Philadelphia IT HR Manager Encourages Students To Experiment With Technology
Vincent Palochko is the director of human resources at Linode.com. Linode, launched in June of 2003 by founder Christopher S. Aker, helped define the cloud hosting industry, and is a true leader in virtualization hosting.
What sort of education is needed to successfully do your job?
"Here at Linode, we're always looking for technical talent. Over the years, we've found that many college programs instruct on a very diverse set of technological skills; none of them, however, hone in on all of the skills Linode and other IT firms really seek in our employees. There are always exceptions, but in order to truly be prepared for the workforce, graduates should possess an intuitive knack for the technology being studied. That knack goes beyond textbooks, classroom instruction and labs."
What is the most relevant aspect of your education that applies to your day-to-day job?
"From my experience as HR director processing college grads' employment applications, I hold the opinion that most colleges teach enough about a variety of IT topics to enable the student to learn and become familiar with those topics, but can't quite flex their knowledge of those topics in an actual, production environment. Learning concepts and principles of any technology serves as a great theoretical foundation; however, actually doing what that technology enables one to do is what really matters when it comes to getting hired in IT."
"A candidate's education must be supplemented with a passion for those IT concepts being learned - through experimentation, testing, and tinkering inside and outside the classroom. It's that hands-on experience that's really invaluable because it will give the student a practical application of the concepts learned."
What advice would you give someone just starting out in the field of technology?
"In addition to the extra training and hands-on experience earning a certification demonstrates, it also shows an employer that a candidate is willing to go above and beyond the typical."
"Seek out specialized training or certifications; some great organizations have extremely credible professional certifications (e.g., CompTIA, Linux Professional Institute, Cisco, VMware, and Red Hat. More exist, but these organizations are especially credible and always stand out to IT hiring managers."
"As someone who reviews resumes as a regular part of my job, I consider college degrees in IT as commonplace, so much so, that they add very little weight to a resume. Actual experience with a commercially used programming language, operating system or network is critical."
Getting a chance to practice with the technologies you love outside of work and school and alongside others who share a similar passion, adds immense value to a worker's credentials in the IT field. The end result of a solid education, supplemented by some external training and certifications will be the acceptance of a job in the technology niche you truly enjoy. When work becomes fun and meaningful, you begin traveling on the true road to a successful career."
Christina Thompson is a freelance writer living in Philadelphia. Her work can be found at Examiner.com.
