This is an update to my 2018 career advice article. Readers shared that article more than 1200 times on Facebook and LinkedIn, so it seems to have been useful. You can still read the 2018 version on Medium if you wish.
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There are a few types of people who ask me for IT career advice:
- Those who don't know what skills they should be learning next
- Those who know what they want to do, but can't find the time
- Those who are in a bad situation that they don't see a way out of
I've worked in IT since 1999, and I received a lot of great advice from my peers and mentors over the years. But as much as I love to pay it forward, I get more of these questions than I have time to reply to.
For the last year or so I've been writing a book to answer these questions. The book is called Surviving IT, and if all goes to plan it will be available early this year (and you'll be able to read it for free). You can sign up here or follow on Facebook if you want to stay up to date with the project.
In the meantime I thought it would be useful to collect my thoughts into a single article. So here it is. My career advice for IT professionals in 2019.
GUIDING PRINCIPALS
Before I get into specifics here's some guiding principals. You should always keep these in mind when thinking about your career in IT.
- Change is a constant.
- Swimming against the current will only wear you out.
- Your job is to serve the customer, not play with your favourite toys.
- Don't get attached to tools, systems, or platforms. Nothing last forever.
- Comfort is the enemy of progress.
- Your life is more important than your work.
The reason I make those points is because I see a lot of IT professionals who struggle in their career when they:
- Can't adapt to change.
- Forget who they are here to serve.
A prime example is the trend that started with virtualization. It continued into the cloud, and now seen a huge increase in demand for scripting and automation skills.
Having to learn new tools throws some people off their game. They wanted to be an admin, but now they need to learn to code. They wanted to be hands on, but now their systems are in the cloud. They wanted to work with computers, but they're dealing with people instead.
For some people this creates resentment. They resist changes as long as they can. But as I said, swimming against the current will only wear you out. And eventually it will leave you behind.
The other big issue I see is that IT professionals are sacrificing their health and their lives to meet the expectations of their employers. Burnout is a big issue in this industry, and too many people still aren't taking it seriously. No matter how passionate you are about technology, there is no job worth giving up your entire life for.
KNOWING YOUR MARKET
I can list off a bunch of technologies here that you should learn. But, that isn't going to be useful if nobody in your area is hiring people with those skills.
So before you commit to a learning path, do your research to see what job opportunities exist where you live. If you're willing to move, you should research the jobs in the areas you want to move to. Or research which areas have the jobs you're most interested in doing.
Look at the advertised positions to see what they list as required and desired skills. Use those as a guide to determine where you should focus your progression. Don't take job ads literally though. Many job ads ask for more skills and experience than they'll actually be able to get. If a company wants a Senior Systems Engineer with Exchange, SQL, XenDesktop, NetScaler, Barracuda, Azure, and Docker experience, that's a lot to expect. They might get lucky and find someone with all those skills. But, it's more likely they'll accept someone with fewer of those skills, if you can show other desirable qualities. A lot of position descriptions are generic across an entire team. If you're weak in one area, the team might not have as much of a need for that skill as they do for something else that you're strong in.
It's important to not reject yourself from jobs that you aren't an exact match for. Any job you're interested in is worth a shot. If you match some of the requirements, tailor an application that highlights those matches and plays to your strengths. Once you're able to get in front of the employer for an interview you then have the chance to overcome any perceived gaps in your skills and experience. Often employers will hire someone they interview that seems like a good personality fit for the team. Technical skills can be taught. A bad personality fit will be destructive.
Aside from job ads, talk to your friends and colleagues as well. Find out what their company is using, what they are hiring for, and pursue those skills for yourself. And of course, it helps when your friends know what you can do, and that you're looking for new opportunities.
KNOWING WHERE YOU STAND IN THE LIFE CYCLE
Technology moves through a predictable adoption curve. Where you stand on that curve influences your career opportunities.
- Innovators go first, and take on a lot of risk in the process. But they get the highest reward for that risk. Many pioneers and thought leaders are playing in this space. In return for their risk they gain access to opportunities for high priced consulting and product development/management roles.
- Early adopters go second. These tend to be community leaders who are able to translate the work of innovators into practical applications. Many trainers and authors operate in this space, because being the first to get a book or training course to market provides the best return. Early adopters can make a name for themselves by being first. This leads to a consistent stream of employment, speaking and consulting opportunities. It can also mean a disrupted lifestyle (e.g. a lot of travel), and high churn rate as they move from job to job chasing the newest technologies.
- The early majority show up when a technology has proven that it is viable for widespread adoption. They are able to learn from the teachings of early adopters, and apply those teachings to their own situations. A lot of standards and best practices get cemented during this phase. The early majority tend to have stable job prospects and the ability to move on to new roles when they want to.
- The late majority adopt technologies that are mature and stabilised. The late majority is willing to forgo the latest features and benefits in return for the lower perception of risk. The reality may be that they miss out on the best performance, security, and value on offer. They are most at risk of losing jobs to outsourcing and offshoring, due to the lower perceived value of their skills.
- Laggards come last. Laggards come in many forms, and it's not always a bad thing to operate in this space. In my hometown, there was a time when the last few Novell Groupwise admins could command very high contract rates. There was only a few customers in town, but the supply/demand ratio favoured the experts. But these opportunities don't last forever. Laggards run the risk of their skills falling out of date and having no market value at all.
Throughout your career you can move through different parts of the technology lifecycle. It will depend on your geographic area, your personal circumstances (e.g. health, age, family), and your natural abilities. A person close to retirement age might be quite happy to run out their final years as a laggard. A younger person with decades of work ahead of them should be trying to move towards the front half of the cycle.
That doesn't mean everyone should strive to be an innovator. One person will enjoy staying up all night, testing and breaking things, to work out groundbreaking uses for technology. Another person will prefer to do their 9-5, read books in the evening, and go fishing on weekends. Neither is right or wrong. As long as you're happy and you understand how your personal lifestyle integrates with your work, you can have a successful career.
Also keep in mind that what you're seeing the most marketing noise about is products in the early adopter to early majority phase. This is where most marketing is happening, but it doesn't always reflect the most in demand jobs for your market. Focus on what makes you happy and employable, not the next big thing.
SPECIALIST VS. GENERALIST
Opinions vary on whether it's better to specialise or generalise in your IT career. Again, this will depend on your place in the adoption curve, and your level of experience. Early adopters are often specialists. Whereas the early and late majority tend to have a higher expectation of a more broad skillset.
The jobs in your market are also a factor, of course. Some markets don't have demand for specialist roles. As I wrote earlier, you either need to tailor your skills to what is in demand for your area, or move to an area that has demand for the skills you're interested in.
Whether to specialise or generalise is also a matter of personal preference. Some people desire to know as much as they can about a broad range of topics. Others prefer a deep understanding of a few technologies.
I quite like the idea of “T-shaped people”. As I wrote in another blog post:
Specialists are revered when you need one, but often find themselves wedged into a corner and unable to move out of it. Despite their obvious ability to master one topic, many will assume they’re incapable of doing anything else.
Generalists are equally misunderstood, seen as the “Jack of all trades, master of none” who is “a mile wide and an inch deep”. As useful as generalists are to have around, many will assume they’re incapable of handling a deep or complex matter due to their broad skill set.
The solution is to aspire to become a T-shaped person. Start by moving across, learning multiple skills to a moderate level of proficiency, then dive deep when the right opportunity is presented.
To expand on that, reflect on your own skills and how they stack up in your market. Are you acquiring a deep understanding of one technology, but seeing jobs advertised for things you know nothing about? Then your next step to enhance your value is to broaden your skills.
If you're feeling like you know nothing more than the very basics on a lot of stuff, then pick a single area that shows a promising future and start to go deeper.
One of the problems with specialisation is that it tends to lead to feeling comfortable. Some specialists become emotionally attached to the single area of their expertise. As I wrote earlier, comfort is the enemy of progress. Change is a constant in the technology world. If you get too comfortable and attached to one thing, it can be a real blow to your happiness (and your employability) when that thing goes away.
WHERE TO GET TRAINING
When I first came into the IT industry, there were two choices for learning new skills:
- Attend a high-priced classroom training course.
- Read a book.
Today, we can choose from more training resources than ever before. Classroom training has declined, with online training courses now dominating. Companies such as Pluralsight (who I am involved with) and Lynda.com offer affordable access to huge libraries of video training courses. Other platforms such as EDX also offer free courses across a range of topics.
Vendors host their own online training as well, such as Microsoft Learn, and also upload hours of free content to platforms such as YouTube.
Podcasts have emerged as a popular education resource as well. You can find a podcast on almost any topic. They're easy to consume during a commute, exercise, or while doing chores around the house.
Books are still going strong, despite predictions of their demise. Traditional publishers have struggled with the transition to eBooks, but self-publishers have emerged to fill the gap. There are many free and low-cost self-published books available today to learn from. And your money goes to the creator in full, instead of just a few dollars in royalties (if any).
You can get by with spending zero dollars on training, if that is important to you. There is enough free material out there to learn from. If you do have the budget for it then a subscription to an online training library, and a few book purchases throughout the year, is a good investment. You can then round out your learning with podcasts and blogs to add that “real world” element to your learning.
(To Be Continue)