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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: August 14th, 2023

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  • First off, aiming to start in security is a fools errand. Security is one of the many paths that your career might take after you gain some knowledge.

    Some more random thoughts before real advice. The two hardest things in IT are getting into help desk, and getting out of it. The reason is two fold: 1) help desk is the great entry point for the greater IT industry, and 2) one person in a help desk role is fairly similar to another when it’s time to move out of help desk.

    Now: If you have the time, go to your local community college and take their it/networking/security program. The degree will help - you won’t skip help desk (unless your lucky), but you are better equipped for getting out of it. You will also learn a bunch of stuff, get some projects to stick on a resume, etc.

    If you don’t have that time you can go the cert route. Be warned however - certs do not substitute for real experience. Do not fall for the trap of thinking that getting X cert is your ticket to Y job. You will be in for a ride awakening when your sitting across from someone like me that only asks situational, hypotheticall questions with no correct answer ( I care about how you think and approach problems over book smarts).

    Ok. Last bit of advice: the 10 things I look for (in order) when interviewing entry level help desk.

    1. customer service skills,
    2. ability to learn,
    3. customer service.
    4. some mild interest in tech.
    5. customer service.
    6. the ability to learn troubleshooting.
    7. customer service.
    8. the ability to admit you don’t know…
    9. customer service.
    10. not being an asshole.

    I can teach you how to fix a printer, design a network, or spin up infrastructure in the cloud. I can’t teach you how to act around people.





  • You being up an interesting point. Let’s expand electricity a little bit.

    If I flip a switch the lights come on. I don’t need to understand it but someone does. And because electricity can be deadly of handled wrong, everyone in your proximity handles electricity the exact same way (and this is enforced via law). This means only a few people anywhere need to have the deep knowledge of how it works for the rest of us to get light.

    Compare this to computing - sure you click the button and get Facebook but that button could be designed any number of ways. Like electricity the generation who tinkered is past (well passing), but unlike electricity firm standards on how to design your Facebook button have not been written in blood.

    I for one am terrified of what the next 10 years of the business IT landscape is going to look like as we need to start absorbing kids who grew up on iPads.