Career Advice - Tech Support

[Mishandled]

Dear all, I am currently working in Switzerland for a large IT services company, and the missus and I have decided that its about time to return to England. After more than a year of searching in the North East I still am no closer to finding a job (currently an unqualified financial controller, after years in ground handling management/finance) Any way I would quite like to do something that I'm interested in and one idea is to set up on my own doing tech support for home users/very small businesses. This is because I spend hours every evening f@rting around on computers in my own time so it would be nice if I could earn my living this way.

After that long winded introduction my question is this; do any of you think that this idea is feasible, and what education/training/qualifications would you recommend so that I would be more marketable/useful in this context?

I am pretty good at MS Office particularly Excel, and after working on both my fathers and father in laws pcs I now have a pretty good experience with Windows 98SE

It might just be a pipe dream but I'd like to investigate before condemning myself to a life of spreadsheets for ever.

Cheers for any comments, positive or negative:ok:

[Hamrah]

Mishandled,

My local free paper has a regular group of Advertisements offering the sort of thing you are talking about. SO there are plenty of others doing it. You will compete against a serious number of youthful computer whizz-kids who are doing this kind of stuff for pocket money ( my son being one of them)

Few people would be comfortable letting you loose on their precious computer without some qualification in writing, so Microsoft Certification ( although of limited value) would be at least something to show you know what you are talking about.

I genuinely think you would struggle to earn a living. It might work as a second job.

Hope this helps

H

[E-Liam]

Hi Mishandled,

One of the corporate identified qualifications is the ECDL (European Computer Driving Licence).

http://www.ecdl.com/main/index.php

I've got the course book, and if you already know your way around a PC, then you'll have no difficulty with it. It's not exactly degree stuff, but it'll give you

A A broad knowledge base,

and

B A bit of paper saying you've got a broad knowledge base. :)

As Hamrah says, most people under 25 have a fair understanding of the basics, but if you want to earn money you'll need to specialise. You can go into any pub and find someone who can do a clean install, or knock up a spreadsheet for home finances. But the greater the specialism, the more chance there is of someone needing to pay you rather than get the bloke from the pub.

Net security is one of the fastest changing environments, and if you could get into that in a corporate environment, perhaps doing consultancy work, then you could do OK.

Just a thought or two.

Cheers

Liam

[under_exposed]

I think you will find win98 is a bit too old to be relevant. Most people will want XP/2000. Also how much do you know about networking & tcp/ip? Also web technologies would be good.
Chech out somewhere like qa training (http://www.qatraining.com/) but be prepared to be frightened by the costs.
You are also going to be competing against a lot of people who used to do this for large companies until they were made redundant.
I am not trying to be negative but I work in computing and know how bad it is at the moment.

[bughunta]

Mishandled

I'm with Hamrah on this one. I already do what you are considering doing, but for fun/interest and a bit of extra cash, not as my main income. I mean things like new-builds, upgrades, installs and anti-virus type stuff. The sort of stuff that people take their PC into PC World for a Health Check (http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/store/pcw_page.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@1045264214.1074878983@@@@&BV_EngineID=cccgadckhkgdmljcflgceggdhhmdfhm.0&page=GenericEditorial&genericeditorial=pc001_package_healthcheck) for!

I suppose if you are suggesting to also help out 'very small businesses' then you would have to include Networking to that list. That said, there is an increasing amount of cheap, easy packages out there that may mean that a great number of 'very small businesses' will do it themselves.

I have met a number of redundant IT consultants. Some of them have forgotten more than I know about PC's, and they don't seem able to make a go of it...:(

bug

[CS-DNA]

Mishandled,

On my experience with user support for small businesses (earlier on my career),
I witnessed the amount of destruction users can inflict on PCs, even when trying
to complete straight-forward tasks.
My experience also showed me that users are often misleading on what is the
problem and what actions led to the problem.
This makes end-user support a task not to be taken when unprepared.
Even if you have solid knowledge on PC computing (from Hardware to Operating
System to applications) it is advisable not to work alone, so you can have someone
to help you with problems for which you can't find an answer.

Besides the technical skills, you must have:
- Tact and diplomacy, especially when working with small businesses. Besides the
"underlings" You will also have to solve problems on the owner's/manager's computer
(and you know how that will have an impact on their continued patronage)
The users will try to "burn" your reputation with the owner/manager when they dislike
you. (Telling a user it was his fault that a problem happened will get the user to
dislike you with a vengeance) Dealing with this kind of situations is quite demanding.
- An insight on how the average user works with the system, in order to understand
how the problem appeared.

I did that for one year, and by the end of that period I was really stressed.
When I become aware that I was arriving home in a foul mood, ready to pick a fight
with anyone, even people I loved dearly, I went looking for another job (and upper
on the IT food-chain).

As an experience, it wasn't a total loss, as it gave me an understanding of how
to deal with end-users, and made me aware that there is an absolute necessity
in user-proofing any system.

And now my shameless plug ...:(

Does any of you have any idea on how is demand for Unix systems administrators
at the moment (Britain and else where in W Europe)?
The market went bust here (Portugal) and have been looking for a job for six
months with no success:{.

Thanks.
CS-DNA

[ojs]

CS-DNA (and mishandled)...

Apologies now for slightly hi-jacking this thread to talk about Unix sys admin posts...

The market for sys-admin's - even with as little as 2-3 (+) years of experience is quite good: esp in London and South East. And by quite good, I think a figure somewhere in the region of £30-40K p.a. would be reasonable, rising to much more (I've seen sys admin posts for £100K+) if you've got a speciality. Sys admin plus a.n. other task - eg batch job scheduling / Systems Management / backups / san's / high availability systems / etc) is particularly highly valued.

My best recommendation is to go onto jobserve.com (and perhaps a couple more) and sign up for their automatic e-mail service. It will e-mail you for free every time a job advert containg your key-words comes up. You can be quite specific and can choose job type (contract or perm), location and salary. It puts you under no obligation but does give you an idea of (a) how many jobs there are out there; and (b) What other skills employers value.

[CS-DNA]

ojs,

Thanks for the info:ok:.
I regularly browse jobserve's job postings, but it is quite
hard to relate job postings to real demand when one is away
and totally ignorant on recruitment practice as done in
the UK.
With this information I will be sending some applications.
Thanks once again !! :ok:



Mishandled,

I apologise for the thread hijack, and which you the best
luck on your search.
If you really want to switch to IT I think the best way
would be to get some formal training. The main problem
is that training is expen$$ive. You would also have to
decide what you would like to do and research extensively.

Regards
CS-DNA

[amanoffewwords]

Going back to the original question:

I used to work for a large finance company - a mere 11 years - until they finally managed to p...s me off for good and I left. However, I spent the last year using and abusing their facilities to set up my own company to do just what you want to do Mishandled. My main activites at the moment are installing and configuring computers in people's homes and in SMEs. I also do repairs and general consulting on PCs/networks.

I would have the following advise if you go down my route:

- don't rush into it: - for starters there is the point of choosing to be self-employed or setting up a limited company - each have their own advantages/disadvantages - basic ones are: who's going to do your accounts/how you're going to keep on paying into a pension/insurance considerations - if you can't work because of an accident you don't get paid/have you get some basic startup funds etc... etc... best to get a book or two and visit the "businesslink" website (you may get financial help to set up the Co. too)

- research your market: you need to pinpoint who you are going to work for and where - for example I only cover the SW area of London and generally speaking only have my own customers in rich areas - I happen to live near some of most affluent areas of the UK so it helps (without actually living in one I hasten to add!). You are best advertising what you do best and add bits later as you go along - like offer basic training on Excel and Word to newbie users (like people who have just retired and want to join the club before it's too late).

- technical/qualifications: I have, in 3.5 years, NEVER been asked for any proof of qualification - even by medium sized companies who happened to find me in Google - ie total stranger let loose on a network environment. I think experience and presentation count more. I have been messing, ahem, tweaking around with computers since I was 13, ie 25 years ago, and have had the benefit of working with some tough customers in my previous job - which helps in sticky situations. It also helps to learn to say no, or "I don't know how to do that" when you're not sure. I've become a bit of a jack-off-all-trades - so I know a little about everything rather than everything about specific topics. Customers appreciate it more when I say that I have no experience about something and I'd rather not take the risk - than having a go and wrecking the system. (re a comment that was made above - how often has anyone asked a garage repair person or boiler expert to show their qualifications before accepting their services?? it's no different in my world. As long as you look confident and act professionally you'll be ok). I am however firming up my knowledge with the Open University.

Another thing you could do is to have a contract with a third-party company that offers system installation services for the big PC producing boys - that way they provide you with the jobs and keep you going while you find your feet - the Co. I do that with is currently flooding me with jobs as the winter times tend to be busier that other times (<-- that's another point - the work can be seasonal - plan for the quiet times <-- get a garden, a good set of confy chairs, a pair of Raybans and a good book :cool: but make sure you've worked your socks off during the previous months to keep you going when everyone else is on holiday [oh yeah, and forget about holidays for a couple of years...! :{ ].

But I digress...I can PM you the name of the third-party company I work for if you like - lemme know - but I hope that my (brief!) words have given you some ideas (or put you off I don't know). The key word at the end is planning, 'cause as they say "p..s poor preparation leads to p..s poor performance...

amowf signing off.

ps. did I mention the Inland Revenue, Statistical Office, Companies House, HMCE and all the other people ever so keen to lumber loads of paperwork on you? And each carrying hefty fines if you ignore them. Been self-employed is a full time job - I once told the IR I was working part-time (cause I'm a house-husband half the time) but doing 45 hrs a week. :eek: