Non-IT job but plenty of IT Experience. What do I do?

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Hi folks

I was wondering could anyone help me. I work within an academic institute in one of the support departments. It is a web development section and my job is to act as a personal assistant for one of the Institute's web developers who is disabled. However since I have a degree in web development and have a good understanding of .NET technologies I have been acting as a mentor for the team in relation to .NET issues. I basically convert asp scripts to C#.NET and build webparts that are integrated into Sharepoint 2007. I love what I do but as you can imagine it is not my actual job. My manager thinks I should go for certification. Any ideas? Could I call this experience?

 

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you most certainly can
and if your manager is behind you you shouldn't have too many worries with references either
perhaps ask if they can officialy expand your job function in anyway to encompass what your actually doing to make it more official

certs are one way to help back up your experiance yes, and they would help out on your cv if you feel the lack of an it specific job function may cause you problems

 

Your job, regardless of what you were hired to do or what it states on your contract of employment, is what you do in any given day. Judging by the above, you are already working in IT.

Now if you want to move more into IT and do less of the PA stuff, you need to make the powers that be aware of that, in no uncertain terms. And yes, certs will definitely help to underpin your existing knowledge and experience and will also be an attractive addition to your CV for potential future IT roles.

Good luck!

 

I would say a large part of my job in any given day is centred on .NET development. If a job comes up in my own place I will probably go for it. If not I will probably move on. I know that a lot of the reasons I am doing this sort of stuff is because no one else is familar with it and I have a great working relationship with the rest of the section.

 

That is exactly how people used to get into IT, their job role just led them there because they were the obvious person to take on that role. Now people think they can buy their way in, but of course they can't. The opportunities that one is confronted with in life, are generally tailored to ones talents. Make people aware of where you want to be heading and be positive and it will happen, sooner or later

 

Thanks for the tips. Something I am negative about is the fact that I am nearly 30 and do not have a good degree mark (3rd) and maybe I need to go for Microsoft Certification (MCTS web) to salvage my qualifications and show I am capable of something. I have this impression that lots of graduates who get 1st class honours but have no social or practical skills end up getting the jobs. I have also considered doing a PGCert but to be honest I am sick of academic qualifications. I did 8 years between a National Diploma, a HNC and a degree and do not want to go down this route again. I am good at practically doing something not writing a thesis pretending I know a lot about the topic.