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I'm trying to make a career change to working in IT and I have some questions about which jobs I would likely be able to get with which certifications without much experience. My goal is eventually at least to work as a systems administrator. I got a Master's degree related to biology and I worked a job sort of at the interface between biology and IT for 4 years, during that time I got some experience scripting and using Excel but it wasn't really a true IT job.
I lost my job four months ago, and since then I got CompTIA A+ and MTA - Server Fundamentals certifications. I started studying for the MCSA Server 2012 and I might be able to get it in 4-6 months provided I don't work during that time.
I applied to many help-desk and some technician jobs but I didn't get a response.
Please feel free to chime in if you have any advice.
Help desks can be brutal and eventually soul grinding. To even have a chance of getting out of help desk you would have to change jobs. I rarely see a help desk promote people out anymore.
There really is no easy job to get into in IT anymore. It is glutted. Security would probably be the best but it would be hard to get into without experience. One option would be to look for night or weekend positions as those are usually hard(er) to fill.
A lot of firms today do not even consider help desk part of the IT department anymore, but more like glorified customer service. You can train someone who has basic computer skills to do helpdesk since it is mostly just using the troubleshooting flowcharts.
With a biology masters I would consider going into healthcare IT. Be willing to travel or relocate and look at some of the major EHR companies like epic, allscripts, McKessn. Many hire implementation consultants with little to no experience as long as you're willing to work hard and longer hours and travel.
Have some buddies who have been doing system admin for last 12+ yrs. Entry level jobs need 7-8 yrs of experience and might pay 75k-85k depending on where you are. It is very competitive and that would be an area where I would personally not venture into. Anytime you have a field where you compete with best minds in US, Asia and rest of the worlds barriers to entry are pretty difficult and tough.
You might want to check Microsoft Azure, Hadoop big data or Amazon AWS. Those are good areas to venture in with certifications.
I'm studying to get an MCSA in Server 2012 right now. Is it likely I could get a systems administrator job, or junior sys admin job, with that?
Certs's are normally "icing on the cake". For most IT operations (sys. admin, network/security engineer, etc.), you're going to need to show experience. So the answer to your question would be how well can you answer "tell me about the server environments you've worked with"?
Also - In today's climate, you're also going to need to know VMWare, SANs, backup/DR tools (Veeam, Zerto, etc.) and monitoring tools (Solarwinds, whatsup, PRTG, etc.).
In a nutshell, a sys admin is not an entry level position. So getting a job as one without said experience is going to be tough.
I don't recommend IT for new people over age of 35.
Imo, over 15 years of IT experience. I don't think IT career is as good as it used to. The learning curve is too great, too much emphasis on current tech yet majority of underlying tech still depends on legacy or proven tech. Not many people have the knowledge or capacity to learn one area while keeping pace with the fast moving changes.
If you're under 30, you still have a good chance of picking things up slowly and working upwards but you'll be under-compensated due to competition from overseas immigrants, outsourcing shops, consultants, and industry experts.
Many of my former colleagues started IT while in college or out and stayed with the company for over 10-20+ years. It doesn't exist anymore as most companies' IT no longer maintain many full-time positions. Almost 1/2 of jobs are seasonal to as needed gigs.
I met a 28 year old IT worker that has already worked at dozen different places as contract worker and that's norm these days. A full-time job is severely underpaid and hard to find.
I predict in 20 yrs from now, most companies would have less than 0.3% workers that are IT as majority of services are outsourced or automated.
I started out doing help desk after college in 2010 due to the bad economy. I didn't mind the job at first, but after a couple of years, it really wore on me. By 2013, I was making less than I ever had, working as a contractor with no benefits, and was beginning to feel suicidal. Help desk and desktop support jobs are the bottom rung of IT, and like s1alker said, many large companies have the help desk organized under some larger customer service/call center directorate, not IT. It is rare that help desk jobs lead into professional IT.
I also went the certs route and none of those certs helped me land any job. I thought the certs would show a willingness to learn and a baseline level of competence, but employers didn't see it that way. The ITIL knowledge has helped, but something like an A+ hasn't helped me get any job. I already knew all that being a hobbyist.
I have a good IT job now, but the only way I got my start out of help desk was applying to everything I could all over the country. I was eventually hired by a growing satellite office of a company in a city I never thought I'd live in. I stayed there two years, building skills where I was able to move up. For a lot of people, moving basically sight unseen to a city you've only driven through a couple of times just isn't possible.
I wouldn't recommend IT for a career changer. The hours can be exhausting, all professional jobs are salary so no overtime, knowledge becomes obsolete quickly, and jobs are clustered in major metros. I'd do something in healthcare, where you'd generally get paid OT and have a choice of where you want to live.
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