Discussion on:

10 ways to stall out your IT career

Not teaching/mentoring others. There's nothing more expendable in a department than the person who thinks they know everything, kinda DOES know everything but doesn't share that knowledge with others or worse, belittles those who don't know as much.

Reach out and share that knowledge. You'll be much more expendable if you don't.

In my experience, as limited as it may be, people rather hold on to what they know because they feel it offers some kind of job security (If you know what I know, what's to stop you from taking my job?) or they just feel it's not their job to teach you what you need to know to complete a specific task. I think if experienced employees shared their knowledge with other peers as needed, that IT dept as a whole would be better off.

Technology changes all the time. Need to roll with the times and learn new things. That why I love IT.

I must say this article was prepared for me. Thanks

I cannot disagree with any of the points in this article... However I think it could have been more inspiring to have been written as a positive way to show how to make your IT career take off.

Are you a career adviser, Justin? Because you spoken like one. What you, so beautifully, put in words has been my professional development path. As far as career advancement and professional development goes the jump from more technical areas/work into management is now so natural and seemingless that know-how and expertise lead technicians first to a supervising role and onto management. Of course, the goals one sets to achieve, a company' career advancement roadmap and the market tendencies are the main factors influencing the 10 don'ts you described above. Those are indeed pitfalls to avoid. Thought provoking article. It persuades one to reevaluate their careers and keep it in check every once and awhile.

Saying No too often, Being diva. Not cooperating with other teams. Being economic with the truth regarding technical details to other teams. Not reciprocating technical knowledge with colleagues that have already shared their own knowledge with you in the past. Not keeping customer contacts. Not networking with previous colleagues and old university friends.

i liked it thanks i'm dam sure this is very helpful for technical persons seeking job.

"What the future will hold" is frequently a construct of marketing spin-doctors. Be careful.

How would you like to be the world's leading expert on SegWay, or Microsoft Bob? or PCjr?

Training needs to be chosen carefully, for a real product and market, not just the hype spewed by marketeers.

Making certain your boss likes you, are at least does not dis-like you. All the tech-chops, and "soft skills" in the world will be of no use if your presence is an offense to the person to whom you answer. Of course, if your boss is a rational human being (s)he will not care about liking or disliking you, only that you know your job, are good at your job, and do your job.

I still know Lotus 123 Macros! Anyone want to hire me?

I also know VBA....

All good points. For me the issue is I want to embrace the new technologies - cloud computing, mobile app development, low-latency systems, Scala, Groovy, etc. but its finding those situations where you can really get into them that's the problem. I am decent java developer so working with Scala and Groovy would be nice. Yes I can learn them in my free time but unless you are getting to use them in the real world on real projects they will just be a programming hobby.

I am currently seeking my next role at the moment. Not much roles at the moment call for using Groovy/Scala. Also, given the current job market in the UK I would like to expand into C# (similar to Java as OO language, of course) to increase development opportunities (got a couple of months under the belt so to speak) but the C# roles all look for real experience in C#, ASP.Net, etc. As a software developer you would think my programming skills would at least be transferable into the .Net world. I am open to different software development technologies such as C#, Groovy or Scala. Alot of the time companies just pigeon-hole you as a C# or Java developer even when their role states software developer/engineer. Surely that means you can work with a number of languages/technologies to build a system as required? (as long as you are willing to learn any additional skills as required - which I am...) How can one learn a new tech skill as quick as possible so that you can say you can really use it in the real world = commercial world? Whats the best way?

Glad I read this article. Gives me a bump in the right direction.