What makes you competent and marketable for a job obove other candidate?

What winning formula do you need to have in order to get or keep a job in a very competitive environment, seeing that most of you guys are from the US, UK or any other country with a huge population, how do you keep a step ahead from other candidate applying for a job or maybe already employed how do you shine above the rest to stay on top of your game? What other certs do you think are outstanding and makes you competent in the system administrator/ Networking field. In developing countries like SA the IT industry seems to be growing and soon or maybe now it will turn out to be a very competitive with so many candidate looking get employed so how do you keep your head above the rest?

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Comments

Master Of Puppets

What IT is all about - making sure you stay current. Learning new skills and technologies and improving all the time. That's what makes it fun! Certs are a way of showing that. This can even be a good thing - the emergence of qualified people can give you a push to develop your skills. Also, don't forget people skills!

Expect

I truly believe that being passionate and motivated about what you do, is something companies are looking for in candidates (in some levels, even before being skilled).
My own 'winning formula' is continue loving what I do, and I make sure (in several different ways) I stay up to date with field needs.
I try to stay updated by subscribing to many mailing lists, that's where you can learn the most, by helping people and see others confront problems of their own (forums are good too of course) and constantly challenging myself with different projects etc.
Skills are important as well of course, Organizations love the "all in one" employees, they are money savers.

Snow.bros

Expect wrote: »

My own 'winning formula' is continue loving what I do, and I make sure (in several different ways) I stay up to date with field needs.
I try to stay updated by subscribing to many mailing lists, that's where you can learn the most, by helping people and see others confront problems of their own (forums are good too of course) and constantly challenging myself with different projects etc.

You know when everyone knows that you a technician and then they suddenly start asking you to swing by their place and fix their machine, i think these type of scenarios can be taken to an advantaged of a learning experience for young and starting out tech like me in the industry and some techs think that those type of situation are irritating and annoying maybe because being called over the same issue every time but i think it's a perfect learning curve because there is no pressure and you are doing it out of your own will and you can improve on your skills. Good point.

MrAgent

The more experience you have the more attractive you are to other companies.

TheProf

I would agree with what others have said.. Motivation and passion in your field will definitely get you far. But I would say the most important thing you'd need to have, is knowing what you actually want to do. I find a lot of people in IT, get into it, but then don't really enjoy career simply because they don't know where their interest lies. Sometimes, that can really be discouraging and as time goes by, it get's harder to keep that motivation and effort.

If you know what you want, you set a goal and you work for it. If you don't, you need to take the time to figure that out, sometimes it can a while before really finding your passion.

LarryDaMan

All good points, but the most important thing is who you know. If you can communicate/network/make friends, and have a presence in your geographical area within the industry; you can always be in a position that is right for you. Many people have certifications and degrees, you have to think beyond that. This can be done in any number of ways; participating in professional associations, social media, networking at conferences/training, always have your resume "out there" and connect with people even when you are not looking for a new position, helping others find work, maintaining relationships with previous co-workers/managers, selling yourself, and being an overall nice person who is helpful and generous to others.

N2IT

I agree with who you know this clearly has helped me and others in our group. Funny how this works. One of my friends older brother about 10 years ago landed a VP position for Savvis and next thing ~ 5 years later 2 of my friends were promoted to Director and another was promoted to VP. Who you know is huge. (Educational background for all 3, business bachelors from the local state University). No certs or masters. Just for the record the impact hasn't been as great since I'm not as good of friends with these guys as they are with each other. Dumb Luck?!

f0rgiv3n

I think that experience can be something that is good but the thing is... a lot of the time your experience at one company has a very narrow field of applicability. What I mean is this: I know plenty of people who have worked for my current employer for 15+ years. They have been "network engineers" for that time and in my opinion they are not very marketable right now. No matter who you works for your experience is limited to only what they have.

In the IT industry, certifications do give you that edge. Your certifications are job-independent and the knowledge you learn is applicable anywhere. You learn the industry's best practices not just your employer's best practices. The other thing is that how many companies out there have the latest and greatest for you to "gain experience" with? A lot of times employers are looking for someone who knows the existing stuff but also can help with forward motion. Employees who focus all on experience lack the knowledge for future growth because they are only in the "reactive" state and not being "proactive".

My point I guess is that experience is definitely something required. It is something that can get you a job, yes. But if you are looking for something to make you stand out, give you the edge on others, get certifications and learn the best practices from the industry. Everyone who has a job is getting experience. But not everyone who has a job is getting certifications.

Let me add an example:

Employee 1 - 10 years as a network admin
Employee 2 - 5 years as a network admin and a CCNA, CCNP
Employee 3 - 10 years as network admin and a CCNA, CCNP

Comparing #1 and #2, which would you rather have?
If you took the employee#1 then you'd have someone with a lot of experience but no external training or best practices. Employee #2 has good experience but also has proven that they know the best practices and also it shows initiative because they went above and beyond just getting their job responsibilities done.

If you're strictly asking what gives you an edge over other people then compare employee #1 and #3. That's an easy answer.

Anyways, that's just my two cents. You can take it, leave it or save it for a soda.

redz

I agree to an extent with what everyone has posted here, but I have one thing that seems to have been mostly missed or glossed over.

That is: understanding how your job impacts the company's ability to be profitable. If you understand (and can display your understanding of) the full business process, your place in it, and how you can more efficiently do the job from a business standpoint, you'll be light-years ahead of the majority of your competition.

Akaricloud

While technical skills and experience definitely help, who you are is just as important in my opinion.

If you're the person everyone knows they can turn to with their toughest problems, you never shy away from challenges, and work to promote a positive work environment then finding new jobs is quite easy. All the various vendors at my last position that I interacted with were more than happy to recommend me to open positions they knew of because they truly enjoyed working with me.

When you can show companies that you're able to easily learn their systems/technology and will work well with their team/clients then they're much more willing to give you the opportunity.

darkerz

In my experience,

~Be personable, energetic, passionate - without being stupid and youthful.
~Be an expert, a problem solver, a project pusher, first in last out.
~Have 3-5 years of experience, not 1 year of experience 3 times over. (!!!)
~Certify above your skillset, but study it as if tomorrow were day 1 of a new shiney job.

...

The important thing is, balance - don't burn out!!!

philz1982

Going above and beyond, researching the industry and then speaking up when you find a more effective solution, finding out what you like to do then contacting as many people inside and outside your company and discussing how you can help them, constantly learning.

In my opinion our economy is a knowledge economy, those who have solution oriented knowledge (solution oriented knowledge is being able to take technical facts and convert them to actionables), have a skill more valuable then any other skill.

Doing what no one else wants to do and doing it well, learning how your boss thinks and then compensating for his weaknesses. When you complete your bosses weaknesses you become invaluable to him/her. Learning how to be proactive, see the problem and solve it before anyone else.

-Phil

210mike

Personality and team fit account for 70% of what I look for in a candidate. I know this is a tech forum and we focus on technical knowledge, but honestly pure tech knowledge is 30% of what I'm looking for. People can get up to speed on tech, I can teach you our environment. I can't teach you how not to be a d-bag, or to get along with other folks. You spend 40+ hours a week with your co-workers or more. It's important to have a good personality fit when making a hire.

For example, we hired someone a couple of years ago (not my hire). He was probably the most technically skilled Cisco person I've ever dealt with. He didn't last 3 months here. He didn't want to follow the rules, didn't get along with other team members, was generally just unpleasant to work with. We showed him the door and replaced him with someone with a little less pure technical knowledge, but who is much easier to work with and can go out and get the knowledge he needs if he doesn't know something and we're much better off because of it.

instant000

redz wrote: »

That is: understanding how your job impacts the company's ability to be profitable. If you understand (and can display your understanding of) the full business process, your place in it, and how you can more efficiently do the job from a business standpoint, you'll be light-years ahead of the majority of your competition.

It's funny you mention that. I worked at a company that underwent a "Lean" transformation. Since I worked in IT, we had to interface with the departments (obviously) in order to assist them with optimizing their processes.

One thing that became readily apparent is that there were a few people in the company who understood the big picture, and there were many people who only understood how to do their own specific job. Some of the most intelligent people in that organization (who actually knew the most about how everything tied together) worked in the lesser jobs.

We (IT) had issues building trust with people, as they assumed that if IT showed up with pen and paper to document their job, we were trying to eliminate them. Fortunately, that wasn't the case, simply because the organization was trying to increase productivity without increasing head count; and not trying to cut anyone. Even when the downturn occurred, the company shifted to a different production schedule and did energy saving initiatives to decrease utility spend, rather than cut personnel.

I'll answer the OP with two parts:
What makes you competent is how well you do your job.
What makes you marketable is how well you sell yourself.

Hope this helps.