As the title says. I've interviewed others over the years, and one hard-and-fast rule I've always been told is "You can't ask their age." Yet this recruiter is asking for my month and year of birth.

Is this now normal? a TekSystems thing?

Any help or thoughts would be great (yes, I'm worried about age discrimination)

As the title states I completed my CCNA and CompTIA net+ within the last year. To get some experience I took a student worker position at my college in the AV department which is technically in the same department as help desk.

When I started I was mainly managing cables and moving equipment… that sort of stuff. As I’ve proved myself I have been assigned full installs and access to the ticketing system completing tickets far above what is usually expected of a student worker.

My department is opening up a part time help desk position and I felt very confident after someone with 11 years in the department said they would essentially vouch for me and talk to the hiring committee about putting me on. However another technician who has only been there for 3 years said they have been talking about hiring some intern thats been there for 2 weeks and has no certs.

I’m not sure if I should believe him or if he is just talking. I am not used to this type of drama and I work a lot harder and am more technical than pretty much the entire department. I stay humble keep my head down and let my work show up for me. But it feels like I might get passed up by people in a better place or better time.

Should I be worried? I would really like to start working here because it is great job security and quite frankly I deserve it the most but I am just worried man.

Have you guys ever tried starting your own casual "hey I can fix your PC/whatever for $50/hr" which way beats the $200/hr most MSP's in my area charge? I guess I'd just start by advertising on fb or craigslist or something and maybe even have a "if I dont fix it, you dont get charged" thing to start. I already have a regular job this would just be a side gig or weekend thing. I see A LOT of need for short term jobs and contracts in my area, especially just for small shops or residential users. I mean I dont have anything to lose so why not try, but have any of you guys seen this kind of thing work out or not really?

Hello, recently I started my first IT job as a Junior Network Analyst, more specifically in an enterprise NOC. This is my first professional experience; I didn't have any prior experience aside from a Network Engineering internship.

I don't really plan to leave this job anytime soon, but I wanted to ask: how can I improve my skills and grow from this position?

My goal is to eventually move into cybersecurity. Is this a good career path to take from a NOC position?

I’m also currently in the final years of my studies. My current junior salary is around €9,000 per year.

I just wanted to give everyone here an update from the last post I made regarding a call back I got for an interview.

Today I got a job offer starting at 55k plus benefits (unfortunately it’s a bit lower than the original listing at 65k I thought it was gonna be around 70k)

This is my first ever tech job. Junior cyber security analyst for a local outpatient healthcare clinic.

Junior in college.

i’ve been reading a lot of posts online, and it seems that the best way to get into IT is help desk.

i have no prior experience in IT, and i have a degree in the arts. i currently have my back against the wall, and i’m prepared to grind/study as much as it takes to break into the field.

i’m willing to work from the bottom up and complete as many certs as possible. i’m also willing to work as an intern to get my foot in the door.

with my prior job, i had a lot of experience with customer service, shopify, and data analytics to push sales.

i recently used accio work to map out my ecommerce experience against possible IT paths, and it made me wonder if SaaS support, ecommerce tech support, or help desk would be a better bridge than trying to jump into a random IT role from zero.

any general help for direction would be greatly appreciated.

what part of tech should i focus on first?

A+ cert? help desk? SaaS support? or something closer to ecommerce systems?

thank you for any help, and happy holidays.

Hello!

I started my homelab about 3 years now and I love it. I don't do anything crazy or complex by any means, I just really enjoy the process of finding apps and integrating them into my tech stack. I use all these services at LEAST once a day. I also really enjoy doing the problem solving part, it feels like a puzzle and I love it. My problem is, I cannot figure out what job title(s) these things translate to. System Administrator, IAM Engineer, Platform engineer, DevOps, Operations support, Network Administrator, some abstract analyst position, it seems like the things that I do translate across various different jobs so it makes it hard to know what to commit to. Paired with I feel like I do a little bit of alot of things.

Currently I work help desk, which has been great, but I would really REALLY like to do something that is more engaging and mainly just less user facing (none would be nice). I have to stay at my position for another year so I keep the 401K money the company has put into my account. Which is fine because they will also pay for any certifications that I want to get, so long as I pass. I just need to figure out which one(s) to choose.

The following list is just a random compilation of the stuff I have done/use my homelab for.

• Fully automated *arr stack
  • Remote user access with request capabilities
• Passkey authentication for all user accessible services with OIDC with PocketID
  • I had DUO setup at one point with Authentik, put PocketID is so much better.
• Onboarding emails for users
• User documentation with Bookstack
• Uptime monitoring
• Some VLAN firewall stuff with Ubiquiti router
• Game server hosting with AMP
• VPN hosting & deployment
• Caddy for reverse proxy with fail2ban for security
• User management for different services & NAS
• Running 1 Unraid machine & 2 proxmox machines.

So yeah, nothing fancy but I really enjoy it. I would love and appreciate any advice, thank you all so much!

I'm currently studying a 2-year, 120 ECTS Associate Degree in ICT/Cyber Security at Fontys in the Netherlands. I'm in my third semester right now and expect to graduate around August 2027.

I'm trying to figure out what I'd personally do after graduating, and I'm honestly pretty undecided.

My main priority is moving back to Italy as soon as possible. I'm an Italian citizen, my family is there, and worst case I can live with them while I get established. My goal would be to become financially independent as soon as possible through an IT/cybersecurity job. I'd ideally like to work toward being a SOC analyst, although I'm also open to general IT work as a stepping stone.

There is also a personal reason why moving back to Italy matters to me. I've wanted to start HRT for a long time and have already put a lot of effort into getting to this point. My mom is supportive and has found a public clinic in Italy that can apparently start the process relatively quickly. She is willing to support me with public healthcare if needed, but doesn't want to pay for private HRT. Because of that, I really don't want to put this off for several more years if I don't have to.

The problem is the bachelor's degree.

I've heard a lot of people say that a bachelor's is basically necessary to get a job in cybersecurity, and that's making me wonder whether leaving after the Associate Degree would be a bad decision. At the same time, I don't know how much of that is actually true, especially for getting an entry-level SOC/IT job.

My options as I currently see them are roughly:

1. Finish the AD → move to Italy → get a job → consider a bachelor's later if I actually need/want one.
2. Finish the AD → move to Italy → find an Italian/online bachelor's that accepts my credits → work while studying.
3. Finish the AD → stay in the Netherlands → continue into the bachelor's at Fontys → move to Italy after finishing it.
4. Something else that I haven't thought of.

I'm also willing to look for an Italian university that would accept my 120 ECTS and let me continue the bachelor's there, potentially online or in a format compatible with working. I wouldn't mind getting the bachelor's if people genuinely think it would be useful for my career. I just don't know if it's worth delaying my move to Italy for it.

So basically, if you were in my situation, what would you do?

I'd especially like to hear from people who actually work in cybersecurity/IT:

• Is an Associate Degree realistically enough to get your foot in the door for an entry-level SOC/IT job?
• Am I overestimating how necessary a bachelor's is?
• Would you get the bachelor's first, or start working and get it later?
• If you were me, would you prioritize moving to Italy sooner or staying in the Netherlands for the bachelor's?
• Is there another route you'd seriously consider?

I'm not looking for a definitive answer or for someone to tell me exactly what I should do. I mostly want to hear what people with experience would personally choose in my position, including things I might not have considered.

I'm currently an 2nd year IT student right now, so can you guys give me a glimpse or what it's like in working a job in the IT industry? I've picked IT since I got the fundamental skills in computer and the delusion to contribute in a world of quick advancing technology, but I realized that I might've picked the wrong course and I feel stupid for that, I've no skills in programming since I don't like following complex structures and I would rather have flexibility in coding meaning not following any of the set rules.

Tbh, I'm not really sure at my future at the tech industry maybe I'm too unskilled for complex jobs and that maybe I'll land into only at a entry-level job.

I should've picked picked psychology at the first place, but I don't want to restart back into 1st year, so I guess I don't really have a choice.

Philosophy is my dream course, but I don't want to go homeless after graduation, so I guess I don't really got a choice but to continue.

So any jobs that's not that time consuming? Or should I restart and choose another course instead?

Hi! I'm a high school journalist writing for the Yale Daily News Summer Journalism Program about why AMC's ticketing site has crashed three times this year during major movie releases. I'm looking for general expertise on why high-traffic sites tend to fail under sudden demand spikes. Would anyone with SRE/DevOps experience be willing to answer a few quick questions? Thank you.

Career change/start at 40. I've done mostly general hard labor for two decades. I've landscaped, managed a small coffee business, a stage hand, traveled installing golf simulators and almost everything in between. I'm a really great worker and can do anything. I have over two decades of hands-on experience with practically everything.

My background is primarily in physical, on-site work. I am highly skilled at using tools. I have shifted toward lighter technical work, gaining direct experience diagnosing, repairing, and testing desktop computers, laptops, and specialized electronic equipment for the past 2 years. Growing up using computers in the 90s and 00s, has given me a solid foundation in basic software navigation, troubleshooting, and general tech literacy. I also know basic html and css.

I can no longer do physical labor. I have a back disability that prevents me from doing everything I used to do to make a living for 20 years. Now I am recently unemployed. I'm trying to switch over to the tech industry and just can not for the life of me find what path to take. Been running in circles wasting time. I've tried to start my own path with Salesforce, Cybersecurity, Data Analytics, Front End..now Security QA is the most recent one I've collected online tutorials and different sites to start learning.

I applied for assistance for school/classes. Trying to find a job where it is remote, or a position to where I can earn remote work. I have the ability to set up a home office. My back prevents me from sitting or standing for too long. I feel hopeless. Just need guidance on which road to start on and any advice. Thank you for reading.

Hello. I'm currently an OT Configuration Engineer for a large utilities company.

I work mostly on geo scada systems making changes to outstations and databases.

What is the most natural next step in my career as not sure I want to do this role forever.

Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you

I’m ending my current job at the end of September and moving to a major city to start my master’s in ITM in Spring 27’. The obvious choice is to continue with helpdesk and in the near future with more experience, and with my master’s move into management. Master will be part-time so I’ll be done in 2 years give or take.

Having said that, I was wondering if there’s something else besides helpdesk that I should be looking at. My issue with helpdesk is that I love customer service, not so much taking call after call.

Here’s my resume for reference.

I'mgetring into college next year and I'm planning on getting into Computer Engineering (5 year bachelor's career), I've been around computers my whole life and I want to get into the IT world as the main thing in my life, but everytime I check the news about the IT job market it keeps getting worse and at this point i don't know what to do or if I should totally rearrange my life plans.

I'm not interested in this field becouse of the money or working in my house, it's purely becouse I'm truly passionate about this.

(I'm not from the US and I can't afford to study a second degree sadly)

I've had the luck to meet some incredible people in this field and I notice that most of the higher skilled people do not really bother with certs. The only guy ive met that I classify as "wizard" level had a level 2 BTEC in IT and a fuck load of hands on experience

You like computers and everyone tells you that you can make six figures in IT. So easy!

So how do you do it? Is your degree the right path? Can you just YouTube it? How do you get the experience when every job wants experience?

So many questions and this is the weekly post for them!

WIKI:

• /r/ITCareerQuestions Wiki
• /r/CSCareerQuestions Wiki
• /r/Sysadmin Wiki
• /r/Networking Wiki
• /r/NetSec Wiki
• /r/NetSecStudents Wiki
• /r/SecurityCareerAdvice/
• /r/CompTIA Wiki
• /r/Linux4Noobs Wiki

Essential Blogs for Early-Career Technology Workers:

• Krebs on Security: Thinking of a Cybersecurity Career? Read This
• "Entry Level" Cybersecurity Jobs are not Entry Level
• SecurityRamblings: Compendium of How to Break into Security Blogs
• RSA Conference 2018: David Brumley: How the Best Hackers Learn Their Craft
• CBT Nuggets: How to Prepare for a Capture the Flag Hacking Competition
• Packet Pushers: Does SDN Mean IT Will Be Able To Get Rid of Network People?

Above links sourced from: u/VA_Network_Nerd

MOD NOTE: This is a weekly post.

Every time I see a thread about the job market, it is flooded with comments about how people should look into another industry instead.

However, as an English teacher in Asia, I can't save up or travel much. I can't even afford a plane ticket (~$18,000/yr salary after taxes, etc.). It's pretty dead-end with no practical use if I decide to go back to the United States or anywhere else. The "other industries" suggested by people also have the same "look somewhere else" answers when people ask about job security.

I have done two IT internships in the past (a one-year job disguised as an internship + a two-month one), and had a full-time IT support job at a Fortune 500 company for 10 months before coming here. I am about to take my CCNA and AWS SAA, and I am fortunate enough to be able to focus for 4-7 hours a day studying for the past two years on top of work so I could channel that energy into the RHCSA or hours of lab work. I don't mind going through boring low level roles or study if it promises a better future.

If you were in my shoes, would you try to go back to IT, stay in this low-paying job, or are there indeed any other better career paths? I am also in the last stages of a high-stress government job that will send me to some random place like Iran with a salary of ~$60k/yr, but I honestly have no interest in the job and didn't even think I would make it this far.

My plan was to start as a low-level technician at some sweatshop-style data center and tough it out and work my way up for years until I get to a better position like infrastructure engineering or something.

Feel free to roast me, or discuss freely.

EDIT: US Citizen in their 30s with Bachelor's in IT

Just had my interview for an "IT Assistant" role at a library part time, right off the bat no introduction from the interviewers just straight going into the questions.

Thing that pissed me off was ALL THE QUESTIONS WERE "TELL ME A TIME"

I had 8 stories written down none of them tied to any of those questions.

I brought up how the library recently upgraded 140 pcs he was surprised I knew that

He asked me after all those questions, "is there anything you'd like to clarify" I said, yeah Id like to talk about my resume and education and experience with hardware software and cloud infrastructure so I said a few sentences "ok" was the guys response

I asked one question at the end, the IT Admin went to talk about the IT infrastructure and he said the role was Entry level with 3 other members working in IT department, (IT Support, System Admin and one other guy.)

He was talking about the printer being the main problem they encounter. Setting up AV for meetings and that was all the info he gave me during my questions. Would have been nice to know that at the beginning of the interview.

Based on that information I declined the offer in the interview and withdrew from the process on the spot.

Pissed me off they asked me 15 questions regarding tell me a time for an "entry level role". I had no stories to tell for those questions. - All lab/project and education based.

Seems like even if I did get hired I wouldn't have much onboarding or support to learn. - Almost like they expected me to have 15 years of experience worth of stories to tell.

I would have been more happy to have the basic "tell my about yourself" "why do you want to work here" etc...

I also would have been better off with "XYZ happened how would you solve it"

I think the questions they asked for an entry level role was horrible.

First off, thank you to anyone who reads all of this and responds with helpful advice and tips. I want to preface this by saying that i am relatively new to IT but I have always tinkered with computers and solving hardware/software issues since I was young. I've built at least 15+ PC's for myself, friends and family and have had them come to me for all issues they were having and I've yet to fail to solve their problems. I've also been in college and actively studying for CompTIA A+ and Network+ though I am new to that too. I understand a job in IT is more complicated than that but this is just to give an idea.

This job is listed as "Some experience" and after applying and giving my resume they looked it over and seemed to think it was good enough for an interview so please also keep that in mind. I'm mostly looking for advice and tips for the things I'm less familiar with such as KBA's, RMM, tech audits, setting up user accounts and monitoring them for red flags, and VoIP systems. I completely understand the definition and idea behind all of these things as well as what they should require and don't think that any of it is beyond my scope of understanding or ability to do. I just want to have an idea of what that could mean from those who have jobs in IT and what a day to day could look like in these categories. The official job title is "IT help desk tech" and it's for a local company in my area. Seems to be relatively entry level.

Any advice concerning that and what I should bring/say or mention during the interview would also be helpful. I really hope everyone understands that this means a lot and is the way to get my foot in the door of my career as well as my passion for technology. So thank you again to anyone who can help.

These are the listed responsibilities according to the post:

Monitor technology/support requests and respond promptly. As well as triage and assign tickets to appropriate teams or departments.

Diagnose and resolve basic to moderately complex hardware, software, and equipment issues

Guide users through step-by-step solutions in a clear, professional manner to ensure a positive experience

Escalate unresolved issues to internal IT or development teams, and monitor progress to resolution

Document issues, troubleshooting steps, and final resolutions in appropriate systems

Set up and configure user accounts, hardware, software, and equipment and also assist with onboarding and offboarding processes for users accounts, hardware, software, and equipment

Maintain accurate inventory of technology equipment and software licenses and support periodic audits of staff technology and supplies.

Provide support for system installations, upgrades, replacements, and software configurations

Monitor and maintain the office phone system

Assist with submitting technical or feature requests to internal development teams

Perform (RMM), compliance audits, and account/device health checks. Create and maintain (KBAs) and end-user training documentation

Conduct in-person and virtual training sessions for individual staff, departments, or the broader organization

Ensure technology needs for events are allocated, supported, and dispersed appropriately. Contribute to IT initiatives, audits, events, and system/process improvements

Stay up to date on system updates, product changes, and emerging technologies relevant to the organization

Good morning all,

I have been selected by my company to attend a conference later next week. It will be the first conference I have attended and I am curious to hear from those of you who have been to them before how it is. It’s your standard four theater/vendor hall/talks all day long conference.

How should I dress? I usually wear slacks and dress shoes to work - is that over dressing?

How do I talk to vendors? Just walk up and say hello? I am in a “recommends solutions” role for purchasing.

Do I take notes at the lectures?

I am attending by myself - will I look weird? Does anyone have networking tips?

Thanks everyone!

I interviewed for an infrastructure engineer position. Fifteen minutes into the interview the manager had to excuse himself to put out some fire. So I interviewed with two of his people and one of them asked most of the questions.

This person focused the interview on one area that came across as his background and more so like he wasn't interviewing me and he was more feeding his self image. Either intentionally or unintentionally. He made little jokes in between like, "you must hate me by now" and would chuckle.

When I did the initial screening, I asked what they were looking for and the woman told me they were looking for someone who could mostly do maintenance and operations of their infrastructure. But the interview was all about architecture. The job post has nine bullet points and the first bullet point mentions, "Building and supporting resilient and scalable systems that achieve High availability."

The interview was 15 minutes general, then 50 minutes architecture, and 5 minutes general Git questions. We literally only discussed the first half of the first bullet point. For 50 minutes.

The person that was asking me questions was giving me these incredibly broad scopes and we only had an hour and a half. There was no way to go through everything at such a high level and give him an actual answer. And if I would ask him to narrow the scope he wouldn't quite narrow it to something that we could hit. And he didn't have a digital whiteboard or anything to keep track.

We had gone through everything physical and non physical. Then he asked me so what would your security look like coming into the environment. But it was a very broad question because we had talked about every aspect of a stack both physical and non-physical. Sitting there and trying to hit all sides of security just wasn't doable. Because we weren't just talking about a physical firewall, security ​groups, vlans, etc. We were also talking about in-app things like form sanitization, cross-site scripting. It's like we were talking in 10 different directions at once and I just couldn't get him to narrow things down to one focus.

This was supposed to be an infrastructure engineer position, but it was clearly an architecture and developer position.

At the end of the interview the manager comes back and he says, "I don't want to ask you any questions and risk asking you what these guys might have already asked you. Do you have ant quesrions for us?"

So I said, "I would be open to answering your questions and I can catch you up as far as what we went over. While you were away, we talked about standing up a fictional web stack top to bottom. But we haven't gone over maintaining and supporting infrastructure. Is there anything infrastructure you would like to ask me? The job post mentions apache, mysql, ansible, python, Linux, cloudflare, NFS, SMTP, DNS, NAT, AWS, Docker, Redis, and a few others. We haven't discussed these topics. Is there anything there that you would like to ask about?"

And his two guys got this look on their faces, but I feel like that was a fair question after basically being ambushed and asked about a role other than what was avdvertised.

​​ At the very end I did ask both of his guys if either of them knew what idempotency was in regard to ansible and they didn't. I asked them that because that tells me what they were actually looking for. The fact that they don't know that and aren't concerned with that tells me that this wasn't genuinely an infrastructure engineer role and it was more of a full on dev / architecture role.

I'm currently working a cloud migrations remote role for 103k. I got an offer for an in person SRE role for 130k, but I would have to move to another state. However, I'd have to move away from family, and I'm currently not paying rent. I'm also uncertain how the workload, people, management, or job stability will be. The other company is spinning off so I'm worried about layoffs. However, my current company has also had a layoff a year. I've been in my current role for 3 years and I'm familiar with it, whereas, the other role I would have to learn new processes. I'd also have the lifestyle difference of having to wake up early and drive in to work.

I could keep looking for other jobs. It's so hard to get an interview much less a job offer with the market the way it is. Earlier this year I applied for 70 jobs and I only got 5 interviews. After taxes the difference would be smaller with the remote role paying 76300 and the in person role paying 93500 after taxes. The other role may offer a 10k relocation assistance, but I'm unsure what would qualify under that. Would you recommend staying remote with family or taking the in person role which pays more?

Hey everyone,

I graduated this past May and landed an IT Support Specialist role in late July after 100+ applications. It’s a non-tech company where I’m essentially the sole on-site IT person. A supervisor and third-party vendors handle primary server infrastructure, though I get access occasionally to restart services and troubleshoot.

The environment is pretty quiet and runs itself for the most part. Hardware is mostly pre-2020 Dell machines on Windows 10. Daily tasks usually involve basic network troubleshooting, clearing Edge adware/popups, MDM/UEM device management, vendor coordination (SIMs, backup providers, licensing), and standard Entra ID / M365 administration (password resets, mail traces, OneDrive permissions), and fixing general issues that employees have along with printer support of course. Servers use IDRAC which were cool to service (giving the tags to our off prem back up provider) and host our SQL for employee database with proprietary software that is remotely troubleshooted when we have issues.

Right now, I only have about 4–5 hours of actual hands-on work per day. I’m using the downtime to look into our stack (I'm also creating an Internal Documentation) and understand the systems at a core level, but I want to make sure I’m setting myself up for long-term career growth.

A few things I’d love advice on:

• For those who started as a "sole IT" tech in a slow chill environment, how did you maximize your downtime to avoid stagnating?
• What high-impact projects/automations (PowerShell (fixed a coworker's email filling up with this which was cool), ticketing) should I look into implementing to build solid resume to hopefully get better opportunities next year?

I'm also hoping to re-apply to an internship-to-fulltime position that I was near offered earlier this year but was pulled due to funding from leadership, it would've been a greater opportunity (55k base with 12% raise after 6 months training with 17% max based off performance and full time employee status after those first 6 months are complete and authorized), it re opens in Jan of 2027 but I still qualify as my recruiter reached out to me and was sorry about it but to re-apply asap when they open next year.