How to make a move into a management position?

I have been with the same company for close to seven years now with a title of network engineer. In reality, my job title doesn't really reflect my full scope of duties and responsibilities. I am responsible for the whole infrastructure in two colo's and office locations in 24/7 environment, and manage a system admin.

About 4 months ago, I spoke to my boss and asked for a title change so it would at least show some vertical progress. I received a pay raise instead. At this point I am determined to leave but I will stay here for the next 6-9 months or so. We are getting a bunch of new hardware I haven't worked with yet and I would like to have that experience.

I did some job hunting for network engineer positions and the problem is my current salary is very close to the ceiling. In order for me to have any meaningful salary increase is to make a jump into a management position. Ideally, it would be hands-on as well and not just doing a paperwork.

This brings me here for an advice. Below is the list of questions I have. If you can answer one or all of them, it would be greatly appreciated.

1. If you were in my position at some point of your life, how did you make the transition?
2. With my background, what position should I be aiming at? (if needed, I can elaborate further on my skills)
3. a)What should I emphasize on my resume?
b) If you would be hiring for a managerial position, what would you look for in the resume?
4. Is there any types of certs which would be beneficial for a management position? ITIL comes to mind but nothing else.

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Comments

shodown

Are you after more money, or more technical work?

1. I made the move, by opening up my own company. I do managerial, technical, and a WHOLE lot of admin work.

2. Do you have any team lead experience? Do you know how to write well, and sale your ideas to the higher management?Are you a master of using excel? With those questions answered i can give you a better idea. I think most tech people should try a team lead position first, then decide if they want to be a manager.

3. Leadership, communication(written and verbal) and Listening skills on top of Solid technical understanding of a lot of technologies.

B. If we do look for another technical leadership position it will be for the person I said above. A person who can listen to customer and emplooyes and who can make the best sound decisions with the information given to him or her. I also want someone who still can get on the IOS when needed, but who realized that this position is not about how good they are on the CLI or GUI, but how good they can make others.

4. Not sure. I have seen PmP, ITIL, which are good for process, but nothing beats good ole fashion experience, and being mentored by guys or girls who've been there and can bring a Jr leader along the way and show them the ropes and how to make the difficult decisions

Chitownjedi

ITIL will help.. its not terribly hard.. pretty easy actually. A lot of places are adopting the ITIL "way" of doing things or want to make progress to being able to adopting it, so it will not hurt you at all.. only help.

N2IT

Bachelors Degree with a emphasis in Operational Management. No certifications would seal the deal, but like others have mentioned ITIL would be a solid one to get.

Kreken

Thank you for the comments.

At this point, I am more interested in more money. More technical work would be a major plus though. I love working with technology and I don't think I am ready yet to completely give it up.

1. I considered opening up my own company but right now it is a risk I can't take.

2. No team lead experience. I can write well but it takes me quite a bit of time to make it understandable by non-technical people. I have no issues selling my ideas to the upper management. Right now company is going through a large purchase and they will buy all equipment I put on the list. I am not really an excel expert, whenever I help my wife with excel reports, I just write a quick VB script to do what I want instead of going through all excel functions.

3. Leadership - yes. Communication skill is a work in progress. I have to make an effort otherwise my speech is very technical. I have been working on it for the past few years. As for technology, I am really lacking in VoIP, Unix areas and software development. I have good understanding of other areas because at some point I implemented it.

Kreken

N2IT wrote: »

Bachelors Degree with a emphasis in Operational Management. No certifications would seal the deal, but like others have mentioned ITIL would be a solid one to get.

I have BS in CS with management minor and MS in Telecom networks. I finished paying off my college loans a while ago and used up all my GI Bill. I considered MBA for some time but with GI Bill gone, I would need to have a really good job to shoulder 100K student loan + mortage + kids.

shodown

If your interested in more money I would suggest another way to get there. I like I said above I'm not to sure of your skill set, so I cant' say where you should be salary wise, but if you want more money I would suggest working for a cisco partner if you aren't already. They usually pay 20-40 percent higher than enterprises, and I see presale's engineers brining in big $$$$$$

As far as all the other area's of IT you don't need many. For example if you are the network/telecom manager you just need a good idea of Routing/Switching, VoIP, and wireless and firewalls.

Kreken

Thank you for the suggestion but I am not interested in pre-sales.

shodown

There are quite a few positions that pay very well. We would need your skill set to really determine.

paul78

Kreken wrote: »

1. If you were in my position at some point of your life, how did you make the transition?
2. With my background, what position should I be aiming at? (if needed, I can elaborate further on my skills)
3. a)What should I emphasize on my resume?
b) If you would be hiring for a managerial position, what would you look for in the resume?
4. Is there any types of certs which would be beneficial for a management position? ITIL comes to mind but nothing else.

#1 A couple of things came to mind as I read your post. For me, I was somewhat fortunate. I tended to be a natural leader and I was lucky to be in a growing company that needed more managers. I always focused on making sure that my own managers are successful and when he was promoted, it left a void which I was the assumptive back-fill.

#2 It sounds like you want to enter management - not every one wants to be in management so definitely go for it.

#3.a On your resume - focus on what you contributed to your employers. What did you do that moved the business forward. Don't focus on responsibilities. I have always felt that the biggest mistake that people make on resumes is to list a bunch of responsibilities. No one really cares about what you are responsible for - it's more important to know what you contributed based on those responsibilities.

#3.b Specifically what I said above - I look for what the value that the individual brought to the table.

#4) I realize that this is a certification forum. But I never look for certifications on a resume for managers. If it's on the resume, great. If not present - I don't care.

N2IT

Kreken wrote: »

I have BS in CS with management minor and MS in Telecom networks. I finished paying off my college loans a while ago and used up all my GI Bill. I considered MBA for some time but with GI Bill gone, I would need to have a really good job to shoulder 100K student loan + mortage + kids.

You omitted education in your beginning post.

Kreken

shodown wrote: »

There are quite a few positions that pay very well. We would need your skill set to really determine.

I have experience with Cisco routers up to 3900 series and will most likely add ASR by the end of the year. Configured OSPF, EIGRP, HSRP, IPsec VPN, ACLs, redistribution, NAT.
Cisco switches up to 3850 and Juniper EX 3200 - VLANs, different security features including 802.1x, etherchannels, VTP, STP, ACL's, routing.
Cisco ASA 5500 series and Checkpoint 4200 NGFW - access policies, SSL and IPsec VPN, two-factor authentication with RSA SecurID, failover.
Cisco IPS module and Checkpoint IPS blade.
Citrix Netscaler - proxy and app fw.
Cisco Ironport - encryption, DLP, policies, spam filtering.
Cisco MDS 9148 and Brocade SAN switch, NetApp and HP SAN.

Software: Microsoft - AD, DNS, Hyper-V farms, Exchange 2003/2010, Symantec BackupExec and AV, Nessus, TACACS, RSA.

It's not much but it keeps me occupied.

@paul78
Thank you for your reply. I will definitely redo my resume according to your suggestion because right now it reads as a job description from a job board.

ratbuddy

I don't see any management qualifications in there. Do you have interest in moving to management besides "more money?"

Kreken

ratbuddy wrote: »

I don't see any management qualifications in there. Do you have interest in moving to management besides "more money?"

I listed only technical skills for reply to shodown's post. He said there might be other non managerial positions which could pay more money but he couldn't say without knowing my skills.

ratbuddy

Be that as it may, do you have an interest in management, other than money? If yes, do you have qualifications? If no, what about going the CCIE route?

Kreken

ratbuddy wrote: »

Be that as it may, do you have an interest in management, other than money? If yes, do you have qualifications? If no, what about going the CCIE route?

I had an interest in management for quite a while. A few years ago, I spoke to my boss and expressed my desire to learn about management. He worked with me on developing my communication and people skills as they were severely lacking. It's not that I don't have a room to improve now but they are much better. Today, I know what it takes to have a production environment running 24/7 and I believe I can do it on my own.

Besides working with the technology listed previously, I do administrative tasks as well - yearly budgeting, purchasing, managing and training sys admin, interviewing, vendor management, converting business requirements to technical, writing policies and etc.

Devilry

Kreken wrote: »

I had an interest in management for quite a while. A few years ago, I spoke to my boss and expressed my desire to learn about management. He worked with me on developing my communication and people skills as they were severely lacking. It's not that I don't have a room to improve now but they are much better. Today, I know what it takes to have a production environment running 24/7 and I believe I can do it on my own.

Besides working with the technology listed previously, I do administrative tasks as well - yearly budgeting, purchasing, managing and training sys admin, interviewing, vendor management, converting business requirements to technical, writing policies and etc.

I mean no disrespect, but you have still not stated why you want to be in management other than money. If that is true, why not seek out higher technical jobs/specialties? Also noticed you are in NYC - maybe move to a place where the dollar actually goes further?

Going into a position based solely on money will not lead to success. Just my 2cents

paul78

The success criteria for a career is so highly individualistic that I would respectfully disagree that going into a position solely on money is a bad idea. I'm sure we all agree that career choices are very multi-dimensional and people make different career choices based on different weightings of factors.

Personally, I enjoy technology and the application of technology to business problems. So I am fortunate that my interest intersects with my career. But I don't work for pleasure and I have always sought positions that maximized my compensation.

Kreken

Guys, I think this thread is getting a bit off-topic. While I do appreciate your concern about my motivation, unfortunately that's not exactly the thing I want to discuss here. If we could stick to the topic, it would be awesome. Thanks again.

paul78

Unfortunately, there is really no magic formula. My own experience which is really only a single data point is stated above. I do think that to get into management, you do have to demonstrate leadership, organizational, and communication skills. Also management progression do tend to vary based on the company. I do think however that it's probably pretty rare to get hired into a management position if you have never been a manager in IT.

Based on what you posted, if your employer seems willing to promote you to management, then you should continue to have that conversation with your manager. But one of the most important traits that your manager will likely look for is the type of leader that you are and if you fit into the currrent management culture and not what certifications you hold.

ajs1976

If you are on a team, try to become the official or unofficial lead. Make sure your manager's manager knows who you are (in a positive way). Be the point of contact when your manager is on vacation. Participant in more manager oriented / non-it discussions, ex, Change Management calls.

Look at IT Manager positions, maybe at a smaller company. I'm finding that a lot of them are network engineer / it manager positions.

ITIL, PMP, CISSP, CISM are more business or management oriented IT certs.

Kreken

paul78 wrote: »

I do think however that it's probably pretty rare to get hired into a management position if you have never been a manager in IT.

That is what I noticed during my job search. I got a lot of call backs for the network/security engineer positions but almost none for a management. Thus the reason for this post. I would like to redo my resume so a hiring manager would look past the title.