Double harsh that J4CKO!

Oracle OFA DBA Contracting myself - till the plug gets pulled Q1 '10 then I'll be working on the bins I guess.

 

Dont fall for the contract "hype" its a 2 edged sword, where as it looks good, you lose a considerable ammount doing it, plus the work will dry up as its the "in thing" to off shore IT services now.
Benefits of contracting:- more money (thats it)
Disadvantages of contracting:- unable to get a mortgage, no pension, no unemployment benefit (nothing from the state basically) no financial security, no union support, no holiday pay (its a long list, I could fill half a page with the disadvantages as I use to contract).
It looks good, its not really.

To the OP, it will be very hard to find a good permenant position with decent money, especially where you are, most of the big jobs are in the cities (london mainly) so you will need to think hard about what your after and where you want to go with this career

Tony

 

Was that for me?
I did my CCNA about 6 years ago now

 

i did my CCNA and CCNP about 6 years ago now -- but cisco are pretty strict about re-certifying, if you dont, you loose the qualification full stop

but as IT qualifications go they are quite well respected

 

I'm a former programmer/analyst but I'm now a Computer Science and IT lecturer in FE/HE.

I wouldn't choose to go back into industry.

 

Friend of mine did the CCNA course online and has just got a job on £350 a day .. (before tax) he didnt even need to pass the course.. just proved his knowledge in interview.

 

I've done the CCNA course just to backup some extra skills but I doubt your friend got a £350 per day off the back of the course alone.

It's a hard course but I can't imagine anyone walking out of the course and straight into a job, it gives you the fundamentals but it does not prepare you for real world scenarios.

Fair play to him though, if he can do it why the hell not

Darren

 

dont do the 1 week course where you learn just what you need to know to pass then forget it all a week later.
guy next to me did that and can barely explain the different between network devices or ip addressing.

 

He worked in one of the customer facing departments for an ISP and was on 18k .. based on his interview he secured the job... his interview was passed because he did the course .. he didnt do the exam .. so yeah, he got the job because he did the course !

 

I presume you mean he was on 18k before this job interview?

£350 a day makes his salary somewhere close to £90,000 a year. Hard to believe you can get that sort of money from solely doing (and not passing) one course...

 

His Hayes IT contract says £350 a day

edit: but I'm not going to argue about someone elses rate of pay, I have no interest in it, just sharing stories.

 

One other consideration you need to make if going permie is IT as a service role or IT as a provider role. By this I mean, working in a IT role as a support service for a company who's core business is not IT - say, NatWest or working for for a company who are a provider of IT services to other companies such as Accenture.

I work for one of the later, albeit not in an IT role these days (Thank God!). Many of the roles that can be "black-boxed": like development, testing, helpdesk, etc. have been offshored where we can throw large numbers of people at the same task for a fraction of the price.

If you choose to jump, be careful not to jump into an area that is on its way overseas!

 

To be fair to all the arguements, there isn't really a "secure" side to any of IT now, the way things are going the only people that will have a job in IT are those that work for datacenters hosting other peoples IT equipment.

Alot of companies seem to be outsourcing all of their IT, have jeff all equipment on site as it all sits in a datacenter that someone else looks after... out of sight out of mind... And now the next Fad has come along it's even less likely that companies will be taking on real experienced and knowledgable people in the medium term

By the next Fad I mean the whole "cloud" business.... the world where everyone has everything they desire but in reality owns nothing, it's still a little way off because the standards etc haven't been laid down by the powers that be and there's a whole load of gumpf about data security storing data cross border etc but when it does take off I suspect there will be a huge rush to buy it to by none technical CIO's putting even the most skilled IT technician out of business!

IT is not the best profesion to be in mate, most qualifications count for jack now and experience is the big winner, anyone can get an MCSE if they sit down and read a book but that doesn't make them good at their job, it just means they know one way of doing something and that isn't often the best way to do it LOL

Of all the IT guys on here, who actually chose IT as their first job?? At least a dozen of my mates that are in IT didn't have IT as their first choice, you just kinda fall in to it when all your other dreams are smashed.

 

At the other end I'm pretty sure there will be DBA's getting paid £18K working for a local authority - depends on the person really.

You can make money in IT but I really hope my son never goes into it, I find it's not very satisfying as a career.

 

The industry is littered with people like that, some are good, some are bad. Usually if someone is smart enough to learn the technology and can apply it there is no problem. Unfortunately there also seem to be too many who blag their way in.

And these days it's not about tech skills - you can pick those up quickly and/or Google it. And the Indians will always do it cheaper so you need to get business facing roles.

 

Sounds about right.

IT covers so much now, its not just about fixing and building PC .. I'm still waiting to move to my new role.. went there today (on paternity btw) to show dedication ...