IT Insights Blog — Employment

Sales has evolved. The “used car salesman” persona that many of us associate with salespeople is fading. Today, consumers are able to research products, read reviews, and get recommendations from friends before they even talk to a salesperson. There are times, even, when the consumer knows more about the product than the salesperson does. A salesperson today is now more of a consultant, someone the customer trusts will treat them fairly and take care of them. Indeed, sales is more customer service-focused than ever before. If a salesperson treats a customer badly, then that customer can go online and leave a frank assessment of their experience, which can have an immediate negative impact on the company.

A fascinating video appeared online this past week in commemoration of the Titanic sinking 104 years ago. The video depicts the entire sinking of the great ship in real time (about 2 hours and 40 minutes) from the moments before the ill-fated iceberg strike. (Strangely missing from the video is the part where Jack sketches Rose while she's wearing the giant sapphire.) The first two-and-a-half hours depict the slow and arduous submerging of the front half of the ship. The pace of the rising water is almost indiscernible, until the back end of the ship is nearly at a 45 degree angle out of the water.

In our previous blog post, we noted that information technology employment is everywhere. IT is part of every modern business. No matter where you look, there's a role at some level of the organization for a skilled IT pro. So if you're transitioning to IT from a different career path, then you may not even need to switch employers — you may just be moving to a new department, or taking on a new job role. If you're making a clean break, on the other hand, and want to concentrate your job search on one or two different areas, then there are some places to look that are generally more fruitful than others.

We are living in a Golden Age of IT employment. The advent of the Cloud, the Internet of Things, and Big Data are combining to make the job market for skilled It professionals hot — and it’s getting hotter. According to the 2016 Salary Guide for Technology Professionals, from Robert Half, the global leader of professional staffing services, there are more jobs than people to fill them. areerBuilder and Economic Modeling Specialists International report that there is a significantly greater number of job IT job postings than hires per month.

There are a lot of different reasons to get certified. Many employers offer better pay to employees who enter the workplace with one or more cert, or get one while on the job. And if you're considering a new career direction, then there's no better way to build a new IT skill set, or enhance an existing one. Many (if not most) working professionals, however, also view certification as a tool to directly improve their job performance.