For a while now I’ve been trying to think of how best to shape the future of my career. Over the past 7+ years I’ve worked in many environments on various roles and responsibilities. However, I now feel that it’s time for a change. After working in my current role for over 5 years, I’m at a stage where I feel that there is not much that is new for me. No new challenges …etc. This has lead me to start thinking about what the next step should be and I’m hoping that through this post I’ll be able to address this.
THE PAST
I’ve been interested in Information Technology and programming since my time in high school and since then I wanted to have a career in IT. This led to me choosing to complete a degree in Information Systems & Computer Science. Since then, I’ve worked in many different environments and this has given me a broad range of experience that I believe will serve me very well in the future. However, looking ahead, I think this same experience has put some hurdles for me which I need to overcome in order to take my career in the direction I would like for the future. The reason for this is simply due to the fact that in many ways the future depends on the past for one’s career – that being the experience one has gained.
THE PRESENT
If today I look back at my career so far, I think the majority of my experience can be summed up in the following categories:maintenance, enhancements, admin and support plus a little more here and there. A large portion of this was on legacy systems and slightly older technologies than what is mainstream today. Despite that, I’ve always had a keen interest on what’s opposite to that. You can see some of this from many posts that I’ve published on this blog.
The above is basically the key issue here where if the future builds on the past then the options for the future are somewhat limited as a result.
THE FUTURE
The reason I mention this is that I’ve always been very passionate about new technologies and the possibilities they present – especially in the Microsoft domain. I have found that at work, the best times are those when presented with a problem or a task and resolving that requires doing some R&D on new possibilities for improving or fulfilling the function. Whenever an opportunity presents itself to enhance things or improve processes …etc., they’re the kind of tasks I enjoy the most.
HOW TO GET THERE?
Given all the above, the remaining thing to tackle is how to change the current situation. Many might say that in the real world there might not be a perfect place where ‘the future’ I mentioned is always possible. However, there are likely many places out there that offer such opportunities. The issue is just how to close the gap – which is the result of the past – and move into a future where a different past is required.
I have some ideas myself, including perhaps revisiting doing some Microsoft Certifications or other areas of study. Despite that, I wonder if that is enough to bridge this gap in the competitive market that we have? Especially given that certifications face credibility issues. If not, then other than continuing to ‘live in the past’ which is perfectly possible – yet not what I’d like to keep doing in the future – what other options are there? The only other option I can think of is finding a place where new technologies and best practices are used and be given an opportunity there to bridge the gap by building on a more generic and wide ranged skill set. That’s a possibility,but how likely is this to happen?
I would be interested to know what you think.