How to Accelerate Your Tech Career in 2018

This year, tech is taking increasing precedence and this means more and more career opportunities are coming up in the sector. If you want to accelerate your tech career in 2018, here are six tips!

1. Get the right qualifications

It’s not easy to walk into a tech job without the right qualifications or experience. That means you may need to invest some time and money to acquire the right skills for the job you want. Depending on your current role, it may be something your employer can help to fund.

2. Brush up on innovative solutions

Wherever you work now, you need some examples under your belt of where you’ve used tech innovatively. This gives you examples to present in interviews to wow potential employers. For example, if your present employer uses an archaic paper system to process orders in the warehouse you could create a business case for a better tech based solution - such as barcode software which speeds up picking and packing times. Having this as an example, that your employer can confirm, could help accelerate your career in the industry.

3. Network at the right events

Tech events take place up and down the US, so plan some time to attend them and make a point of speaking to influencers in attendance. Research who is attending beforehand and try to speak to them about the industry and yourself. You never know; you might impress them enough to be remembered if you apply for a role at their business in the future.

4. Take on freelance work

Building up a portfolio outside of your current role is a great way of getting experience in the tech field you want to work in. If you wish to work as an IT consultant, reach out to smaller businesses and offer solutions to them that they can then pay you to implement or, if you want to work as a software engineer, you could look into writing code or designing a site for a local company who can then provide you with a good reference.

5. Stay in the know

Tech is advancing at a faster rate than ever and in 2018 we’ll see a number of technologies that were once considered futuristic become commonplace. Voice search, drones and electric cars are just a few to mention and if you understand how these types of new and exciting tech can be used to improve a business you can quickly accelerate your career and carve a lucrative niche.

6. Become a big data expert

Big data is going to be important in 2018. Businesses such as Amazon, Starbucks and environmental specialists want the know, the how and why of everything as data is offering insight into how to improve things. You should understand how to gather, process and analyze data to give your career a boost in 2018, start applying it to your role now and you’ll have some experience under your belt.

Ready to accelerate your tech career in 2018? Try out some of these tips and land yourself the job you love.