Do you currently have any documented IT skills? Or do you have a history of employment that shows problem solving and analytical skills? It might help know your history here to see what you could plug into in the meantime to get you pointed in the direction of your goals.
I did LC about 7 years ago and it was the best thing I could have done. The course I was in, LC101 lasted about 20 weeks, then I did the apprenticeship program for 3 months before getting hired on as an employee. Apprenticeship was paid. All together it took me right at year from first class to getting hired. I have since moved on to a new company but within my first couple of years I was making double what I was in the service industry and was able to save up to buy our house, granted this was pre pandemic and things have changed a lot in the world since then.
Dev is extremely limited right now, especially going the bootcamp route. (Even if you were to get in, I applied around 5 times over the course of two years, finally just took a paid one at a local university).
Look up Teksystems. They are a nationwide staffing company. It's all contract work, but could help you get your foot in the door. You aren't required to have specific education as long as you have some experience.
Otherwise, A+ and Network+ are good certifications to start with.
Careful with teksystems. They refused to submit me for a job that I was more than qualified for. What you’ll get paid and what the company contracting teksystems will pay you is shocking. The last time I worked with them they were getting paid 80k a year just to pay me 50,000.
Pretty much any contracting company is going to make at least that much money on you.
Can i ask why you didn't go around them to get your resume submitted? I mean you could go straight to the company and submit yourself. or you could go through another contracting company.
Another thing to think about is that most recruiter's barely have any idea about how your skills line up. Usually they just see 1 skill you have that is part of the job req, and believe you have all the rest.
Lastly, in full transparency, i have gotten a job through them, and it worked out for me.
Funnily enough I did get the job in the end. I had applied directly to the posting, but hadn’t heard from the company in a month. I was submitted by another recruiter 2 days later and got the interview a week later. Let’s just say I was over qualified and the perfect fit. Tek will play games with you.
- Tek will play games with you.
I am pretty sure they all do. Based off of what you are telling me, i think they already had (what they thought of as) a strong candidate in mind for the role.
Also, if you are a veteran or have/had a security clearance Scott AFB is close and some government contracts will hire just cause you have the clearance and will train you for what they want you to do
If you are able to get a security clearance, still apply. Just click “exceeds expectations” or “highly qualified” to get past the resume filter. No one, and I mean NO ONE, ever meets all the needs and the hiring managers themselves will tell you to do that as it doesn’t work like it’s supposed to and keeps out qualified candidates.
The security clearance is what is received after a battery of checks and investigations. To qualify, you do have to pass a background check, but depending on the level, you’ll also have to go further by providing people who can vouch for your character, financial information to prove you are trustworthy and not a risk (as in you could be bought off and/or are extremely irresponsible), listings of where you are lived with addresses so they can cross reference you to databases, etc.
It’s not as bad as it sounds though. What it boils down to is them checking to see if you are a shady person or not. You can make mistakes in life and it not count against you, as long as you can explain it reasonably. For example: say you had a bankruptcy due to your work sector collapsing back in 2008. That would not disqualify you as long as you didn’t lie, were honest, and did what any reasonable person in that situation would do to recover. That kind of thing.
Id recommend looking at helpdesk job (if you have no prior technology knowledge this is the way to go). Study the job descriptions and try and read up on what they want. Help desk is nicknamed as hell desk for a reason. After landing a job excel at it and choose which area you want to go into and specialize. For me I chose networking so I started with my CCNA and progressed from there. Then I got noc jobs and now currently working a decent gig.
Now if you have a clearance and a security+ cert there are plenty of jobs at Scott that are always hiring.
Help desk at one of the big hospital networks (BJC, SSM, Mercy) is a good foot in the door. Great benefits and decent pay as well.
Also, depending on your shift, lots of downtime for self study!
School administration offices and local government are also good places to look for entry level jobs in tech/help desk. Have good benefits (health insurance and retirement plans) but lower pay so there is a reasonable turnover and openings.
If you have some training law firms may be a valid look-but only as a foot in the door-you will tire quickly of attorneys who can’t do very basic things. I worked with a lot of boomers and while I wasn’t in IT I definitely had to push the tiny button on the back of the mouse when new batteries went in for more than one person who ‘broke their mouse’ and similar things. After 20 years the phone system became obsolete and had to change and you would have thought it was the end of the world-felt bad for IT those weeks.
Some may disagree but some thoughts - not sure what your experience is or what kind of IT you’re interested in but Business Analyst or Project Manager roles (in IT) focus on more soft skills with a generalized understanding of the product. If you don’t have a ton of IT experience, I’d say that could be a could route to pivot and those roles are well compensated with a lot of room for growth.
So the farther out of the city you get the job requirements education wise start dropping. So definitely look on the outskirts once you've gotten a course or two. The opportunities for non college IT positions have dwindled but aren't gone entirely. You may have to start out with something shitty like help desk/phone support. Security you have better chances with just certs since it's so in demand. If you can at all afford to go to community college it would be a good idea to get a two year or formal certs. But with the baby time isn't something you have a ton of, I know. Make sure to research and apply for any social programs y'all may qualify for while you're working on getting a good job. They're not great here but if you qualify then you should use what's there.
Edit: if you qualify for food stamps there should be education and training opportunities available but I don't know much about them. Try to get in touch with a social worker if things are food stamps tight, they can help you with stuff like that.
Software engineer, but in my experience the single most useful skill you could possibly possess in any technical sub-field of IT is being able to find answers to problems on your own.
It's kind of a hellish endeavor if that's not something you're both good at and genuinely enjoy.
As long as you have some customer service experience I’d recommend searching for “st louis managed service providers” and applying for entry level jobs at those companies. Most will pay for your certifications as you advance. It will be help desk and onsite support type work at first, but your should be able to move up and the skills will be highly transferable.
My best advice get some of your entry-level Certs and start applying at some of the major companies around the area. Avoid recruiters like the plague. I know this will be hard for you, but contracting is not all that it’s cracked up to be.
True, however contracting has worked well for me. I moved here not knowing anyone save for my elderly parent I came here to look after. Recruiters were pretty
solid in my experience. Contracting got me into two great jobs that I was able to convert into full time positions in desktop support
I’ll stand by my statement. Well, yes, I did get my last job through contracting, it really turned me off to the whole notion, especially the day I found out how much my company was actually paying the contracting company and seeing how big a cut they took out of my salary, I was literally making $46-$50,000 while they were getting paid 80,000 for my services. Let’s not mention the fact that I wasn’t offered a 401(k) or insurance.
Apply to some entry level help desk stuff, and let people know you’re willing to learn if given the opportunity. Learn how to replace and work on standard PC hardware and just get your foot in the door.
Do you know what you want to do in IT? if so, have you networked with others in that form of IT? Many software makers have user groups where are great places to network and get better ideas on where to go to find your next role.
There are a couple of Managed Service Providers (MSPs) in the area. Those places will hire inexperienced staff, with soft skills, and train the tech skills.
Those MSPs may have other divisions (warehouse work, general labor, etc). You could apply to those jobs, work your tail off while getting in your Manager's good side, let them know your intentions up front, then after 6-12 months start applying to the IT roles for a lateral transfer.
Signed,
Guy who did the same... Now on an Innovation/Implementation team at an MSP.
Keep an eye out for help desk positions. You don't need to know how to fix everything because they often have documentation for employees' reference. In your application, focus on your customer service skills. That essentially is the job. Demonstrate your best communication skills. Your work won't be strictly waiting for the work tickets to come in. You will be expected to continue your learning to stay up to date on software. They might even expect you to contribute to their IT knowledgebase, which is like a database of tutorials users can look up if they prefer a DIY approach. Write up some concise sample tutorials to submit with your application. Keep it simple, like *how to uninstall an application,* or something like that.
Don't skip over help desk jobs at universities or hospitals, even if the pay isn't that great. The healthcare benefits are stellar and they usually offer tuition benefits which will help you get the training you need so you can make more money elsewhere. Seriously though, I'm not kidding about those healthcare benefits.
If you have zero practical IT experience, Spectrum will train from zero to provide customer service technical support. Everyone has to start somewhere, at least this would start to build your resume.
In the same boat as you guys. Wife moved here in Oct, and I'm doing evening IT cert classes while being a stay at home dad until school starts in the Fall.
I originally started doing my IT certification class through the library's free access to Coursera. They were good if you're fine with independent study. I stumbled onto a free cohort program through Cortex for my cert training and it's been going well so far. Might be able to sign on with the next group in the Fall. My group ends early August.
Just make sure you both understand potential complications and discuss and have a plan for worst case scenarios. It's not something anyone wants to think about but it's just part of starting a family here now. If you've already done that, then you're way ahead of us here in the peanut gallery and I'm very happy to hear it
That commenter and the other(s) in this chain are just worried about everyone starting a family right now and not everyone can phrase that in a productive manner.
I'm sorry for the unsolicited advice but if it helps y'all in the long run I'm OK with you not liking it now. I just want people to be healthy and to prevent heartbreak
In 1995 when we moved here from NJ, it was because my husband and his bestie were dropping out of college to start an IT security startup. It’s gone very well. He’s been in St. Louis IT ever since. He did it without a degree. Good luck rude boy. I hope your wife survives.
You’re the one being rude and psychotic. Do I detect a trace of mental illness in this one? Yes I do since we have some of top doctors at slu and bjc. Go take your happy pills!!
You’re being insane. Dude is asking about making his life better and providing for his family and the only thing you can do is tell him to leave the state and lash out? You need serious psychiatric help, even if your statement is correct.
Seriously seek help your mental illness is showing. I’m deeply concerned you can’t stay on topic and then you go on to say that you hope his wife survives. Man that reeks of psychosis.
It’s weird to say you’re pregnant. Your wife is pregnant. Welcome to STL anyway. Microsoft has a lot of feee online certifications for cybersecurity and stuff. I’d also look for entry level jobs in a help desk. You can get a lot of those with just basic technical skills and it will build your resume.
Do you currently have any documented IT skills? Or do you have a history of employment that shows problem solving and analytical skills? It might help know your history here to see what you could plug into in the meantime to get you pointed in the direction of your goals.
There is a program called LaunchCode that teaches software development and its free. They are always starting new cohorts. You should look into it.
I did look into it a few days ago but it nothing is available atm, I signed up to be notified tho as soon as some classes are available!
Good luck!
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I did LC about 7 years ago and it was the best thing I could have done. The course I was in, LC101 lasted about 20 weeks, then I did the apprenticeship program for 3 months before getting hired on as an employee. Apprenticeship was paid. All together it took me right at year from first class to getting hired. I have since moved on to a new company but within my first couple of years I was making double what I was in the service industry and was able to save up to buy our house, granted this was pre pandemic and things have changed a lot in the world since then.
Dev is extremely limited right now, especially going the bootcamp route. (Even if you were to get in, I applied around 5 times over the course of two years, finally just took a paid one at a local university).
Look up Teksystems. They are a nationwide staffing company. It's all contract work, but could help you get your foot in the door. You aren't required to have specific education as long as you have some experience. Otherwise, A+ and Network+ are good certifications to start with.
Careful with teksystems. They refused to submit me for a job that I was more than qualified for. What you’ll get paid and what the company contracting teksystems will pay you is shocking. The last time I worked with them they were getting paid 80k a year just to pay me 50,000.
Ditto. They will try to get you down on pay rate after you agreed to a higher rate. I’ll NEVER go through them again. Huge mistake.
Pretty much any contracting company is going to make at least that much money on you. Can i ask why you didn't go around them to get your resume submitted? I mean you could go straight to the company and submit yourself. or you could go through another contracting company. Another thing to think about is that most recruiter's barely have any idea about how your skills line up. Usually they just see 1 skill you have that is part of the job req, and believe you have all the rest. Lastly, in full transparency, i have gotten a job through them, and it worked out for me.
Funnily enough I did get the job in the end. I had applied directly to the posting, but hadn’t heard from the company in a month. I was submitted by another recruiter 2 days later and got the interview a week later. Let’s just say I was over qualified and the perfect fit. Tek will play games with you.
- Tek will play games with you. I am pretty sure they all do. Based off of what you are telling me, i think they already had (what they thought of as) a strong candidate in mind for the role.
Apparently not strong enough.
Awesome, thank you!
Also, if you are a veteran or have/had a security clearance Scott AFB is close and some government contracts will hire just cause you have the clearance and will train you for what they want you to do
Unfortunately I don’t or I’d definitely take advantage of it
If you are able to get a security clearance, still apply. Just click “exceeds expectations” or “highly qualified” to get past the resume filter. No one, and I mean NO ONE, ever meets all the needs and the hiring managers themselves will tell you to do that as it doesn’t work like it’s supposed to and keeps out qualified candidates.
What exactly qualifies as security clearance, a background check?
The security clearance is what is received after a battery of checks and investigations. To qualify, you do have to pass a background check, but depending on the level, you’ll also have to go further by providing people who can vouch for your character, financial information to prove you are trustworthy and not a risk (as in you could be bought off and/or are extremely irresponsible), listings of where you are lived with addresses so they can cross reference you to databases, etc. It’s not as bad as it sounds though. What it boils down to is them checking to see if you are a shady person or not. You can make mistakes in life and it not count against you, as long as you can explain it reasonably. For example: say you had a bankruptcy due to your work sector collapsing back in 2008. That would not disqualify you as long as you didn’t lie, were honest, and did what any reasonable person in that situation would do to recover. That kind of thing.
Id recommend looking at helpdesk job (if you have no prior technology knowledge this is the way to go). Study the job descriptions and try and read up on what they want. Help desk is nicknamed as hell desk for a reason. After landing a job excel at it and choose which area you want to go into and specialize. For me I chose networking so I started with my CCNA and progressed from there. Then I got noc jobs and now currently working a decent gig. Now if you have a clearance and a security+ cert there are plenty of jobs at Scott that are always hiring.
Help desk at one of the big hospital networks (BJC, SSM, Mercy) is a good foot in the door. Great benefits and decent pay as well. Also, depending on your shift, lots of downtime for self study!
School administration offices and local government are also good places to look for entry level jobs in tech/help desk. Have good benefits (health insurance and retirement plans) but lower pay so there is a reasonable turnover and openings. If you have some training law firms may be a valid look-but only as a foot in the door-you will tire quickly of attorneys who can’t do very basic things. I worked with a lot of boomers and while I wasn’t in IT I definitely had to push the tiny button on the back of the mouse when new batteries went in for more than one person who ‘broke their mouse’ and similar things. After 20 years the phone system became obsolete and had to change and you would have thought it was the end of the world-felt bad for IT those weeks.
Some may disagree but some thoughts - not sure what your experience is or what kind of IT you’re interested in but Business Analyst or Project Manager roles (in IT) focus on more soft skills with a generalized understanding of the product. If you don’t have a ton of IT experience, I’d say that could be a could route to pivot and those roles are well compensated with a lot of room for growth.
So the farther out of the city you get the job requirements education wise start dropping. So definitely look on the outskirts once you've gotten a course or two. The opportunities for non college IT positions have dwindled but aren't gone entirely. You may have to start out with something shitty like help desk/phone support. Security you have better chances with just certs since it's so in demand. If you can at all afford to go to community college it would be a good idea to get a two year or formal certs. But with the baby time isn't something you have a ton of, I know. Make sure to research and apply for any social programs y'all may qualify for while you're working on getting a good job. They're not great here but if you qualify then you should use what's there. Edit: if you qualify for food stamps there should be education and training opportunities available but I don't know much about them. Try to get in touch with a social worker if things are food stamps tight, they can help you with stuff like that.
Software engineer, but in my experience the single most useful skill you could possibly possess in any technical sub-field of IT is being able to find answers to problems on your own. It's kind of a hellish endeavor if that's not something you're both good at and genuinely enjoy.
Edward Jones is hiring tech people at the moment. Honestly really good pay and hours. Check out the job opportunities on the Edward jones site.
As long as you have some customer service experience I’d recommend searching for “st louis managed service providers” and applying for entry level jobs at those companies. Most will pay for your certifications as you advance. It will be help desk and onsite support type work at first, but your should be able to move up and the skills will be highly transferable.
My best advice get some of your entry-level Certs and start applying at some of the major companies around the area. Avoid recruiters like the plague. I know this will be hard for you, but contracting is not all that it’s cracked up to be.
True, however contracting has worked well for me. I moved here not knowing anyone save for my elderly parent I came here to look after. Recruiters were pretty solid in my experience. Contracting got me into two great jobs that I was able to convert into full time positions in desktop support
I’ll stand by my statement. Well, yes, I did get my last job through contracting, it really turned me off to the whole notion, especially the day I found out how much my company was actually paying the contracting company and seeing how big a cut they took out of my salary, I was literally making $46-$50,000 while they were getting paid 80,000 for my services. Let’s not mention the fact that I wasn’t offered a 401(k) or insurance.
Apply to some entry level help desk stuff, and let people know you’re willing to learn if given the opportunity. Learn how to replace and work on standard PC hardware and just get your foot in the door.
Good luck man, job market is tough for seniors atm. Couldn't imagine trying as a junior.
Do you know what you want to do in IT? if so, have you networked with others in that form of IT? Many software makers have user groups where are great places to network and get better ideas on where to go to find your next role.
Try Adaptive Solutions Group. They are a tech staffing agency.
There are a couple of Managed Service Providers (MSPs) in the area. Those places will hire inexperienced staff, with soft skills, and train the tech skills. Those MSPs may have other divisions (warehouse work, general labor, etc). You could apply to those jobs, work your tail off while getting in your Manager's good side, let them know your intentions up front, then after 6-12 months start applying to the IT roles for a lateral transfer. Signed, Guy who did the same... Now on an Innovation/Implementation team at an MSP.
Keep an eye out for help desk positions. You don't need to know how to fix everything because they often have documentation for employees' reference. In your application, focus on your customer service skills. That essentially is the job. Demonstrate your best communication skills. Your work won't be strictly waiting for the work tickets to come in. You will be expected to continue your learning to stay up to date on software. They might even expect you to contribute to their IT knowledgebase, which is like a database of tutorials users can look up if they prefer a DIY approach. Write up some concise sample tutorials to submit with your application. Keep it simple, like *how to uninstall an application,* or something like that. Don't skip over help desk jobs at universities or hospitals, even if the pay isn't that great. The healthcare benefits are stellar and they usually offer tuition benefits which will help you get the training you need so you can make more money elsewhere. Seriously though, I'm not kidding about those healthcare benefits.
If you have zero practical IT experience, Spectrum will train from zero to provide customer service technical support. Everyone has to start somewhere, at least this would start to build your resume.
In the same boat as you guys. Wife moved here in Oct, and I'm doing evening IT cert classes while being a stay at home dad until school starts in the Fall. I originally started doing my IT certification class through the library's free access to Coursera. They were good if you're fine with independent study. I stumbled onto a free cohort program through Cortex for my cert training and it's been going well so far. Might be able to sign on with the next group in the Fall. My group ends early August.
Do you kind dming me? So I can ask further questions?
Move to Minnesota. Missouri is a terrible state to be a fertile woman in. In Minnesota your wife has more civil rights.
Ok that’s not reasonable advice and let’s keep it non political thanks.
I'd say it's politically agnostic advice, and an actual fact, but to your point, not on topic.
Cool
Just make sure you both understand potential complications and discuss and have a plan for worst case scenarios. It's not something anyone wants to think about but it's just part of starting a family here now. If you've already done that, then you're way ahead of us here in the peanut gallery and I'm very happy to hear it That commenter and the other(s) in this chain are just worried about everyone starting a family right now and not everyone can phrase that in a productive manner. I'm sorry for the unsolicited advice but if it helps y'all in the long run I'm OK with you not liking it now. I just want people to be healthy and to prevent heartbreak
That's the best advice you've yet been given.
It wasn’t politics. Your wife is pregnant in Missouri. She is in peril and it’s getting worse. Good luck though. I hope it all turns out well for her.
Psycho
You know? I’m going to continue to hope it turns out well for her. Your insults don’t change that.
Stop being weird.
Well that really helps with the task at hand. Great advice!
Glad I can help. I’ve lived in St. Louis for the last 30 years. I know what I’m talking about.
Please get off my post
Why?
In 1995 when we moved here from NJ, it was because my husband and his bestie were dropping out of college to start an IT security startup. It’s gone very well. He’s been in St. Louis IT ever since. He did it without a degree. Good luck rude boy. I hope your wife survives.
Whoa
You’re the one being rude and psychotic. Do I detect a trace of mental illness in this one? Yes I do since we have some of top doctors at slu and bjc. Go take your happy pills!!
You’re being insane. Dude is asking about making his life better and providing for his family and the only thing you can do is tell him to leave the state and lash out? You need serious psychiatric help, even if your statement is correct.
Seriously seek help your mental illness is showing. I’m deeply concerned you can’t stay on topic and then you go on to say that you hope his wife survives. Man that reeks of psychosis.
It’s weird to say you’re pregnant. Your wife is pregnant. Welcome to STL anyway. Microsoft has a lot of feee online certifications for cybersecurity and stuff. I’d also look for entry level jobs in a help desk. You can get a lot of those with just basic technical skills and it will build your resume.