Noel Walsh: 28: contracting in Brown Thomas

1.         How many years have you been in IT?    

            Since 2000 so about 8 years

2.         Did you do a degree or IT certification, if so, which type and where from?

No degree though I am talking with the DIT about a degree course. All of my exams are industry standard ie A+ CCNA, CCNP

3.         What was your 1^st job in IT?

            Performing dell technical support for Client Logic in swords. I think everyone started there :)

4.        Would you recommend grads to travel after college or get work experience first?        

           I'd travel; I did travel though I'd love to do more

5.         Have you worked abroad and if so, where and for how long?

I did, I lived in Norway for about 6 months and worked in a bar very briefly and on a building site, though I can’t build or paint :)

6.         What was your biggest career break and why? 

Breaks are hard to come by, you have to create your breaks, so I'm always trying to get the next break by improving myself certs and knowledge

7.         Please describe your current role in brief including job title.

I’m working as a network consultant, basically I listen to my clients about their network needs, and then I build it. Very straight forward. Not rocket science by you need to know what they want achieve.

8.         What is your preferred industry to work in and why? (Eg banking, s/w house, Telco)

I don’t have a preferred industry; obviously I'd love to be the in-house network engineer for a football club or the playboy mansion but other then that just something in-house. 

9.         Technologies / applications / software you use most?

Everything I'd use would be related to the network. Like monitoring tools like netwatch, whatsupgold, prtg, also packet sniffers like wireshark

10.       Are you currently on Permanent or Contract status?

I’m contracting at present but would like to go back perm due to future financial commitments

11.       Do you prefer contract or permanent? And why?

I like contracting and I have been lucky not to be out of work longer then 2 weeks in 3 years, it gives you a great deal of more exposure and each contract has different opportunities to learn new technologies

12.      What trends do you see happening in the next 18 months - 3 years in your specific    area of expertise?

I see networking moving away from the usual switching and routing to add in security and voice. It is already happening as a network engineer you will manage the everything now, as opposed to the standard. I can see a one for all engineer

13.       What advice would you give to grads / what would you have done differently if you could "reel back the years" career wise.

Start with industry standard exams as soon as you start working, the count for alot these days.

14.       What technologies would you advise less experienced IT people to focus & get trained up in the coming years?

It would depend on your area, in a network infrastructure area I would recommend security and voice in order to keep you ahead in the game

15.       Out of 10, are you happy in your choice of career in IT and if so why?

I'd say 8-9, I love what I do, but wish I was more motivate towards starting/finishing exams before I need to do them.

16.              What are your favourite top 1-3 technical resource web sites?

Firstly Cisco.com, then after that I'd chose google for my other two choices, you can’t beat google!

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