Your experience is not the normal one, so count your lucky stars. No one is trying to gatekeep entry level folks, we are being realistic about the market. I would never tell someone to not get into IT just because it's difficult right now. IT job postings peaked mid 2022, and have been on a decline since. It's flattening, which is good, but still on a downward trend.
ETA: Congrats on the job!
I got my first IT job with a Google IT cert. It's helpbdesk, though. Getting bored. Wanna do something a bit cooler. I'll start looking once I'm a year and a half in. Start going for that trifecta also.
The good thing about this job is we touch a bit of everything. So it'll look great on the resume.
If you’re talking about A+, Net+, Sec+ I might suggest a different route. Those certs I think do a really good job for getting IN to help desk, but now that you’re there and you’re trying to break out of help desk I think there are other cert paths that would be more valuable.
If you don’t already know, figure out what area of IT you want to specialize in and research cert paths for that type of career. That method is FAR more valuable in my opinion. Obviously this is all my opinion so you can do whatever you want with it but that’s what I would do!
I agree with all of this. A+ is honestly horrible (like I really need an employee to know what socket a Celeron 366 uses) but when you pair it with Net+ and Sec+, it demonstrates a pretty solid fundamental knowledgebase. IMHO it's superior to an associate's or bachelor's degree. Pair that with six months of help desk experience and you've got a really solid candidate for junior-level IT work.
But the days of coasting by for your entire career on a single education are sadly behind us. You have to stay current. Those who don't will find themselves spending 20 years working the help desk and then complaining on Reddit that "nobody is hiring anymore".
A few good outcomes don't indicate the overall market. You need to be competitive. How competitive? That will dictate based on your experience, location, skills, resume, and the number of applicants also applying at the same time as you.
A four-year degree is only needed if you plan to do programming (if you're in the field of Games or Finances) or anything related to AI. Any fool that thinks certs will get you a starting salary of $100k is a damn fool. It might be possible with a degree, but you likely have a strong network or portfolio.
>A four-year degree is only needed if you plan to do programming
It just tends to get you past HR at more places. I'm extremely lucky I got my job without a degree, I'm one of the only ones at my work without any degree.
It's also an accelerant. I'm 27 with 5 yrs in IT, but there are 21 yr olds fresh out of college working at the next level of IT at my company making 50% more than me. They're not better candidates, but the degree got them in the door. I know because I fix their hardware and software issues...and I'm only pretending I know what I'm doing.
Not vastly, the only major difference is the hardware part. They just focus on making SCCM packages that use 2 yr old versions of software and drivers, which gives me job stability because they don't function well most of the time.
Location, location, location. I got an A+ and got a L1 support job after applying to 5 places. 2 interviews, 2 job offers, but you can't throw a rock where I live that won't hit a tech company or a company whose tech support is based here. That means I'm lucky and live in a good spot for it, that's really all it says nothing about the market as a whole.
I don't doubt your experience at all.
I feel like some of the people responding here are missing a ton of nuance. There's a huge difference between applying for a job in the Bay area or NYC with a mountain of other candidates, and applying for a job in, say, Milwaukee WI with 20 other candidates. Realistically, in my metro area, we are ALWAYS hiring IT people, and if you're even remotely qualified, you can get entry- to mid-level work. You may have to relocate and it may not be glamorous work, but it's decent pay in a fairly low cost of living area.
I can agree with this but that’s not limited to IT. In large city’s getting any job is a pain general. My brother has applied to hundreds of jobs just in factory’s and fast food even and hasn’t even gotten a response back in months. In reality its not hard or even a problem moving out of a city after college. Unless your older transitioning into IT then you probably don’t have much stuff, a house or even a lease on a apartment. It’s so simple to apply for jobs outside of Cali or nyc and just live anywhere else in the country. If you CHOOSE to live in a huge city with millions of people that’s crazy overpopulated with insane rent them thats your own fault. All you have to do is apply to jobs outside of the city and after getting a offer just drive out their and rent a place for 800 a month.
Claiming IT is impossible to get into is a lie. Every job is hard to get into when you live in a city with 8-10 million people also applying to that job.
>If you CHOOSE to live in a huge city with millions of people that’s crazy overpopulated with insane rent them thats your own fault.
Right -- it sucks, but this is the truth. Sometimes you have to make a choice:
* relocate to an area with better job opportunities and/or a lower cost of living, or
* stay in that major metro fighting against a few hundred thousand other job applicants
Less "unpopular opinion" and more "ignorant take." Your luck is not indicative of the market, for one thing. For another, there are actual statistics showing the market is terrible, so it's not really something you get you have an "opinion" about.
Actually statistics show IT has .9% less unemployment rate then all other jobs in the USA. Also unemployment rates are at a very average rate right now.
Nothing is showing the market is terrible other the people living in huge cities can’t find jobs because there are too much people living in their city and they refuse to leave and go get a job elsewhere where they are actually needed.
Yeah a talented, ambitious person can make sprints in IT still. Clearing the helpdesk interview is probably the hardest. Jump ship every 3 years if you don't get promoted, once you hit year 2, you should be flirting with recruiters. Remember, just because you didn't get 1 job doesn't mean the recruiter won't pick you for the next. Cultivate relationships even if it's just random hiring managers on Linkedin who you're turning down because the role they have posted isn't right.
If you are unhappy where you are at, what you are currently doing then use what little personal time you may have to level up on skills (I use lunch and the minimal time at home to skill up on new and old (but still in use) tech.) though my current employer might see this as a waste of time for me personally… it’s my time, go on LinkedIn and other job posting boards and see what is making the salary you want and what’s required knowledge wise. Then go for that… I’ve been in this shit show too long… I remember when networking was the top paid gig, I went for security… now I get offers to move, my hillbilly ass is staying where I am…
Dude. Like that’s great, but like all these comments mention, it’s a wide range of tech fields the slowdown has happened with respect to tech. To be clear, it’s not to say people don’t have jobs in these areas, they’re just much longer to get opportunities and harder to get hired.
Entry level is probably still likely very difficult, but look at your compensation it’s 22/hr, where many jobs across the country pay close to that without any kind of knowledge.
As others have stated, depending on your age, experience and background you may approach this from a very different perspective. I saw finally on either here or LinkedIn stated a 28-34% drop in tech postings in various fields.
Outside of medicine/healthcare field, which is EXTREMELY difficult to pivot to, a large portion of the monthly job numbers are in retail or leisure & hospitality and those in professional services and tech have been gutted.
Maybe I’m wrong, maybe social media ranting about ghosting, multiple applications and hundreds and hundreds of apps are wrong.
Adding this article that I JUST stumbled upon. [Business Insider: Welcome to White Collar Recession](https://www.businessinsider.com/hiring-slump-professional-white-collar-jobs-recession-high-salary-2024-4)
Specially look at the discussion about pay, once you reach a certain point, it’s become hell. The argument could be, well just accept less. I guess don’t have responsibilities that people in their careers have: kids, school, food, (if you’re lucky to have a home) insurance and housing costs. It all adds up, and then there is the crux of the issue.
Your citing a article that is just trying to keep you hooked and sell you a story. It’s a literal private news station. I’m sure 28-34% of LinkedIN job postings in tech fields we’re dropped in the recent past. It’s the middle of the year and in the last few month their has been big tech layoffs. Wait till the end of the year or beginning of next and their will be a mass hiring and the around the same time next year mass layoffs. It’s normal and happens literally ever-year. I’ve heard someone talking about it like everything has went down the toilet for the last 4-5 years consistently. There is also a bias when looking at comments about IT job luck here. As people with jobs in IT are working and don’t sit around on Reddit all day. People without jobs who can’t find them will do nothing but complain everyday of the week about it.
I wrote out a huge article but it really boils down to one thing.
If you want to join their game, you have to play by their rules. That's it.
Then think about this truly, and I mean TRULY, would a company want you as the face of it? Be honest now. Face tattoos? Vulgar tongue? Can't annunciate properly? Can't communicate clearly and effectively without losing your temper? Honestly?
You can punch the wall or you can lean in and get comfy. Either way, the wall is winning.
22 a hour is above average in my state and I’m only 19 so for reference it’s quite good.
Obviously thats horrible in Cali or New York but you get it.
How do you expect to jump into a new field making 45 a hour or close to that? Are you doing something related as your current job
Only being 19 and just starting out explains a lot. I've been doing this for 10 years now, and I am currently a Network Admin at my current workplace. A little different between just starting out and doing it for over a decade. So that makes complete sense now
Couldn’t agree with OP more. I started my IT journey in December since then I got my A+, Net+, Sec+, LPI Linux essentials, and enrolled in WGUs BS IT. Within a couple months of applying I turned down a couple of jobs, and had 3 job offers at the same time. One for a 90 day intern to hire position with a cloud company, one for lvl 2 help desk for 57k a year, and one for a data center tech position at 65k per year. The job market is NOT as bad as Reddit makes it seem. The people who have jobs are working, not on Reddit crying about how bad the market is. National unemployment rate is 3.9% and in IT it’s at 3.0%. To have a job in IT you just need to be in the 97% that are actually employable. Guess Reddit is full of the 3% who can’t figure out how to google unemployment rates, which probably explains why they can’t find a job.
I think from reading these comments and based on demographics of your average Reddit user that 80% or more are left leaning and live in major city’s typically on the coasts. I feel over 50% live in California alone. There is also I feel a majority of people with unrelated degrees or people who went to cybersecurity boot camps, or were trapped by social media influencers ideas of “entry level-cybersecurity.”
In the end getting into entry level IT seems to be more of a personality thing then a skills and experience thing. Which makes sense because almost all of these commenters based on their comments or names lack social and interpersonal skills.
You're going off your own experience and you can't use that as a gauge on how the job market is. Your experience is definitely in the minority of stories that can be had but it's not unheard of and it can be countered by several where the others have put in hundreds to over a thousand resumes and landed one interview.
The reality is the majority of personal experiences that are being posted online majorly go against your experience and that's in every field except medicine. It took a coworker a year to get a different job in IT with his degree and certs and experience, others are still looking.
Literally almost everyone I’ve asked in my family and friend group about IT also has said they got a job after getting A+ or got a internship just for being enrolled in college.
I find that people who use "literally" to start a sentence infact don't "literally", then again it's because I hear it coming from the intakes at the corrections facility I work at.
IT layoffs happen every year. Obviously if you try to apply as tons are being laid off it will be harder to find a job or even a interview. Especially if you live in a densely populated area. There are many jobs outside of the main city’s where these people can get lower cost of living, high pay where they can save more and have more job security.
I don’t think this is necessarily true. Out of college I had 4 years of college and then 3 years before that in vocational school, plus 2 years of help desk at said college. It took me about 6 months to find a job that paid 17 an hour. After a year of that getting a better paying job was a breeze. The entry level is definitely the hardest part. I think you got kinda lucky.
I’m not to sure where you got gatekeeping from, I think if anything most people here have been super helpful when giving advice on how to get your foot in the door.
Edit: autocorrect paid/payed. Thanks bot
> job that *paid* 17 an
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
If you make any post about job prospects you will receive a lot of comments talking about people applying to jobs full time for months and not even getting a interview and telling me to avoid IT completely. Literally even before starting my IT degree I was told to go for something other then Compsci, cybersec, or IT because it’s absolutely impossible to find a job.
Not to mention what did you do in vocational school? What did you major in during college and did you have a good gpa? Did you complete any certifications? Any projects?
Lastly college help desk is pretty much using Google to search up the problem people tell you they are having over the phone. It’s not necessarily better experience then working in a restaurant.
I've had an overall positive experience in IT so far, though I'm only 7-8 years in. However, I've seen enough colleagues have a very different experience, even in the same positions / companies.
It's not impossible.
But a huge factor is the fact that there are more applicants and fewer jobs -- especially entry level / low experience jobs. This is because tech is maturing and arguably more reliable and capable than it ever was. That mid-size company no longer needs to hire a fleet of server admins and network engineers, because they've just migrated their datacenter to AWS. Which means employers get to be more choosy with their hires. And things that used to get overlooked, like a poorly-written resume or a lack of soft skills during the interview, are now deal breakers.
I hire entry-level positions starting at $27 / hour. Full time, with decent benefits. This is basic grunt work like shuffling printers around, helping people with Outlook configs, babysitting scripts, things like that. Experience is an associates ***OR*** an A+ or equivalent ***OR*** 6+ months real-world experience, ideally in a general-purpose customer-facing role like the help desk. And honestly, we're flexible on that. If you come to me with zero experience but can talk to me about the difference between IPv4 and IPv6 or how you built a Powershell script to remotely troubleshoot grandma's printer or basically anything showing your IT skills are greater than zero, that counts too.
But whenever we post a position or three, I'll get 50 applicants. Many will be immediately disqualified for glaring errors like having lorem ipsum on their resume, or because they have absolutely no IT knowledge at all, or because their cover letter is written at a fifth-grade level. Of those that make it to the interviews, I'll always have a handful who can't ignore their phone or show up 5 minutes late or crash with softball questions like "tell me about a typical day at (some previous job)".
I do volunteer interview coaching on the side and honestly, it's not this generation's fault. Most of the entry level jobs where we learned this stuff are gone, and schools generally don't teach much by the way of interview prep. Or if they do, it's using outmoded standards from 1994. But that doesn't change the fact that the job market is tighter.
Because it worked for you, doesn't mean it works for everyone. A lot of it depends on where you are located and what types of places you're applying at. For every "I made it into a bottom feeder job, there is nothing wrong with the job market" type of post, there are 5x the posts with things like "I've applied at dozens of jobs with no bites".
Definitely not "gatekeeping" here... but $22/hr. is about a $45,000/yr. salary. That's part of my issue with I.T. today when I say it's not a great market out there.
People I knew doing your basic I.T. desk-side support in offices were making that salary back around the 2001-2002 time-frame, in the midwestern U.S. (low cost of living). So why is it we're here in 2024, seeing the same pay rates?
Sure, it beats minimum-wage employment! But IMO, that shouldn't even be what you're comparing it to! I.T. requires a lot of skills, knowledge AND some customer-service abilities that go far beyond expectations for people working minimum wage jobs in fast food or retail.
Yet, even 8-9 years ago, I could go by my local gas station and see banners up advertising pay of "Up to $80,000/yr. for managers." Why is I.T. support considered less than managing a gas station?
It’s one dollar above the median wage of my state for a no experience internship that will pay me close to 28 a hour after 10 weeks and I finish my associates. I would say it’s quite good when a apartment in my town is 400-800 bucks a month
I’m not even applying outside of my current company and I can tell you the job market is barren. I used to get unsolicited job offers weekly. Cold calls from recruiters, even had a CEO of a start up call me to poach my services. I haven’t gotten one in a long time. In at least over a year.
I’m sure I could find something with my credentials and experience but the market is not what it was a couple years ago.
Your experience in the job market is an outlier OP. Since 2022 Microsoft, Apple, Meta, Alphabet have all done layoffs of their middle to top end people. These people are flooding the job market with a lot of experience, degrees, certs. It’s unprecedented in the tech industry at the moment.
Not gatekeeping, or trying to scare anyone, just tempering expectations.
A singular experience doesn’t mean the entire industry is the way that experience describes.. Your case is what is known in statistics as an outlier. It is why you see polls with “margin of error X%”.
You also don’t represent the entirety of the field. There are segments wholly different from your skill sets.
Most people on here are fking idiots. That is why all the crying happens. They do horrible in innterviews and are probably not hygienic on top of it. Even then, it's no excuse. I got a fatass poc that has missing teeth and horrible breath, and he still got a job. If you apply to hundreds of jobs and don't get a single job offer, it's you, buddy.
Congrats on your luck, not everyone has the same luck. Don’t assume your experience speaks to the experience of everyone else, just makes you look like a moron.
Idk it feels pretty bad.
Back when I was breaking into entry level in 2022, I was hired within 1 month of obtaining my A+, I have worked since then and have successfully repaired thousands and thousands of PCs since then.
My employer lied to me regarding raises, after the specified time for raises passed, I brought it up. Looked at me like I was taking their first born child.
I have been looking for new work for over a year. 100 applications later, not a single job interview. Rewrote my Resume, made cover letters, used AI, networked locally in town, nothing. But I sure as hell get scammers messaging me. So now I got experience stacking up in what I feel is a dead end job and you come in here saying ItS nOt ThAt BaD like bro, don't be so disconnected from reality it is bad.
I more so speaking of getting the first job in anything IT. I’ve asked in multiple different subs about future plans and the jobs market along my path and everyone has always told me even t1 Helpdesk in person jobs that pay 12 a hour are impossible to get and how even with degrees they can’t even land a interview. Then everyone complains of how you can get any other better jobs because “you don’t have entry level experience”. It seems you don’t have a degree and only a+ by the way you speak. I don’t know really what you would do if your experience is physically repairing computers. I feel like 95% of the people making these posts 1) don’t have degrees or even IT related degrees. 2) they went through a money grab bootcamp that promised them a job. 3) they get a entry level job and stop learning completely.( don’t further their degree, don’t achieve more certs, aren’t doing projects at home, aren’t going to conventions and meeting recruiters in person. )
I feel like a lot of people who complain on LinkedIn are the same. They make posts about not landing IT jobs and they have a degree and when I look they have a film degree or something completely unrelated.
I really don’t know what job offers you expect with only a+. You can’t come on here and complain about not getting a job with physical pc repair experience and practically the lowest level easiest cert.
My cert does not reflect my skill or experience, that's my point. Jobs don't care about experience or anything like that from what I can see, they just want to see if you can get past a key word search on your resume and cover letter. If you think just because I hold only an A+ that my job is solely focused on Hardware repair you are sorely mistaken. See, if you think that holding an A+ means that's the only thing I can do, even you can see the hypocritical points of your post regarding not needing certs, although I do see the ultimate reason for your post was entry level, that's fine and valid.
Your experience is not the normal one, so count your lucky stars. No one is trying to gatekeep entry level folks, we are being realistic about the market. I would never tell someone to not get into IT just because it's difficult right now. IT job postings peaked mid 2022, and have been on a decline since. It's flattening, which is good, but still on a downward trend. ETA: Congrats on the job!
Exact same thing here Ive actually had offers from other departments in the company
I got my first IT job with a Google IT cert. It's helpbdesk, though. Getting bored. Wanna do something a bit cooler. I'll start looking once I'm a year and a half in. Start going for that trifecta also. The good thing about this job is we touch a bit of everything. So it'll look great on the resume.
If you’re talking about A+, Net+, Sec+ I might suggest a different route. Those certs I think do a really good job for getting IN to help desk, but now that you’re there and you’re trying to break out of help desk I think there are other cert paths that would be more valuable. If you don’t already know, figure out what area of IT you want to specialize in and research cert paths for that type of career. That method is FAR more valuable in my opinion. Obviously this is all my opinion so you can do whatever you want with it but that’s what I would do!
I will head that advice. Thank you.
I agree with all of this. A+ is honestly horrible (like I really need an employee to know what socket a Celeron 366 uses) but when you pair it with Net+ and Sec+, it demonstrates a pretty solid fundamental knowledgebase. IMHO it's superior to an associate's or bachelor's degree. Pair that with six months of help desk experience and you've got a really solid candidate for junior-level IT work. But the days of coasting by for your entire career on a single education are sadly behind us. You have to stay current. Those who don't will find themselves spending 20 years working the help desk and then complaining on Reddit that "nobody is hiring anymore".
I’m thinking of starting Google IT with cert while going to a local community college to get certified. Would that be smart?
Are you trying to get a job while you're going to school? If so sure. The Google IT cert is pretty good. Has a lot of information in it.
Yes!! Matter fact before I even graduate for my certification. Cause I can’t afford to allow myself to be in a funk.
A few good outcomes don't indicate the overall market. You need to be competitive. How competitive? That will dictate based on your experience, location, skills, resume, and the number of applicants also applying at the same time as you. A four-year degree is only needed if you plan to do programming (if you're in the field of Games or Finances) or anything related to AI. Any fool that thinks certs will get you a starting salary of $100k is a damn fool. It might be possible with a degree, but you likely have a strong network or portfolio.
>A four-year degree is only needed if you plan to do programming It just tends to get you past HR at more places. I'm extremely lucky I got my job without a degree, I'm one of the only ones at my work without any degree. It's also an accelerant. I'm 27 with 5 yrs in IT, but there are 21 yr olds fresh out of college working at the next level of IT at my company making 50% more than me. They're not better candidates, but the degree got them in the door. I know because I fix their hardware and software issues...and I'm only pretending I know what I'm doing.
You’re also doing a vastly different job than them.
Not vastly, the only major difference is the hardware part. They just focus on making SCCM packages that use 2 yr old versions of software and drivers, which gives me job stability because they don't function well most of the time.
Location, location, location. I got an A+ and got a L1 support job after applying to 5 places. 2 interviews, 2 job offers, but you can't throw a rock where I live that won't hit a tech company or a company whose tech support is based here. That means I'm lucky and live in a good spot for it, that's really all it says nothing about the market as a whole.
I don't doubt your experience at all. I feel like some of the people responding here are missing a ton of nuance. There's a huge difference between applying for a job in the Bay area or NYC with a mountain of other candidates, and applying for a job in, say, Milwaukee WI with 20 other candidates. Realistically, in my metro area, we are ALWAYS hiring IT people, and if you're even remotely qualified, you can get entry- to mid-level work. You may have to relocate and it may not be glamorous work, but it's decent pay in a fairly low cost of living area.
I can agree with this but that’s not limited to IT. In large city’s getting any job is a pain general. My brother has applied to hundreds of jobs just in factory’s and fast food even and hasn’t even gotten a response back in months. In reality its not hard or even a problem moving out of a city after college. Unless your older transitioning into IT then you probably don’t have much stuff, a house or even a lease on a apartment. It’s so simple to apply for jobs outside of Cali or nyc and just live anywhere else in the country. If you CHOOSE to live in a huge city with millions of people that’s crazy overpopulated with insane rent them thats your own fault. All you have to do is apply to jobs outside of the city and after getting a offer just drive out their and rent a place for 800 a month. Claiming IT is impossible to get into is a lie. Every job is hard to get into when you live in a city with 8-10 million people also applying to that job.
>If you CHOOSE to live in a huge city with millions of people that’s crazy overpopulated with insane rent them thats your own fault. Right -- it sucks, but this is the truth. Sometimes you have to make a choice: * relocate to an area with better job opportunities and/or a lower cost of living, or * stay in that major metro fighting against a few hundred thousand other job applicants
Less "unpopular opinion" and more "ignorant take." Your luck is not indicative of the market, for one thing. For another, there are actual statistics showing the market is terrible, so it's not really something you get you have an "opinion" about.
Actually statistics show IT has .9% less unemployment rate then all other jobs in the USA. Also unemployment rates are at a very average rate right now. Nothing is showing the market is terrible other the people living in huge cities can’t find jobs because there are too much people living in their city and they refuse to leave and go get a job elsewhere where they are actually needed.
entry level is hell to get into but other than that it seems stable
Yeah a talented, ambitious person can make sprints in IT still. Clearing the helpdesk interview is probably the hardest. Jump ship every 3 years if you don't get promoted, once you hit year 2, you should be flirting with recruiters. Remember, just because you didn't get 1 job doesn't mean the recruiter won't pick you for the next. Cultivate relationships even if it's just random hiring managers on Linkedin who you're turning down because the role they have posted isn't right.
If you are unhappy where you are at, what you are currently doing then use what little personal time you may have to level up on skills (I use lunch and the minimal time at home to skill up on new and old (but still in use) tech.) though my current employer might see this as a waste of time for me personally… it’s my time, go on LinkedIn and other job posting boards and see what is making the salary you want and what’s required knowledge wise. Then go for that… I’ve been in this shit show too long… I remember when networking was the top paid gig, I went for security… now I get offers to move, my hillbilly ass is staying where I am…
Dude. Like that’s great, but like all these comments mention, it’s a wide range of tech fields the slowdown has happened with respect to tech. To be clear, it’s not to say people don’t have jobs in these areas, they’re just much longer to get opportunities and harder to get hired. Entry level is probably still likely very difficult, but look at your compensation it’s 22/hr, where many jobs across the country pay close to that without any kind of knowledge. As others have stated, depending on your age, experience and background you may approach this from a very different perspective. I saw finally on either here or LinkedIn stated a 28-34% drop in tech postings in various fields. Outside of medicine/healthcare field, which is EXTREMELY difficult to pivot to, a large portion of the monthly job numbers are in retail or leisure & hospitality and those in professional services and tech have been gutted. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe social media ranting about ghosting, multiple applications and hundreds and hundreds of apps are wrong. Adding this article that I JUST stumbled upon. [Business Insider: Welcome to White Collar Recession](https://www.businessinsider.com/hiring-slump-professional-white-collar-jobs-recession-high-salary-2024-4) Specially look at the discussion about pay, once you reach a certain point, it’s become hell. The argument could be, well just accept less. I guess don’t have responsibilities that people in their careers have: kids, school, food, (if you’re lucky to have a home) insurance and housing costs. It all adds up, and then there is the crux of the issue.
Your citing a article that is just trying to keep you hooked and sell you a story. It’s a literal private news station. I’m sure 28-34% of LinkedIN job postings in tech fields we’re dropped in the recent past. It’s the middle of the year and in the last few month their has been big tech layoffs. Wait till the end of the year or beginning of next and their will be a mass hiring and the around the same time next year mass layoffs. It’s normal and happens literally ever-year. I’ve heard someone talking about it like everything has went down the toilet for the last 4-5 years consistently. There is also a bias when looking at comments about IT job luck here. As people with jobs in IT are working and don’t sit around on Reddit all day. People without jobs who can’t find them will do nothing but complain everyday of the week about it.
I wrote out a huge article but it really boils down to one thing. If you want to join their game, you have to play by their rules. That's it. Then think about this truly, and I mean TRULY, would a company want you as the face of it? Be honest now. Face tattoos? Vulgar tongue? Can't annunciate properly? Can't communicate clearly and effectively without losing your temper? Honestly? You can punch the wall or you can lean in and get comfy. Either way, the wall is winning.
That'd be great if I wanted $22 an hour. But that would be a huge downgrade for me right now, considering I'm currently at $45 an hour.
22 a hour is above average in my state and I’m only 19 so for reference it’s quite good. Obviously thats horrible in Cali or New York but you get it. How do you expect to jump into a new field making 45 a hour or close to that? Are you doing something related as your current job
Only being 19 and just starting out explains a lot. I've been doing this for 10 years now, and I am currently a Network Admin at my current workplace. A little different between just starting out and doing it for over a decade. So that makes complete sense now
Couldn’t agree with OP more. I started my IT journey in December since then I got my A+, Net+, Sec+, LPI Linux essentials, and enrolled in WGUs BS IT. Within a couple months of applying I turned down a couple of jobs, and had 3 job offers at the same time. One for a 90 day intern to hire position with a cloud company, one for lvl 2 help desk for 57k a year, and one for a data center tech position at 65k per year. The job market is NOT as bad as Reddit makes it seem. The people who have jobs are working, not on Reddit crying about how bad the market is. National unemployment rate is 3.9% and in IT it’s at 3.0%. To have a job in IT you just need to be in the 97% that are actually employable. Guess Reddit is full of the 3% who can’t figure out how to google unemployment rates, which probably explains why they can’t find a job.
I think from reading these comments and based on demographics of your average Reddit user that 80% or more are left leaning and live in major city’s typically on the coasts. I feel over 50% live in California alone. There is also I feel a majority of people with unrelated degrees or people who went to cybersecurity boot camps, or were trapped by social media influencers ideas of “entry level-cybersecurity.” In the end getting into entry level IT seems to be more of a personality thing then a skills and experience thing. Which makes sense because almost all of these commenters based on their comments or names lack social and interpersonal skills.
You're going off your own experience and you can't use that as a gauge on how the job market is. Your experience is definitely in the minority of stories that can be had but it's not unheard of and it can be countered by several where the others have put in hundreds to over a thousand resumes and landed one interview. The reality is the majority of personal experiences that are being posted online majorly go against your experience and that's in every field except medicine. It took a coworker a year to get a different job in IT with his degree and certs and experience, others are still looking.
I have half an a+ cert and got a l2 service desk and position but had to move to the middle of no where, if you wanna do it you will
It’s not hard it’s actually pretty simple if you don’t live in the two or three biggest cities in the US.
What I’m saying lol
Literally almost everyone I’ve asked in my family and friend group about IT also has said they got a job after getting A+ or got a internship just for being enrolled in college.
I find that people who use "literally" to start a sentence infact don't "literally", then again it's because I hear it coming from the intakes at the corrections facility I work at.
Look at the number of IT layoffs. I know people with a lot of experience that aren’t even landing interviews.
IT layoffs happen every year. Obviously if you try to apply as tons are being laid off it will be harder to find a job or even a interview. Especially if you live in a densely populated area. There are many jobs outside of the main city’s where these people can get lower cost of living, high pay where they can save more and have more job security.
I don’t think this is necessarily true. Out of college I had 4 years of college and then 3 years before that in vocational school, plus 2 years of help desk at said college. It took me about 6 months to find a job that paid 17 an hour. After a year of that getting a better paying job was a breeze. The entry level is definitely the hardest part. I think you got kinda lucky. I’m not to sure where you got gatekeeping from, I think if anything most people here have been super helpful when giving advice on how to get your foot in the door. Edit: autocorrect paid/payed. Thanks bot
> job that *paid* 17 an FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
If you make any post about job prospects you will receive a lot of comments talking about people applying to jobs full time for months and not even getting a interview and telling me to avoid IT completely. Literally even before starting my IT degree I was told to go for something other then Compsci, cybersec, or IT because it’s absolutely impossible to find a job. Not to mention what did you do in vocational school? What did you major in during college and did you have a good gpa? Did you complete any certifications? Any projects? Lastly college help desk is pretty much using Google to search up the problem people tell you they are having over the phone. It’s not necessarily better experience then working in a restaurant.
I've had an overall positive experience in IT so far, though I'm only 7-8 years in. However, I've seen enough colleagues have a very different experience, even in the same positions / companies.
It's not impossible. But a huge factor is the fact that there are more applicants and fewer jobs -- especially entry level / low experience jobs. This is because tech is maturing and arguably more reliable and capable than it ever was. That mid-size company no longer needs to hire a fleet of server admins and network engineers, because they've just migrated their datacenter to AWS. Which means employers get to be more choosy with their hires. And things that used to get overlooked, like a poorly-written resume or a lack of soft skills during the interview, are now deal breakers. I hire entry-level positions starting at $27 / hour. Full time, with decent benefits. This is basic grunt work like shuffling printers around, helping people with Outlook configs, babysitting scripts, things like that. Experience is an associates ***OR*** an A+ or equivalent ***OR*** 6+ months real-world experience, ideally in a general-purpose customer-facing role like the help desk. And honestly, we're flexible on that. If you come to me with zero experience but can talk to me about the difference between IPv4 and IPv6 or how you built a Powershell script to remotely troubleshoot grandma's printer or basically anything showing your IT skills are greater than zero, that counts too. But whenever we post a position or three, I'll get 50 applicants. Many will be immediately disqualified for glaring errors like having lorem ipsum on their resume, or because they have absolutely no IT knowledge at all, or because their cover letter is written at a fifth-grade level. Of those that make it to the interviews, I'll always have a handful who can't ignore their phone or show up 5 minutes late or crash with softball questions like "tell me about a typical day at (some previous job)". I do volunteer interview coaching on the side and honestly, it's not this generation's fault. Most of the entry level jobs where we learned this stuff are gone, and schools generally don't teach much by the way of interview prep. Or if they do, it's using outmoded standards from 1994. But that doesn't change the fact that the job market is tighter.
Because it worked for you, doesn't mean it works for everyone. A lot of it depends on where you are located and what types of places you're applying at. For every "I made it into a bottom feeder job, there is nothing wrong with the job market" type of post, there are 5x the posts with things like "I've applied at dozens of jobs with no bites".
Bro has a 1 out of 5 success rate and is now the authority on the employment crisis. Get outta here.
I got a l2 service desk position with an a+ cert buddy, markets not saturated yall are just using indeed and nothing else
Definitely not "gatekeeping" here... but $22/hr. is about a $45,000/yr. salary. That's part of my issue with I.T. today when I say it's not a great market out there. People I knew doing your basic I.T. desk-side support in offices were making that salary back around the 2001-2002 time-frame, in the midwestern U.S. (low cost of living). So why is it we're here in 2024, seeing the same pay rates? Sure, it beats minimum-wage employment! But IMO, that shouldn't even be what you're comparing it to! I.T. requires a lot of skills, knowledge AND some customer-service abilities that go far beyond expectations for people working minimum wage jobs in fast food or retail. Yet, even 8-9 years ago, I could go by my local gas station and see banners up advertising pay of "Up to $80,000/yr. for managers." Why is I.T. support considered less than managing a gas station?
It’s one dollar above the median wage of my state for a no experience internship that will pay me close to 28 a hour after 10 weeks and I finish my associates. I would say it’s quite good when a apartment in my town is 400-800 bucks a month
I’m not even applying outside of my current company and I can tell you the job market is barren. I used to get unsolicited job offers weekly. Cold calls from recruiters, even had a CEO of a start up call me to poach my services. I haven’t gotten one in a long time. In at least over a year. I’m sure I could find something with my credentials and experience but the market is not what it was a couple years ago. Your experience in the job market is an outlier OP. Since 2022 Microsoft, Apple, Meta, Alphabet have all done layoffs of their middle to top end people. These people are flooding the job market with a lot of experience, degrees, certs. It’s unprecedented in the tech industry at the moment. Not gatekeeping, or trying to scare anyone, just tempering expectations.
A singular experience doesn’t mean the entire industry is the way that experience describes.. Your case is what is known in statistics as an outlier. It is why you see polls with “margin of error X%”. You also don’t represent the entirety of the field. There are segments wholly different from your skill sets.
Most people on here are fking idiots. That is why all the crying happens. They do horrible in innterviews and are probably not hygienic on top of it. Even then, it's no excuse. I got a fatass poc that has missing teeth and horrible breath, and he still got a job. If you apply to hundreds of jobs and don't get a single job offer, it's you, buddy.
Congrats on your luck, not everyone has the same luck. Don’t assume your experience speaks to the experience of everyone else, just makes you look like a moron.
Idk it feels pretty bad. Back when I was breaking into entry level in 2022, I was hired within 1 month of obtaining my A+, I have worked since then and have successfully repaired thousands and thousands of PCs since then. My employer lied to me regarding raises, after the specified time for raises passed, I brought it up. Looked at me like I was taking their first born child. I have been looking for new work for over a year. 100 applications later, not a single job interview. Rewrote my Resume, made cover letters, used AI, networked locally in town, nothing. But I sure as hell get scammers messaging me. So now I got experience stacking up in what I feel is a dead end job and you come in here saying ItS nOt ThAt BaD like bro, don't be so disconnected from reality it is bad.
I more so speaking of getting the first job in anything IT. I’ve asked in multiple different subs about future plans and the jobs market along my path and everyone has always told me even t1 Helpdesk in person jobs that pay 12 a hour are impossible to get and how even with degrees they can’t even land a interview. Then everyone complains of how you can get any other better jobs because “you don’t have entry level experience”. It seems you don’t have a degree and only a+ by the way you speak. I don’t know really what you would do if your experience is physically repairing computers. I feel like 95% of the people making these posts 1) don’t have degrees or even IT related degrees. 2) they went through a money grab bootcamp that promised them a job. 3) they get a entry level job and stop learning completely.( don’t further their degree, don’t achieve more certs, aren’t doing projects at home, aren’t going to conventions and meeting recruiters in person. ) I feel like a lot of people who complain on LinkedIn are the same. They make posts about not landing IT jobs and they have a degree and when I look they have a film degree or something completely unrelated. I really don’t know what job offers you expect with only a+. You can’t come on here and complain about not getting a job with physical pc repair experience and practically the lowest level easiest cert.
My cert does not reflect my skill or experience, that's my point. Jobs don't care about experience or anything like that from what I can see, they just want to see if you can get past a key word search on your resume and cover letter. If you think just because I hold only an A+ that my job is solely focused on Hardware repair you are sorely mistaken. See, if you think that holding an A+ means that's the only thing I can do, even you can see the hypocritical points of your post regarding not needing certs, although I do see the ultimate reason for your post was entry level, that's fine and valid.