Depending upon your career goals, you may want to wait until you get your foot in the door before your invest too much money on a specific technology, especially if it is expensive to learn. At a minimum, however, you will want to have enough of a familiarity with software used in your industry or field of interest so that you can comfortably navigate a more technical conversation with a potential employer. Here are a few tips for figuring this out:.
My general sense, after years of interviewing and placing career re-entry candidates, is that people are all over the map when it comes to how accurately they rate their own technology skills. Whether you think your skills are good, bad or somewhere in between, take a skills test to obtain a more accurate benchmark of where your skills are currently.
We use Total Testing , which caters to small businesses and individuals, to assess MS Office and other technology skills of our job candidates. Start with their Microsoft Office Skills Tests. Here is a Sample Score Report that identifes exactly what you need to learn to be considered basic, intermediate or advanced in MS Office. Use this service to assess your skills and identify your weaknesses.
They do not appear to have been updated recently, but they are still extremely useful in helping to identify — and ultimately learn — the variety of tasks you will need to perform in the workplace using MS Office software. Once you determine the skills you need and where you are deficient, be proactive. You do not want your lack of technology skills to be the reason a future employer does not hire you!
You will be pleasantly surprised at the number of great resources out there — especially for basic technologies — that are very affordable. Some are even free!
Check out our Job Seeker Resources page for an extensive list of online classes, tutorials, videos, etc. Find a way to use a new technology in the volunteer and community service work you already do. Just make sure that project is one that will allow you to use the technology skills you have acquired. I pick up new technologies quickly. We'll explain why IT jobs might be a great fit for you, but before we leap into that territory, here are some things you should know about the technical expertise needed in IT.
The technical skills will vary from job to job. In many cases, it's a myth that you have to be good at math or science to get into IT. Some of the most important qualities that allow you to enter the technology field are a desire to learn and grow and an excitement about trying new things. In most cases, you can pick up technical skills with time and effort through training, certification and hands-on experience.
And you don't necessarily need to get that hands-on experience from a paid job. You can get it in a lot of ways, from tinkering on a home computer to volunteering to doing side work. Technical skills can be easier to learn than some of the soft skills you need in IT. They're often innate to people who are particularly well-suited for careers in information technology.
Of course, if you don't have all of the soft skills listed below, that shouldn't discourage you from exploring technology jobs.
IT jobs come in many shapes and sizes, and some will require you to use more soft skills than others. Communication As an IT pro, you'll need to be able to communicate well with your supervisors and colleagues to help them solve technology issues and better harness the power of their tech tools. If you're a developer or work in IT security, you'll need to work well on teams and communicate your ideas well with coworkers.
Almost every IT job requires good communication skills, both verbal and written — email communication will likely be a big part of your job. Technology is not a solitary field, despite how it's often portrayed. If you enjoy teaching people about technology and explaining technical subjects in terms anyone can understand, a career in IT could be for you.
In a recent article by the magazine, CompTIA's James Stanger stated that soft skills are one of the seven hot career trends in the future. Organization Being organized makes you more efficient and productive at work. Many IT careers are dynamic, giving you the opportunity to jump around to several different projects and tasks. Select personalised ads. Apply market research to generate audience insights. Measure content performance. Develop and improve products.
List of Partners vendors. Table of Contents Expand. Table of Contents. What Are Technology Skills? How to Highlight Your Tech Skills. Types of Technology Skills. More Technology Skills. By Alison Doyle. Alison founded CareerToolBelt. Learn about our editorial policies. Updated on November 02, Your Privacy Rights. To change or withdraw your consent choices for TheBalanceCareers. The fundamentals of networks, systems administration, how to mitigate vulnerabilities, how to perform digital forensic analysis, risk assessment, etc.
Cloud computing jobs are on the rise because more and more companies are switching from the classical server infrastructure to cloud solutions. Not only are companies transitioning to the cloud, but many companies are building their products and services directly in the cloud instead of switching later. That means cloud-native architecture skills will be in demand in and beyond. Amazon Web Services is one of these cloud platforms, featuring content delivery, database storage, networking, and more—over services in total.
AWS specialists are usually engineers, cloud architects, or system administrators. IT professionals who are AWS-certified earn more than their non-certified counterparts.
Clouds, Distributed Systems, Networking. Learn about and build distributed and networked systems for clouds and big data. Want more choice? Here are some more recommended AWS courses. Virtual reality and augmented reality—the collective term is extended reality, or XR—are trending to be useful for more than just entertainment in the future. Marketing, advertising, health care, and manufacturing are some industries that have already begun adopting XR technology.
For the near future, AR is looking to outpace VR for growth and profitability. California and the UK have both recently introduced legislation to make IoT devices safer and more secure. Cybersecurity professionals who specialize in IoT will likely be highly sought after for this reason. The MicroMasters program—taught by a range of professors, specialists and lecturers from Curtin University—includes 6 self-paced IoT courses, live discussions, remote access to real laboratory equipment for practical sessions.
UI user interface specialists design interfaces for websites and apps to be visually appealing, flow well, and be easy for users to navigate. UX user experience specialists do a lot of research and testing to consider every element of how the user will interact with the company and website, coordinating with developers and UI designers.
Ultimately, UI is better for those who want to focus on the visuals, layout, and general look and feel of a page or product.
The critical elements of user experience—strategy, scope, structure, skeleton, and surface. Learn the basics e. The instructor has been helping Fortune , Fortune , and various government organizations with UX design for nearly three decades. There are 3. One interesting direction that mobile apps are headed in is augmented reality. Another interesting development in mobile apps in ? If you want to start learning mobile development without committing to the Team Treehouse tech degree spotlighted below, check out these 21 mobile app development courses.
Swift is the language of iOS, created by Apple. You can use the language to build applications for the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and more. Build your own apps or land a full-time job at a company that uses Swift. Learn how to program from absolute scratch using Swift and learn many fundamental concepts that will get you started writing code immediately.
No prior programming experience is needed.
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