How to actually get a job in high-end IT and/or overcome huge odds doing it - Part Two

So last time (see part one) I went into depth (ok, a little too much depth) about my past as a bit of background to show two key features of my life which I feel are important for the readers of this to know.

1.  I am of minimal formal education.  As such, I am not a massive proponent of going to college (especially with the modern emphasis on useless degrees instead of more rational ones like comp/sci).
2.  I have been through some serious shit* in my life.

*serious shit includes but is not limited to: family upheaval, near fatal physical illnesses, crippling bills, lack of income, tremendous pain/physical injury, emotional turmoil from relationships, etc. For a more complete (but still partial list) please reference the 'part one' link above.

While I am grateful to eventually to have ended up being a 'phone monkey' it was a massive downgrade from being a junior sysadmin or programmer and I wasn't content to stay there.  For years, I tried in vain to get out of that position.

For reference on how soul crushing this kind of work is to anyone of meaningful intellect, watch this video (which was actually given to us as part of our training at Earthlink, if you can believe that).

As you can see, it's a miserable experience.  A minimum of forty calls a day.  I moved up quickly to other things in the company (livechat support, email, etc).  But at the end of the day, it was all the same only more of it.

Then came the day Earthlink fired us all.

Well that's not necessarily accurate as it happened in waves, but the first wave came and I recall it being the largest.  They got severances, good deals, etc.  The latter groups (such as mine) were basically screwed on the way out.  No big deal, water under the bridge at this point.  Even at the time, I was happy for it.  I hated working as a support person.

So I tried opening my own business with some seed money from my grandfather.  And while the business was successful in the sense of generating money, it was unsuccessful for a lot of other reasons - namely insufficient money to pay the bills.  So it was income positive but insufficiently so.  The time came for me to find another job.  I heard through the grapevine Sprint was hiring and so I went there.  They paid well but the work was savage.  The environment was extremely rigid; the calls non-stop.  At least at Earthlink it was laid back and there was a break.  That said, it was "real money" so I was satisfied at least once every two weeks (i.e. payday).

After six months I realized this place was even worse than the last in terms of spiritual drain.  So I tried everything I could get out of it. I applied at state jobs.  I got my civil service exam done.  I received offer letters to interview then never got calls back.  Something was torpedoing me and I couldn't figure out what.

Seven years pass.  During this time I sought internal promotion, got it several times, but was still unsatisfied. At some point it was recommended I talk to a headhunter.  I did this, but really not on a broad enough basis to matter (as we will discuss later).

The headhunter promptly lined me up with one phone interview (for a woefully underpaid Linux Asterisk Server Admin job) that I didn't pass because I didn't have existing experience with Asterisk PBX.  Well news for you buddy, no one is going to take 50k a year for a job that pays 90+ when they have the experience.  But hey, that's life, right?

Which brings us to our next lesson:

Employers always ask for more than they can feasibly get.  If they ask for 10 years, they'll take five.  If they "need" a degree from college, they'll take substituted years in work experience.  If they want you to know x,y, AND z but you only know x, q, and b - that's probably enough. 

The above is *MOSTLY* true.  However, as I found out later, sometimes they use unreasonable qualification lists to disqualify American candidates to hire H1B workers.  Video for emphasis:

I've been to the second round interviews for companies like this.  You'll know pretty quickly by their ambush-style tactics and methods that they don't want to hire you.  Just dust yourself off and move on.

So after ten years in internet telecommunications doing support work of varying degrees and rank I decided it was enough to take drastic action.  I applied to dozens of jobs and emailed my old boss (the one who I quit from shortly before being sick).  I devised a plan to get a good job within five years.

He invited me to lunch and we discussed Linux, work, home/family life and providence.  Providence, for those who don't know, is effectively 'God and his subtle guidance on your life.'

I was offered a job strangely at 1am the next day (a Saturday).  The pay was an approximately 15,000 dollar reduction but the experience would be solid gold.   I took the hit for the experience which I realized was crucial to get where I wanted to be.  A nice side bonus is I'd work more normal hours, vs the awful schedule I had at centurylink (which is what Sprint, LTD eventually morphed into).

Lesson: Sometimes you really do need to go a few steps back to go many steps forward.  It's a completely accurate platitude.

The next few years were hard.  I had frequent clashes with my boss the first year; our personalities were still very abrasive to each other.  I made stupid mistakes that he in turn got frustrated with.  I learned, however, and improved.  I scraped my way to higher pay, though it was ... not enough.  I ended up making slightly less than I did at Centurylink and after 3ish years I ran into another situation with my boss at the time.  Ironically I was going to ask him for a 5k pay raise (which from 52k was not exactly significant).  However he came in that morning and raged at me about something absolutely stupid.  While normally this would be depressing I instead got furious.  I held back my tongue and immediately applied to several Linux Admin positions I saw online.

THIS TIME THEY REPLIED.


Why?  Well, in retrospect several things of note happened during this time:

• I got relevant work experience.  I had it before, but now it was in my recent history. 
• I asked for a copy of a resume from a co-worker so I could compare against my own.  I don't recall how this went down but he advised I clean mine up using his as a template.  I did.  I think this alone had a huge impact on return contacts.  Simply put - get your resume professional revised or find someone who has a good resume and copy it's format.
• I accomplished some actual things of value.  This is important because employers will ask you for specific situations during interviews and you need to be able to say "Yes, I did this".

What's important here, and I can't stress this enough, is you have to put in your time.

For some people that time is college.  Other people, like me, do it through work experience.  For almost a decade though, I was trying to jump the line to my 'Linux admin dream job' and only after I  took myself down a few pegs mentally and went to do some grunt Linux work did I actually get a shot at a real job.

In prep for this, I did the usual spat of pre-interview stuff you'll read anywhere:

• I researched the job. 
• I cleaned up my resume and tailored it for the job I was applying for. (I often use multiple versions of the same resume depending on the job I apply for)
•  And most importantly, I bought a good suit.  I went to kohls and got a 600$ fitted suit (learn to take your own measurements first here: http://www.us.thomaspink.com/HowToMeasure/content/fcp-content which was on sale for 50% off.  I made sure to show my prospective employers that I took their job seriously enough to buy a new suit; this remains my 'get a job suit'.  Every interview I've gone to in it, I get a job.  It's that simple.

Lesson: Buy a good, fitted suit.

I got the job.  It was a contract job, which is another important piece.  So many little things here.  Most people, myself included, are scared of contract work.  However having done it, it's so much easier than regular work.  You get paid more, the expectations are lower from your employer, and you get into 'the network'.

Lesson: Get into the IT-contract pool 'network'.

There's a magical place in IT where people actively try to hire you.  They find you.  They email you. they call you.  You get offered jobs without being asked.  This only happens when you are in the contract pool network.  After I took my first contact job (making 20k more than I made at my previous full time job, mind you) .. I started getting calls from headhunters.  Eventually I moved off to another job making around 100k six moths later.

Let me reiterate.  Once I made the necessary life changes, put my time in for Linux administration, adjusted my resume, bought a suit and became willing to do contract work... I went from scraping by on a single income of 52k per year to 100k+ year.  This contract job turned into full time work paying approximately 85k/year.  This is the price you pay for security (and health insurance).   And honestly, I was satisfied with that. 100k+ was nice, but 85k and a secure job were hard to beat.

Of course, I was still in the network.  I kept getting emails.  I kept seeing headhunters - never spurn the headhunter call.  Stay on their radar as much as you can - at worst you get a free lunch out of it (they always love meeting you for lunch).  When a big job comes in, you are their go-to.

So there's a lot of moving pieces, as you can see but it's really not that complicated.

In part three, we'll go into the interview process and how to approach it.