The Universities find it hard to keep up with the pace of Tech evolution in their curriculum. So if you’re interested in the field of Tech or proficient in Computer Science without formal experience or degree this post is for you.

The field of Tech places value on your skill set over everything else. There are many high paying jobs today that require you to have just the right skills.

11 Easy Tips To Get A High Paying Tech Job Without A Degree Or Experience

1.) Get Certification

You can get a certification from an industry authoritative body or software provider. Getting a certification can help you start up your tech career. The reason is because it provides independent proof that you have gotten the right training.

2.) Put in Effort

If you are willing to work hard, you can get a high paying Tech job. If you are willing to use the internet to learn, you should easily get a tech job.

Many experts in coding learnt on their own through online tutorials. As long as you stay focused and committed to what you are learning, practice regularly, it will be much easier for you than it looks. This is a great way to build your knowledge and skills in tech.

An affordable or free online course is a good way to discover that you have what it takes to empower yourself in tech. Several courses teach programming languages free online from scratch with quizzes and assessments. Put in effort and you will get the reward of a great tech job

3.) Pick a Niche

Tech is very broad and diverse as every part of our lives depend on IT. To be successful and get a high paying tech job even without a degree or experience, you have to find what to focus on. Pick a particular category in tech and specialize in it. Figure out what you are best at and choose this.

 4.) Hands-on Practice

This is a very good way to develop your tech skills. You can develop projects, use cases and actual applications to show employers that you have Tech skills. Employers like people who can get the job done and get started from the first day.

You don’t have to work for other people to gain industry experience needed in tech. You can use your developing skills to build a personal project. Think of a product you want to use yourself like an App that does something special.

Think of a problem you want to solve with it and go ahead to build it. When you apply for your first tech job without experience nor degree, creating a piece of software on your own can blow away your interviewers.

This will show that you are good and deserve that high paying tech job even without experience or a degree.

Having a degree doesn’t equate having the ability to do things practically and employers know this. Many IT graduates cannot complete a simple task and employers don’t want this. Start doing it yourself at home. Practice, offer services to your friends and small businesses around.

There are many tasks you can take as a tech side-gig. They include technical writing, website maintenance, tech support and so on. You will make money from these while gradually better positioning yourself to land a highly paid tech job.

5.) Know the Basics of the Job

There are some tech-based knowledge that are rudimentary to specific niches and you must know them to land a job in tech. For example, coding is basic for a database manager and IT analyst. Try practicing these basics and it will allow you to gain expertise. Once you master basic skills, finding a high paying tech job shouldn’t be difficult.

6.) Network

Physical tech meetings offer you the opportunity of meeting with other professionals in the Tech field. Tech is a collaborative field and attending such meetings will help you network. You can even find a mentor to help you develop your career.

7.) Revamp Your Linkedln Profile

Over 90% of recruiters use Linkedln to find candidates. Therefore, if you must get that high paying tech job without a degree or experience, being on Linkedln is a must. You have to use your profile to position yourself to attract the right recruiters.

8.) Do an Internship

This is one way you can land a high paying Tech job without a degree or experience. Look for internships on online job boards, reach out to people you know to ask about internship openings.

An internship can help you demonstrate your skills, gather new skills and gain experience. If you do things right, you might even get a job offer from the company you intern with.

9.) Volunteer

This serves a similar function to an internship but it will be unpaid and have fewer hours. If you don’t find open volunteer positions, offer tech-related help to small businesses.

It will serve as a great resume booster and you can get recommendations at the end. You can also ask around for people who need tech help and offer services to them, then add it to your resume or CV. Like internships, volunteering might put you top of mind and you might even get a job offer from the company you volunteer.

10.) Invest in a Mentor/Coach

Look for a tech-savvy person who is willing to be your mentor. Someone who has towed the path you are looking to get into. The person will impart tech skills to you and help you settle down in the field. Or even offer helpful advice to pick a niche. This is what we do for my clients. As people who transitioned from a non-tech industry to tech with no experience and no tech related degree, we know the uncertainty and confusion you might feel. You might already know all the great reasons why you should get into the tech industry, but you still need help to decide.

Do you know that about 43% of roles in the tech industry are non tech roles? Sometimes you don’t need to learn a new skill, a simple CV revamp and Linkedin optimization can make all the difference. These are just some of the things working with a coach/mentor will do for you.

 11.) Have Soft Skills

While tech or “hard” skills are important, soft skills like communication are also important. This should reflect in your CV or Resume. Soft skills are important because you may be required to pitch ideas in front of people and convince them about your ideas, etc. This requires excellent communication skills and having this can make you land that high paying tech job.

Final words

If you have the needed skills to perform well in a particular tech sector, then you can easily secure a job without a degree or experience. So, go ahead, apply these tips and apply for that tech job even without a degree or experience.

The post How To Get A High Paying Tech Job Without A Degree Or Experience appeared first on Your Career Today.

Why should you consider a career in a field very popular for persistent challenges to women generally?

Why should you get involved in a field that is known to be non-welcoming to women of colour?

A field that has a chancy support structure?

Well, despite the negative stats surrounding tech, there is no better time to be here. We all know there is no path really easy for women of colour.

Women of colour are leading the charge in entrepreneurship.  They are using a wide range of technology to shift the culture across various industries. They are spreading their magic to make a difference in and through tech. Despite not having easy access to funding, numerous women of colour are doing incredible things in the tech space.

Tech is a field where creativity, research, discovery and innovations can be used to solve very pressing world issues. Information technology is one of the fast growing industries with more jobs available than graduates. It may not be an easy field but it can richly reward your mind, heart and purse.

Currently, there is a paucity of women in tech careers. Gender equality is a major issue in the corporate world and women remain underrepresented.

Here are some Figures

According to a 2019 study from the National Centre for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT), the number of women in computing has been stagnant at 25% since 2007. They also revealed that the proportion of women in tech has dropped since 1991.

Only 12% of all women in computing roles are Black or Latin according to the Kupor centre. Even worse in Silicon Valley, only 2% of all workers are black, latin or native American women.

Though companies are making efforts to improve this figure, it still remains disappointing. Although the percentage of African American Black women in the computing profession rose to 12.9% in 2017, more women have been leaving tech careers than staying.

Also, according to the ascend foundation on the career and economic progress of minorities in top tech companies, the number of women of colour in tech profession dropped by 13% in 12 years.

Workplace diversity statistics reported 71% men and 29% women at leading tech firms with 7% black representation.

Women of colour who make it into tech may have non-welcoming workplaces because of the low representation of women of colour. Those present are low cadre staff with limited opportunities for advancement.

Employees of colour have to deal with explicit and implicit bias. Women in colour are therefore leaving tech jobs for these reasons and more. They are challenged at almost every stage and have little likelihood of success. One way to curb this trend is for more women of colour to join the field.

As more women of colour start careers in tech, the idea of non-white female software engineers or data scientists will stop sounding weird.

Also, as more women of colour become common and not an anomaly, they will increase confidence that these careers are accessible for them. The numbers may seem currently bleak but if you are a black women interested in a career in Tech, this post is for you.

Here are five reasons you should consider a career in Tech

1.) Valuable Relationships

In the Tech industry, you’ll find people who will add value to your life. This is because the field contains all sorts of people who are looking to learn and share their knowledge with others. It will give you a sense of belonging. It will also make you a part of those striving to create something in order to make the world better. You will be surrounded by brilliant, like-minded people.

2. Representation

The stats available reveal that very few women of colour are present in tech.

Only 23 of 3,300 LinkedIn employees in 2015 were black Americans and none held senior positions. Similarly, Google employs 250 black women out of 32, 500 according to their 2014 EEO report without senior staff representation. These numbers don’t mean that the industry isn’t ready for black women to join the executives.

More women of colour who are willing to push and challenge the status quo can increase representation. Your participation can motivate more women who are currently unwilling to enter the male dominated industry.

Lack of representation will leave women of colour without role models or support systems.

3. New, Unique Ideas

As a woman of colour in tech, you’ll offer the industry fresh, unique perspectives and ideas. People of colour have different interests and you can bring this in to reach new audiences. Artificial intelligence systems can be designed to see a wider population by ensuring that systems are designed properly, to have a diverse development team made up of people from different economic and social backgrounds.

More so, the tech industry gives you the opportunity, tools and resources to make your ideas a reality. Therefore, as a woman of colour, you can take responsibility and risk to accomplish goals. Changing the industry from inside will add more women of colour, change the frat-bro culture and make the industry diverse, more inclusive.

4. Tech Careers Are Abundant

Apart from the big five Companies (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix and Google), many more tech companies abound. Many companies such as Nike, Verizon, etc are looking for tech talent. The government also has a lot of Tech job companies.

5. More Support Available

There are a lot of organizations available to help women of colour gain skills for tech jobs. They also provide social and economic support for women of colour to thrive.

Also employers are becoming more and more aware of the importance of creating diversity and inclusion programmes to impact their business competitiveness.

Final Words

As you go through the journey, be confident that you are worthy and deserving of a seat there. These reasons and more should spur you to consider having a career in tech.

The post 5 Reasons Why You Should Consider a Career in Tech as a Woman Of Colour appeared first on Your Career Today.

Thankfully, you can get a job that is high paying from the start of your tech career. This post will give you 9 of those easy tech jobs to start with as a rookie in the industry. These are all (low hanging fruits) jobs you might already be doing in your industry. So that means you just need to brush up your CV with expert eyes. And get paid more for what you may already be doing.

9 High Paying And Easy Tech Jobs To Start With As A Non-Techie

1.) IT Project Manager

IT project management is one of the easy tech jobs to start with as a non techie. Although similar to project managing roles of other industries, IT project management focuses on meeting IT needs of an organization.  You will be in charge of overseeing everything. Including planning, delegating, and executing tasks to meet the organization’s goals.

Even though IT project management is one of the highly paid tech careers, it has a low barrier to entry.

2.) IT Product Manager

The last time you browsed through instagram, did you stop to think who built the whole experience?

Did you wonder why the app has those specific colours and why ‘double tap to like’ was a cool idea?

You see, a lot of people work together to make the experience awesome and a product manager is at the core of every products core

Depending on the stage of the organization, a product manager’s job may include:

• Research
• Pitching new ideas for product and feature development
• Working with design teams to bring the product to life.
• Ensuring customer satisfaction

This is not to be confused with project management.

3.) IT Business Analyst

An IT business analyst forms a bridge between business and IT. Every organization aims to make profit and save costs. So as an IT Business Analyst, your focus is on improving IT policies, structures and operations within a company to deliver business outcomes. You are responsible for solving problems that are essential to an IT departments’ success.

4.) IT Testing Analyst

An IT Testing Analyst is one of the easiest tech jobs to start with. As a testing analyst, you will be responsible for testing products before they are packaged and released into the market for customers to buy.

This is the last line of quality control and welcomes only people who pay close attention to detail because one small slip-up can mess up everything. You’ll be saddled with the responsibility of identifying errors that have been overlooked during the developmental phase.

One the bright side, you’ll always be the first to try out new features before they are released.

5.) IT Data Analyst

A data analyst collects, analyses and interprets marketing data. Your role here is to create and identify key performance metrics and measure how effective different approaches are. You’ll also be required to do A/B testing, collect customer feedback, research and collect other marketing data. Having a combination of business, marketing, technical and analytical skills is good for this role.

6.) Digital Marketing Manager

This is another easy one you can consider. A digital marketing manager is in charge of digital and social media marketing for a company. You have to manage the company’s online presence like company websites, social media pages, advertising and others.

Your focus is to increase brand awareness, sales and customer loyalty. You’ll also look out for new avenues or platforms for digital promotion. So when there is a new site or technology released, you access if it is a good marketing solution for the company. You’ll have to be familiar with search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM).

7.) Digital Strategist

Your job as a digital strategist is to collaborate with other team members on the long-term goals and strategy of a company. You also have to recommend specific methods to implement that strategy. This job will suit you if you love collaborating with others. You’ll work closely with the marketing, sales and product teams. This job requires very few tech and digital skills like email marketing and social networking.

8.) Content Marketing Manager

Content marketing managers handle the marketing-focused content of a company. This includes writing blog posts, newsletters, and social media posts that align with the strategy of the company. They are also tasked with working with other members of the marketing team in promoting that content. You have to be able to consistently come up with new and innovative ideas for content and how to promote it. You might also need to get some skills in HTML, CSS and WordPress. Those skills will help you on this job since you will be publishing content.

9.) Copywriting

You do not need any certification to become a highly paid IT copywriter. The writing skills you already have can make you multiple six figures as a tech copywriter. You will be saddled with the responsibility of explaining complex tech words in simple language buyers can understand.

Everything from writing product descriptions, guides, email marketing, website copy etc. All you need to know is the product and the customer it was built for. Copywriting is one of the low hanging fruits in the tech industry. And as a non techie getting into tech, this is one of the easy tech jobs you can start with.

Wrapping Up

As a non-techie getting into the industry, these are few easy tech jobs to start with. To thrive in the industry, you should start learning the basic skills needed for these jobs. While on these ‘starter’ jobs, acquire the skills your dream tech job requires by taking certificate courses. You can even get to pay $0 for high profile courses when you take advantage of the right funding opportunities. There’s a whole lot you can achieve in a tech career, so get on it!

The post 9 Easy Tech Jobs to Start With (as a Non-Techie) appeared first on Your Career Today.

In this post, I share crucial steps smart people take after losing a job. This will help you get on top of the situation and turn it into a success story in as little time as possible.

4 Crucial Steps Smart People Take After Losing A Job

Step 1: They Acknowledge Their Feelings

Losing a job might make you go through an emotional roller coaster. Suppressing these feelings and acting like nothing happened is not a good way to handle things. Neither is letting these feelings take over your life forever.

Smart people know that it is okay to feel hurt. To feel uncertain about the future; to feel regret when you think of all the times you should have left; and even feel angry when you think of all the hard work you put into building that company.

Having these feelings doesn’t make you weak. Smart people have them too. What makes the difference is that they acknowledge them and move on quickly

Get help if you must. I’ve been fired from a job so I know how that feels. Being a career coach gives me the opportunity to interact with people in various stages of their careers. Including people who just lost a job. From my experience and interactions with people who just fired, I know that sometimes all you need is to admit your feelings to yourself and talk to someone who understands. This will help you move on faster.

Step 2: They Get Their Finances in Check

This is one important thing many people overlook. Losing a job means your income will take a hit. You might have to make some immediate lifestyle changes. Doing this will let you know where you stand financially and greatly motivate you to get a job to avoid starvation.

Creating a budget works all the time. When you appropriately budget the money you have, you will be more intentional about your spending. This is not the time to avoid money talks. That’s why step one is important. If you don’t accept your emotions and move on from them, you might drown yourself in alcoholism, and other unhealthy ventures that will eventually lead to money induced depression or worse.

Step 3: They Don’t Keep Their Employment Status A Secret

People treat a job loss like a shameful thing. Some people even hide it from their family and friends. That’s the wrong way to handle things.

No one will know you need help if you don’t tell them. Chances are that you have people in your network that could refer you to someone or help you with your resume. Most people have gone through what you are going through and talking about it and letting people know you are open to opportunities is what smart people do to get ahead.

Lying about your employment status won’t pay your bills. You may find that you’d get a lot of support from people to get you back on the horse. It might feel awkward at first, but it is worth it.

Step 4: They Upgrade Their Skills

You might have lost your job because your skills were obsolete. You have to make sure your next job doesn’t let you go the first chance they get. This is what smart people do that makes all the difference.

Enroll in free and paid certificate courses to help you build your resume and increase your chances of becoming globally employable.

I’ll tell you this for free. Future recruiters would want to know why you were let go from your job. But by upgrading your skills, you can prepare yourself for this.

Smart people prepare a honest narrative and practice it out loud a lot. So that it flows freely and their answers are not filled with “ums” and “erms”.

Your narrative should focus on how your past skills, experiences and recently acquired skills would be valuable to the new role you are seeking for. This tells the recruiter that you didn’t just sit back but actively upgraded your skills and invested in your development during the time of unemployment.

Final Words…

Sometimes losing a job might be the push you need to change careers, follow your dreams or realize your worth. So don’t dwell on it and host a pity party. These 4 crucial steps smart people take after losing a job will help you get an even better job in as little time as possible. Found this helpful? Let me know in the comments.

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