Have just been made redundant from my job in IT and am finding it hard to find another.
Even the 1st line and 2nd line jobs now want you to have an MCSE.
One option is to go and get an MCSE, but then there's the lack of a degree, and the lack of 3 years feeding and caring for a server farm which aren't so easily rectified.
I also suspect the lack of interest in me may be due to the recruiters being able to work out my age from the fact I took O'Levels rather than GCSEs
I do have an interest in audio (PA) and obviously D-I-Y.
Anyone any suggestions for a good line of work to be getting into?
It sorts out the hobbyist from someone who can do the work.
Not always required, less companies are taking those with a degree as it means nothing now. It is not a substitute for experience and skill - so employers go for that now instead. Who wants someone with a degree that they have to spend lots of money on training them to do the job!
No idea what you are talking about or how it applies.
I doubt it, it's just that you don't have the required expertise or decent references from previous employers. They want experience so you need to sell yourself more.
Good, I like washing my car and giving it a showroom shine and also growing sweetcorn.
No, not really. Most people take what they can - something they can use experience and skills in.
FWIW 'Roger' is a known troublesome wanker(*) that trolls on the UK newsgroups mouthing disinformation and being generally nasty, mostly to receive a response. In his 'answers' to your thread (and others), you'll notice his usenet behavior mostly matches that of a aggressive narcissist psychopath. He really hasn't any concern in your well-being.
was recently posting as Clive, has been the 'Tiscali Idiot' for somewhat longer.
snipped-for-privacy@o2.co.uk gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:
Unlikely - I took O-levels, rather than GCSEs, and am still a couple of years off turning 40.
Anyway - if you're being complete and honest about your employment history, they'll surely have a reasonable inkling that you're not in your early 20s...
"Roger" gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:
Indeed. Those who can actually do the work haven't bothered to waste the time and effort on such a long devalued, utter waste-of-space "qualification".
Support jobs may not need degrees, but if you want to do professional stuff people will filter for qualifications and bin your application without looking at it if there's nothing.
If you're good, none of this will be relevant. But I've no idea if you're any good. Do you have drive, nous, etc? Or did you just do what you were told?
Are you looking for lots of money? Do you have a track record which supports that claim?
Where in the country are you?
3 years off to do a degree isn't a bad idea right now if you're up to it and want to turn more professional in IT.
Or there's always the option of setting up on your own - see eg TMH. I reckon people are getting lazier - I know I am :-) - so his business model is moderately viable for somebody without huge ambitions but some ability.
I can earn a very good living without much in the way of stress, so its certainly viable. I'll never be a millionaire doing what I do, but that wasn't the plan.
1 *Huge* ambitions - what becoming a general purpose handyman!
2 Some ability - in what? How to go to a job, look at it, post on this group asking how can it to be done and then take the piss out of his customer - oh, and the brag how good *he* is!
Now if you'd have said he'd gone from a garden snail catcher to the heady levels of a degree and picked up a first in bullshit and belligerence well....
Clive George coughed up some electrons that declared:
And doing a proper Computer Science degree IMO will cut more sway than a Computer Technology degree. The former is to the latter as Applied Mathematics/Physics is to Vehicle Servicing.
BTW - I don't have a CompSci degree - I worked in the "hard way" from another numerate discipline - I wish I had done CompSci because it would have made doing the right thing the first time much easier in so many projects...
A CT degree will probably aid in getting a basic sysadmin or web-dude job. A CompSci degree leaves that option intact (as well as helping to get a sysadmin job in a fun higher class university) and opens up doing more novel stuff too like R&D for small or big companies (hint IBM Hursley don't recruit people with Applied Javascript and Flash Wibbling).
OTOH, my last (small) company was far more interested in aptitude. In fact one of the new directors started there yonks ago on work experience or something.
Heh. The client site I work on has banned one of my MCSE guys from coming to our site. He's a walking disaster area. Living proof, if any were needed that anyone can get an MCSE or CCNA (he has that too) and still not have a clue what they are talking about.
Well, it was just silly things like having a more formal approach, having a pocket full of algorithms instead of having to dig through Knuth or the internet every time I wanted to do something a little bit interesting...
Mathematicians and physicists and engineers all had them beaten into a cocked hat before they could even open Knuth.
The engfineers gerenally fiound somoen who had doen it first, ripped off te code and had it working first, but a bit buggy.
The phsicists and scientists thought about it first THEN rippoed off te code, took a bit longer and produced a better result.
Te mathematicians thought about it a lot, reduced it to some sort of equation, and eventually dio teh best job of all.
The computers scientists spent ALL the time deciding which of two hopelessly impractical approaches was 'the most elegant' or worst of all, tried to code as if it was an exercise in pseudo coed and object oriented design, and got themselves into such a mess that they had to be taken off the project altogether.
Best of all were software engineers. People with a practical bent who knew JUST enough about the WHOLE of a computer system to work out where performance mattered, and were thick enough themselves to write clean simple code that got the job done if not that elegantly, at least understandably, and where to ask in the mathematicians to do the one tricky algorithm they couldn't get their brains round.
The Natural Philosopher coughed up some electrons that declared:
Spooky - that's what I do...
LoL!
Or want to write it in some language no-one else in the group understands.
And then refuse to write it in perl because "python is superior in every way". When told they must write it in perl, they complied with much grumbling and some further lectures on the inelegance of perl. Then x-weeks later when I looked at the code, about 50 lines down was a call to a slightly hidden python script to do the interesting bits!
When I started at Imperial, we have system maintenance scripts (many scripts, all siblings in a family of scripts that did interesting useful tghings on a periodic basis) written in perl, python, bash, csh and I think there was even one in haskell.
When I finished, we had everthing in perl with a common library set that handled all the useful common stuff like DB access, opening a new file to write and ensuring the atomic replacement of the old file (it's bad to have the PC powered off just between truncating the password file and writing out the new version and fsyncing it - it happened surprisingly often too) and lots of stuff like that. Many scripts were both hugely bombproof in a uniform way but only 20 lines long to do a 20 line job - the way it should be...
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here.
All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.