IT Careers

Overview The number of information technology (IT) industry job titles is wide-ranging and continually growing. New types of IT jobs and career paths have opened up as the IT industry has matured. Prospective employees in the IT industry now have a wide range of job choices. However, specific job titles and associated responsibilities vary from company to company. Fortunately, there are Web sites that summarize many of the different IT job classifications.

IT Job Title Information As the IT industry evolves, many job titles are created to fill previously unforeseen positions--from PC repair person to WAN administrator. To gain a full appreciation of the range of job titles, visit the ThinkJobs.com Web page. What kinds of jobs are available in the IT industry? What qualifications will you need for an IT position? What are the career prospects in the field of IT? Answers to these questions can be found by visiting the CompTIA Tech Career Compass. 

In the article “Tech Career Snapshots”, Sacha Cohen describes the tasks, skills required, and salary range of several technology jobs. The Web page www.mesda.com offers descriptions of job titles. Salary.com  provides a salary range for IT positions at this Webpage. The article "Prepare for an Information Technology (IT) Career" at the Microsoft Learning Webpage suggests resources that can help plan and  prepare for a specific job. At www.trackon.edu/Careers/jobs.htm, IT jobs are divided into three categories: support jobs, programming jobs, and networking jobs. Detailed descriptions of the job titles found in each category are also provided. An “IT Jobs Glossary” can be found at www.course.com/careers/glossary/itjobs.cfm. 

Additional Links Visit www.e-janco.com/Job_Book.htm for information about the book Information Technology Position Descriptions HandiGuide (Janco Associates, Inc., 2001.) This book provides detailed descriptions of 150 jobs. There are also sample organization charts for many different corporate structures. The Web site www.ejobdescription.com sells detailed IT job descriptions and salary surveys to human resources departments of IT companies.