I got my job through a friend. He knew someone who was a manager for a motherboard manufacturer, and I became their tech support. School didn't help any, it was the connections which did. That was in 1996, so Anandtech didn't help. I did find Anandtech while I was there though, in 1998.
I got to fly all over the country, went to Comdex twice in its heyday (and chilled in the Voodoo lounge and played with the Voodoo2 before it was released, it was an amazing experience working for a computer company back in the late 90's. After that I worked for IBM, then Bristol Myers Squibb, then Johnson&Johnson, then Siemens.