5 Key Qualities To Be Successful In IT

IT industry is a defacto choice for most youngsters for the monetary benefits it offers. Anyone aspiring to be in the IT industry would be successful if they recon these key qualities. If one is in college and wants to be in the IT industry, these are the skills you need to sharpen.

Passionate

Unlike other jobs, working in the IT industry warrants that you sit long hours in front of a computer screen. One must be inclined and be passionate about the problems solved. If you find it intimidating to spend your life in front of a computer, you'll never be able to succeed in the IT industry.

The only way that is going to be possible is if you are passionate about it. If solving problems through a machine excites you then this is for you. It is essential to understand your calling, not just for the money part of it. The career is not for a couple of years. Most people spend their entire life in the same job. It is even more true in a country like India.

Logical Thinking

Be it coding, testing, or deployments, you need to have logical thinking abilities. Computers, after all, is a math machine. People who are good at maths in school, naturally tend to have logical thinking. Don't go only by your grades, rather try to understand if you like working with numbers.

Many times, you need to solve a problem in bits and pieces. Your ability to think logically and rearrange the problems would define your success in IT.

Hungry to Learn

There is not another field like IT where technology shifts swiftly. Innovations and adoption of new technology are quite fast-paced and if you want to remain relevant for years to come, you should have an inquisitive mind. Appetite to learn the modern technologies is the key. Unlike a clerical job, you will have to constantly upgrade your skills and learn new technologies. It is a very competitive space and unless you keep up with it, you will not be successful. Chances of becoming obsolete is very high in this industry.

Companies are forced to move to modern technologies and stack because their customers want them to. It is neither a choice for you nor the organization itself. On-Prem deployments moved to Cloud and many organizations struggle because they had in-house talent but they didn't keep up with the technology advancements.

Communication

Communication is key to success in the IT industry. Be it in your office or clients abroad, requirements are finalized in meetings. Follow-up meetings are also routine where you firm up, redesign, rescope your work. Better communication and the ability to talk to different levels of people would make you a clear winner.

You also need to have the skill to abstract a message ranging from a peer to a manager through a Director. If you master the message abstraction you will be very successful because not everyone needs to know all the tiny details of a problem.

Team Player

IT teams succeed because they work in teams. You could be an ace programmer but you alone can't build the solution. The team succeeds if the members complement each other in skills. All the work in an IT industry is teamwork and there is no room for a brownie-point to individual performance alone. So it is imperative that you pace yourself to be a team player. If need-be take courses or coaching on it.

Teams create solutions and every individual plays different roles to augment each other in a team.

Resourcefulness

IT is an area where you solve problems for your customers using a computer. Resourcefulness becomes the key. There are several ways to solve a problem. There are several ways to write a program or test a scenario. If you are resourceful you will find solutions for all sorts of problems.

Resourcefulness is also the capacity of being able to find solutions to the obstacles either through technology or through team members. Having connections with different levels of folks in any organization comes to your help at times when you are having an issue and you are struggling for a solution.

I believe these are the five key qualities for any one wanting to be successful in IT industry