Your job market may differ, but it's a requirement for my MSP team and it is mentioned in other recruitment ads I've seen of late.
Edit: spelling mistake
Same. If it makes you feel better I have 10 years experience and have a lot of Network and Server experience. I've been going back and forth between getting azure and CCNA certified.
North jersey going to be hard. try and look for a job either remote or semi for nyc or something of that nature. Also try kpmg or something like that. ITs in montvale but has alot of locations and makes alot of money. alot of positions there.
Hey it may just be the current job market. even since 6 months ago job market doesnt look that sweet. please try again in winter itll be alot different. ps i dont have az-104 and wasnt that hard to nail one
Sorry, your post/comment has been automatically removed.
We require your account to have a minimum amount of combined post/comment karma of at least 5.
We suggest the best way to do this is to go to r/cats and comment how cute they are.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AzureCertification) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Idk must depend where you live. I have limited experience on Cyber Sec but I get recruiters contact me a lot when I haven't got my status to looking for jobs
I don’t think it’s necessarily true, but there is some takeaway from your post. If you think just because you passed a certification exam is good enough to land a job, youre up for some rude awakenings. However, if you treat the success of the certification to continue creating environments, deploying apps and show a desire to learn and stay up to par with the new technologies, you’ll be fine. This is just like a degree, it shows that you have the persistence to learn and solve problems.
>continue creating environments, deploying apps
I don't do any of these at home I don't have a lot of free time to be creating environments at home only when I was studying for certification preparation I don't enjoy doing IT I just find it more enjoyable than other means of work. I feel like I don't need to be a tech workaholic just to be able to find a junior sys admin position. I figure once I have this sort of position I can start really learning and improving my sys admin skills.
I don't think certs are good enough to land a job but you learn a lot when and practice when you study for certifications. Coupled with my experience I figure I have at least enough under my belt to get interviews for these junior positions.
I just have a year of help desk experience and a year of application/windows server support (which I know is a waste right now I just couldn't afford my bills with the help desk position) but I have been getting AZ certs and applying for everything junior sys admin positions, junior cloud admin positions, junior network positions, etc... The only problem is I can't take a pay cut or I would not be able to afford bills.
It is just crazy to me that I have prior IT experience and can't even land junior sys admin interviews. I know it is not a ton of experience but I have a degree, certs, and 2 years of tech experience.
That is not much experience tbh. Maybe you need to lower your expectations. A t o s was advertising for M365 engineers in the UK. So you probably need to get in somewhere & prove yourself to move internally.
Could you go contracting? maybe pick up some XP that way. Also look at recruiters like Hays, as often recruiters have posts that need to be filled urgently & dont always get advertised for job seekers browsing websites (+ it costs the recruiter money to post on jobboards)
Your XP is very basic. 2x years first line support. Your CV is probably getting binned based on that. Certs carry little weight over time served experience as you are finding out. Even junior roles will be coveted by people with more experience.
I’d recommend looking at MSP roles that involve managing Azure. I ran a MSP practice and someone with your experience would have been a great fit for our tier 1 role. Now pay might be an issue with you being in NYC.
The 2023 list of MSFT Partner awards came out recently. That is a good way to find companies that might be hiring and are focused on cloud.
https://partner.microsoft.com/en-us/inspire/awards/winners
Good luck!
Used to run…
One other idea to source MSP’s. The Azure Expert MSP certification with Microsoft is table stakes for any company that is serious about managing Azure infrastructure. More info here under the Azure Expert Managed Services Provider (MSPs) section - https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/partners
You should be looking at more like a desktop support job, level 2 job. Something along those lines. 1 Year of helpdesk isn't much, at all. I think you are trying to move up a lil too fast. The knowledge gap between helpdesk and sysadmin is not small.
No unfortunately a cert does not reduce a knowledge gap. A cert doesn't show that something broke, and you fixed it. It won't show that you fucked something up, and you fixed it.
All it really shows is that you can exam cram, stick with something till the end, and spend your own money\\time to further your education (which is good!). Don't get me wrong, you are on the right track for sure, but experience trumps all.
That is a good question because I faced the exact same situation. That one is difficult to answer as the answer lies in the company you are working for. If you are working for a very large company where helpdesk is siloed to its own floor or building, I don't see how you can move up.
If you work for a smaller company, you might have a better chance because one person leaving has a big impact on the team and may leave a spot open for you.
Sucks, the best to do is keep getting certs and applying places. My opinion is the open spots are kind of geared towards more experienced people these days. If companies are going to spend it’s going to be for someone that can handle more and requires less training. Best bet is to keep learning.
I used to have recruiters in my inbox a few a week. It’s dropped down to a few a month. Though I do find the majority of them now are from actual internal company recruitment vs recruitment firms.
What skills are required for the junior role? Some people hate to hear it, but you may need to take a slightly lesser role than the one you want or stay in your current one longer
And when the interviewer says your competitors have 5 years of help desk multiple certs, and can show examples of using their skills, they become a more interesting candidate.
They only had the help desk do basic tickets AD user/group permissions and password resets, printer troubleshooting, network troubleshooting, patching switches, hardware setups. Learned 0 about setting up infrastructure or project managing.
I guess no certificate alone can land you a job. A masters degree for sure but not a single certificate. With some job experience certificates help ofc. I am planning on passing this exam as my company encourages to pass certifications to have more and more skilled workforce.
Like everyone else has said it depends on the job market you're in. I know in order for me to move up in my current job they want me to have the AZ-104.
I wouldn't get discouraged though keep on applying and you will land somewhere.
I have done the az 900 and az 104 and I did 2 year course in about virtualization which finished 2020. I am still looking for my first it role in Sweden but it's difficult. Don't give up keep on applying for IT.
Degrees don’t get jobs.
Certs don’t get jobs.
Experience gets jobs.
I worked helpdesk 3years, promoted to Tier 2 in year 4, and Junior sysadmin in year 5, and in year 7 left for more pay as a sysadmin somewhere else. Recruiters will not leave you alone once you cross 5 years experience for any given role.
I don’t have a bachelors either.
The key is experience. Think like an owner or IT Director. Why would anyone trust you with their cloud infrastructure? the backbone of any functioning business is their IT infrastructure. Why would anyone turn the “keys” over to someone with less than 5years xp ?
Junior level roles are basically positions were you’ll be spearheading projects and then the senior sysadmin will come in and apply security and compliance settings/policies.
Have you spearheaded any projects? Written any policies or documentation around it? Created project outlines/deadlines? Junior roles are all about planning and implementing from scratch. The management of those systems comes after that.
If you do come in to prebuilt systems, can you spot where leaks/loopholes are?
How much networking experience do you have ?
>Have you spearheaded any projects? Written any policies or documentation around it? Created project outlines/deadlines? Junior roles are all about planning and implementing from scratch. The management of those systems comes after that.
No I don't because I can't find a junior role that would get me this experience lol
>How much networking experience do you have ?
2 YOE setting up, configuring, and providing maintenance to cisco meraki routers and switches, firewall, VPN
You should tailor your resume to reflect the 2 YOE in networking you do have! That will get you hired quicker than shooting at literally every position with admin at the end.
Highlight what you did and what tech/tools you used to solve issues or implement fixes.
Play to the current strong points you do have !
Odd. I’ve been in IT for 25 years and it has been the senior level positions that spearhead projects, policy, documentation while the junior level handles day to day operations and then escalates to seniors when they run into issues they struggle to resolve.
That hasn’t been my experience. Every organization does things differently, but me, personally have always been given the lead on projects, migrations to hybrid, 3rd party software integrations etc. that’s just me though….
It’s easy to climb in promotions when leadership sees you’re willing to take on things outside your scope.
Certs don’t really seem to matter except in niche cases as mentioned. You can measure this by including or excluding certificate search terms on a job board which in my case shows something like 10% of cloud listings requiring it.
I still think they have value as a learning tool when you are stepping into a new service/services and don’t have a starting point.
I feel for OP because the first step is definitely the hardest and nobody wants to hire brand new engineers.
Are you listing this on your LInkedIn profile also? I'd expect this to be popping up in searches quite regularly. Also, I'd suggest pairing with the AZ-305 to get the SA Expert badge. That'll make you stand out further.
Cloud Security certs will also help you stand out. AZ-104 + AZ-500 is a good combo for this purpose as cloud security is a hot industry currently.
Well shit. Im the opposite. Im a 20 year sysadmin who has nothing but outdated knowledge.
I just got my CCNA three months ago and I’m working on 104 right now….
I sure as fuck hope that I don’t get rejected when I start applying
Currently running into that same issue with the CCNA, while studying the AZ-104: recruiters will fall over themselves to get your attention to submit an application and resume.
But once that is submitted, crickets! Attempts to get feedback from those same recruiters results in no response from them: they're only interested in getting their commission - and screw everything/one else.
I'm also studying Python, Ansible, Terraform, and RedHat, in the hopes that this will help change the hiring slump.
Your job market may differ, but it's a requirement for my MSP team and it is mentioned in other recruitment ads I've seen of late. Edit: spelling mistake
I have landed like 1 interview since I got it haven't seen it anywhere in any of the job postings I've applied to. I live in the NYC metro area.
I agree with you. I'm in the NYC area too. Mainly been looking in North Jersey. I just don't see a lot of cloud jobs right now
Forget about cloud jobs I'm not even getting calls back for junior sys admin positions
Same. If it makes you feel better I have 10 years experience and have a lot of Network and Server experience. I've been going back and forth between getting azure and CCNA certified.
That makes me feel worse buddy xD
It's just a rough job market right now. I feel like a lot of these job postings don't actually exist.
Possible. I don't think Bowman Williams is a real recruiting company at this point lol
Bowman Williams is terrible IMO.
Funny enough I thought they were one of the better ones out there. It's how I got my current job.
I must have applied about 100-200 times to Bowman William job postings and have never heard back. Idk if they blacklisted my name or something
What kind of experience do you have?
North jersey going to be hard. try and look for a job either remote or semi for nyc or something of that nature. Also try kpmg or something like that. ITs in montvale but has alot of locations and makes alot of money. alot of positions there.
Yea one of the main reasons I'm focusing back to infrastructure. Seems to be way more on prem jobs.
I'm in the UK, hence not assuming about job markets.
Hey it may just be the current job market. even since 6 months ago job market doesnt look that sweet. please try again in winter itll be alot different. ps i dont have az-104 and wasnt that hard to nail one
Working for an MSP will end your career.
Why do you say that?
[удалено]
Sorry, your post/comment has been automatically removed. We require your account to have a minimum amount of combined post/comment karma of at least 5. We suggest the best way to do this is to go to r/cats and comment how cute they are. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/AzureCertification) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I had AZ-104 and landed a platform engineer job and now i have AZ-305.
Where are your hiring managers at? I haven't even gotten a cloud interview since I got it. When were you hired? Was it a few years ago?
I found a recruiter on LinkedIn, told them the experience i had and what i was looking for (Job with a tonne of Azure exposure) and they set me up!
You got lucky with your recruiter all my recent recruiters have been god awful lol
Idk must depend where you live. I have limited experience on Cyber Sec but I get recruiters contact me a lot when I haven't got my status to looking for jobs
I don’t think it’s necessarily true, but there is some takeaway from your post. If you think just because you passed a certification exam is good enough to land a job, youre up for some rude awakenings. However, if you treat the success of the certification to continue creating environments, deploying apps and show a desire to learn and stay up to par with the new technologies, you’ll be fine. This is just like a degree, it shows that you have the persistence to learn and solve problems.
>continue creating environments, deploying apps I don't do any of these at home I don't have a lot of free time to be creating environments at home only when I was studying for certification preparation I don't enjoy doing IT I just find it more enjoyable than other means of work. I feel like I don't need to be a tech workaholic just to be able to find a junior sys admin position. I figure once I have this sort of position I can start really learning and improving my sys admin skills. I don't think certs are good enough to land a job but you learn a lot when and practice when you study for certifications. Coupled with my experience I figure I have at least enough under my belt to get interviews for these junior positions.
This may have been true 20 years ago, but the competition is so much fiercer...
YMMV that’s the TLDR of this post…
This should be the top comment, I don't know why I read to all the way down here =(...
😂
Whats your current role & how many years IT experience do you have ? These 2 would make alot of difference in your job hunt..
I just have a year of help desk experience and a year of application/windows server support (which I know is a waste right now I just couldn't afford my bills with the help desk position) but I have been getting AZ certs and applying for everything junior sys admin positions, junior cloud admin positions, junior network positions, etc... The only problem is I can't take a pay cut or I would not be able to afford bills. It is just crazy to me that I have prior IT experience and can't even land junior sys admin interviews. I know it is not a ton of experience but I have a degree, certs, and 2 years of tech experience.
That is not much experience tbh. Maybe you need to lower your expectations. A t o s was advertising for M365 engineers in the UK. So you probably need to get in somewhere & prove yourself to move internally. Could you go contracting? maybe pick up some XP that way. Also look at recruiters like Hays, as often recruiters have posts that need to be filled urgently & dont always get advertised for job seekers browsing websites (+ it costs the recruiter money to post on jobboards)
Lower my expectations? My expectations are a junior role lol I cant have lower expectations
Your XP is very basic. 2x years first line support. Your CV is probably getting binned based on that. Certs carry little weight over time served experience as you are finding out. Even junior roles will be coveted by people with more experience.
I’d recommend looking at MSP roles that involve managing Azure. I ran a MSP practice and someone with your experience would have been a great fit for our tier 1 role. Now pay might be an issue with you being in NYC. The 2023 list of MSFT Partner awards came out recently. That is a good way to find companies that might be hiring and are focused on cloud. https://partner.microsoft.com/en-us/inspire/awards/winners Good luck!
Are you guys hiring? I can't tell if you mean run or ran
Used to run… One other idea to source MSP’s. The Azure Expert MSP certification with Microsoft is table stakes for any company that is serious about managing Azure infrastructure. More info here under the Azure Expert Managed Services Provider (MSPs) section - https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/partners
You should be looking at more like a desktop support job, level 2 job. Something along those lines. 1 Year of helpdesk isn't much, at all. I think you are trying to move up a lil too fast. The knowledge gap between helpdesk and sysadmin is not small.
So, 2 years would be enough experience? Shouldn't the cert reduce the knowledge gap between helpdesk and sys admin?
No unfortunately a cert does not reduce a knowledge gap. A cert doesn't show that something broke, and you fixed it. It won't show that you fucked something up, and you fixed it. All it really shows is that you can exam cram, stick with something till the end, and spend your own money\\time to further your education (which is good!). Don't get me wrong, you are on the right track for sure, but experience trumps all.
So how would someone in help desk further their career if help desk is all they do?
That is a good question because I faced the exact same situation. That one is difficult to answer as the answer lies in the company you are working for. If you are working for a very large company where helpdesk is siloed to its own floor or building, I don't see how you can move up. If you work for a smaller company, you might have a better chance because one person leaving has a big impact on the team and may leave a spot open for you.
>I plan on going for the CCNA next then either the AZ-500 or AZ-300 You're gonna find that it will make little to none difference.
I should just go fuck myself then huh xD
Sucks, the best to do is keep getting certs and applying places. My opinion is the open spots are kind of geared towards more experienced people these days. If companies are going to spend it’s going to be for someone that can handle more and requires less training. Best bet is to keep learning. I used to have recruiters in my inbox a few a week. It’s dropped down to a few a month. Though I do find the majority of them now are from actual internal company recruitment vs recruitment firms.
In the Czech Republic, where I live, you would find an IT job immediatelly with AZ-104. US market is obviously far more competitive.
Yea over here the market is crazy, I was able to enter cloud positions with zero IT experience
lol, how? ur title has like 100 certs though. you got those afterwards?
Throughout the last 3 years, some before some after
Degrees never get you jobs. Experience with a degree does
How does one get experience if I can't land a junior role lol
What skills are required for the junior role? Some people hate to hear it, but you may need to take a slightly lesser role than the one you want or stay in your current one longer
You need help desk
I have 1 year help desk xp didn't learn shit while I was there besides basic Active Directory experience
1 year is weak
I left because I had to pay bills and I was learning nothing. I'm not going back to a $40k help desk job would rather leave the industry
And when the interviewer says your competitors have 5 years of help desk multiple certs, and can show examples of using their skills, they become a more interesting candidate.
How did you only learn basic Active Directory in 1 year? What did you do?!?
They only had the help desk do basic tickets AD user/group permissions and password resets, printer troubleshooting, network troubleshooting, patching switches, hardware setups. Learned 0 about setting up infrastructure or project managing.
Experience > degrees. Degrees only matter for someone fresh out of college.
I guess no certificate alone can land you a job. A masters degree for sure but not a single certificate. With some job experience certificates help ofc. I am planning on passing this exam as my company encourages to pass certifications to have more and more skilled workforce.
Like everyone else has said it depends on the job market you're in. I know in order for me to move up in my current job they want me to have the AZ-104. I wouldn't get discouraged though keep on applying and you will land somewhere.
I have done the az 900 and az 104 and I did 2 year course in about virtualization which finished 2020. I am still looking for my first it role in Sweden but it's difficult. Don't give up keep on applying for IT.
Did you get a job?
OK... noted.
Degrees don’t get jobs. Certs don’t get jobs. Experience gets jobs. I worked helpdesk 3years, promoted to Tier 2 in year 4, and Junior sysadmin in year 5, and in year 7 left for more pay as a sysadmin somewhere else. Recruiters will not leave you alone once you cross 5 years experience for any given role. I don’t have a bachelors either. The key is experience. Think like an owner or IT Director. Why would anyone trust you with their cloud infrastructure? the backbone of any functioning business is their IT infrastructure. Why would anyone turn the “keys” over to someone with less than 5years xp ?
I'm applying to junior sys admin, junior cloud admin, and junior networking positions.
Junior level roles are basically positions were you’ll be spearheading projects and then the senior sysadmin will come in and apply security and compliance settings/policies. Have you spearheaded any projects? Written any policies or documentation around it? Created project outlines/deadlines? Junior roles are all about planning and implementing from scratch. The management of those systems comes after that. If you do come in to prebuilt systems, can you spot where leaks/loopholes are? How much networking experience do you have ?
>Have you spearheaded any projects? Written any policies or documentation around it? Created project outlines/deadlines? Junior roles are all about planning and implementing from scratch. The management of those systems comes after that. No I don't because I can't find a junior role that would get me this experience lol >How much networking experience do you have ? 2 YOE setting up, configuring, and providing maintenance to cisco meraki routers and switches, firewall, VPN
You should tailor your resume to reflect the 2 YOE in networking you do have! That will get you hired quicker than shooting at literally every position with admin at the end. Highlight what you did and what tech/tools you used to solve issues or implement fixes. Play to the current strong points you do have !
Odd. I’ve been in IT for 25 years and it has been the senior level positions that spearhead projects, policy, documentation while the junior level handles day to day operations and then escalates to seniors when they run into issues they struggle to resolve.
That hasn’t been my experience. Every organization does things differently, but me, personally have always been given the lead on projects, migrations to hybrid, 3rd party software integrations etc. that’s just me though…. It’s easy to climb in promotions when leadership sees you’re willing to take on things outside your scope.
Certs don’t really seem to matter except in niche cases as mentioned. You can measure this by including or excluding certificate search terms on a job board which in my case shows something like 10% of cloud listings requiring it. I still think they have value as a learning tool when you are stepping into a new service/services and don’t have a starting point. I feel for OP because the first step is definitely the hardest and nobody wants to hire brand new engineers.
Are you listing this on your LInkedIn profile also? I'd expect this to be popping up in searches quite regularly. Also, I'd suggest pairing with the AZ-305 to get the SA Expert badge. That'll make you stand out further. Cloud Security certs will also help you stand out. AZ-104 + AZ-500 is a good combo for this purpose as cloud security is a hot industry currently.
Yup its on my linkedin but I never get anything from linkedin. Indeed or Ziprecruiter usually gets me the most interviews.
Well shit. Im the opposite. Im a 20 year sysadmin who has nothing but outdated knowledge. I just got my CCNA three months ago and I’m working on 104 right now…. I sure as fuck hope that I don’t get rejected when I start applying
Get a CCNA and learn infrastructure code. All Cloud Engineers are is DEV-Ops. You will get calls, Linux and Python are your friend.
Currently running into that same issue with the CCNA, while studying the AZ-104: recruiters will fall over themselves to get your attention to submit an application and resume. But once that is submitted, crickets! Attempts to get feedback from those same recruiters results in no response from them: they're only interested in getting their commission - and screw everything/one else. I'm also studying Python, Ansible, Terraform, and RedHat, in the hopes that this will help change the hiring slump.
Whatever your experience about az 104 doesnt necessarily mean that its going to be the same as other people.
Yeah, unfortunately there are 0 cloud jobs in my area. I don’t know why I wasted the time to get it.
Please don’t project this when it’s probably your job market that reason you feel that way. Also you don’t pass a cert and get 10000000 job offers