Breaking into management in IT?
Most of the time, I have advanced my career by leaving one company for another because it's so tough to move up in a single company. I either have to wait for somebody to quit, retire, or die, none of which happen very often. But trying to find a management-level technical job seems so difficult, because they all want somebody that already has management experience.
Anybody have any advice for career management for somebody with a long-term goal of hitting senior management in IT? What can I do now that would get me into a management position in a year?
Answers:
The answer will vary company by company. I'd recommend talking with your manager at your current company and letting him know your interests.
Generally, the key to getting into management in IT is the ability to truly understand the business side of the equation. You'll need to demonstrate an understanding of the finances of the operation, key subject matter expertise, and an ability to manage both people and projects.
If you're not in a position to acquire these skills, you may want to consider an MBA. But again, talking to management about wanting to move in that direction is the first step.
Being a network analyst myself and watching what my managers do and what background they have, I have one bit of advice. Keep up on the technology. My managers who have background in IT are trying to use old technology for modern problems. They do that because that's all they know. For the managers that have backgrounds other than IT, they make decisions on their own experience with IT. I site an example. They were trying to put together a database for Help Desk Call Tracking. We have about 2000 end users with about 200 - 300 calls a day come in and about 15 people trying to use the tracking system in any given moment. With numbers like that we suggested that they go with a proven software package found in the market place running on something like SQL server. They ignored our recommendation and wanted to go cheap. Therefore based on their own experience with computers and their want the purchase price to be negligible, they had the database created in MS Access. Needless to say, the database is dead dog slow, unreliable, and now they are starting to take our recommendation seriously.
Conclusion: Even if you aren't elbow deep in the tech aspect of IT, don't think you don't need to know about it anymore.
Hope this helped.
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