Career Profile of  Mr X, CTO/CIO, 1961

How many years have you been in IT?

25+

Did you do a degree, if so, which type and where?

Yes BA (Hons) Management from IMI, also British Computer Society exams.

What was your 1^st job in IT?

Computer Operator in a computer bureau.

Would you recommend grads to travel after college or get work experience first?

Getting work experience is the most important thing.

Have you worked abroad and if so, where and for how long?

In the US for 2 months, In the UK for 5 months and in NOI for 5 months

What was your biggest career break and why?

The changing of X bank Ireland into Y Bank International, gave me the chance to build my own department and also setup a global banks IT infrastructure from scratch.

Describe your current role in brief. 

IT Consultant.

Title Project consultant

Industry, Electricity supply

Size of company, 3000+

Size of team, 4

Report to (title), Head of Operations

Technologies / applications you use. Prince 2, VMware, Oracle, Collaberation tools (sharepoint) etc.

Are you currently on Permanent or Contract status.

Contract

Which do you prefer in general and why?

Permanent, allows you to plan ahead more easily and have generally been permanent throughout my working life.

What trends do you see happening in the next 18 months - 3 years in your specific area of expertise.

Staff shortages are hitting the headlines as not enough grads/experienced people out there.

What advice would you give to grads / what would you have done differently if you could “reel back the years” career wise.

Get a Masters, its unfortunately becoming a prerequisite these days/ would have got my qualifications after leaving school.

What areas of technology would you advise less experienced IT people to focus / get trained up in the coming years.

MS products/ Oracle/ Collaboration tools/ Virtualisation tools/ Prince 2/ ITIL.

Out of 10, are you happy in your choice of career in IT and if so why?

9 Yes/ always changing so never gets boring.

What is your favourite top 1-2 technical resource websites?

http://www.theregister.co.uk

http://whatis.techtarget.com

Your feedback and comments are really appreciated.  We hope this will help Ireland’s younger up and coming IT professional’s to gain from your experience and give them more focus on their IT career’s.

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