|
.
Methanar fucked around with this message at 06:20 on Aug 6, 2016 |
#
?
Aug 28, 2014 18:27
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 24, 2024 04:33 |
|
|
Good for you dude. I started my career with a 2 year degree. Got my foot in the door and showed them what I could do. I've been fine ever since, but I will finish my 4 year degree soon at the age of 33...
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2014 18:29
|
|
|
Bob Morales posted:That two year degree can be a foot in the door at a decent company for a decent wage, and you seem pretty motivated and knowledgeable already, so you should do just fine. Or a means of knocking out a bunch of introductory poo poo on the cheap before transferring to a 4 year school to finish up a BS/BA. Community colleges are underrated, IMO. If you go that route you still wind up with the diploma from Big Name School and potentially save a ton of money.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2014 18:34
|
|
|
Docjowles posted:Community colleges are underrated, IMO. We don't really have a lot of those here (in BC, not sure about Alberta where that dude is from) and the few we have are pretty sketchy and lovely, and if you go to one of them they're not usable for transfer credit to a real school.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2014 18:41
|
|
|
Methanar posted:Almost certainly but my alternatives sucked. The college has no onsite living so you need to go out and find a roommate or apartment on your own. I also could have waited a year staying at home doing manual labor at my 11.5/hr job that I wasn't very good at http://imgur.com/a/ng1Na Haha, well good for you. As others have stated, you seem to have a good head on your shoulders and be more driven than the alcohol and pussy-driven guy I was 20 years ago. Or today for that matter...
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2014 18:47
|
|
|
skipdogg posted:Good for you dude. I started my career with a 2 year degree. Got my foot in the door and showed them what I could do. I've been fine ever since, but I will finish my 4 year degree soon at the age of 33...   I'll have mine finished at the ripe age of 32 (next year). Also got my first payment from my gibill in today! 
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2014 18:48
|
|
|
CLAM DOWN posted:We don't really have a lot of those here (in BC, not sure about Alberta where that dude is from) and the few we have are pretty sketchy and lovely, and if you go to one of them they're not usable for transfer credit to a real school. In the States, many of the two-year associate degree colleges are flaky diploma mills. It can be difficult to tell the difference between what's legit and what isn't especially when places like the University of Phoenix spend multi-millions on advertising against totally legitimate but very small local community colleges. They don't have a fancy campus, trendy commercials but they're accredited by the state which is what really counts.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2014 18:56
|
|
|
Tab8715 posted:In the States, many of the two-year associate degree colleges are flaky diploma mills. It can be difficult to tell the difference between what's legit and what isn't especially when places like the University of Phoenix spend multi-millions on advertising against totally legitimate but very small local community colleges. They don't have a fancy campus, trendy commercials but they're accredited by the state which is what really counts. Okay, interesting. We definitely have a very different system up here! It's by province, too.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2014 18:57
|
|
|
Methanar posted:Am I kicking rear end? Yes. Worst case scenario, you've spent 2 years figuring out that you want to do something else, and can transfer to a university with a fair number of GE credits done and a reasonably marketable skill set that will keep you from having to work food service or retail to get yourself through a four-year degree. It sounds like you also have a great opportunity to be speaking Mandarin with a high degree of fluency at the end of two years, which would also be very helpful.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2014 19:56
|
|
|
Docjowles posted:Or a means of knocking out a bunch of introductory poo poo on the cheap before transferring to a 4 year school to finish up a BS/BA. Community colleges are underrated, IMO. If you go that route you still wind up with the diploma from Big Name School and potentially save a ton of money. Assuming it's a CC and not Devry or ITT
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2014 20:20
|
|
|
I'm wondering if anyone can tell me what I can do to get ahead on my studies in Information Security. I've got an AAS and thankfully the school I'm starting at now has accepted pretty much all the credits I earned in my AAS for Information Systems towards a BS in IT Information Security. I kind of sucked at the classes I have taken that were heavily focused on programming. What am I in for by studying Information Security and what can I do to help prepare myself for these studies?
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2014 22:03
|
|
|
Sarcasmatron posted:Yes. Sarcasmatron, how'd that job offer for for you? Looks like it was a sweet deal. On the "Senior" title thing, I'm currently a "manager" who reports to a Senior Manager. When I transferred to this department I thought I was her equal and it seems I've proven it. She agrees, my director agrees and my VP agrees. Questions is, how do we carve up the department in a logical manner. Also, the last couple of times I've talked to my VP we discussed re-orging his whole department so I might be bouncing out of this group completely. Although I'm not sure what that director is like to work for. But I've gone through so many managers at this place I'll be fine.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2014 23:10
|
|
|
In our org, titles are tied to pay-bands, so if you want to pay someone X, they need to have an appropriate title. We have quite a few 'Director' level people with no direct or indirect reports at all. Our ace Linux guy actually has a Sr. Software Developer title to fit his well deserved salary into the appropriate pay band. Orgs are weird.
|
|
#
?
Aug 28, 2014 23:32
|
|
|
Had a client once that had a rule: Only vice presidents and above are allowed to have even potential access to customer data. This was a gigantic multistate bank with hundreds of workers in its IT division. One building was basically a shopping mall full of VPs of telephony and network storage and poo poo. Vice presidents of helpdesk. 
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2014 01:15
|
|
|
AutoArgus posted:Had a client once that had a rule: Only vice presidents and above are allowed to have even potential access to customer data. Wait, don't bank tellers have access to customer data? Was the person taking your cash over the counter a Vice President of Customer Service?
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2014 01:36
|
|
|
I'm a Senior Specialist Operational Security. A more appropriate title would be Pretty loving Jr. Intrusion Analyst Slash Some Other Stuff. Senior and Engineer don't mean anything.
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2014 02:01
|
|
|
Also, I don't know if it is relevant but I don't even work in IT currently because my current job cutting meat pays pretty well at $14/hr, with potential to make $10 more on the hour in about three years, and great benefits through Costco. Am I better off looking for a job in IT now while finishing my BS before my pay gets too high to compete with my current position, or should I hang out at Costco until I get my degree and certs?
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2014 02:13
|
|
|
Drunk Orc posted:Also, I don't know if it is relevant but I don't even work in IT currently because my current job cutting meat pays pretty well at $14/hr, with potential to make $10 more on the hour in about three years, and great benefits through Costco. Am I better off looking for a job in IT now while finishing my BS before my pay gets too high to compete with my current position, or should I hang out at Costco until I get my degree and certs?
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2014 02:20
|
|
|
Misogynist posted:You're in a better position in any career with more experience in that career. That said, I'm assuming you're going to school in the daytime, and part-time IT work with any kind of meaningful experience behind it is tough to come by. See what's out there, I guess? Well I work full time during the day and do my school at night online. I should probably just talk to a recruiter I suppose and tell them this stuff I guess?
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2014 02:25
|
|
|
Drunk Orc posted:Well I work full time during the day and do my school at night online. I should probably just talk to a recruiter I suppose and tell them this stuff I guess?
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2014 02:26
|
|
|
Misogynist posted:Recruiters are great to talk to when you become mid-level/senior-level, but they're almost universally awful when you're looking for entry-level positions. I mean, don't hesitate to do whatever you can to get your foot in the door, but at that experience level and payscale you're probably going to do much better by studying your rear end off, networking professionally around whatever area of IT you're particularly passionate about, and doing whatever you can to find yourself work that's not a call center somewhere. So I should hold off on jumping ship from my current spot until I can find something worthwhile and study in the mean time? Never having a job in IT before its all kind of new to me and I don't know what to expect as far as salary. I'm sort of ashamed I did the work to get my AAS and have never used it 😰
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2014 02:41
|
|
|
Drunk Orc posted:So I should hold off on jumping ship from my current spot until I can find something worthwhile and study in the mean time? Never having a job in IT before its all kind of new to me and I don't know what to expect as far as salary. I'm sort of ashamed I did the work to get my AAS and have never used it 😰 In my humble opinion, you could probably make equivalent pay right now in IT with your AAS, with the chance to make more than a $10/hr increase in 3 years. Getting started is the hardest part because it feels so daunting. Don't put it off. Also get started on your BS.
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2014 03:07
|
|
|
What's the catch with recruiters? I see the benefits but why obligate yourself to a third party?
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2014 03:17
|
|
|
Fiendish Dr. Wu posted:In my humble opinion, you could probably make equivalent pay right now in IT with your AAS, with the chance to make more than a $10/hr increase in 3 years. Getting started is the hardest part because it feels so daunting. Don't put it off. Also get started on your BS. Right on dude that's good to know, I always worried I would find myself stuck because I'd take a drastic pay cut to switch careers. I plan on starting on my BS next month! Thanks guys!
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2014 03:19
|
|
|
Drunk Orc posted:Right on dude that's good to know, I always worried I would find myself stuck because I'd take a drastic pay cut to switch careers. I plan on starting on my BS next month! Thanks guys! The good thing is you're not committed to taking the first thing that comes your way. If you don't like it, don't take it! There will be more opportunities. Especially if you enjoy your current job, it's not like you're unemployed (then it's different - take what you can get). The actual pay depends on where you live but I'm pretty confident you can find something equivalent.
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2014 03:27
|
|
|
KuNova posted:What's the catch with recruiters? I see the benefits but why obligate yourself to a third party? The only disadvantage to working with recruiters is that, given two candidates with equal qualifications and equal salary requirements, the one coming from the recruiter is going to cost more to hire. This can sometimes work to your disadvantage if you're head-to-head with a direct applicant who doesn't have a headhunter looking for a cut.
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2014 03:38
|
|
|
And sometimes companies only hire by way of recruiters.
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2014 03:47
|
|
|
Fiendish Dr. Wu posted:And sometimes companies only hire by way of recruiters.
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2014 04:23
|
|
|
MC Fruit Stripe posted:Which just seems shockingly expensive to me (my company is one of these companies). Contractors are a fixed expense for a fixed time span, though, which is an easier sell on the budget
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2014 04:37
|
|
|
evol262 posted:Contractors are a fixed expense for a fixed time span, though, which is an easier sell on the budget Plus they're a way around bureaucratic nonsense. My team has no headcount for a new hire, but it does have an unreasonably large quarterly petty cash budget, so they brought on 2 contractors, including myself.
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2014 05:34
|
|
|
AutoArgus posted:Had a client once that had a rule: Only vice presidents and above are allowed to have even potential access to customer data. In a world full of gloriously stupid job titles, this might take the cake  Amazing.Sales organizations are great for this, too. Even the random high school intern is Chief Senior Executive Director of Interning because the more impressive-sounding qualifiers on your title, the more likely the poor sap you're cold calling is to take your call. At least I guess that must be the logic.
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2014 05:51
|
|
|
It took me a long time to realize that I need to care about my title, because while I don't care about my title, other people do. Junior helpdesk tech? Yeah why don't you shave about 2k off that salary and make that "senior virtualization engineer" or something, because I want this job, but I want a next job too.
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2014 06:08
|
|
|
MC Fruit Stripe posted:It took me a long time to realize that I need to care about my title, because while I don't care about my title, other people do. This is why I questioned my new position, because the level of jobs I'm applying for often ask for X experience in a senior position. With a bub on the way I've been more concerned about keeping my current salary + continuing employment through the whole outsourcing process. Since that is all locked in, I'm happy enough. On a different topic, I feel like I need to put together a guide for the help desk staff on what they need to do before they escalate to me. Due to outsourcing my team has gone from 5 to 2 and we're getting hammered, I need to be spending most of my time keeping our aging infrastructure from crashing and burning and not dealing with single user issues. The number of jobs coming through where there is no information in the ticket and no basic troubleshooting has been performed are driving me crazy. Do any of you use a checklist/guide lines for escalation?
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2014 06:26
|
|
|
That bank reminds me of Wolf of Wall Street where every call they made out was made by a "senior vice president". Are you sure the bank wasn't run by that guy?
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2014 08:46
|
|
|
dogstile posted:That bank reminds me of Wolf of Wall Street where every call they made out was made by a "senior vice president". My linkedin front page is filled with inspiring Jordan Belfort quotes and image macros. It's good to know which people I should work with if I want to end up in prison.
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2014 15:40
|
|
|
MC Fruit Stripe posted:It took me a long time to realize that I need to care about my title, because while I don't care about my title, other people do. This has been a painful realization for me. I've done work far and above my job title. Configured all of new cisco switches and ASA's as they came in as a Helpdesk Tech. Helped rewrite the company IT policy with the IT director and company president as a Helpdesk Tech. Then when I finally look to move on it's hard to get people to accept you at that next level because they just glance at your job title and then move on. My last company that I loved working at gave me the go ahead to just make up whatever job title and that they would %100 back me but I just havent had the gall to try it yet.
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2014 15:43
|
|
|
BaseballPCHiker posted:This has been a painful realization for me. I've done work far and above my job title. Configured all of new cisco switches and ASA's as they came in as a Helpdesk Tech. Helped rewrite the company IT policy with the IT director and company president as a Helpdesk Tech. Then when I finally look to move on it's hard to get people to accept you at that next level because they just glance at your job title and then move on. My last company that I loved working at gave me the go ahead to just make up whatever job title and that they would %100 back me but I just havent had the gall to try it yet. Broadly speaking, what HR is willing to confirm about a former employee and what your new company is willing to ask are both pretty small. Mostly, it's dates you worked there, title, eligibility for rehire, and maybe salary. A lot of places won't even provide one (or two, or three) of those. You're probably safe to make up a title which more accurately reflects whatever you think you were doing (within reason -- calling yourself a Sr. Network Architect may get you the wrong places). Especially in an industry with bizarro/meaningless titles. Anecdotally, I worked for one company twice, for two 18 month contracts. Both times, I was working the same position (team technical lead) on the same team (UNIX). First time, my title was "Operating Systems Engineer III". The second, it was "Application Systems Engineer II". On my resume, I put "Sr. Sysadmin", because it reflects what I actually did. Stripe has a point, maybe, but by the time they're calling your old employer to find out your title, you're pretty far through anyway. Personally, I'd never take a pay cut for a better title. Call me "Printer Toner Intern" if you want, because if I'm up for a position as "Sr. Virtualization Engineer" and you're calling to find out about my last job, you've probably already decided that I'm capable of doing the work, because I've already gone through your tech interviews. Conversely, we've all watched people "fail upwards" with 6 months here and 6 months there, but it's just long enough to put on their resume even if they probably haven't actually accomplished anything other than getting let go for not performing, and suddenly they're translating their "5 years of development/admin/engineering/whatever experience" into senior level roles, and 5 years of failing at that into management. Don't ever trust titles, unless you're inside an org where being a "${seniority} ${job} ${level}" determines your pay scale, and even then you should only care until you leave.
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2014 16:20
|
|
|
My teams Director told me the same thing. Call myself whatever I like externally, my title just basically exists as an attachment to the pay grade I'm in for internal means. evol262 posted:Contractors are a fixed expense for a fixed time span, though, which is an easier sell on the budget So true. No head count availability? Hire a contractor. You can always convert them later to employee if they are a rock star and the position is added to the count.
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2014 16:26
|
|
|
BaseballPCHiker posted:This has been a painful realization for me. I've done work far and above my job title. Configured all of new cisco switches and ASA's as they came in as a Helpdesk Tech. Helped rewrite the company IT policy with the IT director and company president as a Helpdesk Tech. Then when I finally look to move on it's hard to get people to accept you at that next level because they just glance at your job title and then move on. My last company that I loved working at gave me the go ahead to just make up whatever job title and that they would %100 back me but I just havent had the gall to try it yet. It's been mentioned in this thread to exhaustion but titles don't mean much. The titles and responsibilities for them vary from company to company. For example I'm an operation systems manager but my duties are probably much different at my job than those of system mgrs at another company. The pay is most definitely all over the board as well. A resume is just to get you an interview. If you think your title is keeping you down I'd extrapolate on it. For example- "Junior Software Engineer with experience in...", and then once you're at the interview stage you can really go in-depth about all the things you had a hand in. Also, if a company gives you the greenlight to use whatever title you want on your resume take them up on it man! Don't go overboard and say you were a director or something, but definitely make yourself sound good. Essentially when you're job hunting you're trying to sell yourself to a company. Don't undervalue your previous accomplishments or work experience.
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2014 16:29
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 24, 2024 04:33 |
|
|
quote:So true. No head count availability? Hire a contractor. You can always convert them later to employee if they are a rock star and the position is added to the count. Unless your rockstar contractor refuses to take less money for the F/T employment and there's too much red tape to get that kind of pay grade approved in this years budget  Titles matter in the sense that if you put Senior on your resume, and go on an interview and don't seem like you know poo poo all about your niche, you're going to get mocked relentlessly after you leave and will disappoint a few people.
|
|
#
?
Aug 29, 2014 16:31
|
|
