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Most entry level jobs can require anywhere from 1 - 2 years of experience, some even want 3 - 5 years.
I currently work 2 separate IT jobs. A Tech I position for a college and a Tech II position for a Tax company. Both of which are part time. What I am trying to figure out is, if I work both jobs for a year, will this technically count as 2 years of IT experience total, or will it still only count as having a year of experience?
It's still one year of experience.
I wouldn't be able to take a years worth of experience and say "it's one year of working on Mondays", "one year of working on Tuesdays", "one year of working on Wednesdays", "one year of working on Thursdays" and "one year of working on Fridays", and count that as five years of experience.
In fact, had you had just one of your part time jobs for a year, that would not count as a year of experience.
As other answers have pointed out - this would still be counted as "1 year experience". However, it will probably help you, to understand some of the reasons the years should be counted this way, and why it makes a difference to your employability.
Firstly, your experience in what you do is only going to grow over time. By being exposed to problems and solving them - your skillset will grow. Obviously, being at two employers may have helped you learn more than you would normally in 1 year of working; but you've still only had 365 (-weekends and holidays) of actual "on-the-job" experience in IT, and there's realistically a limit to how much you can have learned in that time.
Secondly, and often importantly in tech, many issues only appear over time. For example, projects may appear to run smoothly for the first 2 years and then fail to pass submission/compliance checking (due to earlier mistakes or oversight). If you've never seen this process from start to end, there are things you just will not be able to know/gain first-hand experience of.
Thirdly, similar to the above, there's a certain rate changes can be made. No matter how fast you work, other people are involved and even then - it takes time to measure the success of changes. As such, if you've only worked for a year - it's unlikely you've seen the real impact of any initiative you've started or improvements you've made (both positive and the problems you've caused).
Unfortunately, as above, there are just a number of things you will not have seen before in a single year of work (which are out of your control). This isn't your fault, or something you need to cover with study - but it does mean you are unlikely to have the same experience as somebody that has been in their role for 2 years (regardless of how you split the days between your two employers).
It’s really hard to say that you had double number of years of experience. You should explain that these two jobs ran concurrently and were part time. Do not list as full time jobs.
Your years of experience are, fairly simply, the difference between when you started, and now, subtracting any considerable gaps. So, by this metric, you've got a year's experience.
The equivalent would be working at an MSP, where you're interacting with, and working "for" multiple clients, but you still only have the one job.
The other side of this is that the question is basically only a soft barrier to entry. It's typically a rough target of "We want someone who is at a level that we would expect someone to be at, after this many years". Typically, what is much more important is what you've done, responsibilities and actions are more useful than time.
So, once you've gotten past the sift, if you've had a more varied and responsible year than someone else that's been working in a single role, then that will put you in a better place.
