 What's happening guys? Welcome back to the channel. Today I am very excited to bring on a guest who is able to get a job offer and information technology at an entry-level help desk role in 10 days. Yes, you heard that right. He was able to do it in about 10 days or so. So Saul, thank you so much for coming on the channel. Really excited to interview you today. So thanks for taking time out of your evening to do this right before the busy season. Really appreciate it. So thanks for coming on. No, thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. Awesome. So let's go ahead start back at the beginning. So maybe just give a little bit of a background about yourself and how you discovered that, you know, IT was a career you could go into and how you discovered that you wanted to go into IT. Tech has always been something that's really interested me, you know, playing with machines, just learning about them, seeing how they work. Things like that have always interested me. So when I seen that working in IT was something that was very accessible and something that was available to the majority of people without the hard work of going to four years of college or studying and paying a lot of money, it seemed like a very appealing solution. So when I seen that a lot of certifications really only cost like $300 for an exam or $400, it was like the go-to plan to kind of make money and be compensated very well for work that actually meant something. Unlike the work that I was doing at the time, which was working at a warehouse and just scanning boxes, stacking boxes, unloading trailers, things like that always felt kind of meaningless. Of course they had their points, but honestly compared to the work that I do today, that work was very, I guess, unfulfilling. So IT could fill that void and give me a feeling of, I guess, accomplishment and also a sense of feeling like I helped somebody. I made somebody's day easier because of something that I did. So I think that's what really attracted me to IT, yeah. Got it. So you discovered Josh's course, Josh's IT course. I believe you discovered it on YouTube. So you can, can you kind of talk about that process of discovering it and deciding to enroll in Josh's course? Yeah, so I guess after finding out about certifications and the IT industry and how easy it was to kind of break through into it, I started doing more research and a person who frequently came up was Josh, Josh Madincor. And after watching, I guess, a series of all his videos, I started to see that he was also the course instructor for the IT program at course careers. And after watching, after enrolling and watching the free videos that were part of the course, I became very attracted to the idea of joining the course because it meant that I had access to somebody who was an industry professional, somebody who had been through those tribulations of being at a help desk, working with people, solving those issues, and then branching off into something even bigger in the IT field. So because you had access to not only Josh, but all the information that he gives you, which is all the labs, teaching about IPs, networking, DHCPs, all that information was very valuable. So after seeing, after that was advertised to me in the free video, I thought the only thing that's going to happen if I join is I'm going to gain from it. So I decided to enroll and that's exactly what happened. Right after enrolling, I said to myself, well, if I really want to motivate myself and kind of make sure that something happens out of this, out of this investment that I made, I'm going to start applying to jobs just as many as I can. So right after enrolling into the course, I started applying. I think the first day I only applied to maybe 30 places, but the second day and the third day, I applied, every day I applied to like 100 something places because I just got this feeling of, wow, this is really attainable. A lot of the skill sets needed for this job is something that you can pick up very easily. It's stuff that you can learn like quick in a month and it's something you can learn at the job. And I just thought to myself, well, I mean, I miss every opportunity that I don't take. So I decided to just keep applying to all these jobs. So yeah, after every application that I submitted, I'm like, wow, that's another opportunity I just gave myself, right? And yeah, surely enough, after three days of doing that, then I just decided to stop. I was like, all right, I submitted 300 applications, more or less, like, all right, I'm just going to, I'm just going to see what happens, right? And something that Josh mentioned, like, I think in his first video as part of the free course of course careers, he mentioned that there's a 10% reach back for all the applications you submit. So assuming like my situation, for example, since I submitted 300 applications, because of what Josh said, I thought to myself, well, I'm going to get, I'm going to get a response from more or less 30 people, right? Because that's 10% of how many applications I submitted. I think that knowing that that percentage is typically the amount of, I guess, people who reach back to you, like dependent on the applications you submit, I think just having that percentage in mind, when doing the application process was something that very, that really motivated me to like, apply to more and more places. Because just knowing that the fact that 10% of the places you apply to are going to reach back to you, motivates you to apply to more places, right? So you can get more opportunities. It's, it only makes sense, right? So yeah, like, that was something, that was something I really started to do, I just started to apply to a bunch of places. And then after when I was done, I just decided to continue with the course. So I made it, I'd say around to the point where I was, I think, 55% done with the course, when I received, when I had to do my first interview, I got a response back from one of the applications that I submitted. And they told me that they were very interested in the experience that I had. After making it through, like I said, 55% of the course, I started to receive a lot of interview requests. And I started doing interviews back to back. I'd say I'd have like three interviews per day. I think I did that for like a week. And at the end of the week, I ended up having 15 interviews done in total. So yeah, in one week, I did 15 interviews. And after that, I was moved on to the second stage of those interviews for all of them. But I only decided to go through with seven because the other seven didn't seem so appealing. And I still had 15 other requests for interviews, but I decided not to go with them because I was still, I was already doing these 15 second round interviews. So I decided just not go through with them. But yeah, because I submitted just a huge amount of applications, I received like so much feedback. I had 30 and I only responded to 15. So it goes to show like the more applications you submit, the more the better it's going to turn out for you. So yeah, after making it to the second round, I received a job offer for I think four of the seven that I interviewed with. And of those four job offers, the one that seemed the most appealing to me was the one that was $26 an hour. So I decided to go with that one. And that was 10 days after I enrolled in course careers. So yeah, it didn't take that long at all. Man, once I received that job offer, that's when I really started grinding the material in Josh's course. So I could assure myself that once I got to the job, I wouldn't just be dead weight, right? I don't want to be a liability. I want to be an asset, right? And that's something that a lot of people really need to strive for. And if somebody, if companies see that, that you're trying to be an asset to their company, not a liability, you're going to have trouble like not being employed, right? So I think just striving to do better and striving to be the best you can be is something that is very appealing to companies, like not just what you actually know in the moment, but what you're ambitious to learn as well. Absolutely. That's awesome. Did you happen to keep like a spreadsheet or anything like that of all of your applications and kind of like which ones gave you the interview, which ones gave you a second interview or anything like that? Because I know that's what Josh advocates to do. Yeah. So Josh does have a spreadsheet where you're supposed to put all the employers that reached out to you, all the employers that told you no, the employers that told you yes, and the employers that moved you on to the second round and things of that nature. But I never got to that point of the course because it's so like towards the end. I think it's like once you're at the 80 something percent done with the course and I only made it to like 50, 55. So I didn't make it that far into the course. And I don't think I had any, any, I didn't make any spreadsheet or anything. I just kind of, I just kind of pinned the emails that were sent out to me like that were requesting like an interview or that were telling me, okay, you made it, you made it past the first round interview. We'd like to have another interview. I kind of, I kind of just pinned those emails and marked them as important and that's kind of how I kept track of them. But yeah, I definitely recommend that if you're going to do something like how I did and really apply to as many places as I did, I would recommend doing a, making a spreadsheet and keeping track of every company that reaches out to you because it's important because I think after just maybe like three or four companies, you start to get kind of jumbled like just in your head, right? If you're not keeping track of it. So it's very important to keep a like a list of everything. Yeah. Got it. Got it. And if you don't mind me asking what was that, what were those job offers looking like in terms of salary? You can give a range if you're, if you're not comfortable saying the exact number. Yeah, they were all around 50k. But the one, the one I went with was just a bit better. So I decided to go with that one. Gotcha. Oh man, that's, that's awesome, man, especially for an entry level job. That's, that's freaking amazing. And so like other people who decided to, you know, go get an IT degree, they're going to end up making like probably about 50k when they graduate. And you were able to just basically do a cheat code and just get into an entry level job. And you're actually going to be getting paid to learn all these skills. Whereas they are paying like tens of thousands of dollars a year to learn the skills. And they're really not even learning the exact skills that companies want. In most cases, like a lot of colleges aren't teaching like Azure, for instance, or AWS, like some of the good ones like WGU, they teach that stuff. But a lot of the colleges are not teaching the stuff that companies actually want people to know. So you're actually getting a head start even on that. So that's freaking awesome, man. So what would you say to somebody who's kind of like on the fence about enrolling in course careers, trying to get into IT using Josh's course? I'd say if you're on the fence, maybe do a bit more research. And if you come to the conclusion that it is really what you want to do, then I definitely recommend Josh's course because he kind of really like packs everything neatly into like this very like laid out plan, even if like you're a complete beginner, like you'll have you won't have that much trouble comprehending what he's trying to tell you because it's like the way he explains it and the way he really outlines his course makes you understand everything because he's like I said, he's going step by step. He's not like starting from like the middle where a lot of people, I guess, they seem to be daunted by IT because they start learning about very complex things like right from the jump, right? Like they start learning about networking and ports and things that I guess you wouldn't you would see like in a help desk role, right? You'd work with those things, but it isn't like the main thing, right? So things of that nature, like like working with servers and firewalls and working with ports, like I said, like those are things I guess you would work with like in a help desk role, but it's not like something very, very common, right? Or something that you would do for the majority of your day that would be somebody else's role. Absolutely. So because they start with I think these complex topics, I think they just become deterred from the field entirely. They just find it too hard and then they decide to do something else. But like I said, because Josh starts from like the beginning, like he gives you the fundamentals of IT, like infrastructure, everything, how it affects the business, why things work the way they work, because he starts from the very basics. I think it makes everything else make so much more sense. So yeah, like definitely if you're this is what you want to do and you're interested in IT, I definitely recommend Josh's course on course careers. Yeah, got it. And I will put a link to Josh's free training down in the description as well as the pinned comment below. Josh basically kind of just goes over what the course is all about IT different career paths and IT and just really breaks down, you know, everything about the course and I'll probably answer all the questions you have about it. So definitely check out the free training. If you do choose to go with the full course, it is $500 $450 if you use my $50 off coupon, which I'll put down in the description as well. I believe it's Shane 50. So you can check that out. And any other pro tips you have for people who are, you know, thinking about going into IT or just any, any pro tips in general? Yeah, I definitely say if you're extended with a job offer, definitely negotiate it because something that I guess a lot of people don't know is that in IT, they're very flexible. They have a very flexible, I guess, pay range. So if you request higher pay, normally they'll kind of either meet what you're saying or they'll try to meet what you're asking for. So like for my case, I was offered $26 initially, but I said, I asked Josh, I actually personally messaged him because like I said, you get access to Josh if you get, you get, you get the program, right? So I directly messaged Josh and I asked him like, Hey, Josh, I was just extended this $26 an hour offer. But I'd like to know if I can negotiate it, like I'm kind of scared to see if like, what if they take it away because, because I'm trying to negotiate the offer, right? And he told me like, no, like it shouldn't matter that I'm trying to negotiate the offer, right? Like he made it clear that they're interested in me for a reason. So they're not just going to snatch away the offer all of a sudden, because I'm asking for, for more money, right? They're just going to see what it is I'm asking for. They're going to assess how much value can I provide? And if giving me that much money, it would be worth it, right? So I decided to ask for $30 an hour, right? Like kind of, kind of high balling it because I didn't expect to get $30 an hour, but I was expecting you to get more, right? And ultimately, and it ended up working, right? Like I went from $26 to $28. So I ended up getting a pay raise to $28 an hour, which if you do the math is $4,000 more, like in a year, right? So I just gave myself a 4k like pay raise. So I definitely recommend to anybody if they're extended an offer to definitely try to negotiate it because I mean, at the end of the day, it's free money. So you're kind of just losing out like, if you don't go ahead and try to do that, right? And also you start, you have like a higher base as well. So let's say you're with that company for like six months and you want to raise again, right? You don't have to negotiate to that point anymore because you're already there, right? Like in my situation, if I would have started $26 an hour and I asked for a pay raise in six months, then I would have negotiated to $28 an hour, six months later, right? So it's better to start at the beginning to give yourself a better base. So when you want to negotiate later, you can negotiate higher. That's awesome. That's awesome. So you, you're like pretty close to 60k a year right off the bat in your first entry level job. You're like knocking on the door. That's freaking awesome, man. I love that. How about like work-life balance and lifestyle? How is, how is that so far? I know you just started, but how does that seem so far? I mean, it's really cool at the job there. For most of my day, if I'm not, I guess working with other departments or working in the help desk or doing something, right? I'd say for like about four hours of my day, I have some off time. And during that time, I just use it to study. And all that studying is sponsored by the company I work at. So I find that like, I find that very cool. So a lot of, so like I'm just getting paid to like study essentially, right? So that's like, so I can like study while, so I can do my, my course work while I'm at work. And I can study like any other things that I, that I really want to get into, like if I want to get into, like, for example, right now I'm learning, I'm touching up on Python and touching up on math skills, because I'm not doing so good in math. But yeah, like at work, they give me the opportunity to like really touch up on my skills and help me out if I have any questions. So yeah, like, I think this new job has really helped me have a more flexible, I guess, lifestyle. I feel like before my life kind of revolved around what I could do that based on my, my job schedule. So my job was early, I had to make sure my school was late, right? So everything kind of just revolved around my job. Whereas with this job, I'm given the opportunity to do things while I'm working. And I'm giving more, I'm giving, I guess it's a lighter physical workload in comparison to like the work that I was doing before. I feel like I have more energy to do things after work as well. So it's not, it's not, it doesn't debilitate me as much as having a more physically intensive, intensive job. Got it. Got it. All right. Well, that's awesome, man. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing your story. I really appreciate it. Maybe we'll have you back on the channel for an update maybe in like a year or something like that. But yeah, thanks so much for taking some time off your evening like last moment to come on and share your story. I'm sure a lot of people are going to be extremely inspired by this. I think 10 days might be a record for, for course careers that I think that might actually be a record. So you, you sir, or I believe are a record holder. So that's pretty impressive. I'm sure a lot of people are going to be inspired by that. I mean, that's news to me. I didn't know I was a record holder. Thanks for coming on, man. And take care. All right. No, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.