You have long years of experience in the IT field and you really know your stuff. But when you go to conferences or offer to speak to local user groups, nobody knows your name and you can’t command the high consulting rates the IT superstars are bringing in. How do you establish yourself as an expert in this industry and build a reputation outside your own organization? It requires a lot more than just being good at your job.

Here are tips you can do to get yourself recognized as one of the IT elite.

Gain experience

Even though IT experience isn’t enough to get you recognized as an expert in an industry that’s filled with experienced IT pros, it is the first prerequisite. No matter how brilliant you are, regardless of the fact that you were building your own circuit boards as a kid and made straight A’s in computer science, real-world experience still counts. You probably won’t begin to be taken seriously until you’ve been working in the real world in some capacity for at least five years (10 is better).

The good news is that the form your experience takes can be flexible. It can be gained through working in the corporate environment, doing IT work in the military or for a governmental entity, running your own IT-related business, consulting, etc.

If you’re a midlife career changer, you can even leverage your experience in a different field to help build your reputation in IT. As a former teacher, I had “instant credibility” in the areas of educational technology. I was able to teach more authoritatively on IT subjects related to my field, than someone without that background. And that brings us to the next tip.

Concentrate on a specialty

The IT field has grown to the point where, as with the medical field, it’s impossible for one person to master all of it. If you try to be a jack of all trades, you’ll probably never become enough of an expert in anything to stand out from the crowd. Sure, it’s possible to be an IT generalist, but the quickest route to “fame” (and some measure of fortune) is to find yourself a niche.

When I started to build a reputation in IT, I began by specializing in Graphic design and, later branching out to Web development in general and then to the broader field of social media marketing and blogging.

You can focus on a particular product as I did, on a brand (such as becoming an expert in Web development), on a branch of IT. The key is to pick something that really interests you, something you can get enthusiastic about — because enthusiasm about your area of expertise is what others pick up on and it’s what sets the top “experts” apart from others who know just as much (or sometimes more) but to whom it’s all “just a job.” The second important factor in choosing a specialty is to pick one where there is currently no one established expert. That leads into our next tip.
- See more at: http://akinbabatunde.com/how-to-become-an-it-superstar/#sthash.1juMIKDb.dpuf

#Nice write-up, Concentrate on a specialty will make one to have more knowledge on a particular field than having little knowledge in all.

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