I want to do an online course in I.T in order to get a job in that sector.

9 comments

1. What do you mean when you say IT specifically. ?

2. A+
   Network +
   Ccna

3. The Cisco certs are good for networking, acloudguru for cloud, CompTIA certs for general.

   SANS or Offensive Security certs are good for infosec, but those are pricy. Don’t waste time on the CEH, it’s not worth the paper it’s written on.

4. It depends on what you want to do, if you are looking to get a foot in the door of a multinational, its either going to be Customer Support / Tech Support or into the software development side of things…

   Then there is also the internal IT teams who deal with the employee laptops, desktops etc etc… Having an idea of what you would like to get into will boil the courses down into something more specific.

5. I’m gonna say you need to narrow it down. Saying you want a job in IT is like saying you want a job in a hospital. You going for a doctor or porter? IT could be an administrative assistant, data processing, software development, field support, QA Tester, Network engineer… once you narrow it down you’ll be easier directed to how you should go about it

6. Check out career profiles on Careersportal.ie and narrow it down. Some roles in IT require more career prep to become qualified than others.

7. I would if possible talk to someone who’s gotten into IT the way you’re planning to do it. The thing is, lots of companies just want graduates. They’re a bit obsessed with that. And in the jobs market (gonna say something a bit controversial here) fellas from India and Brazil with “degrees” are not exactly in short supply. The last place I worked I was the only Irish person on a team of 20. I did a degree in DIT years ago and from what I’ve heard it’s hard to get a start if you haven’t got a degree and if you do get in you’ll always be paid less.

   So, talk to people who’ve done what you want to do and find out their experiences.

   Tech support, well I don’t know what you’re doing now but I find it hard to imagine it’s worse than tech support.

8. I started in IT 15 years ago and a built a really successful career from next to no qualifications and just a passion for the industry. The advice you have been given by doing a comptia as a start point is a good one and exactly where I started but if you are familiar with building PC’s it may be a little basic for you. You also need to have a much better strategy than just doing a few courses and “seeing how it goes” otherwise your chance of success in the industry will reduce.

   The biggest challenge you will have is entry to the industry, without a degree or experience realistically you are looking at 1st line technical support or some other customer support and that is how I started. The benefit of this path is that you can continue the courses while gaining real world experience so I would look for roles in your area and see what the requirements are and target those. Once you have a job then you can start experimenting and targeting your next skill upgrade. These first level roles can be a bit soul destroying but do make a great stepping stone to much better roles.

   If I was starting now I would aim for cloud computing as it covers both infrastructure and applications and a real growth area, Microsoft Azure and AWS are both in Ireland, employ lots of people and everyone of my customers has one or the other.

9. Good luck in your search, I knew a few in IT that have never seen the inside of a PC, is that the side of things you see yourself working in or the actual software side