[Help] Starter jobs in IT

chickens · Sep 15, 2024

There’s a company called Netbuilder that I did some work for some time ago. They run an academy whereby they both train you up and get you work placements (taking their cut of your salary of course, that’s the business model)

It’s a great way to get started and get work on your CV, but I haven’t used them for some time. Google Netbuilder Academy and go from there. They used to be based in Worthing.

Tom Hark Preston Park · Sep 15, 2024

beorhthelm said:
if he's going development but not going to uni, look up the syllubus for CompSci degrees, learn the patterns and algorithms. seen many self taught programmers that are promsing but dont show knowledge of basics and dont get through technical interviews. get a portfolio of work together, showing can work with data, work with popular libraries. learn and have a git repo with (good) code on show.

also consider testing as entry point in to work environment.

These are a good call. Every project needs a standalone formal test team. Every hotshot dev always assumes that their code is always error-free. And maybe they're occasionally right. But link it up with other bits of code and the errors fairly tumble out. For a system/user acceptance tester, no knowedge whatsoever is required of the underlying dev language du jour. Formal qualification is the ISTQB. As a career path, you could do a lot worse. IMHO, like

maffew · Sep 15, 2024

Westdene Seagull said:
Powershell would also be a great step into Azure.

Yeah, mostly we use azure cli more like bash, but azure fundamentals is a nice entry exam I'd recommend most getting into IT to sit

WATFORD zero · Sep 15, 2024

Tom Hark Preston Park said:
Might well have changed since I were a lad, but when hiring back then a person with six months relevant experience usually trumped a graduate with no experience. So maybe think long and hard before committing to a huge burden of student debt

Unfortunately I believe it has changed a lot since a few GCE's, 6 months on a TOPS course, and a City and Guilds in programming got you a career in IT :wink:

Maybe the suggestions around trying to get something in support, help desk, testing etc may be best to get started without a degree. Even 14 years ago, when I knocked it on the head, the huge majority of developers (including trainees) that we employed had degrees, and the very occasional ones who didn't had a lot of experience :down:

Tom Hark Preston Park · Sep 15, 2024

WATFORD zero said:
Unfortunately I believe it has changed a lot since a few GCE's, a 6 months TOPS course, and a City and Guilds in programming got you a career in IT wink:

Maybe the suggestions around trying to get something in support, help desk, testing etc may be best to get started without a degree. Even 14 years ago, when I knocked it on the head, the huge majority of developers (including trainees) that we employed had degrees, and the very occasional ones who didn't had a lot of experience

Couple of nondescript A levels and a 6 week COBOL training course courtesy of the Civil Service actually :wink:

Westdene Seagull · Sep 15, 2024

maffew said:
Yeah, mostly we use azure cli more like bash, but azure fundamentals is a nice entry exam I'd recommend most getting into IT to sit

Indeed AZ900 would be a good qualification to get. @Gwylan - might be worth getting a subsciption to Cloud Guru - has courses in Azure, AMS and GCP - the three main clouds. Cost ~£250 for a years unlimited use.

Eric the meek · Sep 15, 2024

Tom Hark Preston Park said:
These are a good call. Every project needs a standalone formal test team. Every hotshot dev always assumes that their code is always error-free. And maybe they're occasionally right. But link it up with other bits of code and the errors fairly tumble out. For a system/user acceptance tester, no knowedge whatsoever is required of the underlying dev language du jour. Formal qualification is the ISTQB. As a career path, you could do a lot worse. IMHO, like

I used to be a test analyst, both perm and then contract. My 25 year old is wondering whether to give it a go. He has a little experience of games testing, with some repeat business, which we could flavour up on the CV. Having dealt with recruitment agencies during my 12 odd years of contracting, I'm thinking they might like an 'intern' on their books, as they could get him for a rate way below market rate, but charge him out at a decent margin.

Am I being naive? I've been out of IT for 9 years now. I would be interested in your and anyone else's opinion.

Tom Hark Preston Park · Sep 15, 2024

Eric the meek said:
I used to be a test analyst, both perm and then contract. My 25 year old is wondering whether to give it a go. He has a little experience of games testing, wuth some repeat business, which we could flavour up on the CV. Having dealt with recruitment agencies during my 12 odd years of contracting, I'm thinking they might like an 'intern' on their books, as they could get him for a rate way below market rate, but charge him out at a decent margin.

Am I being naive? I've been out of IT for 9 years now. I would be interested in your and anyone else's opinion.

My experience before I retired more or less aligns with yours, tho I only switched from dev to testing during one of the periodic recessions when all the dev work dried up. Then went contracting pronto tonto. I would say that for continuity of work, testing is a far superior option to being a dev, in that it's completely independent of the underlying computer language - of which you need to know precisely nothing. You just need to know how to test a system - any system - in a methodical way. IMHO it's a future-proofed career path

maffew · Sep 15, 2024

Westdene Seagull said:
Indeed AZ900 would be a good qualification to get. @Gwylan - might be worth getting a subsciption to Cloud Guru - has courses in Azure, AMS and GCP - the three main clouds. Cost ~£250 for a years unlimited use

You work in cloud Westdene? It's def good career path now, and the associate exams aren't to hard in azure, just working towards my data engineering in azure cert, we are heavily invested in azure and power platform, though done/do a fair in gcp

Eric the meek · Sep 15, 2024

WATFORD zero said:
Unfortunately I believe it has changed a lot since a few GCE's, 6 months on a TOPS course, and a City and Guilds in programming got you a career in IT

Nearly.

Degree in Geography, unemployed for a while, TOPS Cobol course in 1984, career in IT (programming, then testing contracts), retired at 56. Job done

Dave the OAP · Sep 15, 2024

If he wanted to get into the support side, has he looked at ServiceNow?

when I were a business continuity guru, before the Americans shut us down, we used SN and it was a very good service desk etc platform and was constantly evolving. A lot of companies we looked after used it as their main SD platform.

get him to have a look on th web on their site. They are always advertising for people to train on their packages.

WATFORD zero · Sep 15, 2024

Eric the meek said:
Nearly.

Degree in Geography, unemployed for a while, TOPS Cobol course in 1984, career in IT (programming, then testing contracts), retired at 56. Job done

TOPS Cobol 1983 (Chichester ?) retired at 50. What a cracking course :thumbsup:

Eric the meek · Sep 15, 2024

Tom Hark Preston Park said:
My experience before I retired more or less aligns with yours, tho I only switched from dev to testing during one of the periodic recessions when all the dev work dried up. Then went contracting pronto tonto. I would say that for continuity of work, testing is a far superior option to being a dev, in that it's completely independent of the underlying computer language - of which you need to know precisely nothing. You just need to know how to test a system - any system - in a methodical way. IMHO it's a future-proofed career path

Your final points are spot on in my experience.

Did you find testing to be a piece of piss compared to programming/developing? I did. It was dead easy finding fault in other people's work. Quite entertaining at times as well. Some people couldn't handle the 'officaldom' they thought I brought to the team.

DFL JCL · Sep 15, 2024

Our firm has used these guys in the past to recruit IT apprentices. Not looking at the moment but I'd definitely recommend your son taking a look.

Home

IT Apprenticeships. We start careers through IT and Tech apprenticeships, training and recruitment, and help employers utilise their apprenticeship levy.

www.justit.co.uk

WATFORD zero · Sep 15, 2024

Tom Hark Preston Park said:
My experience before I retired more or less aligns with yours, tho I only switched from dev to testing during one of the periodic recessions when all the dev work dried up. Then went contracting. You just need to know how to test a system - any system - in a methodical way. IMHO it's a future-proofed career path

For new products / additional functionality, but even before I finished, we had automated most regression testing across our product range

Eric the meek · Sep 15, 2024

WATFORD zero said:
TOPS Cobol 1983 (Chichester ?) retired at 50. What a cracking course

Good Lord. My course was at Epsom. I got a job just after I finished it. I bumped into another chap who lives in Peacehaven who was on the same course. He had never worked in IT; he was selling stuff on a car boot sale. Carpe diem. Take your chances.

P.S. Retired at 50? Impressive.

Tom Hark Preston Park · Sep 15, 2024

Eric the meek said:
Your final points are spot on in my experience.

Did you find testing to be a piece of piss compared to programming/developing? I did. It was dead easy finding fault in other people's work. Quite entertaining at times as well. Some people couldn't handle the 'officaldom' they thought I brought to the team.

Definitely easier. Tho clearly you need to be able to document and replicate the fault. A comparative piece of piss tho

Tom Hark Preston Park · Sep 15, 2024

WATFORD zero said:
For new products / additional functionality, but even before I finished, we had automated most regression testing across our product range

Always found automated regression testing to be more trouble than it was worth tbh

Professor Plum · Sep 15, 2024

Gwylan said:
My son completed his Btech in IT (Level 3) in June and is looking for a starter job/apprenticeship to take the first step in IT as a career. He's not having much luck so far; he's spoken to a few companies but they're looking for graduates. He's signed up for a few job boards but there's nothing there and recruitment agencies say they only take on experienced staff. He doesn't want to go to university, partly because he doesn't want to be in debt and partly because he's a really hands-on and likes learning on the job. And yet, this is beginning to look like the only option. Any IT gurus out there who can offer advice or, even better, know of companies that take on IT trainees?

I can’t offer any information on actual companies or routes to take but it’s important to be more specific about which branch of IT we’re talking about here. It’s a bit like saying "I want a job in business", it can mean multiple things. IT could be anything from security and building/maintaining a network, to programming, web design, sys admins in a big company, quality assurance and testing, database administration, and loads more. If your son has a definite idea of what he’s good at and interested in, he can be more focused in his job searches. That said, if he's too single-minded he might be closing off avenues so there’s a balance there.

The best general advice I can give would be to be proactive. It’s no use anymore just waiting for adverts to pop up. And famously, the majority of openings are never advertised at all. Spread the word as much as possible that he’s looking for a job, and what he wants to do. Business owners/ managers like enthusiastic, proactive people. Get him to post something on local Facebook groups. Make sure he’s joined LinkedIn and create a profile that shows his best qualities. And of course make sure he has a good, eye-catching CV, and review it from time to time. Good luck to him..

WATFORD zero · Sep 15, 2024

Tom Hark Preston Park said:
Always found automated regression testing to be more trouble than it was worth tbh

We had our products on a few thousand client desktops, so our annual (and some products Bi-annual) releases required immense amounts of regression testing to check we hadn't f***ed up any of the clients we already had :wink:

Setting up a good few thousand data sets and functional scenarios was a huge task, but once done although it obviously needed updating every release, it worked quite well and saved huge amounts of cost and effort.

Another thing people don't consider unless you have products installed on lots of disparate users, across lots of different industries, is that what may be a 'bug' in the way the system operates is normally being used by one of the clients who wants it to works that way. So you can't just fix it, you have to document it and make it a 'flagged feature' in order for it to work the right way and the wrong way :lolol:

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[Help] Starter jobs in IT

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