How To Become More Valuable In Tech

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Welcome to debt free in IT. I'm your host, Mike, this podcast is for anyone who's looking to get into the IT field or anyone who's looking to career change. So in this episode, we're going to look at how to make yourself more valuable for anyone who's trying to get into it field. So this episode is geared more to folks that's already in the field. But even if you're not in the field yet, but you are aspiring to get into field, you also may find some gems also. So as always, don't forget to like, subscribe, if you know someone, this may interest, please share it with them. So there's two types of people in the IT field. So you got those people that they want to just find a good job at a good company, and they want to ride that out and then retire from that company. But then you got other people that they want to make as much money as possible while they're in this field. And while they're in their career. So they want to get that bag. So this episode, like I said, is going to be geared more towards those that want to go get that bag. So let's dive into it. One of the first things I think, is good with doing when trying to make yourself more valuable is as always, this will make you more valuable in any field is personal development. So working on yourself, and being able to work with others in the field, you know, that's a good one. So there's a saying that someone told me before, not gonna say their names, but they told me that, hey, I can teach you to job, but I can't teach you to not to not be an asshole. You know, that's one of the things that stuck with me. Which if you break it down pretty much saying that, as long as you're able to work with people, and people don't mind working with you, then you can go far in the field. Because, you know, even though you got to understanding of the field or the department, you're trying to get into, you know, being wearable, if that's aware of being able to worked with, and people don't mind working with you, I think that goes a long way. So in pretty much in any IT field, you're pretty much gonna be almost 100% almost sure that you probably going to be doing some sort of support, when you're doing some sort of support, which means that you're going to be working with people that don't know anything about it far as end users, whatever place you're at work, and you're going to be supporting people that really may not be as advanced in it as you. So you're going to need a good attitude in order to work with them, then also, you're going to be working with other people in the IT department. So you may have a group of analysts that have different projects that have to collaborate and need help from you. So you're going to be will have to work with those people. And sometimes you'd like to say you may get in situations where you want to lose your cool, but being able to kind of deal with everything and take it as it goes and just take it for what it is. And not taking your job home with you where it's affecting, you know, your family, and people in your household. So I think that's something that makes you valuable as you go along in your career, and as well as other aspects of your life. So the next thing is gaining confidence in your position. So if you're doing a position, let's say a desktop, or you're not pick on networking a lot, because that's the field I came from. But, you know, once you were in the networking field, you know, you have to gain confidence. Because as a newbie coming into networking field, it's kind of easy to get overwhelmed, because you're now you have kind of almost like a power, where the devices that you're working on is kind of keeping up a lot of people. So let's say if you're working on some other switch and a closet, that switch, it may be 100 computers connected to that switch, you may have a couple switches stacked together, over 100 and something ports where all of that is connected to that switch. So pretty much if you shut down the switch, you know everybody loses connection, then you know, especially if you're in a data center environment then you know one thing down there and one mistake down there is gonna shut down everything but I think just gaining confidence. And a lot of times this happens over time as you start doing more and more stuff in your field, think you start to get that confidence to where you're not afraid that, oh, if I do this, I might mess around and shut this down, you know, there's going to be times where you're going to shut things down anyway, you know, you're going to, whether it be by mistake or wrong command ran, but there's gonna be times when those happen. But a lot of times, you're able to learn from most of your mistakes, because that's what's gonna make you better. So I think just gaining confidence in your role, I think that's also going to make you more valuable. So if you find any value of this episode, you know, please like, subscribe, share this with a friend. And also you can leave comments, let me know how I'm doing. So my next tip, and don't mind, I got talking points here. So if you see me looking at my laptop, that's why I'm looking at the talking points, something to go off of. So the next thing I say, that will make you more valuable is staying up to date on some of the latest technologies. Now, I notice may be hard to do, because they say if you're working in a, in a field where your company doesn't bring on the latest technologies, your company may be a little bit behind, they may not be able to afford it. So you're not gonna be able to work on the latest technologies. But I will say, to get your hands on some of that stuff, you may be able to look at some virtual environments where you can lab it up, and kind of get your hands on some of that stuff. Because what you want to be thinking about is your next move, especially if you're in it to get money, it's always about your next move, you know what you can learn to make you more valuable either at your company, or either at the next company. So you know, just, I think staying up with those latest technologies, some of the latest trends, and also being good on your job already, you know, just being one of those A plus players, you know that I think that's gonna help you to go a long way. Next which is the last one that I could think of is, and if this kind of reminds me of the biggest models, 10 Crack commandments, where you say, number nine should have been number one to me. So this is number four, but it should have been number one to me, and that's projects. So projects is what's gonna, I think is gonna make you the most valuable because if you're doing difficult projects, those difficult projects, you can add those on your resume, then whenever you go out looking for another job or another position, they can look at your resume and see, oh, he's done, he's had some pretty good projects. And some of those projects may be something that they're looking to now do. So you may have implemented something. And it may be something that that company is looking to now do. For instance, let's take a look said I'm big on Cisco. So let's say Cisco has a new platform or appliance out called Ice, which is security. So let's say if he was able to help stand that up, or let's say if he was the lead on that project, and you help standard up from the ground up, then you might go to another company and they're looking to implement that same project. So I think that makes you a lot more valuable is by taking on different projects. I know sometimes you get in the field and you get comfortable. And you try to you know, you chill, you get in relaxed mode, you're just coasting where, you know, you're taking the easy projects, you know, depending on how to projects are given out. Sometimes you won't have no choice because the project just be given to you. Or sometimes they may be a choice between your group. So just sometimes, you know, that was hard project, you'd be like, dang, and you're here, you'd be like, dang, I don't want to mess with it. Those might be the projects you want to jump on, because it's going to help you learn. It's going to be a headache going from start to finish getting to that finish line, but you know, it's going to help you learn, it's going to make you better, then also you're going to have a set of knowledge that a lot of other people won't have. So when you go into another interview, something you say they say, Oh, I see you helped implement this project. And you're able to talk about it, you're able to tell them how you went from the ground up and got it running, you're able to tell them what kind of issues to look out for. I think that makes you worth your weight in gold. So like I said, projects, projects is going to be the thing that's going to get you that bag taken on projects. And then you know, now that you we came to the point where you've done did all these steps, and now you're more valuable. Now it's time to go get that bag. So the saying usually is that if you're in it for the money, then most of the time you're gonna probably be switching jobs every two to three years. Have, that's usually the range where I see people start jumping jobs, is because for some reason,

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I'm not sure why I was like this. But a lot of times at our jobs moving up from not moving from your position to a higher position within your job, a lot of times your pay raise, ain't like someone coming from the outside getting that same job, usually somewhere from the outside, they're probably going to get paid, started out a little bit higher than you for some reason, I'm not sure why companies do that, seem like it either should be even. But that's where that's usually how it's done. So a lot of times for you to get a good pay increase, a big pay increase, it may take you leaving one company, going to the next company. Now in the past, that was frowned upon you think about it when our parents was growing up, you know, it was looked at, oh, if you don't have more than three jobs in the past 10 years, they think something wrong with you. But nowadays, it's not unusual. I don't see folks with 10 jobs and they don't left jobs every two to three years is nothing really frowned upon almost. So like I said, if you want to go get that bag, that's something for you to do. So, I know this  episode was kind of short. And you know, we're coming up on the end. So if you have any questions or comments, you know, please leave it in the comment section. If you're looking at YouTube, please leave me a review. If you're listening in Apple iTunes or wherever you listen to podcast, please share this podcast and if you have a friend that wants to get into the IT field may need some encouragement. So motivation, please point on my way. Other than that, I'll see you next week.