Career Change away from IT

BodFred

Am at a bit of a crossroads in my IT career. Am in the industry 9 years and have had 2 jobs. The first with a large multinational and the second (current) with a medium sized Irish organisation.

I never really settled or focused on one area of IT and to this day I consider myself a jack of all trades. If I were to look for a new job I couldn't label myself as a Project Manger or a Senior Software Engineer, QA Lead or Business Analyst etc. So it makes moving on extremely difficult, as all jobs I see are specific.

I'd say in my earlier years I was young, naive and never saw the big picture, happy to do whatever work I was given and never really expressed a desire to focus on something specific to my superiors/mentors. Am paying for it now!

In my current role I was hired based on a certain skill set, went in entry level and was quickly moved up to a high mid-level role within say 2months. Sort of an unwritten agreement. I was using the skills I was hired for straightaway, which I though great, I can call myself THIS, and if I ever wanted to move on I could target similar job spec. However that soon dwindled away and am now back to doing bits and pieces of everything.

I am not certified in any specific area so this isn't helping the situation. There is nothing in the way of funding external training/certification with my current employer so it would be on my own back. I am now getting pieces of work (coding/development) that require certain skills that I have not used in well over 6 to 7 years (coupled with the technology advancing in that time) and am struggling big time in terms of meaningful daily progress and meeting set deadlines.

That said, for context, I am a year 2 part-time student for an MSC in an ICT related field (from a business point of view), but even that I am rapidly becoming unstuck and loosing interest as am struggling to come up with dissertation topics etc.

It has even driven me to a point of:

1. Writing this
2. Googling career changes away from IT
3. Looking into becoming a driving instructor amongst other things

Thoughts/feedback/advice welcomed.

Cheers!

CountyHurler

I suppose the first question would be ... Is there any area of IT that you could see yourself working in ...

I dont think it's possible to be a jack of all trades any more, unless your working for a small company where your the only IT guy... If you want to make steps on the ladder in a multinational you have to specialize..

BmCon

CountyHurler wrote: »

I suppose the first question would be ... Is there any area of IT that you could see yourself working in ...

I dont think it's possible to be a jack of all trades any more, unless your working for a small company where your the only IT guy... If you want to make steps on the ladder in a multinational you have to specialize..

I only learned this myself. A lot of c#, Java, php, developer jobs out there.

Driving instruction is a very hard business to make a living at. Depends on location. Shannon 12 edt lessons 420 euro but Dublin 280 odd.

I work for the DrivingInfo Network.

zweton

CountyHurler wrote: »

I suppose the first question would be ... Is there any area of IT that you could see yourself working in ...

I dont think it's possible to be a jack of all trades any more, unless your working for a small company where your the only IT guy... If you want to make steps on the ladder in a multinational you have to specialize..

im currently working as the only i.t guy in a company, i really do need to try specialize but still after 5 years i dont know what!

denlaw

I'd love to get into IT after a lifetime spent working in factories. Made redundant a couple of yrs ago and i've done the 3 Comptia ones since and taking the ICND1 after xmas, personally i think i'll hide my age from now on on the CV, getting pissed off with not even a bloody reply with the many jobs i've applied for...

Krusader

denlaw wrote: »

I'd love to get into IT after a lifetime spent working in factories. Made redundant a couple of yrs ago and i've done the 3 Comptia ones since and taking the ICND1 after xmas, personally i think i'll hide my age from now on on the CV, getting pissed off with not even a bloody reply with the many jobs i've applied for...

I got into IT at 30. Had A+ N+ and CCNA. Do the Jobbridge for 6/9 months, if you can to gain experience. That's what I did. I was kept on.
Get yourself on LinkedIn also if you aren't already.

BmCon

If you want to be a web developer you need to know:
HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, JSON, JQuiry, AJAX, XML, XHTML, php, SQL, MySQL, LAMP and WAMP.

A bonus if you know C#, c++, Java and you can fly a helicopter also

If you are a developer in any language you should need no more than read the manual to code/develop in any of the above. So what are they on about?

Then they want you to have a github account, or show them what you have done. Most of my work is not on an open sourse CMS like Wordpress (if this is where your web sites are done you are not a developer).

There was a job advertised for a php developer. Rang the company and they were looking for someone who uses php frameworks like ZEND or Laravel.
Are they not looking for someone who knows the framework and not a programmer/developer. Laravels version of php is BLADE.

It's a minefield and the internship issue! Don't get me started. Slave labour.
That's my opinion.

CountyHurler

BmCon wrote: »

If you want to be a web developer you need to know: HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, JSON, JQuiry, AJAX, XML, XHTML, php, SQL, MySQL, LAMP and WAMP.

I used to do a bit of web design a few years back, because a few small businesses asked me to do up websites for them.. But now if somebody asks me I just say "NO"....

The website is always at the bottom of the list of priorities for a company as they dont see a return (unless there is an online shop), and you will spend you're life chasing people for the information required to complete the site and get paid... You will also waste a lot of time meeting people who will be gung ho about getting the thing done, and nothing ever materialises... like about 50% of the people that I've met... And this got worse with the recession. Small businesses dont see any return from their own website (again unless they have an online shop) and when you are negotiating with them about price they always have "a cousin studying IT student who'll do it for a 100 euro"..

Unless you plan on working for a web company who will pay you a weekly wage to work on the websites of their clients, I wouldnt bother learning the web stuff... I dont think it's something that you can be part time, and make a living out of, if you are dealing with small business... Particularly given that the technologies move so quickly..



..

beauf

BmCon wrote: »

....A bonus if you know C#, c++, Java and you can fly a helicopter also ...

LOL - true though. Will they pay the wages that would require though.

BmCon

beauf wrote: »

LOL - true though. Will they pay the wages that would require though.

Short answer is no... They will give you an internship and you'll be delighted with the chance to work with them.

I forgot about SEO!!
You must be able to get client website above the fold on google. Omg I could go on and on.

CountyHurler

BmCon wrote: »

I forgot about SEO!!
You must be able to get client website above the fold on google. Omg I could go on and on.

And I wouldnt mind but their turnover is only 500 euro a year..

denlaw

Krusader wrote: »

I got into IT at 30. Had A+ N+ and CCNA. Do the Jobbridge for 6/9 months, if you can to gain experience. That's what I did. I was kept on.
Get yourself on LinkedIn also if you aren't already.

I'm 48, done a+ and network+ through FAS and done security online, the internship is a tricky one anywhere in Dublin and it's a ton a week in travel, being married with 3 school going kids means every penny counts these days...

Would anyone even look at me these days in IT considering it's basically a young persons choice of career...

CountyHurler

denlaw wrote: »

I'm 48, done a+ and network+ through FAS and done security online, the internship is a tricky one anywhere in Dublin

Interesting to hear your point of view.. I was working on a PC for a guy who used to be a CEO of a large enough company.. And was now forced back in to the workplace cos he had was "retired" from the company.He had to get a job cos he still had fairly significant overheads despite of having an okay package..

Got chatting to him, and he was doing the same sort of internetships...He'd had three placements of about six or seven months each time. tbh, the work that he was doing seemed more like school project work rather than hands on support/development.

He said to one company explained to him that if he knew Sharepoint they would have a position for him right away.

Kinet1c

denlaw wrote: »

I'm 48, done a+ and network+ through FAS and done security online, the internship is a tricky one anywhere in Dublin and it's a ton a week in travel, being married with 3 school going kids means every penny counts these days...

Would anyone even look at me these days in IT considering it's basically a young persons choice of career...

Keep studying. If you know what area of IT you want to move in to (virtualisation, networking, windows, linux etc) then get a cert or two from that realm under your belt.

zweton

what area are you in/hoping to pursue kinetic?

denlaw

Kinet1c wrote: »

Keep studying. If you know what area of IT you want to move in to (virtualisation, networking, windows, linux etc) then get a cert or two from that realm under your belt.

Networking, I'd enjoy the hands on part of it, the running of cable and setting up..
The icnd is much more enjoyable to study than network+ which was a mile wide but an inch deep...

Kinet1c

denlaw wrote: »

Networking, I'd enjoy the hands on part of it, the running of cable and setting up..
The icnd is much more enjoyable to study than network+ which was a mile wide but an inch deep...

So, a lot of the cabling within a DC or server room would be structured cabling and done by one set of professionals, it's a skill in itself. Then patching cables between servers/switches etc would typically be done by a server/network/datacentre engineer and these would typically do the router/switch config, depending on their expertise level and the size of the organisation.

Getting your CCNA would be a big step towards either route. It took me ~6 months last year to get it and I'd only got a few CompTIAs like yourself. This is my 2nd career, although I started in my mid-late 20s. Still found it tough as graduates are all the rage these days when it comes to hiring in to IT and even they have a hard time.

If you're finding it tough to get in to a job then look at Ergo, Hibernia Evros, pfh, smarttech, datapac or enterprise solutions as they contract in to various places. Roles could be a day here or there or a few months at a time. While it can be inconsistent at times, it's getting stuff down on your CV and may lead to a permanent role along the way.

L1011

denlaw wrote: »

Networking, I'd enjoy the hands on part of it, the running of cable and setting up..
The icnd is much more enjoyable to study than network+ which was a mile wide but an inch deep...

Difficult (well, impossible really) as it is to do it before getting in to it - try it for a while and there's a good chance you'll go off it. I practically come out in hives when I see a krone tool these days!

LukeQuietus

BmCon wrote: »

Most of my work is not on an open sourse CMS like Wordpress (if this is where your web sites are done you are not a developer).
...
Laravels version of php is BLADE.

There are WordPress Developers. Are you recommending every project be started from scratch, building your own admin and hoping your security is better than the 1000s of development hours and testing that goes into something like WordPress, Drupal or Joomla? Rubbish! That kind of thinking is narrow-minded and downright dangerous.

And Blade isn't a version of PHP...it's a templating engine. Same as Twig and Smarty. "Hack" is a version of PHP.