Pondering Your IT Employment Future on the NFL's Black Monday

Did you have a good holiday break? Here at TestOut Continuing Education, we're pleased to be back at our desks and thrilled by the prospects of an exciting new year stretching out before us as far as the eye can see. It's a dark day for some, however, as the first Monday following the conclusion of the NFL regular season is tastefully referred to in professional sports circles as "Black Monday." You know, because it's the day when NFL owners replace the spectacle of Monday Night Football with the spectacle of various teams kicking the head coach to the curb, the better to seek out new life and new offensive formations. (To boldly go, that is, where many, many other owners and ownership groups have gone before.)

Moving on from one job to the next is something that most people deal with more than once in life. And there is probably no shortage of IT pros who could relate to the feeling of getting the dreaded "it's time for us to go in a different direction" speech from a boss or manager. (Or possibly the less personally culpable but equally dreaded "the company is making some workforce adjustments" speech.) Change is the great constant, whether your employer is Microsoft or the New York Giants.

Certification won't protect you from being fired or laid off at some unknowable future date. Getting certified and keeping your IT credentials current, however, can certainly help you bounce back, should you find yourself unexpectedly seeking employment. A solid mix of past work experience and IT certification will demonstrate to any employer that you are a committed professional who has kept pace with the march of technology and is ready to step and in contribute on Day 1 of your next employment adventure.

Certification is also a tool that many employers use to identify properly skilled potential new hires. The booming proliferation of the Internet of Things, for example, has many employers scrambling to find skilled networking professionals. If you can point to Cisco's CCNA, or CompTIA's Network+, on your resume, then prospective employers can tell at a glace that you are equipped to provide some degree of what they're looking for.

If you made a New Year's resolution to shore up you employment bonafides, then TestOut CE is ready to be your partner. You may not know what's going to happen six months, three years, or a decade from now, but that doesn't mean you can't start preparing for it today.