At all times, children dreamed of becoming someone in adulthood. At one time, astronauts and lawyers were among the most sought-after professions. Today, events in the modern world are developing so that many people are interested in the IT sector and want to become a part of it. The development of the information technology sphere has given rise to many attractive jobs in the employment market worldwide. And the trend towards an increase in applicants in the technological field is accelerating every year. However, so is the development of the technologies themselves. Undoubtedly, the field of information technology is very attractive, and not only for technical specialists. But before you devote your time and possibly money to acquiring new skills, you should pay attention to the advantages of working in IT and consider all the disadvantages.
The IT sphere is multifaceted, and therefore, not only programmers, application developers, system administrators, and testers find their calling here but also specialists moving here from related professions, such as marketers, project managers, content specialists, and so on. At the same time, both graduates of schools and universities and adults who are thinking about radically changing their occupations see their future in this area.
The field of IT is attractive for its flexibility – it is never too late to learn, and access to all the possibilities is only in your hands. An excellent motivational indicator is a high salary in the sphere. It is enough to open any job search site and see for yourself that the salary of a middle specialist in IT is already above average compared to other specialties. If we talk about IT specialists with experience and high professionalism, then their salaries are even higher. Working with technologies always promotes opportunities for the growth of a specialist, and you can develop both within the framework of your powers, that is, horizontally and vertically, already showing your managerial talents by leading a group of people.
Modern people really appreciate the opportunity to be mobile and work remotely. Many IT specialists even prefer to look for orders on a freelance basis, without having a permanent job with one customer. Instead, they make their own work schedule. Others may work thousands of miles from the headquarters of the company where they are employed. But even those employees who stay to work in the office usually have very comfortable working conditions – it can be free lunches and fruits, lounges, a gym, and many other goodies. This is the corporate culture of modern IT companies.
However, not everything is so simple. Often, for all of the above advantages to become available to the employee, they have to show a lot of patience and work, and for some, entering IT turns out to be a big disappointment. Why is this happening?
Firstly, many simply follow the trend and do not realize that the activities related to IT are not at all interesting to them in practice. It’s one thing to admire the convenience of an application or program created by someone, and quite another to do all the “rough” work to satisfy the user. Secondly, many specialists immediately aim to take advantage of all the perks of IT work but forget that in order to get good working conditions and decent compensation, it is necessary to work a lot and hard. At the same time, not everyone succeeds in doing this due to an inclination or rather a disinclination to technical skills. Among other things, working on IT projects often requires more dedication than less dynamic activities – you need to be prepared for irregular working hours, constant deadlines and dealing with stress since you will have to be out of your comfort zone.
In order not to be disappointed by the low level of earnings at the entry-level in the IT specialty that you choose, you need to improve yourself continually. An IT specialist is a constantly learning person who should love what they are doing in order for them to have enough motivation to monitor new trends in the market, technologies and gain new knowledge frequently.
Most of the tasks you will have to perform will be monotonous, so again, you need to be sure that you are ready to rewrite the code, look for bugs, and make changes as your customer requires. However, sedentary work is also not for everyone. Therefore, your choice of a profession in IT or your decision to move to a new profession should be based on your current passion for what you will be doing.
Despite all its peculiarities and disadvantages, work with modern technologies is very promising and tirelessly attracts new specialists to its ranks. For some, a job in the IT-sphere becomes ideal, but you should remember that all people are different and can be happy and benefit others by working in completely different jobs as well.