The Information Technology career field draws people from many industries. If this is your first career or your third career; here are a few tips on how to be awesome at IT Admin.
Most IT Admins are not programmers. Learn at least one programming language fluently. For those entering college that means taking the computer science route over the much easier IT administration programs. This experience makes you marketable for development and administration paths. Having a programming background sets you apart, helps you to understand systems more clearly, and helps you devise more complex and automated solutions.
Many IT Admins have poor typing skills despite spending a considerable amount of time drafting emails and documentation. Master the use of keyboard shortcuts. Learn to function using laptop touch pads rather than a mouse for daily work. You will be able to produce rings around others. Combine these skills with programming abilities can be as artful as a concert musician.
Develop and maintain a solid set of foundational knowledge. Your ability to recall foundational topics will increase your learning speed and impress your coworkers. The nice part about foundational knowledge is that most of your peers are familiar with these topics and rapid recall of foundational information is a true sign of mastery (demonstrating you know what they know; only better). Peers and customers will lose faith in your abilities if you repeatedly demonstrate a lack of foundational knowledge.
Study, study, study. Lifetime learning and top performance are directly related. Be prepared to spend a considerable amount of time reading, training, and testing.
Learn to be good at stepping out of your comfort zone. Be ready to take on assignments and volunteer for tasks that are a stretch. Don’t wait to be an expert to dive in to support a new technology. Jump first and learn as you go. Don’t be that person that sticks to what they know and avoids challenges that require hard work and focused learning to be successful.
Excel at the small stuff. Show up on time, follow guidelines, log time, meet training deadlines, stay on top of things, and keep your promises. Small things are often the line between average and excellence.
Develop deep technical knowledge on a few technologies while attempting to have high-level knowledge on a broad range of topics. You can’t be an expert at everything but be an expert in something. Being a jack of all trades and expert of none is mediocre at best.
Keep up to date on technology and the industry. My primary source for industry news is through following industry leaders on social media.
Be prepared to work more than 40 hours a week. Those that excel are working overtime and committing a large portion of their personal time to study and related personal projects.
Remain outwardly helpful and inclusive but never lose sight of the competitive nature of IT. There are only so many high profile opportunities and projects. There are only so many opportunities for advancement. There are only so many promotions and incentive bonuses each year. Make no mistake that you are in direct competition with your peers. You are in a friendly battle over limited resources. That means being first to volunteer, being vocal about your desire to take on high profile tasks, working longer hours, taking less time off, studying more, etc.
Learn to be vocal on remote meetings in an impactful way. Having a voice in remote meetings can be critical to developing your internal reputation and network. That means taking a few minutes to prepare prior. Asking smart and constructive questions. Active listening for opportunities to help others and volunteer. Being confident enough in your knowledge to actively participate in remote discussions.
Make it a habit to take personal responsibility in the success of the solutions you support, projects, team, and your organization. Too often we are tempted to coast along, helping when asked, but not truly taking ownership of the situation. We focus on our tasks but overall success is someone else’s problem. Step up and take ownership of making everything you touch a success to the best of your abilities.
Be willing to ask for help when you are in over your heard. At the same time you need to be good at finding solutions on your own. I often ask myself, can I find the answer online or in the technical documentation? If so is the situation time sensitive? If the answer is hard to find or if the situation requires a fast response then ask for help.
Learn to balance working independently and collaboratively. Take control of your work and career; treat it like your own private consulting business. You determine what needs to be done and you make it happen. Never be in a situation where you are waiting for someone to feed you work or assignments (be proactive). At the same time; seek out opportunities to collaborate with others. Be capable of doing everything on your own yet always looking for ways to share the load and the spotlight with others.
Don’t be too slow to change jobs when you are in a rut. Most companies have 3-4 tiers for technical employees. There is a pay range for each tier. Moving into the higher tiers becomes increasingly difficult. Most years result in a standard raise or review with little opportunity for promotion. If you can’t get promoted in the next 2-3 years it may be time to bounce. Your best time for salary negotiation is during hiring. After that you lose negotiating power. If you have been in the same role for 3-4 years, if you are the top go-to person, if someone higher on the pay scale needs to quit or die for you to get promoted then it may be time to find something new.
Don’t dismiss remote work, travel, and relocation to expand your career. Unless you live in a big city your career options will be increasingly limited if you confine yourself to traditional positions in your home town.
Don’t get lost in the work. A common misconception is that working hard leads to greater recognition and rewards. Being a successful IT Admin is largely due to relationships and proactively involving yourself in high profile (high impact) activities. Relationship building is increasingly important with the increase in teleworkers. Nobody cares how hard you worked. They care about what you accomplished and peer recognition.
Focus on high profile and high impact work. Every company needs people in the trenches doing largely thankless work. For example, supporting legacy technology and services that fly under the radar. Constantly seek out projects and roles involving high profile solutions to accelerate your career. You can be the best mainframe support person on the planet but the accolades and promotions go to those supporting the shinny new tech.
Don’t just do the job you were hired to do. Consistently focus on evolving by taking on new responsibilities, volunteering, leading, planning, instructing, and speaking. Be involved in many things. Become the subject matter expert on internal processes and tools. Become indispensable. Diversify.
Always perform the role that you aspire to now. If you are a Level-2 and you want to be a Level-3; begin emulating a Level-3 as much as possible. Take on L3 responsibilities, spend time with L3 people, dress like a L3, and talk like an L3.
Network and seek out mentors. Try to find mentors who are 1-2 levels above you in your organization and at least one industry mentor who is close to your dream job. Mentor others as well.
Public speaking. You need to be comfortable with public speaking and have speaking experience to grow. Join a speaking group like Toastmasters. Actively seek out speaking opportunities. Repeated exposure will help to increase your confidence and iron out those jitters.
Find a way to teach others in a formal or informal setting. Teaching is the most rapid way to develop expertise. The ego fueled preparation and classroom questions will dramatically increase your knowledge. By ego I mean bruised ego; students will draw out and feed on your weaknesses.
Learn to be responsive. So many technical people are unresponsive or slow to respond to emails and other forms of communication. Develop good habits and email management techniques so you can respond quickly to managers, peers, and customers.
Being responsive does not mean being “on” all of the time. Find ways to be responsive to priority requests while being free to unplug on a regular basis. The best IT Admins learn how to unplug without appearing to drop off the radar.
Don’t shy away from reading. Read technical documentation and read you damn emails. Technical people are notorious for not reading instructions and emails. Read to gain a distinct advantage. RTFM
Attention to detail is your friend. Master following instructions to the letter. Pause to read popup messages. Don’t skim over the stuff you don’t understand or get in a rush. Take detailed notes. Your ability to follow complex written and verbal instructions are critical to your success. Most technical issues result from human error stemming from a failure to understand and execute instructions properly.
Don’t break the rules. Ignoring the rules is often an act of peer pressure, laziness, or greed. Rules make life more difficult. Things are so much faster and simpler when we ignore the rules. Following the rules is hard. When others break the rules with no apparent consequence it is easy to get swept along. This is further compounded when there are financial or other incentives to breaking the rules. In IT this often means unauthorized changes, padding metrics, misreporting hours, cheating on internal training requirements, ignoring code of conduct guidance, and gaming the system. These actions appear innocent on the surface but in the light of day they can ruin careers. Maintain a high level of professional integrity.
Study emotional intelligence. The days of the antisocial computer genius are over.
Focus on broad impact. Do your day job well but remain focused on taking on responsibilities that impact a broad audience. That means volunteering for team and department level tasks, taking a lead role in internal community groups, developing documentation, and any activity that has a resounding impact beyond your day-to-day bubble.
Help others to be successful. Mentor, train, and volunteer. In the sales world they say “Always be selling”. In IT consider “Always be helping others”.
Create an audience. Build a brand. Anything you can do to create a fan base. That means speaking at conferences, teaching, blogging, moderating or leading a forum, creating a YouTube channel, or even a commanding social media presence. A large public following creates a level of validation that is hard to replicate in other ways.
Be present in body and mind when it counts. Pay attention during important meetings. Be thoughtful in your use of vacation days. Also, sick days are for sick people. Avoid the trap of taking “mental health days”. Authorized absenteeism has never eared anyone a raise. You cannot excel at work if you are never at work or checked out mentally.
Master the art of the hustle. Get good at finding additional work and opportunities through networking, mentor relationships, and internal community group participation. Cast a wide net. Volunteer and reach out to others directly and track your requests so you can follow up. This of this like making sales calls. Few sales are made on the first call and each additional call to the same customer increases the likelihood of success.
Make sure you are actively using your super powers. Do you have a special skill, education, talent, or super power that is sitting idle? Is this something that isn’t being utilized or respected in your current position? You need to position yourself to take full advantage of every tool at your disposal. You may be an amazing programmer but are not given an opportunity to code. You might be a certification rock star in a company that does not value personal education. You might have a security clearance or special license that could mean higher pay and improved retention in another role or organization.
Prioritize getting hired by the largest and most respected companies in your industry. If you are doing the things I discuss here, you should have no problem getting hired at a top employer with persistence. By persistence I mean targeted networking, posting for positions with your top 2-3 once every few months, and remaining focused (not deterred by a few rejections). The impact in terms of pay, benefits, opportunities, respect, and personal job satisfaction are tremendous.
I would love to hear comments on other skills or tips for becoming a successful IT admin.