Career question

sharptech

Hi all!

Its been a while since I have been around this part of the forum ;p

For the past eight years I have been in the IT field (three as a lead student tech) and then four years as a lead IT Technician and now I work for a company handling all the Infrastructure.

My career goal is to become an IT Director or Manager - I am very good at managing projects and would like to move forward in this direction. I do not want to be a tech all my life ;p

Currently my job consists of mainly doing tech work for the users and then working on our servers with an occasional project to manage.

What are your suggestions as how to plan to move forward to reach these goals of becoming a director/manager? I was thinking about this today so I decided to come to the best place I know of!

Thanks a lot guys -

garv221

sharptech wrote:

Hi all!

Its been a while since I have been around this part of the forum ;p

For the past eight years I have been in the IT field (three as a lead student tech) and then four years as a lead IT Technician and now I work for a company handling all the Infrastructure.

My career goal is to become an IT Director or Manager - I am very good at managing projects and would like to move forward in this direction. I do not want to be a tech all my life ;p

Currently my job consists of mainly doing tech work for the users and then working on our servers with an occasional project to manage.

What are your suggestions as how to plan to move forward to reach these goals of becoming a director/manager? I was thinking about this today so I decided to come to the best place I know of!

Thanks a lot guys -

Pick your current IT directors brain, just chat about everyday stuff. Being around someone who is already there is great way to experience the mind set you need. Find out what his job entitles. You will need to understand the fact that managers basically are the coach for a team. Their employees actions have repercussions on them, you will need to know how to effectively manage people and be honest with them. A good manager is straight forward, honest, can keep the line between business and personal clear and has employees who respect him. Bad managers are ineffective at communicating, give false expectations and can be push overs. Oh yea, you take the fall for any crashes.

sharptech

garv221 wrote:

Pick your current IT directors brain, just chat about everyday stuff. Being around someone who is already there is great way to experience the mind set you need. Find out what his job entitles. You will need to understand the fact that managers basically are the coach for a team. Their employees actions have repercussions on them, you will need to know how to effectively manage people and be honest with them. A good manager is straight forward, honest, can keep the line between business and personal clear and has employees who respect him. Bad managers are ineffective at communicating, give false expectations and can be push overs. Oh yea, you take the fall for any crashes.

Thanks Garv -

Well we have an CTO, however he travels all the time so he is never around ;p He mainly focuses on taking care of all of our programmers and then is off to do different projects. That is why the company hired me - to really lead our IT infrastructure. I think its good experience and from what you pointed out - sounds like I am heading in the right direction.

My degree is in communications - I wanted to do something in that field, and I started working with the IT dept at the college then I took over as the IT Tech, so I am excellent in communicating and think that will help in the future when going after these manager type positions.

What kind of jobs should I be looking for in the future to start really focusing on managing in the IT field? I think it would be good to start planning ahead.

Great points you brought up - thanks again.

garv221

sharptech wrote:

garv221 wrote:

Pick your current IT directors brain, just chat about everyday stuff. Being around someone who is already there is great way to experience the mind set you need. Find out what his job entitles. You will need to understand the fact that managers basically are the coach for a team. Their employees actions have repercussions on them, you will need to know how to effectively manage people and be honest with them. A good manager is straight forward, honest, can keep the line between business and personal clear and has employees who respect him. Bad managers are ineffective at communicating, give false expectations and can be push overs. Oh yea, you take the fall for any crashes.

What kind of jobs should I be looking for in the future to start really focusing on managing in the IT field? I think it would be good to start planning ahead.

Director, Coordinator or Manager title positions. It can be difficult to get these positions without prior experience unless you just fall into it. Smaller businesses with a couple of people in the department is a good place to start and get experience managing people. Experience without a doubt is key for being successful and obtaining these positions. Do you have any experience managing people in any field?

sharptech

garv221 wrote:

Director, Coordinator or Manager title positions. It can be difficult to get these positions without prior experience unless you just fall into it. Smaller businesses with a couple of people in the department is a good place to start and get experience managing people. Experience without a doubt is key for being successful and obtaining these positions. Do you have any experience managing people in any field?

In my other job as lead IT Tech I managed all of the student technicians. At my current job I only have managed projects and not people per say. Right now I am managing the entire infrastructure at our company (small company) which I think is good experience.

Director is far away - a lot more experience is needed, but I want to make sure that I take the right path to doing this in the future.

Thanks