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Technology is a wide umbrella, but if you are starting a college track or find yourself at a career crossroads, it’s a pretty good idea to try and find space for yourself under that umbrella. Why is this so? Well, there’s a lot of reasons, but we’re going to focus on two: the potential and the spread of the technology field.

Prospects

When it comes to meaningful work, technology is about the best option you can use. Some may find this surprising compared to more human-facing work—but everything has its place. Tech is driving innovation across tons of fields, but also provides a mental fulfillment for yourself.

At the core, tech work is about solving problems, whether it’s making something new or making something easier. Few fields can say that they are doing that the way that tech does. Even if you’re not on the bleeding edge, tech provides constant challenges and tangible achievements.

Versatility

Perhaps one of the nicest things about working in a tech field is that you have more options than ever to actually put into practice what you learn and specialize in. This can extend from vocations (like IT consulting in Miami or cybersecurity for the government) to even the type of technology you work with. In addition, on a personal level, pursuing a tech career allows you support a field you are passionate about while having more job security.

Let’s talk about academia as an example. Becoming a college professor is not only becoming more difficult due to competition, it is also not as lucrative as you may believe. As far as teaching at lower levels goes, you may have more job security, but you still aren’t making much, and some people are cynical about the treatment of teachers. However, supporting education is still a noble pursuit. Why not work in technology and support schools in a different way? This could mean basic IT, , running a managed IT service in Miami or by helping manage various technology systems, such as those used for logistics or other areas.

You can apply this manner of thinking to just about any career path. As tech becomes a more ubiquitous part of our lives, it does the same for the work world. As a result, you can weasel your way into just about any field. In addition, having some tech knowledge may make you more appealing even in other career paths. Publishing is a good example here. Overall, print publishing is on a downslide due to technological competition. But what if you were able to bring a little bit of web design knowledge to help a print titan bolster their digital initiatives? This would make you far more appealing of a candidate than someone who just has print experience to offer.

Overall, many people start learning tech to some degree because they have to, as innovations become key to more and more jobs. You owe it to yourself to get ahead of the curve, and start learning and working in these areas now.

Don’t believe that tech is the land of opportunity? Try these statistics on for size. According to data for the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment of computer and information technology occupations is likely to grow 12 percent from 2014 to 2024. The number may seem modest at first, but you need to realize that this is faster than the average for all occupations.

“Tech isn’t for everyone, but tech is probably the single greatest opportunity that exists for millennials today,” says Mark Smukler, General Assembly alumni and Co-Founder of Bixby, a rental management platform. This means that even if you weren’t thinking of tech as a potential career choice, you may want to revisit that mindset, and one of the most accessible ways to get into that arena is through IT, or information technology.

The IT Landscape

For those of us who have worked in traditional office jobs most of our lives, it’s very possible that you have a bit of a narrow view of what IT can be. Those are the people you call when your office computer isn’t working, right? Not entirely. These jobs run the gamut from IT support in Miami to other similar technical staff jobs. These include companies that don’t necessarily specialize in tech, but require cutting edge technical tools and programs to function and stay competitive. Who is going to make that happen? Chances are, someone with plenty of job security and a nice salary. These positions are commonly called hybrid technical roles, that come with high salaries and the ability to work on new skill sets. For those who want to work their way up in the world, there will always be the opportunity to improve one’s self and their resume.

Speaking of salary, let’s get to brass tacks when it comes to IT and technology. The median salaries for the nine top jobs in 2016 ranked between $61,000-127,000. The biggest thing is that if you have the knowledge and skill, there is a far lower barrier to entry. To get that type of money, other fields may need higher levels of education, which come with higher student loan costs.

Ways to Get Started

Of course, if you want to enhance your IT skills in formal education, there is a chance to do so. Many graduate programs in IT specialize in areas like programming, tech support, web development, along with software engineering. In other cases, people with undergraduate degrees like math and the sciences may cross over in order to specialize a bit more.

However, the drawback to IT is that compared to other fields, there is constant change. Even for something like networks service Miami, new platforms, new programming languages and more pop up all the time. This means you don’t have the luxury of resting on your laurels. Even if you have formal education, it is important to keep focused on new developments in the field. By staying current and taking advantage of every resource you have, your resume will stay evergreen in a field that is likely to do the same.

If you were to sit down and compile career advice from 1000 success gurus, chances are that you would find some common threads. Chances are one of these common threads would include investing in yourself in some sort of way. There are many different ways to do so, but the details can vary from job to job, including IT, for one. IT is notable because it’s one of the fields showing the greatest amount of growth, but unlike some of the other contenders (healthcare), it’s very easy to work on your own to add value to yourself as a current and future employee. The best thing of all is these practices branch across all IT practices, from networks service in Miami to basic tech support across the country. Let’s see what you can do.

Enhance Your Knowledge

The Internet means that there are more means than ever for the average person to enhance their knowledge of just about any given subject. Technology is one of the biggest benefactors of this. Want to learn a new programming language? There are sites and apps for this. Looking to bone up on your web design? Take a course, then find a cheap or free platform to be your playground. The key here is to find good, authoritative sources to try and steer you down the right path. Following popular influencers on social media is a start, but you can still do more.

Try to join online groups where professionals in your field come together and ask questions.  Consider downloading a podcast from an IT expert and listening to it when you have some downtime. It may even be worth it to look at free course materials from universities (several offer them on their website). Remember, the aim here isn’t to try and break the mold. All you want to do is immerse yourself in relevant information so you can take a more formal leap when it makes sense.

Enhance Your Resume

Now, this begs the question, when does a more formal leap make sense? The answer to that depends, but one of the most common examples is getting a certification. Many people get their knowledge piecemeal, a class here, a job there, some hobbyist work here. Certifications are a way for employers and professionals to get a basic idea that your skill set meets some sort of universal standard. This matters at all levels, even a basic IT support in Miami job. At that point, you can combine this with your past knowledge and experience to give them a complete picture.

You don’t have to be so formal if you don’t want to, though. An equally valuable thing to try and do is create something on your own and maintain it, outside the confines of your day job. This could be a blog, an app, whatever makes sense. This gives you an opportunity to tinker creatively, but it also shows potential employers two things:

1. You are dedicated enough to the craft of tech to work on it in your free time.
2. You have the knowledge to create a working product without having your hand held.

Both things are of great value in a field where things are constantly changing.

When it comes to getting into IT, you generally have one of two paths, and neither one is wrong. Your first option is studying a formal IT degree. This opens up your career options to some extent afterward, as certain jobs require degrees in computer science or software engineering. Others choose to learn as they go, getting smaller jobs and working on their own to hone their knowledge, whether this leads to them opening their own business or working commercially for other businesses. The benefits here are more autonomy and no student loans to deal with—always nice. The thing about these is that whichever path you choose, you’re likely not alone. One of the best ways to stand apart is with certifications. Whether you want to work in managed IT service in Miami or plan on integrating tech knowledge into another field, certifications are a good way to increase potential job interest. There are more tangible benefits as well. Compare the salaries of IT professionals with those with certifications, and you’ll see having certain certifications correlates with more earning power.

The Benefit of Certifications

For many, a certification fills the same void as a computer science degree would. Basically, for any IT position, you need knowledge of certain things, and having the necessary credentials is a base guarantee to an employer that you have that necessary knowledge. In addition, going through the study and certification process may serve as a solid way to help you bone up on base concepts that you will need going into the future. On the other side of the coin, if you want to specialize more, these can help you in that area as well. There is no such thing as a bad certification—what you want is one that will be worth your time and help your career goals in a meaningful way.

What Certifications Are Useful Now

So, what certifications should you be looking at? There are many out there, but here are some of the most common that people undertake every year to improve their resumes and themselves.

CompTIA A+ Technician: This of this as a sort of starter-level certification, a beginning point for your IT career. A certified A+ technician is qualified to handle PCs, printers, laptops, mobile devices, and operating systems. Chances are that if you work in an office somewhere, your IT person has this certification or something similar. To qualify, you need to pass a multiple-choice and performance-based exam.

Network +: This is designed specifically for managing wireless networks.  Many help desk technicians or IT specialists have this certification. One has to pass an exam on wired/wireless devices and technology.

Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP): This particular certification is recognized worldwide as showcasing the competence to handle security for an organization. You need to showcase the technical and managerial skills to handle security programs.

This is only scratching the surface. Look at the websites of industry professionals and organizations to see what current certifications are out there. As tech and trend changes, some become obsolete, so you want to make sure you are investing your time wisely.

A great thing about running a business in a huge global city like Miami is that you have the ability to scale your business extremely quickly.

It’s not like small towns, where the limited amount of people is likely to put a cap on sales. The limited amount of commercial property is likely put the brakes on any dreams of lightning-fast expansion. That’s provided that it makes business sense to open two locations in a tiny town (often it doesn’t). In this case, you’d need to expand outside of the small town, which could present logistical problems.

On the other hand in a populous area like Miami, it usually makes perfect sense to open multiple locations in the same city. What’s more, it much easier to do this very quickly.

The one major hurdle preventing you from scaling at speed might be the amount of capital, time, and effort you need to put into recruiting new staff. However, there are way around that too.

Outsourcing

There are loads of benefits to outsourcing, not least it provides you the opportunity to scale your business very quickly.

With outsourcing, you don’t need to place job ads, interview candidates, train the successful employee or deal with any of their HR issues like sick pay or annual leave. Instead, you just choose the best company for the job, sign the contract, sit back, and relax. In fact, there are many agencies with expertise in certain types of role. These will probably be able to perform the non-crucial tasks in your company much better than the average recruit. A strong brief of your expectations and regular communication with your client will help to ensure that this remains the case.

In a big city like Miami, it’s likely there will be loads of decent options right on your doorstep too. If you’re looking for a company to provide a top-notch managed IT service, Miami has plenty. You want someone to look after your offices, there’s tons of highly-rated facilities management agencies in the city. The list goes on…

Another benefit is that you can typically rid yourself of their services far easier than you can do with permanent employees. If you’ve decided you don’t want the best managed IT services Miami has to offer anymore? Simply cancel the contract. There are less employment laws preventing you from doing that without any headaches. Ideal for a small business that doesn’t have the capital to weather rough storms.

There are definite long-term advantages to hiring new employees. These are easier to man-manage and monitor. You can give them a stronger idea of your company culture and up-skill them so they can eventually take on a more important role. In the positions that are absolutely to the success of your business, it’s advisable to do this.

However, in areas where you need new faces in a hurry, there’s arguably no better business strategy than outsourcing.

It’s completely natural for our brains to create stereotypes. Our brains are programmed to make instant decisions and this proves to be helpful in many cases. Stereotypes are essentially shortcuts that our brains make – and there is nothing wrong with this. In fact, we hold onto most stereotypes unconsciously.

It’s when we hold onto these stereotypes for longer than we need to and they become biases that they could form a problem.

Professional stereotypes and discrimination

We place many laws on employers to prevent them from discriminating against people during the recruitment process.

For example, in most developed companies it is illegal to discriminate against a candidate because of their gender or their race. But is it really possible to prevent ourselves from unconsciously doing this once we’re aware of these stereotypes.

Let’s take an example of a recruiter hiring for a job in Managed IT Services in Miami. The male recruiter is well aware that of the stereotype that women aren’t as capable in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) positions. Once that is embedded inside him, can he really treat the candidate truly equally? That’s not to say that he’ll discriminate negatively against the candidate. Perhaps in an effort to disprove his prejudice, he gives the female candidate an easier ride. It could be argued that, whatever way he goes, there’s a form of discrimination that can’t be helped.

Social stereotypes and discrimination

It could argued that social stereotypes are less of a big deal, unless they’re spiteful or disrespectful. This could be labelled xenophobia or racism, rather than stereotyping, and there’s not much of an argument against this being a terrible thing that needs to be rid from society.

But, what about supposedly ‘friendly’ or ‘amusing’ social stereotypes? The fact that an IT worker is shy and introverted or that a long blonde-haired surfer from Miami is always relaxed. Are these stereotypes more harmless? Perhaps, in the sense that they are less likely to offend people. But there’s an argument that these stereotypes can limit people from reaching their true potential if people start to believe them about themselves.

What about the belief that people living in trailer parks are lazy and uneducated? In a professional setting, it’s probably illegal to stereotype this way in a job interview. But it could be just as harmful in a social setting, especially if people believe this about themselves.

As Henry Ford famous said “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re probably right.” A negative self-stereotype will lead to more people thinking they can’t, limiting their potential to do great things in this life.

The best way to ignore self-stereotypes is to be aware of them – then do everything you can to prove them wrong. It’s a great strategy for dealing with stereotypes of other people too.

What happens when you meet someone who works in IT support in Miami. Are they geeky or are they lazy? Probably you’ll make your own mind up when you meet them…Perhaps we should do this whenever we meet anyone.