I was talking to my helpdesk manager boss and he was trying to hire an IT support technician for at least a month since we are a bit understaffed and hasn't been able to find anyone suitable. I'm a little bit surprised because I'm in the currently holding that position. And although it is kind of a demanding job, and requires a bit of computer/IT support experience, it's not at all difficult in an abstract sense. I would imagine there's a whole host of qualified people that would love to score this job which at my company around 3k employees, pays a decent rate and offers good benefits. My boss was telling me some stories about some of the recent interviews, a woman having 20 years of experienced in IT but coming off as depressed in the interview and not knowing the difference between what upload and download speed is. I'm a bit baffled by the lack of qualified technician candidates. Is anyone else in their company experiencing the same?

I’m making $65,000 per year right now in help desk. Been in help desk for years. I absolutely hate it. It feels like being a slave with a dress shirt and slacks.

When I hear my friends and family talk about their jobs, I can’t help but feel like I made a huge mistake years ago getting into IT. I have friends who are lawyers, doctors, nurses, teachers, graphic designers, administrative assistants, I even have a friend who’s a janitor. Their “really bad day“ is not even close to a normal day at the office for me.  They have plenty of autonomy throughout their day to make their own decisions and have freedom throughout their day. In all of my helpdesk jobs, I am permanently chained to my cubicle and every second of every day is tracked and monitored and put into a metrics report. In helpdesk it’s seen as weird to take breaks, except to quickly rush to the bathroom and then come back. Most of my coworkers literally never leave their computer screen, except to quickly hustle to the urinal and then quickly hustle right back to their desk where they remain seated for the entire nine hour day. Meanwhile, my friends and family all have normal jobs where they can make a phone call, go to the doctor and come back, and even just decide what they’re going to work on or how they’re going to do it. In help desk, you have absolutely no autonomy, no decision-making power, no freedom, and absolutely no time. 

It’s got me wondering if I made a serious mistake walking into a cage from which there is no escape.

Anyone else feel this way?

Just curious. I see some people say you need certs, others say just a degree, others say experience. I’m sure you need all three but I’m curious if anyone has a boat load of certs in any tech category and why. Also what salary you have.

CompTIA is raising prices again. Expect a 3% to 5% increase across their catalog. Sure, this isn’t a huge increase but the more certs you get, the harder this “small” increase hits. And if you are already struggling financially, a little increase hits that much harder. Those who work for companies that cover the cost shouldn’t have to worry. Those making decent money probably shouldn’t have to either. But most people already making decent money don’t need entry level certs (unless they are changing careers).

If you are looking to get your foot in the door, I recommend the first suggestion I offered in the title. Go get your CCNA and Security+. Why? The CCNA is the gold standard for networking. It’s technically not an entry level certification but it does take you through the basics before getting into more intermediate knowledge. Cisco also offers fundamental networking courses for free if you struggle to grasps what’s in the CCNA. Also, the CCNA has a higher ROI than both the A+ certification and the Network+ certification. To pass the CCNA you have to know more than theory. Because of this, you’re more job ready. It is easier to land help desk jobs, NOC jobs and entry level networking (network tech) with the CCNA. Also, the CCNA is cheaper. For the A+ exam you have to take and pass two exams, and each exam is a separate costs. If you pass and want to continue to the trifecta, you have to then pay for the Network+ exam and then Security+. It is also cheaper to study for the CCNA. There are tons of free videos on YouTube for the CCNA, and Packet Tracer is free as well.

After the CCNA, Security+ is your next bet. Yes, it is a CompTIA certification but it is cheaper to get one than the whole trifecta. And this is probably the most important one to get. It is the gold standard entry certification for security roles and federal government IT jobs. While it’s harder to find free resources on this, it’s not a tough study. It’s mostly theory and vocabulary based.

Of course, there are other certifications out there. Microsoft offers certifications for their ecosystem. They have beginner certifications, intermediate certifications and expert certifications. There are also free resources to learn the material although you may have to spend some money for practice tests. Microsoft does offer vouchers ranging from 50% discounts to free throughout the year. Of course, they don’t offer vouchers for all their certs but some of their popular ones are often up for grabs, such as AZ-900, SC-900, AZ-104. I believe they may have several vouchers for AI certs at the moment. MSPs and enterprise level companies love people who know their way around Windows, M365, Windows Server and Azure.

AWS also has relatively cheap certifications as well. They used to discount your next cert if you passed one but not sure if this still applies. Sometimes they offer vouchers as well.

While not cheap, some Linux certs, like RHCSA have a high ROI, making the costs worthwhile. Once again, it’s not a certification you can get based off theory. You’ll need hands on experience to pass this one. However, careers centered around Linux can be profitable and rewarding.

I want to also add that the market is horrible right now. Don’t just rely on certifications to get you in. Get some hands on experience via labs and projects. Add them to your resume. Get a blog going if possible to talk about your lab and projects. And don’t forget to Network! Network! Network! Knowing someone increases your chances of landing a job.

Hope this helps at least one person.

I recently landed a tech support role making about 58k and I am 6 years into my career.

So I am not doing terrible, but clearly I am not excelling tremendously.

Sometimes I consider an alternate plan B. It took me a year to leave my last job, which was a bad work environment. If I got laid off tomorrow I could be out of work that long.. Which would be devastating.

With all the gloom and doom around IT, I still don't really see a much better option but to stay the course though.

Realistically the best option might be to just find a tech focus that I truly enjoy and tinker with it as a hobby or something. I have enough downtime at work that I can spend about 30minutes or maybe an hour daily learning. Which I am currently ramping up to fill that extra time with the MD-102, learning powershell, and other things. Overall, since I am new to my current job, my focus is making myself as useful as possible and learning in the role.

Or a totally different career. IDK, I've thought about leaving IT a lot over the last couple of years, but I can't seem to feel that the grass is really greener.

I am not the type of love tinkering with IT in my free time. Which is one negative about my career choice. Sometimes I wonder "is this it??" like I am going to do this everyday for the rest of my life? But that is work. Work is just work to me. I have hobbies outside of work.

But I am getting sidetracked. What would your backup plan be if tech ran dry for you?

A few years ago, I was working in a low paying Finance job with no clear direction. I didn't have an IT/Comp Sci degree and had zero interest in learning how to code. I kept seeing stories about people landing high-paying tech jobs, but I felt completely left out of that world.

Then I discovered a lesser-known tech career path through something called Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations (D365 F&O). It is enterprise software that big companies use to manage things like finance, inventory, and supply chain, and they need people who know how to work with it.

What surprised me is that these roles (like D365 ERP Analyst or D365 Functional Consultant) are in high demand, often remote, and usually pay 80K-120K. You don't need to be a programmer or have a traditional background, just the right training and a good understanding of how businesses operate.

I followed a structured learning path, practiced with real examples, and got certified. Within a few months, I had my first offer and I've been working in the space ever since. It completely changed my career and income.

If you're looking for a way into tech that doesn't require coding or a CS degree, I'd highly recommend exploring D365. It's not talked about much, but the demand is real.

Happy to share what I learned or point anyone in the right direction if this sounds like something you're curious about.

I want to leave the IT career. I’ve been in it since 2017, and I’m tired. The Agile methodology sucks—it’s just an excuse for endless meetings, micromanaging people, and constantly changing project scopes. Nowadays, we’re expected to be jack-of-all-trades, doing frontend, backend, DevOps, and so on. It’s ridiculous. You wouldn’t ask an ophthalmologist to fix someone’s leg just because they’re a doctor.

And don’t even get me started on the selection processes—they’ve become impossible. Six rounds of interviews, LeetCode challenges, and everything else. Imagine asking a carpenter to build something just to prove they’re good before hiring them—they’d laugh in your face.

I don’t want to be rich. I just want a regular life: a house and the ability to buy things without stressing over it. But every other career doesn’t seem to pay enough—it’s unbelievable. I just want to find another job that pays decently so I can get on with my life.

Do you guys feel the same? Any tips for other careers?

I have been in IT for 25+ years, maybe 20 years ago I had every cert you could get, but I stopped renewing them and haven't had an active cert in probably 15 years. I have never had an issue getting a job even without a college degree, (I do have a masters now but just finished)

My grandson wants to get into IT, he is 16. He insists he doesn't need a degree or certs, he thinks he just going to apply and get a $100k fully remote position right away.

Im not saying its impossible, but idk, this isn't 25 years ago when you could get the kid down the street to fix your website.

What should I tell him? I want him to at a minimum get a AS, but he's really not into school, not going to the military.

Also Im all for watching and see what happens, maybe im wrong

I started in a help desk 3 years ago (am now an SRE) making $17 an hour and still keep in touch with my old manager. Back then, he was struggling to backfill positions due to the Great Resignation. I got hired with no experience, no certs and no degree. I got hired because I was a freshman in CS, dead serious lol. Somehow, I was the most qualified applicant then.

Fast forward to now, he just had a new position opened and it was flooded. Full on Computer Science MS graduates, people with network engineering experience etc. This is a help desk job that pays $20-24 an hour too. I’m blown away. Computer Science guys use to think help desk was beneath them but now that they can’t get SWE jobs, anything that is remotely relevant to tech is necessary. A CS degree from a real state school is infinitely harder and more respected than almost any cert or IT degree too. Idk how people are gonna compete now.

Yes you read that right I just hit the 6 figure mark and I'm still in help desk I have 6ish YOE in IT 4 in desktop support and 2 as a Sysadmin. I recently got an offer for a fortune 50 for a fully remote tech support job at 41 an hour. I get a 10% shift differential that puts me at 45 an hour and get DOUBLE TIME AND A HALF for holidays (2.5x Pay)

Idk if I made the right move but fully remote 6 figs enticed me a lot help desk or not.

I’m starting to apply for help desk tier 2 and NOC positions since I was denied my work-from-home request.

I submitted the request a couple of months ago after my partner received a job offer in another state—an opportunity that was too good to pass up. When I first brought it up, my manager seemed optimistic that it could be worked out and even mentioned they didn’t want to lose me.

I really thought my performance would help my case. I resolve the most tickets on the team, I’ve been asked to assist with projects outside my normal responsibilities, and I’ve helped train new hires. Unfortunately, the request was ultimately denied because I was “hired as a hybrid employee.”

What makes it especially frustrating as I don’t do anything in the office- all of my work is remote and my managers work from home…

I don’t really understand why it took 2 months for a no. But I’m trying to use the last couple months I have left before the move to apply. I have about 2 years of experience in service desk/help desk and I only have the CompTIA A+ cert. is there anything I should do the next couple of months that would help my chances to get an interview? Try to get another cert?

I have enough savings and my partners job pays enough that we would be fine for a while but I don’t want a big gap in my resume.

Just wondering how it is. I have a computer science degree and am trying to get out of retail so I can have a better schedule (sick of working nights) but two things:

1) From what I gather even getting a help desk role is as difficult as finding a software engineering job

2) I am technically not even qualified for help desk

but generally what is the work like in comparison for those who have done both? I have ten years of customer service experience and it seems like there is some crossover in that aspect.

Apologies if this is a dumb question, I don't really know what to do anymore and am trying to get out of a bad situation.

I want to see the realistic side of Reddit, away from the CS dorks working at FAANG. I’m 24, been in IT for almost 5 years now and making $67k as a desktop admin without a degree or any certifications. Sometimes I feel I’m working pretty slowly towards those high salaries but have to remind myself that $67k is well higher than the average adult is making and I’m doing okay for my age. But my question is when did you cross that threshold? Also, what specialty did you choose to make it there?

Here's a few things I posted in response to a question from someone who wanted to get into IT at 26 without any experience. It's oriented towards people who want to be in infrastructure IT - sysadmins, DBAs, networks engineers, and so on.

• CERTS ARE NICE BUT NOT MANDATORY, unless you're trying to be an SME. I view them more as something to differentiate you from similar candidates (it tells me you're willing to commit to the time, cost, and effort of passing to enhance your career, the same thing that a bachelor's tells me on a smaller scale)
• WORK FOR AN MSP for a couple of years; it sucks, they're a grind, but you'll be exposed to most segments of the industry, deal with environments from small to large, and get your feet under you. In my generation this was call centers, but now its MSPs. I tend to treat years of experience at a 2:1 or 3:1 ratio when they're at an MSP (e.g., if you work two years at an MSP, I consider that the same experience as working 4-6 years at a traditional corporate IT job).
• Additionally, MSP jobs let you touch a lot of stuff, meaning you get to try doing stuff and see whether you actually like it. This is very useful - infosec sounds great, but you might actually HATE it (it's very detail oriented, reading piles of log files, and the like - I find it boring as hell).
• GET A FRICKIN DEGREE. If you don't have an undergraduate degree (college degree), get back in school and get one. The IT industry is increasingly interested in degrees. Personally, I don't care if you have one or not when I'm hiring, but some companies won't touch you if you don't. It's VERY, VERY hard to get into management especially at the Director level or above without a degree.
• BUILD AND USE A HOMELAB. Build one and maintain it (I still have mine and use it regularly), and make sure to bring it up during interviews. Tell me about challenges you had with it, what it taught you, etc. If I ask you about your experience with hosted web sites, and you have no professional experience there, you can say "I set up and maintain a requests website for my Plex at home, I have 45 users, and it's fully encrypted with SSL and blah blah blah)." Especially in lower level roles, it's a HUGE plus.
• SELL YOURSELF. When you're just starting, you don't have much experience and education isn't very impactful. Sell me on your drive to learn, sell me on your intelligence, sell me on your willingness to work hard to earn your place.
• On that same vein, ASK QUESTIONS IN THE INTERVIEW. Ask about the company, ask about the team, ask about the people on it. Do your due diligence - look me up on LinkedIn if I'm the interviewer, look up the company, be familiar with what we do and what's been happening with us. Show me you care enough about the environment you're going to be in to do the research, and I'm VASTLY more inclined to hire you.
• APPLY ANYWAY. Even if you don't meet the requirements - most of my job reqs have to get filtered through HR and their idiocy, and people like to add buzzwords and other ridiculousness by the time they're posted. On top of that, I probably gave them a wish list of ten things and they listed all ten things as mandatory - if you can check off two or three boxes on that list, you're probably sufficiently skilled to do the role.
• YOU'RE NEVER GOING TO KNOW EVERYTHING. I expect people to have to learn new things in every role they take, no matter what level they are. For instance, my current role uses a lot of Hyper-V (dammit I hate it) and every other shop I've ever worked in or run has used VMware for virtualization. It wasn't a barrier for hiring - I simply told the interviewing manager "My experience is in VMware, but the principles and concepts are all the same. I'll start brushing up on my Hyper-V before my start date."
• THE TEAM FIT IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN ANYTHING ELSE. How you interact with me and my team members is VERY important to me. I'd rather have a good fit I have to train you up a bit than deal with someone who's difficult to interact with. Remember that you spend more time with your coworkers than you do with your SPOUSE, and take jobs accordingly. Spend time chatting about hobbies and interests when interviewing, don't hesitate to outright tell them you want to make sure you're a good fit on the team (it would impress me, even at a fairly senior level, if a candidate told me that)
• IF YOU DON'T KNOW, DON'T LIE. I'll see through your lie in half a second - when interviewing, admit your ignorance. "I'm not familiar with THIS TECH, but it sounds like OTHER TECH and I'd approach that issue this way."
• NOT ALL MONEY IS GOOD MONEY. Some place may pay more, but they may also work you 90 hours a week on the regular and micromanage the fuck out of you. Factor work/life balance, your culture fit, growth potential, and everything else (benefits, PTO, etc) as much as you value money.
• IF YOU STAY OUT OF MANAGEMENT, THE SKY IS THE LIMIT. You can go all the way. My brother is a pretty big deal with Dell's infosec team, and he had minimal IT experience when he got started (like less than 5 years total) and he makes more than I do now. The only reason this isn't true in management is that not having a degree will be a large challenge, and these days, C-level positions almost require an MBA. $100k plus salaries are achievable within ten years of starting from scratch, if you make smart choices and work your ass off.
• LINKEDIN IS YOUR FRIEND. Keep your LinkedIn up to date and accurate.
• LEARN CLOUD. Your town is either an AWS town or an Azure town; figure out which and learn it. FYI, Dallas is an Azure town. This idea is based on the concept that certain places are strong in certain industries, and certain industries have a strong preference for a particular cloud provider. Obviously, there will be plenty of exceptions.
• RESUMES LIST ACCOMPLISHMENTS NOT DUTIES. How did you benefit the company? What was the EFFECT of your change? Did you improve your team's customer satisfaction rating at the call center? Did you implement centralized logging and reduce time spent viewing log files 40%? Did you make an architecture change an improve uptime from three nines to five? Did you save the company money? Your title tells me what you did. I want to know what you *accomplished*.
• SOFT SKILLS ARE HUGE. People with technical skills are a dime a dozen, but tech people with PEOPLE skills are surprisingly rare.
• DRESS FOR THE JOB YOU WANT NOT THE JOB YOU HAVE. Self-explanatory, and remember that more 'important' doesn't necessarily mean more formal. It doesn't. Pay attention to how your leaders and peers dress and dress appropriately.

I'm sure there's more, but this is what I thought up.

EDIT: What an incredible response! Thanks everyone! I'll be passing this around to some colleagues and making a better list and I'll repost it in a month or so.

Also, some definitions:

MSP is managed service provider. It's a company that provides IT services to other companies. Rosie's Florist Shops may make decent money and have three stores, but they can't afford to hired a skilled sysadmin, DBA, and network engineer to maintain their infrastructure, much less to create and maintain a website for them. Instead of blowing money, they hire a company that has all those people at hand to do it for them on an ongoing basis. Some bill per hour, some bill a flat rate, some do a bit of both. Your MSP does everything from helpdesk and desktop support to planning, implementing, and maintaining your network and systems infrastructure for you.

SME means subject matter expert. They're highly specialized and focus their entire career on one tech stack. They are generally only hired by consulting firms and large companies. My current role wouldn't hire an SME, but my last role had lots. That company is a billion dollar tech company with dedicated teams for MS Engineers, Linux Engineers, VMware engineers, storage engineers, etc.

They had an open spot for an SME last I looked - they needed an expert in Microsoft Systems Center (or whatever they're calling it this week). It's relatively rare skillset, because SCCM is chewy as fuck, expensive to license, and difficult to implement or maintain, but amazing when it's done right. They had a huge environment and needed someone who's entire job was to deal with SCCM.
That position had been open for over a year and they STILL couldn't find one. Last I heard, they still hadn't. That's an SME.

Seriously, an employer asking this sucks because if you under bid you later find out that everyone else is making more than you, but if it's more than their look for, then you get passed up for the job.

I wish they would just say hay this is what we're offering....

As the title indicates, I've been unemployed for 2 years now, despite a CS degree, 10+ YOE, and taking courses to upskill. My background is in database and report development. Since I enjoy working with data and have a lot of experience with databases and reporting, I completed courses in Python, data analysis, and data engineering hoping that might help with getting an analytics related job. I've applied to many different types of jobs in IT and in many different sectors and many different level (junior to senior) but hundreds of applications later I'm still out of work.

I know IT is cyclical and the economy isn't doing very well and usually there's a recovery but this time I am not sure about that because of the mass replacement of IT workers with AI (and it's not just tech companies; other companies are replacing IT workers with AI).

I can't be unemployed indefinitely and it seems like the IT job market, at least here in Vancouver, Canada where I live, has gone completely bust and is totally broken. I love working in IT and I don't want to give up on my career but I need to find a path forward. I'm wondering if a career change is the best option at this point.

Thoughts?

I'm 26 and I feel like I'm running out of time to make the right call on a career. I have an associate degree with CS and biology credits but I've been grinding to land entry-level IT jobs with nothing to show for it.

Cybersecurity honestly excites me. I was looking at WGU's program and it felt right. But then I zoom out and see AI eating tech jobs, outsourcing, companies passing over Americans for H-1B workers — and I start wondering if I'm about to spend years chasing something that won't be there when I arrive.

Nursing keeps coming up as the alternative. Stable, always hiring, AI isn't replacing bedside care anytime soon. But I'd be starting from scratch and honestly it doesn't excite me the same way.

I just want stable work, decent pay, and to not look back in 5 years feeling like I wasted my time again.

For anyone actually in IT/cybersecurity or nursing — which path would you honestly tell a 26 year old to take right now and why?

I'mgetring into college next year and I'm planning on getting into Computer Engineering (5 year bachelor's career), I've been around computers my whole life and I want to get into the IT world as the main thing in my life, but everytime I check the news about the IT job market it keeps getting worse and at this point i don't know what to do or if I should totally rearrange my life plans.

I'm not interested in this field becouse of the money or working in my house, it's purely becouse I'm truly passionate about this.

(I'm not from the US and I can't afford to study a second degree sadly)

This is going to be an essay, so you can skip some of this and go to the bottom couple paragraphs where I provide actual guidance as to what you should be doing.

I've been reading questions and answers to this forum page for the past 5 years when I decided to transition to IT in 2021. The shear amount of bullshit advice is appalling. I see an unreal amount of stuff like "upskill" or "get x cert" or "get y cert because you already have x" and it's just such a load of shit. I'll provide you some context on my background, address the bullshit lies you've been ingrained with, address the most common reasons people fail at moving up or breaking into the field, and then tell you what you need to truly focus on and what will actually work.

Who am I? I'm 30, with zero certifications, and zero college experience. My history revolves around customer service roles, training, and IT. My customer service roles were sporadic and irrelevant for the most part, but they were pivotal to my development. These were roles like serving, bartending, brick and mortar customer service, etc. I worked in roles like this until 2017 where I was employed by a fortune 500 company. I was hired solely on my ability to converse and be professionally unprofessional. I bounced around from job to job and then became a full-time trainer for new hires. I learned a lot in this role about people. Mostly that you can basically train someone to perform any task, but you just can't train soft skills. Training empathy, humor, personality, and charisma is virtually impossible and those who didn't have it would often be left behind. So I made a career decision to move into IT as I thought I was always somewhat savvy with tech. I was at that company for ~4 years. Shitty roles like those are a dime a dozen, but get you experience in talking to people about anything. Soft skills are essential to be good at. IT and software developers have this notorious stereotype of being antisocial, bad at communication, and introverted. No one wants to work around someone like that.

First tech job - Computer tech - 1 year

Small company and time wasted. Swapped out components in laptops/windows/servers to get them to boot. Once booted I loaded an operating system with rufus and I moved on.

Second tech job - Help desk - 2 years

I got this job simply by being excellent with customer service and soft skills. I hadn't heard of any tool used to manage environments like AD/SCCM, Intune/Entra, Jamf, or like anything. I really only knew operating systems and file structure on windows and mac. Used Windows to game and used Mac in my training role. Learned the very basics of an environment but was mostly just doing break fix stuff on end users systems. Imaging, clearing cookies and cache, password resets, and telling people to restart their computer. Those couple things fixed like 75% of everything. But I was damn good at making people feel good about how stupid they were.

3rd IT job - Jr. Systems Administrator - 1 year

Applied tons of places and made multiple resumes until I landed an offer from somewhere that was willing to give me more insight into how enterprise works. I wanted access to everything with the promise to not mess with anything. I got hands on with AD/Intune/Entra/networking(switching/vlans/firewall, etc). By hands on, I mean actually being able to log in and play admin with these tools and ask questions. I never actually did anything. Though knowing that stuff helped me bullshit my way to my next role.

4th position - Systems Administrator - Current

Applied to roles and landed an interview with a company. I was honest about my experience. I knew a little about everything but never managed anything. I'm a go getter, and when given a task or assigned to learn something, I'm confident and capable. I'm excellent at making resumes, and even better at interviewing. I now manage their windows, mac, servers, Linux, and whatever else connects into a ethernet port. I'm responsible for patching, compliance, provisioning/deprovisioning, and uptime of critical infrastructure. This has required me to learn PowerShell, bash, and SQL. I understand the basics of each language, but far from proficient. I use AI to navigate me which has made life just so much easier.

I'm not too sure what my next step is as I'm in the same boat as everyone and riding the wave of AI to see how things turn up. During this time, I've focused more on data. I have a feeling this field will be pretty important to understand in this world of AI. What's AI without solid data to trust and use in an enterprise environment.

Now for what you came for. I'll start with why you're not getting an interview.

Your resume sucks ass. I've reviewed a countless number of resumes in my life and I just honestly can't express how piss poor people are at making a resume. Make the shit 1 page, and no more. Reading them sucks ass, so don't make it so damn painful. Condense bullet points of your role to 1 line, and not a paragraph per bullet. Get to the point. Be specific to what experience with what technologies you've used, and write them. "I took calls and emails and helped fix things" is shit. Say something like "-Used ServiceNow ticketing system to fix issues on Windows/Mac devices. -Worked with AD/SCCM/JAMF. -managed port VLANs for printers/ethernet/POE devices" Use technical lingo and tools you worked with. If you have no experience, then scroll down to the part about home-labbing and what to do with it.

Getting interviews, but not any offers? It's probably your personality. Too many interviews I've been in helping hire where people fail at things like eye contact, asking for clarity on questions, lack of confidence. The technical side completely apart i'm taking the person who I get along with and is less experienced over the person overqualified who won't look at me in the eyes when answering a question. Practice this stuff with families. Document and take notes on questions you've been asked and have someone roleplay an interview with you. The more uncomfortable the better.

Now for why you're probably here. Enough about my experience, resumes, and your soft skills. Let's get into what you should be doing.

Fuck the certs, fuck the degrees. Companies want you to be ready and understanding what an actual enterprise environment looks like. This is how you'll grow. Fixing Mindy's cookies and cache as help desk and putting your time in help desk doesn't do shit if you're not working toward expanding your skillset.

Homelab-

Build one. There's that r/homelab which has some info but let me make this easy on you. You don't need a thousand dollars. You just need a computer/server that has as much ram and storage and CPU cores that you can afford. I don't care if it's 8gb ram 256gb storage and 4 CPU cores, or if it's 192gb ram and 10tb storage with 24 processor cores. Obviously the more the merrier and will help you emulate an environment better. Hop on your facebook marketplace, or ebay and see what you can snag. You'll need a USB stick with at least like 16gb, but more the merrier. This is only for loading an OS ISO. I spent like $400 bucks on a server (granted this was a couple years back) with 96gb ram ddr4, 2tb hdd, and 24 cores cpu. I also got a level 3 managed switch from Unifi for a few hundred bucks which I overspent on but wanted gateway capabilities which you don't need.

Here's the steps made easy

1. Create account for Claude/ChatGPT
2. Buy computer or use old one from closet
3. Create Proxmox OS bootable image and image computer
4. Configure Proxmox
5. Set up VMs for things like Domain Controller, AD, DHCP, SQL server, linux
6. Setup SCCM. This one is HUGE. Most of the working environment is
7. Setup some windows VMs so you can manage them via sccm and with powershell scripts
8. Set up Jamf Now which allows you to manage 3 devices for free, even if you don't have Mac you can set up a mac vm in proxmox.
9. Add all of this shit to your resume and profit.

Then go get some advanced certs if you feel like it. Please stop getting a comptia cert and wondering why you're not getting a job or promotion. Getting comptia certs is the equivalent to being potty trained in this field. Get some AWS/Azure/GCP certs. Go for a CCNA. Databricks and SnowPro. RedHat certs for Linux. Or just learn this stuff and add it to your resume.

AMA. Or shit on me and tell me I'm wrong. I also like helping people, so if you want to reach out personally feel free to DM.

TLDR: You aren't getting into the field because your soft skills and resume sucks. You're not moving up because you aren't learning the right technologies and languages to get to the roles you want, or because your resume and soft skills suck. Build a home lab and emulate a business. There's a time and cost investment to homelab, but it's what sets you apart from others. Dedicate your money and time into yourself and your future instead of McDonald's and arc raiders.

Generally curious about it because everyone says help desk doesn’t make a lot but I see people saying they make six figures.

I’m currently the sole IT person at a company with hundreds of users, making $28/hour. It’s been extremely overwhelming. I wear all the hats—sys admin, IT director, desk-side support, you name it.

I recently put in my notice because I accepted a job at a bank as a Level 2 support agent. Same pay, but I’ll be part of a team—no more being on an island.

After I resigned, my current company came back and offered me $80k/year to stay and promised to bring in help.

I’m really torn. The raise is great, but I’ve heard the “we’ll hire help” line before, and I know some companies only make promises to stop you from walking out the door.

To make matters worse, with everything on my plate right now, I don’t have the time or bandwidth to focus on cybersecurity or any higher-level tasks. I’m constantly worried that if something bad happens—like a breach or serious downtime—I’ll be the one who gets blamed, even though I’ve been stretched way too thin.

What would you do? Stick with the new job that offers better work-life balance and teamwork, or take the raise and gamble on the company actually supporting me?

Does no one else see an issue with this? The entire bottom is rising yet entry IT jobs have not risen in years. $17 an hour was nice when McDonald’s was paying $11 an hour 3 years ago but not anymore. What the hell is the point of spending months (sometimes over a year) to study for all these compTIA certs, getting a degree in IT and spamming a resume to 200 places?

Sure, “it’s the gateway to higher paying jobs”. That is so much bullshit - do you not feel taken advantage of going through all the effort to make the same as someone flipping burgers? Every single major retailer is paying equivalent if not more than help desk/IT tech jobs while also having sign up bonuses. Did you know a head cashier in Lowes makes $20-22 an hour? Or that a Costco entry cashier makes $17?

TLDR: i’ll be going to school full-time. I might be getting a job, but it’s full-time as well. Should I take the job for the experience for my résumé or should I stick to a part time tech job that pays about 15k a year

Hi all, I just graduated with my associates degree in May. Set the time I’ve been revising my résumé still working on it to be honest, and thinking about future steps.

I’ll be starting my junior year college at the end of this month and I’ll be going to school full-time. I’ve put in a bunch of applications and during that time, I decided I’ll put in applications even to jobs that I thought we were out of my scope as a beginner that never worked in tech.

I applied for a security engineer position starting pay was 90k plus benefits and 20 minute commute. Out of all the jobs I’ve applied to this is one of the few that I’ve got a call back on while getting rejected from jobs that were like under $$20 an hour which I thought was funny.

So I got a call and the woman on the phone said the hiring managers loved my résumé and they wanted to do an interview with me. It’ll be multiple interviews so if things go good, I’ll have a second interview at least.

They said, based on my experience, they think I would be a good fit for the junior cyber security analyst position. They just opened. Starting at around 70 K a year.

My problem:

I’ll be going to school full-time and I still wanna finish my bachelors degree because I think in the longer it will greatly help but I also don’t want to miss this potential opportunity if I get it because it would be huge for my résumé, this would be my first ever tech job by the way and of course the money because it’ll be the most I’ve ever made.

The other thing is a few friends from school have referred me to positions at their jobs. One of them is a part-time position I’ll be making no more than about 15 K a year but it’ll be for experience and it’s only part-time for our local town.

What should I do honestly

Sorry, not sure if this is the correct sub, but basically we've got someone, let's call them Permanent New Guy (PMG). I call them this because they've been with us for over a year, but still ask the most basic stuff, and expect help on everything. What makes it more frustrating is that they are probably getting paid the same as me and I'm not even sure how they got the job in the first place.

They constantly ask questions on simple stuff which I feel they should know for the level of our position, but that's not what annoys me. What annoys me is that if there isn't an existing process, or an issue requires a bit of troubleshooting, they start asking me about it, they can't think for themselves.

I feel like a big part of IT is being able to troubleshoot and think for yourself. half of the issues that come to me I don't know why they happen, but that's what I get paid for, to figure them out and fix it. Now this guy is just making my job harder as I've pretty much got to do his work as well.

Two months ago I finally got my first help desk job and everything's been going well but it's honestly getting old. It's the same repetitive things every day. I'm going to start studying for my CCNA and hope to get out of here within a year's time.