THE IT

T O O L K I T

Your Complete Guide to Building Your Technology Career in Any Economy Matthew Moran http://www.cbtoolkit.com

An Introduction to Career Building

Chapter 1

The Toolkit Approach to Career Development

Toolkit Approach

 Book contains vital information and proven methods that can make a huge impact on your career success.

 Read each chapter as assigned.

 Complete Actions & Ideas at end of each chapter.

Chapter 2

Career Building Defined

Career Building

 The danger of a tool-driven mindset  A job is not a career  Careers are non-linear  A working plan makes a tedious of unrewarding jobs bearable

Career Building: The Concept

 A theoretical career path…

Career Building: The Concept

 A more realistic picture… ?

Chapter 3

Information Technology: A Great Career

Introduction

 Information technology is a great career choice!

 Career building  Concepts for accelerated advancement  The value-added technologist

IT Is a Great Career!

   Unprecedented growth−still.

 The U.S. department of labor statistic places information technology as the fastest growing job segment over the next 10 years.

 Technology professionals still fare better than similarly trained professions (in terms of time spent).

Performance-based advancement.

 What have you done for me lately?

Less prone to tenure/time seniority grids for advancement.

IT Is a Great Career!

 But what happened?

  Thousands of poorly conceived businesses, run by fledgling technologists, who were moved into management; and then built by, entry-level developers, in a newly developed/preadolescent/marginally accepted economy…  What were we thinking?

An industry forced to mature quickly due to several highly-publicized failures must hit the breaks and take a look at where it’s going.

IT Is a Great Career!

 This is a great thing!



For the producer: If you can develop the full set of talents needed to solve your client’s problems, you will separate yourself from what I call widget producer technologists.

Chapter 4

Defining Yourself: Aptitudes and Desires

Considerations

 Factors to help you decide:  Pay  Insurance  Training  Commute  Working Conditions (people, culture, environment, hours)  Future growth potential

More Factors

 Factors to help you decide:  Desires    What do you like? What do you hate?

What do you want?

 Skills   What are you good at?

Learn new skills

Career Building: The Concept

 Career building is exactly that−building.

 Getting a job or a string of jobs is not synonymous with building a career.

 A builder must have a plan.

 A builder must have the right tools.

Summary

 Many factors to consider when choosing an IT career  IT offers many possibilities, from highly creative to highly analytical  Determine the factors that motivate you and mesh well with your innate abilities  Your career plan will help you enjoy your job and be paid well.