Best way to persue IT career?

[crapyking]

I am interested in making a career change to do repairs/networking/help desk. Currently I only took an A+ course & networking essentials class & do repairs at home. I was thinking of taking an XP class. What would you "working" tech people suggest that doesn't require alot of college?

[csamuels]

one of my teachers told me "experience is golden"

I say absorb & store as much info as you can. The more you know about what you're doing, the more helpful you will seem.

My long time goal is to become a pc/network consultant. WHich i think means that i will need to have a lot of knowledge about computers along with the many many different setups. Experiment at home.

[Steve R Jones]

Might also consider watching the evening news and how Many of the IT jobs are going to India...

[comp_nut]

ain't that the truth

[whitebeard21]

get your passport in order and move to Bangalore,India the It capital of the world.

[bassman]

Originally posted by Steve R Jones
Might also consider watching the evening news and how Many of the IT jobs are going to India...

Still, they export knowledge as if it was nothing Same thing happens here with science investigators; most move out due to lack of support. Then, companies hire a foreign firm to provide R&D and innovation support

cking, I can't add much more to what's been said; experience is golden. You learn a lot on courses, but no pain=no gain, get yer hands dirty and always keep informed. IT is a tough biz, has a guy comes out of college and has to keep studying for the rest of his life. But it's great when we get things to work, isn't it?

[stevedownunder]

I would agree experience is THE key .......

But looking at Job ad's and in my experience, employers do like to see, in this sort of order:

Experience
Experience
Experience

Microsoft/Cisco certified : too hard to say which
Academic Qualifications, degree etc

Maybe you could be part time work at a local PC shop just to put on your resume?

Steve

[Torlok2002]

And if you plan on working with the EU themselves over the phone, I suggest you become familiar with how they describe problems, and learn how to speak back to them. Throw a bunch of tech words their way and they will have no idea what you are talking about.

One good way is to just start working on friends/family PC's. Have them describe a problem to ya and then you try to fix it. It benifits you and them. Just gotta learn how to cut them off later, or else they'll do the "Well i know this guy who's good with computers, I bet he wont mind taking a look at it." And i dont really, its just when 20+ people start doing this that theres no time left for anything else, except fixing peoples computers... for free. Sometimes you do get some nice treats though. Like a good meal, or possibly their first born child to keep as your own.

[crossedup]

Put together a list of charges and then do a little advertising.

Your in the enviable position of being able to undercut others because your overhead is low. All the big established repair firms will still get their business but youll get the ones that cant afford thier higher prices.

There are a lot of them.

Amazing the ones people just throw out here because they try to do it themselves, screw it up and then wont pay the going rate of $60 an hour to get it fixed.

Got one yesterday in one of our recycling bins that someone had attempted to upgrade themselves was fairly obvious. Put in a new video card but didnt disable the onboard. Put in another stick of RAM that didnt match the first one. Had mucked up the BIOS and input that the HD was there but was 0MB in size.

I took out the video card and second stick or RAM, changed the BIOS setting and booted straight into safe mode. Got a free computer plus a stick of RAM and an older video card to boot.

There are a lot of computers out there that need repairing, people just arent paying as much as they used to. Cheaper to buy a better one.

Get your name around and you can make some good extra money.

Ive got a few customers that have already "adopted" me and tell EVERYBODY about me. Things are starting to take off like crazy, its just been a waiting game the last few years up to this point.

[crapyking]

I think crossed up has the right idea. Put an ad in local paper or something & get "cheap business".