welcome to the secrets of college planning i'm your host anthony and today we're going to get some insight into i t and what it takes to go out of college and go into the i t field my guest today is they've had chuck when he's the principal consultant from princeton technology advisors welcome to the show great thanks anthony nice to be here no problem so usually i start my guess where they went to college so when you go to school i went to college at hofstra university in hempstead long island o so let's go back in time let's go into high school when did you start thinking about college was it freshman year or senior year when did it all start to begin i don't really when certainly in high school i always had an anticipation and yes expectation to go to high school men so i tried to do my best to keep my grades up in order to get into college ok so how did you go through the process what was the process to go to college mom and dad involved how did it all start certainly there were discussions with the folks wow you know it was so long ago i don't remember all the details i'm sorry but you know there were discussions that were involved at the time i know i met with guidance counselors as well and yeah i guess that's kind of a standard process but that's what i went through and then hofstra university was it only hofstra you university or did you look at other universities if you want to go far away it was a close at the time i was actually interested in staying a little bit closer to home just a personal decision and so i looked really closer to home i grew up on the south a long island and have to was twenty thirty minutes away actually i was not living on campus i commuted they had a certainly a large commuting population as well as an on campus population ok now so when you were in high school was it the only school that you picked through or were there other schools that you looking at as well i would say at the time that was my primary school you know there were certainly others in the area but that was my primary ok so you go to t university when did you start thinking about i t or was that the thought in the first star step actually no i was a business major an accounting major actually when i started at school my thought was i really didn't know what i wanted to do so i thought having that as a background business would be a good transition if i was going to change ok so now how did you go from college to you are today well i graduated college on time with the proper number of credits so i graduated with a computer science degree i figured out after my freshman year that i enjoyed computers  i took in my second semester as a freshman a computer science class and i enjoyed that and so i pursued that in engineering and graduated may have eighty two started job hunting had a resume printed and started job hunting and i landed a position actually pretty quickly in manhattan in july of that same year well so did was that i t computer i t it was a computer position so what i had studied in school mostly in my most of my career was in computer programming ok so that was a computer programming position and how did you get from there to princeton technology advisors my whole career was in or has been in information technology i enjoy it and so i was in a corporate career for the better part of thirty years a few companies always fortunately having more responsibility i was a manager for the last fourteen years in both programming systems integration even data centers and infrastructure and then in two thousand and twelve i was downsized and so that was the first time i'd ever been unemployed previously changing jobs was always something a bit more planned i was out for ten months it was a little bit difficult got very active with networking getting to know people and i did land a position and then i was downsized after six months so here was my second bout of unemployment and so i decided a friend of mine asked if i could help with a website project and so i helped him and i decided i'm going to do consulting for a while and kind of fill the gap into my next full time opportunity came in but what i found was i was getting more of these small consulting opportunities more than i was getting interviews and i was putting more time into that as that was beginning to evolve so in twenty fourteen i started princeton technology advisors i decided to look at to get into the field invitee once they graduate from college you know i'm not terribly close with the student population but what i've seen in general is  certainly an understanding of what the marketplace once you should pay attention and see where the jobs are i think what's hot in the news now we're certainly cybersecurity you know when we hear all sorts of news in the other i would say would be  data analytics or on the standing the volumes of data and those would be the areas i would focus on just so so if someone was in high school now going to college those are some of the classes that they have at the college level would you think i would certainly would think so i said were not when i went through college classes were very robust and learned about the architecture of computers as well as the programming of computers and at the time i could have pursued either and i enjoyed programming at the time still very important web developers are going to be a very big needed for a long time as well yeah absolutely so now you said that you have some information to students that are going into what what what type of statistics the i have on i t that's out there so very interesting the government has the bureau of labor statistics and they are putting statistics together yes about every field  occupation and i did a little bit of research on this web developers and this is their statistics through two thousand and twenty four team of twenty twenty four they see the progression and web developers are going to be needed growth rate of about twenty seven percent is projected and twenty four so that's that's pretty that's well above the average also information security analysts understanding really how to protect systems from hackers and you know people who want to try and steal data and that's projected to be a growth of eighteen percent through two thousand and twenty four and then a data the lists the people that are figuring out doing the google searches and bringing all that data how internet of things is gathering data and trying to understand how and what that data means also at a rate of thirty percent projected growth through twenty twenty four so those are the three avenues that students should start looking at in my opinion those are the real hot areas ok so let's go into each one a little bit in more depth so programming what's intel first student to get into programming what type of programs what entailed for those students to work at programming more and more what we see are applications that are delivered or programs applications that are delivered over the internet or also on smartphones or mobile devices so the languages they change periodical but certainly languages that are geared towards those two mobile apps and then there's the web programming as well on that and then behind the scenes there are databases that support and gather that information as well so there's going to be a need for the database administrators and the database programmers as well so no i've had guess some before with i t background and some of the things that came up with like  a lot of kids like to do those those videogames sure right so is that a part of the program as well as different types of programs i have to believe that there are programs like that it is such a big market in the entertainment  it's not just kids who game it's adults as well so we have very very big ok so now security what's in tail getting it to security and how to combat against that and so  on what's entailed for students to do that so i'm sure we've heard stories new stories about different sort of companies getting their data breach or getting their credit card data breached there are thieves out there trying to steal information and what they do is they investigate and find vulnerabilities either in the software or the security and so what the people that are going to protect us are going to do are going to in find new ways of protecting us keeping and make it harder for anyone trying to break even steal now if kids get into that type of field where where can they look what what is some of the avenues that they can look at you know a big company that would be involved is like a cisco you know the companies that build the router and the infrastructure but there are a lot of small companies that do that as well and there are companies that provide security access like are a say and others like that i think in general the job market is going to be hottest in the smaller companies that are innovating rather than just the big companies that have been around for a while nothing wrong with the big companies but a lot of cutting edge stuff is going to be in the smaller companies the startups so that's what they they should look at beginning i think anyone who's job hunting shouldn't only look at the big companies cisco i b m oracle the great companies have used a lot of their products before but the newer companies coming up are going to they're going to be able to move a little bit more quicker get into that type of field so it's really kind of interesting you need to be almost a statistician you need to be good with numbers you need to be very patient it's almost like you have to be really interested in boring stuff because it's  of information but the algorithms that you're going to investigate and create to try and figure out buying patterns and such are going to be just one all and this tremendous amounts of information out there making sense of it is going to be very important so now is that more mobile applications where they're there they're checking you know what you're buying habits are that kind of stuff or is it more p c based it's going to be wherever can be anywhere if you drive from here to there and using an e z pass maybe there's information there that's relevant as well not so much from a spying point of view which i think some people are afraid of but traffic patterns or maybe how to adjust lane closures and whatnot so yeah so they can really get into a lot of different fields because that brings up cars a lot of the cars are using that technology absolutely there are smart cars in the smart houses sloan kettering has now contracted with watson to help facilitate providing information to doctors watson isn't making the diagnosis but imagine if somebody comes in with a few symptoms and watson can instantly come up with a whole number of potential issues that this patient may have and so it can assist doctors in the health care as well so now is it is it more engineering based as well and can you be anybody that goes into  computer science or do you have to have some type of engineering background ready to get into i don't think you need to be an engineer to be a data analyst maybe you need to be an engineer to build computers you know more along those lines but i think if you have a certain business savvy certainly you can participate in those business sectors and having the comfort and the standing of working with the technology now let's go into the i t interviewing and things of that sort what do they what do they look for it at colleges when they're when they're interviewing fi t people that are coming in so i haven't unfortunately i haven't really interviewed at the college level in a long time i think what they're looking for at least of i was a hiring manager and i was hiring young tech people i was looking for their comfort with the technology do they understand that and it doesn't mean that they need to be an expert because i also wanted to know are they comfortable enough that they can learn the new things that are coming out or what changes in the workplace because the workplace is going to be different than than the it's usually based on something that happened in my workplace such and such as occurred i now need to solve it you're put on the project how might you do it so what if scenario one i want to see and understand how this young person is approaching solving the problem and it may not be that they've worked in that technology directly but they're prototype to problem solving because a workplace is you know is very dynamic and so sometimes you have to learn on the job as well so now what is a student that comes out of college doesn't have any experience that's usually the biggest question that that students have is how can i get a job if i don't have the experience but they're always looking for experience to get the job sure right so so w to those students go how did they how did they get that entry level position so then they can start getting their experience to move on to a bigger and better position something you know a good part of landing a job whether you have experience and don't is kind of who you know in the marketplace where you're trying to compete so one thing i would give advice to students would be start networking building your network get active on social media and promote information about yourself and be active on social media i don't just mean put your vacation photos and being active that way but talk a little bit about what you're interested in either personally and professionally keep it a little bit more professionally oriented because what will happen is people that begin to find you were search for you whether their recruiters are hiring managers or h r they're looking on social media too i can tell you that when i used to look at resumes of candidates and wind down the stack down to four or five i also went out to social media to try and understand more about these candidates before we called them in for an interview right and so that's usually the first step with a lot of recruiting agents is there checking up on their social media i think that they should be if they're not  you know they're certainly the the headhunter factory type that are just going through high volume but the ones that do the job effectively really can understand the candidates and represent them properly to their clients so how about the students that are out there they do a lot of social media these kids what do you advise these kids in giving out to social media is there some kind of information that you can help these kids so you have to think about how is the viewer who a hiring manager how are they going to perceive what you're putting out there most of what people do is perfectly innocent that's fine because photos but maybe if you're having a you went on a ski trip and you're at the top of the mountain and your arm in arm with your friends and everyone's got beers in their hands holding on perfectly innocent nothing approach inappropriate and of course are of age to drink but you never know how the viewer of that photo may see that so you have to think about is that a photo that i want my boss to see when they don't know me a future boss so be careful what you post up out there and they'll be other people who will say they don't care so it's it's tough to really gauge but i would say you know be a little cautious limits some of the personal things that people who don't know you yet may be questioning so how about if you're a student that wants to take a similar path that you took work for a company for a few years and then all of a sudden get into i want to do this on my own what what what information you want to give those students that take a similar path that you took you know one difference i found working in corporate america for a company and now for myself is i'm much more reliant on my professional network if i need help or other information when i work for other companies if i got stuck or had a problem certainly i can look on the internet but i had coworkers i had a boss i had other people within the company i can ask for help and so i think it becomes important that someone starting out a business at any age make sure that they have a good professional support system in professionals in their field and even outside if they need an accountant or an attorney or anyone else to guide them a little bit so to have some business ackermann is what you're looking at well hopefully people are a bit comfortable in business in general to have the basic understanding and certainly you can hire your account to do your bookkeeper to help you in the details but understand the the basics are important you know i've heard in the past you know people that start their own businesses they go out on the street and they pound the pavement themselves and they knock on the doors and they try to you know hey i can create a website for you and so on is that the approach that you take when you start your own business i think there's a blended approach i think there's certainly a part of that i like visiting other groups where there are other businesspeople that congregate there are a professional associations meetup dot com is a great place to find groups of all different types i made connections through there and when you go to some of these groups you'll find a few people you'll get to know you'll get to explain yourself a little and i found that it's very rare then you meet someone that they right away need your service but what you want to do is keep yourself in the back of their mind so other things you would do are maybe write an article or post on a blog and be available so sent e mails out remind your your contacts that you have a special going on or provide them a newsletter now how competitive do you have to be at the beginning when you starting out because you're not you know well known when you're starting her write right so  how competitive do you have to be with pricing and all of that everyone i found for myself my pricing was very low to start because i wanted to build the customer base and my customer base became my referral base and so yeah i was willing through to work a little bit less i did a little bit of pro bono work which was wonderful projects to help out some very worthy not for profits in the area and now we still do quite a bit of work with not for profits as well as for profit businesses and then ones usually the time when you start to say hey now i have this client base now i can start paying charging a little bit more for my services i don't know that there's a magic formula i guess you would have to have a few reliable clients and your belt so it's probably year or two in that time frame if you can start generating a bit of success yeah that that's a big key for any business right if you have to be patient you have to be accepting that some people will say no before they say yes most people do most important you have to offer them a solution to their problem i think there are people who struggle to say to them in their own mind that they have a solution that they want to sell to somebody but if that's not what the buyer is buying it will be longer to be successful yeah absolutely so what it's some of the things that they can get into is it is it is it just those three categories or can they veer off into some new category that they want to create in their own you know what the sky is almost the limit with technology  there are certainly many areas of technology to be involved you know companies that have their own computer systems or or the cloud computing model where they're contracting for services they'll need maybe a database administrator or network administrators not as many as when they have their own staff if they using cloud oriented but there's there's that as well network administration keeping the computers running disaster recovery and planning would be another area it kind of rides the fence between the technology and business because you do a need to understand the business that you have to protect but provide technical solutions to keep the business up and running so there's lots of areas now can they get into the  enforcement with with i t technology very interesting i suppose certainly they can i have to believe that there are applications and tools that a tech oriented just in law enforcement their applications really for almost any  any anyone that law enforcement pulls over investigates right now do you advise students more on a four year college or a lot of these have trade treat colleges as well or do you do a little of both i think it's up to the student to figure out what's best for him or her certainly when you go to a four year college or or another degree the education is more  robust there are different classes that you take in addition to whatever your major in this place the tech majors but when you go to the technical schools they're shorter and programs but they're very intense and i believe the technical quality of education is just as good so we're coming to the end of our show usually asked my guess what device you want to give to the students that they want to go to college they want to get into i t of computer science or in that field what advice you want to give to those  certainly i believe that having the advanced education whether it's a technical school or college will give any students an advantage over students that are trying to compete with only the high school education so if the student is able to go to some sort of advanced  training certainly go ahead and do that in terms of the career what do you like to do if you like doing web programming thing then that's what you should focus on and not worry as much about the data analytics and then once you get into the field and i think it's true with any field