[AusNOG] Work experience in networking/telecoms/DCs? Getting my foot in the door?

[Mark Tees]

+1 Well said!

On Sunday, December 21, 2014, McDonald Richards <mcdonald.richards at gmail.com>
wrote:

> 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.
>
> 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.
>
> Read all the things. Then read some more.
>
> Good luck.
>
> Macca
>
>
> On Sat, Dec 20, 2014 at 10:10 AM, <r_jones at netspace.net.au
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','r_jones at netspace.net.au');>> wrote:
>
>> 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...
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> 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?
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> In three (or nine) words: I love networks. I love infrastructure. I love
>> datacenters.
>>
>> 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!)
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> I think you get the idea at this point!
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> 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. :)
>>
>> Thanks again,
>>
>> Rory.
>>
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>>
>

-- 
Regards,

Mark L. Tees
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