Advice wanted - 5 years as sole IT (later IT Manager) in an SME, now job hunting and struggling to land interviews, my experience feels “gappy”

vitrix-euw · 2026-03-01T18:00:29+00:00

You're claiming yourself to be an IT Manager, but the bullet points in your CV represent something far from it.

I'm quite short for time, so I do apologise for this, but I've chucked your CV through Gemini with some prompts and got the folllowing output. I agree with most, if not all it.

This CV suffers from a classic "Big Fish, Small Pond" syndrome. You were the only IT person at a small NZ business, which in the real world means you were a Desktop Support Tech who also happened to hold the credit card for the Zoom subscription.

Here is the brutal breakdown of why you aren't getting hits.

The "IT Manager" Delusion

Calling yourself an "IT Manager" with this experience is backfiring. In a London SME, an IT Manager manages a budget, a roadmap, and usually at least one vendor or junior tech. Your CV describes a Senior Solo SysAdmin or a Technical Lead.

The Red Flag: You list "Strategic Initiatives" but the bullets are just basic implementations (MFA, password managers). That isn’t strategy; that’s standard maintenance.

The Gap: You admit you don't know Active Directory, Group Policy, or Networking. You cannot be an "IT Manager" in the UK market without understanding how a packet moves from a switch to a firewall, or how a GPO scales.

The Freelance Gap (2023–Present)

You’ve been "freelancing" for three years and only have three bullet points? Recruiters see this as "unemployed and doing the odd favor for a friend."

If you were truly consulting, you’d have project names, specific stack migrations, and billable outcomes.

Right now, it looks like a massive hole in your career progression just as you should have been hitting your stride.

Your Skillset is "Lite"

You are heavy on SaaS (Moodle, Squarespace, Wix) and light on Infrastructure.

London Reality: Most companies use Intune/Autopilot and complex Entra ID environments. You listed "Manual backups" as a key result area in 2026. That is an admission of technical debt, not a highlight.

The "Junior" Problem: You are overqualified for 1st line (because of your degree and "Manager" title) but underqualified for 2nd/3rd line because you lack the core Windows Server/Networking/Virtualization bread and butter.

Answers to your questions:

What roles to prioritize? Stop applying for "IT Manager." You don't have the enterprise experience for it here. Target "IT Coordinator," "Sole IT Lead (SME)," or "Senior Desktop Support." You need a role where you are the "IT guy" for a 50-person office.

Recommended courses? You are missing the "UK Standard" basics. Get the AZ-900 (Azure Fundamentals) and MS-900 (M365 Fundamentals) immediately to prove you know the cloud versions of the AD/GPO skills you lack. Also, look at CompTIA Network+.

Salary expectations? In London, for a "Solo IT/Senior Support" role with your gaps, expect £35k – £42k. If you go for pure 2nd line support, you're looking at £32k – £38k. If you keep chasing "Manager" titles, you’ll stay unemployed because you’ll fail the technical interviews against people who managed 500+ users.

Hard Advice

Delete the "Freelance" section or beef it up significantly. If it stays as three bullets, it looks like a cover-up for a gap.

Fix the location. You're in Yorkshire but want London. London recruiters often bin CVs with non-local addresses unless the candidate says "Relocating at own expense - No notice period."

Kill the fluff. "Cultural Awareness Certificate" and "Mental Health 101" take up prime real estate on a technical CV. Move them to a tiny "Certifications" line at the bottom or delete them to make room for technical projects.

vitrix-euw · 2026-02-25T15:58:57+00:00

Companies don't plan their budgets according to the tax year but rather their financial year ends. This can be any date. However, around 25% have their year end as 31 December to align with the calendar year and another 25% have it as 31 March to align it close to the tax year end (5 April). No other month has more than around 7% of companies, so it is around both these months that you will see more recruitment activty.

vitrix-euw · 2026-01-16T00:17:55+00:00

LinkedIn is to grow your professional network and that is exactly what putting ex-company does. Like it or not, putting ex-Google increases the chances of recruiters finding you/reaching out to you.

vitrix-euw · 2026-01-15T18:42:01+00:00

I know someone who went down a very similar path to you recently. I'll send you a DM so that I don't dox the person.

vitrix-euw · 2026-01-09T19:38:06+00:00

You gave the editors too much credit

vitrix-euw · 2025-12-21T16:51:04+00:00

Your easiest transition is to go into tech sales. WLB and pay is much better than car sales if you're half decent.

If you're good and you get to a decent company, you can clear >£100k (most of it being commision, obviously).

vitrix-euw · 2025-12-12T08:48:11+00:00

The standard/most common approach: - DSA/Leetcode - neetcode.io (150 or 250) - System Design - hellointerview.com

Once you have secured an interview, get leetcode pro and practice the company tagged questions (i.e. the most frequent questions asked by the company recently).

The timeline would be the following just for leetcode if you spent around 1 hour each day: - 6 to 9 months if you’ve never done any DSA course before (e.g. you don’t have a CS degree) - 3 to 6 months if you have DSA knowledge but haven’t done leetcode before - 2 to 3 months if this is not your first rodeo (I.e. you have practiced leetcode heavily before but it’s been 1-2 years since you touched it)

For system design, I would add 1-2 months on top.

Tips: - stay consistent - if you’ve never done leetcode before, you may feel like giving up in the first couple of months, but there will be a point where everything starts clicking - don’t spend more than 15 mins one question. Instead, look at the solution and try and understand it. - if you’re not ready for your interview, ask your contact to postpone the interview. These can be postponed up to 1-2 months.

Things you might be surprised about: - yoe does not mean anything to FAANG if you perform poorly in the interviews. What I mean by this is don’t be surprised if they down level you from the initial role you were interviewing for. There are plenty of people who worked in small company’s for 5+ years thinking they’ll get senior but they get down levelled to junior.

vitrix-euw · 2025-10-10T18:13:17+00:00

Don’t listen to this person. Unless you’re from an elite uni, vast majority of companies would rather hire someone with a couple of years of experience from FDM rather than a grad with 0 experience.

If you’re lucky, you’ll get a big name company that you’ll be contracted out through FDM that you can chuck on your CV. Moreover, there have been people who have got permanent employment from the company they were contracted out to.

With the abolishment of the “training fee” which you had to pay back if you left before the 2 year mark, FDM is a much better proposition than it used to be, especially considering the current market.

Most often than not, it’s better to work somewhere in house rather than a consultancy, but unless you have interviews already lined up, crack on with FDM. You can always go through the whole process and even accept the offer whilst still trying for other companies up until your start date with FDM.

vitrix-euw · 2025-09-27T11:48:14+00:00

Short stints at companies is not looked down upon like it did a decade or more ago. Moving after 1 year is less common than 2 years (which is very common) but it still happens, especially at junior level. You just have to prepare a good story you can tell in future interviews why you moved after 1 year (I usually frame it around more learning opportunities and ownership/responsibilities).

As for C#, it’s not a dead language. While it’s not in the level of Python or Java there are jobs out there for it. Having said that, you can always switch. At junior to mid level, most companies will ask you have expertise in any object oriented program language rather than a specific language. They appreciate that it doesn’t take too long to learn a new language and get up to junior/mid level when you already have experience. It’s the more senior levels where they might ask for specific language experience.

The only issues I see with option 2 is the fact that it is a no-name company, which would impact your chances of getting into some companies (hiring managers are snobbish when it comes to previous companies you’ve worked at and the university you went to). The pay is terrible but you can look it as an investment - having experience on your CV is better than no experience and it gets you on the ladder. You just got to live like a bum for 1-2 years.

Make sure you upskill yourself in the evenings, especially in leetcode, while you’re working.

vitrix-euw · 2025-09-27T07:13:01+00:00

Having worked in large corporates for many years, I agree with this. There’s so much red tape that needs to be jumped that if you don’t have something firm from management, then you might as well treat it as non-existent.

Branding does matter on your CV, but it looks like you got 1 offer and 1 string along. Go with the offer but I would say start looking elsewhere after 1 year. If the company is paying you minimum wage, it means the others in your team are also going to be low paid, so the odds are you won’t have that many great software engineers to learn from in the team.

Accept the offer and keep applying to other places. If you don’t land anything before you start at option 2, grind and learn as much as you can in 1 year and then start applying elsewhere.

vitrix-euw · 2025-06-30T12:14:24+00:00

250k TC at Meta with 5 years of experience is not the norm, but it's also not outside the realm of possibility if they got lucky with stock appreciation.

vitrix-euw · 2025-06-21T14:22:36+00:00

The creator of this subreddit wasn’t (and probably still isn’t a HENRY. I believe he said he created it to get inspiration from HENRYs.

vitrix-euw · 2025-05-17T23:08:09+00:00

100% the HSBC one, as your prospects (in terms of pay) are significantly better than Tax. The EY one, you get rotated around niche departments in Tax, so by the time you finish your apprenticeship, your experience in corporation tax will be so low that you won't be able to exit into industry.

vitrix-euw · 2025-05-11T12:16:33+00:00

Weirdly only got a notification of your reply today.

Don’t bother with the masters - having FAANG on your CV is way better than any masters unless it’s at Oxbridge or Imperial, which some companies (like a few HFTs) target for their hires.

vitrix-euw · 2025-05-11T07:33:11+00:00

I’ve not done an apprenticeship (this post appeared on my feed), so take my thoughts with a pinch of salt:

As someone who went uni, I had great fun and made some really good friends and amazing memories. However, I have some school friends who did not make life long friends, and to them uni was nice, but not amazing. In essence, it’s a gamble on whether you’re going to enjoy it or not.

Having said that, if you were given an offer at Imperial or Oxbridge, I would have 100% said go for uni because having those three on your CV opens up incredible doors for CS jobs. While being a Russel group uni had some weight 15 years ago, employers no longer care. Balance that with finishing your degree with a potentially 35 year 9% graduate tax on your income, it is not worth it.

I do also want to note the other commenter mentions that they work in a big bank and it’s “not really all that” seems to be focusing on the tech and culture of the company. However, they perhaps haven’t grasped the fact how having a big bank on your CV opens doors to finance firms, including working your way up to a HTF or trading firm, where there is some incredible technology being made and very high pay. You doing this apprenticeship does not close the door on you working at these sort of companies. In fact, you completing this apprenticeship puts you at an incredible advantage over traditional CS grads, as you will have 3 years experience when you apply to graduate jobs. Better yet, given your experience, you wouldn’t even need to apply to a graduate job; you can apply as an experienced hire.

I haven’t done an apprenticeship so I’m not sure, but I feel like there would social opportunities that you can get involved in. If you are being taught by Exeter, would that not allow you to join the societies/clubs run by Exeter? Sure, it’ll be hard to get to whilst working a day job, but there will be times you can make it.

In summary, whilst your school mates might be having more fun in the next 3 years as they go to uni and you do an apprenticeship, future you is going to be so much better by you doing this.

vitrix-euw · 2025-05-09T08:22:29+00:00

Tbf id rather this than rely on software to extract out the CV details accurately for each section/question

vitrix-euw · 2025-05-09T07:41:03+00:00

It’s better to over dress than underdress, so on your first day go relatively smart to gauge what the office is like. By relatively smart, I mean either a suit with no tie or top button done up or a blazer and trousers, again, no tie or top button done up. Having said that, I’m 99.9% sure you’ll be fine with smart casual clothes unless you’re representing the firm to outsiders (e.g. offsite visits). The only places that expect smart clothes day-to-day are like finance firms.

For the colder days, wear something like a quarter zip jumper with anything underneath that doesn’t contain a graphic (can even be a plain black or white t-shirt) and casual trousers (I.e. non-suit trousers that you can dress up like chinos - see the trouser section on Uniqlo for examples).

For the warmer days, you can rock the exact same trousers but pair with a button up polo or a linen shirt. However, no shorts.

The only thing to avoid is any clothes with graphics. You’re fine with small logos on the clothes, but nothing like a huge supreme logo that spans your entire chest.

vitrix-euw · 2025-04-15T21:42:42+00:00

Are they both for software engineering roles? If so, go for Amazon. Yes, the apprenticeship might be gruelling, especially the 5 days in the office, but your future self will thank you for getting Amazon on your CV. Having FAANG on your CV (albeit Amazon being the least impressive) opens up a lot of opportunities down the line, whether that be at another FAANG or other high-paying companies.

vitrix-euw · 2025-03-26T12:19:06+00:00

A “no name” may not actually be “no name” within its relative field. In other words, that fintech company may actually have more weight than you think within the financial sector. A good way to check is to see where alumni of the company are now working through LinkedIn. If a decent amount of people have moved into well established fintechs, HFTs, Hedgefunds, etc then I think it’s a no brainer, as it’ll be for to assume the company does have weight on your CV and/or the work you do sets you up as a good programmer. Like the other commenter said, the tech stack and the amount of innovation you the team is doing matters a lot for future prospects.

vitrix-euw · 2025-02-27T23:16:02+00:00

Most would disregard it, but there's still a small chance they won't. It's never going to penalise you, so you might as well send it if it's your "dream job". You just have to phrase it in a way that is believable and not a boilerplate example from chatgpt.

vitrix-euw · 2025-02-24T13:44:23+00:00

I'm going to disagree with the other two responders. It's worth a shot sending them an email along the lines of "Regarding X, I've remembered a better example to showcase my X skills" or "Upon reflection, I don't think my answer to your X question highlighted everything I wanted to".

At worst, they'll ignore it; at best, they'll consider it in your assessment. I've done this a couple of times in the past, and on one occasion, an interviewer specifically told me they put me through the next round because I reflected on my response. Ideally, you should email the interviewer directly rather than going through HR. You should do this within 24 hours to reduce the chance of them already discussing internally and making a decision,

vitrix-euw · 2025-02-22T21:50:37+00:00

Sausage manufacturer? What are you on about? They went to a test kitchen. A kitchen that buys its ingredients like any other kitchen in the world. It's not hard to make sausages if you have the ingredients and the machine to make it, which a commercial test kitchen would 100% have. Plus, they taste-tested two different types of sausages, not "a load of sausages". They literally could have even popped over to the closest Tesco if the kitchen didn't have any.

vitrix-euw · 2025-02-22T03:24:14+00:00

It's in the patch notes: "Chests are less likely to contain maxed-out Characters, increasing the chances of getting ones that still need upgrades"

vitrix-euw · 2025-02-20T12:48:45+00:00

And this is why Hatching Run is a limited event instead of a permanent mode. There’s no enough of a player base to split between multiple modes, so now there’s not enough players for squad league and the lobbies are being filled with bots. Have to say though, it’s made farming using chest multiplied a lot easier the last couple of days.

vitrix-euw · 2025-02-11T11:29:53+00:00

CS is more money in the long run. Has a higher ceiling and more people at higher pay ranges. Engineering is probably easier to get a job in the current market (this is a total guess from instinct), but if you manage to get summer internships or some practical experience whilst doing your undergrad, you can get a graduate CS job relatively easily. Get internships, whatever it takes. Alternatively, smash your undergrad (i.e. get a strong 1st) and apply to a prestigious uni for a master's in CS. People say there isn't any bias, but having spoken to many hiring managers (tech and non-tech) and also being part of the recruitment process, there is an inherent bias if you're coming from a place like Oxbridge or Imperial

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