In this episode, I go over the good and bad about a career in IT. It isn’t all kittens and rainbows being in IT. I certainly wouldn’t change my career. But I want to share with you my thoughts on a career in IT.

As with any profession, there are good and bad parts and you certainly can’t appreciate the good without the bad.

The Bad about a career in IT

We will talk about the bad first. I want to get this out of the way before we go into the good.

Hard to Gain Experience

When starting out in a career in IT it can be hard sometimes to gain experience. Most jobs are looking for someone with some sort of experience. You can gain this experience in a few different ways. One way is through school, this is certainly the more expensive way. Some schools are also behind when it comes to hardware and software.

Volunteer Work

Volunteer work is a great way to gain experience and one of the ways that I gained most of mine. When I was 16 I volunteered to set up a network for the local Volunteer Fire Department. They didn’t need much, just a network connection from their router to a few computers. Doing this I learned how to set up a small home router. I also learned how to make network cables, a skill I still use to this day. Funny enough about a year ago now I volunteered my services again to them and upgraded the network that I installed when I was 16. This upgrade included new cabling, new business-grade switch, and router. All equipment was mounted in a network rack that was locked to remain secure. I also upgraded their wireless and segmented their network allow for better security.

At the same time when I was 16, I developed a website for the Volunteer Fire Department. Their DSL ISP gave them about 20 meg of web hosting space. So I taught myself the basics of HTML and created a web site for them. It was a very 1990’s early 2000’s looking website but this was in 2000. But because they were a volunteer agency and I was volunteering my time to help them I could learn at my own pace. There was no time constraint or hard deadline, they knew I was learning and they received a nice setup and website out of it. So the entire process was a win-win for everyone involved.

Something else to think about now that high-speed networks are more the norm. You may offer your help to set up or upgrade a network for a volunteer agency and they may have someone who already works in IT. I know that if someone came to me and said they would like to donate their time to help upgrade the Fire Department’s network I would be very eager to help them and teach them along the way.

Internships

Internships are great because they can get you right into a career in IT. Unlike volunteer, work internships can be paid or unpaid but either way, you are gaining valuable experience and knowledge.

Look for local small companies that may have a small IT department. Ask them if they are looking for someone to help out with IT tasks. Regardless of how mundane or repetitive the tasks may be. Getting your foot in the door is a great start and exposes you to a career in IT.

Mentorships

Once you start your volunteer work or internship start looking for someone as a mentor. The mentor-mentee relationship is a great way to pay it forward. Once you find someone who you look up to and you think you can learn a lot from. Ask them if they would be willing to teach or mentor you. The worst they can say is no but I am willing to bet they will agree.

When I first started my IT career I had a great mentor who taught me so much. Not only did he teach me every chance he got but his excitement about IT got me excited about IT. This really fueled my career in IT and pushed me to continue learning.

IT Doesn’t Pay Well

This really depends on who you work for and where you work. Some companies just don’t truly know what experienced IT professionals costs. So when this happens you tend to be underpaid. I find this also true in smaller IT departments where you have to wear many different hats. Sometimes in these environments, the pay is not worth the number of hours you have to put in.

IT is many times seen by companies as a financial black hole. Companies know they need to spend money on IT but they may not see that ROI or return on investment. If a company puts money into marketing or sales they see a return on that money in more sales. However, money into IT doesn’t always have the same obvious ROI. So on top of maybe not being paid well, you may have trouble getting money to replace old equipment because “it is still running”.

On-Call

I don’t think I need to go into much detail here but everyone who has a career in IT knows that an On-Call schedule is inevitable. This isn’t typically too bad when you have a large enough IT department. But I worked in a two-man IT department for a business that was a 24/7 365 business. It was open all day, every day and every holiday. This On-Call schedule for a two-man IT department can be brutal. Every other week I had to be prepared to be called into the office for anything from a small printer problem to a server down. But this is something that everyone who has a career in IT just has to accept.

Little Appreciation

Similar to pay this really depends on the company you work for. However, I have said it many times “If I do my job correctly, most people don’t know I am here”. It really is when something breaks that clients know I exist. So a career in IT is not for you if you need that praise and appreciation.

Now I personally like expressed appreciation and I like feedback that I am doing a good job. However, I have learned to not rely on it because it is not always given that you will get it.

Moves Extremely Fast

IT and Systems Administration in general move at an extremely fast pace. If you want a career where you get a certification and then a job where you don’t have to constantly be learning. Then a career in IT is not for you.

To really stay at the top of your game you have to be constantly learning new technologies, new software, and new techniques. You can do this a number of ways but what I found the best was to build my own lab at home. Then I had free rein to learn almost whatever I wanted

Shameless Plug

Sorry but quick shameless plug. If you want to build your own lab I have created a completely free eBook that you can download. It will show you how I created my lab for less than $400. Just go to https://400dollarlab.com and you can download your copy.

The Good about a Career in IT

I certainly can’t tell you about just the bad. Lets now look at the good about a career in IT.

It is a great career

Of course, I may be biased but I absolutely love my career in IT and I wouldn’t change it for anything. This career offers you so many places to grow and expand your knowledge and skills.

Helping Others

I have always enjoyed helping others. This is why I joined the Volunteer Fire Department and the Volunteer Rescue Squad. You may not think a career in IT would really relate to helping people but it does. Yes, your job deals with computers and servers. But there is certainly a human aspect you have to appreciate. IT really does help to satisfy my want to help others, whether it is with a computer problem or teaching them about computers.

I mentioned in the bad ways to overcome the “hard to gain experience”. Part of helping others goes hand in hand with that. Being a mentor to someone trying to get into IT can give you a great sense of helping others.

Flexibility in Schedule and Location

IT is certainly one of those careers that provides a great deal of flexibility. Both in your schedule and where you work. I personally work from home two days a week at my regular 9 to 5 job. But if I need to meet the HVAC guy at my house a certain day I can work from home then as well. If the right infrastructure is set up there isn’t any reason you can’t work remotely unless you have to touch a server.

Can Pay Very Well

I mentioned the exact opposite above but a career in IT can pay very well if you know what you are worth and your company knows what you are worth. Places like payscale.com and glasshouse.com can give you a good idea of what you should be making in your area. Glasshouse.com also gives you a good review of companies and what it is like to work for them.

Sometimes companies just are not aware of what they should be paying an IT professional. So research and know what you are worth before accepting an offer or asking for that raise.

Provides Great Growth Ability

I talk a lot about using Systems Administration as a pivot point (Podcast Episode #2) to other parts of IT. This is a huge benefit of a career in IT. You can transition from one specialty to another without a whole lot of trouble. Knowing that just because you may not enjoy working at a help desk or as a Systems Administrator you can transition to something else within IT is a great motivator.

Many people think that eventually in your career you have to manage people. I thought so too, but I had a boss tell me one time that there are two separate paths you can take in IT. You can go to the manager side of IT and manage a team. Or you can go to the technical side of IT and become more of a subject matter expert in different technologies. I personally went with the later and it has proven true. I do not feel like I am held back at all because I don’t want to manage people as part of my career in IT.

Amazing Community of People

I am sure you can say this about many professions but the community of people in IT is amazing. Very rarely do I find anyone who doesn’t want to share their knowledge or experience with others. You can tell this by all of the forums out there such as StackOverflow where you can ask any development-related question and pretty quickly get an answer.

The community is also very diverse in different backgrounds, races, and nationalities. Of course, there is always room for improvement but it is still a diverse group of people.

You never feel like you are working

If you really enjoy technology as I do then a career in IT will never feel like work. Certainly, there are some days where you want to just forget about them. But for me the days I am excited to wake up and go to work far outnumber the days I don’t.

Conclusion

Well, there you have it. My list of the good and the bad of a career in IT. I hope you see that certainly the good outweigh the bad in my opinion.

I would love to hear what you think so please let me know in the comments what you think is good and bad about a career in IT.

Remember to check out my eBook at https://400dollarlab.com if you want information on how to build your own home lab.