Here's a little bit about myself. 22 years old living in small town NC. Currently at community college. Possibly will have CCNA RSE certs by the end of spring. My biggest concern with college is knowing that having a degree or certifications doesn't guarantee employment. That has always been my biggest fear is having to go through all of this to get screwed in the end. I've always been a technology nut ever since I could talk. Jobs I've looked at are possibly working at Puget Systems in Seattle just because after my first build the PC bug bit me hard. I fell in love with it. At the same time, with these Cisco certs I can have a pretty damn decent job. Plus I could always go after the CCNP and move up a step.
My advice is to go ahead and look for jobs. A lot of employers (atleast from around here) will go ahead and hire you.
Fear not Cisco Certified fellow !!!
You will have a job, and another and another...
Get a job is not a hard thing specially in IT world. But get the good or perfect job that's the difficult.
I'm working in IT more then a decade, average 3 years change company, and 2 years big or little role change.
Just start searching and send your CV everywhere.
Find a Good job it's like Find a Good Girl/Boy-friend. You will try some, it is working or not but never give up :)
The Cisco certs will help you immensely once you're in. However, you still need to break into the industry. Having certs help, but employers are so damn picky today, they're likely to want certs and a degree. Have good references, and talk to people to find out if they have heard of any openings.
I am sure you can search for jobs based on your area of expertise, but the most important part is that the employer gets a sort of guarantee that you can solve problems regarding IT, and your education will not stop after college. In the end it's your ability to solve the problems you encounter in the job that matters. See your education as a receipt of your current knowledge and ability to absorb new knowledge.
Good luck!
Which is ironic, because they only want you absorbing the knowledge they throw at you and don't want you to question it. Education, ideally, teaches us to seek out knowledge from everywhere and question everything.
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Thanks gang. I'm meeting with our job placement person here in about a week. I just know that a lot of these places want previous experience and I have none. What resume tips do you guys have? Also another big concern of mine is I may not finish out my CIT Associate's only because I cannot for the life of me understand Database SQL well enough to even pass the course and I don't wanna be held back by a class which is why I decided to go after the certs to have something out of all of this.
I guess my point was that Knowledge and especially showing ability to solve Problems will be a good foundation, and of course different companies will prefer different solutions, Not sure what you are referring to when saying "they only want you absorbing the knowledge they throw at you and don't want you to question it"
If you're going into tech the first job you get may not be what you want, BUT especially if you aren't tied down getting a job shouldn't take more than a few months and in a few years you might be sitting pretty. Start looking now.
Kudos for going to community college, if you can prove your stuff you can get a job in IT (disclaimer I'm a coder not a network guy). Once you're in, you'll have to start ignoring recruiters.
Do you need SQL for Cisco/networking stuff?
As long as you go to school for somthing that you can get a job in you will be fine. To many people go get degrees in fields that are hugely over populated or fields that don't have jobs. Sucks having 4 years of school dept to end up flipping burgers to pay your loans
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SQL couldn't hurt. You never know when someone is going to need help with a database. I was asked about that at my current job. They apparently thought I administered the database at my last job. All I did was navigate it and help others to, but apparently, showing colleagues how to navigate it was impressive enough.
There is no right way to write a resume, but there certainly is a wrong way.
From my personal experience, that is what employers want: they only want you to learn what they want you to learn and want you to think inside their box, regardless of what the listing says.
I can't learn SQL, even with youtube videos and some text options out there. Programming as never really been a strong suit though. I actually hate it. Which is why I looked into getting some sort of networking skills.
Aha thanks for clarifying for me! :) yeah you are probably right about that, i know where i'm from they want engineers before they get a degree since you have most of the knowledge but you might now be able to get as good salary if your don't have a degree later on(good for the company).
be a Team Members also.
SQL good to know but essential usually already have a guy to this kind of job.
Yes, that's really important. However, if the company or department you work for is plagued with groupthink...get out while you can
If you don't have a good concept of teamwork, I strongly suggest playing a MOBA. You might laugh at this, but League of Legends really drilled into me the importance of teamwork. Nothing could be accomplished without the team...even if you were carrying them. They still had to act as meatshields. It can teach you about leadership as well. When your team sucks, someone has to marshal the troops through the next fight, build up team morale, and lead them to victory. It will also teach you when not to follow the team, although applying that to real life is much more difficult, since you're pretty much expected to follow your team off the edge of a cliff, even if you know you have no parachutes.
Welp I just got dealt a whammy in the form of a $350 car bill. So I'm hoping that when I meet this lady she as something immediately available. Otherwise I'll end up back at the mcdonalds I worked at that I have a job for life at with the GM there.