Having the right kind of IT knowledge can help you further your career even if your work has nothing to do with servers and code. People for years have relied on IT department staffers to tackle every chore for them, but technology is so pervasive now that it’s become unreasonable to expect that technical personnel have sufficient time to meet the demands placed on them. Thus, financial agents are being told to handle database searchers themselves.

Scientific and healthcare researchers are now required to look through document repositories to find journal articles for citations. Even auto mechanics have to use PCs and mobile devices to look up part numbers when they’re overhauling a truck, so it’s easy to imagine that more academic careers will soon become extremely reliant on technology.

No matter what kind of career you have, a little extra IT training will take you far. In many cases, it’s completely painless even if you don’t have much prior experience writing code. Consider the following examples of cases where a little extra IT knowledge helped improve performance in the workplace.

 

Cloud Computing in the Most Unlikely Places

While you’ve probably heard the term cloud storage thrown around, you might very well don’t think it directly applies to your job. However, engineers are inventing many new cloud-based tools that can help you automate repetitive tasks at work and make your life easier. Imagine how much you could get done if save upwards of an hour every day and apply that extra time to other chores.

Some employers have started to use these tools so much that they actually require new personnel to have some sort of documentation that proves they’re prepared to work with it. They might only take candidates who carry an AWS Certification or a certain number of hours of experience using certain cloud-based platforms.

The kind of document you’ll need depends on whether the research foundation you’re connected to has decided to use Amazon’s ecosystem, Canonical’s or one from another major organization. That being said, the good news is that you can earn this kind of certification in your free time without having to sacrifice anything you might be working on at your current job.

 

Using New Tools as Soon as They Come Out

No one wants to fall behind when it comes to the research world. There are countless new tools coming out all the time that can help you in your academic career, but you’ll need to have at least a moderate level of pre-existing IT knowledge if you want to use them.

Consider something like sNews CMS for instance. because it’s an example of the kind of content management system you might see if you had to promote a project you were assigned to. In most cases, this kind of a tool would make your job considerably easier since it would tackle any content you have to post online. However, without any experience working with a sophisticated platform like this, you might be unable to take advantage of even the most basic features it has to offer. Just a few hours of class time can help you become proficient with this kind of application.

Academic search tools, like those provided by Microsoft and Google, are another excellent example of this problem. They allow you to quickly pick through peer-reviewed papers in very little time. However, you’ll have to know a bit about how computers search for things if you want to use them. To get ahead in your career, you might want to take a class in search algorithms since this knowledge can help you find documents much faster.

 

Mini IT Classes can Change Your Outlook

Scientific studies are often published via RSS or ATOM feeds. While XML might seem like a challenge to you, just a few hours of training is more than enough to understand it. Legislative changes might mean that you might soon be using your own tech in the workplace, and that means you’ll have to maintain it yourself.

To some people, this might sound like a scary proposition. However, even the most basic training can give you the edge you’ll need in this kind of scenario to stay relevant and take your career to new heights.