As someone who spent years at university learning about information technology and have been working for multiple companies in different sectors with IT, I want to share some of my most important lessons I learned about IT careers. This should be interesting especially for people who consider becoming an administrator, programmer or first level supporter etc. with no prior experience in information technology.
#5 - It is indeed a field where your chances to end up unemployed are low
One of the biggest motivators for me for choosing IT for my career was the fact that there are a lot of job offerings in IT thoughout the whole country. This is still true in most of the industrial economies. Having a degree and/or skills in IT means you are a possible candidate for a lot of open positions in almost any organization. As information and computers are a commodity in our developed world today, there is a huge demand for people who are loving to work with computers and understand them better than the common non-IT office worker. As many developed nations are slowly progressing away from classic industry to a more service-centered economy, information and therefore computing technology is becoming even more valuable and the need for IT staff is likely to increase further.
#4 - You don't have to finish higher education to work in IT
I got an university degree in IT, but when I started to work in information technology, I quickly realized, that many successful people, be it team leaders or just good programmers, did not enjoy any higher education. Thing is, IT is extremely broad and also, learning material is available on the internet for free for almost any IT subject. This means that you can get good at any given IT subject without visiting college or university. Also, the extremely high variety in IT jobs gives IT people a plethora of professions and tasks to choose from. Being a simple first-level-supporter does not require you to have any academic degree but is a very good starting point for a IT career anyway. You can also exercise in programming at home like you can exercise in a gym. Knowing the programming basics and at least one widespread programming language is often enough to get a junior programming position, but of course it depends on your competitors. Additionally, small companies often seek for IT-allrounders with low qualifications. Higher educated people in IT are usually avoiding these positions which makes them attractive for those of us who did not enjoy college or university.
#3 - The variety of jobs in IT is huge
This was mentioned in the previous section, but it deserves an own section nevertheless. Many people are thinking about working in IT by imagining a lonely guy sitting in front of a computer the whole day. Nothing is further away from the truth than this. IT is just a container term for any professional working primarily with information technology processes. This is ranging from the already mentioned first-level-supporters, programmers and administrators all the way up to consultants, software sales representatives, teachers, and CIOs. Some end up as digital artists or game designers. Even if you take for example the typical programmer career, there are still a lot of different paths you can take. Most programmers are working for some company, but some choose to be their own company and work for other companies on projects temporarily. As IT is based around special knowledge of software, hardware, processes and experience, a single, good IT-guy is often a better solution than ten not-so-good IT-guys. This means that experienced, well-educated IT experts have the opportunity to work for any project for companies where they are needed for usually much more money than regularly employed people. Anyway, it does not matter if you like to work with other people or not; if you like to sit in front of a computer the whole day or not - you still should find an IT job which is suited for you.
#2 - For most IT staff, Math is not really important
I hear sometimes from old and young people that somebody who is working in IT should be good at Maths. This is simply not true. While many universities put a higher focus on math in IT studies compared to other studies like for example legal studies, the reality for most of people working in IT is that they rarely ever need more than really basic math skills. This is even true for most programmers, where the ability to handle abstract things in their mind and logical thinking is far more important. What matters more in IT is the understanding of IT systems and their use, but that of course highly depends on ones profession. Usually, the only IT jobs where you need more sophisticated math skills regularly are game core programmers (not the designers) and software engineers in some cases, depending on the type of sofware they are developing. There are more special professions, but they are like I stated out - very specialized. The bulk of IT jobs does not really require any other math skills than those you need when you drive a car.
#1 - Most IT staff is not part of the companies key processes
This one is a downer, but still true. The bulk of IT jobs is usually done for companies which do not earn money by selling soft- or hardware or any IT knowledge. Most companies sell some other product or service which is not even IT-related, like offering money services or producing ice cream. Products like cars have IT-technology integrated into them, but only as a minor part. Of course, almost all of these companies need some form of information processing in some form and therefore need IT expertise and resources. However, these IT processes within the company are usually not key processes which decide about whether the company is doing profits or not. These are very often production and sales processes instead. The consequence of that is, that salaries and career opportunities are usually higher in non-IT-jobs within an organization. This is especially true for sales people. If they fail to sell their companys products or services, the consequences of that are usually much more severe than those of a broken IT system. In organizations where IT is not part it's of key processes, the amount of money managers are ready to pay for IT staff is usually more limited than in organizations with a higher focus on information processing.