I'm thinking of doing a MCSE................

[internetstalker]

Bored shitlless in my job, I want more money & a new challenge

A friend suggested doing a MCSE and getting a job as a systems engineer

anyone got any advice?

where should I do one, how much will it cost and how long will it take?

Cheers

 

[Kanda]

How much IT experience do you have already??

 

[jæd]

Bored shitlless in my job, I want more money & a new challenge

A friend suggested doing a MCSE and getting a job as a systems engineer

anyone got any advice?

where should I do one, how much will it cost and how long will it take?

Cheers

Only do it you are 100 % passionate about being a techy and are prepared spend all day, everyday looking at an LCD screen. If you're not then you'll just be another mediocre MCSE who's in it for money. And there's zillions of those...

And, to be honest, if you want to be in IT there's much better jobs than MCSE's. (And as Kanda says, whats your experience. Its very hard to get on if you don't have any, espcially at the moment...)

 

[The Groke]

What do you do currently? Do you have decent knowledge/work experience in ITS already?

MCSEs can be worth having, but are generally seen as complimentary to experience.

As an IT Manager, I look for experience over everything else - you would be unlikely to be able to walk straight out of an MCSE and get a decent paying job.

I have seen a lot of guys with MCSEs and CCNAs (probably worth more than MCSE IMO) but with no real life experience at all. I would perhaps employ them as a helpdesk operator/1st teir support, but nothing else.

Do you know anyone in the industry who could give you a placement/internship whilst you did the course? Would count for a lot...

 

[Kanda]

What Groke said ^^

Too many crap paper only MCSE's out there.

 

[internetstalker]

I work in an office and have decent excel etc. skills but thats about it on the IT front.

I pick techy things up V quickly tho which is why I'm thinking of this

This would be a career change for me, so I'd be happy to start off as a helpdesk operator/1st teir support, for a year or so to get the exp.

 

[The Groke]

A few things:

1) Bear in mind that during an economic downturn, casualties amongst IT support (and other internal/management services roles) staff are generally high. There is therefore likely to be a glut of well experienced and skilled IT people currently looking for jobs at the moment.

2) These days you will likely be better off looking to specialise rather than establishing yourself in a "jack-of-all-trades" support role. Although you will need a solid grounding in general computing and network concepts whatever you do, it might be wise to look at honing your skills in a particular arena.
Expertise in the following is usually in reasonably high demand:

a) Networking/Network security/Firewalls
b) Data base admins - Oracle/SQL
c) Server Virtualisation
d) Microsoft Exchange
e) Microsoft Sharepoint
f) Programming, particularly .Net and probably Perl, Java and various popular Object-Oriented languages like C# and C++ etc.
g) Mobile app development
h) IT Project management. Look to PRINCE2 or PMP.
i) Thin client technologies - e.g Citrix


Still - even for all of the above, experience is king.

 

[internetstalker]

Cheers guys

Basically I'm happy to be a paper MCSE for a year while I gain experiance doing a mediocore IT job, gain some experiance before specialising in any one area. Like I said this would be a career change for me so it'd take a while for me to find my feet IYSWIM
I only get paid £18,995 ATM so am happy to take a pay cut until I gain the experiance to get a £25,000+ job in a year or so and then take it from there

what would be the best place to go to get the MCSE?

a 14 day boot camp?

1 year online?

Personally i would want someone to train me rather then self teaching myself online

 

[The Groke]

Personally i would want someone to train me rather then self teaching myself online

Yep - given your lack of experience, I would certainly agree that this is likely to be a better route.



You might find there are places offering online courses with "live" tuition via webinars etc. That might be a reasonable compromise of cost, convenience and support.