A PARENT’S GUIDE TO IT CAREERS
If you think your child’s future lies with the local fast-food outlets, here are 6 excellent reasons to think again
The ACDS Team
A PROFESSOR WE know was on a college recruiting visit to a medium-size Arkansas city when the mother of an 18-year-old daughter approached him with an unforgettable request. ‚ÄúPlease tell my daughter there‚Äôs no career future in being a mathematics major,‚ÄĚ she said. The professor, a physicist, launched into a polite but pointed 10-minute litany of all the tech careers in which math skills are a plus, if not a requirement.
This woman‚Äôs daughter had grown up with computers and technology, and she and her generation now lived in a different world than the one their parents inhabited. ‚ÄúFrom that experience,‚ÄĚ said our professor friend, ‚ÄúI learned that it‚Äôs not enough to educate the students. We need to educate their parents too.‚ÄĚ
Here are a handful of excellent reasons for any parents reading this‚ÄĒor any other parents you know who should be reading this‚ÄĒto get behind your young person‚Äôs foray into IT careers. Heck, you may even decide to get onboard yourselves‚ÄĒ‚Äúupskilling‚ÄĚ isn‚Äôt a major trend in the working world today for nothing!
The breadth and depth of IT careers: It‚Äôs not just coding, not just data analytics, not just computer programming, not even just the technology industry itself. It‚Äôs banking, retail, consumer goods, healthcare, education, manufacturing, hospitality, travel, communications, legal, engineering‚ÄĒyou name it. The world is quickly becoming transformed by technology, and every business is increasingly dependent upon the tech talent it employs. Even your local farmers now rely on technology. ‚ÄúYou might think my tractor is just a tractor,‚ÄĚ a farmer told us in an interview. ‚ÄúYou would be wrong. My tractor is now a computer on wheels.‚ÄĚ
Tech work can often be done remotely: One of the great benefits of working in IT is the workplace flexibility. Post-COVID, more and more companies are adopting a ‚Äúhybrid‚ÄĚ policy, meaning that today‚Äôs employees have the best of both worlds: in the office some days, working from home others. And because IT work is all done electronically, a company‚Äôs IT work can be done from anywhere. That‚Äôs why there are tech people throughout Arkansas working for companies all over the state‚ÄĒand even across the country‚ÄĒwhile enjoying the benefits of living at home.
Offering fulltime, paying positions while still learning the job: This is the advantage of Registered IT Apprenticeships, which are a key part of ACDS‚Äôs work. In the three-plus years since our first apprenticeship cohort, ACDS has helped more than 130 Arkansas employers engage some 400 apprentices in a variety of fields. ‚ÄúCompanies have had time to see how well the apprenticeship model works,‚ÄĚ says Lonnie Emard, ACDS‚Äô Apprenticeship Director, ‚Äúand I think the breakthrough is with the HR departments, who used to only consider people with four-year degrees. But today they need so much tech talent that they‚Äôre saying, ‚ÄėHey, we‚Äôve got to start doing some things differently.‚Äô And we at ACDS have shown that we can bring them high-quality people who, even though they don‚Äôt already have the tech skills, can be taught the necessary skills‚ÄĒand we‚Äôve proven that we can do the teaching. We‚Äôre even starting to work with some of our state‚Äôs largest employers‚ÄĒorganizations that aren‚Äôt used to looking at the types of individuals that we‚Äôre bringing to the table.‚ÄĚ
It pays very well: While starting salaries vary by company and occupation, Arkansas IT apprentices age 24-39 have started at salaries ranging from $32,000 to over $100,000, with average wage increases at 17 percent. Here‚Äôs a quick look at the average wage-increase percentage across eight different IT occupations for Registered Apprentices: Software Developer‚Äď26%; IT Business Analyst‚Äď4.5%; Computer Programmer‚Äď17%; Computer Systems Analyst‚Äď10%; Cybersecurity Specialist‚Äď21%; IT Generalist‚Äď10%; IT Project Manager‚Äď7%; Management Systems Auditor‚Äď10%. And, soon to come, AI-related professions, which pay a ton.
There‚Äôs room for everyone: High school grads, English Majors, business students, graphic designers‚ÄĒeveryone‚Äôs welcome. Here‚Äôs Lonnie Emard again: ‚ÄúWhether you‚Äôre a computer science student or not, a college student or not, a parent, a career changer, a veteran, a minority or rural worker, or someone who hasn‚Äôt yet found your path‚ÄĒwhoever you are, if you live and work in Arkansas, or you want to live and work in Arkansas, there‚Äôs a place for you in IT. And don‚Äôt think this is just about young people and entry-level jobs. In the apprentices ACDS has placed with Arkansas employers, we have folks who are 20 and folks who are 56.‚ÄĚ
It‚Äôs the future‚ÄĒwe‚Äôre not going back: Think about some of the other features you‚Äôve read in past issues of the ACDS Newsletter‚ÄĒlast month‚Äôs report on the state-of-the-art steel mill going up in Northeast Arkansas, for example; or last May‚Äôs interview about the initiative to make Arkansas a leader in electric cars; or this issue‚Äôs discussion of the new world of drone deliveries, and the jobs that go with it. Anyone who doesn‚Äôt embrace technology to some degree is going to find themselves increasingly left out of the conversation‚ÄĒand the opportunity.
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IN OUR EXPERIENCE speaking to young people and their parents about IT careers, one of the parental questions that comes up most often is, ‚ÄúHow smart do they have to be?‚ÄĚ It‚Äôs an almost unanswerable question, because how do you define smart? But most Arkansas parents these days have never had jobs in IT, so this is such unfamiliar territory to them that they don‚Äôt really know how to guide their son or daughter. They imagine IT and ‚Äútechnology‚ÄĚ to require such a high level of intelligence that it‚Äôs going to be a barrier for their child to get into it.
Our response to that question is, ‚ÄúThis isn‚Äôt even about intelligence, it‚Äôs about learning style and aptitude.‚ÄĚ There are so many varieties of occupations in IT. It‚Äôs not all about writing code or being an operations specialist on some kind of hardware. It‚Äôs not all about math! In our work, we focus on 26 different occupations in which creativity, design, big-picture thinking, communications skills, and other ‚Äúsoft‚ÄĚ aptitudes are at the heart of the work. So even if technology isn‚Äôt your child‚Äôs strong suit, that doesn‚Äôt mean there‚Äôs no place for him or her in IT.