taking a CCNP? It's rediculous to be honest.