Information Technology Jobs

[CalebSC]

I listened to a Freedomain Radio interview awhile back where the guest was telling about how he has a job as an IT specialist and he is able to make $25 an hour by answering the phone and talking to people whenever his phone rings, and that most of the time his phone doesn't ring because he works the night shift, so he just plays video games. So he's getting paid $25 an hour doing nothing.

This intrigued me and got me interested in learning about what kind of knowledge I would need to have to ge this job. I happened to be talking to someone today and they told me they have a CompTIA A+ and a CompTIA network + and Security+. He told me these are the certificates that are the fundamental basic certificates for IT jobs. I hardly know anything about IT or what kind of training you need to get a good job, but with the new year coming up, I'm wanting to try something new to get ahead, and this might be it.

 

Please, drop some knowledge on me! I want to make some big money!

[dsayers]

When I was looking into this for myself, I was told that an IDCL is considered baseline. I never looked too far into it, so I'm afraid that's all I have to add. I hope it's helpful.

[IsaacGage860]

I listened to a Freedomain Radio interview awhile back where the guest was telling about how he has a job as an IT specialist and he is able to make $25 an hour by answering the phone and talking to people whenever his phone rings, and that most of the time his phone doesn't ring because he works the night shift, so he just plays video games. So he's getting paid $25 an hour doing nothing.

This intrigued me and got me interested in learning about what kind of knowledge I would need to have to ge this job. I happened to be talking to someone today and they told me they have a CompTIA A+ and a CompTIA network + and Security+. He told me these are the certificates that are the fundamental basic certificates for IT jobs. I hardly know anything about IT or what kind of training you need to get a good job, but with the new year coming up, I'm wanting to try something new to get ahead, and this might be it.

 

Please, drop some knowledge on me! I want to make some big money!

I remember in high school we had these "career clusters" that each of us picked before we started school. It was basically like training us to have the skills needed for the workplace. The clusters included IT, Health Science, Architecture and Construction, Automotive Tech, and Broadcast Journalism. I was involved in the 4 year IT program and certainly the Comp Tia A+ certification was basically essential. Also having a Cisco Networking Certification was desirable to employers as well. If you are into IT there is a veritable array of different career options. You could go into Cyber Security, Software Engineering, Networking, Cloud Computing, Hardware Engineering, the list is endless and all are always going to be valuable in the 21st Century. I would learn how to program and write computer script, or learn the fundamentals of Network infrastructure (IOT; Internet of Things, IOE; Internet of Everything, IP V6 etc.) Be warned, there is quite a bit to learn about this stuff. It is not for the faint of heart. Although because you are inquiring about it, I am assuming you are aware of this. Good luck with your future endeavors.       

[CalebSC]

Thanks. I've been studying for the CompTIA A+ recently, and I'm definitely going to get that certification! I'm not totally sure what I'll do with it after though! 

Maybe I'll get a career in computer work, or maybe it will just be a supplementary skill that I have, I don't really know. I'm looking at a two-week class that will teach me what I need  to pass the test, but I'll have plenty of time to study for the test on my own before I am able to afford that class, and perhaps I will get to the point of being able to take the test without taking the class first.

... A two week class which is designed to make me pass a test would hardly be able to give me the knowledge to be a badass computer dude, so I suppose that will either come with on the job experience, or perhaps I will continue my training at college...

[Caley McKibbin]

So you want to do nothing and get paid everything.  Welcome to the club, 7 billion strong.  Now how do you figure you will get a job doing the same as that guest when any increase in demand can be routed to him?  A better idea than looking for jobs that are not available to is to look for jobs that are.  In Canada there is occupation projection data.  It shows software having more projected opening than seekers, but I think it BS.  Computer engineers

Software engineers and designers

The problem with programming is that more users do not require more programmers.  So job growth heads toward zero as category saturation is reached.

[shirgall]

So you want to do nothing and get paid everything.  Welcome to the club, 7 billion strong.  Now how do you figure you will get a job doing the same as that guest when any increase in demand can be routed to him?  A better idea than looking for jobs that are not available to is to look for jobs that are.  In Canada there is occupation projection data.  It shows software having more projected opening than seekers, but I think it BS.  Computer engineers

Software engineers and designers

The problem with programming is that more users do not require more programmers.  So job growth heads toward zero as category saturation is reached.

 

However, software engineering is the closest you get to "professional paid logician" as you can get. Now in my fourth decade of profitable shoveling around of ones and zeroes!

[Caley McKibbin]

I learned Java specifically to make the world's first ocean planet steading and space steading games, with aspects like electric circuits, thermodynamics and aerodynamics.  When I looked at job ads they all required huge lists of languages and random APIs I've never heard of.  In the time it would take to learn all of that junk I would be done my own unique game that I fully own and may eventually make millions from.  From my view as someone relatively young and new the existing businesses are too arcane, too entrenched in their own ways.  Getting an education and getting a job is supposed to be cheaper and less risky than entrepreneurial work in Austrian theory, but the hurdles to getting a job are so complex now that breaking into the job market has become an entrepreneurial level endeavor, requiring massive investments just to get looked at, while not offering the unlimited rewards.

[GregMerwe]

I have worked in IT for 10 years. It depends on your current knowledge and how quickly you are able to pick things up. If you want to go down the support route which is what that other guy is doing. Most support jobs will be in an office and not from home. He probably has a job with an IT company that sells out of hours support and he potentially works on 100s of clients that only calls when they have issues, depending on the support contract of course. He is able to work from home because he does the night shift, usually the person would be placed at clients sites during the day. Although it is possible he is in a team of people that work remotely, as these days that can be more common. However a lot of issues still require hands on but not as much as the past. Even physical servers can be managed with ILO. A lot of companies are moving to datacenters with high security and permitting guests to work on issues all the time doesn't make sense.

 

In terms of what to study. There are different routes, general support and operations, specialist, management, sales, procurement and so on. If you want to go in to general support and operations then you need to learn windows server and vmware and enterprise storage and the applications that enterprise and business use and how to deal with network printers and VC and so on. If you specialize you can then try get a job only upgrading exchange email server for example.

 

I do know some programming however, never went in to development but have worked within development environments. I think being a developer is better than operations and support. The developers have more freedom have to deal with people less and they are better paid and more appreciated. Developers are considered closer to marketing than operations and support in terms of the value they bring to the company. Operations and support is seen as similar to facilities. In terms of the value that they bring to the company. There is a lot of resentment against ops and support in general from companies. They see it as an over priced expense and have had bad experiences in the past with poorly implemented systems. Similar to some artisan professions might experience i guess.

[AraiBob]

Hello,

I retired from "IT" after 37 years, and for the most part, enjoyed the experience. I got an AAS in Computer Science in 1970, and it was 10 years before I met another programmer with such a degree. Most programmers I met had a bachelors degree in English, History, and other such topics.

By the 1990s, if you did not have the correct bachelors degree, or certification, you were likely to not be hired. Only my experience allowed me to continue working.

Today, I see a lot of schools 'touting' computer classes for this, or for that, and almost none of it has to do with programming, systems analysis, data bases, and so on.

Have you heard the saying about computer projects? I first saw it in an article in a magazine about 1979. It said that two-thirds of all projects failed. Either late and / or went over the estimate of costs. 66% of IT projects failing. Yet, my projects succeeded. I eventually figured out why? I grew up in the construction world, and my father taught me how to determine the bidding of a project, and how to manage the 'trades', and a bunch more things.

When I was studying the computer languages, almost nothing was mentioned of project design or project architecture. So, when I was given a project, I used the construction model, and it worked. I continued using that model for the rest of my career, and the only time a failure happened? when people lied...

IN my career I used at least 3 dozen programming languages, and so on. But it turned out my 'real talent'? was project design and project architecture. My early projects were often criticized as missing some required thing that I knew was not required, for the task at hand. What I noticed was they had a kind of spreadsheet model and used it, regardless of what steps in that model were completely unnecessary. Further, I made small projects.

I made 4 small projects of 300,000USD each, instead of one project of 1.3 million USD. I found smaller projects tended to succeed, where large projects tended to fail. And often did work that was not necessary.

About 1993, I was asked to write a paper identifying what I was doing different from the others around me. Since I did not know what they did (I ignored what I knew did not work), it took a year to write. And nowhere in that document did I describe the construction model I was following. Apparently it was good enough to the management that they gave me larger projects...

And complaints by other managers that I had forgotten something important? Were ignored by senior management as they liked the results and the relatively low price of my projects.