Nowadays, it is not enough to become an IT consultant, you need to stand out from the crowd to succeed in your career.
Here are a few quick pointers that will help succeed in your career path as an IT consultant.
Become an All-Terrain IT Pro
1# Reach a good level of experience
Cultivating a solid background at the end of your studies will allow you to differentiate yourself from candidates who are either too junior or too senior and therefore too expensive. Five to ten years of experience is usually the sweet spot in terms of employability.
2# Forget hyperspecialisation
Locking yourself into a skill and mastering it from start to finish may seem like the right way to go in order to differentiate yourself from overly generalist profiles. And in fact, there is nothing wrong with specialisation. It can be a solid career strategy. However, in the world IT —and especially if you are an independent contractor— it pays to adopt a multi-specialization approach. You don’t have to confine yourself to a single language or skill. You should not be satisfied with simple expertise either. Aim for “mastery”. Recruiters will move on quickly if mastery is not conveyed through your CV and profile.
3# Certify yourself
Having the right certification for the right position is a good approach. Certifications worth pursuing include Microsoft certifications, Ninja, Dev Star, and Code Crazy.
4# Soft Skills
Mastering the technical part of a position is not everything. Your personality will also weigh in the balance. Recruiters are looking for candidates who can be at the same time pleasant, knowledgable, committed, brilliant, altruistic, punctual, cunning, eloquent, humble, methodical, polite… Whether it is negotiation or communication, you need to master your soft skills as well. These are the essential soft skills every IT professional should have.
5# Compensation
Sensitive topic, but be realistic with your salary expectations and be ready to lower them a bit is the market calls for it. Especially considering the economic uncertainty brought about by the o pandemic.
