Career advice part 2
A student wrote to me: “I am a first year college student in Finance and Banking. Even I like to study Information Technology but in my country, the Finance and Banking jobs have better salaries and considered more prestige than programming and testing. I am not sure which career to choose. Please advice.”
Answer: The most important factor to determine your career is your passion on what you want to do. As college student, you must make decision and plan your career according to your preference. Finance and Banking are good careers, especially in developing country. There are many opportunities in both local and global companies. Although the financial crisis and the oversupply of workers in developed countries make these fields less desirable than few years ago, but it may not affect the job market in your country as the economy is still progressing.
For the purpose of career planning, you need to look further into the future. For example, if you work in Banking and Finance then ten years from now what would you be? Will you be a customer services? Will you be a loan officer? Will you be a financial analyst? Will you be a manager of a bank? How much would you make five years or ten years from now? What would be your career in Banking? What would you be your career in Finance? These are questions that you must ask yourself and build your career plan to help you achieve your professional goals.
Information Technology (IT) is a fast growing industry. In the past fifty years, IT has been major drivers of economic growth and job creation all over the world. Every country is focusing on IT as the way to increase global competitiveness, solving unemployment and creating more jobs. There is a shortage of IT skilled workers all over the world so the future is very good for IT students. In countries like India and China, IT is the most desirable career choice among young people and IT jobs pay much higher than others. It seems the IT industry in your country has not achieved the prestigious status as in India or China yet but it may soon. When the number of skilled IT workers grows to a certain number, it will attract more investments and businesses then change will happen. When students can turn good ideas into entrepreneur actions and start their own companies, the industry will grow fast. By that time, people will be more creative, self-confident in whatever they do and the job market will expand. When students develop their entrepreneurial skills with new mindsets then your IT industry will grow faster than you can imagine.
My advice: As long as you put in your efforts and your passion, it does not matter which field that you choose, you will do well.
Sources
- Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University
