Why Not (engineering employment) Consider a Career in IT?
By john mce
Any IT qualifications or experience in IT will help you with a career in IT, but many companies use their own IT tests from typing and calculating to logical problem solving to asses candidates. Increasingly academic qualifications are becoming less important than industry recognised ones or relevant experience, as the rate of change within the industry picks up more and more speed.
IT job titles can be complicated and confusing, but there are basically three types of role; programmer, operator and support staff.
Programmer
Also known as software engineer or developer. To put it simply, a programmer writes in code to get a computer or piece of software to complete a certain tasks. You are likely to be working as part of a team, all working on small individual elements of the overall operation. Only if you were experienced would you be in charge of overseeing a whole program.
Because the computers and software are constantly changing, you’ll be constantly learning new programming languages on training courses, and you will be expected to adapt to these changes.
Big IT companies tend to only recruit IT graduates, although smaller companies may accept an NVQ or relevant experience. Doing a work placement during your academic study will greatly increase your chances of being able to find a job in programming.
Qualification or no qualification, your prospective employees will probably issue an aptitude test, most likely to include basic problem solving using logic.
Web design less technical design & marketing.
Operator
Operators are responsible for setting up and maintaining computer systems. This may be a particular area, such as a network which connects users in an office or a database which users access.
Being an operator is a much more ‘hands on’ IT career. If things need setting up or altering, you will be under the desk moving cables and testing the IT systems.
You don’t need a degree, but any qualifications will help. An aptitude test will probably be carried out by employers, although many will supply training. Look for ‘trainee operator’ positions if you are less experienced.
Support Staff
This is the IT role which does not require a great deal of qualifications or experience. This involves helping other people with their computer problems.
Companies are usually happy for candidates to start at the bottom and learn on the job.
You could be working from a helpdesk, waiting for calls to come in from users needing support or just keeping checking that programmes are functioning correctly.
More important experience for a support role would include customer service and communication, although obviously any additional knowledge of computers would be beneficial.
John McE writes for Arc Consulting, specialist recruitment consultants for the Financial Services Industry, Insurance, IT Recruitment and Healthcare sectors.
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Ecuador: The Next Generation Travel Professionals
By Peter Lauffer
Very often I hear about new tourism related businesses who open their doors somewhere in the country. The various careers in tourism who can be studied at the local universities are in very high demand by students, who just finished their college.
In Ecuador, tourism is often considered an easy way to earn money. For this reason, new tourism businesses are created carefree and its owners seem to have excellent intentions at the beginning.
Because Ecuadorians are excellent hosts, most people think that to receive a foreign visitor is the same easy thing as to receive a good friend. Unfortunately is this perception not always right.
Sad to say that the very low level of education, combined with a practically non existing quality control from the authorities, let fail a lot of the newly created businesses. This situation often leaves disappointed investors alone with a big whole in their finances.
Too much amateurism is reigning in Ecuador’s touristic education. Beginning with the universities who teach tourism careers without any practical knowledge from the sector. There are different tourism careers available, but there are no studies about how many professionals are needed in each career.
The reality today is that a graduated has a title in tourism, but has in fact very little technical and practical knowledge about his profession. As an example, how can it be explained that in Ecuador students have to learn 2 foreign languages at the same time, often instructed by teachers who don’t even have a diploma in the language they instruct.
After graduation, the universities leave their students very often without the foreign language skills needed to start successful a career.
Other educational problems occur because most of the teachers have never worked in tourism, and most of them don’t even have the necessary contacts who would help them to know what the expectations from the industry and their employers are.
Another deficiency is that there are no controls of the graduation process itself, that means the final “tests” are controlled totally by the universities themselves. The instructors of each discipline “test” their own students.
This process opens doors for corruption and there is absolutely no control in which quality and quantity the tested knowledge was transmitted to the student.
This inadequate education in tourism has not only the effect that lots of graduates don’t find a study related job after they have their diploma, it is often a frustration for their family too.
The family often invests a lot of money in the academic work of their child, in the meaning that he or she should have a better life afterwords. If the graduated does’t find a job in his career, the family is often very disappointed because years of saved money seems to be invested badly.
The practical part of a career should be learned in a well coordinated and organized training in career related businesses. Business owners should be motivated to employ trainees, and to take the time to introduce them to the practical part of their career.
There should be exact plans for every trainee what to do in a company, depending on the level of their studies. The practical work should be, of course, part of the final qualification.
A nice side effect for the participating company would be to have an interesting possibility to pre-select future employees.
For the Ecuadorian tourism industry should it be a priority to ensure an excellent education for future professionals.
Only this way the tourism in Ecuador can have a healthy growth in future.
More and more good trained young people have to be involved in our interesting industry. They help to ensure an excellent reputation of Ecuador in the world and ensure an excellent standard of living for themselves and all of us.
Peter Lauffer, General Manager of TrueColors
Travel in Quito - Your Expert Guide for Galapagos Cruise Travel at www.galapagostraveller.com
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