Recently our team represented AOP at two local college career fairs where they met countless students who expressed interest in working in the tech field. With nearly 60 years of combined IT experience, our team has plenty of personal insights and advice on just how to land the tech role you want. Here’s what the experts had to say.
Advice for High School Students:
• Gain everyday experience by offering to help family and friends troubleshoot their computers or set up their home Wi-Fi.
• Seek out free resources like YouTube (we’ve added some of our favorites at the bottom) or Hack the Box (https://www.hackthebox.com/) to start learning the different aspects of tech.
• Get a job at a big box store like BestBuy, Apple, or Office Depot. These companies possess great standardized policies that allow them to provide the same level of service across hundreds or thousands of locations. This type of job will teach you the basics of device troubleshooting as well as how to handle customers.
• Start a resume. The earlier you start a resume, and more regularly you update it, the less daunting it will be.
• Recommended Certifications: CompTIA A+
Advice for College Students:
• Get a job in customer service (waiting tables, bartending, working at a retailer, etc.) to help build up your personal communication skills.
• Find an internship in IT. Be open-minded about the industry the internship is in. You’ll get valuable takeaways from each and every industry.
• Join a local tech meet up group to network and get a foot in the door with local industry members.
• Set up a home lab to start learning the ins and outs of networking, systems administration, cybersecurity.
• Set up some programming labs or scour GitHub to find projects that interest you and start contributing and building a portfolio if you want to get into programming and software.
• Recommended Certifications: CompTIA Net+, Security+, Linux+ , CCNA, Certified Ethical Hacker
Advice for College Graduates and Adults:
• Find a job at an MSP (Managed Service Provider). This will give you the greatest amount of exposure to a wide variety of IT projects in the shortest amount of time.
• You can then use that MSP experience to narrow down what path you want to follow.
• Research and learn about compliance frameworks as they apply to your potential employers (NIST, ISO 27001, SOC2).
• If you haven’t already, join a local networking group to keep your tech knowledge up-to-date and to meet others in the field.
There's more than one way to skin a cat, right? Well same thing is true (but with less violence) when it comes to career paths. Finding the right path for you to may look different than what your friend or family member went through, and that’s okay. There are many ways to achieve your goal of working in the technology field.
YouTube Channels We Love:
Jeremy's IT Lab – This channel is for people looking to learn about Cisco networking, and networking in general.
https://www.youtube.com/@JeremysITLab
NetworkChuck – A great resource that covers all aspects of technology and the various certifications available.
https://www.youtube.com/@NetworkChuck
John Hammond – Covers all things cybersecurity and dissects cybercrime activity to learn how to protect against them.
https://www.youtube.com/@_JohnHammond
Professor Messer – Great to study for CompTIA A+, Network+, Security+, and other IT certifications.
https://www.youtube.com/@professormesser
Intune Training – Intune.Training is a channel all about Intune and how to set it up to take advantage of all the features it has to offer.
https://www.youtube.com/@IntuneTraining