ITCareerCoach Training - Coaching » web design http://www.it-career-coach.net How To Take Your Career To The Next Level Mon, 06 Feb 2012 01:09:27 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 6 Principles That Transform Your Work http://www.it-career-coach.net/2011/03/04/6-principles-that-transform-your-work/ http://www.it-career-coach.net/2011/03/04/6-principles-that-transform-your-work/#comments Fri, 04 Mar 2011 07:01:42 +0000 ITCareerCoach http://www.it-career-coach.net/?p=3132

six principles that transform your career

six principles that transform your work

Are you looking for a transformation in your work situation? Follow these 6 rock solid success principles that summarize what I have learned about building careers or online communities!

Whatever your industry, background or situation, these six principles will help you “Discover Your Passion“, “Do What You Love” or “Take Your Passion To Market“.

The first two (2) principles are designed to help you choose work that matches your strengths, education, training, background, skills, experience, hobbies or interests.

Principle #1 – Choose Work Based On Passion

Work is much easier or more fulfilling when you do something that you are passionate about as opposed to something that stresses you!

On the other hand, when you are not passionate about your work, you will lack the desire to excel or motivation to perform at work!

Some people don’t believe in the “Do What You Love And The Money Will Follow” principle because the picture that comes to their mind is that of starving artists who do what they love and yet cannot pay their bills.

The good news is that you don’t have to be a starving artist because you can actually do what you love and have the money follow you :-)

The first step on this path to success, is choosing work that is at the intersection of something you’re good at, something you care about and something other people in your chosen industry, niche or market need, find useful and are willing to pay for.

Read this article titled: “How The Starving Artist Achieves Career Success Using Social Media“.

Principle #2 – Learn the Most Marketable Skills

Learn the most marketable skills for the work that you have chosen to do.

Your skills are just a means to an end which usually involves meeting the needs of customers in the industry or market.

When it comes to choosing skills that you will learn, be as objective as possible and choose based on facts or data as opposed to emotions or personal opinions.

Remember that the more marketable your skills are, the easier it will be for you to find a new job, earn an income or stay employed.

Read this post titled: learn the most marketable skills

It is easy to learn the marketability of a skill, just count the number of job postings that require that skill!

For your own personal education, after reading this post, “Download the Free Report” below which describes the Top 100, Most Marketable Skills in the Online Employment Industry.

The next two principles described on this post belong to a coaching course titled: “Do What You Love“.

These two principles will take your performance to an advanced level or give you the freedom to do what you love without fear of failure.

Principle #3 – Stay Current In Your Industry

Stay current with the information coming out of your industry by reading a lot of blog posts, articles or books.

Do not neglect to read professional textbooks because the fundamental principles, concepts and techniques are often explained in great details in them.

Subscribe to and read the blog post of the most influential professionals in your industry. Nowadays, the latest, cutting-edge information is often posted in blogs before it makes its way out to industry textbooks.

Invest time and money in learning because ours is a knowledge-based economy and the most valuable currency is your knowledge, skills or experience and not the money saved in your bank account.

In other words, the more you learn and put to work, the more money you will earn … and the less you learn, the more likely you are to lose your income!

Principle #4 – Advance Your Skills By Taking Tests

Study hard but better still, take frequent tests because they improve retention, comprehension and recall and also help you excel at work by sharpening your skills!

Read more about the Benefits of Taking Tests in this post titled: How To Ace Job Interviews Using Practice Tests.

It is important that you become highly skilled because when the economy sheds jobs, the easiest jobs to cut are those employing the least skilled workers and the most likely to get hired again, are the most skilled workers!

In other words, the only safety net for your job is to become highly skilled at your work, career or business!

Remember that you live in a global economy where a job can be outsourced to a professional living in another country simply because that professional is better skilled than you.

An article by Pam Belluck of the New York Times reports a new scientific finding in the “January 2011 Science Journal” which backs up my findings about the importance of taking frequent practice tests.

Click here to read the article titled: “To Really Learn, Quit Studying and Take a Test”.

This scientific finding suggests that taking tests is good not only for certification exams or assessing knowledge but for helping people learn new information as well!

The conclusion is that students who read and take a test asking them to recall what they just read perform better than those who use traditional learning techniques!

The next two principles described on this post belong to a online coaching course or web design & web marketing consulting services titled: “Bring Your Passion To Market“.

These last two success principles are important because without marketing your ideas, skills or business, someone else who is less qualified but more visible will take the opportunities meant for you!

Principle #5 – Blog Your Way To Success

Don’t put all your eggs in one basket by depending solely on your resume and online job postings. Learn to market your career with a blog.

Blogging is the process of putting out well-researched, informative or authoritative articles on your industry. When done right, it will keep you visible to a high number of employers.

Blogging can distinguish you in a global, competitive job market by helping you develop and market a unique personal brand, which is something that employers apparently value!

The value of blogging is that it can open the communication doors between you and potential employers or customers.

As you talk or write, yo differentiate yourself from your competitors and potential customers or employers begin to value your expertise.

Principle #6 – Invest In An Online Community

Invest time, effort and money in an online community that incorporates your strengths, your blog posts and your social media networking activities.

Your online community must be built around your passion and your strengths so that members feel energized, inspired, motivated or helped when they interact with you.

If you passionately help out your community members by giving your time and expertise, they will reciprocate the favor by referring customers, employers or new opportunities your way.

Building an online community can only be described as the best publicity or customer relationship management (CRM) tool and in the end all the good work that you do will benefit your reputation, online brand, business or career as well.

Bring Your Passion To Market: regardless of how good your skills are, you must stay visible to employers or potential customers, if you want to get hired.

These six (6) principles are documented in my FREE thirty six (36) page Report titled: “The Survivors Guide To Unemployment” which you can download below.

Click here to discover your passion: or find work that is at the intersection of something you’re good at, something you care about and something other people in your chosen industry, niche or market need, find useful and are willing to pay for.

Or hire our web design & web marketing consulting services: to help you bring your passion (ideas, products, services, skills or business) to market.


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]]> http://www.it-career-coach.net/2011/03/04/6-principles-that-transform-your-work/feed/ 0 Success Principle: Learn the Most Marketable Skills http://www.it-career-coach.net/2011/02/28/learn-most-marketable-skills/ http://www.it-career-coach.net/2011/02/28/learn-most-marketable-skills/#comments Tue, 01 Mar 2011 01:47:21 +0000 ITCareerCoach http://www.it-career-coach.net/?p=3126

Learn a Top 100 Most Marketable Skill

Learn a Top 100 Most Marketable Skill


As a career coach one of the challenges that many of my clients face is that of learning the most marketable skills in the current job market.

An example is a client that I will call John who has been looking for a while even though he has an advanced management degree (MBA).

He wonders why he’s constantly getting turned down for business analyst jobs even though he is certain of this: most of those getting hired are less educated than him!

John is having a hard time seeing why despite his impressive educational qualifications, his skill sets are still not in alignment with business analyst job postings.

John’s problem is that he is still viewing the job market from his perspective and not from the employers. If he can just change his perspective, his situation will improve dramatically!

John is not alone in this regard because just like him, we also hold on to our cherished opinions until a personal crisis forces us to objectively evaluate them.

However, if John does not confront his personal beliefs or change how he approaches the job market, he may not fulfill his potential career wise!

He will have to either leave his traditional way of thinking for a more modern, objective view point or remain in his comfort zone with nothing to show for his beliefs!

New Research Data On the Top 100 Most Marketable Skills

I start off my career coaching for some clients by asking them to take an objective look at the demand for their skills in the current job market.

This is because the constantly changing face of culture or technology causes a misalignment of skills in the employment market.

So market research is needed to highlight those skill gaps which must be bridged for one to become an in-demand professional again.

In today’s career defining post, I will show you how to research the skills that are most currently in-demand so that you can get back into your game.

Did you know that the last recession and resulting layoffs was a big boost to the online job market?

To survive the financial downturn, both employers and job candidates turned to the online employment industry in record numbers at a time when the traditional employment market was grinding to a standstill.

In the fourth quarter of 2010, a report produced by an online employment agency shows that the four (4) biggest industries employing online workers were:

  1. The Information Technology (IT) / Software Development Industry

  2. The Creative / Web Design Industry

  3. The Internet Marketing Industry

  4. The Office Administration Industry

Which Jobs Are Most Indemand Online?

This report is important because it shows the most indemand skills that employers are hiring for in the fourth quarter of 2010.

This type of report will help you make decisions based on real-world data and not based on opinions or subjective interpretation of the job market.

Here are the jobs that are most in-demand based on an analysis of hiring in the fourth quarter of 2010.

#1 In-demand Job: Information Technology Industry

The information technology / software development market is the biggest employer of labor.

Fifty-nine percent (59%) of online job postings are in the Information technology / Software Development industry which primarily employs web developers, web designers, computer programmers, sql query writers, database developers and mobile phone developers.

Keep in mind that this industry also traditionally employs Information Technology (IT) business analysts, project managers and software testers who are charged with the success of software development / information technology projects.

The online employment market is weighed in favor of the Information Technology (IT) Industry and of computer programmers with PHP, MySQL, C#, ASP.NET, .NET Framework, Sql Server, Sql, HTML/XHTML, CSS, Javascript skills.

#2 In-demand Job: Creative / Web Design Industry

Creative jobs are the second most popular jobs (24%) posted by online employers.

Creative jobs may require skills in web design, illustration and graphic / web design software packages like Adobe Photosho, Flash, ActionScript, Adobe AfterEffects, etc.

The creative or web design industry traditionally hires professionals who can create logos, banners, website themes, illustrate comic books or websites, create cartoons, comic characters, interactive elements of web pages, animations or even movies.

The web design industry also traditionally employs web business analysts, project managers or software testers with strong handson domain experience in the web design / web development industry.

#3 In-demand Job: Internet Marketing Industry

While the software development / information technology industry is the highest employer of labor, the online internet marketing industry is experiencing the highest growth surge because of the increasing investment in social networking projects for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn.

What this also means is that the marketing department in many organizations are employing or spending money on social networking / social media platform projects.

So strong skills in this sector of the indusstry can put your career back online because that is where the marketing dollars are going right now!

The combined spending on online branding, media and customer acquisition, affiliate marketing, search engine marketing and social networking places the Internet Marketing Industry in the third position in the list of the biggest online employers of labor.

#4 In-demand Job: Office Administration Industry

The Office / Administration industry provides about six percent (6%) of the jobs posted in the online employment job market.

This industry hires for data entry, general office and computer skills, customer service and telephone services amongst others.

So How Do Begin To Learn A Marketable Skill?

You have read my analysis of the online employment job market based on the 2010 fourth quarter report from one of the online employment agencies, right?

My Free Report which you may download below contains more of my analysis of the top 100 most marketable skills and how to position your career to take advantage of them.

Next, practice the first of three (3) success principles that will align your skills with the online hiring needs of employers.

Success Principle: Learn a Marketable Skill

You may have your own ideas about which industries you want to work for ... but it is better to consider the industries that are most likely to hire you!

This is sometimes a question of whether you want to stay idle until your perfect job opportunity opens up or do what it takes to align your skills with the current job market and start earning an income?

Here is something to consider: learn skills that closely matches your personality, background, interests, education or training from the list of the top 100 most marketable skills online.

Download and read the FREE Report below … and if you need help with learning one of the top 100 most marketable skills, get in touch with us here.

For example, if you learn skills that align you with the software development / information technology industry, internet marketing, creative or office / administrative industry, you are making an informed decision based on data.

If your goal is to start earning an income in the shortest possible time, then learn a marketable skill from an industry that is hiring, OK?

For example, though the Information Technology (IT) industry is the highest employer of online labor, learning a computer programming skill like perl, which is not currently in top demand by employers, puts you out of the hiring game.

Whenever you learn a skill that is not marketable, you make it harder for yourself to get hired … and the less marketable your skills are, the harder you will have to work to get a job.

The Law of Numbers: Don’t put yourself out of the game by doing your own thing.

Make a data based decision by learning one of the top 100 most marketable skills today!

Download the FREE Report below and read my three (3) principles on aligning your skills with job market by learning.

When you download and read the FREE Report below, you will also learn about the top 100 most marketable skills in the online industry.

Click Here To Read the Newly Updated FREE Report

Click Here To Get A Top 100 Online Marketable Skill


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]]> http://www.it-career-coach.net/2011/02/28/learn-most-marketable-skills/feed/ 0 How To Become A Web Designer http://www.it-career-coach.net/2008/06/30/how-to-become-a-web-designer/ http://www.it-career-coach.net/2008/06/30/how-to-become-a-web-designer/#comments Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:23:51 +0000 ITCareerCoach http://www.it-career-coach.net/2008/06/30/how-to-become-a-web-designer/

Hey, I would like to introduce an article from a Web Designer at ITCareerCoach.

Be sure to leave your comments, feedback or questions using the comments form at the end of this post.

How to become a Web Designer

With the launch of the Internet in the 90′s and the boom of the dot-com era in the new millennium. Web Designers have had a ball with designing cool-looking sites for businesses and individuals. However, with the development of newer easy-to-use tools like Dreamweaver and Frontpage, as well as online journals and blogs like this one, some people are beginning to say that Web Design skills are no longer in demand.

THOSE PEOPLE ARE WRONG!!!

Yes, the availability of purely Web Design jobs when compared to Web Developer jobs, may have somewhat cooled down, however, to think for a second that Web Design careers or jobs will go obsolete is totally ridiculous.

Web Designers are alive and well, and cranking out more HTML and CSS than ever. As a matter of fact, with the rise of Web-based applications (and the lack of cool styling and imaging that comes with them) Web Designers are once again finding new bread in assisting ASP.NET and PHP developers with optimizing their sites with clear, good looking HTML and CSS to make their web projects look awesome.

In this article, I will show you how to become a Web Designer or how to utilize your Web Design skills.

Who is a Web Designer?

A Web Designer is someone who designs and develops web pages and websites for the internet. When working with Web Applications a Web Designer typically adds static content to the different sections and uses styling and formatting to make the site look clean and uniform.

What is the Job Outlook for Web Designers?

As I said before, while Web Design has somewhat cooled in demand when compared to Web Development skills, the Web Design industry as whole is definitely here to stay. As long as the internet and the World Wide Web exists, there will be a need for highly skilled Web Designers because a web application, website or blog has limited appeal until a web designer’s magical human touch is applied.

Web Designer’s Roles and Responsibilities

To be a Web Designer, you must be good or strong in the following:

  1. Strong working knowledge of HTML and CSS.

  2. The ability to understand, to some degree, programming languages like C#, VB.NET, PHP which you interface with while working on web application development projects.

  3. Strong analytical skills because working with HTML is very much like traditional computer programming.

  4. The ability to work with pages and sites on different browsers, like IE, Firefox, Opera, Netscape.

  5. Strong attention to detail. A small glitch on one page could present a wacky layout to an end user or to a user with another type of browser.

  6. Fast learning and the capability to keep up with the current evolving standards for HTML and CSS.

  7. At least some working knowledge of graphics design so you can manipulate graphic images to suit different layouts on a website.

How does Web Design compare to Computer Programmer?

In some ways they are very similar. Web Design and Computer Programming require coding, testing, and adjusting. Web Design code is usually read top to bottom and left to right. Also there are rules to what you can write in web design code just like there are rules to writing in each computer programming language. These web design rules are embodied in a SYNTAX known as CSS and HTML.

One advantage of Web Design over computer programing is the reduced complexity of web design jobs. While computer programming may sometimes not be easy, all Web Design is usually done on the front-end.

If your are designing a simple site, it is relatively easy to test it; all you have to do is click around the site and see if you are getting your expected results.

If you are a Web Designer working on a Web Application project, you are usually the last person to work on the site after all coding is done.

Compared to Web Design, Computer Programming is much more complex. You have databases, routines, functions, controls, and handles for user input and output and error handling. Computer Programmers not only have several layers to work on, but they also have the front-end to deal with and assist the Web Designer on, just to make sure that their Website displays well within the Web Designer’s styling.

One thing to note is that while Web Design is simpler than computer programming, computer programmers tend to earn more money, but that doesn’t mean that Web Designers are not well paid either. The average Web Designer salary in low cost of living areas is about $35,000 a year assuming a 2 year college degree and some experience.

Web Design Training Opportunities

Currently we are working on a curriculum to train Web Designers. Stay tuned!

About the Author

The Author is a Web Designer at IT CAREER COACH. If you would like to learn more about “how to become a web designer” Click Here to Contact Us


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]]> http://www.it-career-coach.net/2008/06/30/how-to-become-a-web-designer/feed/ 9 Is There A Future For Web Designers This Year? http://www.it-career-coach.net/2007/01/24/is-their-a-future-for-web-designers-this-year/ http://www.it-career-coach.net/2007/01/24/is-their-a-future-for-web-designers-this-year/#comments Wed, 24 Jan 2007 13:01:20 +0000 ITCareerCoach http://www.it-career-coach.net/2007/01/24/is-their-a-future-for-web-designers-in-2007/

Web Designers are the creative professionals who design “how websites look”.

According to a recent report, this is the year for web designers. And Monster.com (one of the premier job search websites) predicts a hefty 26 percent growth rate for the web design profession.
So, what?s web design and what does a web designer know and do?

Well, web designers are experts or professionals in making websites look good using graphics, HTML, XHTML and CSS.

If you are considering a career in web design, here are some sought after skills by hiring managers and recruiters:

  • You need to be strong in at least one graphics software package (Adobe, Macromedia, Flash, etc.)

  • You need to be fluent in CSS and XHTML.

  • You need to have good color co-ordination. That?s you must be able to come up with color schemes that blend and stand-out at the same time.

  • You need to be able to plan a website. Not as easy as it may sound because some websites consist of thousands of pages.

  • You need to be able to mock up a web page, design it and then develop it.

In addition to the skills listed above, exceptional web designers also know:

  • How to design accessible websites.

  • How to design websites with usability in mind.

  • How to design search engine friendly websites.

  • How to integrate websites with databases using Server Side scripting and programming languages like JSP (JavaServer Pages), ASP.NET, C#, Visual Basic .NET, PHP, Ruby, Perl, etc.

In previous posts, I mention that you don?t really have to be writing code 100% of the time to have a career in computer programming. As a web designer, your time will be spent between writing code and doing creative web design work. Each company or client will differ in how much code they expect a web designer to write.

Note that while some companies want a web designer who can do everything, others are purists in their approach and would like you to do 100% web design work. So, here is a career success tip for you.

And if you are considering a career in web design, according to this MSNBC article, this year is going to be a really good year for you :-)

To learn more about well-paying careers in web development, information technology and software development, visit here.


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