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Ask HN: How can an aspiring 20 yr old jumpstart his career?

1 points by smurfy ↗ HN
Hey guys,

I am a 20 year old who has almost completed a two year general education degree online and am still pursuing it online as I work full time. I'm also currently in the Naval Reserves, and I hold A+, Network+, Server+, and MCP-XP certifications. I've been working in IT supports for the last couple of years and have some good support.

I love reading articles on start ups that are doing new exciting things in the tech world, and would love to get involved in that sphere of the technology world. However, all the job openings I see are for engineers and positions of that nature, which I'm just not qualified or ready to do.

What suggestions do you guys have for me? I'd love to come work for a great company that is doing exciting things and launching a new product. I am extremely motivated and a hard worker, as well as a fast learner. Where can I find a job that will let me grow and be a part of something bigger?

Any advice is appreciated!

Thanks.

6 comments

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[dead] PythonDeveloper
Write. Publish. Become known.

More than ever, companies want evangelists with a following. They want outgoing people who can take complex processes and make them understandable.

The day of the lone-wolf-computer-whiz is long gone. Today is the day of the charismatic team builder, who is wiling to look past the "cool", and see the long-term solution with the best ROI. If you can justify your decisions in a set of 3 to 5 slides and get your team behind you, all the better.

Apply for EVERY job you like, not just the ones you think you are qualified for. You never know what part of you resume is going to light the eye of the recruiter or department director. Many, many times, the job that "requires an BA" does not, and simply requires a driven individual who believes that can and is willing to stand up and say it.

There are no obstacles but those we place before ourselves.

andrew_wc_brown
Are you in a large city like Toronto, San Francisco or Barcelona that has accelerators and incubators around? Do you plan on doing all of this remotely?
smurfy
I live down in FL, so no. I can relocate for a good opportunity, or work remotely, although I think I would work better in-house in my situation.
dbogon
Everywhere you turn, there's an article about hacking, or spying or big-data, or privacy or another data breach. Obama actually called out cyberwars in his state of the union message, and virtually every fortune 500 has open positions on their security teams.

Get into InfoSec ... as a generalist: CISSP, CISM, as a specialist, GIAC, CRISC, etc.

I worked crypto/comms for DOD, and this was a natural for me.

Best of luck,

smurfy
I ultimately want to work in the security arena, it has been my favorite topic.

I also hold a TS/SCI security clearance so that is in my favor for such a job. But how do I get started with a job in that field? If a company was willing to take me on because I learn fast, that would be great, but how do I find something like that?

CyberDroiD
My advice for an an aspiring 20 yr old jumpstart his career?

Work pays the bills, so for now do what you can... but then at night, work on what you enjoy or want to learn (like coding).

Once you have a portfolio of work and code to share, you can apply for jobs and reference your past work.