There was a thread on something similar but I can’t seem to find it so I’m gonna ask again.
Looking for some advice in getting into IT. Any tips or pointers are much appreciated. I come from a design background and have spent the better part of the last decade doing that until I got laid off in September. Most of the jobs in that field are now contract work and have a great deal of marketing involved which I hate plus the field is competitive. I’m just trying to make some decent money while working the least amount as possible. I’m fortunate that I managed to have some cash through art sales that I’ll be alright for a few months. Might as well took to a better career path.
I’m going to try to do the a plus certificate this month but what are some other areas to look at? I hear good things about Cisco or net app
A+ is good to get into the door, and definitely a good path to set you up for a good career if you're looking to get into IT ops.
Do any areas of IT interest you particularly? Might be able to give a more tailored response if you have some idea of what you want to do. I will go ahead and give a little spiel on how I got started and where I am.
Personally I started at the helpdesk (basically the bottom of IT) doing support for retail offices for a large corp. I think this is a good entryway though because you learn a lot of soft skills regarding communication, incident handling, and ITIL which will set you up for the future. You also interact a lot with the users so you learn their motivations and how they perceive the IT dept.
It was good for two years of experience, and enough to eventually move to a more desktop support/helpdesk role where I spend a year and a half.
By the time I moved on from there I was managing and setting up automated deployments of desktops/laptops, managing file servers and doing some light AD work (gpo management) which, combined with a MS Server certificate, I was able to land a Jr. Sys Admin job where I currently work.
I have since been promoted to Systems Admin and handle anything from application deployments, server configurations, security compliance, cloud migration efforts, and automation (infrastructure as code and scripting).
I’m not entirely sure which direction to go. I enjoy fixing shit and finding bugs or problems. Mainly trying to find away to get away from end users.