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IT field, jack of all trades, or specialized

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Dawgz Rule:

--- Quote ---Being an expert at something specific will get you hired.

Knowing some of everything will keep you employed.

--- End quote ---

+1.  Started off as a network engineer.   Once I learned everything I needed to do that role well, I learned as much as I could about the other IT areas.  That is what led me to an IT management position.  Once a manager, I started learning about other parts of the business which led me to more things outside of IT (sourcing, procurement, finance).  The more you learn, the more value you add, the more likely you are to be retained....the money is nice too!

Vigo:
I'm a business/HR analyst, not an IT guy, but I'll give you an HR guy's advice if you are thinking about moving to a larger company.

As long as you meet the very specific qualifications on the job posting, you qualify. End of discussion. Bigger companies love to make the job listing sound as grandiose as possible because us HR guys tells them it will bring better applicants. Just look at the qualifications alone. Bigger companies are used to hiring a bunch of lemmings anyway. You will probably only be given one or two tasks in the beginning, and if you are a fairly competent human being you will be able pick it up quickly enough that they won't question your expertise one bit.

If you really want to hunt for a job, make a resume that is tailor fit to each job you apply to. I know that they told us all in school to have just one resume, but that doesn't work if you are looking at a broad number of positions. With your broad set of skills, there is no way you can elegantly put everything you do in one resume. Look for key terms in the job posting and reuse them. Remember that you are first applying to a dumb HR guy who doesn't know a damn thing of what the IT position does. You need him to first pass that job application to the IT director before you can get any further. Oh, and don't tell the employer your current salary. Big companies are way over judgmental of your skills based on your salary. Make something up, HR can't give that info out without written consent anyway (as long as your HR follows the law).

mcseforsale:
Been in IT for 22 years...started as desktop tech, then to help desk dispatcher, then help desk analyst, then help desk sr. analyst, then to network administration, then to server engineer/architect, then to large-scale IP network architect specializing in Cisco, then to SMS (desktop app deployment), then to application packaging and now I'm a configuration manager for a small company that sells a butt-load of software.

No college...in fact quit HS and had to go back to get my diploma to get the help desk analyst role. 

Currently, the real money is in .NET programming, and cloud integration will be the next really long-term job skill.  6 figures is plenty easy with either of those if you're competent.  A C# programmer with a good resume can pretty much name their price at this point, as can a cloud developer/architect.

Most smaller companies now don't even host their own source code or email, so a lot of the systems management functions are starting to be virtualized and moved to the cloud.

If I could do it all over, I'd have stayed in school and become a lawyer.  At least that job is consistent and won't go away an time soon.  Playing catchup with each new technology is getting old for an old fart like me.

That being said, even though it's been difficult and we've had to sacrifice, my wife has been home with the kids for 14 years.  And, I've managed to be working for all that time with the exception of a 6 month period during the last recession.  The key is to poke your head up once in a while and see what the next big thing will be and make yourself valuable by being good at saving a company money.  99% of the time, most solutions can be found by getting educated in a new technology...especially open source stuff...and not throwing money at a problem. 

AJ

ChadTower:

--- Quote from: mcseforsale on April 02, 2013, 04:02:19 pm ---That being said, even though it's been difficult and we've had to sacrifice, my wife has been home with the kids for 14 years.  And, I've managed to be working for all that time with the exception of a 6 month period during the last recession.  The key is to poke your head up once in a while and see what the next big thing will be and make yourself valuable by being good at saving a company money.  99% of the time, most solutions can be found by getting educated in a new technology...especially open source stuff...and not throwing money at a problem. 

--- End quote ---


My wife and I did the same thing for ten years.  It really is the best way to go if everybody is on the same page.  I wouldn't trade how things have turned out for another salary.  No way.

Once you get past "new technology" phase in IT you move into "new methodology".  Instead of just learning a new tool, or a new architecture, you end up learning new ways of managing the business cycles that typically represent IT.  You already know most of the architectural possibilities so the next step is recognizing IT requirements, fitting them to the business' needs, and then learning ways to implement methods to most efficiently satisfy the business' needs while designing a system that scales to anticipate future needs.

Drnick:
I think those last 3 posts about cover it.  Vigo is spot on with the resume/CV  When applying for jobs be specific to what they want.  I work in an IT Department for Local Government.  The more things you can tick off that match what they are looking for the higher your score, Thus the more you are likely to get the job. I'm sure that I only got my job due to my score being only 1 point away from maximum even though my interview wasn't the best.

@mcseforsale,  Yep the money is definitely in Programming we can't even hire at analyst level with .NET & C# experience for £30k & Benefits, Unsurprisingly the guys we had for that upped and left for places offering so much more.

@Chadtower,  That whole quote on methodology makes me want to scream,  but unfortunately it is the truth "New Methodology"  the computing wave of the future, it's all our bosses want to know, how can we improve on the way that we are providing services whilst saving money. I can guarantee that If you can come up with good ways of saving money then your job will generally be safe.



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