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Another +1 for Macca's comments. The best engineers i've worked
with have been those with a well rounded skillset and perspective on
more than just their core aptitude area.<br>
I've also found the vast majority of them are indeed 'grown
internally' and progress from support roles (either helpdesk or
internal IT support type functions) into NOC and from there into
areas with significant skill attached. Along the way you build an
understanding of customer expectations and the systems around yours,
which you're all working to operate and support.<br>
<br>
The other thing I did (despite my core interest being networks &
infrastructure) was put up my own linux based server and host some
real-world operational 'stuff' on it, as a learning tool. Web,
Mail, DNS and such. A cheap VPS would achieve this for you.<br>
<br>
I worked my way up up from the helpdesk world and very much agree
that the experience of doing so is valuable.<br>
<br>
Mark.<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 21/12/2014 8:13 p.m., McDonald
Richards wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote
cite="mid:CACrsH-4YrqvXTivaLKZBr45zGOfBo0PLCMsCQAbA8XJKbX3wVQ@mail.gmail.com"
type="cite">
<div dir="ltr">Customer service skills will get you further in the
networking industry than you can imagine. Don't be ashamed to
work on the front lines even though you have a piece of paper.
It is an invaluable experience that will pay off exponentially
in your later career as well. If you're in customer service
somewhere that grows talent from within and you have the
aptitude, you will be noticed. This period of your career is not
forever.
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Aim to use your combined customer service and technical
skills to land a job in a NOC. One where you are empowered to
do as much as you can to fix something. Ask everyone
everything and learn as much as you can. The people you start
work with have seen and fixed a lot more things than you even
if you think you are smarter. Take advantage of their
experience. If you can't figure something out and someone else
fixes it, ask them how they did it. Try to understand what you
missed.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Read all the things. Then read some more.</div>
<div>
<div>
<div><br>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div>Good luck.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Macca</div>
<div><br>
</div>
</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Dec 20, 2014 at 10:10 AM, <span
dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="mailto:r_jones@netspace.net.au" target="_blank">r_jones@netspace.net.au</a>></span>
wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
.8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div style="font-family:'Helvetica
Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:12px">Hi guys.
I've been perusing the list on and off for a fair few
months now, and this is my first time posting here (or to
any mailing list at all! Forums have spoiled us kids it
seems), so please forgive me if my posting
technique/etiquette is not quite right, or even if this
question is not quite the scope of the list, and I'll try
not to prattle on too much, but here goes...
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I'm 21, fresh out of a 12 month TAFE Networking
Diploma that... could have ended better than it did, if
I'm honest. Have had a few personal issues and some
rather nasty illness this year, and budget and equipment
cuts to my campus towards the end of the year only made
things worse. I simply ran out of time.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Anyway, I'm also studying a CCNA which I am about
halfway through and am plugging away at at home, however
my resume is quite still bare, having never had a job
anywhere in I.T. before, and I'm trying to get my foot
in the door. It has been suggested by a few people, some
of them rather respectable in their fields, that I look
at work experience or volunteering just so I can fill my
resume up with *something*, and so I can gain some
experience as well since it seems that even entry level
mop pushing jobs require 6 months of mop pushing
experience. Where do you start?</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>But that seems to be the question wherever I turn -
where do I start? How do I get my foot in the door? How
do I know if that's the door I should be putting my foot
into? Where is the door? Etc, etc.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>So I figure, based on previous advice, that I should
look at work experience or volunteering my time to gain
some experience. But this still presents that pesky
question for me - where do I start? And another
standout, what companies would allow work experience
kids? I realize very well that not everyone is thrilled
with the idea of a kid waltzing into their company for a
couple of weeks, finding out how everything works in the
pursuit of eventual employment somewhere, and this I
accept, but hey, we all have to start somewhere, I
guess.<br>
<br>
If you're still with me (I apologize for the length of
this post), I think now is the time to explain the
fields I'm most interested in and why.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>In three (or nine) words: I love networks. I love
infrastructure. I love datacenters.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>To be a bit more verbose, I love the very concept of
it. How the internet itself functions at a basic level,
how complex and intricate network and telecommunications
infrastructure can be, is always something that has
fascinated me. I want to be at the heart of it, and yet
I'm also one for details. From the NOCs to the last
mile, I love it all. Perhaps I'm idealizing too much,
but if you were to ask me what I see myself doing in 5
or 10 years, this paragraph is pretty much it. I love
helping to set up LAN parties when I get the opportunity
to do so (the infrastructure is actually quite
impressive to my untrained eyes. 10Gb trunks to edge
switches and 40Gb stacks between core switches - a lot
of data gets shuffled around at LANs!)</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>To be honest, I'm not even quite sure what the job
description of what I eventually want to do is. But, as
you can probably tell, I like big things. But I like to
pay attention to the small things, too. I love the idea
of overseeing the operation of datacenters or enterprise
networks or telecommunications infrastructure, but also
analysing and troubleshooting when things go wrong.
Finding out what went wrong, why it went wrong, devising
the most elegant way to fix the problem, and making sure
it doesn't go wrong again. Call it morbid, but I love
analysing outages (as much as I can with publicly
available information) and knowing what went wrong, why,
what was done to correct the problem and perhaps even
what (if any) preventative measures were employed to
prevent it from happening again.<br>
<br>
I think you get the idea at this point!</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>I think I've droned on quite enough, but I would love
to hear any and all of your suggestions as to how/where
I could get my foot in the door of the networking scene,
because while I would be interested in roles like
sysadmin, networking seems to be where my heart is set,
and always has been, really.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>If pertinent, I'm more than happy to link my current
resume, as bare as it may be, but I did notice that the
AusNOG charter said no attachments, so I'm not totally
sure how the best way to go about this would be.<br>
<br>
Thanks for your considerable time! I look forward to
hearing what you guys have to say! It's been a pleasure
to read this mailing list when I can, I just hope my
babbling doesn't impact on the pleasure of other readers
too much. :)</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Thanks again,<br>
<br>
Rory.</div>
</div>
<br>
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</blockquote>
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