Switching Careers: From techie to business domain

Some of the best jobs in the market in 2019 are available in the technology sector, mainly IT related. IT offers lucrative careers and will continue to do so as the technology keeps evolving in all domains. Generally, IT graduates can choose several career opportunities such as Web Developer, SEO Expert, Data Science, System Analyst, Software Engineer, and more.

IT professionals can also be promoted as IT directors, managers (marketing, digital project, or social media, CMS), or supervisors. In most cases, it may take an average of 5 years and up before you can have a higher position in a company for IT graduates.

Moreover, it’s a challenging job for most IT professionals to align their skillset with managerial roles because of their technical experience. As we all know, IT professionals usually perform technical work and they are not often involved with leadership roles. In a leadership role, you are not responsible for the work but you are responsible for the people who are responsible for work, which is both challenging and an opportunity to take on more responsibility which is both financially and mentally rewarding.

Why techies would want to switch careers to business?

It is close to impossible to pinpoint the specific reasons for wanting to switch careers from tech domain to business, but some of the possible reasons are lack of interest in developing further tech expertise, boredom from the current unidimensional job, being more involved in communicating with team members or clients, taking on better paid managerial positions, and some decide to use their knowledge and expertise to start their entrepreneurial journey.

How to switch careers from tech?

1.   Inter-department promotion

Getting promoted to a position of team leader or associate manager is a natural stepping stone towards taking on a more challenging role, provided you are qualified for the position. This type of promotion generally opens up when your direct manager or team leader switches his/her job and that position is now open and up for grab and companies prefer to promote internal employees who understand the process. But these promotions occur in a small team.

As a team leader, you become responsible for communication between the associates and the senior managers, and project management. Even though it’s still in tech domain but the responsibilities tend to shift more toward the management side.

2.   External department switch

If you have been working as a web developer, UI/UX designer, or tech position that requires expertise, the same knowledge can be extremely valuable when dealing with the clients. Client Manager position or even role as Business Development Manager if you learn how to attain more clients is also a high paid and a valuable position.

3.   Creative Job: Tech Writer

A tech writer is an expert with technical documentation, content, and creates relevant information for the readers. Many tech experts in the tech industry run a blog or Vlog to share their knowledge about the niche. Even if you don’t run your blog, there is a great demand for quality content creators with specialized knowledge. If you have worked couple of years in SEO or Mobile App development, you can share the insights, tools to use, and update on what is happening in that industry.

4.   Opt for business-oriented master’s degree

There is a plethora of mixed opinion of whether engineers or techies should opt for an MBA or not. It’s them who make the world a better functioning place and solves real-world problems but they make bad managers. So if the long term goal is to get into management, start your own business, or handle the business side of things like operations, strategy, or marketing, an MBA or business related masters is the way to go.

Good Read: MBA vs MSc Business

Now should you opt for a regular MBA, part-time MBA, or an online MBA largely depends on your goals, budget, and the amount of time you are willing to dedicate.

You might also like this: How to start preparing for your MBA