If you work in the IT industry you’ll already know that there are good and bad things about working in the industry. On the plus side, the work is usually very interesting and very varied, which is great for those who enjoy a challenge. Demand for people with the right skills and work ethic is such that staying in work is not difficult. The pay is good for those with the right skills and experience.
However, on the down side the IT industry is a very fast moving one. A skill that is very much in demand can become old hat in just a few years. In addition, much of the work is done on short term rather than long-term contracts. This means that most people who work in the industry have little choice but to spend quite a bit of time looking for work. Those that are good at searching out the best opportunities will be very well paid and spend little time out of work.
Network to Find Job
In the past, many IT vacancies were filled by word of mouth. Up until about a decade ago the IT industry was quite a small one, it was a world in which virtually everyone knew each other. Therefore, when someone started work on a contract they would often turn to their immediate circle to make up their team. Today, this still happens, but to a lesser extent.
However, it is a way of finding work that is worth bearing in mind. It makes sense to keep in touch with people you trained with or have worked with in the past. That way you will stay up to date about what is going on in the area in which your specialization and may also be offered a job as a result of your connections.
Go Online for IT Job
However, you cannot rely on your network to find work. These days most IT work is advertised on an online IT job board.
Most general job boards will include at least some IT jobs, but you will find by far the biggest choice on a specialist IT job board. There are online job boards out there that deal only with the Information Technology industry, and these are the job boards you want to be looking at.
Each job board takes a slightly different approach. All allow you to search their jobs in some way. The best of them allow you to search by location, technology and job position. Some include the opportunity to search using salary as one of the search options. However, not all firms include a salary in their job listings. This means that if you are looking for a salary of £50,000+ and put that in the search field you could end up missing out on seeing those jobs listed without a salary.
If a job board offers you the chance to add your CV to their database, you should take them up on that. Likewise, if they provide email notification of new jobs as they are listed this is well worth taking advantage of.
