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How to Invest Money In Your 20s

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Wow, Gamestop ($GME) was on a wild ride the past month. Even seasoned stock investors had to start Googling “what is a naked short” and “how is it legal to short a stock over 100% of float” when this all started. We don’t yet know how this will end; however, it’s likely to end really well for some people and really badly for others. The good news is $GME has now generated excitement for first time investors to consider investing.

If you’re now interested in investing in your 20s, here are some ideas to consider before you buy your first stock. Don’t get caught up in all the hype. You have decades left to reap the benefits of investing in stocks and it’s important you make the right investing decisions for yourself. Here are 5 considerations to invest money in your 20s.

Invest Enough In Your 401k To Get The Full Employee Match At Minimum

A 401(k) plan is a retirement savings plan sponsored by employers. It allows employees to contribute to their retirement savings pre-tax in the United States. The 401(k) contribution limit for 2021 is $19,500, unchanged from 2020. Don’t know if you have a 401(k) plan or match? Ask your boss or look at the internal benefits webpage at your company. If you are eligible, your company will have information on how to sign up. The contribution amount you elect will be taken directly from your paycheck.

At minimum, you should always contribute enough to your 401(k) to get the full match. Consider how much you’ll save on taxes this year when you decide how much you’ll contribute to your 401(k). Also consider your money needs in the next 5-10 years. When you’re starting out in your 20s you’re paying down debt, saving for a car and saving for a house. It’s easier to put more money in retirement accounts when you’re no longer saving for a down payment.

Even though a 401(k) can be a set it and forget it account it’s best to check the performance of your 401(k) investments periodically. A 401(k) is a great investment vehicle; however, many companies limit what you can invest in. Even if you have a 401(k) you should also open a Roth IRA account for retirement savings and investments.

See Also: Corporate Benefits That Help You Make And Save More Money

Open A Roth IRA To Lock In Gains Tax Free

A Roth IRA is a retirement account that offers you a tax benefit when you retire in the United States. Roth IRA contributions are not tax deductible. You also do not pay taxes when you withdraw money at age 59 ½ +. This is different from traditional IRAs and 401(k) plans.

Make sure you’re familiar with the benefits of a Roth IRA and the Roth IRA rules first. Important rules include you can only invest up to $6,000 in 2021 pending income eligibility and you can only withdraw certain money penalty free before 59 1/2. While you don’t pay taxes on gains, you also can’t write off losses on your taxes.

At the beginning of your career, your salary is lower, your taxes are lower and you have less money. It’s harder to contribute at all to your Roth IRA, let alone the maximum. At the same time, you have the opportunity for money you contribute to grow tax free for 40+ years. In a Roth IRA you also have the flexibility to invest in any stocks, ETFs and mutual funds you want.

How do you set up a Roth IRA? It’s very easy and can be done in minutes. Charles Schwab, Vanguard and Fidelity all offer Roth IRA accounts among others.

Use Company Benefits like ESPP and RSUs

Do you work for a publicly traded company? Your company may offer an Employee Stock Purchase Plan, or ESPP. This benefit enables you to buy company stock at a discount. ESPP is a way for you to make extra money without any extra effort. The only steps? Enrolling in ESPP and deciding when you want to sell the shares. Whether you keep the shares or sell the shares is based on your own investment and tax strategy.

Another possible benefit to take advantage of is equity compensation. Restricted Stock Units (RSUs) are a popular way of giving company equity to employees at tech startups and large public companies. RSUs are a great way to grow your wealth. If they aren’t part of your comp plan today, inquire if this is something your company offers. A company may offer RSUs to employees, but may not offer them to all employees. Sometimes employees have to perform at a certain level, or need to be at a certain level, or they are offered as part of an employment package. Whether you keep the shares or sell the shares is based on your own investment and tax strategy.

Buy Individual Stocks in the Stock Market If You Like Risk

You want to buy individual stocks to get rich quick, but how do you know which one to buy? When starting anything, I always ask myself about what I’m willing to pay to learn. Learning anything cost money. Even if you teach yourself, you always need to buy the basics. For example buying / renting gold clubs or technology to watch how to videos on YouTube. How much are you willing to spend learning something new?

The thing about stocks is that there is a chance it could go to $0. That chance depends on which stock you pick. For example, Gamestop is a very volatile stock. If you buy a share and it comes crashing down you could lose most of your money when you decide to sell. This is why it’s good to know how much you’re willing to spend to learn something new.

If you’re willing to spend $100 to learn something new, buy $100 worth of a stock or several stocks. Say the stock goes up in value, great! If it goes to $1, you were willing to spend $100 to learn something new. Now, you’re left with $1 and knowledge about how to set up an investing account, how to buy a stock, how stock prices fluctuate, where to learn more about your investments, how to sell a stock, how to write off stock losses on your taxes and more.

When you buy your first stock consider buying a share of a company that excites you. That way, you’ll want to learn more about the company. You’ll want to listen to quarterly earnings, learn about market valuations and more. If you’re not excited about your first investment you’re less likely to spend extra time learning about investing in the stock market. Generally, stocks fall into two categories: growth stocks and value stocks.

Growth Stocks

Growth stocks are stocks that are considered to have the potential to outperform the overall market based on their future potential. These stocks usually don’t pay dividends and tend to be more volatile. Examples of growth stocks include Tesla, Roku, Square and Amazon.

Value Stocks

Value stocks are stocks that are currently trading below what they are really worth and the thought is they have the opportunity to provide a better return. Some value stocks also offer dividends so you don’t have to wait to sell a stock to get some cash. Value stocks are usually larger, more established companies. Examples of value stocks include companies like Verizon and 3M.

Both growth and value stocks have the possibility to go up in value and go down in value. There is no guarantee the stock will go up. And, if you think a stock is overvalued there is also no guarantee that stock will go down.

See Also: Smart Money Moves In Your 20s

Buy ETFs If You Don’t Want To Actively Manage Your Stock Portfolio

ETFs stand for electronically traded funds, also know as index funds. When you buy an index fund you are buying a basket of individual stocks. If you buy a S&P 500 ETF, you’re investing in all 500 companies that are in the S&P 500. The more diversified your portfolio, the less volatile your portfolio is. The goal of index funds is to match the performance of a specific benchmark.

There are fees for ETFs; however, they tend to be lower than mutual funds. Before you buy an ETF make sure you know what fees the ETF charges per year. The average fee for index funds is 0.15% according to Morningstar data from April 2019.

How To Invest Money In Your 20s Summary

No matter how you decide to invest money in your 20s it’s important you choose a strategy that works for you. Before you start investing, make sure you know the options that may give you free money to start investing. This includes things like a 401k employee match and RSUs. Other important considerations? When you’ll need the money, your risk tolerance and how much time you want to spend.

Investing money in your 20s is hard when you don’t have as much money and it’s new. Like everything, you’ll learn from your mistakes and get better over time. Even if you buy a bad stock, or sell a good stock early it’s better to learn these lessons when you have less money at stake.

Different strategies work for different people. Investing when you may need the money for a big purchase in the next 5 years is different than investing money when you don’t need money for 20 years. Different people also have different risk tolerances. If you’re going to lose sleep worrying about losing money in the stock market a lower risk, set it and forget it strategy may be more aligned to your goals.

Advice for 2020 Grads From a Millennial That Graduated in 2010

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College graduation has come and gone. The pandemic, unfortunately, has not. It’s a tough job market out there for new grads. Glassdoor Economic Research found that new grad related job openings fell 68% in May from the same time last year. They also found that 7 of the top 10 companies attracting the most new grad applications are tech companies. This is no surprise since tech companies tend to offer high salaries.

It’s not just job postings either, good salaries are tougher to find during recessions as well. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research graduating in a recession leads to large initial earnings losses of about 9% of annual earnings in the initial stage eventually recede but don’t disappear until about ten years after graduation.

Don’t get discouraged by this news. While it’s tough, there are still ways to thrive. I graduated in 2010 and saw a lot of this first hand. We had less paid internship opportunities in college. Entry jobs didn’t begin opening up until much later. We also saw many of our friends who graduate a year or two above us get a job offer and then have it revoked, get laid off after only months of working or struggle to get that first job after graduation. Based on what I saw during the Great Recession and how we all took control of our jobs and our finances in the decade since here is my advice for graduates.

Be Prepared To Share Your Resume and What Jobs You’re Interested In At A Moments Notice

My top career advice for graduates is to always be prepared. Practice your 30 second elevator pitch on your background, what you’re looking for and how you add value. Always have your resume up to date, even if you’re content in your current job.

You know you need to prepare for a job interview, but how prepared are you for a chance encounter? While in person chance encounters are less likely during social distancing, they can still happen through word of mouth. Perhaps one of your parents, a relative, a friend or a neighbor hears of a job and contacts you. Will an opportunity land in your lap? It’s unlikely. But, if you tell people you’re looking for a job and put yourself in situations where you meet new people these types of chance encounters are more likely to happen.

These are the situations you need to be prepared for. If there is an opportunity, they’ll ask for your resume to share. They’ll ask about what types of jobs you’re looking for, so they can think about if they know of any openings.

Do have your resume always up to date. Do be clear with what you’re looking for. Don’t say you’re open to anything. By keeping it too vague it’s hard for someone to help you. That doesn’t mean you need to know exactly what you want. Here are a few ways you can answer it:

  1. Talk about your background – what did you major in? What were you most excited about in your internships and classes?
  2. Location – are you looking for a job locally or are you open to moving for a role? Do you have a preference?
  3. Are you looking for a full time or part time role? Are you open to a role that starts as part time but could lead to something full time?
  4. Speak to your skill set – what areas are you strong in?

See Also: How to Ask for a Job Referral

You May Not Land Your Dream Job… and That’s OK

Millions of Americans are unemployed or furloughed. Competition for jobs right now is tough. So, chances that you’ll land your dream job are slimmer. But, that doesn’t have to be a bad thing! Think back to when you were applying to college. Did you end up at your dream school? Did it all work out in the end?

To put things in perspective, you’re also in your early 20s. Most people do not know exactly what they want to do with their lives at this age. It’s a myth that everyone knows exactly what they want to do when they graduate college. It’s important to be flexible. Take a job and figure out what you enjoy and what you don’t enjoy about that job. Then, continue looking for ways to enjoy that job more, or look for another job you’ll enjoy more.

The job opportunities available now may be wildly different than your major. Your opportunities may even be going back to where you worked part time in high school. That’s ok. No company is going to frown upon the interim job you took during a pandemic.

See Also: Career Advice for Young Professionals

Know What Seems Like Settling May Be The Best Thing That Happens To You

I stumbled into the tech industry at the recommendation of my career center at college. I had no idea what my dream job would be then. We were in middle of the recession so I got an offer and accepted. Turns out it was the best thing that could have happened. The tech industry is an amazing industry to work in. I met countless mentors and sponsors that helped torpedo my career. Now, everyone wants to work in tech! But back then, almost no one I went to school was trying to get a job in tech.

Some of my friends in tech sales that graduated around the same time have shared they joined a tech inside sales program because those were the jobs that were available. Sales reps at several high tech companies say they earn an average of over $142,000 a year. Here they were in the middle of the Great Recession and they ended up getting their foot in the door to one of the best paying jobs that doesn’t require an advanced degree.

Use Your College Career Center To Identify Open Positions and Helpful Contacts

Career Services on campus is a great resource for current students and recent alumni. They have access to tools that can help you identify what careers to pursue. Often, they’ve helped alumni get their jobs and have maintain those relationships. When you’re trying to get an in at a company they may know of an alumni to reach out to. They also have relationships with companies that hire entry level positions. Career Services may even be the most important office on campus according to an opinion piece on Forbes.

Network With Alumni

If you’re looking at jobs at a company my advice for graduates is network with current alumni at the company. That way, you have a connection that you can reach out to for a referral if a job does open up. Don’t expect alumni to reach out to you with any opportunity they hear. It’s likely they are busy. Instead, monitor the open jobs at that company and reach out again when you see one you’re interested in.

First, reach out to alumni you have relationships with asking if they know of opportunities. Remember to be as specific as you can with what you are looking for. Join LinkedIn Alumni groups for your college and also look to join ones on Facebook. Sometimes there are even subgroups for a certain location. Post in these groups and share your story. Many people are happy to help, and may help offer advice even if they don’t know of any job opportunities currently available.

Consider a Paid or Unpaid Internship In The Short Term Instead of a Full Time Job

While you’re looking for a full time role, one path to potentially get a full time offer is to accept an internship. An internship is helpful if you don’t have much experience on your resume and you need a little more experience to start landing interviews. Internships are also helpful if the company isn’t hiring full time right now but may be hiring for full time positions in a couple months.

Add To Your Experience Through Volunteering

Not all experience is from internships and part time jobs. You can also show your experience through your volunteer experience. Use this experience to show how you’ve built leadership experience, reliability and additional skills that are relevant to the jobs you are applying to. Not all volunteering has to be in person or even at a non-profit.

If you see a local business struggling and they don’t have a social media presence offer to help them set it up for free and add that experience to your resume. This also opens up opportunities for future paid work. They may recommend you to their network and you can begin charging for your time.

Be Frugal For The Next Few Years

My top financial advice for graduates is to be frugal for the next few years. It’s not the best economy right now and we don’t know how long it’ll take to recover. So, once you get a job keep conserving as much cash as possible. It’s not like there is a lot to do now anyways with businesses closed and limited travel options available. Plus, if you have a remote job you don’t have to buy more than a few shirts for Zoom calls.

Ways to keep living like a college student include cheap housing and cheap food. Keep living at home or move in with roommates into a starter apartment. If you’re moving out, try to negotiate rent. Vacancies are up right now so you’re more likely to have success negotiating things like a free month of rent. The next biggest expense is transportation. Hold off on buying a car especially if you don’t know where you’ll end up living. Use your current car as long as you can. If you don’t have a car, buy a used car and shop around for deals.

Hang out with friends outside instead of going to a restaurant. Go on a walk, or bring food for a picnic. Drinks and food at restaurants are expensive and with many bars closed there are less cheap drink specials to be found. Eat at home. When you buy groceries, look for coupons and deals. There are also ways to spend less on food by buying cheaper options. For example, buy oats and make oatmeal instead of single serve yogurts. You can find dinner recipes and meal planning tips to save money.

Is frugal living not for you? This doesn’t have to be a permanent lifestyle, but the longer you’re able to live frugally like you lived in college the easier your finances will be. You don’t have to cut back in all areas either, the single most important expense is housing.

See Also: How to Save Money in Your 20s

Start An Emergency Fund Once You Land A Job

Once you land a job, whether it be part time or full time, start an emergency fund. An emergency fund is an amount of money set aside to cover emergencies if they arise. The money should be easily accessible and liquid (such as money held in a checking account or savings account) that you have for when things go wrong. This includes an unexpected health bill, unexpected car repair, if you lose your job and so forth.

At this point, don’t worry about how much money you should have in an emergency fund. Your focus once landing a job is to start an emergency fund, even if it’s only contributing $5-10 a paycheck. If your family gave you some money for graduation put some of that cash in your emergency fund. Get in the habit of consistently contributing a little money with every single paycheck, and automate the savings so you don’t even have to think about it. Once you are more settled, you can start building your emergency fund.

Want a High Salary? 10 Tips to Get a Job At A Tech Company

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The more money you make, the easier it is to save money and make more money through investing or starting your own business. You can achieve financial independence quicker and decide if you want to retire early or keep working and have a nicer lifestyle. So, how do you get that high salary? One way to get a high salary is to get hired by a tech company. The IT industry is known for high salaries. According to Indeed, the average base salary for a software engineer is almost $110,000. That doesn’t even include bonuses or RSUs. CNBC highlights 11 jobs that pay $150,000 or more at Amazon including product management, technical program management and solution architect.

A common misconception is that you need to know how to code to get a job at a tech company. This is not true. There are plenty of jobs in operations, sales, marketing, finance, HR and additional departments that don’t require you to be an engineer. The hardest part about getting a job at a technology company is getting your foot in the door. So, how do you get a job in tech? I reached out to a few bloggers to share their stories on how they got their jobs in tech.

Apply To a Leadership Development Program

This is my story of how I got a job in tech. I started at a IT company by applying to a leadership development program during my senior year in undergrad through career services. I was a senior in college during the Great Recession, majoring in business management. Wondering, what jobs exactly does a business management major apply to? I spoke to career services and they recommended I apply to leadership development programs. These programs allow you to have multiple different jobs over the course of 2-3 years and is a great program for people that don’t know what they want to do for work. One of the [business operations] leadership development programs they recommended was at a technology company that recruits on campus.

As luck would have it, the recruiter happened to be in my same sorority at another school. We immediately hit it off. I knew nothing about the IT industry. But, before the second round, I happened to read an article about how cloud computing was the next best thing. I brought that up in my interview, the panel was impressed and I got the job.

My advice to getting a job at a tech company: apply for a leadership development program if you are graduating college or a masters program, and read a couple articles about the next “big thing” in tech right before your interview. CIO magazine is a good place to find a few of these articles. When you’re in your interviews, look for ways you relate to each person you interact with. Do you like the same sports or sports teams? Do you have a similar hobby? A lot of acing any interview is to be liked and deemed that you’ll be a good fit. Sometimes it’s as simple as having a similar hobby.

Self-Teach Yourself to Code

Money Mage shares their story on how to get into IT by learning how to code:

I learnt to code in my bedroom as a teenager and got my first job aged 16. It paid my way through University. I studied Computer Science at undergraduate, and specialized in Computer Games postgraduate. I’ve always been into games! I now work for one of the biggest companies on the planet, in an engineering role that’s also customer-facing. I love my 9-5, I know that’s not a popular view, but it’s awesome. I’ve been fortunate in my career, finding a low cost of living area that has high employability. Starting early really helped, as University was a breeze. I’ve also got to work with some amazingly talented people in the Games industry.

Employability in tech is high at the moment. It’s highly white-male skewed, and many companies are positively discriminating to correct the balance. Tech-bro culture is horrid. The correction means it’s a great time to get into tech, you can start self-taught and work your way up. I’d strongly recommend brushing up on the fundamentals, data structures, algorithms, even performance and optimization. It’s so easy to get hung up on the latest frameworks and language trends. The fundamentals are lasting. The big companies select for fundamentals + fit, not frameworks.

Take Digitally Focused PR Classes to Gain Technical Experience

Madison, from Best Company, shares her tips on how to get into IT in a digital marketing role:

Although I work in tech, I’ve always considered myself as a creative. One that loves to create something out of nothing. My journey as a creative started by filming weddings, but in recent years i’ve pivoted into my current job—a digital marketer in the tech space. How did I make this huge leap? Well, the most crucial decision was my college major, Public Relations. My program did not teach “traditional PR” but instead had digitally focused PR classes. We learned about SEO, social media listening, content creation, blog writing and how to structure Google AD campaigns. My college program showed me that the tech space was more than just software engineers. Creatives had a niche to showcase their technical and creative skills through digital marketing. My major’s unique digital initiatives allowed me gain technical experience in college and land jobs in the tech industry that fit my skills and interests.

Join The Military in a Cyber Security Role

Eric, from FireTheMillennial, shares his story of how he got into tech through a Cyber Security Analyst role within the military:

My name is Eric, and I started working in tech when I turned 18. I enlisted in the military and was given the job of Cyber Security Analyst, which sounded exciting on paper but was just policy enforcement. We were required to obtain the CompTIA Security+ certification to graduate from our technical training. That certification is a requirement in the cybersecurity field. It shows a base level of understanding of information security and networking concepts. I left the military after 5 years and worked for a couple of the top 10 defense contractors as an information systems security officer and have been working for them ever since. A few tips to get a foot in the door:

  • Figure out what exactly your end goal is. Do you want to go the security route? Networking? Penetration tester? – Get a baseline certification. Whether that be Security+, Network+, you’re going to have to show recruiters/the company that you have at least a base knowledge of the field
  • Do you want to work for a defense contractor? You’re going to need a security clearance. Nine times out of ten, you won’t get considered without one. The easiest way to get one is to join the military, but that’s a commitment you have to think about.
  • If you want to work for the tech giants (Amazon, Microsoft, etc), start working on their cloud certifications. Whether that be Azure (Microsoft) or AWS (Amazon), cloud technologies are huge right now and they’re not going anywhere. They both provide online study resources for their certifications “

Leverage C++ Skills To Land A Job As a Junior Developer At A Software Company

Adam, from Awesome Personal Finance, shares his journey on how he got into IT through a Ph.D. in math:

My journey into tech is unconventional. It starts with a Ph.D. in math. While this is a great accomplishment it initially limited my employment options because I had no significant experience. From California, I tried to initially work in finance in New York. The timing couldn’t have been worse as Wall Street banks were melting down. I was standing in Times Square when Lehman Brothers announced their closure.

Having decent skills in C++ from some mathematical modeling classes I looked for a job as a junior developer at some software companies. Jobs were still very hard to find back then and competition was stiff. I had to finally settle by taking a professor job. The pay was low and it was not what I wanted to be doing, but I had my own office and was back to looking for tech for jobs. After one year of looking I decided I needed help. Hours of sifting through the internet led me to find a senior Amazon Engineer who offered tech interview coaching. I paid him $199 and he got me pointed in the right direction over the phone.

Being sick of online resume submissions I decided to try some job fairs in major cities. It was literally the last person I gave my resume to that pulled out a cell phone and offered me an interview that day. I nailed the white board interview and have been working as a software developer ever since.

Get A Technical Job At a Non Tech Company and Leverage That Skill Set To Move Into a Tech Company

Moving and Baking shares their story on how they moved into IT from working in tech at a financial services company:

I grew up with computers before it was cool. I probably wrote my first program in Basic around age 7, and built web pages for extra credit in high school. Then, I went on to major in computer science and math in college. Coming into the job market after the dot com bubble burst, I took the only offer I got with an online financial services company. I spent 13 years in financial services technology in NY and CA before moving to Texas in 2016. At that point I was ready for a change, and connected with recruiters at several technology companies here. The skills I had built in tech and product management translated well to a tech company. Though different in business purpose, the problems are surprisingly similar and I’m enjoying this role tremendously.

Work with a Recruiting Agency Who Can Help Find Tech Jobs That Match Your Background

Zero, at Walking to FIRE, shares her story of how she got into tech with a background in Special Education and using recruiting agencies:

I graduated in May, 2014 with an M.Ed. in Special Education. As a senior in college, I was diagnosed with a rare vascular condition in my brain that required me to have brain surgery. Because of my background in special education as well as newfound personal interest in working to improve the living conditions of people with disabilities as a newly disabled person myself, I moved to NYC with a few thousand in the bank, a lot of enthusiasm, and no experiences to actually get me in the door.

I was job hunting for half a year, sending hundreds of resumes to every disability advocacy nonprofit and service organizations in the city. Unfortunately, my half-year sublet to an apartment was ending, and I still didn’t have a full-time job, paying my bills by juggling multiple gigs (babysitting, tutoring, working as therapist for boy with down syndrome). It was either go back to my hometown to try to find a job there, or find a full-time job ASAP to justify a new lease.

In the last month of my job hunt, I found out that recruiting agencies existed, and what’s better – they’re free! I submitted my resume to multiple recruiting agencies, and unlike the hundreds of resumes that probably went unread, I got calls immediately. Within days, I was interviewing with a consulting firm who needed to fill a client’s IT Helpdesk Engineer role. The caveat was that the client wanted a Japanese/English bilingual, and those are very hard to come by. “We know you have no technical backgrounds,” the recruiter said. “And though we can’t teach linguistic skills, we can teach technical skills. Would you be interested in trying a help desk role?” And that was how I began my journey that got me from a Special Education teacher to Helpdesk Engineer to SysAdmin to working freelance as a Technical Writer!

Major in Marketing? Learn to Code to Differentiate Yourself

Forrest is a Digital Marketing Manager at a restaurant technology company and blogs at Don’t Work Another Day shares his story about how he majored in marketing and learned how to code:

For me, getting a job in tech was not planned. I have always loved technology and having the latest gadgets, but it was not to focus of my education. Instead, I received my degree in marketing and taught myself web development throughout college. This enabled me to build websites for others, bolstering my career into digital marketing. Tech is highly dependent on your skills rather than education. If you have the skillset, you’re likely to receive a job offer even without a college diploma. Because the vast majority of marketers are unable to write code, this positioned me in a good place to work as a digital marketer, combining my skills in marketing and web development.

If you’re interested in working in tech, I encourage you to learn as many coding languages as you can to set yourself apart. There are many free resources available to help you. Most of my knowledge came from YouTube videos and a few books, all of which are free.

Become a Consultant That Partners with Tech Companies

Jordan, at One Cricketeer, shares his story on how he works with tech companies in his current role:

I had access to a computer as long as I remember. I played PC games that honed my problem solving abilities at a young age and excelled in STEM classes throughout school. Next, I got accepted to the highest ranked undergraduate engineering school in the US. I graduated with double major in Software Engineering and Computer Science, with a double minor in Math and Computational Science (using computers to do modeling and solve complex math problems). After graduation, I applied to a bunch of companies and accepted my current one that a professor had worked for and recommended me to.

I currently work in a boutique consulting firm, which then partners with larger corporations like IBM, Google, Amazon, etc and then I work at their clients for a few months to years at a time. I can rotate whenever a job is finished or talk to my manager about where my interests exist, and we work on a plan such as certifications or job shadowing.

Get An Interview At A Tech Company Through A Referral

Steve at NW Outlier shares his story of how he started working in IT through a referral with a high school diploma and a drive to succeed:

Getting into tech in the late 90’s was different than today. When I decided to finally make that move, I chose to work in a used computer store. I always was on time, worked hard, got noticed… was promoted to manager. Fast forward a couple years when my sister in law was working as a contractor (temp worker testing software) at Microsoft and called me one day at the store and asked “do you want to work at Microsoft?” I did not hesitate to interview. At the time, Microsoft would hire less knowledgeable workers to point out difficulties that users would experience with their software. I started as a temp worker making $18/hr working on Windows 98. I would spend my time writing the best defects, with high levels of accuracy and detail for the developers.

Over time my knowledge was sufficient or significant to be considered an engineer, but still not hired as a full-time person. After 3.5 years I moved on to a dot com that failed within a year, then interviewed at Microsoft and my current employer. My objective was to move towards full time employee, and I was open during my interview with both to let them know this was my goal/objective. I ended up being there through a couple mergers for a total (my temp work and full-time employee work) of just over 17 years. While building that career, I kept the same work ethic, I was in early and stayed late – I loved technology, so it was easy for me. When I started as an employee at my current employer, I was an entry level person, from there over the years I worked myself up to a Principle Solutions Architect.

All this was accomplished with just a high school diploma. I will admit, part of me wishes I spent some time in school to get a 2-4 year degree to compete with some of my peers. Towards the end of my career I was working shoulder to shoulder with PhD level network architects. Working this hard, for this long is for sure going to burn anyone out, so please – be sure to be saving a significant portion of your income. So, when the time comes you can shift down and maintain the same lifestyle. I have started following the personal finance blogs, and the FI/RE crowd – this saved my life! We’ve saved and invested almost enough to not worry about having a W2 or day job income, but I still have a few more years…. Stay Tuned.

How to Get Into IT Summary

There are plenty of ways to get into IT, this only includes examples from 10 different people! Some people pursued the route of learning how to code and others leveraged their skill sets in other areas like marketing and operations to get jobs in those respective divisions. Another got their foot in the door through an employee referral.

Technology companies pay well and can help you achieve your financial goals faster. You are able to earn a higher salary and increase your savings rate. If you work in tech now, how did you get into IT originally?