Finding The right Job IT related

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I'm currently unemployed, I quit my previous job after it was largely outsourced. I was working as a Systems Administrator, Network Administrator and was essentially an entire IT department I held this position for just over 4 and a half years. Then the decision to outsource our data center came down. I worked through the transition we went from a 75 server 20 rack infrastructure to a colocated virtualized environment. I'm very glad that I got the experience of physical to virtual migrations, and experience with VMware. But after the transition was done I was told that I would now be working under a new person doing development. Previously I had only been working directly under the head of technology for the company. This felt like a demotion, and not only that I was going to be under a person who I knew had limited work ethic and had previously abused my offers of help. I would have been able to do the development job technically, but I wasn't willing to accept a demotion and work under a person I knew was going to take advantage of me.

Anyways, fast forward several months from my quitting. I am now seeking employment, I've made a few applications, heard back from one application which turned out to be through a headhunter, and I was likely over qualified for. I am currently signed up to do a bootcamp for CEH (certified ethical hacker), with this bootcamp purchase I received a free mentored online course. I am considering taking a cisco training for ccna, ccna: security, ccda with this credit. What I am trying to figure out is if this would be worthwhile or perhaps I should consider a different course. I am aware that ccna is a useful certification in the IT world, and will help me stand out from the crowd in the job market. I guess I'm just trying to figure out is what direction I should take within IT. I know the CEH course sets me up for work in security, such as penetration tester, or security analyst type jobs. The ccna and other cisco certs would be largely networking jobs with some security overlap. My primary goal is to get away from doing any desktop support, as this is something that just doesn't fit for me or likely other people with aspergers. I'll take sitting at a computer all day over dealing with user issues with desktops.

Anyways feedback for what I might want to consider would be great. I have around 6 years in technical computer jobs and I have a Bachelors of Arts I studied computer science in school but more of a minor than a major as my school offered no majors or minors. I'd say a third of my credit hours were in cs related courses.

I can't read "penetration testing" without laughing.

I'd say you have a range of possibilities from sever admin to security analysts to maybe even network engineer.

3-5 years seems to be the magic number for experience for good jobs in IT, so get applying.

What a coincidence; I am a post-grad with a bachelor's in marketing, and I decided to pursue an interest in IT about a year ago by enrolling in a reputable community college. After taking the "intros" to the various IT fields; I warmed up to networking, and I am taking a class for CCNA. This second semester, I was accepted as an intern for the school's IT Services department. I was initially hired as a help deskt technician, and it was hell: I was never before so aware of my aspergers between the miscommunications and the absolutely broad scope and unpredictable nature of the work, I was much slower than the other interns and felt scatter brained half the time. More recently, I was moved to the desktop systems and support team as a "second phase" of the internship; we were in charge of 1 thing: migration of the entire campus to Win7; I had my struggles but I enjoyed how routine and narrow the scope of the work was: it was all backups, restores, and reimages; I also take little "field trips" from time to time with a full time employee to troubleshoot an employees tech problems. Everything has gone smoothly in this second phase; I just doubt that any well paying jobs will have that narrow of responsibilities.

I have put much consideration into the nature of an IT job in networking whether it be infrastructure, administration, or analysis; given the contrast of success and struggle between my two roles in the internship, my goal right now is to narrow down a path that satisfies my interest in networks, but also fits the way I get work done. I have learned this will be an inevitable struggle, as IT generally favors a jack of all trades over a master of one craft, so I would like a job that is closer to the end of the latter group. I would ask someone with experience with networks what jobs in networking require you to wear the fewest amount of hats if you have multitasking and short term memory handicaps similar to mine. I have heard that administration is the worst, and that deployment or linux server administrator may fall into a more favorable category for me. I plan on asking someone else with a bit more experience.

You should definitely maintain a good LinkedIn profile. I got my current job through someone contacting me on that website (CDN SysOps).

Does production impact stress you out a lot?

I keep a linkedin profile and have received some job recruitment through it. I've applied to a few jobs as of late, have a few resumes out for several positions and with a headhunter or two. I've come to the conclusion that the only parts of it related jobs that stress me out more than firing me up are help desk type issues. I can't stand fixing the same damn thing for the same person over and over. I'm looking for jobs where I'm going to deal primarily with other technical people.

As far as Pen testing yes its hard to read without laughing.

I have the least experience with security currently, I've done quite a bit of networking from design to implementation and troubleshooting. I am starting to look for security analyst, and security engineering jobs. I know if I do the cisco certs I could likely get a network admin job or network engineering job. Fortunately I don't have to pick my second course as of now, I'm planning on getting the ceh , cpt done then deciding if I should do cisco certs or more security certs. I'm doing the training through http://www.infosecinstitute.com/ and they offer quite an array of options. I know the idea of doing security research seems as though it would lead to more interesting opportunities in the future. Although a ccna seems like a certificate that might get me more job offers and get my resume past the initial screening.

I think it helps to be a jack of all trades in IT roles, especially starting out in IT. That being said if you are doing networking and get a ccna, and possibly some further certification you might be able to get a job in networking at a larger company. In small companies you absolutely find people who are jack of all trades and it is needed if you have one or two people in the it "department". But larger places you can get a job just doing networking, or some other smaller section of IT. Now I'm sure there is plenty of jobs even at larger corporations where if you are doing networking it likely is balancing many tasks at once, and dealing with end users.
Also don't believe that IT is nothing but master of all trades if you can truly master a role you can find good jobs. But mastery takes time and experience to get experience you need to be able to handle many different aspects in most situations. But once mastery is attained you can find jobs that suit you and tailor jobs for your abilities. I've dealt with many levels of network "professionals" from the guy who is a ccna holding capable person working on a problem for 10 hours and not solving it to a ccnp and beyond Professional master who came in after the 10 hours of work by the other person and dropped all of the changes the "capable" person had done, and was implementing a solution within 20 minutes. The solution took 4 hours of work to implement but the Master solved the problem the person with the ccna couldn't even grasp at a solution for beyond calling cisco.
I had learned some networking on my own at this time and suggested a very similar solution to what the Master came up with to the "capable" person but he didn't have the confidence to think outside his knowledge base to pull it off. The value of the Master of something in IT related fields is immeasurable when the situation calls for them.

I believe the saying is jack of all trades master of none. This is applicable to IT but to start it helps to attempt to understand as much of the picture as possible.

As far as administration being the worst I don't feel that is the case if you understand the systems and software you are dealing with fixing the issues that arise is not an issue. It can be stressful if you are dealing with a poorly planned out environment which has no redundancy and expectations of 99.99% uptime. But I'd take that job any day over doing help desk. I'd suggest changes to the systems or changes to expectations for uptime if the environment can't be changed because 52 minutes goes by quickly.

Hey, penetration testing is nice work - if you can get it! Seriously, though, it is. I haven't done it myself (well, not professionally), but I'd like to. If that's something you're interested in by all means go for it. It's not an easy area to get into, I think, but the courses you're doing should certainly help.