IT Insights Blog — Employment

In the late 1960s, instructors at the University of Southern California created a full-body mannequin simulator for anesthesia students to practice real life scenarios. In the 1980s, when personal computers became more accessible, aviation simulations were developed to give students a taste of real flight before ever leaving the ground. In both of these fields of study, effective training is a matter of life and death, and simulation has been the mainstay to success.

To what extent your earning power is dictated by where you live and work is an open question in employment circles. Things are no different in the IT realm, where factors like supply and demand, cost of living, and the pace of industry growth can all play a role in determining the lay of the land. There are doubtless high salaries to be had just about anywhere that you choose to look for work, but it may be easier to find those "jackpot" jobs in some states than in others. You can get a certification anywhere, but that certification may be worth more in some states than in others.

I’ve done a bit of studying on certifications lately — which is a good thing since I write about them for a living. The simple definition of a certification is “a designation earned by a person to assure qualification to perform a job or task.” Although I deal almost exclusively with certifications in IT, I was surprised to learn that there are literally thousands of certs across all occupations. There are certs for business, banking, engineering, real estate, medicine, law, religion, plumbing, sales and even peer support — you can be a certified peer recovery professional providing guidance, knowledge and assistance to others.

On April 4, 1975, two men in Albuquerque, N.M, ventured into a fairly new market with some new ideas and founded what was at the time a language software development company. That company would one day become one of the largest, most influential companies in the world, showcasing the now ubiquitous name of Microsoft. Bill Gates and Paul Allen couldn’t have known how successful their venture would become when it all began. Now, not only is Microsoft continually distributing best-selling products like the Xbox, Microsoft Office and the Microsoft Windows operating system, but the company is training the next generation of IT professionals with its unique certifications.

TestOut markets its products very heavily toward students at the high-school and college levels. We also embrace lifelong learning, however, which is the reason that TestOut Continuing Education exists. The TestOut CE brand embraces working IT professionals who are looking to advance their careers, or workers in other professions who are considering switching to IT. Certification can absolutely play a role both in strengthening existing IT careers, and launching new ones.