Starting a new career—whether it’s your first job or you’re changing careers—can be an intimidating endeavor, especially in the IT field. Where do you begin looking? Which job is right for you? How much money could you make? What do you want to do with your life?
The good news is that CompTIA’s IT career path planning tool has the answers to all of your IT career questions.
What is a career path planning tool?
CompTIA’s IT career path planning tool helps you visualize your next move from beginner to intermediate to advanced IT jobs within five categories:
- IT Support
- IT Networking
- Cybersecurity
- Software and Web Development
- Data Analytics
The overview page shows five IT pros in different beginner roles for their specialties. But when you click on the box with their title, you get more details about that role.
Roles and responsibilities
Each section begins with a description of the roles and responsibilities for the job category.
Salary data
The next section on the page is an interactive table where you can find the median annual salary, the annual number of job postings, and the number of IT certifications available for each job level – beginner, intermediate, and advanced.
Lastly, you can see the number of IT certifications (CompTIA and otherwise) available and, if you scroll over the number, which ones they are. Suppose you want to start your IT career as an IT support specialist. In that case, getting certifications like CompTIA Tech+, CompTIA A+, and IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) can set you off on the right foot.
Underneath the table are the job titles and skills needed for that experience level in that category. So, if you want to get into IT, you can look for jobs with the listed titles—desktop support specialist, IT technician, or field service technician, just to name a few. You also have a list of the skills needed for jobs in this category at this level.
Planning your next move in IT
Ready to map out your future? The next section has a visual roadmap showing which IT certifications align with which career paths. We’ve included descriptions, links, and even example questions for CompTIA certifications. For partner certifications, we provide a brief overview.
The roadmap shows you all the job categories in one view, so you can see what other career paths might be available to you if you get a certain certification. For example, CompTIA Network+ and CompTIA Security+ apply to three pathways: IT support, IT networking, and cybersecurity.
Finding the right career in IT can be a challenge, but CompTIA’s IT career path planning tool makes it easier for you to see exactly what you need to do in order to attain your career goals.