IT Certifications and Careers (Official Discussion Thread)

[Pressure]

Thanks for the advice bro

How should I approach getting experience unpaid, should I just email random places and ask?

I've seen a lot of different approaches. Some are as simple as sending messages out to companies letting them know your interest and your desire for a career change as well as work you're working on. Especially if there's a short term project you may find yourself maybe not experienced enough to be paid (you may get paid anyway) and then impress the hell out of the people you're working with. I did that, ended up gaining a mentor and progressed pretty swiftly from running cables, to lead desktop support, to now Enterprise Service Engineer for a Tech 30 (in about 2 years).

I've also found that non-profits, churches, etc all need work and if you're around a place there's a strong chance they have a technical infrastructure in place. This might be even your current place of employment. Ask can you help out. Then impress. Then the more time you spend working around the tech you will get a better idea of what specialization track you want to follow.

 

[↓R↑LYB]

Anyone on here ever wrote exploit code? I've been thinking about learning PHP/Perl and get heavy into pen testing.

I've been watching Mr. Robot and the shyt inspired me to learn how to code my own exploits. Besides I need a challenge because is boring the fukk outta me

 

[Ikwa]

thank u

I downloaded courses on CCNA but I also heard the ethical hacker cert is good, should I also pursue that? Is it beginner level ?

Also do you know anything about the PMP cert Project management?

Bro I dont know about those. All i have at the moment is ccna and the things im looking at for the near future are ccnp, vmware and improving my understanding on windows servers.

 

[Ice_MF_Mike]

thank u

I downloaded courses on CCNA but I also heard the ethical hacker cert is good, should I also pursue that? Is it beginner level ?

Also do you know anything about the PMP cert Project management?

Look on job boards at the entry level jobs in your area or whichever jobs you want to get. See which certs those jobs ask for. Then get those certs. PMP isnt an entry level cert, so i doubt you will see that. unlikely you see entry level roles asking for ethical hacker as well. So i would determine what is the best route to take based on YOUR goals and YOUR job market, then do that.

 

[Obreh Winfrey]

Anyone on here ever wrote exploit code? I've been thinking about learning PHP/Perl and get heavy into pen testing.

I've been watching Mr. Robot and the shyt inspired me to learn how to code my own exploits. Besides I need a challenge because is boring the fukk outta me

This site may interest you. I used it several years ago and picked up some tips. The Enigma Group

 

[Apollo Creed]

thank u

I downloaded courses on CCNA but I also heard the ethical hacker cert is good, should I also pursue that? Is it beginner level ?

Also do you know anything about the PMP cert Project management?

Figure out what YOU like to do. And get PMP out of your mind lol you need 5 yrs experience to sit for it and bringing up PMP and CCNA in the same breath shows you are already looking at things wrong.

 

[↓R↑LYB]

This site may interest you. I used it several years ago and picked up some tips. The Enigma Group

Thanks but these challenges are your typical vulnerabilities/injection attacks. I want to be able to write my own buffer overflow exploits from scratch, kinda like the link below:

Exploit writing tutorial part 1 : Stack Based Overflows

I think I'm just gonna learn Ruby since that's what metasploit uses.

 

[acri1]

Thanks for the advice bro

How should I approach getting experience unpaid, should I just email random places and ask?

Honestly, I'd discourage working for no pay unless you're in a really good financial situation and can afford it, or you plan to keep your current job and work a second job part-time. Especially if you're out of college. Even when I was 20 with no experience (other than some IT-related college classes) and no certs, I was still able to find an entry-level Tech Support Rep job. Was only like 10/hr but it got my foot in the door and beat working for free.

My suggestion would be to get your A+ and start applying for Level 1 Helpdesk/Tech Support Rep jobs, even if they're part-time. Any way you look at it you're not going to start out in a high-level position.

 

[Pressure]

Honestly, I'd discourage working for no pay unless you're in a really good financial situation and can afford it, or you plan to keep your current job and work a second job part-time. Especially if you're out of college. Even when I was 20 with no experience (other than some IT-related college classes) and no certs, I was still able to find an entry-level Tech Support Rep job. Was only like 10/hr but it got my foot in the door and beat working for free.

My suggestion would be to get your A+ and start applying for Level 1 Helpdesk/Tech Support Rep jobs, even if they're part-time. Any way you look at it you're not going to start out in a high-level position.

Depends on the experience you're looking to gain. If you keep your current job and work non pay/contract you can find yourself working on higher level projects.

If you go A+ (the most worthless cert) and work level 1 help desk you'll find it difficult to gain traction in a tech world moving further into the cloud and virtualization. Resetting the IE cache and rebuilding outlook profiles isn't really a useful skill outside of tier 1.

And at 10/hr you're really going to struggle being able to afford cert tests, books, lab equipment etc.

 

[Makavalli]

Bro I dont know about those. All i have at the moment is ccna and the things im looking at for the near future are ccnp, vmware and improving my understanding on windows servers.

Whats the best study guide book for CCNA on amazon? I registered on career academy and another breh put me on to the udacity app. I need a career change and everybody says the A+ is outdated

 

[606onit]

Yes akh, CCNA will give you a good understanding of local networks and their infrastructure. It should land you a job in IT and you can then continue getting Certs as you gain vital work experience. My next Cert conquest will be CCNP

U finna change my life. .

 

[Rice N Beans]

NYC is backwards with these IT jobs

4 years of Help desk experience for a Level 1 Help Desk position

I'm bout to just stick with these contract jobs instead

Keep poking. Too many places on bullshyt though.

I myself saw a MASTERS requirement for desktop support job. Wild ass shyt.

Brehs I gotta get this A+ asap



Was looking at positions near where I live, one help desk job was paying $20/hour and another from $15-25/hour I could pay off my entire debt in one year and still have enough left to ball out




Just gotta keep grinding and finish this book hopefully by the end of December.

Sign up for WIOA funding if you must. Get your foot in that door and have Govt funding to collect a few certs.

 

[JT-Money]

Anyone on here ever wrote exploit code? I've been thinking about learning PHP/Perl and get heavy into pen testing.

I've been watching Mr. Robot and the shyt inspired me to learn how to code my own exploits. Besides I need a challenge because is boring the fukk outta me

Do a search on YouTube for Joe McCray Exploit Development. I think on his website he even has free tutorials on writing exploits.

 

[Ikwa]

Whats the best study guide book for CCNA on amazon? I registered on career academy and another breh put me on to the udacity app. I need a career change and everybody says the A+ is outdated

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1119...na+200-125&dpPl=1&dpID=512jdnkQdfL&ref=plSrch

This is the only book I used and videos from Kevin Wallace. You can easily find them on the internet, just make sure they are for the 200-125 exam.

 

[ViShawn]

Severance is great!

You know what isn't great? Getting taxed 35%. fukk.