05-24-2017, 03:07 PM
My experience is that this same kind of runaround never ends. I have tons of Microsoft, Cisco and CompTIA certifications and they don't help nearly as much as you'd think. My experience is that recruiters/HR will look for all kinds of reasons why you don't fit the job description based on their (very) limited understanding of what each job is supposed to be. Triply so if you are white with a penis. Once you have some experience you need more experience, or experience at a higher level, or instead of being a Windows admin you're going to the Windows admin, database admin, a developer and tier 3 helpdesk for 80% of the salary of one of those jobs. But if you take a lower level job for the money, then you get defined down as someone who is only able to do low level work and opportunities that should be there with your "experience" simply aren't. The IT job market in the US has completely gone to crap over the last 10 years. 10 years ago I was turning my nose up at 55,000 USD/year and now can't find a stable job at 35k with a much stronger resume.
If you're willing to take a low enough wage you'll eventually find a help desk job, but I'm not really interested in taking a high stress job with non-technical people breathing down my neck all day for $10-12/hr. Or even $22 for that matter. Every gray hair I have (I'm only 34) is a result of a horrible help desk job at Honda R&D that only lasted 3.5 months.
Some people I know who are developers tend to do better, but not great money with cheap labor being constantly imported. I tried programming in high school and college and found that it's not for me, but if you're good at it there is money to be made. Actually, I'd recommend going into making adult PC games if you ever want to code, as the indy market for that is quite strong and growing.
I've largely given up on ever getting another IT job and have been doing consulting for people looking to move offshore and maintain privacy, not pay taxes and provide solutions to make it happen discreetly and affordably. Since I'm not a lawyer and will, "for entertainment purposes only" as the legal disclaimer goes, answer questions like "how can I make sure the US government doesn't find about x" or "what do I do so all of the company's profits go into my hookers and blow account" and make introductions to make it happen. I also do freelance Japanese to English translations and write novels.
It sounds more glorious than it really is. In reality I've been hanging on by a thread for awhile. As for what I'm going to do long term, enough bad things have happened to me in life that I've come to the conclusion being happy and having no unnecessary stress is more important to me than an extra 20 or 30k USD per year. I'm thinking of getting into truck driving for a few years, saving all of the money I make, then taking some time to travel to Costa Rica, Colombia and Thailand to decide which country I'd rather live in. Hopefully along the way I'll have built enough regular income from translating. writing and other things on the drawing board to be able to live in a tropical paradise and have the option of paying hot chicks to leave when I don't feel like going to clubs to pick them up.
I also came up with a betting pattern that should yield a modest return long term on baccarat (or more accurately, I put the data into one of my workstations and it ran calculations for a few months). Unfortunately I need a few thousand dollars I don't have right now to properly test it in a casino before declaring victory.
That was more long-winded than I intended but I think it answers all of your questions.
If you're willing to take a low enough wage you'll eventually find a help desk job, but I'm not really interested in taking a high stress job with non-technical people breathing down my neck all day for $10-12/hr. Or even $22 for that matter. Every gray hair I have (I'm only 34) is a result of a horrible help desk job at Honda R&D that only lasted 3.5 months.
Some people I know who are developers tend to do better, but not great money with cheap labor being constantly imported. I tried programming in high school and college and found that it's not for me, but if you're good at it there is money to be made. Actually, I'd recommend going into making adult PC games if you ever want to code, as the indy market for that is quite strong and growing.
I've largely given up on ever getting another IT job and have been doing consulting for people looking to move offshore and maintain privacy, not pay taxes and provide solutions to make it happen discreetly and affordably. Since I'm not a lawyer and will, "for entertainment purposes only" as the legal disclaimer goes, answer questions like "how can I make sure the US government doesn't find about x" or "what do I do so all of the company's profits go into my hookers and blow account" and make introductions to make it happen. I also do freelance Japanese to English translations and write novels.
It sounds more glorious than it really is. In reality I've been hanging on by a thread for awhile. As for what I'm going to do long term, enough bad things have happened to me in life that I've come to the conclusion being happy and having no unnecessary stress is more important to me than an extra 20 or 30k USD per year. I'm thinking of getting into truck driving for a few years, saving all of the money I make, then taking some time to travel to Costa Rica, Colombia and Thailand to decide which country I'd rather live in. Hopefully along the way I'll have built enough regular income from translating. writing and other things on the drawing board to be able to live in a tropical paradise and have the option of paying hot chicks to leave when I don't feel like going to clubs to pick them up.
I also came up with a betting pattern that should yield a modest return long term on baccarat (or more accurately, I put the data into one of my workstations and it ran calculations for a few months). Unfortunately I need a few thousand dollars I don't have right now to properly test it in a casino before declaring victory.
That was more long-winded than I intended but I think it answers all of your questions.
