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Tips to Evaluate Your Career and Move to IT

When do you re-evaluate your career?


My husband and I are long-term veterans of working in IT. We have both morphed and reinvented our careers multiple times to keep up with changing technologies. I am now a career coach who assists IT folks in pivoting to new opportunities.


The need to ‘reinvent your career’ is determined by: 1) where you are in your career life and 2) your needs for work/life balance and career happiness. Workers in their early to mid-career phase have a more urgent need to manage their relevancy. A person late in their work journey may need to assess their time remaining in the workforce before considering a career reinvention. For example, I focused on gaining experience in SAAS implementations and Agile methodology when I was 5 years from retirement. Alternatively, my husband chose not to learn automated storage provisioning as he was only 1 year from retirement.


If you are an early to mid-career worker in IT, your best bet is to consider career reinvention as a regular annual exercise.


Here are a few ways to educate yourself on trends

  • Follow career-thinkers and influencers (a great place to start is LinkedIn)

  • Read read read all the best publications (New York Times, Business Insider, Reuters)

  • Stay active in your professional associations and NETWORK

  • Know the 10-year projections for employment and salaries from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (www.bls.gov)

  • Work with a mentor that has the career and IT vision to assist you

Once you get an idea of technical trends, create your plan

  • Stay in your current company and move to a tangent job that has the skillsets you want to target.

  • Work with your manager to gain the specific experience needed for your career change.

  • Create a plan to leave your current company and perform a career pivot. You will need a learning plan for specific skills.

  • Volunteer for projects or experiences outside or inside your company to gain targeted experience.

  • Leave your current company and opt for a short but focused learning plan through a boot camp or specific education.

A few promising areas for IT career reinvention:

  • Any jobs related to AI (Artificial Intelligence)

  • Data science or data analytics – 36% projected growth 2021-2031

  • Cybersecurity/Information Security Analysts – 35% projected job growth 2021-2031

  • Computer and Info Research Scientists/Machine Learning – 21% projected job growth 2021-2031

Many people are already flocking to these areas and may oversaturate the job market in a year or two. These roles also have higher educational and experiential requirements. Therefore, it may take additional time and patience to pivot completely into these technical roles. I would suggest pursuing RELATED jobs that have the skillsets that keep you relevant into the future.

  • A storage architect can volunteer to learn automated scripting.

  • A project manager can work on AI-based projects.

  • A business analyst can work with chatbots.

  • A network analyst can work with cybersecurity folks to elevate and improve security protocols against attack.

The opportunities are endless if you focus on trending needs and create a doable plan.


Good luck!


Let's Connect!

Are you looking to pivot to IT? Do you need a little help jump-starting your career? Follow me on LinkedIn and click the bell icon on my profile page to be notified of my career posts.


When you are ready, here’s how I can help you:

➡️I offer a free 30-minute career exploratory session - bit.ly/3iXfmaT

➡️Try my low-cost self-paced Career Pivot Package with a free 45-minute 1:1 session with me at bit.ly/3hs30XB

➡️I offer flexible, hourly consultative services to meet all your career needs - bit.ly/3BKBDPq

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