Month: August 2018

When it comes to choosing a career, especially today, one of the major concerns that come to mind is earning potential. Many people may have a passion for a certain field, but end up passing it over because it’s either difficult to make a lot of money or the few positions that do pay well are highly competitive. For IT, the situation is a little different. General IT support in Miami, for example, can make $54,699 as an average salary, but there are a lot of different things that go into that average number. This can range from location to experience to whether your company is in IT or you are providing IT services to another entity, like a company or school district. Let’s take a closer look at what truly shapes an IT professional’s earning potential.

For one thing, it’s a good idea to have a career to aspire to. The number that we gave before is a general “IT specialist” position. As you probably know, different IT jobs can wildly vary in terms of different duties and responsibilities. As a general rule of thumb, though, the more specialized your role is, chances are the more that you can earn. One example of an IT career that earns well above that average figure is being a senior software engineer. The role here is less about basic upkeep and support and more about actually creating and refining software that others may use. In order to do this, an IT professional needs to be skilled in designing, evaluating, and testing software, and have a good command of different programming languages. However, they stand to make as much as $100,989 as a median salary.

Another well-paying IT job is serving as an IT project manager. Again, this role combines the traditional skills you would learn as an IT professional in school along with another set of necessary skills—being able to manage a group as well as coordinate various projects. This requires an essential combination of both acumen and leadership skills, which can be difficult to do at first. Again, though, the difficulty is reflected in the pay, with a median salary of $87,707. As an added note with these and other careers, location matters. Major U.S. cities where big tech companies are based are going to be able to offer larger salaries than a small town. The catch here is that the cost of living may be higher as well, so weigh how much money you’re really bringing home.

Ideally, you’re going to want to try and add different skills over time to help increase your earning capacity, like networks service in Miami. Even if you have a job you’re happy with, get in the habit of getting new certifications as time allows. By keeping these facts in mind and making sure that you’re steadily improving rather than staying stagnant, you’re practically guaranteed to have not only appropriate pay but also job security. After all, your skills will always be in high demand.

There are a number of different reasons, and situations, where a person may want to make a career shift to IT. Of course, there’s the natural route of a college student trying to get involved in IT, but there also may be people who work with tech as a part of their job, and see more demand for IT professionals and want to get a piece of the action. Others may simply want to learn more about IT to be more effective in their roles. All of these roads lead to different destinations, but run along a similar path. So, if you were interested in IT support in Miami, here’s how your education would start.

The first thing we should talk about, especially if you plan on pursuing a degree or certification program is the difference between IT education and computer science education. Contrary to popular belief, these are not interchangeable. As a basic principle, computer science is more about programming and software development, so there is a heavier emphasis on math and creativity in order to get these programs to work. IT is more of the practical side of the equation, actually designing, configuring, and maintaining a lot of these ideas, as well as other important systems like servers.

The nice thing about both roles is that there’s plenty of demand for them, even at lower entry levels. So, if you’re willing to take the plunge, it won’t be overly difficult to find work. The main differentiating factor should be what you think favors your skillset more, what you’re more interested in, and what type of programs are available to you.
If you’re taking a course or degree to get your career off the ground, it’s important to remember that IT is about more than just different theories and concepts. There’s a lot of different practical work getting done, which is great, as the experience can directly transfer to a job as needed. However, you also need to understand that you’re not going to instantly learn everything you need to succeed in an IT workplace. After you complete the core assignments of your course, it’s a good idea to go online and browse job listings of companies you’re interested in. Are they asking for certain skills and proficiencies that you’re not getting in class? It may be worth it to strike out on your own and try and learn some of these, just to be a more well-rounded candidate.

If you don’t know where to start, your top options are going to be certifications. These are third parties or respected institutions that will provide different courses for you on IT-related topics and subjects. Upon completion, you get a certification that’s concrete proof you have mastery of said skill, like a programming language, for one.

In time, as you become more advanced over time, it may make sense to try and parlay your career into side income, like IT consulting in Miami. The sky is the limit in IT, just understand that you need to have the right experience and certifications first.