The 7 Habits of Highly Effective IT Professionals
Posted March 29th, 2012
Most IT professionals didn’t have to worry about finding work during the recession. And if follow these 7 tips, you’ll never be without a job, no matter what the future holds.
1) Know your business
You may be your organization’s most talented developer or dedicated systems administrator. But if you don’t know what the business is selling or what service it’s providing, you’re not indispensable. Don’t look at things from strictly an IT perspective, but make sure you understand how your job relates to the business world around you.
2) Watch the bottom line
Your job isn’t just about systems, software or machines. It’s about helping your organization use technology to trim costs and increase efficiency. IT professionals need to focus on areas that either drive down costs, such as virtualization, cloud computing and converged networking, or on areas that help to generate revenue, such as social media, mobile marketing and SEO.
3) Get your head in the cloud
With so many traditional IT functions moving to the cloud, your company may no longer need you to flip switches, connect cables, or troubleshoot machines. But they’ll still need someone who can tell them what services are available, which ones are worth looking at and which ones they should avoid. And they’ll require people with expertise in managing a catalog of cloud services, handling subscribers, brokering agreements with cloud providers and intervening when problems arise.
4) Broaden your horizons
Besides maintaining mastery of your own tech domain, expand your skill set to include other areas of expertise. If a crisis arises in one of those areas—and the person responsible for handling it isn’t available—you may be able to step in and save the day. Plus, an employee who has more than one area of expertise is more valuable when a department is downsizing.
5) Be a translator.
Want to facilitate communication between IT and the business side, as well as earn a little goodwill in the process? Teach your co-workers to speak geek. Start a series of casual teaching sessions where you bring less savvy coworkers up to speed about the latest in tech. You can become the go-to guy for upper management when they need something technical explained.
6) Deal with data.
If your business users aren’t drowning in information now, they will be soon. Taming the data deluge will make you invaluable to any organization. IT people who can make sense of business data, safely store it, categorize it, retrieve it, and especially analyze it are highly valuable.
7) Make a name for yourself. The more people who know and rely on you—especially outside your department or organization—the harder it is to fire you. Look for projects and opportunities that cut across departments, because this builds your internal network — thus making you more valuable to the company.
And if you’re ready to practice those habits in a new and exciting position in the Bay Area, contact Bayside Solutions today!
