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Myths About Working In The IT Industryby Ben on January 25, 2012 edit

I’m sure af ter working in the IT industry f or some time, you’ve come across somecommon f eelings or conceptions about what it ’s like to work in the IT industry.Some of them are true, some of them aren’t. In this article, I list a f ew of thecommon misconceptions and myths about working in the IT industry.

Myth #1 – Everyone Is Private And Lacks Social Skills

It ’s a common thought that every person who works in IT is a silent, privateperson with no social skills. Possibly because this is how it ’s portrayed in movies– the token IT guy is a dweeby guy with no social skills who stays at home all dayplaying computer games.

However, as you may have realised, working in IT gets you working with all kinds of people. I work in the ITindustry in Australia, and it ’s a very multicultural industry. Sure, the IT industry hasn’t been around as longas other industries, but there is a large variety of people – young, older, Indian, European, Asian, Australian,men women, all kinds of people with very dif f erent skills and personalit ies. So, not everyone is private andlacks social skills.

Myth #2 – You Can Fix Any Computer Or Electronic Device

You probably get asked this all the time f rom your f riends and f amily – “Hey, you work in IT, can you f ix mycomputer?” Or, “Hey, you work in IT, can you show me how to work my DVD Player/TV/alarm system/otherelectronic device?”

Yes, you may be able to f ix them or show them how it ’s used, but this probably isn’t because you work in ITand probably isn’t true f or everyone who works in the IT industry. It ’s more of an individual thing.

Myth #3 – All IT Professionals Do Is Write Code At A Computer

It ’s commonly perceived that all the work that people in the IT industry do involves sitt ing at a computer f oreight hours a day writ ing code. Yes, this may be your job, or you may have done it in the past, but it ’s notwhat everyone does. Testers, business analysts, project managers, team leaders, technical writers, and alltypes of inf ormation technology prof essionals have dif f erent jobs and not all of them involve writ ing code!

Even as a programmer or sof tware engineer, you may not write code all day. You may also perf orm unittesting, design systems, write documentation, create diagrams and other tasks involving your role.

Myth #4 – All The IT Work Is Being Sent Overseas In The Future

A popular topic in the IT industry at the moment is the concept of of f shoring or outsourcing. Essentially itinvolves sending some of the IT work that a company needs, to another company located in anothercountry- hence the term “of f shoring”. Most of the time the work is sent to India or China, primarily becauseof the lower cost of operation.

People who read articles or newspapers may hear about this concept and think that there will be no morework lef t in their own country f or IT prof essionals. I don’t think this is true. Most of the work being sentoverseas at the moment involves:

System or inf rastructure support

Sof tware development

Networking or hardware maintenance

Even so, many of these roles still remain local, and there are still other jobs that are remaining local,especially ones that are needed to interact with business users regularly.

Myth #5 – Bigger Companies Are Always Better

People may get this impression f rom the movies or TV shows – working f or a bigger company with a biggerof f ice building is always better. However, this probably comes down to the many f actors:

The actual company being considered

The individual that works in the IT industry

The role they perf orm

The country or city they work in

Current economic and other f actors

These f actors can af f ect how good it is to work at a particular company or how good a particular companyis f or hiring IT workers. It may be that a bigger company is better than a smaller company in someinstances, but it ’s not a set rule or something that’s always true.

Well, there’s f ive myths about the IT industry that you may have heard about and why I think they’re nottrue. What are your thoughts? Post them in the area below!

For more IT career t ips and inf ormation on how YOU can improve YOUR IT career, visit Complete ITProf essional!

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