Retraining in IT

[LeftmostAardvark]

My industry is declining fast and I need out. I'm a qualified Project Manager with experience in UK Government contracting. I'm considering retraining in a IT qualification of some sort (security systems or a specific package maybe - but open at the moment). Ideally I'd like to move back to day rate contracting before too long. What would people recommend in terms of courses and research / career prospects please?

[tankplanker]

How much IT experience could you imply you have? Going into a technical IT role without starting from the bottom (hard to get the entry level positions if you are older as well) is going to be difficult if you don't have suitable experience.

What project management qualifications do you have? I would look at moving into an IT Project Manager or similar role, get a qualification like Agile or Prince2 and go from there.

[LeftmostAardvark]

My quals are PMP and Prince2. I'm not an IT specialist at the moment but will do the courses etc necessary to become marketable in the field. What is the likelihood of being able to do an (e.g. 1 year) course and come out of the back of it with something that the market wants that I can build on?

[randlemarcus]

I'd say you would be better going straight for a PM job in IT, rather than pi55ing a year and probably five figures up the wall on a course.

[DanL]

randlemarcus said:

I'd say you would be better going straight for a PM job in IT, rather than pi55ing a year and probably five figures up the wall on a course.

This. IT needs good project managers.

[tankplanker]

randlemarcus said:

I'd say you would be better going straight for a PM job in IT, rather than pi55ing a year and probably five figures up the wall on a course.

+1

Best you'll get is entry level, worst you'll get is nothing. Either way a big pay cut most likely from what you get now and it'll take a long time to get it back to where it was.

With those qualifications an IT PM job I'd be surprised if you get offered much less than you are on now, may be more but you may have to wait a bit longer than normal for somebody to take a chance on you. Few IT PMs need any technical knowledge, they have the actual techies to rely on for that.

[Brother D]

DanL said:

This. IT needs good project managers.

Seconded.

Any base entry jobs tend to be in either third world countries, or very low paid. The higher paying jobs are for senior architects, or extremely well-qualified and bright guys - the days of kevin on helpdesk making 40-50K are probably long gone...

[LeftmostAardvark]

OK, thanks. I've always so far picked up new contracts on word of mouth so have stayed resolutely in the one industry. How much of a disadvantage would I be at if I were to target other industries as a PM without a word of mouth network?

[randlemarcus]

LeftmostAardvark said:

OK, thanks. I've always so far picked up new contracts on word of mouth so have stayed resolutely in the one industry. How much of a disadvantage would I be at if I were to target other industries as a PM without a word of mouth network?

Honestly, Prince will get you past the recruitment sorts, and a good interview will get you onboard. Results are good advertisements.

[lestag]

randlemarcus said:

Honestly, Prince will get you past the recruitment sorts, and a good interview will get you onboard. Results are good advertisements.

This: was talking to a recruitment consultand on Thursday. In bad times PMs with PMP or prince2 will make the first cut, those without wont
Its one method of cutting down the 500 applications you recieve

[dele]

Whatever you do, don't bother with Cisco

Im a CCNP qualified engineer and ive been unemployed since December and rejected from 7 jobs so far, waste of my time, markets flooded

[CoopR]

Some of the better PM's I've worked with have not been traditional IT guys, i think it can bring a good perspective to the projects.

[Brother D]

dele said:

Whatever you do, don't bother with Cisco

Im a CCNP qualified engineer and ive been unemployed since December and rejected from 7 jobs so far, waste of my time, markets flooded

Do you have any experience? Or did you just do one of the courses you see advertised?

Several colleagues have moved companies recently without issue, two of them moved to new roles without any certification for senior roles. Its difficult to get into networking without previous experience, there's just too much at stake for a business.

In my opinion the only IT certification worth having is a CCIE.

[98elise]

dele said:

Whatever you do, don't bother with Cisco

Im a CCNP qualified engineer and ive been unemployed since December and rejected from 7 jobs so far, waste of my time, markets flooded

Do you mean you've applied for 7 jobs?

I was out of work from mid-jan, and got a new job within a month. I would say I applied for about 200 jobs in that period, so you could say I got rejected for 199 jobs.

One recruiter told me that had stopped taking CV's with 1 day of advertising the job, because thay had over 200 applicants.

[timbo999]

My experience is that Prince and ITIL (IT Service Management) skills seem to go well together and there tend to be loads of jobs asking for that combination.

ITIL requires little technical skill (its mainly common sense) and there are both fundamental and managerial level courses.

IT Service Management is about making sure that events and changes in the systems don't come unstuck.

Google ITIL v3 and best of luck...

[Art0ir]

timbo999 said:

My experience is that Prince and ITIL (IT Service Management) skills seem to go well together and there tend to be loads of jobs asking for that combination.

ITIL requires little technical skill (its mainly common sense) and there are both fundamental and managerial level courses.

IT Service Management is about making sure that events and changes in the systems don't come unstuck.

Google ITIL v3 and best of luck...

I studied ITIL and CMMI as part of my degree and hated it at first, but as you said it's mostly common sense just worked into a model.

I'm wondering whether I should try to build upon that learning to give myself the opportunity to move out of a technical role. Is it worth becoming ITIL qualified? I could possibly convince the powers that be to finance it

[MickC]

Art0ir said:

I studied ITIL and CMMI as part of my degree and hated it at first, but as you said it's mostly common sense just worked into a model.

I'm wondering whether I should try to build upon that learning to give myself the opportunity to move out of a technical role. Is it worth becoming ITIL qualified? I could possibly convince the powers that be to finance it

ITIL foundation is a doddle and is usually given much more credence than it should be, so I would say do that if you can. It does clue you in on the terminology so at least you know what some ITIL service bod is going on about when he talks about incidents and problems which would be backwards to everyone else

More 'advanced' ITIL is only needed if you want to be a practitioner in that field, for example a change manger or problem manager, and the next step up from practitioner 'ITIL expert' takes quite a bit of effort. Anyway I hate the 'ITIL expert' qualification title its so damn pretentious, I had the ITIL v2 Managers certificate so it was an easy jump to 'expert' but I can hardly go round calling myself an ITIL expert, I'd cringe every time I said that to a potential customer

[Art0ir]

MickC said:

ITIL foundation is a doddle and is usually given much more credence than it should be, so I would say do that if you can. It does clue you in on the terminology so at least you know what some ITIL service bod is going on about when he talks about incidents and problems which would be backwards to everyone else

More 'advanced' ITIL is only needed if you want to be a practitioner in that field, for example a change manger or problem manager, and the next step up from practitioner 'ITIL expert' takes quite a bit of effort. Anyway I hate the 'ITIL expert' qualification title its so damn pretentious, I had the ITIL v2 Managers certificate so it was an easy jump to 'expert' but I can hardly go round calling myself an ITIL expert, I'd cringe every time I said that to a potential customer

I might look into that then thanks.

Agreed on some of the terminology, almost as cringeworthy as the SIGMA Black Belt...