What

Welcome to your new IT career advice home!

Hey – welcome home!

What is this place and how did you get here you ask?  Probably sweet, sweet writing, and maybe some subtle SEO magic.

Who am I / Who are you/ Who are we?

I am Preston Kilburn, the cartographer here at Careermap.tech.

YOU are now a Navigator.

WE are now going to kick your career goals in IT on overdrive.

So you might be asking why I would make a blog and a podcast about this subject?  Well, because quite honestly because nothing out there doesn’t have a HUGE ANGLE when they’re giving you advice.  I know you’ve seen these websites out there:

Search result for ‘How to get ahead in networking’ = ‘Take some classes at <fill in the blank training center>’.

Search result for ‘How to get a non-on-call IT job = ‘Find degree programs in your area at <fill in the blank university>’.

And honestly – I’m sick of it.

Sick and fed up of corporate recruiter shops offering lame-ass cert advice that is either so far out of the common range it’s not funny.

Sick of Universities promising that for an 80k degree, you might get a starting rung help desk job (with the dude who worked with no degree for 6 months at Geek Squad, btw).

Here are my core commitments to you, dear reader, listener, and occasionally – viewers:

1: I won’t recommend stuff I don’t absolutely think is helpful to your career in some ways.

2: If I get a referral fee for something I recommend, I will let you know.

3: I’m ACTUALLY in IT, and I plan to stay this way.  I’m not some mythical career coach looking to find a niche. For more info about me (Preston) here is my LinkedIn profile: (https://www.linkedin.com/in/prestonkilburn/)

4: I’m actually here to help you, not make a few bucks off of you.  There are a LOT of smart people I’ve met in IT who are stuck in dead end jobs and they don’t know how to break free.  I want to help you with that.

5: I take giving this advice seriously, because sometimes people gave me terrible advice just off-the-cuff and it set me back.

6: I value diversity of opinion.  We are going to have a LOT of different opinions.  Sometimes they might conflict – and that’s OK – because not every map is drawn the same way.  No two IT careers are the same either, but once you start to know the topology of this career, you’ll be able to go faster.