Own Your Tech Career

Own Your Tech Career: Soft skills for technologists is a guide to taking control of your professional life. It teaches you to approach your career with planning and purpose, always making active decisions towards your goals.

Summary

In Own Your Tech Career: Soft skills for technologists, you will:

• Define what “success” means for your career
• Discover personal branding and career maintenance
• Prepare for and conduct a tech job hunt
• Spot speed bumps and barriers that can derail your progress
• Learn how to navigate the rules of the business world
• Perform market analysis to keep your tech skills fresh and relevant

Whatever your road to success, you’ll benefit from the toolbox of career-boosting techniques you’ll find in Own Your Tech Career: Soft skills for technologists. You’ll discover in-demand communication and teamwork skills, essential rules for professionalism, tactics of the modern job hunt, and more.

About the technology

A successful technology career demands more than just technical ability. Achieving your goals requires clear communication, top-notch time management, and a knack for navigating business needs. Master the “soft skills,” and you’ll have a smoother path to success and satisfaction, however you define that for yourself.

About the book

Own Your Tech Career: Soft skills for technologists helps you get what you want out of your technology career. You’ll start by defining your ambition—whether that’s a salary, a job title, a flexible schedule, or something else. Once you know where you’re going, this book’s adaptable advice guides your journey. You’ll learn conflict resolution and teamwork, master nine rules of professionalism, and build the confidence and skill you need to stay on the path you’ve set for yourself.

What’s inside

• Personal branding and career maintenance
• Barriers that derail progress
• The rules of the business world
• Market analysis to keep tech skills fresh

About the reader

For tech professionals who want to take control of their career.

About the author

Microsoft MVP Don Jones brings his years of experience as a successful IT trainer to this engaging guide.

Table of Contents

1 Own your career

2 Build and maintain your brand

3 Network

4 Be part of a technology community

5 Keep your tech skills fresh and relevant

6 Show up as a professional

7 Manage your time

8 Handle remote work

9 Be a team player

10 Be a team leade

11 Solve problems

12 Conquer written communications

13 Conquer verbal communications

14 Resolve conflicts

15 Be a data-driven, critical thinker

16 Understand how businesses work

17 Be a better decision-maker

18 Help others

19 Be prepared for anything

20 Business math and terminology for technologists

21 Tools for the modern job hunt

Review

“Valuable advice for every stage of your tech career.”- Lee M. Cottrell, Pittsburgh Technical College

“A must-have book for those interested in pursuing a successful andsatisfying IT career.”– Irfan Ullah, Shaheed Benazir Bhutto University

“A unique book on how to build a successful tech career and lead asatisfying life!”– Ed Lo, Uber Technologies

“I recommend the book to everyone!”– Markus Braasch, Credit Karma

From the Author

After almost thirty years in the tech industry, I realized that there was a TON of stuff I’d learned that I wished I’d known at the outset—or honestly at any point along the journey. This book was intended to help capture some of those things. In many ways, this book is the spiritual successor to my self-published book, “Be the Master,” which posits that we all have a responsibility to define our own success, achieve it, and then use our success to help others achieve theirs. While this book shares my experiences and anecdotes, it’s done very much from the perspective that YOUR success is YOURS. Your path will be our own, and your destination uniquely yours. The book isn’t intended to be a prescriptive task list, but rather a set of perspectives for you to consider. It’s all about developing specific soft skills, becoming a career owner, and building business acumen, all to help you open the doors you’ll find along the way and maximize the opportunities that make sense for YOU. Much of this book is a distillation of dozens of career ownership workshops I’ve led over the years, bundling together the material that had the most long-term positive impact on my readers and workshop participants.

About the Author

Don Jones is a 30-year veteran of the IT industry, and has written dozens of technology books, spoken at hundreds of conferences, and helped thousands of people amplify their technology careers. Don now writes and speaks about career management and ownership, and founded his Ampere Club project to help technology professionals help each other boost their careers. You can connect with Don on Twitter and LinkedIn @concentratedDon.