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One of the fastest growing careers according to the 2010, 2011 Occupational Outlook Handbook is for network and computer systems administrators. In fact, the United States Department of Labor has predicted a bright outlook for this career suggesting that growth could top a 20 per cent increase over the next several years.

What Does a Network Administrator Do?
Essentially a network administrator is responsible for maintaining an organization’s LAN (Local Area Network) or WAN (Wide Area Network). In other words, network administrators are responsible for maintaining internet and computer resource functionality for an organization.

To accomplish this there are a number of tasks that network administrators complete on a regular basis. For example, network administrators are responsible for maintaining and installing computer hardware, software, and configuring these to work properly. In addition, network administrators are also problem solvers, troubleshooting and resolving hardware and software problems and working with employees to repair user reported issues. Next, network administrators assure the safety and security of the organization’s hardware and software resources. Finally, network administrators design and monitor computer systems assuring they work properly and meet the needs of the organization.

How to Become a Network Administrator
Although most of these jobs require a four year bachelor’s degree, some require an associate’ degree or work experience instead. However, what is necessary for a position like this is a set of skills and knowledge that prepare individuals for work in this field.

Software and Hardware Knowledge
Network administrators need to have knowledge of administrative software, security software. Also, network administrators need to have a basic knowledge of how and why computers work. This includes knowledge of electronics, configurations, and programming.

Business Skills
Additionally, network administrators need a basic knowledge of business skills such as planning, human resources, management, operations, and budgeting.

With a combination of learned skills and experience, the potential is there to tap into this fast growing and exciting field.

Beginning a career at home (balancing sales and motherhood) once seemed an easy notion and was supposed to be the perfect decision. A service could be offered, profits could be generated, and no time would be siphoned from your children. You could have it all, refusing common sacrifices. So, you crafted a website and you hurriedly created an inventory. You were certain that the requests would come soon in, and your business would be branded a success. You merely had to wait.

You’re still waiting.

Your attempt at a home-based career has faltered. There are no product orders. There are no hints of activity. Your page has remained dormant, found by no one except your closest family and friends.

This is a confusing because you have unquestionable skills and your knowledge of your specific industry is top notch. You’re not offering anything less than perfection. People should be flocking to your website.

Perhaps they would if they knew about it.

No business (however grand) can survive without the favor of the masses. It is therefore essential that all companies, including yours, inject themselves within the internet, allowing customers to learn about them. Forums must be pursued; advertisements must be made; affiliating with already established networks is essential. You must form a brand that can be recognized, placing it on sites that potential clients frequent.

Social media monitoring is therefore necessary.

None of your choices can be random (such as flooding entire message boards in hopes to find one single customer). You must instead understand where these individuals conduct their searches and what most appeals to them. Learn which engines are most often used. Seek out networking pages to make connections. Follow news and trends. You must predict your customers and their needs, strategically placing your site where it will most likely be seen.

Working from home is your dream. Now it can be a reality.

If your job requires you to travel, you may find yourself with a lot of lost time trying to get to and from the airport, sitting at the airport and on the plane. Whether it seems like a significant amount of time to you or not, when you add it up, it can be a serious drain on your time. Here are some tips to help you turn your downtime into productive time and accomplish more.

Make a Plan

Look at the work that you have on your plate to determine which tasks you do not need to be in the office to complete. Make a list of the tasks you want to tackle during your travel time. Prioritize the list so that the most important tasks are first on the list and less important ones are further down on the list.

Prep Work

Gather electronic documents. Conduct and gather online research or pack any materials you need to complete the tasks on your list. For example, if your task is to write an article on a new ISP network for the company blog, then conduct your online research, copying and pasting notes into a Word document that you can access anywhere. If you have a way to access the Internet while on the move, then you may not have to conduct research ahead of time, but you may still need to prepare other items.

Work

On the shuttle or the taxicab ride to the airport, flip open your computer and work. Close it as the taxi pulls up the airport and flip your computer back open again when you sit at the gate. When it’s time to board, close your computer, but work when you get on the plane until the flight attendants ask you to put away electronic devices. Work for the rest of the flight until it’s time to put away devices once again. While some of your work time comes in spurts of 10 to 15 minutes, during the entire trip, this time really adds up.

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Many mobile devices are opening up Internet access to its users. This Internet access is twofold. It can be highly beneficial in keeping your constantly connected where and when you need to be. It can help you do things on the go like pay bills, do some shopping at sites like JR Dunn, watch a television show you missed and much more. Its drawback can also be that it keeps you constantly connected. The constant ability to connect to your email and to the Internet can cause you to never to take time off or to disconnect—and in order to find a work life balance, disconnecting for even a little while is important.

Benefits

If your smartphone keeps you connected to your ISP job, your IT consulting business or some other form of work, it can be highly beneficial. You can quickly receive, read and respond to emails from your co-workers or customers. You can talk to co-workers and customers on the phone while simultaneously pulling up the contract they have a question about on your online file storage. You can work anytime and anywhere you need to—be it in the bathroom, the airport or while in the waiting room of your doctor’s office. In essence, it puts your office in the palm of your hand, which can make you more productive and highly connected.

Finding the Time to Take a Break

Unless you are a doctor who is on call, it is highly unlikely that you need access to your job or business 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Therefore, it is necessary for your own health and sanity to find the time to disconnect every once and a while. If you walk in the door from work at six in the evening, turn your phone to silent or off for the first one to two hours. This allows you the time you need to unwind from your day, eat dinner and spend time with your family or enjoy a hobby or personal activity.

If you feel the need to turn your phone on or take the vibrate feature off after the time frame, then make sure you power the phone down completely when you go to bed.

According to a study by Xobni, 72 percent of Americans check their work email outside of “normal business hours.” Back in the ‘80s and pre-Internet, you may recall that normal working hours were generally nine in the morning to five in the evening. With all access, all the time, these normal working hours may well be out the window. As an added tidbit, 42 percent of Americans admit to checking work email even when they are home sick. So, is this a problem or good thing?

Some point the proverbial finger at this behavior being an email obsession. On the hand though, many see the constant ability to connect when necessary as a productive way to get things done. It eliminates the need for workers to constantly be in the office in order to accomplish tasks and goals and meet objectives.

For example, if you can spend 10 minutes each evening running through your work emails after dinner, it may save you hours of time in the long-run. Let’s assume you have approximately 20 emails sitting in your inbox each evening when you sit down to log in to your work email after your kids are tucked in or you’ve cleaned up the dinner dishes.

Commit to spending about 10 minutes reviewing the emails and making a quick decision. Decide if it is an email you need to respond to right now, can delegate to a co-worker to handle or to add to your task list for the following day or at some point in the future. It is that simple and the process should only take a short amount of your time. Clearing out your inbox on a daily basis allows you a sense of accomplishment to close down your day and helps you to plan for the next day. When you get to work the next morning, you can start out fresh without dozens of emails bogging you down

Traditional hard copy resumes and resumes you post or submit to potential employers online are the same, but different at the same time. The purpose of both types of resumes is to land you a job and as you need to make a hard copy resume easy to read, an online version of your resume needs to be easy to scan by humans and computer systems the humans may be using to find candidates. Find out how to make sure your resume is “scannable” by both.

Getting Your Resume Ready for Scanning Databases

Especially large organizations that hire a large quantity of employees on an annual basis, conduct searches using databases of resumes. Since these databases may have thousands of resumes, the human conducting the search sets the search criteria and then the database goes out and grabs the resumes that fit the criteria. This means in order for your resume to get in the hands of a human that can schedule an interview, you first have to reveal yourself to the computer program in charge of the search.

Obviously, you want to use words, phrases and terms in your resume wording that reflects your experience, knowledge and skills as it associates with the position you are trying to land. Make sure that you use a standard font style for the text on your resume so that it is easy for computer and the human to read. Some options include Times New Roman, Arial and Helvetica. The size of the font should be between 11 and 14 points. Keep character counts for each line on your resume to 65 characters or less and stay away from using shading, graphics and other additions that may throw the computer off track.

While taking these steps does not guarantee you a job or even landing an interview, it increases your chances of getting your foot in the door.

While you may need a full-time position to pay your full-time bills, do you ever wonder if temporary or part-time positions pay off in the long run? While the truth is that it could go either way, there are some points to consider when deciding if taking on a temporary or part-time ISP position is the right move for landing a full-time gig.

Gets Your Foot in the Door

A temporary or part-time position does allow you to get your foot in the door of many ISP companies. Once you are working in a position at the company, you have the opportunity to show your superiors what you have to offer the company. Always make sure to put your best foot forward at all times—even if the position is a temporary or part-time one. When and if a company does hire full-time and permanent positions, many times they pick from a pool of internal and available candidates. If you are a temporary worker, being the best temporary worker in the place does have the potential to move you into first place when it comes to choosing permanent and full-time employees.

Some companies announce and advertise when a position has the potential to become permanent, but other companies do not.

Some Money is Better than No Money

Even in situations where you are not sure that the position has the potential to turn into a permanent, full-time one taking on a temporary position helps to bring some money into your household. Even if you are not earning at your full potential, some money is better than no money while you continue to look for that full-time permanent position that is just waiting for you to fill. Be sure to let the employer know that you are interested in full-time and permanent opportunities that may become available in the company.

The first thought that may come to your mind when looking for an Internet job may be to punch up the online job boards and set to work on sending out your resumes. While it is true that you may find a job using this method, sometimes in life, landing the best Internet jobs has to do with who you know as much as it has to do with what you know.

Be Careful Who Your Associates Are

Your mom may have warned you to be careful who you hang around with because it can affect how far you can get in life. There is some truth to this even in the professional world. If you belong to a weekly networking group and attend a monthly industry professional meeting, utilize these resources to your advantage. If and when you are looking for a position, make this known when you are having conversations with your fellow members.

If you are not surrounding yourself with the right people then find out how to surround yourself with those that can help you get ahead. For example, if you are trying to get into the health care industry, then find out what associations and groups that pertain to this industry take place in your local area. Start attending the meetings and meeting people who are connected in the industry. Don’t think one interaction is all you have to have either. people need to get to know you better before they refer you to a hiring manager in their company.

The point is that you have to be active to get noticed. Attend meetings, join committees and show off your abilities as a hard worker. Even if what you are volunteering for has nothing to do with your Internet experience, showing you are willing and able to work hard and to work with others may be the key component to landing your next great career position.

Especially if your career depends on the Internet, you need to find and use an Internet Service Provider (ISP) that you can count on. While this is not a comprehensive list of characteristics you should look for in an ISP. The sounder your ISP is, the more uptime you have, the better the speed is that matches you needs and upstream capacity determines you access to the Internet that you have with your ISP.

Uptime

Uptime is probably the primary characteristic you have to look for in an ISP. If the ISP continuously has connection problems and you cannot connect to the Internet, then you can perform your job or do what you need to do online. Essentially, if your ISP is always experiencing downtime then you are always experiencing downtime too. Search for ISPs that can uphold its promise of 100 percent uptime, or at the very least a 99.9 percent uptime guarantee.

Speed

The faster the speed of the Internet for you, the better. When you are working in IT, in an Internet or other type of computer position, you need to have lighting speed access to information at your fingertips. Seek out ISPs with at least 20Mbps or faster service available. Take the speed promise on a test drive before committing to any one ISP to make sure that it is living up to its promises.

Capacity

Often times, you may logging on to your work computer from your home office or require backup systems that are offsite. This means that in addition to a speedy download characteristic, your ISP also need to have a speedy upstream capacity. Test the upstream bandwidth capacity on the ISP to ensure it fits your needs as well. The last thing you want to do is hook up with an ISP that doesn’t allow you to VPN in to complete your work or doesn’t adequately backup your system. Often times, by the time you figure this out it is too late to save yourself from problems, so test-drive your ISP ahead of time to avoid these issues.

The Internet has vastly changed the way people earn money. No longer must you commute to an employer’s office and deal with coworker issues to make a living. Instead, you can now capitalize on the many ways the Internet makes it possible for you to work from home and earn much more money than you previously made working in the office. The following are just a few of the online job opportunities you can begin pursuing today.

Writing and Designing

If you are a creative professional, you can easily earn a living by working online. Freelance writers and designers often work entirely over the Internet, accumulating clients from across the world. Many writing and design job boards list available projects for you to apply for or bid on. If you are a graphic designer or photographer, you can begin submitting your work to stock photo websites to hopefully begin earning a healthy side income.

Computer Programmers

Computer programmers are in high demand because of the popularity of computers and the Internet. If you are currently a computer programmer or are pursuing a career in this field, you can work from home instead of commuting to an office. Many online job opportunities exist in this field so start searching through online job websites to see if any job postings fit your skill set.

Telecommuting

If you enjoy working fulltime for one employer but don’t like the hassle of commuting to an office and feel you would work more efficiently from home, you should try telecommuting. Many employers now recognize the benefits of allowing employees to telecommute because it results in less office expenses and happier workers. If you feel this option is right for you, bring the subject up to your employer and see how they feel about the switch. You could also apply for a new job that is already offered as a telecommute position. This will eliminate the hurdle of convincing a stubborn boss to allow you to work over the Internet.