[D.A.Lobo]

Originally Posted by RockhetHD

Vegas is a fun city my family lives there. I just never really moved back after college. Why are you set on Vegas? Just curious

I've been living in Albuquerque, New Mexico for the past 24 years. I'm single with no kids and don't have any family here. All my family is in El Paso Texas and I'm definitely not moving back to that place.

Well the main reason is because Abq is a small insignificant town to me. I feel like I've out grown this place a long time ago and also feel like my life has been on a rut here. If you think Vegas isn't a place for IT professionals than ABQ surely isn't either. No high paying jobs here. It's a poor state and a small market so if you do find a good job in IT, it'll be in the 30-40K a year scale if you're lucky and have lots of Certs and experience.

I've been in the bar/nightclub business for the past 13 years and know a few people who are making a great living in Vegas doing it. It seems everybody I run into plans on moving to Vegas or are already there. For me, I'm ready for a change of pace somewhere else and Vegas seems like the most exciting place for me.

[jrice]

5K to move with is not enough, especially in this economy. Get aleast 5-7 months worth of living expenses together then consider it

For $650 you are not likely to find a nice 2bd apartment, and when I say nice it could be both area and conditions

If you are new to the IT industry, and I am hoping when you say "newly certified" I hope you mean more than an A+ because most companies consider that worthy enough to wipe themselves with. You need experience and lots of it to land a decent paying IT job in Vegas. Another poster suggested starting your own business there, now thats what I did, and I did very well and later sold my business to a competitor BUT the economic climate was still good there and new real estate and mortgage type clients were plentiful. Vegas is a hard market to crack into, especially commercial--which is most companies bread and butter. IF you want to try and get a entry level job avoid Best Buy and their Geek Squad-they have a lousy rep in the industry and most future potential employers might actually frown upon that type of experience

Good luck

[D.A.Lobo]

Originally Posted by jrice

5K to move with is not enough, especially in this economy. Get aleast 5-7 months worth of living expenses together then consider it

For $650 you are not likely to find a nice 2bd apartment, and when I say nice it could be both area and conditions

Thanks for your input.

Well at this point it looks like I'll be maxed out at 5K plus credit cards with ZERO balance but those will be used for emergency purposes only. I guess I'll downsize to a studio in an effort to stretch out my $$ reserves as much as I can.

The main thing I'm doing right now is networking with friends I have there in hopes to get my foot in the door somewhere and have something lined up by the time I get there.

If you are new to the IT industry, and I am hoping when you say "newly certified" I hope you mean more than an A+ because most companies consider that worthy enough to wipe themselves with. You need experience and lots of it to land a decent paying IT job in Vegas. Another poster suggested starting your own business there, now thats what I did, and I did very well and later sold my business to a competitor BUT the economic climate was still good there and new real estate and mortgage type clients were plentiful. Vegas is a hard market to crack into, especially commercial--which is most companies bread and butter. IF you want to try and get a entry level job avoid Best Buy and their Geek Squad-they have a lousy rep in the industry and most future potential employers might actually frown upon that type of experience

Good luck

Well I've been into computers for a over 10 years but never officially certified. This is the career path I'm choosing to make since being a Doorman is simply not fun anymore even though the pay is great and quite frankly I'm getting to old to do it LOL. Since I'm starting at the bottom for IT than means I have to go with A+ of course. Then hopefully move up to Security+ and or CCNA. I'm just anxious to see what an A+ can get me and believe me a minimum wage IT job sounds great right about now if I can alternate between that an a gig at one of those hot nightclubs.

[jrice]

Originally Posted by D.A.Lobo

Well I've been into computers for a over 10 years but never officially certified. This is the career path I'm choosing to make since being a Doorman is simply not fun anymore even though the pay is great and quite frankly I'm getting to old to do it LOL. Since I'm starting at the bottom for IT than means I have to go with A+ of course. Then hopefully move up to Security+ and or CCNA. I'm just anxious to see what an A+ can get me and believe me a minimum wage IT job sounds great right about now if I can alternate between that an a gig at one of those hot nightclubs.

If you have 10 years experience then I would say start your own business, no sense in making someone else a ton of money and you get paid jack for it. When I did it in Vegas, I built a good size business in 1.5 years--good size meaning profitable. If this is the course you decide to take hook up with as many national service companies as possible--they are a great way to start making money while you build your local base but do not become dependent upon them as your sole source of income because in Vegas it seems that nationals lose their contracts to other nationals fairly frequently for some reason. Try to hook up with the companies that service the banks (last I knew it was handled by Siemens). Banks can provide you A LOT of billable hours. Just before I sold my company there I was billing the national I was doing the bank calls for, at minimum, 40 hours a week of on-site time. Also check out places like onforce.com, servicelive.com, and fieldnation.com. There is also fieldsolutions.com, but they pay very low hourly rates

If you go the corporate/W2 route I would say forget the A+ and get MCSE. A+ is good for $8/hr jobs at Best Buy and being a bench tech. MCSE will atleast get you into the field making $15/hr, then if you get MCSE+ you could get $20/hr I would think--granted I left Vegas in Febuary but would imagine it hasn't changed that much. If you look for a regular job AVOID Friendly Computers--they lure techs in with the promise of making $18/hr but thats billable hours, so if you are only on-site and billed 20 hours in the course of a week then you only make $360.

[tony soprano]

Originally Posted by las vegas drunk

Of course, not all of them have a Mercedes, but I work for a large IT company that rivals, if not exceeds anywhere in Silicon Valley.

LVD, I've lived in both locales - Vegas and Silicon Valley. SV houses the corporate headquarters for Apple, HP, Oracle, Google, Ebay, yada yada. With respect to IT, there is nothing in Vegas exceeding what you'll find in SV.

[AA702]

Originally Posted by tony soprano

LVD, I've lived in both locales - Vegas and Silicon Valley. SV houses the corporate headquarters for Apple, HP, Oracle, Google, Ebay, yada yada. With respect to IT, there is nothing in Vegas exceeding what you'll find in SV.

Santa Clara County has most of the largest IT names in the biz, that's why they call it Silicon Valley. Las Vegas has some, but very very very small in comparison.

[jrice]

Originally Posted by AA702

Santa Clara County has most of the largest IT names in the biz, that's why they call it Silicon Valley. Las Vegas has some, but very very very small in comparison.

I agree, the companies named above may have satellite branches in Vegas but no big companies that I can think of at the moment are headquartered in Vegas

[las vegas drunk]

I was obviously wrong. But, what constitutes a big company? There are a little over 200 people where I work.

[jrice]

Originally Posted by las vegas drunk

I was obviously wrong. But, what constitutes a big company? There are a little over 200 people where I work.

Big company? One that was either one of the orignal innovators--Xerox, Apple, Micro$oft, etc or one that currently leads in its segment--Siemens Business Services, MS, Oracle, Compucom, etc

[D.A.Lobo]

Originally Posted by jrice

Big company? One that was either one of the orignal innovators--Xerox, Apple, Micro$oft, etc or one that currently leads in its segment--Siemens Business Services, MS, Oracle, Compucom, etc

When you say "hook up" you mean register with the sites you provided once my certification is complete? I didn't know that angle of starting a business. Obviously I have lots to learn still. Like I said this is my long term goal. First I want to land whatever job I can and get settled in Vegas.

Thanks again you have been very helpfull, so have you Drunk.