Comments on: Career Paths and Goals for Higher Ed Web People

By: Managing Your Technology Career | HighEdWebTech

Managing Your Technology Career | HighEdWebTech — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 15:06:09 +0000

[...] he’s certainly in a position to talk about career advancement and development. I wrote about careers for higher ed web folks back in July. Given the rising costs of technology in an ever-changing field, I strongly suggest [...]

By: Ron

Ron — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 08:13:18 +0000

Great post and something for all of us in the field to think about as we move up the ranks. So many job titles, hybrid roles and strange names out there that I find myself searching for a bevy of different titles. What’s also interesting, is just because the title says something, the institution’s idea of what that person actually does might be completely different than another place. Frustrating lack of uniformity. Provides us with a blank canvas, but also, could be the source of potholes.

Anyway, good conversation piece.

By: Kyle James

Kyle James — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 00:29:12 +0000

There really is no clear defined path for Higher Ed Web people. Heck I’ve been working at Wofford for five years now and in that time held four different jobs in three departments (Information Technology, Information Management, and now Communications & Marketing). Did I do this by moving up the chain… nowhere close to that. I had honestly just gotten my MCP and was going to start working on my MCSA or maybe some Oracle certs because I saw my career path going towards being a DBA or Server Admin before hoping over to managing the website and really digging all into Online Marketing.

I don’t know if every college/university is like Wofford, but I just don’t think the senior administration have really figured out how to handle our careers as IT and Web are still such young and new industries especially to administration who still remember a time before them.

By: Karine Joly

Karine Joly — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 18:49:21 +0000

I'm sure you would do a fantastic job as a CIO, Mike. Thanks for posting about higheredexperts.com/work. Actually, I've just validated the first job posting for the position of the director of Web services at Augustana College.

By: Karlyn

Karlyn — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 17:05:53 +0000

I’ve been thinking a lot about this too. In regards to the Dir. of Web Communications position, I think that Wooster has the right idea, but all too often it seems that the same title at other schools is nothing more than a manager of marketing on the web (it’s also interesting that Wooster has it reporting to the VP of marketing, which may be telling as to the actual function of the position).

They are going to have a really tough time filling that position as they have it posted and, honestly, I don’t know if I would want it. That person is going to be expected to be a superstar in everything and it’s almost a bit unrealistic, particularly for the salaries that higher ed people make. You can’t expect to recruit people to work for you that are at the top of their game when you don’t offer top of the line salaries.