Despite innovations, disruptions, and rapid changes, IT is one industry that continues to survive and thrive

Contrary to popular misconceptions, the information technology sector is flourishing and will continue to employ skilled workers in large numbers. Factors like automation and new technologies only open new opportunities for your IT career path.

Technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and robotics, scientific advancements like space exploration and medical procedures, provide tremendous opportunities for IT experts.

For IT professionals in the US who are scared of outsourcing, fear not! Most of the outsourced jobs are mundane, repetitive jobs which will be automated sooner or later.

However, the innovative IT jobs are on the rise. In addition, there are numerous opportunities for someone who is a tech wizard.

If you’re interested in knowing what an IT professional’s career path looks like, keep reading….

It’s difficult but interesting

Working in the IT industry is not a cakewalk. But then, nor is it in any other industry!

If you have an affinity for technology and enjoy working on new complex challenges, the IT industry is for you.

You might have heard numerous stories of IT professionals who work day and night in their offices without even the time to go home just for a few hours.

It’s true. There are times when they have to slog and stretch. However, what most of the people ignore is the fact that a large number of people in this industry are highly passionate about their job. They enjoy their work more than anything else, which is the reason for their sustainability and growth despite the work pressure.

Working in the IT industry lets you apply your analytical mind, logic, and creativity.

If you want to become a successful IT professional, you must have passion, persistence and stamina.  If you do, success will be yours.

Career paths in the IT industry

Information technology is a vast industry with 100s of specialties. Some are discussed here:

Database Administrator

Big Data’s a revolution. Every enterprise generates massive volumes of data through its customer interactions, which is needed for analytics. This is where a DBA plays a key role.

Graphic Design

It’s where the creativity meets technology. If you’re a skilled artist, becoming a graphic designer is the right career for you.

Video Game Developer and Tester

Advancements in technology and graphic designing have made video games more sophisticated than ever. There’s tremendous scope as a games developer or tester.

Animator

Animators get to show their skills to a far greater extent now than ever. From animated movies to live action films, and advertisements and games, animation offers tremendous scope.

IT Security

The advancements in IT have also increased the threats. Viruses and malware are pretty common, and there’s always a requirement for more skilled IT security professionals to deal with the threats.

Programming and Coding

Coding shall never be out of the fashion. Most of the top entrepreneurs such as Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerburg started out as coders. There’s immense scope in this field.

Project Manager

This comes as an advanced career path once you’ve moved up the ladder in the IT industry. As a project manager, you get to manage people and entire projects.

Conclusion

IT industry continues to offer significant scope for those who are willing to work hard and smart. Learn IT courses and programming languages online to move one step ahead towards building an exciting career in the IT industry.  If you’re looking to begin a new career, browse our course catalog and see how easy it is to get started in an IT career.

GogoTraining has released nine unique online IT training courses with live mentoring sessions designed to fast-track career advancement opportunities as part of their 2011 Mentor-Accelerated Summer IT Training Program.  The courses are scheduled in July of 2011 only, are affordable for anyone to take, and offer limited seats available.

Offered courses include popular selections from the GogoTraining online course catalog such as:

• Oracle Real Application Clusters
• Oracle Application Express (APEX)
• Introduction to Android Programming
• Programming in Java 6 w/ Swing & Servlets
• ITIL® v3 Foundations
• ITIL® Continual Service Improvement
• Programming for Non-Programmers
• Introductions to C Programming
• Red Hat Linux Essentials

Courses in GogoTraining’s Mentor-Accelerated Summer Training Program include:

• Expert instructors
• The same material taught in corporate IT training classrooms
• Engaging “classroom experience” video modules
• Hands-on labs and exercises
• Direct access to ask the instructor questions
• Weekly 2-hour live online mentoring sessions including review, discussion and previewing of coming material.

The courses involve watching assigned online video material, doing hands-on lab and exercise work, and attending live online sessions with the instructor.  The live sessions are once each week for two hours and provide for instructor-led review, discussion and previewing of the coming week’s material.

“These are for someone who wants an advanced learning opportunity for a fraction of the time and cost,” says Marianne Cherney, CEO of GogoTraining.  “Our Mentor-Accelerated training courses are perfect for those who wish to gain extra skills needed for a promotion or new position.”

GogoTraining has released eleven new self-paced, online training programs designed to allow students with no previous programming knowledge to train for careers in major programming languages.

The training programs are a breakthrough for people with nothing more than general computer skills and familiarity to pursue a career in software.  Similar training programs are either much high in cost or require initial experience and knowledge that exclude most people.

“Our new training programs are geared to open up the market and make programming and software development a viable career option for literally anyone who is interested and has an Internet-capable computer,” said Marianne Cherney, CEO of GogoTraining.  The programs are taught by leading experts with years of experience.  The courses are easy to use and students have access to them for one year following purchase, including the ability to ask the instructor questions.

The programs are also offered at a fraction of the cost compared to other IT training providers with less- than-comparable training programs.  Competing programs are almost never designed for non-programmers and cost upwards of $5,000 to $10,000 or more per student.  Almost all of the GogoTraining Developer Training Programs are very affordably priced between $500 and $800 per person.  Volume discounts are available upon request.

“Recruiting in IT has risen sharply and demand for selections in our 140+ course catalog have skyrocketed, however those without IT skills interested in programming have always has been an underserved market,” said Tim Salam, Director of Marketing for GogoTraining.  “People with business skill sets are looking for a way to enter the lucrative world of software development and this is it.  We have worked hard to meet that market in an affordable and accessible way.”  The programs are also suitable for those seeking to learn additional software languages as the core courses are available to be purchases separately.

Learn more about the GogoTraining Developer Training Program or see one of the specific training programs below:

1. Become a C Developer
2. Become a C# Developer
3. Become a Java Developer
4. Become an Objective-C Developer
5. Become a COBOL Developer
6. Become a SQL Developer
7. Become an Android Developer
8. Become an iPhone Developer
9. Become a Perl Developer
10. Become a Python Developer
11. Become a Ruby Developer

Last week’s Linux Collaboration Summit yielded some interesting recent developments that are sure to help continue moving the platform toward even more usefulness for businesses.

One such innovation is something called the Yocto Project.  As they describe it on the website, Yocto is “an open source collaboration project that provides templates, tools and methods to help you create custom Linux-based systems for embedded products regardless of the hardware architecture.”  Sounds good enough but there’s more to it than that.

Yocto project starts with an ultra bare-bones Linux platform designed for ARM or x86 chips, allowing people to develop a Linux platform for a device with only what is needed and in a more efficient manner (starting bare and building up, versus the other way around).  Millions have been spent by other corporations developing device platforms on Linux by pulling out what is not needed from an existing Linux kernel until they’ve engineered it down to the essentials for that particular device.  Now developers can use Yocto to avoid all of that mess and expense to get to what they need for their device development project. 

This represents a considerable competitive advantage as it opens up use of the Linux platform in device development to a much larger crowd rather than only those who have the deep pockets and existing sales to weather extensive development cycles.  This is very likely to result in the emergence of more device development shops meeting various markets using Linux.

To get involved with Linux development, GogoTraining has the following expert courses:

• Linux Essentials
• Introduction to Embedded Linux
• Linux Device Drivers: Programming at the Kernel Level
• Red Hat Linux System Administration Part 1
• Red Hat Linux System Administration Part 2
• Red Hat Linux Network Administration

Multiple surveys continue to support a rise in IT spending for 2011.  Another recent report is the Capgemini 2010-2011 World Quality Report.  We’re already seeing the effects with large and medium employers filling up job seeker sites with thousands of new open positions.  The following three skill sets emerged as clear targets of IT spending priority in the future.

Mobile developers.  It seems like the drumbeat of a new era.  If people aren’t buying new smartphones and tablets they are developing apps for them.  The only people left seem to be those figuring out how to get in on the action.  Face it, the emergence of the mobile device as an integrated part of our work and home lifestyle is an industry with lasting staying power.  Investing in skills for this environment has tons of long-term potential in terms of career and employability.  Of particular note are training opportunities like GogoTraining’s Android Development Training Program.  iOS was the first fashionable one to show up, with emerging players being HP’s new version of webOS due in the summer of 2011 and Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 already at market.

Cloud computing.  What does that mean anyway, in terms of skills?  So far we’ve determined two important areas.  First is hardware and network management.  Hosting providers are finding they have to ramp up on this sort of thing since things like virtualization, serving power, redundancy and storage are going to continue a robust growth curve with the emergence of the cloud.  Next is IT service management, specifically those best practices one can acquire through ITIL certification training.  In-house IT staff at corporations of all sizes are going to have to beef up their IT service management abilities in order to understand how to better serve the greater business and also because they will increasingly be working with vendors providing cloud services.

QA and Test.  Of particular note, 72% of IT professionals indicated in the HP/Capgemini survey that QA/test people with a development background perform better than those without.  This only makes sense; nobody know better how to break something than someone who knows how to build it in the first place.  For software developers looking for a transition point, QA/test is the name of the game.  If you are a developer, getting training in Software QA and Test would be a good direction.

For training on these and other business-critical technologies, check out the GogoTraining IT training course catalog.