Welcome to episode 92 of the Nerd Journey Podcast [@NerdJourney]! We’re John White (@vJourneyman) and Nick Korte (@NetworkNerd_), two Pre-Sales Technical Engineers who are hoping to bring you the IT career advice that we wish we’d been given earlier in our careers. In today’s episode we discuss some Reddit threads from the IT Career Questions forum.
Original Recording Date: 09-11-2020
Topics – Popular IT Career Questions from Reddit
1:05 – We’re Testing A New Format!

* We’re trying a new format this week. It’s a round up of career advice threads from the Reddit forum IT Career Questions.
* We’ll be taking some of the top posts from the past week and will give a brief synopsis of the threads, categorize the post, and share our reactions.

1:47 – Keep not getting entry level jobs due to "lack of experience"

* Synopsis

* The poster claims little to no experience and that he / she keeps getting turned down in interviews due to lack of experience. They have an A+ certification, 6 months of IT experience, and want to change the experience.

* Categories

* Resume writing
* Interviewing

* Reactions

* Nick points out that commenters on this thread draw out the fact that the poster had an internship in addition to their 6 months experience. This speaks to the fact that we need to be mindful of what can be used as experience when writing a resume and interviewing.

* For example, a home lab is experience you can use! Listen to this episode with Cody de Arkland’s tips for leveraging experience with home labs on your resume / in an interview.
* John says we need to ensure we talk about everything that is relevant. Go into the interview with some goals (solid idea of what you have accomplished, how you measured it, make sure you are able to work in main talking points, etc.).
* The resume is an attention getter. It is a springboard for further dialogue in an interview to give more detail.

5:35 – Landed a job with no degree and experience

* Synopsis

* The poster landed an IT job without experience (only troubleshooting knowledge from home) and also without an IT related degree. They currently work as a junior engineer fixing computers and laptops. This poster was previously rejected for other jobs due to not meeting the requirements.
* John drops a reference to the Geek Squad. Nick shares a fun anecdote.

* Categories

* Encouragement
* Advice

* Reactions

* This post shows what someone did to achieve success and is sort of the opposite of the first post we mentioned.
* John harasses Nick for buying a new desktop PC.
* We’re truly happy for the poster. It’s nice to see someone achieving their goal after struggling.
* If all jobs require experience, how do you get hired with no experience?

* Building PCs as a hobby is practical experience that can be leveraged in ...