IT Site Support Specialist - advise

[u/Spare_Anxiety9250]

Hi all,

I have an opportunity to transition to a new Site IT Specialist role at a mine site (Perth AU) it's a full time 6 month fixed term role [possible for extension]

I have been with the company for around 3 years now [full time and contracted], and I have good IT support experience [service desk / desktop support], most recently in project-based windows 11 rollouts at mine sites [fifo] covering Corporate and OT environments.

My main worry is that I don't have a lot of knowledge and experience around:

- Network configs/servers/netwroking lingo and terminolgies

- Setting up comms racks, configuring, troubleshooting Cisco switches, Wi-Fi APs setup and troubleshooting

I do have an open to learn attitude and i know alot of these things ill learn hands on when im up there and asking alot of questions etc.

Are there any readings/courses anyone can recommend i can look into?

Thanks in advance :)

[u/Ant1mat3r]

I have the CCNA study guides by Wendall Odom and I've found them to be an invaluable resource. I've used his books and found it easy to digest.

If you want to learn more about networking lingo and configuring Cisco switches, there you go.

There's also TONS of resources online - YouTube courses (Jeremy's IT Labs, Wendall Odom's course), and Wendall and Jeremy both have a ton of labs for use with Cisco Packet Tracer.

[u/Spare_Anxiety9250 → u/Ant1mat3r]

Thanks, I'll have a look at these :)

[u/Entire_Yoghurt_6381]

I think that Practical Networking on YouTube is worth a look too, it's less exam focused than Professor Messer and more about building real intuition for how traffic actually moves and why configs are set the way they are, which tends to translate better to hands on troubleshooting on site than pure certification content.

[u/Spare_Anxiety9250 → u/Entire_Yoghurt_6381]

Thanks, I'll have a look :)

[u/SevaraB]

At 3YOE, I wouldn't hang my hat on a 6-month contract with extension only "possible" and no C2H option unless I'd absolutely hit a brick wall in the job search.

[u/Spare_Anxiety9250 → u/SevaraB]

no C2H ? Well now that I'm an internal employee, my hope is to find and apply for a permanent role (not fixed term)

[u/joeyl5]

Wait: are you going from a regular position to a temp contract?

[u/Spare_Anxiety9250 → u/joeyl5]

I was full time (redundancy) , then came back as a contractor for project work and now moving to a 6 months fixed term internal role :)

[u/joeyl5]

Ok. So you want to learn more about networking? Do you have basic networking skills, like do you know what a gateway IP is, what a subnet is, difference between private and public IPs and how switches are connected to each other in network closets?

[u/Spare_Anxiety9250 → u/joeyl5]

Yes networking and infrastructure side of things. I have a rough idea of this not enough knowledge and experience around those area. Hope that makes sense.

[u/Effective_House_9147]

do you mind asking if your team is hiring?

[u/Spare_Anxiety9250 → u/Effective_House_9147]

not that I'm aware off :(

[u/Effective_House_9147 → u/Spare_Anxiety9250]

oh ok thanks