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

[Mark Foster]

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.
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.

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.

I worked my way up up from the helpdesk world and very much agree that 
the experience of doing so is valuable.

Mark.

On 21/12/2014 8:13 p.m., McDonald Richards 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 
> <mailto: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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