I am a geologist by training. I have been practicing geology for about ten years now as a field geologist. At this point I am considering changing my career to IT. I have never officially held an IT position but I have interest in IT. I have been doing a little of IT which is related to my job. My question is how can I make the move as regards the career change? thanks.
Vishwas's Advice on Thursday, June 27, 2013 :
IT has been definitely one of the flourishing and highly paying industry for a decade and so it has absorbed human resources from all walks of life and not just from IT background & education. IT field can generally be said to be largely composed of following areas (for layman's view)
1. Software development - application software, firmwares, system softwares, business analysis
2. Hardware- service and maintenance
3. Reasearch - business analysis
With lengthy experience in any particular non-IT field, people generally tend to opt for business analysis , domain expert jobs as it is built on their prior experience giving them the returns on their experience and also not needing them to change the entire line of work. This could be logical continuation of their skills with a change in industry and nature of work.
The decision for career change may also have following dimensions
1. Age and liabilities
2. Learning abilities and risk appetite
3. Other reasons for change like any issues or challenges with current domain
4. Pay needs
5. Growth prospectus and needs
So though there may a plenty opportunities on IT industry, career change would finally drill down to personal choice and standing on above factors.
It would hugely important to a proper search about the job opportunities specific to your current field and also prospective area (one of above mentioned), start exploring the jobs, start learning in prospective areas and then plunge.
You may want focus on organization like Accenture, TCS where there may opportunities related to geology and explore the opportunities thereof.
Hope this helps