[TravelerKai]

Getting a degree in basket weaving won't make a hill of beans of a difference. Experience is king. Get your certs if you do not have a Management Information Systems degree, Supply Chain, Computer Science, etc. All a college degree does is tell them that you can read, write, perform arithmetic, form coherent statements, and possibly present information in a meeting well enough not to embarrass your bosses in front of their peers. People without a college degree often times get looked over because they tend to be less professional. Making super rude comments, poor ethics, lacking attention to details, and a lack of critical reading skills for research purposes. Also some managers feel that a 4 year degree means that they feel like you know what it is like to sacrifice for 4 years for something important. Like a rite of passage. Also, they do not want to be the guy that cannot promote a good worker to a supervisor or manager role that does not have a 4 year degree, all because HR and company policy demands it, so it's better to just throw all those resumes in the trash can if they have plenty to pick from.

Internships are powerful if you are still in college. If you are not in college with zero experience get your certs, pay for a boot camp, or video class.

Here is a sample blueprint I sent someone else in a PM last month.

Quote:

If you want the fastest money track with the best pay starting out, I would have to say Network Engineer by far is still the best for that.

Get Cisco certified on routing, switching, wireless, or security, etc.

Basically it goes like this

CCENT -> CCNA -> CCNP -> CCIE

Cisco Certified Entry level, CC Networking Associate, CC Network Professional, CC Infrastructure Engineer

Pay ranges are the following:

40-50K -> 55-75K -> 75K-150K -> 200K-500K

If you choked at the CCIE pay, I can understand. Most people have no idea the kinds of money the guys behind the black curtains that keep the internet working. Those are are the elite of the elite. No one passes their first test attempt either. After you pass, Cisco offers you a job on the spot. Many turn it down and check the free market instead.

Anyway you could drop 5,000-10,000 on a Cisco academy to get you to CCENT and CCNA or self study with videos and simulators for a few hundred bucks. I don't know how much you know about IT, so it's hard to say which ones would work for you.

If networking is not something you are interested in, let me know because there are other areas of IT you can still do well or get good pay. If I had to do it all over again, I would have done the above^

Hope this helps.

If you are a SQL/Database Engineer, make sure you take the time to get fully certified as high as possible. Regardless of your experience. Doing shit like that make you almost recession proof. IT is competitive nowadays. A guy with lots of experience and certs is always picked over anyone else.

I always read this Salary Guide, every year, that is dead accurate for almost any IT position and comes with all kinds of nice information.

Robert Half IT Salary Guide

I wanted to attach it to this post but it was 2.4mb large and the limit for the pdf is 2.0mb.

Do yourselves all a favor and always keep up with the salary trends for your particular area of specialty. Since no company is loyal to us, make sure you get your credentials up to as high as possible, and adopt the "Fuck You, Pay Me" mantra.

Great states/cities for IT are Seattle, Phoenix, Houston, Dallas, Raleigh N. Carolina, New Jersey, Austin, Madison WI, Atlanta, Nashvile, San Fran, Santa Clara.

Feel free to ask me anything about this stuff. I will subscribe so that I can follow the thread better as well.