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What does it take to get a good job?

By Patrick Regan on Wed, 12/05/07 - 9:17pm.
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It is an established fact that computers and networking is a fast-paced environment. Therefore, employees who work in Information Technology (IT), must learn to keep up with the ever changing technology and have the ability to learn new technology. It is said that a person in IT must be able to learn or retrain him or herself every 1 to 1½ years.

To become a successful IT worker, you must: 

  • Be proficient in two or more technical specialties.
  • Be able to wear multiple hats
  • Be more business-oriented because so that you can see the big picture for the company or organization that you work for, to understand how cost relates to IT and to understand return on investment (ROI) to make sure your choices are cost effective.
  • Able to work easily with non-technical personnel. Remember, most IT jobs are jobs that require working with people, because that is who IT is supporting.
  • Must have soft skills of good listening, problem-solving and effective written and verbal communication

 

In addition, there is a demand for those who can demonstrate expertise in IT project management. Those moving to a mid- to high-level position will have a mix of academic credentials and industry certifications, as well as increasing levels of responsibility.

As I have mentioned in an earlier blog, certifications can be quite valuable. Depending on the right certification for the right job, technical companies see some technical certifications are as valuable as a college degree and non-technical companies sees them just a little less than a college degree. The disadvantage of a certification is that the time that a certificate is worth having is very limited while a college degree is supposed to be lifelong because it also showed that you have the ability to learn.

For those who go for the Microsoft MCSE, would be considered one technical specialty and basically demonstrates the basics of the Microsoft network. Other skills may include Linux, Cisco and wireless certifications. Two nice supplemental technical skills that go well with the MCSE is Exchange and Security.

Since email is essential to any company, Exchange is a nice second technical specialty, assuming you have Exchange 2000 or greater. By the way, if you have Exchange 5.5 that you learned in school is not worth mentioning because starting with Exchange 2000, the Exchange model is quite different then Exchange 5.5. And Exchange 2007 is quite different then the Exchange 2000-2003.

Of course, opening up any IT technical magazine or technical news website, you will see that security is more important then ever with the many diverse threats. So therefore, a security expert is in high demand and there are several security certifications that look good on the resume.

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Patrick Regan has been a PC technician, network administrator/engineer, design architect and security analyst for the past 16 years after graduating with a bachelor's degree in physics from the University of Akron. He is currently a senior network engineer at Pacific Coast Companies, supporting a large enterprise network. He holds many certifications including the Microsoft MCSE, MCSA, MCT; CompTIA's A+, Network+, Server+, Linux+, Security+ and CTT+; Cisco CCNA; and Novell's CNE and CWNP Certified Wireless Network Administrator (CWNA).