Leaving an IT centric company for a non-IT company?

Hey everyone,

Recently I was presented with a great job offer that would yield a great pay increase along with some other nice perks. I've had some pause though because I would be leaving a very strong Healthcare IT company for a Bio-pharma company (sys admin type roles at both).

My question is - is it ever smart to move on from a company that is focused on IT to one where IT is just one of many parts of the business? This has given me some pause, as I've never worked at a company where the primary business was not IT.

Thanks

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Comments

E Double U

I went from a telco (heavy IT focus of course) to a bank that doesn't care about IT, but was scared into caring about security.

Great move for me!

d4nz1g

Last year I left an IT company for a way better position on a healthcare company.
I don't know about you, but I was way more motivated and felt more important on the IT company.

E Double U

d4nz1g wrote: »

I don't know about you, but I was way more motivated and felt more important on the IT company.

I feel more important now because there are less people here with my skills. If you were Cisco certified at my previous employer, join the club. A lot less tech savvy where I work now because most positions are banking focused.

techfiend

I think it really depends on how much they care about IT and how their general outlook is. You should be able to get a decent judgement by the hardware they have, company goals during an interview and if the IT employees seem happy and knowledgeable.

When I was interviewing for help desk\desktop support positions there were a couple IT companies that didn't have the greatest hardware and seemed like IT employees were there just to earn a paycheck, relatively boring environment. OTOH there was an architecture company that was very forward-looking with state of the art equipment and the IT guys were very happy.

d4nz1g

E Double U wrote: »

I feel more important now because there are less people here with my skills. If you were Cisco certified at my previous employer, join the club. A lot less tech savvy where I work now because most positions are banking focused.

That's the point: my skills quickly got under-used, and in about 4 months I got bored. Making money, but bored.

E Double U

d4nz1g wrote: »

That's the point: my skills quickly got under-used, and in about 4 months I got bored. Making money, but bored.

That sucks! I lucked up having a CISO that made me responsible for lots of tools and is big on sending the team to training. When I don't have anything to do I can study. That was difficult at the telco because it seemed like I was working nonstop.

paul78

techfiend wrote: »

I think it really depends on how much they care about IT and how their general outlook is.

I absolutely agree. I personally prefer to work for a business that uses technology to run their business or some product thereof. I find it a lot more exciting and interesting. I have predominately worked in financial services where technology plays a big role. And because I understand the business, my technology skills are valued more.

blinkme323

It all depends on the emphasis that the company puts on IT. I've seen some IT companies that have really crappy technology and views and non-IT companies that are the complete opposite. So you really can't pigeonhole anyone based on industry.

jdarch82

techfiend wrote: »

I think it really depends on how much they care about IT and how their general outlook is. You should be able to get a decent judgement by the hardware they have, company goals during an interview and if the IT employees seem happy and knowledgeable.

When I was interviewing for help desk\desktop support positions there were a couple IT companies that didn't have the greatest hardware and seemed like IT employees were there just to earn a paycheck, relatively boring environment. OTOH there was an architecture company that was very forward-looking with state of the art equipment and the IT guys were very happy.

The company I interviewed with seems to place a pretty heavy emphasis on IT - they host their own data center, fully up on Server 2012, etc. So that all sounds good.