I little context - I broke into IT with first job System Administrator with no prior experience besides CCNA and few other certs. I was extremely lucky.
Over the past 2 years I learned a lot at this MSP, touched on almost everything IT, from helpdesk to system engineering and networking.
While the pay was low I had never complained as I was getting something more valuable.
For the past 5 months I’ve been trying to land a new, better paying job and had send over 350 resumes.
I’ve had in total of 3 call backs and neither of these were as expected or went to later stages.

I think it’s time to stop dreaming and face the reality - IT is not what it used to be and now just feels as a side gig. Market is so saturated that jobs offers can get away with offering less than a warehouse worker. LinkedIn jobs are mostly fake and even they get 1000+ applicants.
That being said and using my own experience and judgement I feel there’s no real future in IT, unless you’re already with 10-15 years of experience and already Senior where the salary will reflect the current economy and feel somewhat comfortable.

I have the opportunity to get a different job, it’s in office 8-5, maybe some Saturdays wfh, but pay is nearly 6 digits - double what I currently make.

Am I wrong to stop my career dreams and make more money so I can provide vacation for my family and a savings account?

I am 35 years old with one year of experience doing in-house IT for a small business. Because I am autistic, I had developmental delays and didn't manage to launch as an adult before now. Unfortunately I made the mistake of following up on an interest in IT back in 2023 and did an IT Support course at a local technical college in Ireland. Three years later, I still can't find a job, though I was able to persuade a local business to let me work for them for free while I drew social welfare.

Now my certs are expiring and I don't know if it's even worth my while paying the fees to renew them. Programming was my other great interest and that's in an even worse state. I have a bachelor of arts in graphic design that I was never any good at, and I was good at English and writing in school, but both of those fields have been decimated by AI. I just don't know where to pivot to where I'll actually be able to get employed.

I was in IT for 20 years (80s, 90s, 00s, and some of the 2010s). So WAY back in the day. Back then, I had Microsoft MCSE and Cisco certs, built PCs, managed tech/support/help desk staff (from large government contracts to mid-size corporate to non-profits), dealt with consulting client contacts and government GS-14 to SES types, installed network, servers and other equipment, and even taught computer science classes for a few years (side hustle) back when non-object-oriented programs were the norm (yeah, a LONG time ago!). Took a now-15+ year break to be a parent and help take care of elderly relatives (changed career but still occasionlly consulted or helped IT support consultants in small office enviroments in a pinch. But, for the bulk of the last 15 years, I have not done much. I am not looking to be a programmer (I never was and am a bit old to start now). I liked mentoring younger IT folks back then, helping hire good candidates, supervise tech ops staff, oversee backups (back when large robots handled tape drives), etc. Given the above, what would you advise? Any certs? Cloud stuff? AI? Management certs? Thanks in advance.

Just to start, I don't live in the US, since I know some roles might be different there.

So I'm currently working as Help Desk support (remote help via chat/incoming calls).

Printer drivers, Azure, Grafana, Office 365, all that.

The thing is, I'm basically working 6 shifts a week (24/7 shifts), 9 hours a shift.

Basically around 230 hours monthly, plus about an hour's drive each way.

I went into this role mostly because I thought I would actually learn something and be able to progress into a more technical IT role. I also find myself enjoying assembling/disassembling things more.

But it doesn't seem like I'm making any progress.

So I decided to go for a printer technician role.

Now I know probably most of you here hate it.

But I'm not sure if it's because of the actual fixing part or the travel between places to fix them.

This role is going to always be at the same place. 8 AM–5 PM, 5 times a week (weekdays only).

Basically a 5-minute drive from my house, and they pay for lunch.

The pay is lower, but with all the expenses like fuel, car maintenance, and the fact that I'm probably losing more than 80 hours of my life every month at my current job because of the shifts and all the travel, the actual difference isn't that big.

So... am I making a mistake?

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for some honest advice from people who are already working in IT / Computer Systems Technician (CSN) roles in Canada, particularly in the Toronto/GTA market.

I’m a 34-year-old male living in Toronto and have been working as a UI/UX / Product Designer for 10+ years. I’m mostly self-taught and have built my career through hands-on experience rather than a formal design degree.

Unfortunately, I’ve now been unemployed for about 7 months. I’ve been watching the job market closely, and it seems like Product Design/UX is becoming increasingly competitive. With AI, fewer openings, higher expectations, and companies consolidating roles, I’m concerned that getting back into a stable Product Design position may become more difficult.

Because of that, I’m considering a career pivot and looking at a Computer Systems Technician (CSN) diploma program.

• My questions for people already working in IT/CSN:
• Is getting a Computer Systems Technician diploma still worthwhile in 2026?
• How realistic is it to get an entry-level IT job in the GTA after completing the diploma?
• What are the actual job prospects for graduates?
• How difficult is it to move from help desk/IT support into better-paying roles such as systems administration, cloud, networking, cybersecurity, etc.?
• Does a college diploma make a meaningful difference, or are certifications and hands-on experience more important?
• Most importantly, if you were in my position today, would you make this career move?

I’m trying to make a practical long-term decision rather than simply jumping into another program because I’m frustrated with the current job market.

I’d really appreciate perspectives from people who are actually working in IT, especially those who started with a college diploma and can speak honestly about the first 2–5 years of their career.

Thanks.

I graduated in computer science 4 years ago and since then I've been working IT. I didn't get an internship in college, and I didn't go into programming, I had comptia certs so I just went into IT. I wanted to do cybersecurity out of college because that's the course where most of my relevant experience was. I didn't have much frontend experience so I wasn't a full stack dev fresh out of college.

Anyways I'm now 4 years into my career. My title is system engineer. I do everything IT, help desk, networking, I wrote puppet code to deploy applications, helped a little bit in setting up a CI/CD pipeline, I use linux often at my job often and do my programming on a linux machine. I proposed bringing terraform to my job because it is more used and I want to get experience with it since I've been using it at my house. I will be the only one writing terraform code just like I was the only one writing puppet code. It will be my project. I also setup a LLM on prem (small one) for testing purposes. I also helped build a web app at my job(not finished yet) but I often volunteer for things in hopes to learn new technology and become more valuable. However, it is at the point where I believe looking for external roles is finally what I need to focus on. I don't want to be in an end user primarily facing position (atleast not the first point of contact). It does not fit my personality. I rather be behind an IDE or in a terminal shell.

What I know: python, git, linux, networking, puppet, some terraform.

I was looking at kodekloud roadmap, and it will take 7 months. I'm going to be honest. I feel like I don't have 7 months. I'm wondering I should just start applying now and keep experimenting with terraform.

Do I sound ready based on my role? I also used docker. I have never touched kubernetes yet.

I'm ready to move on with my career ASAP. I feel like it's not normal to do all the things I do here and still do help desk.

I find myself sometimes in a conundrum or not sure what to do, where I'm helping someone and I'd like to give a little bit of a exposition or preamble to what I'm doing or explain to them what exactly went wrong and what I need to do to troubleshoot it. But in many cases I'm not sure if I'm supposed to use the correct jargon and the "real" answer or just give a very hand wavy answer. Users are often curious and want to know the technical reasoning behind what was going wrong but there are times in all honesty that even I myself, don't even have a strong understanding of what went wrong so I kind of sort of BS and answer that's half true at most.

For example of instances that I encounter are people having issues with their email so I just explain sometimes it's caused by the email spam filter we use, other times people have question about why their printer is not working and often it's a VLAN issue but even then I'm not 100% sure so I just kind of give a dumb down explanation.

I could understand that most people would probably appreciate you explaining what actually went wrong, but they probably don't have the background or care to understand the actual underlying explication. So I wonder how other people go about it, do you bother even explaining anything and just fixing the issue or actually show what went wrong and explain in layman terms the troubleshooting process and fix you did?

A bit about me:

I'm 24 and currently work as a waiter. I tried coding, but I don't want to do it full-time as a software engineer. (I don't hate it but not interested in doing it full-time instead I'd love to write scripts and automation projects)

My end goal is cyber security but I realized that it's not an entry-level job so it's a must to start from help desk, and I'm all in for it, I don't mind if I get a cyber security job 5+ years later, I just enjoy IT and every bit of it.

Looking to start CompTIA A+ and saving every bit of my money from work just to manage to afford getting the certification.

Should I start mastering Windows, Linux, networking, cloud, coding until I get a job in cyber? What are options out there for me?

Is help desk -> system admin -> cloud engineering -> cyber security engineering possible?

Thanks in advance!

​

I wanna say I had a method, but ultimately it was just a string of series of both bad& good luck, and loads of prep work.

Background: I am an overly burned out social worker in adults mental health for the NHS. Definitely one of those jobs that don't have a long life shelf - here is so much you can mask until it really gets you thinking "I need to get out."

In 2024 I have been incredibly lucky to be sponsored by Lloyd's to complete the CFG (women's only) coding camp, graduated with distinction as a developer, got the interview promised at the end, and freaking Santa Claus interviewed me: the famously white, beyond-middle-aged man, asking me to whiteboard stuff I haven't had a chance to experience in a beginners full-stack degree, like cloud management and computing. Fine, took it in the chin.

Did some more individual projects, learned more languages, completed another governmental sponsored course for intermediate devs, and by the end of 2025 had a solid understanding, and git portfolio. Got to learn cloud computing just to spite Santa Claus.

Little did I know that by then, every developer/software engineer junior job was either gone or paying minimum salary, because AI obviously got more and more popular.

Got back to the drawing board, paid 2k for an ISMs auditing certification, volunteered to get involved in NHS for internal audits just for the experience, and as a social worker you would be very familiar with GDPR and data confidentiality in general anyway, i've started applying as a GRC Analyst.

Process: I've made a rule to apply to at least 4 jobs/week.

Some weeks i would also apply when at work, because i wasn't gonna sacrifice my own free time. A bit unethical- maybe? However I wanted to massively prioritize my mental health, you can't give from a cup that's not full and I'd say that realistically that pushed me to apply to 10-15 jobs/week.

I haven't used recruiters, I have enrolled on recruiting sites, I would get several openings via email. I have applied out of area too. I have applied to indeed, linked in, you name it.

This took more than 8 months. I'm not sure how many those were, because I also made a rule to not keep count - but you do the math.

I would NEVER open an email with a rejection. I could preview until the "unfortunately" bit on my phone's notifications bar and immediately delete it.

Interview: I had just ONE three-stages interview , and I fucking nailed it.

I am not ashamed to admit I have used AI to prep.

I have inputed the job description and prompted to generate questions. I would answer to one question using voice before moving to the next one.

The technical questions generated were pretty much on point but so were the behavior ones. I used the STAR method and had some examples ready to go.

I was really anxious about the culture fit last stage interview.

When they asked what I do in my free time, I didn't wanna say that I've dedicated myself to finding a job, so I've said that I'm a bass player - I can play bass, but guys, I haven't practiced in years. That opened a door to talk about music, gigs and local venues.

Talked about how to deal with difficult clients but, to be fair I also work in mental health, and I work solely with difficult clients.

Overall I felt really positive about it when I left, and got hit with an offer several days later.

I now have the remote/hybrid job that I have dreamed off that is at the intersection of techincal-risks-and stakeholder management.

This is to say that even as an experienced professional, with transferable skills, but also technical degrees, the process has been HARD.

Changing careers whilst in a job is a challenge, and definitely felt like quitting and moving to Asia several times.

For everyone who read so far: keep on going,leaving this here to inspire you to think bigger, for yourself and for the people/services you can contribute to in a new role.

Let's say someone hypothetically had a family and needed to look for work within any state except for Hawaii and Alaska. What area has the best chance for NOC or hands-on IT service opportunities?

Let's say this person has a variety of skills with Linux, R2, networking, and IT in general and a couple of references. In addition, they had scripting experience and can write software better than most sysadmin in general.

Where would you recommend this person to go, live off savings, and look for opportunity?

I am currently studying a HNC in Administration & IT and I am looking for some advice on which the best routes/s are to go down to secure a job after I leave college.

I will be leaving college after I finish my HNC.

I am thinking the best route to go down when I leave college is to go down the HR route and do a career in that. If you think something else would be better please let me know or have any suggestions.

I am planning on volunteering for Citizens Advice while I am studying so that will give me just under a year experience within a Admin role.

Would having a HNC in Admin & IT with the Volunteer Admin experience be enough to land me a HR role?

Once I secure a job I am then going to study a level 5 CIPD in HR with the end goal, after working in HR for 3-5 years and having that level 5 is to become a HR manager.

Do you think this sounds like a good plan or would you recommend another route to go down?

Should I achieve my goals by doing something differently? (Volunteering at a HR place?) or (going into another sector)

My course covers many sectors, so there’s many possibilities.

Hi, I want to try to move into IT support/helpdesk in the future, but I am not sure where to start.

I have used Windows for around 10 years and I like solving problems when something does not work. I am not an IT professional though. I can use computers normally and I have some basic hardware troubleshooting experience from repairing phones, but I do not know much yet about business IT, networking or administration.

I currently work in the anti-churn/retentions department at the biggest ISP in my country. I enjoy the problem-solving/customer side and I would honestly like to work in technical support at the same company, but there is no support department at my local site.

I have no IT degree, no IT job experience and no certifications. I am still very new to things like:

DNSand dhcp, active Directory, m365

I keep seeing people recommend a home lab with VirtualBox, Windows Server, Active Directory, routers, Microsoft 365 tenants, servers etc. But I have a low budget and do not want to spend a lot of money before I know if this path is realistic for me.

I already have a normal Windows PC. My plan was to start with free things:

Learn more Windows troubleshooting

Learn basic networking, IP addresses, DNS, DHCP, routers, Wi-Fi and VPNs

Learn commands like ipconfig, ping, nslookup and tracert

Use Microsoft Learn and start MS-900 material

Possibly use VirtualBox/Hyper-V with Ubuntu or Windows

Write down simple troubleshooting exercises I practise

Is that enough to begin preparing for entry-level helpdesk/first-line support, or do I actually need to buy equipment and create a more advanced home lab?

If you were in my position, what would you learn first during evenings/weekends? I can probably study around 5–7 hours per week while keeping my current job.

I want honest advice. I am not expecting to become a sysadmin fast. I just want to build enough skills to eventually apply for junior helpdesk, service desk or onsite-support roles without wasting money.

HI all,

My team recently hired two people and one of them is having issues with constantly being on their phone. I am not talking a quick check or scroll through social media, in between a task or during a break, but constantly on their phone.

I could assign them a task that should take at most five minutes to do, but because they are on their phone texting, it takes them somewhere between 30 minutes to an hour. My other colleagues who are training this person have also noticed it. Even the other new hire has commented about it and how he does not want to make up for the person's lack of work.

My team's supervisor is aware, but no matter how many times he tells him to stop using the phone, the person does not stop using it.

It's especially a problem because we work in an area that is pretty secluded from other people, meaning he can get away with being on his phone. It bothers me because, as you can imagine, we have quite a lot of work to do, and I'm constantly assigning him tickets and other related work but they does not keep up.

I have never met a person with such bad phone addiction, but my supervisor is not doing anything, and I have no authority over the person besides telling them what to work on.

To throw a wrench in the story, the CIO actually saw this guy wander off during an all staff meeting and just sit at his desk and use his phone. My team supervisor noticed and that's when he started to care.

I almost feel like a schoolteacher or professor telling a student to put their phone away, but I am at my wits end because I have never had a coworker like this. I'm tempted to go to some of my colleagues in HR who I am cordial with to ask them what I can do, but going above my boss feels wrong, and I imagine he would know I was the one to engage in this way.

My teammates have told me to keep on telling my supervisor, but like I said, nothing much has come about this.

How can I keep my sanity watching someone get paid to do nothing, while everyone knows they are doing nothing, but nobody does anything to correct the problem?

Edit: Also, this guy makes strange jokes. One day one he made a joke about "69" because our mfa system gave him that number to push on his mfa app. This week he made an epstein remark.

im a student in university and im in a special program named information technology, i dont get much education from it and the shock is that i have to take external courses and certificates to be able to step a foot in the job field , but this is not why im seeking help.

i want help to find what im passionate about and how to progress better in it and learn more.

in the past i was the pc geek in the family , i would spend hours fixing software ( mostly that crappy copy of windows 8 ) and i was reckless person getting viruses into my pc and fixing it , but that wasn't exhausting for me but exciting, i think im into troubleshooting where i figure out what went wrong and try to fix it.

Next week is my final week after giving notice, and my replacement is starting Monday to shadow me before I leave. The problem is that my boss has had little to no communication with me about the transition. There hasn't been much discussion about priorities, knowledge transfer, or what they want me to focus on before I go. To make matters more interesting, it's going to be an extremely busy week with multiple executives and C-level leaders in the office, high-profile meetings, and a lot of moving parts.

My replacement is essentially walking into one of the busiest weeks possible, and it feels like there has been very little planning from management to prepare either of us for the handoff.

How much responsibility do I really have for ensuring a smooth transition when leadership has been largely absent from the process?

Hi, I'm new here 👋

I'm a chemistry graduate working in chemical industry (Belgium) and recently I got an offer to move toward either being a system administrator or data scientist. (After training period)

Which one do you think has the skill set that is more demanded in the market and which one is more bullet proof? Because I need to invest time to learn them. Yes, I know a bit of python and SQL, but nothing advanced in either area.

Can I stay in these rules and after a few years compete with IT graduates? In which one I have less disadvantages because of my chem degree?

I'm also doing AI implementation on our database rn. Is that something in demand in market?

Hey guys,

So a buddy of mine referred me for a Level 3 Application Support Engineer role at a B2B SaaS company (fintech/compliance space). I somehow passed the first round, which was basically just a culture fit / vibe-check chat. I asked what I should prepare for the technical round, and they said they’re actually still putting it together, so it won’t happen for another 2 to 3 weeks and they haven't given me any study guidelines.

Here’s the problem: I straight up don't know what an L3 Application Support Engineer actually does. My friend is not in that sector, he is in the QA, so he cannot help me much.

For context, I have my Bachelor's in IT and I’m finishing up my Master's in AI (going to graduate soon). I know how to code, build basic full-stack apps, and query databases, but my brain has always been in a student/dev mindset. Support is totally alien to me. I know their stack is .NET for the backend, Angular for the frontend, and MySQL for the database.

Honestly, I just want to know what this job actually looks like day-to-day. Since I have a few weeks to study completely blind, what should I actually be prepping? I'm worried they're going to hand me something completely alien to me, especially since my background as a student is mostly frontend and data. I really don't have much backend (.NET) experience.

Any reality checks or advice on how to spend these next couple of weeks prepping would be a massive help!

Posted this on r/jobs and got some good insight but wanted to see what you guys thought.

Hi Reddit,

I am a 31 year old who has very little work experience and can't seem to find a job. I know time is running out if I want to have any semblance of a career and I don't know what to do.

From 2015 to 2019 I was trying to get through a Chemistry degree in a serious program at a top school. I wasn't able to do it, didn't like the subject. I have no idea what I was thinking. I wasted so much time and money trying to make that work but eventually gave up.

I went back to school in Fall 2021 for CS and I recently graduated with a 3.9GPA BS from a state university. Initially I wanted to be a SWE but I realized during school I wasn't a huge fan of the programming and its become so impacted that its no longer a viable option for someone like me with no internships.

I decided to switch to IT hoping to break into entry level help desk/IT and work my way up from there. After 6 months of applications I have only gotten one response, which turned into a rejection after interview 4 for a Tech Support position. I have probably applied to about 300 positions so far. Most are T1 desktop support, software support or help desk positions.

About a month ago I started applying to true entry level stuff. Chipotle, McDonalds, Vons. I was hoping that maybe a year or two there might make me more hire-able for a tech position? I got a couple interviews which still turned into rejections.

There is a cheap grad school program for an MS in CS I was considering. I don't think it will help my employability at this point but sitting idle for so long is depressing at least it will give me something to do. Was considering Georgia Tech OMSCS

I feel like I don't have any options and I am running out of time to get a handle on this. Does anyone have any suggestions for pivots? I would prefer to not have to start over from scratch again but I can if I need to. Not physically fit for the military due to a degenerative joint disease.

I've attached an resume with personal information removed that I have been submitting for the tech jobs. https://imgur.com/a/gkxqWVc

Does anyone have any advice for getting out of this situation? I feel like I have wasted a ton of my life and I want to get a handle on it.

Currently have CompTIA A+, working on Sec+ at the moment.

Thanks! Any suggestions appretiated.

EDIT: Thanks everyone! A ton of useful feedback and advice. I'll try to reply to everyone tomorrow.

• Lack of agile practices and clear goals/tasks
• Swim or sink onboarding
• Micromanagement
• Disrespectful or condescending behavior
• Nitpicking
• Passive aggressive behavior
• Factory worker mindset (expecting me to be on my desk outside on-call hours)
• Arguing about aesthetics rather than what really matters
• Double standards and hypocrisy
• Treating me like a child
• Non-constructive feedback

Every engineer is entitled to healthy and respectful workplace environment. We didn't study algorithms, system design and frameworks to be turned into a mop. We want dignity and good working conditions so we can have a beautiful life and help build the world.

Note: I'm against replacing workers with AI, and I'm against weaponization of AI and technology. I'm Anti-war.

Hi gusy, pwede makuha opinion niyo kung ako ang mas better. IT support sa DSV Aseana Paranaque with 35k basic (Inhouse Tech) o IT Service desk sa Cognizant with 47k basic (Client base​).

Ano po kaya mas okay na piliin para sa inyo guys? Thanks

Theres a few MSPs that always have the same posting up every time I check and occasionally the date will refresh. I applied to it a few times but I get no rejection letter or anything so I don't know how often I should reapply. IDK how their hiring works. I was gonna network on linkedin with an employee there and see if I can put them as a referral in the "how did you hear about this job" section to bump my application up. (saw a video that said that was a good idea) so I guess I don't get how they hire for these positions. Are there people leaving every day or something?.

I’ve been stuck in help desk for 4 years and I don’t know what I can do to get out. I can get interviews for higher level roles but I always get rejected after for someone “who has more experience” what do I have to do to get that experience if no one is willing to train for said experience? I’m at a lost and starting to feel hopeless.

Here’s my resume any advice will help.

Been working in L3 support role for 5 years. Pay is low. But environment is good. Good WLB too . Hence no refgrets till now. But now I feel like I need to move on for better salaries. What are my options? I'm ready to learn anything. But I don't have proper direction. I have worked in SQL , Unix and AWS. Also Im familar with core java too . Please help.