IT Profession: Shots for lasting long

Thu Feb 11 12:00:00 IST 2010, by Abhishek Mehta

"The Older, the Wiser" said, some sage. Obviously, he was not very IT Savvy and has never heard of "Hire n Fire" policies. Such policies are practiced very wisely today under the carpet of "Rightsizing". Just like in any other profession, with time, years of experience goes up and so does the expectations. IT related professional have to deal with one extra issue of rapidly moving trends and technology, which is perennial.

Trouble beings when someone can do the job at lesser price, with almost same precision, having lesser experience. In business sense, you are knocked out or you will be. This kind of experience is generally felt during recession periods but symptoms starts to appear once you have completed a decade in field of IT. No job is secure and no job will last forever. So, better lookout for issues and remedies of your profession, everyone is going to face them sooner or later.

Age can exaggerate insecurity in IT Career:

Lets say, after five years of working with a company, one will become Project Leader, then a Project Manager and so on. This growth appears mutual, or is it? Though, some promotions are well earned others are forced for the simple reason of misfit. Someone with X years of experience, having a pay scale of Y, has to be at Z-level designation or else there is cheaper option available. In nutshell, keep on climbing the corporate ladder vis-à-vis responsibilities for long lasting job. But everyone is not so lucky (or brainy), there are lesser positions on the top of pyramid and the race to top will only become harder. Once you cross a decade in field of IT you will be facing these problems frequently, till you call it quits or standup to the challenge.

Invest in IT staff or Hire new ones:

Given this situation many managers will choose the second options. Training current IT staff has its own baggage but hiring new ones with prevailing market conditions will not be difficult. Above all, even a bright trainee will take time to catch-up. Same situation applies to the whole pyramid of corporate structure. Every manager on the ladder has this question to answer for his subordinates.

Higher one climbs on the corporate ladder, harder it becomes to train him; his every hour is even more expensive. Secondly, more time one spends in same organization more strongly he will be categorized in boxes: "capable of" and "in capable of". This is the major reason why any organization keeps on hiring from one window, while firing continues from the other. Long stays at same organization and doing the similar kind of things will eventually land you at unemployment office, even if your previous employer was Yahooooooooooooo! Decide which window should be yours and so it will be.

Never Lower Your Spears:

"Never lower your spears" if you want to last long in IT profession. "Give it your best" whatever you are doing today, But is it what you should be doing? Employees do what company wants them to do but in tougher times "accounts department" will only have important persons on the board. As a piece of advice, move your job towards more secure trends/technologies, and never let your current job profile come in the way of new learning. We have seen the abrupt end of non-technical manager after the DOTCOM bust and "on bench" resources were shredded in Securitization Bust. Better not to follow the same path. 'X' many years of experience in just handling technical manpower is not good enough in IT. Keep on feeling the latest trends in the industry, some closely some from a distance.

Be in a Domain not Technology

This statement has to be taken in context of your career goals. Technology is just a medium for achieving the domain goal, analogous to the Railroads of Mass Transit System. An expert in technology has many competitors but domain expert are only few. Domains can be switched but technology experts/manager have open competitions from new beginners. New breed of trainees/students are taught about technologies, programming, tools and designing, with latest aids and ways. What they are not taught is - domain expertise and innovation. Domain expertise, innovation along with managerial skills requires hands on experience, your age should matter in this area. Make sure, your daily effort is towards becoming expert in the domain of your work not just about getting it done.

Domain, which will remain:

I will summarize an interesting lesson from Warren Buffett (Tao of Warren Buffett), "It is time to sell the stock when you get the tip to buy it". In simple words, bulls have already taken the positions. The time this information reaches you stock is almost ready for collapse. This lesson literally does not apply to IT profession but a fraction does. When every blog, magazine or channel is taking about a trend, you can be sure that it has peaked its boom. This Domain/Trend will not be tanked but better to look a step ahead. When everyone is lost in the world of Web 2.0 or Semantic Web, lookout for Web 3.0. This is the most suited and aggressive approach for those who want to live rest of their career in IT.

IT industry is constantly changing and its evolution is not going to stop anytime sooner. Living beings like us have tendency to get fatigued. Remember, Antidotes are made of poison itself. To counter this constantly changing industry better become part of those who bring in these changes. More advice on putting your carrier on track after this recession "Job hunting as market recovers" and on the latest ways of job-hunting read "Latest job hunting mantras".

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Posted at 10:00AM Feb 11, 2010 by ABhi in Trends  |  Comments[0]