What's the best way into IT? (£16k+) Courses, etc?

[Pulse]

My cousin wants to make the move into IT, which he knows a bit about, and has an interest in, but doesn't have any qualifications. What are the best courses to do, or the best way into it?

He wants to do the A+, but I said it doesn't really mean anything.

[amir_j]

Pulse said:

My cousin wants to make the move into IT, which he knows a bit about, and has an interest in, but doesn't have any qualifications. What are the best courses to do, or the best way into it?

He wants to do the A+, but I said it doesn't really mean anything.

1) get some kind of basic it job- small company will be good as will learn a lot more than just a defined role.
2) keep eyes peeled, network and chat to others
3) study, study, study- less life you have the better for the first few years
4) move companies every 12-14 months and use 1, 2 & 3 to climb up the ladder

Worked for me.

[fade2grey]

A+ is fine to start, effectively anything is fine to start.. take the first job & learn on the job, something like helpdesk etc is easy to get into with no experience & you'll learn quite a lot initially. Be prepared to keep reskilling & relearning, there's no standing still. Ever. There are LOTS of different roles & different types of companies to work for, move around till you find something you WANT to do & enjoy, then potentially specialise down that route. I wouldn't expect to make major progress for 3 years or so but once you reach 'crittical mass' you'll be fine.

[SLacKer]

Courses are fine and everything but there is another way for programmers at least.

If you are relly into programming you do it in your own time and having real working examples of your software are worth so much more than some piece of paper.

[Carlchilli]

Our technical guy is completely self taught, he worked in a small IT company but couldn't get any higher so he started his own business building websites. Networking definitely worked for him...

[Alex]

amir_j said:

Pulse said:

My cousin wants to make the move into IT, which he knows a bit about, and has an interest in, but doesn't have any qualifications. What are the best courses to do, or the best way into it?

He wants to do the A+, but I said it doesn't really mean anything.

1) get some kind of basic it job- small company will be good as will learn a lot more than just a defined role.
2) keep eyes peeled, network and chat to others
3) study, study, study- less life you have the better for the first few years
4) move companies every 12-14 months and use 1, 2 & 3 to climb up the ladder

Worked for me.

Me too. I have never had any formal training, but I have worked in IT for 20 years; currently on front office systems at "a top tier investment bank."

Edited to add: However, wish i could get OUT of IT now!

Edited by Alex on Thursday 4th September 10:20

[Hein]

Good way into IT could be starting at helpdesk. If you want to become a system engineer.


However what i would do if i had have known what i do today :

Buy a Cisco lab cheap 2nd hand
Go and study CCNA course and get into the network world.

Can be learned by lot of people, just need to put time in it.

[MarkoTVR]

I'd say it'd best be to get into a company in a junior position and spend some time working up. They can then pay for your training so it doesn't come out of your own pocket. Perhaps even more importantly, you can be in the right environment to use it, as unless they're daft you'll be getting training that will be used daily (although the opposite can happen).

Move around a bit further down the career path to get breadth of experience, and then either pursue the senior roles in a good company or set up on your own.

That's my 2p.

Edited by MarkoTVR on Tuesday 9th September 21:38