Venyu Blog

IT pros should be taking stock of their skill sets right now and how to best leverage them in light of what the future holds for them. Whether they are just getting started, have ten years of experience behind them or are a seasoned veteran of 20+ years, there are no longer any long-term job guarantees in this business. The current economic climate coupled with permanent changes in how companies are managing their IT infrastructure means that IT pros need to take a much different perspective to their career than the one that they may currently hold.

My own career probably typifies what most IT pros are going through and/or have experienced. I graduated with a computer degree in the mid-1990’s and landed my first job shortly thereafter. At that time, I expected to stay with that company for the remainder of my career with the hopes of moving into management over the next 5 – 10 years.

Of course, little did I anticipate the tremendous demand for IT skills that were to come during the late 1990’s. I quickly found that by working hard and displaying a willingness to switch employers, I could advance my career much more quickly. However by the early 2000’s, I sensed another shift was about to occur that frequent job changes and a willingness to move played no role in whatsoever. Rather it was the awareness that over the next couple of decades IT was about to go “virtual” which is what is occurring now.

Virtualization technology is gathering momentum. Events like VMworld are sponsored by VMware, a company that did not even exist a decade ago, and has since become an annual, must-attend event in the computer industry. At the same, cloud computing (a natural outgrowth of virtualization) is capturing the attention of more business executive because of how it can eliminate their upfront IT capital expenditures and even lower their ongoing operational expenditures.

When all of these changes are factored in, none of them necessarily bode well for individuals that hope to follow traditional IT career paths. So what should they do?

My advice to IT pros is that they to look to other fields that are marked by specialists and look to emulate how they work. A Newsweek article that appeared earlier this year entitled, The New American Job, identified writers, photographers, Web designers, musicians and other creative types as the new job model that more Americans will need to adopt.

According to this article, workers that did part-time, freelance and contract work made up 30% of the workforce during the decade that spanned 1996 – 2005 according to the US Government Accountability Office. I have now heard some say that this percentage will climb to as high as 40% of the workforce over the next decade. These one-time or short time gigs are creating a new world referred to as ‘giganomics’ that will likely become more prevalent in the future as more IT pros become more self reliant.

Making giganomics possible is this new world of 24/7 online access, the Internet, virtualization and cloud computing that everyone has access to. No longer do businesses, especially small business managers, need to and want to hire someone full time to do specialized work. Rather they can just hire qualified personnel as they need them.

Of course for those IT professionals that choose to make this switch from a full time job to an independent contractor means they need to make some substantial changes in how they operate. They still need to remain savvy about IT but will need to develop more business acumen so they become competitive in this new landscape. Having made the switch myself a few years (voluntarily in my case but loving it), here are some tips to help you prepare to make this change should you voluntarily (or involuntarily) make it:

• The feeling that it is  like “walking off a cliff” is natural. It is one thing to go to work every day and hate your job or wonder if you are the next in line to be laid off. But knowing that you have a paycheck coming once a month or every two weeks keeps most people in line. You get no such guarantees when you jump out on your own. It is all on your shoulder and the fear that comes from walking away from a regular paycheck can be a little daunting.So to prepare to make the transition a little easier, you should start to pick up some part-time or contract work in your evenings and weekends. Even if you never make the jump (voluntarily or involuntarily), you are laying the groundwork for making such a jump should the opportunity present itself and it takes some of the fear out of the equation.Some worry about losing their current job if their current employer finds out that they are free-lancing on the side. I would not worry. I did it for years before going out on my own and most employers actually are more apt to keep you. If anything, when they find out you are freelancing they start to worry about losing you to the competition and you may achieve a higher level of job security within your company. Then if you do eventually make the decision to leave, it will be on your terms, not theirs.
• Realize you know more about IT than most other people. Regardless if you are just starting out in IT or have been doing it for 20 years, you know more about how computers work than most other people. The problem is that most IT folks spend all day long managing computers and don’t realize how much they know or how valuable their skills are.However turning these skills into real paychecks is not automatic. You are going to have to work for a year or two and maybe even give away your services a few times to build some credibility and references. However once you get through (i.e. survive) the first couple of years, you will have much more creditability, speak with much more confidence and be viewed entirely differently by those who you interact with. These skills will serve you well whether you decide to remain on your own or go back to work for someone else in the future.
• You need fewer clients than you think to make a living. Those just starting out may naively think you need a client base the size of Cisco or Microsoft to have a chance to make it. Nothing could be further from the truth. The majority of businesses in America today are small businesses (less than 500 people) and of those businesses, 70% of them have less than 10 employees.The odds are quite high that you interact with these size businesses every day (dry cleaners, doughnut shops, gas stations, etc.) and every one of these probably has a computer system somewhere in the background. Every small business usually has some requirements for backup and recovery, website design, programming or systems management. So it is likely if you reach out to these businesses and can help them in these areas, you may likely find more part-time and contract work than you ever anticipated.

The world is changing and as technologies like virtualization and cloud computing become more widespread, more IT professionals in large organizations will likely be let go and less opportunities in these size organizations for people just starting out. But as these changes occur, there will also be more opportunities from them in areas that do not exist now.

The lesson that IT professionals need to glean from those like writers and photographers is to display a new willingness to hustle and look for work as opposed to waiting for it to come to you.  If you do, you should do just fine in this new economy and you may find yourself doing work that is much more fulfilling with more job security than a full-time job could ever.

By Guest Contributor:
Jerome Wendt, DCIG Lead Analyst and President
www.DCIGinc.com