IT Certifications and Careers (Official Discussion Thread)

[Billy Ray Valentine]

All of this is true but they can't keep hiring mid-senior level people for entry level pay. They need to start hiring entry level for entry level pay again.

I may be too cynical about the way companies think of their workers to think they will stop squeezing workers.

The C suite at a former job wanted to start hiring some positions at lower salaries. They claimed it was about expanding opportunity to people struggling to break into IT. But our technical manager let us know it was about really bringing in cheaper hires because they didn't want to expand the operation budget for our department.

The new hires weren't qualified and the company knew it. They came up with a plan to have some of us do more work and faster to avoid a drop in production.

And the funny thing was the company has over 20% of the staff leaving every year consistently. They claim they want people to stay. But they turn around and squeeze us on pay and work. It's insane.

They need to look at certs, bootcamps, online courses, homelabs, or whatever self studying a entry level person did, because how else will they get experience if no one is hiring entry level?

It literally makes zero sense.

To be fair, there are companies that will hire people with little to no experience despite the absurd requirements in job descriptions. It depends on the company and the role. Help desk/service desk/ technical support? Sure. But system/network/cloud admins are different.

Also timing can play a role. If a company has recently hired inexperience people, they may want their next hire to be more experienced to offset their struggles.

 

[JT-Money]

I may be too cynical about the way companies think of their workers to think they will stop squeezing workers.

The C suite at a former job wanted to start hiring some positions at lower salaries. They claimed it was about expanding opportunity to people struggling to break into IT. But our technical manager let us know it was about really bringing in cheaper hires because they didn't want to expand the operation budget for our department.

The new hires weren't qualified and the company knew it. They came up with a plan to have some of us do more work and faster to avoid a drop in production.

And the funny thing was the company has over 20% of the staff leaving every year consistently. They claim they want people to stay. But they turn around and squeeze us on pay and work. It's insane.



To be fair, there are companies that will hire people with little to no experience despite the absurd requirements in job descriptions. It depends on the company and the role. Help desk/service desk/ technical support? Sure. But system/network/cloud admins are different.

Also timing can play a role. If a company has recently hired inexperience people, they may want their next hire to be more experienced to offset their struggles.

My last 3 companies routinely hired people with zero IT experience. It was a cost saving move mostly.

They would routinely layoff the more expensive experienced person after they trained these rookies. Companies really don't care about quality of work or experience if it means saving a few bucks. Hence the reason so many jobs are outsourced to the lowest bidder.

They'll keep experienced people on the team to handle emergencies mostly. Or just bring in experienced contractors whenever needed. But the amount of experienced pros willing to work dead-end contract jobs has to be dwindling.

I get calls from recruiters for short term contract roles all the time. And I'm like why would I quit a full-time job for a 6 months contract? Knowing most likely want you to put out a dumpster fire but with zero job security. I've seen how much work they dump on contractors with little to know training or support.

 

[Sonny Bonds]

They announced mass layoffs in today's All Hands. 4 weeks severance.



It seems like the reasoning is that the CEO decided to leave and the remaining higher ups didn't feel like that could lead us through product launch.

Edit: I've agreed to stay until the end of the week; I get an extra week of severance.

 

[HoldThisL]

Who here actually started their IT career in a non-helpdesk role, and can you provide me with the path you took, where you are right now and how long it took you to get there?

 

[Mirin4rmfar]

They announced mass layoffs in today's All Hands. 4 weeks severance.



It seems like the reasoning is that the CEO decided to leave and the remaining higher ups didn't feel like that could lead us through product launch.

Edit: I've agreed to stay until the end of the week; I get an extra week of severance.

SMH, that's why I can't trust corporate America man . When they don't need you, they toss you around like garbage. That's why I am always on my toes adding new certs and billing them for it.

Company has offered me two retention bonus to stay until march 2023. Come march 2023 they say they would either find us positions internally or give us 3 months salary and addition to the retention but I KNOW in corporate america, they cut throat, they will toss me out like garbage and move on when they dont need me.

 

[Lord Z]

Finally retook the CIPM and passed, after two and half years after I failed it the first time. That is definitely the last certification I plan to take and sit down for.

Going to spend the next 30 - 40 days just labbing up in aws/gcp then we will see what the job market has to offer me . I really hope to get into a consulting role next.

I gotta give it up to you breh your cert collection is immaculate

If you want to open your LLC and do C2C contracts, you'll be making a killing . All you need is a good recruiting agency. They will be the one to find you contracts, you just need to ice the interview.

I am in Montreal so not sure I can recommend any to you . You gotta do the knowledge on how it works in your area, what is the average hourly because you might be missing on some major bread

 

[Mirin4rmfar]

I gotta give it up to you breh your cert collection is immaculate

If you want to open your LLC and do C2C contracts, you'll be making a killing . All you need is a good recruiting agency. They will be the one to find you contracts, you just need to ice the interview.

I am in Montreal so not sure I can recommend any to you . You gotta do the knowledge on how it works in your area, what is the average hourly because you might be missing some major bread

We will see man, I have been trying to strategically moving over the past years locking down key certs base on what I see top companies like AMAZOn ,EY etc. is looking for. Plus my current company has paid them all lol. I will see how it goes since I am finally going to throw them out there hopefully it is not .

I definitely would not mind contracts to get varied experiences in different sectors of cyber security.

 

[Billy Ray Valentine]

My last 3 companies routinely hired people with zero IT experience. It was a cost saving move mostly.

They would routinely layoff the more expensive experienced person after they trained these rookies. Companies really don't care about quality of work or experience if it means saving a few bucks. Hence the reason so many jobs are outsourced to the lowest bidder.

They'll keep experienced people on the team to handle emergencies mostly. Or just bring in experienced contractors whenever needed. But the amount of experienced pros willing to work dead-end contract jobs has to be dwindling.

I get calls from recruiters for short term contract roles all the time. And I'm like why would I quit a full-time job for a 6 months contract? Knowing most likely want you to put out a dumpster fire but with zero job security. I've seen how much work they dump on contractors with little to know training or support.

My company was different in that the cheaper hires were supposed to deal with the frequent turnover of people leaving, especially at service desk. We were service desk level 1 techs but our work could be viewed as junior sys admin in scope based on the things we were doing. But the company never explained how to advance your career by staying.

We also are in a high cost of living area. Their 3% yearly COLA and bonuses were the only extra pay they were willing to give. Smart people realized you could capitalize on your skills and experiences and cash in and advance your career by bouncing.

People were leaving service desk jobs for other service desk jobs that doubled their pay. The company wasn't even going to try counter the offers.

 

[LiquidMasterSwords]

Well... tomorrow is the day. I'm scheduled to take the CASP+ tomorrow morning. I took the day off. I've been taking practice test and I'm feeling good. This would be my 3rd cert. I'm just trying to be like you guys! This would also make me more allegeable for higher level jobs on the DoD 8570. Still waiting for this clearance to go through. They started interviewing my friends, old coworkers and manager in person also. These last 10 months I have been on the grind.

 

[JT-Money]

My company was different in that the cheaper hires were supposed to deal with the frequent turnover of people leaving, especially at service desk. We were service desk level 1 techs but our work could be viewed as junior sys admin in scope based on the things we were doing. But the company never explained how to advance your career by staying.

We also are in a high cost of living area. Their 3% yearly COLA and bonuses were the only extra pay they were willing to give. Smart people realized you could capitalize on your skills and experiences and cash in and advance your career by bouncing.

People were leaving service desk jobs for other service desk jobs that doubled their pay. The company wasn't even going to try counter the offers.

I would try and get out of that job asap unless they change. Especially if you're doing higher level work but no path for a promotion.

I wasted 4 years at a company once who kept promising a promotion but never followed through. Smartest move I ever made was dropping them and never looking back. My old co-workers still there make 30K less than I do now for being loyal and staying put.

 

[EnzoG]

So I'm starting the DevOps path in the next couple of weeks and for my DevOps brehs what apps do you guys work on in your roles?

 

[RealCrownHeights]

Was halfway through the Security 601 study guide fell off and got depressed and burnt out. 2 of my friends are starting school for their MBA this week and I considered it but I already have student loan debt from undergrad and my current job or past ones aren’t producing return on investment. My girl just got a 6- plus figure job and I'm just getting by. Went to one of my best friends to a party and his homie works in IT. We chopped it up and he said switching to IT was the best thing he did. Took a long look in the mirror, prayed listened to some Eric Thomas and my therapist, and realized as a man nobody's coming to save me. I hate studying and the whole process so I just have to man up and do it. I've spent about an hour or 2 in this thread. @JT-Money posted a blog

The Cybersecurity career and job hunting guide.. About getting into cyber security. I want to start out with Sec +-CCNA-Aws Cloud Solutions and hopefully pivot between Security Analyst and Cloud or both. -Whoever's paying more.

Going to just lock in and eliminate distractions. I have no experience so I will try to virtual lab my resume up with the cert and maybe apply for some system admin job.

My friend's home sent me his resume and a few other resources to get myself ready. I noticed he stated -he has "a personal website of mine that is hosted on Amazon S3 as a static website. I registered my domain with Amazon’s Route 53 and uploaded my HTML file to my S3 bucket of things that pique my interest. Technology used: (Amazon S3, Route53, HTML/CSS)"

and for skills: Microsoft Office Suite 2016, Microsoft Office 365, Google Suite, Boolean keyword search, Research analysis, Constant Contact, Slack, Canva, LinkedIn networking, copywriting, Cold Email, Email marketing, WordPress, Data Entry, basic Linux, Windows, Service Now, SQL, Amazon Cloud Services, AWS, IAM users, groups, roles, Cloud, EC2, VPC, S3, HTML, CSS. Printers Networking. Route 53. Amazon Web Services Console.


He put :"AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate In Progress"

If I create a website and supplement myself with enough labs and certs is it possible to land at least an 80k or higher job here with no help desk or tech support experience? And if not, I'm willing to do the bullshyt job part time in addition to my full-time non profit until I can level up. It's now or never for me

, I need this bread or I'm hopping on a greyhound to West Virginia, and I'm not going for signed Randy Moss jerseys if you catch my drift -Top 10 US States with Drug Overdose Deaths

 

[JT-Money]

Was halfway through the Security 601 study guide fell off and got depressed and burnt out. 2 of my friends are starting school for their MBA this week and I considered it but I already have student loan debt from undergrad and my current job or past ones aren’t producing return on investment. My girl just got a 6- plus figure job and I'm just getting by. Went to one of my best friends to a party and his homie works in IT. We chopped it up and he said switching to IT was the best thing he did. Took a long look in the mirror, prayed listened to some Eric Thomas and my therapist, and realized as a man nobody's coming to save me. I hate studying and the whole process so I just have to man up and do it. I've spent about an hour or 2 in this thread. @JT-Money posted a blog

The Cybersecurity career and job hunting guide.. About getting into cyber security. I want to start out with Sec +-CCNA-Aws Cloud Solutions and hopefully pivot between Security Analyst and Cloud or both. -Whoever's paying more.

Going to just lock in and eliminate distractions. I have no experience so I will try to virtual lab my resume up with the cert and maybe apply for some system admin job.

My friend's home sent me his resume and a few other resources to get myself ready. I noticed he stated -he has "a personal website of mine that is hosted on Amazon S3 as a static website. I registered my domain with Amazon’s Route 53 and uploaded my HTML file to my S3 bucket of things that pique my interest. Technology used: (Amazon S3, Route53, HTML/CSS)"

and for skills: Microsoft Office Suite 2016, Microsoft Office 365, Google Suite, Boolean keyword search, Research analysis, Constant Contact, Slack, Canva, LinkedIn networking, copywriting, Cold Email, Email marketing, WordPress, Data Entry, basic Linux, Windows, Service Now, SQL, Amazon Cloud Services, AWS, IAM users, groups, roles, Cloud, EC2, VPC, S3, HTML, CSS. Printers Networking. Route 53. Amazon Web Services Console.


He put :"AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate In Progress"

If I create a website and supplement myself with enough labs and certs is it possible to land at least an 80k or higher job here with no help desk or tech support experience? And if not, I'm willing to do the bullshyt job part time in addition to my full-time non profit until I can level up. It's now or never for me

, I need this bread or I'm hopping on a greyhound to West Virginia, and I'm not going for signed Randy Moss jerseys if you catch my drift -Top 10 US States with Drug Overdose Deaths

It can be done but only if you don't have a conscience. I probably got hundreds of rejections over the years. But what probably worked in my favor is being numb to rejection. By constantly interviewing even for jobs I had no chance for it gave me insight into what employers required. If you're not good at interviewing it won't matter what skills you acquire. Being able to finesse and read people is just as valuable as tech skills.

 

[LiquidMasterSwords]

Well... tomorrow is the day. I'm scheduled to take the CASP+ tomorrow morning. I took the day off. I've been taking practice test and I'm feeling good. This would be my 3rd cert. I'm just trying to be like you guys! This would also make me more allegeable for higher level jobs on the DoD 8570. Still waiting for this clearance to go through. They started interviewing my friends, old coworkers and manager in person also. These last 10 months I have been on the grind.

Passed

My group was talking about starting a study group to get the CISA but I don't know about auditing. Might be good to have it in my pocket and use it incase my career goes in that direction. My brother and law already told me he don't want to be scanning networks all his life lol but I'm cool with vulnerability and threat intelligence right now lol

 

[aXiom]

I remember just how much I hate dealing with the interview process now.

I find just updating and formatting my resume a chore

but fukk it, here we go... job market has softened, but lets see what's up.