Making It in IT: Understanding Your Circumstances

IT training and certification expert Ed Tittel advises a reader with a welcome degree of self-awareness.

Dear Readers:

Here’s another email exchange with a Tom’s IT Pro reader offered up as my blog for this week. This was an unusually interesting and very welcome letter, probably because its author didn’t appear to take himself or his situation overly seriously, while still obviously wishing for some guidance and advice. As always, I’m happy to respond to reader questions and concerns, and doubly so when I feel like I can soothe some worries at the same time I point out some interesting and possibly valuable career options.

Hey Ed,

I'll dispense with the regular, "I read your columns and think you’re great", and just say, I value your input. :) I'm at a watershed in my career but I don't know where to go.  I'm REALLY tired of the politics at the public college I work for, yet I need more certifications and maybe experience to get out and do something enjoyable.

I have a BS in Information Technology and the only certifications relating to my degree I have are CompTIA's A+ and Network+.  I'm interested in many different things but in my previous life before the IT world I was heavily into chemistry, anatomy, pharmacology; pretty much anything related to healthcare.  I even thought about medical school before I met a medical student and realized I didn't have the "focus" for the required studies.

As far as the IT field goes, I'm feeling rather removed from it all.  Don't get me wrong, I'm a great technician and can usually figure out what the problem is once I dive into it without help.  It's just that I feel lost most of the time going into the situation.  My colleagues, on the other hand, have the confidence of Churchill or Hitler depending on the person you're asking me about. :)  I'm a lowly desktop technician who does some application support, some security and whatever else is thrown my way when the department that is in charge of it feels it's too much trouble for them or they don't have the time.  And usually I bring the work home to figure it out so as to not fail my end users.

I am interested in forensics and I guess if you were to ask me today what path I wanted to take related to IT, I would say "security."  But I don't want to fall into securing data and figuring out how to lock down the end users.  I'm much more interested learning about ethical hacking (although I've never taken a course in it) and finding out how people get around IT security measures.

What do you suggest I should start with in my quest of "... getting out … getting anywhere … getting all the way to the FBI."  Sorry for the lame movie reference) I'm just kind of stuck in my life and career and don't know where to turn or what to do.  Help. Thanks for reading my prose and have an interesting if not fun weekend,
Joshua

Dear Joshua:

Thanks for an interesting email. You have lots of potential possibilities you could explore to get from where you are now and into something more interesting and probably more remunerative as well. I can’t say that changing jobs will necessarily reduce the political element in the workplace – my personal experience is that politics is an essentially human activity, so that offices with humans in them tend to have plenty of politics in them, too – but perhaps if you find something more absorbing and engaging, the politics will fade more into the background or be less objectionable.

Given your background, you’ll want to check out my recent material on healthcare IT certification for Tom’s IT Pro: Asking About Healthcare IT Certification and also Top 5 IT Certifications in Healthcare. You might very well find yourself going full circle and winding back up in the healthcare area someday, except from the IT perspective rather than as an outright medical professional. Certainly, there’s a lot of opportunity in this area, with more to come in the future as the healthcare industry continues to occupy such a major portion of GDP and mind share, with suitable opportunities for IT in that overall mix.

Also, you’re probably no more or less confident or capable than your colleagues, though you certainly come across as much less self-aggrandizing and more realistic about what you know, what you can do, and how much you’re willing to do to solve problems that come your way. If you keep doing what you’re doing (though perhaps somewhere else) you should be able to continue to learn and advance in your current career as well. Don’t sell yourself short, or your peers too long!

And finally, I like your interest in forensics and the investigative side of security rather than the preventive side. Check out my Tom’s story Top 5 Computer Forensics Certifications, and give our book Computer Forensics JumpStart, second edition, a once-over, too. You should probably look into the EC-Council’s Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH) certification as a way to get yourself started down this road, along the pathways for which you express some interest in your email. On the other hand if you check out the afore-cited Top 5 article or our book, you’ll find pointers to lots of other worthwhile forensics certifications and learning opportunities outside the CEH.

Good luck in your quest for career satisfaction. With your ability to understand your circumstances and to express your interests and wishes, I suspect that once you decide what you want to do, you will have little trouble and find much enjoyment in doing it.

Best wishes,

Ed

Ed Tittel is a 30-year-plus veteran of the computing industry, who’s worked as a programmer, a technical manager, a classroom instructor, a network consultant and a technical evangelist for companies that include Burroughs, Schlumberger, Novell, IBM/Tivoli and NetQoS. He has written and blogged for numerous publications, including Tom's Hardware, and is the author of over 140 computing books with a special emphasis on information security, Web markup languages and development tools, and Windows operating systems.

E-mail Ed at etittel@tomsitpro.com with your request for IT certification or career info, or your ideas for future blogs. If your e-mail leads him to a blog topic, he’ll have the Tom’s staff send you your very own Tom’s IT Pro t-shirt! Be the envy of your friends and colleagues, and help him help you with your IT career! If you do have a request for Ed, please read his How to Help Me Help You blog posting, and answer as many of the questions this post contains as are applicable to your situation and inquiry. Thanks in advance for helping make his job easier that way!

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