It is designed to help individuals with the knowledge and information they need in order to choose the perfect IT career. It also gives a clear insight into the industry

1. FUNDAMENTALS OF
STARTING
AN IT CAREER:
WHAT YOU NEED
TO KNOW
By Adekunle Lawal

2. OUTLINE
GENERAL OVERVIEW
CAREER PATHS
INDUSTRY OPPORTUNITIES
INDUSTRY ATTRIBUTES
IDENTIFYING/CHOOSING A CAREER PATH
BUILDING THE DESIRED CAREER
RECAP

3. GENERAL OVERVIEW

4. GENERAL OVERVIEW
 The demand for IT professionals has risen over the past 15 years
 One of the fastest growing industries and occupations is the IT industry and IT related jobs
 The most sought after jobs n the IT industry are connected to Data Communication, Information System
Development and Security
 Information Systems has become a standard to maintain, manage and drive businesses while these
systems allows communication within an organsiation and with an external organisation through a
secured channel

5. GENERAL OVERVIEW
 While Information System Development has shown more prospects than any, small, medium and large
enterprises are now embracing the integration of using Info systems to drive their businesses
 Other areas are beginning to evolve with very bright and promising future as they relate with information
generation, storage and re-use
 Multiple questions have been generated and still unanswered. Question such as:
 How do I start a career in IT?
 What are the skills I need to acquire?
 Which aspect is most promising?
 Which aspect provides more opportunities?
 What if I fail?

6. CAREER PATHS

7. CAREER PATH
The IT industry is one of the largest industry in the world and it has created millions of jobs worldwide.
Generally, career and job opportunities in the IT industry can be classified based on the following:
 General Business
 Service and Repair
 Sales
 Software Development
 Education and Training
 Consultancy

8.  Almost, if not every business no matter how small they are,
tend to use of form of application or the other in their
respective businesses to prepare files and documents.
 Some employees use some specific IT application to
perform specific tasks.
 Some organisations have an IT department that work to
meet information requirement of the organisation which
also provides jobs that are classified into 6 main areas:
 Management
 System Development
 Technical Services
 Operations
 Training
 Security
CAREER PATH – General Business

9.  It provides services such as maintenance, installation and
repairs of IT gadget and its components
 Service and repair jobs title include:
 Service Technician
 Repair Technician
 Computer Technician.
 As a computer technician, part of his job is to install,
maintain and repair hardware, install upgrades as well as
configure software while he does the troubleshooting at the
same time.
 Today, the approach is different as the available
technologies allow the diagnose and repair of software
associated problems from a remote location which makes it
very flexible.
CAREER PATH – Service and Repair

10.  These are people that sell computers and accessories
often referred to as computer sales people.
 Their main job is to determine client’s need and match it
with a correct combination of both hardware and software.
 They are usually paid based on number of products sold.
 While some salespeople work directly for computer
equipment and manufacturing companies such as Lenovo,
Dell and HP, others prefer to work for resellers thereby
making their roles and jobs more flexible as they can work
for more than one reseller at a particular point in time.
CAREER PATH – Sales

11.  These are people that sell computers and accessories
often referred to as computer sales people.
 Their main job is to determine client’s need and match it
with a correct combination of both hardware and software.
 They are usually paid based on number of products sold.
 While some salespeople work directly for computer
equipment and manufacturing companies such as Lenovo,
Dell and HP, others prefer to work for resellers thereby
making their roles and jobs more flexible as they can work
for more than one reseller at a particular point in time.
CAREER PATH – Sales

12.  So many companies develop software that are targeted
towards different industries helping them automate their
respective business processes.
 Some software companies particularly specialize in
developing a particular type of software to increase and
improve efficiency as well as performance.
 Efficiency and performance in the areas of operations,
financial transactions, decision support, knowledge base
and automated processes depending on the company s
priority.
CAREER PATH – Software Development

13.  One of the most relevant areas of the IT industry is the
area of education and training as companies now see the
need to invest in their employees in form of corporate
trainings to further boost their knowledge and
understanding of organisation goals in order to get the best
out of them.
 Another vital area is where corporate trainers teach
company employees on how to use a particular type of
software.
 In recent times, help desk has been developed to handle
hardware and software problem users might encounter
CAREER PATH – Education and Training

14.  IT consultancy is one that is fast gaining recognition as the
only sub-industry that allows professionals to give back to
the industry based on their demonstrated expertise
coupled with experience that has been gathered over the
years as a form of service.
 Some come cheap while others come very expensive
depending on the area of the industry been focused on.
 An IT consultant is usually hired by an organisation based
on his experience and expertise.
 Trend over the years has shown that IT consultants are the
most sought after category of professional in the industry.
CAREER PATH – IT Consulting

15.  In cases where big organisations are involved, they hire a
team of consultants.
 One of the reasons why IT consultants are hired is
because they possess very strong technical skills coupled
with a very high level of communication as this is seen as
great value to the organisation and the industry.
 IT consultants are in high demand worldwide especially for
tasks such as web and mobile app development, hardware
and software configuration, network design and installation
as well as information system design.
CAREER PATH – IT Consulting

16. INDUSTRY OPPORTUNITIES

17. The IT industry is one that has a wide range of opportunities for professionals who are willing to take advantage of it. Here is a
list
JOB AREA JOB TITLES ANNUAL SALARY RANGE ($)
Management Chief Information Officer 140,000 to 310,000
Chief Technology Officer 140,000 to 310,000
E-Commerce Director 93,000 to 195,000
Network Administrator 43,000 to 162,000
Project Manager 57,000 to 125,000
Project Lead 57,000 to 125,000
System Development and Computer Games Designer 51,000 to 113,000
Programing Database Analyst 37,000 to 137,000
Desktop Application Developer 46,000 to 127,000
Mobile Application Developer 46,000 to 127,000
INDUSTRY OPPORTUNITY

18. JOB AREA JOB TITLES ANNUAL SALARY RANGE ($)
Mobile Application Developer 46,000 to 127,000
Software Engineer 49,000 to 135,000
System Analyst 46,000 to 125,000
System Programmer 53,000 to 126,000
Technical Lead 61,000 to 135,000
Technical Writer 39,000 to 100,000
Web Software Developer 53,000 to 105,000
Technical Services Computer Technician 37,000 to 75,000
Database Administrator 67,000 to 113,000
Desktop Publisher 33,000 to 65,000
INDUSTRY OPPORTUNITY

19. JOB AREA JOB TITLES ANNUAL SALARY RANGE ($)
Digital Forensic Examiner 54,000 to 130,000
Graphic Designer 39,000 to 77,000
Quality Assurance Specialist 49,000 to 109,000
Storage Administrator 65,000 to 91,000
Web Designer 55,000 to 115,000
Web Master/Administrator 50,000 to 95,000
Operations Computer Operator 30,000 to 64,000
Data Communication Analyst 43,000 to 16,000
VoIP Specialist 43,000 to 116,000
INDUSTRY OPPORTUNITY

20. JOB AREA JOB TITLES ANNUAL SALARY RANGE ($)
Training IT Instructor 38,000 to 173,000
Corporate Trainer 48,000 to 86,000
Help Desk Specialist 39,000 to 60,000
Security Chief Security officer 113,000 to 225,000
Computer Security Specialist 51,000 to 120,000
Mobile Security Specialist 51,000 to 120,000
Network Security Administrator 55,000 to 133,000
Security Administrator 54,000 to 123,000
INDUSTRY OPPORTUNITY

21. INDUSTRY ATTRIBUTES

22. 1. Open To Learn New Things
 Be willingness to learn new things when ever the
opportunity presents itself.
 Irrespective of the level you find yourself, always be
open to learn new things.
 This might include learning how to use a new
software, or learning another programming
language.
 The industry is one that evolves from time to time
and so the things you know today might not be
relevant in the next 3 years.
 You need to keep updating yourself to keep up with
the pace of the industry.
INDUSTRY ATTRIBUTES
 10 Attributes You Need To Have

23. 2. Ability To Think Deep
 The ability to perform critical thinking and evaluation
is very important.
 The industry itself is full of uncertainties which will
warrant you to propose solutions from time to time to
correct some uncertainties.
 Your proposed solution would directly affect people’s
life once implemented
 No excuse for wrong assumptions or calculation or
further base ones decisions on assumptions that are
not real.
 Constant critical thinking and evaluation helps the
individual to develop problem solving skills which
would be needed in future.
INDUSTRY ATTRIBUTES
 10 Attributes You Need To Have

24. 3. Passion
 In everything you do, if there is no passion for it, its
just a waste of time.
 Part of the reason why IT professionals have been
successful in the industry is because of the strong
passion they have for doing what they do.
 Passion is what would motivate you to keep going
when it seems your career is all over when it has not
actually started.
 Passion is what will always push you to try again
when you fail in doing something right so many
times.
 You need Passion!!!!!!!!!!!!
INDUSTRY ATTRIBUTES
 10 Attributes You Need To Have

25. 4. Consistency
 This does not only apply to IT career building, it
applies to almost everything.
 Consistency in this case means having a steady
pattern in which you do your things.
 When I started building my career, I started with web
development but then I had to be consistent with
development in order for me to get used to the
working environment, software, syntax of the
programming language, even system logic and
debugging.
 Consistency helps you develop a certain level of skill
that makes you very confident in what you do. The
industry that needs you to be consistent.
INDUSTRY ATTRIBUTES
 10 Attributes You Need To Have

26. 5. Perseverance
 Perseverance is best described as a situation where
an individual continues to pursue his/her dream and
goals irrespective of the hurdles, obstacles,
difficulties and uncertainties he must have passed
through or currently passing through.
 As a young professional trying to build my career
then, waking up in the middle of the night when
everyone around me is sleeping, just to make out
time to develop my personal skills wasn’t easy but I
still kept going at it. At some point, I had to deprive
myself of my social life to make out more time for
practice.
 This is perseverance in reality.
INDUSTRY ATTRIBUTES
 10 Attributes You Need To Have

27. 6. Determination
 Determination is very similar to perseverance but in
the case of determination, you deal with facts and
figures that have been established over time.
 It might be a fact that only 2 out of every 50 students
that try to become a programmer actually succeed.
 This clearly sets the boundary for you and your
determination would be to either be among the next
2 of next batch of 50 students to become
programmer or surpass that record and become the
third person in history.
 Determination involves you focusing more on the
goals to be achieved rather than the process to
achieve it.
INDUSTRY ATTRIBUTES
 10 Attributes You Need To Have

28. 7. Adaptability
 In every situation, the ability to adapt to a lot things
actually determines how well you will cope.
 Building up a career will definitely involve you
adapting to doing a lot of new things like, staying up
late, reading more books, spending more time on
hands-on practical or even watching video tutorials.
 Adapting to the lifestyle and challenges that comes
with building a career is an attribute that has been
realized over time to be very effective towards
getting used to the way things are done with respect
to your desired field.
 As a professional, you should be able to adapt very
fast to any situation.
INDUSTRY ATTRIBUTES
 10 Attributes You Need To Have

29. 8. Patience
 As you know that there is a saying that says “Rome
was not built in a day”. A successful career cannot
be built overnight. A skill cannot be acquired
overnight. An individual cannot become an
Entrepreneur overnight, likewise you cannot become
a professional overnight.
 Careers are built over time, skills are acquired over
time likewise becoming an Entrepreneur is
something that happens over a reasonable
timeframe.
 If you really want to have a successful IT career,
then you have to be patient enough to acquire the
necessary skills and knowledge in order to be
relevant for a longer time.
INDUSTRY ATTRIBUTES
 10 Attributes You Need To Have

30. 9. Focus
 Setting one’s mind on the overall goal to be achieved
and not necessarily the process to achieving that
goal is another way of staying focused.
 This might include a constant reminder of yourself of
what you want to achieve within the next 6 months
or 1 year and why you have chosen that goal.
 Two questions you should also constantly ask
yourself are What? and Why?.
 What do you want to achieve as your goal?
 Why choose that goal?
 The ability to remain focused on ones goal
gives you a desire to never want to quit even
when it really gets tough.
INDUSTRY ATTRIBUTES
 10 Attributes You Need To Have

31. 10. Exploration
 In the process of building a career, you will be taught
a lot of things, given real life exercise and scenarios
to solve and general activities that would over time
align your way on thinking towards the industry way
of thinking.
 Never reply only on what you are taught, take out
time to explore on your own, sometimes you need to
learn beyond the scope or boundaries of your
curriculum.
 About 85% of skills developed and acquired by
professionals are the ones acquired from self
development and a lot of practice.
 This habit should be embedded in everyone.
INDUSTRY ATTRIBUTES
 10 Attributes You Need To Have

32. IDENTIFYING/CHOOSING
A CAREER PATH

33.  This is where a lot of people run into problems as they are not sure what the future holds for them.
 In identifying and choosing a career path, one should consider the:
 Overview
 Considerations
 Pop up questions
 Imagination
IDENTIFYING/CHOOSING A CAREER PATH
 Overview, Considerations and Questions

34. IDENTIFYING/CHOOSING A CAREER PATH
 Overview of the IT Industry
Security
Technical
Services
Management
System
Development
Training Operations
INFROMATION
TECHNOLOGY

35. IDENTIFYING/CHOOSING A CAREER PATH
 More Detailed Overview
INFORMATION
TECHNOLOGY
NETWORKING
CLOUD
SYSTEM DESIGN & DEVELOPMENT
GAMES DEVELOPMENT
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
MULTIMEDIA
SECURITY
DATABASE ADMINISTRATION
FORENSIC

36. IDENTIFYING/CHOOSING A CAREER PATH
 Questions
Choosing a desired career path has always been a problem for a lot of people due to a lot of reasons as to a
lot of unanswered questions such as:
 What does this path entails?
 I don’t know what to expect
 How difficult and demanding is it?
 Do I have the skills to excel in that field?
 What are the prospects of this path?

37. IDENTIFYING/CHOOSING A CAREER PATH
 Questions
The key to identifying a desired career path lies in the fact that three key questions needs to be addressed
 Are you considering that career path because you love doing what it entails?
 Are you considering that career path because it is the one with the brightest prospect?
 Are you considering the career path because you already calculated it will be easy to handle?

38. IDENTIFYING/CHOOSING A CAREER PATH
 Considerations
There are 4 main considerations that needs to be examined
 Motivation
 Inspiration
 Zeal
 Imagination

39. IDENTIFYING/CHOOSING A CAREER PATH
 Considerations – Pop Questions
The questions that one should always ask are:
 What motivates you to have chosen the IT Industry?
 What inspires you about the IT Industry?
 What triggers the zeal in you to want to pursue a career in the IT Industry?
 What drives your imagination?

40. IDENTIFYING/CHOOSING A CAREER PATH
 Considerations – Motivation
Personally, my motivations came from the things that I saw
and the things I realized I could do, there was so much
potential still untapped. These included things like:
 I want to be the one to develop an app that could
connect students worldwide irrespective of university
and country
 I want to be the one to design, develop and implement a
central database system used to manage government
agencies such as The Police Force in developing
countries
 I want to be the one that could develop an expert system
that would help students make decisions on course and
college to attend based on what they are good at doing
best
WHAT REALLY MOTIVATES YOU?

41. IDENTIFYING/CHOOSING A CAREER PATH
 Considerations – Inspiration
Inspiration will always come from what you set your mind
on.
 For those whose mind is already set on the industry,
inspiration will come mostly from he products of the
industry that has helped humanity live a better life.
 These might be gadgets, software, mobile devices,
robots and even services
 Sophisticated system that have been successfully
implemented into different industries to make work
processes easier and more flexible.
 Mobile apps that have made operations such as
shopping, flight ticket booking and college online
application easier and more flexible.
WHAT REALLY INSPIRES YOU?

42. IDENTIFYING/CHOOSING A CAREER PATH
 Considerations – Zeal
There has to be a driving force or ZEAL that always
serve as a benchmark for you as an individual
 It could
 Fame
 Lifestyle
 Dream
 Goal
 The zeal will always put you in a situation where
you can achieve more than you can ever imagine
WHAT TRIGGERS THAT ZEAL IN YOU?

43. IDENTIFYING/CHOOSING A CAREER PATH
 Considerations – Imagination
Imagination comes from a whole lot of things you see,
feel, watch and interact with on a daily basis.
 It could range from technology based products to
people or even nature.
 It could be from stories of people, communities and
regions in need of a solution
 It could be from a technology or process as old as 50
years or less than 3 years
 It could be from anything that relates to providing a
solution
WHAT REALLY DRIVES YOUR IMAGINATION?

44. IDENTIFYING/CHOOSING A CAREER PATH
 Re-evaluation of Questions
Ask these questions again and determine which category you fall
 Are you considering that career path because you love doing what it entails?
√ - Good Decision (Passion)
 Are you considering that career path because it is the one with the brightest prospect?
√ - Good Decision (Determination)
 Are you considering the career path because you already calculated it will be easy to handle?
× - Wrong Decision (Short cut)

45. BUILDING THE DESIRED
CAREER - Skills

46. BUILDING THE DESIRED CAREER - Skills
 Skills Needed To Be Acquired
 Gap Identification
 Problem Solving
 Project Management
 Communication
 Research
 Technical
 Leadership
 Team Co-ordination
 Conflict Management
 Human Resource Management

47. BUILDING THE DESIRED CAREER - Skills
 Gap Identification
Gap identification is the ability of an individual to be
able to identify creative loopholes in the industry
and further turn them into a business opportunities.
 This skills is commonly associated especially with
Entrepreneurs, exhibited in real time
 Gap identification and exploration may lead to
 Development of a new technology
 Improving on already existing technology
 Combining technologies to provide something new
 It could also lead to
 New line of business
 New clients

48. BUILDING THE DESIRED CAREER - Skills
 Problem Solving
Problem solving can be at different levels or
categories
 Managerial Level
 Managerial staffs need to come up with a solution
for a current problem in that organisation
 Technical Level
 a system has to be developed to automate business
processes in a defined organisation
 This skill is very visible with specialist and consultants
 Both would analyze a situation and then give their
professional opinion which in most cases have turned
out to be problem solving in reality

49. BUILDING THE DESIRED CAREER - Skills
 Project Management
Project management skills at any stage easily
becomes handy as it encompasses a lot more than
other skills combined together.
 Because of the complexity in the nature of the
skill itself, it is one of the most sought after skill in
the IT industry worldwide.
 Resources need to be managed to achieved a desired
goal set at the initial planning stage of any project.
 The resources could be financial, material or even
human.
 This is another skill common among managerial staff
such as Head of Department (Research
&Development) and Chief Information Officer.

50. BUILDING THE DESIRED CAREER - Skills
 Communication
One of the most relevant skills in almost all
industries is the communication skill.
 At every point, there will be communication
between you and your subordinates, either junior
or senior.
 Managerial staffs need to constantly
communicate with their immediate subordinate in
order to pass vital information down the chain of
hierarchy
 In an organisation with a project team, online and
offline communication matters a lot
 It is an effective way of passing project goals and
related information to the project team who eventually
carries out the tasks

51. BUILDING THE DESIRED CAREER - Skills
 Research
As an individual starting up an IT career or trying to
develop an already existing one, one of the skills
you cannot run away from is research skills.
 There are various stages and levels of research
depending on which one is applicable.
 It could be researching into a career path to know
what the future holds
 It could be researching into a new domain like
Cloud Computing
 Some researches are extremely deep and detailed
while others are shallow but the skill to be able to
determine the depth of research is very important to
any individual trying to develop a career

52. BUILDING THE DESIRED CAREER - Skills
 Technical
This is the number 1 skill you need to possess for
active survival in the IT industry, also referred to as
universal skill.
 Every branch of IT requires one form of practical
or technical skill.
 For web developers - programming and coding
 For multimedia – animation and drawings
 For Security – command line configuration
 These skills always form the basis for which
people's relevance are measured.
 Imagine a web developer who cant write simple
program or do level one troubleshooting of codes.

53. BUILDING THE DESIRED CAREER - Skills
 Leadership
Leadership comes in different forms as there are
leadership roles in almost every level or
organizational hierarchy.
 It could leadership at the Managerial level,
Departmental level or Assigned Project level.
 The ability to lead comes with different attributes
such as patience, attentive listening, charisma,
effective communication, strategic reasoning and
implementation as well as excellence.
 Some organisations send recommended staffs
for leadership training.
 Leadership comes with a lot of responsibilities
and need to have the skill cannot be over
emphasized.

54. BUILDING THE DESIRED CAREER - Skills
 Team Co-ordination
Organisations designate specific tasks to dedicated
teams and expect completion within a given
timeframe.
 A tree does not make a forest
 Team oriented goals and achievements has
advantages it brings to an organisation
 team goals also develop skills such as
communication and leadership in the case where
the individual is put in a leadership position in the
team.
 No one employee exist alone, working in a team
boost working relationship between employees.

55. BUILDING THE DESIRED CAREER - Skills
 Conflict Management
Working in an organisation involves working with
people with different culture, beliefs, language,
background, orientation and lifestyle and so there
are bound to be friction once a while.
 Conflicts arises in organisations because of so
many reasons among which are:
 Working conditions
 Benefits
 Positions
 Promotions
 This skills is needed especially for a person with
the dream of becoming an Entrepreneur

56. BUILDING THE DESIRED CAREER - Skills
 Human Resource Management (HRM)
Human Resource Management involves dealing
directly with employees on various terms such as
salary, benefits and entitlements
 As an entrepreneur, before some vital positions
can be filled in the organisation, the prospective
candidates will have to go through the head of
the company
 The final decision has lasting effect on the
organisation
 Some organisations hire professionals and
dedicated staffs that handle Human Resource
 Only very delicate and sensitive positions are
handled by the head of the organisation.

57. RECAP

58. RECAP
The following areas have been covered:
 General overview of the IT industry
 Career paths that the industry offers
 Industry opportunities available for professionals
 Industry attributes have been discussed
 Identifying/choosing a career path
 Building the desired career
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