Has been a long while since I coded directly.Originally Posted by mellowsun
After my parents stopped paying my train fares and I had to pick a closer college I needed to drop my Computer Sciences A-level as college 2 didn't think IT was worth pursuing for a course (no, really, that's almost a direct quote). After that I sort of mentally justified it in my head that I'd not have wanted to be sat in a poorly lit programmers office cubicle for ever more staring at a screen seeing only code...
Then I spent 4 days playing with the command line on Linux and now I'm not so sure that was my actual feeling or just some mental defense mechanism... of course there's a very diverse employment field in coding from the mega-exciting ultra-competitive games coding to some ultra-dull but much-less-competitive coders for obscure industries...
仁慈的上帝，请带我走我将关闭自己的耳朵，我的心，我将一块石头
Have you considered web or app development?
Might be easier to get a foot in the door if you show a working app to the right people.
Now that Flash is on its way out you could look at html5 .. (that could be a messy area for a while though).
Tbh a good solid knowledge of php/mysql and the delights of bludgeoning html/css to do what you want .. throw in some javascript and Linux/ Apache admin and you could be very useful.
This way you could get in higher than the html webmonkey level, though maybe that level doesn't exist any more.
Even knowing how to write Wordpress plugins could be good.
Tell yourself that your age is a bonus (I have no idea how old you are but you're not a post teen..) - age implies being sensible and motivated - some people will give you respect for getting in there using your own gumption.
Are you near a city or large town?
Media companies (design and advertising etc.) tend to be more laid back and like to portray themselves as hip and cool.. and an eye for design can be very useful when working with designers who may only do Photoshop.
Rather than replying to everything in the big wide open and very public www, I've just PM'd you.
I know I am biased because I am a coder, but I think it is an awesome job. (At best it's like doing puzzles for a living.)
The great thing about learning to be a developer is that most of the tools and documentation are free now (even the basic Microsoft ones)
There are loads of jobs at the moment in mobile development. If you could get an app in the Android or iPhone market and get a few downloads it would probably net you a job with someone.
Similarly web development is a fairly low barrier to entry and it has a creative element.
If you can't find someone to employ you then it might be worth looking at places like https://www.elance.com/ where you can just bid for freelance jobs directly. Might be a way to net some experience.
a) as has been mentioned - the grass is not always greener - im sure the it industry is at least as full of miserable f*ckers who think that they have hit a brick wall as any other industry - for every zuckerberg theres a million dilberts
b) if you want to get into coding and dont want to spend money just take two level tablespoons of w3schools (or equivalent for your choice of tech) and half a cup of sourceforge.net and whisk rapidly until the mixture starts to develop peaks
My advice is investigate a different route - why not go the community route?
Even in top banks, geeks recommend geeks, not even people they've worked with (sometimes especially not), they'll endorse people they've known or met at the community drinks or on a forum discussing certain technologies... often in smaller outfits the base requirements are not degrees... but this also changes with experience.
If you contribute to open source intelligently and/or post on the forums or blogs and get known in the local forums - for instance London Perl Mongers, London Unix Users (Lonix), Greater London Unix Users Group (Gluug) then you're networking - think how easily you fit in here - it should be no different on those forums (different topic of geekdom is all)
I remember my first job in IT, it was office skivvy for a company who appeared to be overspending based on the reports I created for them, then skivvy for a big company then a software house and then it took off (after about 3 years routing around).
Also there's working for charities - I find it very frustrating and bitchy but a great way into the industry.
My parents similarly had novel approaches to money - my solution was to get a job and pay for my travel myself, which they also felt meant I went to work when they decided and they could decide how the money got spent - meant I drank an awful lot of it away
Good luck in whatever route you choose
It fell off even the back burner
I wasn't well when I was to go for one of the assessment days, so I called them to re-arrange... then was sick again... they didn't re-arrange again
Yep. That'd do it. They/we don't like sickness.
As an employee you're allowed 7 days or 5 instances of self certified sickness per year. After that, you'll be having "conversations" with HR about your future conduct.
For all your cabling needs..... KaBL
Thought I should reply as I was in a similar situation as yourself about 15 years ago. I did have a BTEC National from five years before that, but other than that, no skills, experience, or qualifications, and I can remember not really knowing what an Operating System was.
I can remember at the time calling an employment agency and asking them how I would get a job in I.T. - looking back I'm surprised they were so helpful, but they told me that a lot of people get into the industry via a helpdesk job, so I started looking around. At the same time I enrolled in some local college courses on an evening, then a few weeks later I saw a job advertised in my local jobcentre and applied, then went for the interview and got the job.
Since then I've worked around the UK, in Australia, and in Switzerland - mostly these days in implementation rather than support, but basically my life is about 100 times better than it was when I was living with my parents as a 20-something up in the North East.
So, my message is that it can be done - you can change it all if you want.
I think the secret in the first few years was that I was willing to move around - I worked more or less anywhere in northern England, and would've gone South if something came up. While my ex-colleagues from the North East were scratching around for crap work (at the time we had all been made redundant), I was off working for a University and a Police force, then being a mobile EPOS engineer. Then after a few years, your C.V. starts looking good, and you can pick and choose a bit more.
I also did the certification thing - some of the CompTIA (in fact I just did that Linux+ thing as my Unix is quite poor), then a load of the MCP's and one or two others. Of course experience is still key, but in interviews, especially at the moment, you can succeed and fail on such fine margins, that having a certificate in something relevant to the employer can make the difference - so I would go for it. Incidentally, my former employer, who are a massive bank, was putting all kinds of pressure on me to do certain certifications, so some people do still really like you to have them, even though you will hear plenty of people (mostly who cant be arsed to do them anymore, if they ever did) slag them off. Incidentally, I didn't do the certifications in the end..... I couldn't be arsed.
Personally I'd go initially for CompTIA (A+) stuff, followed by MS (MCSA?), followed by Cisco (do the CCNA in the two halves, CCENT or whatever its called), with a view to getting into support initially. You can then specialise from there, by which time you'll have much more idea of what you want to specialise in. By the way, you dont have to do them in a classroom, get the books (look on amazon) and CBT's (CBT Nuggets, Trainsignal, Learnkey) and learn it at home, then do practice exams at the end (Transcender or something else). Then book the exams at one of the testing centres, and youre off.
You can get an idea of what people are looking for by going onto jobserve and searching for I.T. jobs, and seeing what pops up. Apart from the usual things, there's a lot of VMware at the moment, but you wont get a job doing that on the strength of a cert. Also ITIL is asked for a lot, at least where I am - which is not technical, but a set of best practices for an I.T. department (including support and helpdesk), that could be an option if you fancy it.
Hope that gives you some ideas. Good luck.
its quite a bit more than that, more complete IT methodology for Service Management f principles. Different levels, green, blue and red.....depending on what your aim/requirement is, the higher up is more of a requirement if you want to go into Service Delivery Management or Service Management design/architecture.
Ive got the green "badge" as I think Wyniro has
Some vendors have their own versions, for instance MOF (MSoft)
Last edited by bertie; 18th February 2013 at 03:37 PM.
......"Bertie is pretty much a zen master..................."
Experience is and always has been a bar for mature entrants (i.e, not a freshly churned out Grad).
Do a course (restart you A level for example) - I did my A level Comp Sci by self study as an entrance to an HNC (but I was working in the industry as an Operator (aka scum).
I'd recommend some volunteer work at your local college, hospital or charity as a route to gaining practical experience in the mean time (might even turn into a job offer).
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