Quote:
Originally Posted by Alarti0001
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IT is booming and will continue too. As i suggested earlier cybersec, the oil industry and the healthcare field will grow. They get paid alot too. Tech support work is entry level IT. 2 years of that or less and you will get bumped up if you apply yourself. I am making 5 times what I started out at.
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I 100% agree. I would add that the best way to make one's self marketable to employers when starting out is to have a college degree. In my experience about 3 out of 10 companies will not even consider a candidate without a degree... I spent 8 years in college with only an associates and 3.6 to show for my time spent. Trust me. Take loans, get grants, scrub toilets, whatever... the kid needs a 4 year degree if he wants to make his life much easier.
My take on certs is that you should get them in your spare time, but they are important. I was a hiring manager in IS, and they are important because they help get in the door. You have to get in the door, display knowledge of your craft, display growth potential, and communicate effectively. A+ may help get a tier 1 Help desk job, but it does nothing beyond that. MS/Oracle DB certs, security certs, networking certs, and Project Management Certs, are IMO where it is at.
FYI, when I was hiring, I needed data analysts with T-SQL experience. (Our pay was competitive.) I could find VERY few people with the technical and communication skills suitable for employment...
My career path:
- Runner/Desk clerk at the CBOT
- Floor clerk at CBOT in bean options pit for a large group
- Help Desk Technician for a company that served Firestone
- Implementation Specialist for company that built health care revenue cycle software
- Project manager for implementations of health care revenue cycle software
- Team lead/manager for a data team in a workers compensation/insurance industry (Microsoft Shop). 15-20 employees local and off shore, all with T-SQL and programming experience.
- Owner Operator of A-1 Concrete Leveling and Foundation Repair (chicago south)/ IT Consultant (over the off season.)
I got out of IT because I was tired of working forever hours for someone else's company, and too many years of too much desk time was making me fat.