How to return to IT after a long pause – experts answer

Nothing is impossible, but get ready to work hard. At the current pace of evolution of the IT sphere, even a pause of several months may turn out to be long, and after a break of several years, you will have to recruit an applied and technological arsenal. Previous fundamental knowledge can become both your advantage over beginners, allowing you to quickly master new material, and your ballast, which makes it difficult to perceive new concepts.

Here are a few steps that can help you get back into the industry:

1. Set internal landmarks. Formulate (better on paper):

  • What do you want to achieve by returning to IT?
  • What kind of work are you interested in?
  • What are the limits and goals for wages in the first step?
  • What do you want to achieve in a year, two, three in terms of a career?
  • How much time and money are you willing to invest in your "return"?

2. Update information on your specialization and the industry as a whole. News and thematic sites, blogs (Tproger, ProgLib, Habr, Reddit, Hacker News, Medium), Telegram channels, job sites, job market analytics and job matching to your internal guidelines, as well as industry business news (TechCrunch, The) will help Verge, CNews).

3. Find a professional community online and offline in areas of interest to you. Go to the meeting, find out about the difficulties, get recommendations. Remember about soft skills. Today it is difficult to succeed in IT with purely technical skills, and live communication is the main tool for developing personal qualities.

4. Decide on your specialization and draw up a training program for your budget, time and discipline. There is a choice – from full-time and distance courses to free or low-cost (Coursera, FreeCodeCamp, Udemy, Udacity, etc.). Result-driven programs such as Lambda School are gaining popularity, and new formats of IT education – 42 School and School 21.

5. Do not delay the job search. Only constant feedback from the labor market will help achieve visible results. Monitor the market, respond to vacancies, fit into real projects to restore the portfolio. Remember that failure or an unsuccessful interview is a valuable experience and an opportunity to become better.

And, of course, remember the famous quote: “If you are afraid, do not. But if you do, then fear nothing. ”

Similar Posts

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *