CONSIDER THIS BEFORE ENTRYING INTO ICT!
Considering a career in IT is a little like negotiating a life long marriage - there are many ways in, it can be confusing and there are different opinions as to the best route - but once you've found your route it is very satisfying. One of the things that can make an IT career both exciting and daunting is the fact that there is an increasing rate of change in all areas of the field. This can make some skills irrelevant very quickly or over-emphasize others, so a well informed choice requires research.
EMPLOYMENT IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
There are numerous employment areas: quality management and standards, education and training, research, software testing, database design, configuration and change management, systems development, web design and so on.Despite the bad publicity caused by the dot.com crashes of the past few years there are still rewarding careers to be had in IT - temporary slumps in IT recruitment are just that - temporary.
for more on this checkwww.bcs.org

ICT CAREER OVERVIEW

• ICT Engineering is a very large profession. Almost two million people are employed in this country as engineers, and the field will continue to expand as long as there are technical problems to solve. Engineers are problem-solving people who invent new products and make things work better, more efficiently, quicker and less expensively. They turn ideas into reality. Engineers have a variety of career possibilities from which to choose and may specialize in research, consulting, planning, design, manufacturing, construction, management, teaching, writing, or sales.
  Where can I work?
  Silversoft; IT Engineering graduates have excellent prospects for finding employment in private industry, government, military service, or academia.
  E-mail, personal computers, and the Internet: These products of the information age have become common currency among working professionals. They make your life simpler by enabling faster communication, providing tools for more effective work, and giving you access to vast information with the click of a mouse. But they also introduce a risk factor that isn't totally within your control: If your computer fails or the network connection goes down, you lose time and possibly money.. IT specialists create such products and set up and maintain such systems. Their work varies widely:
  They upgrade your computer software;
  get your office computer network, or your computer, up and running again after it crashes;
  set up and maintain the servers on which your company's internal applications run;
  create and customize the software products you use;
  build websites;
  And build and maintain the databases that you rely on to gather information to serve your customers.
  They are addressed differently, depending on their area of expertise—engineer,
  programmer,
  website producer,
  And network administrator, to name a few.
  The range of IT jobs is vast.
  . But no matter what job they do, all IT professionals focus on improving the usability and efficiency of technological systems and processes. Their goal is a smoothly functioning computer network—free of bugs, glitches, and interruptions—that provides an effective flow of information so the company can keep on improving its work processes, customer retention and acquisition, and other aspects of its business.
  On-the-job experience can substitute for either academic credential, though for people just entering the job market, a degree is a tremendous advantage. Computer science majors and MBAs in particular might consider a minor or double major in a second field. Though not required, this additional credential can be useful, particularly when working in IT for non-IT companies. For example, biology minor will prove very handy to a software developer working with an insect database at a university research center. Because IT is part of so many industries, a secondary field can be anything that interests you—film, chemistry, history; whatever your interest, it’s likely that it will complement an industry searching for IT workers.
  Need to continue learning .Education is not a process that ends when you land a job. Part of working in IT is learning new technologies. Since the field is constantly changing and evolving, today’s hot tech skills identified by Dice.com—Java and Linux—are just that. Next year, the list will change. Even today, the list is in no way complete.
  You might wonder: Is a job in IT a mistake? Though the trends may sound bleak, they don’t reflect a decrease in the use of information technology. In fact, because hardware prices declined more steeply than investment, the seemingly dismal trends actually reflect growth. The computer infrastructure is growing, as is the need for new software and new people to program and service equipment.
• 
  . Despite the downturn in IT-intensive industries, there is still demand for highly skilled technical workers, particularly in non-technical economic sectors. back-end and front-end work. Back-end work involves supporting networks and databases. Front-end concentrates on improving the user-interface realm, such as the design and navigation of a website. Though careers in IT depend on the needs of a company, some of the more common IT jobs are described below.
  Software Engineering: Software engineers are programmers who write the code that makes software products run. In a traditional sense, they design, develop, and debug application software—the programs you use for word processing, managing your finances, or learning foreign languages. However, as software becomes increasingly Web-enabled, engineers' work increasingly focuses on Internet tie-ins.
  Network Engineering: Network engineering involves building and maintaining a company's back-end technology. Network engineers implement a local area network (LAN) for intra-office communication and a wide area network (WAN) to support an Internet connection, and they make sure that all workstations, hubs, servers, routers, and switches work.
  Network administrators and systems-support staff help improve a company's efficiency and output by building and upgrading employees' computers, downloading software, backing up information, setting up e-mail accounts, and so forth.
  "Net admin" staff also spend a significant amount of time responding to emergencies such as hacker attacks or virus threats, troubleshooting new applications, and fielding a never-ending barrage of computer-related questions from staff members.
  Database Administration Companies: conducting e-mail and direct-marketing campaigns maintain huge databases on customer preferences, purchase histories, and demographics. Using this information, promotions are devised based on customers' previous behavior.
  Database administration includes back-end support for this information banks.The database administrator (DBA) develops, implements, updates, tests, and repairs a company's server database. Since the database stores information on thousands—even millions—of customers and potential customers, maintenance is a formidable task that often requires a project team. The DBA is responsible for monitoring performance, archiving and backing-up information, and assuring the security of the confidential information stored in the system.
  Web Production and Development: for a company to establish an online presence, it must create and maintain a website that communicates its mission and promotes its product.
  Web producers: translate the management's vision into a graphically designed, HTML-coded website. They are also responsible for posting, updating, and quality-checking content on websites. Cooperating with graphic designers and a team of Web developers who code the content,
  Web producers establish objectives, goals, and plans for the site's future.
  
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