Tell us about you profession....

Feelgood

I was checking out a thread in the aviation forum recently where you could ask a pilot questions about their profession. Was very interesting stuff indeed. Then I realised there are hundreds of other things I'd like to know about other professions too so decided to make a thread.

Might also be a useful thread for school leavers who are trying to decided what career path to choose.

Profession:
IT consultant (Networks and Servers)

Good stuff:
You easily learn something new everyday in IT, its a continuous learning curve. Usually fast paced environments making you think on your feet.
Can be interesting implementing and supporting technology that makes a difference to peoples lives such as hospital or airport systems. The best thing about IT for me is that once you are skilled up, you can easily find work across the globe.

Bad Stuff:
After a few years a lot of the work can become repetitive and monotonous.
The majority of IT systems are required to be online 24/7 so phone calls at 3am when something goes down can be quite common. IT maintenance windows are generally out of hours and at weekends which can eat into your down time.


Unfortunately mine is extremely boring to start off with, but I am sure some boardsies are doing wonderfully interesting things with their lives!

Sleepy

Good idea for a thread - could be very useful for those looking at college application or just graduating and wondering what direction to take their degree.

Profession:
IT consultant (Enterprise Resource Planning Software and Business Intelligence)

Good stuff:
Varied work projects - even when implementing the same software package, each customer site will have it's own challenges to be solved.

Variety of technologies - it's a great position for a "jack of all trades" In the 9 years I've been working in the area I've acquired skills in a major ERP solution, Transact and PL SQL, Database Administration, Project Management, Virtualisation, Windows Servers, A huge range of different Remote Access technologies, Networking, IIS and Web Technologies, Accounting, Report Writing, Pre-Sales Consultancy, Credit Card Processing, Compliance, Project and Account Management to name a few...

Job Opportunities - get skilled in any of the major ERP packages and you won't have any problem finding work. Luck out with the right one and you can make a fortune contracting in the UK.

Bad Stuff:
Like most IT positions your salary plateaus relatively quickly at around the 50/60k mark. To increase it beyond that, you need to look towards project management, becoming a systems accountant for a client using the software you're expert in or daily-rate contracting.

It can be high pressure and demand long hours (with no overtime) as go-live dates for the main financial system of an organisation aren't flexible.

There can be a lot of travel involved. For the past five years I've flown to the UK at least once a fortnight. Before that, I used to clock up a huge amount of mileage travelling to client sites around the country often times leaving Dublin in the small hours to be in Cork / Donegal to start work at 9am and then driving home at 6.

Career Path / Job Requirements:
Most will either have an IT or a Business degree though some will be Arts graduates that have picked up the skills in the workplace. Typical entry point is Application Support for an ERP company or a Finance role in a company using that ERP package. Many will sit professional exams in Accounting or Database Technologies in order to progress.

Personally, I've a B.Comm (Management Information Systems) and A H.Dip in Systems Analysis and started in application support, progressed to technical consultancy (second level support, software installation, database work) after 2 years, 2 years later I was implementing and being parachuted in to fix other implementations. Since then I've contracted independently, performed a pre-sales role, developed add-on products and implemented them.

FizzleSticks

This post has been deleted.

Rossin

Sleepy wrote: »

Bad Stuff:
Like most IT positions your salary plateaus relatively quickly at around the 50/60k mark.

I don't think you'll find too many people in Ireland that would classify this as "bad stuff"!