How do I get a job working on computers?

[DrDigitized2]

I was home schooled by my mother who decided to do it her own way. Lets just say I learned to stop asking so many questions. Every time I asked something my father would make me go write a report about it. So unfortunately I don't have a 3.8 GPA. I do however have a GED. Not that a GED is going to get me into Georgetown. lol

Edited February 4, 2012 by DrDigitized2

[Tjj226_Angel]

Blah. A degree isn't going to get you jack ****. Seriously.....it wont. I applied to a small PC store around here and I got the job. Now mind you there are a TON of defense contractors around here and a lot of people have been laid off.......a lot of IT people in particular with their fancy degrees. I got the job over those people quite literally because I upstaged some other guy being asked question by the manager, and the manager turned to him and said to the guy "bye, he is hired". Mind you I don't have ANY sort of degree of ANY kind, and this guy had is masters in business and has A+ certification. I ended up quitting because of poor business practice.

 

I did learn enough to start my own small business. All I do is make house calls to fix PCs. Now mind you I don't have ANY certs or anything like that. What I did was I typed up a written agreement that released me from all responsibility, I made a new email address, I put a add in the newspaper with the email address and let the business come to me.

 

Now mind you that there is no steady income. However, everything is up to you. Your hours, what you do, how much you charge, and how big your business becomes. If you really wanted to go after this and peruse it, then you could open up a small shop.

 

I met someone when I went up to Boston a whole back at a Mircocenter who basically had his own consulting business. It was just him, and only him. No certs, no degree, no nothing but a love of computers. He said he was on the road all the time, he didn't have any time for himself, but at his age of 24, he was a millionaire. Now I do want to say his case was an extreme. He was not the most well adjusted guy on the world, and he is not the sort of person I would want to meet in a dark alley late at night. I attribute this to his work habits and occupational hazard. However, it does go to show just how far you could go on your own.

 

Considering it doesn't sound like there is a whole lot of clients in your area to begin with, I would do it on your own rather than actually getting a job.

[greengiant912]

Thanks everyone for your help. I knew that a few people at this site would have an idea of how to go about this. You have all given me a lot to think about and I look forward to exploring more.

 

Its amazing how many sites there are out there that are SCAMS. Its sad really. We all work hard for our money only to have it striped away by these fake courses that say they will teach you everything to start your own business in this field but they don't even prepare you for any Certs or Degrees.

 

Oh and I looked up Pheonix and ITTech. They want around $40k for a 2 year degree that will get you a job making what like $13-15 an hour. How are you supposed to pay that back?

 

Yeah, I pay about $24k a year for a private liberal arts University. That's pretty average for private schools, Marquette is about the same for tuition. State schools will be a lot cheaper...

Blah. A degree isn't going to get you jack ****. Seriously.....it wont. I applied to a small PC store around here and I got the job. Now mind you there are a TON of defense contractors around here and a lot of people have been laid off.......a lot of IT people in particular with their fancy degrees. I got the job over those people quite literally because I upstaged some other guy being asked question by the manager, and the manager turned to him and said to the guy "bye, he is hired". Mind you I don't have ANY sort of degree of ANY kind, and this guy had is masters in business and has A+ certification. I ended up quitting because of poor business practice.

 

I did learn enough to start my own small business. All I do is make house calls to fix PCs. Now mind you I don't have ANY certs or anything like that. What I did was I typed up a written agreement that released me from all responsibility, I made a new email address, I put a add in the newspaper with the email address and let the business come to me.

 

Now mind you that there is no steady income. However, everything is up to you. Your hours, what you do, how much you charge, and how big your business becomes. If you really wanted to go after this and peruse it, then you could open up a small shop.

 

I met someone when I went up to Boston a whole back at a Mircocenter who basically had his own consulting business. It was just him, and only him. No certs, no degree, no nothing but a love of computers. He said he was on the road all the time, he didn't have any time for himself, but at his age of 24, he was a millionaire. Now I do want to say his case was an extreme. He was not the most well adjusted guy on the world, and he is not the sort of person I would want to meet in a dark alley late at night. I attribute this to his work habits and occupational hazard. However, it does go to show just how far you could go on your own.

 

Considering it doesn't sound like there is a whole lot of clients in your area to begin with, I would do it on your own rather than actually getting a job.

 

 

A degree is as important as you make it. The quality of the degree is only worth the quality of work you put into it. It shows that you are willing to learn, and are hard working. A degree by itself won't get you a job by any means, but it dose set you apart from the competition. If two people came in to an interview both having the same skills, and both seem to be equal, but only one had a degree I would hire the one with the degree...

[Tjj226_Angel]

Yeah, I pay about $24k a year for a private liberal arts University. That's pretty average for private schools, Marquette is about the same for tuition. State schools will be a lot cheaper...

 

 

 

A degree is as important as you make it. The quality of the degree is only worth the quality of work you put into it. It shows that you are willing to learn, and are hard working. A degree by itself won't get you a job by any means, but it dose set you apart from the competition. If two people came in to an interview both having the same skills, and both seem to be equal, but only one had a degree I would hire the one with the degree...

 

Yes, this is true, but the problem I am seeing with the whole idea is that he will put in more money into college than he will get out. Will it give you and edge? Sure it will, but I mean unless there is a military base in need of a lot of IT professionals that the OP is interested in and the job can actually pay of student loans, then it will be sort of useless in a certain sense. However, it sounds like the OP is more interested in doing this as a sort of hobby job. That being the case, the best thing he can do is to advertise his service to his local community. Especially since it sounds like there is a lack of stores around him to work at.

[CheeseMan42]

Blah. A degree isn't going to get you jack ****. Seriously.....it wont.

 

I wish I would have known this before I got my degree, and then got a job at the place I work where they won't hire you without a degree and at least half of the company has Masters or Doctorates. I can't believe that worthless degree, education, and work experience I got while in college allowed me to get a job with good pay and benefits. I guess I really lucked out by putting in all of that hard work in college and being rewarded for it.

[hardnrg]

Here in the UK, in many sectors, a 2.i is a minimum degree level to get... it's quite hard to achieve, basically it goes like this:

 

1st: only geniuses and people who are clever and worked their arse off get this, and some subjects it's near impossible

2.i ("two one"): this is hard, if you mess about at all you probably won't get this, unless your degree was easy by nature

2.ii ("two two", aka the Desmond): a lot, probably the majority, get this

3rd/pass: you just didn't try lol

 

So, if you didn't get the 2nd highest level possible, you automatically get discarded from applications, like actually instantly without regard for anything.

 

A degree is therefore a key to the opportunity to be considered in many companies...

 

I got a BEng 2.ii, and later a PgDip (postgraduate diploma) and because I didn't have the infamous 2.i it was difficult to even get a reply from literally 100s of applications.

 

It's a shame, because when you finally meet your prospective employers, they almost couldn't give a flying **** about your degree! It's more a HR formality/rule... the employers care more about you, how you think, how you come across, whether you know what you are talking about, whether you are a douche or a genuinely cool dude... I think in IT, knowing your stuff really pays off, so if you can get your foot in that interview door without a degree, you'd better had learnt things inside out some other way...

 

If you can get a job doing anything remotely related to computers, do it, take it and the non-computer experience will also build your overall skill set. I've done some random jobs, but even stuff like data entry, call centres, financial reporting, they all had something which I could pull positive learning from. Data entry (alphanumerical monkey) upped my keys per minute from about 2000 to over 8000. All the office jobs improved my touch-typing speed even though I was already proficient. Financial reporting let me learn MS Office and VBA scripting (I even got a MS VBA cert in that job).

 

You might not get the job you want at first, but even if it's something technical, you can learn a lot... I worked in an electronics store (Maplin, it's components and cable mostly) and man I learnt so much there from just working, we didn't have any training there at all.

 

If you have a genuine ambition to have a career in IT, you'll have the drive and thirst for knowledge to learn with or without academic education. Get some books, download some PDFs, check out some online tutorials and training. Oh, on that note, Microsoft has free training for students, so there are resources that could be shared if you have any friends at school/university... do all the free courses and read up a bit more and you can do the MS Cert exams for something like $100... I think you might even get free re-trys...

 

HTH

[Tjj226_Angel]

You are aware of the OPs situation. I don't he is looking at getting anything more than what a geek squad agent has. He doesn't need a degree if all he is going to be doing is a sort of hobby job.

 

Now unless he considers a "fun job" to be a head of an IT department for some government facility, then we might be talking about something totally different. However, from what I read all he is interested in doing is doing this on the side for some side cash. In which case, no, he doesn't need a degree.

 

Really, you don't NEED a degree to get a high paying IT job either. As long as you have business smarts and know how to grow capital and manage expenses, then you really could be making 6 figures a year without a degree.

 

Either way, unless you want to do some fancy government or large enterprise thing for whatever reason, then an IT degree is really useless.

 

............On a personal note, I don't mean to be annoying, but can you change your image profile? It really creeps me out...........

[CheeseMan42]

You are aware of the OPs situation. I don't he is looking at getting anything more than what a geek squad agent has. He doesn't need a degree if all he is going to be doing is a sort of hobby job.

 

Now unless he considers a "fun job" to be a head of an IT department for some government facility, then we might be talking about something totally different. However, from what I read all he is interested in doing is doing this on the side for some side cash. In which case, no, he doesn't need a degree.

 

Really, you don't NEED a degree to get a high paying IT job either. As long as you have business smarts and know how to grow capital and manage expenses, then you really could be making 6 figures a year without a degree.

 

Either way, unless you want to do some fancy government or large enterprise thing for whatever reason, then an IT degree is really useless.

 

............On a personal note, I don't mean to be annoying, but can you change your image profile? It really creeps me out...........

 

I'm just trying to get the point across that a blanket statement of degrees are worthless is not correct. Not everyone with a degree is going to get a job, but not everyone without a degree is going to get a job either. In this case, a degree probably isn't necessary to get a geek squad type job.

 

And I agree, that little stick figure on fire creeps me out.

[paulktreg]

I've read somewhere that a good degree in the UK will get you, on average, a salary that is 25% above what you'd get without. Make of that what you will?

[hardnrg]

I just thought someone who is 26 years old and asking about a job in computing was considering entering a career rather than a "hobby job"

 

I'm certainly not the oldest person on this forum, but I've been working for a while and I can't think of many people in IT that didn't have some sort of qualification. Maybe some of the junior IT technicians at high schools...

 

There are definitely entry-level IT jobs (I've just mentioned one) that don't need qualifications, but they're so damn competitive there are literally 100s of applications for each position. Maybe ask around some schools and local businesses to see if they take on junior technicians in their IT dept.

 

If you're not working over a summer, you could maybe do work experience / internship work for free (sometimes they give you an allowance for books or food or something).

 

Make use of a careers advice centre if you have one locally, as they can point out local businesses and contacts...

[Tjj226_Angel]

I'm just trying to get the point across that a blanket statement of degrees are worthless is not correct. Not everyone with a degree is going to get a job, but not everyone without a degree is going to get a job either. In this case, a degree probably isn't necessary to get a geek squad type job.

 

And I agree, that little stick figure on fire creeps me out.

 

Read the statement again. It says that a degree won't do YOU any good. YOU means the OP, and the OP does not not need one for what he is doing. Note that I didn't say degrees are totally useless for everyone on the planet

 

I am also saying that no one truly needs a degree. You can have it and you can get decent jobs, but this idea in our society that we need a college degree to be successful and make a lot of money is wrong. That is why I said what I said, and as strongly as I did. I felt like that same idea was driving the OP, and I wanted to stop him before he spent 60K for a degree to work at geek squad if you catch my drift.