No matter if you're looking to move ahead, move up, or move on, learning is key to success. The days of a 20-year career with a giant corporate conglomerate, or similar longevity in a particular tech arena for that matter, have bitten the dust. What is surprising, though, is that relocating, changing fields, heading into management, or moving into a dot-com workplace aren't anywhere near the top of the list when techies talk about critical career decisions. It doesn't matter who you ask either. Whether they're longtime programmers and network admins, or a legal secretary, techies say attending tech-specific courses has been a critical element in career advancement and success.
Career moves go smooth with sharpened skills.
We polled techies last month asking them about critical career choices and decisions. Leaving one area of tech expertise for another placed second, with 42 relating how they moved from longtime IT strongholds such as programming and network administration into emerging technologies such as Web development. David Satz' career is just one of a dozen examples that illustrates how both education and a shift in specialty dramatically changed his career. After an extensive time working as software developer career in the client server environment, the Stamford, Conn., resident decided to move into the Web world. Initially Satz thought the best Web path would be ASP development since he was already working with Visual Basic development using Microsoft Transaction Server.