Hi there ,

I recently got my first IT job as a 1st line technician suporting major ISP's in the UK .

The acceptance was on the completion of 1 week's training and basically if you failed the test at the end of it then sorry , no job !!
There was 32 of us at the beginning of the week , people with no experience but really happy just to be getting a foot in the door . There were Mcse's , Comptia certified guys , you name it . People with loads of qualifications who couldn't find IT work because of lack of experience .

Anyway , during the week we learnt quite a bit , Internet technologies , troubleshooting and the most important thing Communiciation skills . Luckily for me when i came to the coms test i aced it cos i have quite a few years customer service skills from working in retail . I aced the technical test too thanks to having the A+ , Network+ and Inet+ certifications .

After the tests we were left with 15 people , almost half the class had failed ( most of these people had left their current job to join this company and were now left without a job ) , 3 of the Mcse guys had failed , yes 3!!

It's not easy to get into this industry unless you know someone but if you don't my advice is to start the certification process from the beginning . Start with the basic entry level certs like the A+ , then progress until you are ready to do the Mcse's etc .Just having the Mcse will not guarantee you **** !!!

One of these Mcse guys didn't even know how to format a bootable disk !!

Laters
Ev

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no wonder there is such a shortage of good IT people here in the UK if a load of them fall down on basic understanding.

You cant beat experience, but if you dont have it theonly way is to start from the bottom and work your way up.

OldBrit

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This is a weird post. I was a team leader for the Prodigy Tech Support, and I can tell you that no MCSE in their right mind would apply for an ISP first tier tech support job -- with all due respect -- and that none of them should fail a test based on the real IT skills required for such a position!
As for the value of experience, I dare hope that you are preaching to the converted...

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Freak, MA, M.Ed., Net+,I-Net+, MCP+I, MCSE, MCT

http://www.mcsefreak.com

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Mabye the situation in he UK is differant to other countries but the MCSE is seen as a bit of a joke by many IT companies here . The only way these guys find work is by starting at the beginning as a entry level whatever .
Evan

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I think the situation is the same anywhere in the world. Too many "Paper MCSEs"!

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Gareth Leung
MCSE+I

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