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Hello all,

I am writing this because I’m in need of career help/decisions. I graduated from college in dec 2010 with a degree in Computer Science and Mathematics. I tried really hard to get a job right after and was obviously not successful. For the time being I have been teaching tennis for 4 years now and quite frankly I want/need to get back to the game of the IT world, but am lost in what I need to do. School? Internships? Anybody with any advice for me I will accept with open arms!

Thanks in advance,

J

39 Spice ups
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Look for a help desk job to get your foot in the door to get that experience level build up on the resume.

40 Spice ups
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Welcome to the community by the way.

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Thank You! So any type of help desk?

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What Travis said. I’m assuming you have either a AS or BS degree, and the problem you are going to run into is that lack of experience. Find some help desk role, or any other position looking for no experience and run with it. It’s not going to be amazing, and probably won’t pay well, but it’ll help. Just keep on keeping on.

If you can manage it, try to add some certs as well. Those will also be able to help get your foot in the door as some places refuse to accept applicants without Certs. Another thing you can do to help is to get a home system set up, or work from home doing tech support around your neighborhood.

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The first question that I’d ask is what kind of roles you are applying for. Many people think that they are entitled to immediately land a high paying job, straight out of college. The reality is that you need to get experience and that probably means starting with a fairly basic role.

Even if you have some key skills as part of your studies, you are most likely to have to take a starter position first to get some experience on your resume before you can go for the more senior positions.

In a lot of cases, location is a key factor. Some places will offer many more opportunities than others; cities tend to be better than more rural areas for example.

But the best advice is to make sure that you have a good resume and covering letter. Practice your interview skills and just keeping applying; you’ll find the job that is ideal for you eventually.

Best of luck

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A home lab would help you out a lot just so you got that hands on knowledge on how to configure a raid or install a server os, setting up odbc connections, networking.

I would look for anything with help desk, it does get old but keep in mind your getting great amount of experience and knowledge even thoughts its just completing the next help desk ticket.

5 Spice ups
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Jay, this is a good place to start:

You can also try this:

Welcome to the community! We are all here to help!

@jayhardacre

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Even if the job requirements only need a high school diploma? I have a BS in CS and Math.

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Check this trending thread—

Basically, need to be a complete package for a hiring company. An oft overlooked aspect of the job search is focusing on an industry, as well as job category.

Degree sounds good, but why should employer XYZ care? How this is answered somewhat frames what you are seeking, and insure the job search has those characteristics.

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In IT, experience generally trumps education. Your degree by itself doesn’t give prospective employers any idea if you’re suited to a career in IT or not, but a year in the trenches answering phones and doing helpdesk tickets quite often does. Your degree is likely to prove useful later on as your career advances, since it seems many postings for more advanced roles (rightly or wrongly) list a degree as a requirement.(A lot of times it’s just an HR hurdle, to be honest.) The 2 threads that wowitsdave posted are full of valuable nuggets of info. As Bottman said, in this industry you usually have to start with a basic role and move up from there.

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Your degree is not a shortcut. Start at the bottom. Work your way up. Work your @$$ off. This simple method applies to any job in any sector.

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You need experience, get a help desk job and keep looking for better.

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5 years is like two generations in computer years. Do you know any computer languages? Do you have programming skill? Do you know anything about web pages? Can you teach tennis to an IS department?

Browse around Monster or dice or whatever online job site and see what languages and tools are hot that are similar to what you learned in school, and see if you can use your lab to create some demo’s of HardAcres of Muscles Tennis School Web Site And Interactive database in those languages. And find the online support for those languages and tools, get good enough to start helping people.

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I am with JBurnison , certs help a LOT. The certs is more of a guarantee that you know what you are doing, and it shows how recent your knowledge is. I kid you not, I came across a junior college that was teaching computer skills on Windows 98 IBMs in 2007. I am not sure about where you live, but around here, there are a lot of technical schools, votechs, and community colleges that offer a course to help you pass a certification exam.

And I know your pain. Thanks to circumstance, I was knocked out of the IT field in 2008. I kept applying and interviewing and had no luck getting in, and an IT degree gets stale fast! I got into a program that allowed me to study for my Microsoft and Cisco certs in the evenings, got several certifications, and finally got a job with a non-profit working in their IT department in 2011. (By the way, a lot of people never think to check the small non-profits for IT jobs. One of my college buddies handles all the computers for the region’s humane societies!) Keep at it, and good luck!

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For someone looking for experience and resume building I would suggest the following:

  • Help Desk
  • Desktop Support
  • Tech Support
  • Working in a computer repair shop

You just need to get your foot in the door somewhere and put in your time.

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In addition to the technical side, look at the social side - you’ve been teaching tennis, so why not talk to some former students (or if you taught primarily kids, their parents). Network with them. It’s likely that there’s somebody out there who knows somebody, and making that first contact through a known entity rather than being just another random candidate can be a real leg up in getting in the door.

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I started out in a rural area (city of 5,000 in my case) by working on home PC’s. I was working for the state prison and laid off for medical reasons when I decided to take it full time. I do not recommend jumping in on a full time home user support role, but I would highly recommend doing it on the side. You see some things working for the public and as you go there are many opportunities to learn while still keeping your current job. I did that for a couple of years before I got some larger government contracts which look nice on a resume. By the time it was all said and done, I had 5 years of experience with anything from grandmas laptop to the 911 servers at the PD, and over 750 references willing to talk me up to an employer (many of which were from the government contracts). You also meet people in the IT world along the way that may just help you land a job.

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In my opinion even though I have a degree in the field, many companies look more for certifications over strictly degrees. A degree with a focus in IT is the icing on the cake that is certifications. If you are serious about getting your foot in the door, start with your A+ certification and try to find an entry level Help Desk position within education or the private sector to gain some experience. While you are working and learning, look into expanding your certifications to an area that you are very interested in, such as a cisco certification or Microsoft certification depending upon the are of IT that you strive to end up in.

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How about we swap jobs for a year? I’m not a tennis player but teaching tennis? Sounds like a sweet gig on the surface.