First steps to building a successful career in Information Technology
By: Lundi Ngantweni
Tags: Information Technology, Self Improvement, Beginners Guide, Technology

From personal experience, I found that many individuals will opt to study I.T/ICT-related studies with no real context as to what is required to build a successful career within the information technology domain. I have decided to draft this useful guide on how to master the concepts, demonstrate practical skill, get hired, and excel in your chosen field of specialization.

The Road Map

I know how daunting and/or tempting it is to just dive into the typical I.T course that covers various aspects of the field. I made this mistake in 2013 where I opted for the general course as opposed to linking my career goals to what I needed to learn. Hence the roadmap, I.T is a vast field with various outcomes some courses complement each other for example if I were to be opting for an entry-level post I would look at the combination of the following CompTIA Certs (ITF (Fundamentals), A+ (Technician), N+ (Networking)) these are the basics and should enable you for entry-level positions or in our lingo Tier 1. It’s best to first get your foot in the door and then opt for further studies and/or specialization knowing that you have fundamental certs along with work experience. Further to this, you could look at adding Security+ and/or Linux+ to boost your points with the prospective employer. https://www.comptia.org/home offers 2 paths infrastructure & security, vendor-specific courses can be addressed once you’ve settled in your role.

2. Master the basics

Nowadays anyone can learn anything via the internet which is great however bear in mind that most of these sources barely cover foundational knowledge. No matter your level of expertise a quick and regular revision of the fundamentals will help you break down the most complex of scenarios. Elon Musk beautifully places the latter approach in context by looking at First principles thinking. This link should help with the understanding thereof: https://jamesclear.com/first-principles. I found that the geek’s lesson & other channels like freecodecamp.org are a great way to revise foundational knowledge on various concepts/topics within I.T, I have included the link just in case you feeling a bit tempted to dive right in. https://www.youtube.com/c/GeeksLesson/videos?view=0...

3. The Practice Lab

Remember certifications might be enough to get you to the interview stage but a mastered and refined skillset will ultimately open employment opportunities. Taking the time and care to build a home lab may help you refine your networking, troubleshooting, administration, and/or OS knowledge skills. This will count in your favor once you in the field, mastering the methodology along with the ability to go HAM practically might make you a real asset for not only your employer but for yourself as well. Many tools might help you with this journey such as virtual machines, online practice labs, or recycling old hardware for your network. It need not be expensive but if it is functioning well you cannot go wrong, Side note my first home lab was built on a virtualized environment using VirtualBox with 1 server and 2 windows clients to practically implement Active Directory and master GPO concepts. Creating snapshots will help in the long run for the break & fix situations.

This guide from I.T Career questions should help you on your quest https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4O_MxTPmah4