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2 - 3 months of applying still nothing...

Hey,

Slightly different case in terms of most people being graduates or finished A levels.

I have a certificate of higher education at grade 2:2 which is basicly 1st year of uni qualification.

Now I have 100 credits at level I (2nd year of uni) most within 2:1 grade boundary, due to personal reasons and lazyness(i'm honest at least) I was withdrawn from my university and never managed to pass a unit within my 2nd year which prevented me moving on to 3rd year.

So after finding out i'd been withdrawn began the seamlessly never ending job hunt within IT.

However i've not been trying to overreach for job roles, all have been it support, software engineering, cyber secuirty, and mainly the entry level area, along with trainee,graduate, and junior roles

Now I know experience sadly is what pretty much every company wants and that education shows little benefits over experience and certified qualifications. The question remains this...

How do you get that first IT related job to gain that experience and go on training through your employer?

The education and the proven ability to learn is there but the experience isn't.

Any advice is appricated.
IT is thankfully one of the few professions that can be accessed by the DIY enthusiast. The web is awash with excellent tutorials, videos and blogs. And better than that, most of the tooling required is free to download and use. So take your PC. Pull it to pieces and put it back together. Install Linux, Windows and Mac OS on the same hard drive with multiboot. Write a device driver in Linux to get that obscure scanner working. Create a script that lists the location of ever major IP address in the world. Write a website that shows every ATM in your local area. I don't know - there are tonnes of mini projects you can do. You can then add these to your CV and suddenly you are much more interesting that someone that just came out of education.

IT is very much a problem solving domain. Sadly, you get almost no experience of tackling problems in college or university. But in IT, being able to share ways in which you tackled problems and overcame pitfalls is part of daily life.

So get active in your spare time and the very best of luck!
Original post by ByEeek
IT is thankfully one of the few professions that can be accessed by the DIY enthusiast. The web is awash with excellent tutorials, videos and blogs. And better than that, most of the tooling required is free to download and use. So take your PC. Pull it to pieces and put it back together.

Sadly, you get almost no experience of tackling problems in college or university

So get active in your spare time and the very best of luck!


Couldn't agree more. If IT really is your thing, you'll love doing this stuff in your free time anyway and you'll probably be able to learn fast. Try to find startups close to home (hopefully where you don't have to pay rent) and see if you can get an internship / part time gig with them, even if you work for free for a while. This will provide a huge source of real world problems you can help with and exposure to people working in the industry. Almost all startups of around 10-15 people will have some form of work they simply don't have time to deal with. Given they're a startup, they're likely to be learning themselves as they try to grow their business and will probably be receptive to your presence.

Good luck!

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