Learning Path to Help Start a Career
-
Hi Everyone,
I am currently working on transitioning careers from being a massage therapist into the information technology space and am looking for some advice.
I currently have my CompTIA A+, Network+, Security+, and CySA+ and my CCNA. I am trying to figure out what to study next or what direction I would like to go and would love some suggestions.
The field is so vast that it feels overwhelming trying to decide which route would make sense for me but I want to keep developing skills while hunting for my first role in the IT world.Thanks in advance for reading and your time!
-
Hi @Kevin-Wood-0,
You have quite a wide set of theoretical knowledge with all of those certs. My advice would be to get a helpdesk job as soon as you can. You have more than enough knowledge to be in the IT field already.
On-going learning is still very much an important thing to do though. My advice would be to focus on cloud skills. You can do something generic again like Cloud+, but I would suggest looking at an introduction level course like the MS AZ900, Google Cloud Digital Leader or the AWS Cloud Practitioner. Each of these course will focus on the generic cloud skills for their platform, but, these skills will be transferable to any cloud vendor (they just name each product differently between each platform).
I hope this helps!
-
@Kevin-Wood-0,
@Andrew-Despres has offered some good advice to help round out some of the other skill sets you want to have in this market.The best way to get to know what to consider is to talk to people in that field. You may find in your community a local meeting up of people in IT for something very specific. If not, check online like a Facebook Group or on LinkedIn. See if you can follow someone and tell them what you're considering. Many if not all are willing to help. The one's that aren't willing to help...ignore them and move on. It is by talking to someone that you can learn what it's really going to be like for a person just entering the field. Making connections is finding out from real people...not an advertiser or marketer what it's really like.
-
@Ronnie-Wong, speaking of meetup....maybe a ITPro community meetup would be a decent idea. Either in-person or online. Just a way for us to put voices/faces folks who participate in here. Users can then give advice and ask questions to the community.
Just a thought!
-
@Andrew-Despres First time poster here, I hope this isn't an overstep; I think the idea of a community meet is great! Years back I used to be involved in the Voice Over industry and during the pandemic we had our thanksgiving party (other actors, coaches, and technical crew) vicariously through a Discord server voice/video chat. Something like that, with a bot in place for tickets about the courses and a FAQ, push notifications for announcements, success stories, and job postings is an untapped market, as far as I know, for IT e-Learning. The community could show their support via boosting the server if they wish and the built in marketplace would be a great spot to get access to IT ProTV merchandise.
I don't mean to sound like a sales person, I've just used Discord for many years and seeing this post immediately made me think of it. I would definitely prefer an in-person community meetup some time, but, I think something like a discord server would be absolutely amazing for building strong bonds with other members of the community.
I don't want to be rude to the OP so please let me also acknowledge and respond by saying; as someone who just passed the ITF+ exam 2 hours ago, thank you for posting this. My goals line up pretty closely with your current qualifications so seeing Andrew's suggestion for AWS is beneficial to me in a major way. Finding out that Amazon owns the servers used by Twitch, Kik, and many other streaming services, combined with Andrew's advice, tells me that AWS is something I definitely need to put on my goal list.
-
It's a possibility. I like the idea that @Dominic-Desmarais said about using discord to make a community meetup. I'll see if this sounds like an idea for marketing. And Congratulations, Dominic for passing the ITF+ exam! that's a great way to get a wide perspective of the world of IT careers!
-
Hi everyone. Since 2 months I working as IT Operator in Germany, before was working almost 3 years as 1 level support, 37, now not sure what to learn because IT Operator as the same work every day and wanna earn more. I found Consulting, Analytics, Business, Sales and Marketing interesting, any ideas which certification I can make and which jobs exist with this topics. I have ITIL Foundation Certification. Thanks in advance
Petr -
Hi @Petr-Kasper,
Thanks for reaching out to the forums.
My first suggestion would be to not only follow the money, but follow what you are passionate about. I see that you are currently working as an IT Operator, which I assume is similar to a System Administrator. Are there portions of your current job that your enjoy? If you can let me (or the community) know what you currently enjoy about your current role I can then help point you in the right direction.
Right the the current "big money" trends in IT are catered towards AI, Security and Machine Learning (ML). However, there can still be great money to be made working in Cloud Computing, Leadership/Management, Systems Engineering etc.
I hope this helps!
-
@Petr-Kasper,
As it goes, you must seek in your region what is high demand. Not every market will have the same demands for same skillset. So I would look and see what are 2 or 3 fields that you. see what companies are really looking at hiring. There are almost 2 universal skillsets that everyone will be hiring in the IT world: Cloud specializations (AWS, Azure, etc.) and some software development (backend and frontend). Look at those as specializations to at least have a background in that will continue to be in high demand regardless of the industry trends--Cloud and SoftwareDev -- this is the infrastructure of today. To not proceed without these skills.
