Would love some advice of anyone established in non-development IT related career.
Here's my situation: Switched over to the IT world 2 years ago. Before I worked in a tangentially related IT job; but IT was always a passion so decided (even though I'm a bit older) to follow my interests on more hands-on IT.
I started my own consulting biz 2-3 ago, doing mostly home tech support, but landing a few nice contracts with some small biz'es doing support. About a year ago I signed up as a sub-contractor for a larger more established on-site biz, and that has been going pretty well, I've learnt tons of stuff and has been a good experience.
Currently though an offer came up for a tech support position at a very large, world-known company that does AV and makes security appliances. My choice right now is to continue my current situation, which is making a good hourly wage but not working that much in any given week (enough to get by, but not a lot of money), and continue to develop my own skills and also gain some more IT certifications, and look for ideal or choice job opportunities coming up while I have the time to be selective. The second option is going for this new option. I think it would be a great break to get into such a well established company, and without my 'in' I don't think I'd be able to land such a gig, as I don't have a comp sci degree and I'm mostly self-taught (though I have many certs), on the other hand, it would be mostly phone and email support for specific devices, and I really prefer instead doing in-person stuff, and having more exposure to a wider variety of situations (for my on-site job, I do everything simple tech support from break-fix to setting up small networks and well, pretty much anything in between.) On the other hand I really enjoy the security aspect of IT so this new company would be a great place to start getting serious about that.
I don't know if it would be better for my future career potential to get my foot in the door at this big company, or whether I'd be limiting my future potential by taking a job that I might get limited in as a specialist instead of a generalist (not to mention again, I don't think I'd like doing as much phone support). Ideally right now I'd like to get in as a junior sys admin at a medium sized company, but maybe this job opp is too good to pass up?
Open to any thoughts or suggestions from folks that have more experience in the IT world.
Here's my situation: Switched over to the IT world 2 years ago. Before I worked in a tangentially related IT job; but IT was always a passion so decided (even though I'm a bit older) to follow my interests on more hands-on IT.
I started my own consulting biz 2-3 ago, doing mostly home tech support, but landing a few nice contracts with some small biz'es doing support. About a year ago I signed up as a sub-contractor for a larger more established on-site biz, and that has been going pretty well, I've learnt tons of stuff and has been a good experience.
Currently though an offer came up for a tech support position at a very large, world-known company that does AV and makes security appliances. My choice right now is to continue my current situation, which is making a good hourly wage but not working that much in any given week (enough to get by, but not a lot of money), and continue to develop my own skills and also gain some more IT certifications, and look for ideal or choice job opportunities coming up while I have the time to be selective. The second option is going for this new option. I think it would be a great break to get into such a well established company, and without my 'in' I don't think I'd be able to land such a gig, as I don't have a comp sci degree and I'm mostly self-taught (though I have many certs), on the other hand, it would be mostly phone and email support for specific devices, and I really prefer instead doing in-person stuff, and having more exposure to a wider variety of situations (for my on-site job, I do everything simple tech support from break-fix to setting up small networks and well, pretty much anything in between.) On the other hand I really enjoy the security aspect of IT so this new company would be a great place to start getting serious about that.
I don't know if it would be better for my future career potential to get my foot in the door at this big company, or whether I'd be limiting my future potential by taking a job that I might get limited in as a specialist instead of a generalist (not to mention again, I don't think I'd like doing as much phone support). Ideally right now I'd like to get in as a junior sys admin at a medium sized company, but maybe this job opp is too good to pass up?
Open to any thoughts or suggestions from folks that have more experience in the IT world.
