This podcast discusses the vast job opportunities available in the IT industry, particularly for entry-level positions. It highlights the booming nature of the IT sector, the accessibility of training programs, and the potential for rapid career advancement without the need for traditional degrees. The speaker emphasizes the importance of skills over formal education and provides insights into various roles available in IT, along with resources for training and job support.
This podcast discusses the vast job opportunities available in the IT industry, particularly for entry-level positions. It highlights the booming nature of the IT sector, the accessibility of training programs, and the potential for rapid career advancement without the need for traditional degrees. The speaker emphasizes the importance of skills over formal education and provides insights into various roles available in IT, along with resources for training and job support.
Takeaways
Sound Bites
Chapters
Michael Bernzweig (00:00.202)
Are you ready to transform your career and break into the tech industry, even without traditional experience or degrees? Looking for an affordable, practical path to launch your professional journey?
Welcome to Career Spotlight, your weekly guide to career transformation and success. Your host is Michael Bernzweig, who in 1998 launched Software Oasis as one of the first platforms enabling businesses to download, license, and deploy software instantly across their networks with a single click. Today, Software Oasis has evolved into one of the leading communities helping career changers and ambitious professionals launch successful careers in tech.
Each week, Michael sits down with industry experts, successful career changers, and hiring managers to bring you real-world insights and practical strategies. From entry-level tech positions to business roles, Career Spotlight delivers actionable advice and insider knowledge to help you navigate your career transition successfully.
Join our growing community of career changers and ambitious professionals. Subscribe now on your favorite podcast platform and visit softwareoasis.com/subscribe to get our bi-weekly newsletter packed with job opportunities and career resources straight to your inbox.
Get ready for weekly insights, success stories, practical tips, and expert interviews that will guide you step-by-step toward your dream career in tech.
Subscribe to our bi-weekly newsletter https://softwareoasis.com/subscribe/ to stay updated with more insights from technology leaders and transformation experts.
over the past weeks. Every Friday we have a new topic. This week we're actually covering something pretty exciting. I know a lot of people that are on the webinar today may be in other careers or roles that are different than where they'd like to be. And what's exciting about this webinar is we're actually talking about something that's
really accessible to all and that is a career in the IT industry. One of the things that's really amazing about this opportunity is that there are so many open roles for entry-level positions. The topics that we'll be covering and we'll talk about some of the roles in detail here, but many of these positions have over
million job opportunities that are unfilled. So the reality of it is by getting yourself skilled up and we'll talk about how to do that, you can actually learn how to kickstart a career in IT. So with that, let's get started here.
Start For Free IT Career Course https://softwareoasis.com/it-course
Michael Bernzweig (01:21.357)
So I'm not going to read all the slides, but I do want to cover a lot of the details. you listen to the news, everyone's talking about the doom and gloom about all of these positions and things that have been eliminated. But the reality is entry-level opportunities in IT have never been more accessible.
the IT industry is genuinely booming. Currently, there's literally $5.6 trillion in IT spending over the course of 2025. And this opens up just an amazing number of job opportunities over the next several years between now and 2033.
And the reason for that is that there are just so many positions that are unfilled in these entry level roles, which include everything from data analyst positions to support and the like. So a lot of these roles are really opportunities to break into a new career, into a new position and kind of turn the page, get a fresh start and all of that. The positions we'll be talking about today.
Do not require degrees or prior experience and all of that to really start your journey. So that is a really important point for anyone that might be on the call today where you might find yourself with day-to-day expenses. You might be a little further along in life and, you know, may not exactly have the time to go back to college or take a boot camp that'll cost.
many thousands of dollars and take months or years to complete. So really we're talking about positions and skills that you'll need to be able to land a job in areas that have more job opportunity than individuals to fill the positions. So that's really what we're covering.
Michael Bernzweig (03:42.303)
A lot of these positions, you can actually get the basic skills that you need. And we'll talk about some of the ways that you can do that in just four to 12 weeks of training. And many of these positions start at salaries of $50,000 and above and get you positioned for in-demand jobs at many top IT firms and top firms needing IT.
including Accenture, Amazon, Google, and the like. So that's really what we're covering in today's webinar. And as I had mentioned earlier, over this next year, the number of positions in these areas is expected to grow dramatically. By 2026, we're expecting to see even more growth. Many of these areas are actually growing at an annual clip of over 13%.
And that's growth in areas where there is already a lack of qualified individuals with the skills. So it's no longer necessary to go to a traditional four or even six year college institution to get yourself skilled up for a lot of these positions. Many of the positions include opportunities at companies like Amazon and Google, you know, when they're growing IT teams and
and the like for roles for AI, machine learning, analysts, cybersecurity, all kinds of different areas that we're gonna be talking about. And many of these roles give you the opportunity to start at salaries of 50,000 and above, but to very quickly ramp up your earnings to $90,000 and higher very quickly. So this...
Is the type of opportunity that might be the right fit for you if you're at a point in your journey where you're looking to transition your career, maybe you or someone that you know has recently graduated just from high school. Or maybe you've already graduated from college, but you didn't end up where you wanted to be in terms of the career you originally went to school for. And it may not be the exact time that you want to.
Michael Bernzweig (06:07.309)
plunk down that kind of money to go back to college or even put the money aside the time. So, you know, if you're a budget conscious learner and you really want some affordable alternatives and you really want to kind of go at your own pace, a lot of these, you know, different paths that we'll be talking about are literally just a few hundred dollars compared to tens of thousands of dollars for annual tuition for colleges or.
The same thing eight to twelve thousand dollars for for a boot camp that might get you set up with the same type of skills so I Think the first thing that I really want to go into is You know who thrives in IT and who thrives with this type of a learning environment that we're going to talk about So it's really individuals that are self-motivated self-motivated learners
who are really able to kind of carve out some time each day and work at their own pace towards the ultimate goal of transitioning from wherever you might be today to where you want to get to in the not too distant future. And the nice thing is that, you know, we're really just talking weeks to possibly, you know, just a few short months to go from where you are to where you want to get to.
And I guess also non-traditional candidates, someone that may be open to getting into roles where organizations are not requiring degrees. Many organizations, and I think a lot of us will be surprised, Google, Apple, IBM, LinkedIn, a lot of
organizations no longer for these high demand positions are requiring formal degrees. So it's really an opportunity to take a non-traditional path, a path that's different than, you know, regular boot camps or the like, some, or even colleges, as I mentioned earlier, and practical training. You know, a lot of employers are really looking
Michael Bernzweig (08:30.015)
you know, for individuals that can kind of hit the ground with the right attitude and learn the finer granular details of what they need to know on the job. And I think that's an interesting portion of all of this and something really important to keep in mind. So at the end of the day, I think a lot of people that are on this webinar are going to find that
learning these basic details and skills and techniques are really what's required to get to the next step within your career. And I wanna talk a little bit more, I kinda hinted at it earlier in the webinar, but what types of roles are available? What is in this million plus?
entry level job opportunities that you can get your hands around. it's really three big areas make up the bulk of this. It's IT support, which is really essential for system maintenance and troubleshooting. In this area, not only has a lot of open opportunities, but a continued job growth is at this point, 6 % annual.
job growth between now and 2032 in the IT support area. Also, technical sales is a huge opportunity for technical sales. So if your skills lend themselves to excellent communication, detailed product knowledge, it can really transition quite easily from a
different type of career into tech sales and come in some tremendous salary opportunities. And that is an area where the more effort that you put into it or the more skill that you have, the better you'll do. And you'll see that even earlier than some of the other areas of tech.
Michael Bernzweig (10:53.439)
The last area would be anything related to data analytics. This is a very hot area. Right now, you know, the job growth rate is over 23%. And that's really amazing. And that includes a lot of individuals that have skills in statistics, data visualization, you know, existing programming skills.
Some of the tools that are actually used in data analytics include SQL, Tableau, Power BI from Microsoft. So those are some of the popular tools. And while I'm not going to cover too much, I just wanna give everybody a little bit of background on myself. I am Michael Burns. Why did I actually?
founded Software Oasis in the early days of the internet back in 1998. And you can read a little bit about my background there, but just wanted to give everybody a little bit of context for who the heck you're listening to and what my background in tech and all of that is. Next, I wanted to talk a little bit about why now is really the perfect time to transition from wherever you are
to a role in IT. And a few areas really come together to make this an amazing opportunity. First off, as we kind of covered a little bit earlier, there's high demand in IT for these entry-level positions. at a foundational level, IT spending is projected to reach $5 trillion.
according to Gartner by the end of 2025. So I think that's, you know, it speaks for itself. It's just a tremendous, tremendous area. the growth in this area is literally 15 % annually through 2031 across all of these different areas of IT. So you can see if there's not even a foundational number of entry level opportunities, a number of entry level positions.
Michael Bernzweig (13:15.023)
and individuals and the market is growing. That's why there's such an opportunity to get started. And you really can get involved and make a shift pretty quickly. You really just need to get the foundational skills that you need and then take it from there on the job. I I think that's a lot of what we're gonna cover today.
the opportunity for earning rapidly within months of completing some entry level or basic skills training, which we'll cover in today's webinar. And you can scan that link at the top of the webinar to learn a little bit more about some of the different types of skills and different types of skills training that you can get started with.
But really the opportunity is to start at a reasonable salary entry level and then within months of getting your certification. And then from there, the opportunity is for some pretty rapid growth depending upon the career trajectory that you choose. One of the exciting things is that there really is no requirement
for degree in a lot of the areas that you'll see when you scan that link. And that's really an amazing opportunity for anybody that is looking to make this kind of a transition. And there are just tons of companies, some that I mentioned earlier, small businesses, mid-sized businesses, enterprise level organizations that are in dire need of entry level tech.
tech individuals. So it's really a very common entry point for a transition from one career to another. Maybe you're in another area such as the medical field or some other field, or maybe you're doing something that you're just not thrilled with, just something weird day in and day out. You wake up every day and you're like, how am going to make it through the day? Maybe I'm
Michael Bernzweig (15:37.759)
you know, driving Uber a little bit on the side or doing something else that's not exactly where I had hoped to be in my life. These tech careers are really an amazing way out of a lot of the day-to-day grind that I think a lot of individuals are going through. And, you know, I think a lot of these companies really are
pointing with their dollars and their hiring decisions to say skills are more important than the actual degrees or educational based programs. You have a lot of different opportunities to get the basics that you need in terms of skills. anyone that's listening to this can check out by scanning at the top there the different types of available.
skills trainings that are offered to get an idea of some of the different paths that you can take. But I think one fact that really stands out clearly is, while you may start in the 50s, which may sound great to some and a little bit below their expectations for others, you can easily, within a very short while from getting up and running,
be earning 90,000 plus in a lot of these careers. And there's a clear pathway within these IT roles for advancement and job security, which is really, really important and amazing with all that you hear going on around the world. And a lot of these opportunities are not just for US-based individuals, they're really opportunities.
that can be, and as a lot of the programs that we're gonna talk about are, you know, remote-based learning, the types of programs that you can get involved with from anywhere. So it's not a requirement to be strictly within the US or Canada. You could get skilled up and learn from anywhere. And, you know, the demand, as I mentioned, has never been higher.
Michael Bernzweig (18:02.353)
Skills-based hiring is prevalent across all types of organizations. And it's really something that we're seeing students complete these courses and be hired within days, weeks, or months, and be on their way and out of the data to grind. So really, here's how it works. So the first step.
Scan that code, go to softwareoasis.com backslash IT course and take a look at the different options for remote learning. Many of these courses, in fact, all of these courses, you can literally start for free. The cost of the courses is nominal, literally a few hundred dollars. So none of the courses are out of the range of
of anyone and to be quite honest with you, if anybody does need a little help with even the few hundred dollars, you can split the cost into a few different payments. But I think it's really important to understand the different career paths, which is why you can take or start any of the courses. There's literally 15 different
You can start any of them for free and it really gives you the opportunity to explore, to understand, to get a feel for which path might be the right path for you, your family, your loved ones, before you make a commitment to the journey and to figure out which is the right one for you. So by all means, there's no cost to get started on any of these different
learning paths. So definitely try them all. You know, try a few. The introductory lessons that you'll see are all video based. you can actually, actually you're learning from instructors that are actually in the field, working in these positions and, you know, have been there and done that and will guide you along the way. So it's really self paced.
Michael Bernzweig (20:30.793)
The other thing that's really interesting about these programs are that you're not alone. You're gonna have access to one-on-one coaching from individuals that are actually in the field. And you're gonna have help lending your first job. So it's not as if you just plunk your money down, take the course and you're on your own. You're gonna have
coaching and guidance along the way to get you to that end result of a new position and landing your first job. That's what it's all about. So you'll get some help with tips on getting your resume organized, your LinkedIn profile organized, getting your interviews set up and all of that. You'll actually have a dashboard where you can actually organize all of this.
You'll have, as I mentioned, access to ongoing coaching support throughout your entire job search process. And at the end of the day, you're on your way to landing an entry-level position with, you know, the support that you need to get there. And one of the things I want to point out, a lot of this is not just
you know, hyperbole, a lot of this is real detailed learning. So with results, and I'll cover that on the next slide, but you know, can see here's an example of a course outline. So you'll actually have all of the details you need for some very specific types of careers to learn throughout the course exactly where you're going to need to learn.
to get to where you want to get to. So when I said a lot of this is not just hyperbole, all of the learning paths have been rated by thousands and thousands of graduates that have gone through these courses. And you can see on career karma, course report, the ratings from real users that have
Michael Bernzweig (22:56.617)
not only taken these courses, but landed jobs after having completed these at top companies. We're talking companies that we've all heard of, Southwest Airlines, Amazon, Google, LinkedIn, all kinds of different organizations. I think the other detail that really stands out to me is at the end of the day, you
may either be in a position where, you know, you're not employed or you're not employed where you want to be or you're not making the kind of money you want to be making and you're having a tough time making ends meet. These courses, as I mentioned, you can start for free. They're all literally just a few hundred dollars. So the cost is, you know, a fraction of any other type of, you know,
College or boot camp that could be anywhere from eight to fifteen thousand dollars to get through or college tuition that could be thirty forty fifty thousand dollars plus annually, so you really Really can get on the path very economically But I think the first step, you know jump in try a few of the Introductory lessons you can pick any of the different
career paths that you want to look into to get a feel for how you fit into these different careers and how they be a good opportunity and something that could fit into your lifestyle because it's.
all a matter of if you're gonna make a change, you better make a change that's gonna get you to where you wanna be. So I would encourage you to try multiple courses, try multiple opportunities, figure out what feels like the right fit and what feels like where you'd like to be in the future. And I'll put that link in the chat for anybody that's on the live webinar.
Michael Bernzweig (25:15.051)
you know, from that link, you can actually jump into any of the courses. And then from there, for anybody that's on the recording, you can just go to softwareoasis.com backslash IT dash course to get a look at all of the courses with over a million different open job opportunities. So there's literally
somewhere close to, I believe at last count, 14 to 16 different career paths that you can choose from. And I think that's the exciting thing. Or you can scan that QR code up at the top of the screen and get rolling from there. So anyways, I'd like to thank everyone for joining us for today's live webinar. Michael Burnswine over at Software Oasis, just outside of Boston.
in Massachusetts and really appreciate everybody joining from all different parts of the country and actually, as I can see, all different parts of the world. So really a very exciting time in the transition of job opportunities. And I've been, as I mentioned, in the IT space since the 90s.
seeing a lot of the new roles and new opportunities and new areas of IT that are emerging and underserved in terms of the number of candidates that are available within the industry. So I'm always happy to get new people started in this industry. I actually started with a career early on in tech sales and that career
launched me to where I am today as the founder of Software Oasis. But, you know, I think it's a journey and you have to see where it takes you. And I think the bottom line, no matter what you're doing, I think you need to wake up every day, enjoy what you're doing, and get to the point where you are able to see enjoyment and fun from your career and have the time that you want to spend with your
Michael Bernzweig (27:36.725)
loved ones, and most importantly, the financial rewards to help you get to where you want to get to. anybody that does have some more detailed questions, feel free to just go to softwareoasis.com, click on the contact up at the top of the site, feel free to schedule a call with me or anybody else on the team. And until our next webinar on Friday, I wish everybody a great weekend.