# Would this be considered "one year IT experience" ?



## tim19889 (Jan 24, 2010)

Quick question...if I would start doing PC repair part-time for a year from home (5-10 hours a week) while working full-time at my current job, could I legitimately write on my resume that I indeed do have 1 year IT experience? Or when they ask how much experience you have do they really just want to know how much you have in a corporate environment? Would this type of experience greatly help me to land a job or should I be looking at doing a different kind of part-time IT work? I do contract jobs when I can get them, but I'm only getting about 1 project every couple of months right now, which is better than nothing but still isn't giving me the amount of experience I see most jobs require. Let me know what your thoughts are. Thanks


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## PinoyIT (Feb 28, 2011)

They are looking for "professional" experience so fixing people's computer at your house doesn't count. Just put in the contracts you've done in your resume. Keep your resume out on employment sites and you should be good to go. Just because they require a certain amount of experience doesn't mean they won't consider you.


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## etaf (Dec 28, 2008)

> .if I would start doing PC repair part-time for a year from home (5-10 hours a week) while working full-time at my current job,


 That shows a bit of getup and go and also the ability to run your own business, market yourself, and able to work with clients - so as suggested not "professional" experience, in my book still may set you aside from other candidates 
It will also give you some examples for any competency based interview - how do you negotiate, how do you handle conflict etc


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## PinoyIT (Feb 28, 2011)

There's a sample resume at dice.com that I used as a template. I actually have "personal" experience in my resume listed under "Achievements, Skills, and Abilities". You can do something like that. On your resume have your strongest points at the top then your weakest at the bottom. On mine I have from top to bottom:

ACHIEVEMENTS, SKILLS, AND ABILITIES
EDUCATION
TECHNICAL QUALIFICATIONS
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

I figured that if they see the lack of experience first, then they'll probably disregard the rest of the resume. So I put in things like having a degree, being on the dean's list, and having certifications on the very top. I got more calls this way even from jobs that "required" several years of experience.


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## greenbrucelee (Apr 24, 2007)

it will count more on the skills part of your resume so you can beef this up but it wont count as professional experience but it will definatley help. This is how I started.

I got certs and fixed peoples PCs and built PCs then I got a job doing break fix stuff then I do what I do now which is basic network support and 3rd line.


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## tim19889 (Jan 24, 2010)

Thanks for your input and suggestions everyone. My plan is after I finally get this MCTS: Configuring Windows 7 cert to start doing pc repair (I'll only charge about $25 per hour since I'm new) from home part-time. I have a few ideas to advertise cheaply and I will offer pick-up and delivery anywhere within a 20 mile radius for a $10 fee. 

I'm wondering if I should work on Macs or say that I don't though? I mean the hardware is basically the same as on any other pc/laptop right and you would troubleshoot it pretty much the same way? Also I'm wondering if I should do printer repair? I don't know as much about printers as I do about PCs, but most end-user printers seem like they'd be pretty easy to fix. And I can always research online if I don't know how to do something. 

Anyways I got two recruitment e-mails from Barrister.com yesterday and am signing up to work with them. Apparently they are a big IT contracting company and when you sign-up they call you if there's anything in your area that needs done that matches your qualifications. Hoping I can get some jobs with them as well at the other contractor I already got two projects from .


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## greenbrucelee (Apr 24, 2007)

yeah go for it. If you can fix macs aswell as pcs it will help.


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## PinoyIT (Feb 28, 2011)

You don't charge per hour on repairs you do at your house. How would they know how long it actually took you to repair their computer? Hourly rates are for field technicians. When you do repairs at your house, it's better to charge a flat rate.


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## tim19889 (Jan 24, 2010)

PinoyIT said:


> You don't charge per hour on repairs you do at your house. How would they know how long it actually took you to repair their computer? Hourly rates are for field technicians. When you do repairs at your house, it's better to charge a flat rate.


Good point. I'll have to some up with some flat rates for different services, such as virus removal and repairing BSOD problems. I'll charge an hourly rate for anything that defies categorization.


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## PinoyIT (Feb 28, 2011)

By flat rate I meant one flat rate to completely fix it no matter what's wrong with it. Unless of course you need to buy some hardware then they'll have to pay for that. I know there's one here that does it for a flat rate of $89 and that's a computer shop. Check out your competitors and base your rate on that.


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## tim19889 (Jan 24, 2010)

But wouldn't I be inevitably giving some people a great deal and others a very bad deal by charging a flat rate like that for everything? I mean someone's pc might only take me 30 min to fix, someone else's might take me three hours. Is it right that the guy who's computer only took 30 minutes to fix should be charged the same as the guy who's computer took three hours to fix? That's why I'm thinking of charing a flat rate for specific services, and a general "other" rate for things that don't fit into any of the categories. Or am I missing something lol?


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## PinoyIT (Feb 28, 2011)

Yes, others will have a bad deal but they don't know that. Just make up for it by doing other things for them. It's all about getting the cheapest rate. It doesn't matter if it takes you 5 minutes to fix, it's still a good deal for them as long as your rates are cheaper than your competitors.

Like one of the service calls I responded to was that their internet wasn't working. I fixed it in 5 minutes. They had DSL and didn't put the filter on the phone. I have to charge them for a full hour since that's our minimum. Though their problem was fixed, I stayed for the full hour. I saw that they had a wireless router, so I set it up for them. Then, I ran a cable to the 360 and set up QoS on the router. I also ran updates and cleaned up their computer a bit.


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## Dervisher (May 8, 2011)

PinoyIT said:


> Yes, others will have a bad deal but they don't know that. Just make up for it by doing other things for them. It's all about getting the cheapest rate. It doesn't matter if it takes you 5 minutes to fix, it's still a good deal for them as long as your rates are cheaper than your competitors.
> 
> Like one of the service calls I responded to was that their internet wasn't working. I fixed it in 5 minutes. They had DSL and didn't put the filter on the phone. I have to charge them for a full hour since that's our minimum. Though their problem was fixed, I stayed for the full hour. I saw that they had a wireless router, so I set it up for them. Then, I ran a cable to the 360 and set up QoS on the router. I also ran updates and cleaned up their computer a bit.



It's nice to see people with good souls in the technician industry, I know a lot of people who just do the flat fix, grab money and leave routine.

Typically I do that as well, like if it's a simple virus removal we generally advise a better anti-virus etc. Or like the one time we had a guy come in, some other technician made a 'backup' program which he apparently paid a lot for. It was a batch file with under 5 lines of code.

something like xcopy "blah blah" to (external case) to drive letter "A:"

His issue was if he had something else plugged into a usb (thus taking up a namespace, e.g. "A:"), the batch file no longer worked because it was looking specifically for "A:" which may have been where the wireless mouse was plugged in, etc. So we spent 5 minutes specifying that THIS external drive had THIS unique letter, and we created a uniquely named hidden file on the external for the batch file to search through all of the drives, looking for this file. When it did, it would follow through with the steps of copying his data onto the external, the place where it found the file.
If it couldn't find the file, it would send an echo to him telling him his external is either not plugged in, or the file may be missing/corrupt.
It would then exit, not copying any files anywhere.

This at least made it from a 5 minute fix to a 30 minute fix (testing the batch file for all functions working properly)

He hasn't came back with any issues and it's been 2 months ^_^


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## PinoyIT (Feb 28, 2011)

Well I'm not really doing it to make money since the money I make from my field tech job is just a little more than what I pay for gas and tolls.


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