Career options for female IT professionals in small towns

In big cities / IT hubs, it isn’t difficult to start a career. Some or the other company will absorb you. If you’re a student there then even campus placements will be more than elsewhere. What if because of personal constraints you have to be in a place with very little scope for IT Jobs?

One fine day, I received random call from a lady in Kolkata, working with a leading MNC. Her husband was to get transferred to Amritsar (a famous city in Punjab, but not an IT hub). She was working in Mainframes and didn’t knew about job prospects in the new city she’ll be moving to. I told her about what all she could do and that there wasn’t anything for her based on existing skills and experience. I didn’t tell her anything out of the box, yet all that I told was totally new for her as well as her husband.

She’s not alone. There is a sizeable number of women who have to settle with their husbands in a city not having the kind of job they had studied for or were doing earlier. I wish they all do something in their lives, as they worked hard all their life on education and then made themselves capable to land up a job.

Additionally there are several unmarried girls in a similar situation, they can’t leave home due to family. It’s not that they don’t want to progress in life; they have some constraints at their end. They’re no less than anyone from big cities – it’s just the situation they are in which restricts their professional growth and corporate exposure.

So if by chance you’re in a similar spot then I have some bad news and good news for you. The bad news is that a lot of technologies being used in big companies, aren’t used in traditional companies at smaller towns. SAP, Mainframes, Oracle Apps, DB2 – the odds are against you that you’ll be working on these technologies. Even though every place has colleges imparting computer education, there simply aren’t equivalent number of jobs to absorb all the graduate students.

Now here’s some good news. IT Jobs are everywhere, at times better than what we could have ever imagined. Every student doesn’t get a job but the better ones do, for a good Computer Science student can do wonders anywhere. And a good student is not only about marks – it’s also about taking the right steps at the right time.

When making an IT career in small towns, one has to follow a few steps, and then the result can be truly rewarding. In recent years, Internet access has become cheap and accessible to practically anyone. To do IT work, all one needs is a laptop with Internet connection. Quite a few people are doing it and doing it successfully. If they can do it then so can you, just keep belief in yourself, that you can do it.

Here’s what you should do to get work, if you’re a female IT Professional currently living in a city that is away from traditional IT hubs.

1.Want to work full-time for a company? Research companies in your area. There must be a few web development companies. Jalandhar is a Tier-III city yet it has 50+ such companies and 20+ software training centres. Find out what work they’re doing. Chances are they’ll be working on WordPress, basic digital marketing, a bit of QA and mobile apps using Ionic. You can always get into programming even if you earn less initially. If your communication is good then you can try for sales and bidder profiles. If you want to be manager then you’ll have to have knowledge of agile; PMP is not a must in many smaller companies. You can master any of these in a few weeks, then create a portfolio of work for yourself and friends, update resume and apply for jobs. There are always jobs for those who know latest technologies. After finding about the companies and choosing a role of your choice, try to visit them with your husband/father and see how the work environment is. You will surely get a job if you’re able to convince your prospective employer on your skills and sincerity. At a company in Jalandhar, this is how a girl from Assam got a job, she was working with a top MNC in a leading metropolis on Python and had to move to the city after marriage. She cold called companies, asked if there was a job, told about her strong skills, and got job as a Business Development Manager based on her proposal and the freelancing work she did during gap.

2.Want to work part-time? You can do freelancing on websites like upwork. Indian programmers are in demand all over the world. If you’re good at writing then there are tonnes of such jobs for you. You can explore profiles of freelancers on upwork and check out what relevant skills they’re offering, then create your profile accordingly. A newly married lady had to leave her job due to maternity and instead of getting back to a 9-5 job, she created her upwork profile. This made it easier for her to manage the little baby, by doing work from home. It helped that she was already good at WordPress which is very much in demand.

3.Want to work for family? Even if they aren’t into IT then you can use technology to help your family. Get them online or digitise their business. That way you can do something of your own with minimal risk. This is what a housewife did, after her husband moved from USA to India and set up a factory in Baddi (near Chandigarh). Her daughter had started going to school which meant she finally had a few hours to herself. She self taught herself PHP and MySQL, using which she made a web based inventory and ERP for her factory. She wanted to program and didn’t hesitate reinventing herself. You can try this as well. And if programming is not your forte then also you can do something, like if your mother-in-law is a good cook then sell her pickles and Khakras on flipkart. Better still, get a logo made, establish presence on social media pages, create a WordPress website with Woocommerce and payment gateway integrated, and do SEO in full stream. You never know, your mother-in-law might get orders from various parts of the country, giving a new found respect for her home made delicacies which only a handful of fortunate people had tasted till now.

4.Want to start your own IT company? Learn web technologies or digital marketing. Do projects for yourself and family friends. Build portfolio. Create visiting cards. Target people around you. As money starts pouring in your company will be ready.

5.Want to have your own IT company without actually starting one? Become a middleman. Get projects from people and outsource to other companies by taking a referral. Look for local projects and send to companies, with your amount set in writing. Of course do thorough background check before committing to anyone.

6.Want to work with academics? You can get into a teaching role or IT Manager or TPO. For teaching, find out the syllabus being prescribed by their university and brush up your concepts. Private jobs are easier to get, as for government ones there has to be a tender notice first. To work as IT Manager, you’ll need to know about web technologies, digital marketing and some basic networking. For TPO you’ll have to be active in interfacing with industries and bringing them to your organisation. Note that once you do this then it won’t be easy to move back to a corporate job, unless you master new technologies in an area of demand. You can teach in schools as well. Some big schools will pay you good packages but also they might make you work long hours with little leaves.

7.Want to teach online? You can teach online on platforms like udemy. You can record videos using mobile and share screen using proprietary softwares (do a Google search on this if you’re interested). If you have a small batch of known students then you can use Skype or Hangouts as well.

8.Want to do IT work in other industries? You can join a jeweller, manufacturer, etc. and modify their existing applications or manage their web presence. Punjab has many study visa agents that sometimes pay quite well. Hospitals always need IT people but mostly for repair and maintenance kind of work. Again it helps if you know web technologies and can get your organisation to make money via the Internet.

9.Other avenues. Set up your own blog. Apply to remote jobs online. Give consultation to people on the things that you know. Do seminars and workshops for students. If your gap is increasing then take your laptop to a coffee shop and attend online lectures. Try to set a fixed schedule and adhere to it. Just don’t sit at home. Do something constructive.

Before you join a company

When you move from an established company in metros to an unknown company in smaller towns, then before joining, ask these questions to your prospective employer:

1. Do they have an HR policy in place ?

2. Do they have any harassment policy to protect females?

3. Do they pay salary in time ?

4. How safe are the workplace conditions ?

5. Are there night shifts and weekend working?

6. Will it be 5 days a week?

7. How will your career progression be like ?

8. Will they pay salary directly into your bank account ?

9. Is the company having any criminal cases against them ? (Better you find this yourself instead of asking them directly)

10. Will they encourage you to grow and train on the job?

Unclear on what to do?

⁃ If you have funds then do business

⁃ If you like to code then do programming

⁃ If you want to ensure goodness then do QA

⁃ If you like to draw then do graphics design

⁃ If you like to create without coding then do digital marketing

⁃ If you like to talk then do sales

⁃ If you like to write then do content marketing

⁃ If you like to manage someone then become manager

When choosing programming

New technologies keep on coming. Even if you know the latest technologies today, it’ll be outdated after few years. Yet you won’t be a fresher, if you can connect old technologies that you knew to the new ones. If you know Python then add data science or Django skills. If you know traditional marketing then add digital skills. If you know writing then add content marketing. If you know design then add front end development. Look at remote jobs websites, to know where the world is moving to. If you want you can do coding for few years and then move into project management or start your own startup.

Moving from academics to corporate

If you are into teaching and now want to do a corporate job, here’s what you can do.

⁃ Study about things like WordPress, MEAN stack, GitHub and inbound marketing. These things are in demand right now, probably you aren’t aware of them since they are not in your college textbooks. To upgrade your skills, you can also enrol in some training centre after your classes are over.

⁃Select the role you want to be eligible for, don’t think about money, explore blogs on that matter, and do it yourself.

⁃ You’ll have to work on upgrading your skills every day for few hours. Otherwise if it gets too late then you’ll be stuck up in these kind of roles only.

⁃ Start freelancing to implement things practically.

⁃ Apply for jobs to know how much you’ll be getting and if you need to work harder on yourself.

⁃ Often, teachers feel more comfortable managing things then doing programming. If you want to move into tech management then try to answer these questions. How will you deal with client when your team has exceeded the time estimates given to them? What will you do when a critical team member falls ill? Using what ways will you practically motivate a senior developer having issues in personal life? How will you improve retention? Can you deliver software on time that meets client expectations? These and many more challenges you’ll have to answer, if you want to move into corporate management kind of role.

⁃ Remember that 90% startups fail but 90% colleges don’t. Then there are issues of layoffs and senior members unable to cope up with self-learning the new technologies. The pressure for survival can be immense in most corporate companies, as compared to in a teaching job.

Choosing the best option

You can take courses on upgrad based on what interests you. Otherwise visualise what kind of work you’ll like to do. Mediate. Don’t think how you’ll achieve it, just focus on what you really want. This clarity will help you decide on the next step.

Conclusion

Only you are in charge of your own destiny. Your family can support you till an extent, largely it’s going to be your own efforts be it in relationships or at work. And even if you’ve not got an IT job in a small town then you can surely land up soon provided you are in right direction.

Don’t give up hope if you can’t get your dream job today. Life is too vast, sometimes we give up just before we’re about to get something. Good karma always pays back in kind.

Remember, everything has a silver lining. In case you feel things are not what you expected then it means god has some other and better plans for you which you’ll eventually realise with time. No other human apart from you are in charge of your life’s destiny. The only way we can truly make our lives worthwhile is by making others become better and adding value to their lives.

(This article has been edited to add some links, as suggested in comments by Mr. Sandeep Jain)