Customer engineer seeks new career path
Q. Ever since I graduated with a "_blank"="" class="c-regularLink" target="_blank" rel="noopener nofollow">BTEC Higher Nationals Diploma in Electronic Engineering in June 1996, I have been working for the past 10 years as an IT hardware customer engineer-cum-technician, where I perform PC and server installation, upgrades, service and maintenance.
Three months ago, I was promoted to team leader to manage 50 technicians in the hardware and software units for an outsourcing service contract. I have decided to create a timeline for myself to make a career change from a hardware customer support engineer and team leader, to an IT service manager or project manager.
Can you advise what type of academic final-year and masters degrees are suitable for me to pursue, and what type of professional certifications I should possess?
Career advice from Roger Olofsson, associate director of executive recruitment agency Robert Walters:
A. My advice is that where a degree is concerned, it does not matter too much what specialization you choose. It is more important that you go for the degree because it gives you a quality stamp in terms of your academic abilities, which employers to a certain extent use to estimate a candidate's intellectual capabilities. I would suggest you look at computer science or information systems related courses rather than electronics/hardware engineering degrees as you want to move your focus away from hardware to the IS/software/services space.
I would not worry about going for an MBA or Masters degree unless you really want to, as I do not think it would add that much value to your career change and progression. When it comes to professional certifications and training, my advice would be for you to really focus on upgrading yourself, getting formal training and certification in project management, and obtaining a PMP (Project Management Professional) certification as well as ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) certification that covers service management. With these two certifications, you will be in a very strong position to reach your career transition objective.