So I’m burnt out on desktop support and I don’t want to make the jump to sysadmin or network engineer because I don’t want the headache that comes with those jobs. I’ve been in charge of inventory at a few places I’ve worked and also been in charge of ordering at most of them. I’d like to find a position as an IT asset manager (or even just asset manager in general) in order to get away from the day to day stuff. I don’t know what kind of additional experience I would need to make this change or if anyone would even hire me with my background (15 years in desktop). And also if it would pay me more than the $42k a year I’m currently making. I know I’m at a disadvantage because I’ve never worked in purchasing but I know I could do the job if I could convince someone to take a chance on me (which seems to be rare these days). Any ideas, tips, or anything like that?
Good luck with the career change!
The first thing to do would be to see if you can get some experience at the company you’re with. If it’s something that you’re already doing there, see if they’re willing to change your title. That way you can put it on your resume.
Just from my experience, though, there are a lot of desktop support positions out there, but not a lot else. At least, I’ve been getting lots of calls for desktop support jobs even though I haven’t done it in years.
I am in charge of inventory here but not ordering. Ordering has to go through $Parent_Company and our IT director (two levels above me) handles all that. I don’t see that changing anytime soon because it’s a very convoluted process (because everything $Parent_Company does is convoluted).
I’m burnt out on desktop and also want something with the potential of making more money, preferably without having to be the boss of anybody. But I don’t think those jobs exist anymore.
Without even looking at yours, retool your resume. Seriously. Change any wording to bend it to what you want to do. ‘I made widgets’ should be something like ‘I constructed widgets vital to the inventory process’. You get the idea. Accent where you want to go, not so much of where you are. If you need to, scrap it. Start over from scratch or your new version will still look like the old one. You’ll still get those desktop calls (I still get network engineer calls because of one cert on my resume from over 10 years ago) but you’ll find something. Also you might want to find a recruiter that you like and make sure you communicate with them. This is beyond the usual slew of recruiters that call you. It’s their job to find you a job so if you can find one you connect with, they can work that much more for you.
Beyond that, look for job postings for an asset manager and see what they want in terms of experience. Then go get it. If you see a specific software package pop up a lot, go see if you can get certified in it. Stalk the job you want.
Rattle the friend tree. Even working someone’s crap startup in a position sort of like the one you want can get you farther in the resume game. And hell, the crap startup might end up taking off and be fun.
I think if you are looking outside your current zone you have to look in ways outside of your normal ways of looking. If I am playing a shooter game and play sniper all the time and stay zoomed in to catch those sweet headshots, I’ll miss the dudes running to either side. If I want to scrum it up with them then I need to learn a new way to target.
Intro to Chapter II of All I Need in Life I Learned From FPS Games.
Hell, even I get calls about tech support and I haven’t done that since 2003.
Look for the jobs you want to have and analyze the job descriptions. Find out about the certs and experiences they allegedly want. Learn the lingo as though you were starring in The Pretender. Figure out the “real” career path to that area. Buy coffee for the people who do it and pick their brains. Find groups on LinkedIn.
If you can’t talk them into getting you training and familiarity with that stuff under the guise of “learning how it works so I can do my job better,” see if there is applicable volunteer work available. I can’t get actual operations training through the Army because they don’t see the need for an assistant operations NCO to have training (seriously), but there is a ton of relevant training online thorough FEMA while wearing my emergency management volunteer hat. As you may imagine, logistics in disaster response is huge. Easy, free online training through FEMA plus actual classes frequently available through local agencies who may be delighted that you even care, whether or not you have experience.
Not that I’ve actually acquired a job, mind, but I am getting training and experience.
Base out of Waffle House and call Walmart?
Find a job that you want that’s either being neglected or done poorly and take it. Take it.
I fought my way out of desktop support by finding a sysadmin task that was being neglected (it was our Altiris Notification Server, which at the time was basically a network scanning tool that could do remote software inventory and reporting on all the computers in the organization), wheedled the password out of an admin, read the docs and taught myself the tool, started running reports, and in a few months I was able to show management that we were over-buying seats some engineering applications. After that, Altiris administration became my job, and then I infected my way into more general sysadmin by picking up tasks no one else wanted to do and doing them.
I fought my way into storage by taking over some shared folder stuff that the other admins didn’t want, and then proposing a bunch of process changes, and then doing them. A year after that, I was running the site SAN and NAS (300TB—in 2006, this was a lot!).
Never have I ever had a job just come to me, and never have I had any kind of substantial reward or promotion given because I kept my head down and had faith it’d come if I just did a good job. The only way to get anything at work is to TAKE it—do the job you want and make it into your real job and if you’re good at it, it’ll pretty much become your job for real.
Good advice, Lee, but if I want to do this job, I need to go somewhere else because it’s handled by $Parent_Company who is in Memphis. So I’m wondering how to get someone else to hire me. 