Changing career to IT - Recommendations for what areas.

pumpit2010

I currently work as administrator in life assurance compay.

I would like to get out of administration and into IT.

I don't think programming would be my thing as from speaking to people it a seems you really have to enjoy it to be good at it, and spend so many hours programming.

Business Analyst is an role I would be interested in, as it would be somewhat related to my previous experience.

Does anyone have any opinions if this is a good area to get into, in terms of:

Job prospects both now and in the future?

Recommended part time IT courses I could do? (not in situation to go full-time)

What other industries are Business Analysts used apart from financial servies.

Are there other areas of IT that are up and coming?

thanks

krissovo

The future in IT is about 3 years long:eek:

The "current future" is Cloud computing but it is designed to reduce the IT load to a very few "Technical" engineers. In my experience there are only 3 viable candidates and all 3 require different skill sets. 1, Citrix 2, VMWare and 3, Google. Part time courses will not help you get into these roles, out of the 3 Google is one possibility for an entry level role as its the most simple environment so maybe focus on one area if you want to be part of the future.

Given the information you have provided I assume you are not technical so to get into IT you may need to consider a helpdesk role or a supporting function for an IT outsourcing company. Once in there are loads of opportunities, management, process analysts, reporting, project management etc etc

I am pie

OP, I would disagree that you will need to directly into a helpdesk role and given your background I would avoid it.

Business Analyst roles are a good route into Proj. Mgt in the long term. In my exp (8 yrs BA / 2 yrs PM) you'll find that the role means different things to do different companies. Some companies will expect you to have an understanding of SQL at least, other places won't focus on this. From your perspective your best opportunity is a jnr BA role in a large financial services company undergoing a change at an organisational level. There would likely be roles more focused on understanding / documenting business processes and working in a more business focused BA role.

My advice would be to ensure you excel skills are advanced, try to learn some SQL and sell yourself based on business process understanding. If you have ever used Visio for process mapping it would definitely be an advantage.

I would recommend you speak to HR in your company, possibly discuss the option of getting involved in some project work. Changing your role internally is your best option, more difficult to go out into the market with a CV that you have been 'creative' with.

PS..job prospects. It's an excellent area to work in, salaries are higher than developer salaries (based on exp. of hiring both) , route in to Management is well defined, the market is still relatively active compared to developer roles. It's becoming common for irish tech centres to be focused on delivery management. Dev / tech roles outsourced to cheaper locations and delivery managed in Ireland by PMs, Programme Mgr's, BA's etc.

HTH.

Welease

I_am_Pie's post is spot on.. IT is a very broad discipline, and has many many roles both technical and non technical. You would seem best suited to go down a Business Analyst or Systems Analyst route.

The major problem is likely to be your qualifications. Those roles tend to exist in larger organisations, as many of those will have their pick of recently qualified graduates (and set minimum qualification levels to even be considered). Part time courses on Project Management, Systems Analysis, SQL etc. could all help to close the gap (if one exists).

But as with all "generic" roles, it helps to have an understanding of that business.. If it's Financial Services, then some knowledge of the business is an asset, if it's a Shipping & Logistics company then etc etc etc.

Regarding BA opportunities outside Financial Services companies, yes they exist. Any medium\large organisation is likely to have BA's as part of their organisation (not always necessarily within IT either).

artful_codger

Q.A within a financial/insurance I.T department would be your best route into "I.T" but don't expect it to be any more exciting than what you currently do.

CorkFenian

krissovo wrote: »

The future in IT is about 3 years long:eek:

The "current future" is Cloud computing but it is designed to reduce the IT load to a very few "Technical" engineers. In my experience there are only 3 viable candidates and all 3 require different skill sets. 1, Citrix 2, VMWare and 3, Google. Part time courses will not help you get into these roles, out of the 3 Google is one possibility for an entry level role as its the most simple environment so maybe focus on one area if you want to be part of the future.

Given the information you have provided I assume you are not technical so to get into IT you may need to consider a helpdesk role or a supporting function for an IT outsourcing company. Once in there are loads of opportunities, management, process analysts, reporting, project management etc etc

What about SAN?? Also from what i have heard Citrix is becoming a dead duck with MS Alternative and VMWARE ;-)

Cute Hoor

I am pie wrote: »

OP, I would disagree that you will need to directly into a helpdesk role and given your background I would avoid it.

Business Analyst roles are a good route into Proj. Mgt in the long term. In my exp (8 yrs BA / 2 yrs PM) you'll find that the role means different things to do different companies. Some companies will expect you to have an understanding of SQL at least, other places won't focus on this. From your perspective your best opportunity is a jnr BA role in a large financial services company undergoing a change at an organisational level. There would likely be roles more focused on understanding / documenting business processes and working in a more business focused BA role.

My advice would be to ensure you excel skills are advanced, try to learn some SQL and sell yourself based on business process understanding. If you have ever used Visio for process mapping it would definitely be an advantage.

I would recommend you speak to HR in your company, possibly discuss the option of getting involved in some project work. Changing your role internally is your best option, more difficult to go out into the market with a CV that you have been 'creative' with.

PS..job prospects. It's an excellent area to work in, salaries are higher than developer salaries (based on exp. of hiring both) , route in to Management is well defined, the market is still relatively active compared to developer roles. It's becoming common for irish tech centres to be focused on delivery management. Dev / tech roles outsourced to cheaper locations and delivery managed in Ireland by PMs, Programme Mgr's, BA's etc.

HTH.

I would fully agree with this excellent response, OP's life assurance company may be too small to provide those opportunities on a large scale but there should at least be limited opportunities, and of course going discussing it maturely with HR will be viewed in a positive light within the company. I would avoid the help desk area if at all possible, probably too technical and limited scope for advancement.

keithclancy

krissovo wrote: »

The future in IT is about 3 years long:eek:

The "current future" is Cloud computing but it is designed to reduce the IT load to a very few "Technical" engineers. In my experience there are only 3 viable candidates and all 3 require different skill sets. 1, Citrix 2, VMWare and 3, Google. Part time courses will not help you get into these roles, out of the 3 Google is one possibility for an entry level role as its the most simple environment so maybe focus on one area if you want to be part of the future.

Given the information you have provided I assume you are not technical so to get into IT you may need to consider a helpdesk role or a supporting function for an IT outsourcing company. Once in there are loads of opportunities, management, process analysts, reporting, project management etc etc

3 Years ?

Energy and Financial Sector are still shifting around stuff with Excel Spreadsheets, massive money to be made.

Oracle DBAs are still in massive demand and can command a decent salary.

VMware is also quite big.

The 'big bucks' as it where are in specific application development such as Enduror/Findur (Openlink)

They won't be changing this stuff any time soon as the market is so heavily regulated, you can't just shift everything over to a cloud computing model without gaining agreement from regulators etc.

CorkFenian wrote: »

What about SAN?? Also from what i have heard Citrix is becoming a dead duck with MS Alternative and VMWARE ;-)

Nah,

Citrix has its own Xenserver which in some ways is more efficient than ESX.

Citrix is a much thinner solution but requires more work to setup, Virtualisation is a fatter solution but requires less and its much easier to consolidate existing applications.

krissovo

CorkFenian wrote: »

Also from what i have heard Citrix is becoming a dead duck with MS Alternative and VMWARE ;-)

Citrix virtualisation is very much live and well, most large out sourcers will use either Citrix or VMWare. Mine has just dropped VMware from our primary portfolio to favor Citrix virtualisation. MS is dying if anything as they cannot get sign off from financial institutions, they even offered it for next to nothing to an Irish bank and they declined the offer, similar story on the Global level.

CorkFenian

krissovo wrote: »

Citrix virtualisation is very much live and well, most large out sourcers will use either Citrix or VMWare. Mine has just dropped VMware from our primary portfolio to favor Citrix virtualisation. MS is dying if anything as they cannot get sign off from financial institutions, they even offered it for next to nothing to an Irish bank and they declined the offer, similar story on the Global level.

Interesting heard the opposite from a gold certified learner centre friend a few weeks back, would be nice to know whats going on, thanks for the post.. :-)

krissovo

keithclancy wrote: »

3 Years ?

3 years until the next IT fad, thin/fat, centralised/decentralised it will go full circle again.

I am pie

krissovo wrote: »

3 years until the next IT fad, thin/fat, centralised/decentralised it will go full circle again.

Fads / Trends may blow in and out with the weather but large scale organisations will only make significant investments every 5 to 10 years depending on how progressive they are. There are guys out there making fantastic money on the back of mainframe skills they learnt in the 80s !

halkar

krissovo wrote: »

The future in IT is about 3 years long:eek:

3 years ? There are still cobol jobs out there

G-Money

I work in IT and have about 10 years experience in it. I'm trying to move into a development or possibly Business Analyst type role and basically to get either, I'm going to have to come in at the bottom and take a big pay cut, which is to be expected.

The reason I'm changing is that what I'm working in is quite specialised and I don't think there's much demand out there at the moment, plus I don't have a permanent job.

If you have no experience of Business Analysis, I think you will have to go in at a junior level. From what I've heard from recruiters also, you've a better chance at getting a junior job if it's permanent rather than contract. With contracts they seem to expect you to hit the ground running and if you don't have the experience, that would be a painful thing to go through.

From looking online myself, dev jobs in C# and Java seem to be the most in demand, along with system admin type jobs.

amen

I work in IT and have about 10 years experience in it

if you are not in development or Business Analyst then what exactly are you doing?

mickman

CorkFenian wrote: »

What about SAN?? Also from what i have heard Citrix is becoming a dead duck with MS Alternative and VMWARE ;-)

citrix is far from being a dead duck. there is room for lots of virtualisation companies to be massive and the common thing in all of this is shared storage so yes, SAN is big and will always be big

G-Money

amen wrote: »

if you are not in development or Business Analyst then what exactly are you doing?

I work in software, doing engineering. There are some elements of programming in my job, but it's not the pain part.

amen

So if you have some programming experience and most likely domain knowledge then a Business Analyst job might be a good idea.

G-Money

amen wrote: »

So if you have some programming experience and most likely domain knowledge then a Business Analyst job might be a good idea.

You could be right. I'm trying to keep my options open anyway and not pigeon hole myself too much. I have no real experience of BA myself so I don't even know what the job is like. I at least have a vague idea what a development job would be like.

redux

Cloud Computing is not the death knell of IT jobs, just a shift in emphasis from maintenance.

This may help:

http://www.eyeoncloud.com/eoc/page/IT-Job-Prospects-Increased-with-the-Emergence-of-Cloud-Computing.aspx