Update technical skills

Updating tech skills during time away

If you were in a field like technology or health care where changes occur daily and skills deteriorate without use, you need to combat the perception that you are “out of date.” Consider doing the following after leaving your tech job (for instance, while you are staying at home raising your children), long before you are ready to fully re-enter your tech career:

Value your experience

Technical skills and experience from previous employment are a valuable base for working in your technical field now. Additionally, you may have gained project management experience or other transferable skills during your time away from technology work. Make sure to put that experience on your technical resume!

Technical interview preparation differs from general interview preparation. Re-entry candidates generally are a little rusty about technical details when they start to prepare for technical interviews, due to time away from using particular skills and knowledge. Interviewers may reasonably have more concerns about technical skills of the re-entry candidate. A hiring manager will want to know that you can do the technical job now, and the goal of your preparation is to be able to convince them you can. 

Often the technical interview happens after a separate HR phone interview. A first technical interview may be over the phone, and if you are selected for an in-person interview the next tech interviews happen on site as you talk with various technical members of a team. You should review your resume and be able to talk about projects and skills listed there. Practice succinct summaries of your responsibilities for each of your jobs listed. Study material you are likely to be asked about - for instance if the job involves Java programming, review coding problems in Java. Review the job description, and compare your skills and experience to the requirements. If you have a weak area, spend some time brushing up your skills and come up with a response to how you will come up to speed on that technology. Research likely technical questions to be asked, using Google (search terms for your field Field_x: "technical interview" questions Field_X ), colleagues in the field, and your online network. Books listed below may be helpful - if not, find one for your field. Practice solving sample interview questions while timed, and speaking while you write and solve the problems. Before going into detail about a problem solution, give the interviewer the high-level summary first. Keep in mind that your communication skills as well as your technical skills are being tested. Good links for more extensive technical interview advice:

Some companies may consider individuals making a career change for an adult internship. One example is a company who hired a software engineer who was transitioning out of Cobol to newer skills. Re-entry internships for tech career re-entry are discussed on our website's Wishlist page.

Write a Blog

Write a blog. Blogs are a modern social technology.  It can be a great way to demonstrate an interest and expertise in a subject area. Writing one keeps you up to date in that area. 

Prepare for Technical Interview

Volunteer on a technical project, to get current technical experience 

On-the-job Training 

Adult Internships

Classes (short-term)

Strategically chosen classes will update your tech knowledge. Some short-term classes result in certifications that make it easier to find a job. For instance, Cisco certifications such as CCNA or CCSP are requirements mentioned in many network engineering job descriptions. SANS has classes leading the GIAC security certification. 

Return to school 

Consider returning to school for a semester, summer, or a whole degree. Many community colleges offer technical courses at low rates, particularly 2-year state community colleges. Universities, state colleges, and online are additional options. (It is worth it to comparison shop for lower tuitions - prices vary considerably.) Although returning to school would mean low/no income for that time, and possibly student loans, there are multiple potential benefits:

Independent/Collaborative Projects

Open Source Project Opportunities

Check out ways to get involved in open source projects on our website's Open Source Software and Hardware opportunities section. <--Don't miss this!

Volunteer Opportunities

Workshops/Webinars

Workshops can be helpful to modernize skills, learn new lingo, and make useful job networking contacts 

Educational conferences

Educational conferences are often a couple days long and significantly more expensive than workshops. For instance, SANS and BlackHat offer hiqh-quality educational conferences in the information security field. Many professional societies offer educational conferences. 

Start by identifying key skills you need to refresh or learn for the first time. Review job descriptions (on online job sites described in Job search tools) to find key skills and experience required, for the jobs you will apply for. Also go to our website section 'Investigate new tech trends and learn lingo', which helps you to identify new skills and expertise that are currently important in your field.

Online courses and tutorials

Review key skills previously learned and learn new skills using online tutorials, wiki pages, etc. Use keywords from current job descriptions to guide the topics.

Professional society meetings

Aggregated links to many technical professional societies here. Many professional societies have in-person meetings as well as online discussion groups and educational resources, so they offer many types of learning opportunities. Example technical professional societies include ACM, IEEE, AITP, Society of Women Engineers, National Society of Black Engineers, and Society of Hispanic Engineers.  A comprehensive list of technical societies, here.

After time away from working in a technical field, some skills become rusty and others outdated. Following are some tips to modernize your technical skill-set.

Identify key skills