I also find it hard to break out from the IT industry.
I have a Bsc degree in Business IT(as the name implies it does NOT teach programming too much, rather the business background) and an Msc in Management. Almost all my job applications to non-it positions went like this: no reply or recruiter or hr tried to sell me some IT position in their company instead of the junoir graduate, administrative, BD etc job I originally applied. If I applied to IT positions, after the usual number’s game despite of being young and recently out of school, I got one. In my region, if they see that if you have some basic grasp of IT, they will try to sqeeze you in that box:
You applied to junior manager program? Why don’t you go to our SAP position instead?
Basic reporting? Why not try out this developer level reporting job with VBA and SQL and lot of data cleansing instead? Come on it will be fun, you already have IT experience, how do you expect to work in anything else?
Despite my management studies as well, all I see is IT jobs everywhere. I want to switch to management or to consultancy or bd or anything really, but the market won’t let me.
I do not enjoy daily sprints, maintaining other’s code, user’s don’t even know what they are doing, they just press a button and dont even know the business backgound part.
Some say after few years you get a management role, but in many orgs I do not see that happening, trhe roles and positions are locked in, no openings. Meanwhile I see my friends from my second (management) major with no IT experience getting PM, PO, BD and Scrum Master positions and wonder what I am doing wrong…
My plan now is to apply to smaller, less pickier companies who might “settle” with me in a role which does not involve code, due to the current circumstances of the virus and the facts above, not much luck yet.