So, Justin, what do you do at Fordway?
How did you get into IT?
Well I was ‘cheffing’ at the time. I really hated it and I started thinking that there must be an alternative. When I thought about what I enjoyed most it kept coming back to computers. I liked fixing computers, so I decided that was what I should do. From there it all fell into place. I started looking into apprenticeships and when I went back to college to pick up my certificates, I happened to mention this to my tutors and it turned out that they had an IT apprenticeship for ex-students. A place was just coming available, so I applied and was delighted to receive the role.
Why Fordway?
My apprenticeship was coming to an end. I had conversations with recruiters that didn’t seem to be leading anywhere so I thought I would try a more direct approach. I was walking past Fordway on a daily basis and thought I should find out what they do. On checking their website I discovered they were an IT Services company and made a speculative job application. To my delight they got in touch and invited me to interview for a Junior Service Desk Analyst role.
What’s it like at Fordway?
There is a real opportunity to learn and develop. It helps if you are tenacious because it can be busy, but I’ve learnt a lot from our consultants who’ve been able to share knowledge and experience. I have had the opportunity to develop on the job, starting as a Junior Service Desk Analyst and have been able to move to Service Desk Analyst and am now a Service Desk Consultant.
I really love the straight talking, no-nonsense, ‘can do’ attitude here. It’s all about customer focus. We’re here to fix things, get things working and offer simple honest advice. We don’t hide behind business process or jargon.
What do enjoy most about your job?
For me IT is all about solving problems. Applying my single-minded focus to troubleshoot and fix the issue at hand provides an immense sense of personal achievement. Every day is different. What could be better?
What technologies do you enjoy?
In terms of technologies, I really enjoy SCCM; automating task sequences smoothly is really satisfying. I like programming in PowerShell and there’s lots to learn which is why it is so interesting. Office365 is also really business friendly; you get all the reliability that you would expect from email and office, but there is additional functionality such as OneDrive that extend it securely to enable secure collaboration. For me these SaaS solutions such as Office 365 is what cloud is all about. Why would you want to run your services on internal infrastructure when the cloud solution is easier to manage?
So when you aren’t at work what do you do for fun?
Well I do enjoy computer games, but it’s not all about computers. I like cooking, enjoy writing, and graphic design.