Originally Posted by froth_lord

I think you've got to strike a good balance between what you like as kind of general hobby interest and what the actual labour market realities are. I am a recruiter in the IT industry and I can tell you with confidence you continue like that almost guarantee you will still not have a IT job even if given 1 more year.

First let's start off with your actual interest:

IT-related stuff like desktop support/servers/IP/LAN (not programming) - Quite honestly this kind of stuff is considered in the market as super low skilled even by offshore BPO standards. What this means is most of such jobs have either been offshored to BPO vendors in India/Philippines and are generally entry level even for them.

Of the few such roles still remaining in Singapore, most are also taken by expereinced Indians and Pinoys S-Pass holders with degrees from third tier university where standards are about par with our higher NITEC. The market is so depressed with supply far outstripping demand that even our local dploma and higher NITEC folks are avoiding this space as it's hard to compete with the foreigners on these low wages.

My advice for you is if you are interested in this kind of general IT hardware stuff, pursue it as a hobby and not as a job.

Secondly, on the matter of should you study more certs to pursue IT jobs:

You gotta be more specific what sort of IT jobs you are really interested in. Most are now in the doldrums and with only specific pockets still commanding marketability. A lot of the higher value add jobs would be out of your reach even if you go about studying/buying some IT cert now.

If those general hardware jobs is the extent of your interest, then I suggest you better not waste time & money getting a cert, it won't help. All you will end up is some old diploma guy who is fighting for freshie jobs with the Indians and young locals, won't get anywhere.

So what's next?

To be real candid about it, a GPA < 3 the chances of joining a technical role in large companies is almost zero. Even SMEs would not consider unless they are really desperate or you were real impressive during interview.

The only realistic option I can think of for you is to look for corporate function jobs like administration, customer service, sales & marketing analysis, hr etc in SMEs. You might still have a decent chance in this kind of jobs and they being less technical, most employers will not put so much emphasis on your poor academics.

No doubt you will say these jobs are not your interest, but I think it's also a good wake up call for you. A job is not a hobby, being able to work in what you like is akin to striking a lottery. If your acadmic and presentation skills are not there, you find jobs that you have a realistic chance of getting, not what you feel like doing.