How to restart career in Web or IT field after a long break?

It is really difficult to have a career in the IT field after the gap for 4-5 years. The options one can have are as below-

1. If you were in an IT firm earlier, you may contact your HR for available positions and can check your suitability. Being your previous employer, they have your service and performance record and they may hire with some short term training.

2. You may enroll for a suitable IT-related refreshment course in any of the centers like NIIT and then can try for a job. This course will brush up your knowledge and will also cover your gap. Many such reputed institutes also offer job guarantee after completion of the course but then it depends upon the age of the candidate.

IT firms want to deliver best results with the available competent staffs and such companies would not like to any compromise with respect to the quality of the projects being undertaken by them. Hence any breakage of the candidates of over 5 to 6 years in the IT firm would lead to their rejection in most of the cases because of the gap.
There are some tips which can be helpful in such cases and the same may be applied -
1) You may meet your previous employer and apprise them of your situation which caused you to leave the job. They have their personnel department keeping files of each candidate where in there is all records of your good jobs, your ratings given by your superiors and other financial incentives received by you for commendable jobs. They would look into your file before they ask you to resume your job. Hence you should not make any shy in approaching your employer.
2) If possible, try to have some certification in the area in which you were working from a reputed institute such as APTECH or NIIT. It may be in the area of JAVA or in the ORACLE etc. Such certifications would strengthen your job prospects in the IT companies.
3) Update your CV with your career - break - Add the new skills you might have developed during the break and explain the Interviewer how this skills can be more productive for the job being applied for. Never hesitate in making effective representations of your acquired skills.
4) Network - While looking for a job after a care break, establish contact with all your colleagues, clients and friends working in the IT firms requesting them to update your profile in the websites of their companies so as to get a suitable assignment in the domain you worked in the past.
5) Be prepared for the Interview - Before you attend your interview, make sure you are prepared to answer the related questions about your career break. Make the interviewer clear what prompted you to go in break such upbringing your child, any family issue such as illness of family - members or self etc causing the situation beyond your control. Highlight your efforts such as aquistion of certification in your area in order to raise efficiency in your working domain.
6) Be confident - Without confidence, you can easily undervalue what you can offer to your employer. Focus on your strength. If possible you may join some institute developing your oral skill. Update your techniques in your own area so that your interview with the next employer is impressive and it creates a favourable impact of your strength.

A job after a break of 5 to 6 years due to various reasons may be a real difficult issue in any field and it will be more difficult in the IT field. If you have a good 10 to 12 years or more expereince in a particular area of IT and you want to rejoin the same field, you may have some options. But people with 5 to 6 years or lesser experience, it may be a difficult proposition. But trying is never wrong. You can try. But you should try to get some additional skills and certificates. You can try the following options.

1. Contact your boss in the earlier company where you worked and ask him for his help. If he is having any vacancy in the field you have worked, he may prefer you. A known devil is better than the unknown ghost. Based, on his response you can send your CV incorporating all the latest information.

2. Register your CV on naukri.com and timesjon.com also. They will be sendiing your alerts. You can also visit once in a while. If any suitable posts are there you can apply. You can see other such sites also. ISC job section gives you various vacant posts.

3. Try to get some certificates by doing some latest short term courses in the IT field that will add credentials to your cv.

4. Try for some teaching job in any college where you can start working initially and after working for some time you may get a good job.

After a long gap it is difficult to take up a job even if it is available as there are many new techniques and developments have been adopted by the business environment during the period you were absent from the main stream. Still there is one way to catch up and that is to do some short duration certificate course in the area of your interest and possibly where you had earlier worked and having some experience pertaining to the particular subject.

There are many areas where there is scope of getting job as well as one can work with a private business group or a small local group and utilise his or her learnings and gain further experience in the area. A short certificate course of a few months or a diploma of 6 months to 1 year will be sufficient to make you ready for taking up the related positions in the industry. Some of these prospective career lines are -

1. Web hosting and web designing.
2. Animation.
3. Software analysis and testing.
4. Software development.
5. Graphic designing.
6. Digital marketing.
7. Mobile app development.
8. Computer aided designing.
9. Social media management.
10. Internet security.

One should keep learning if he/she wanted to stay in the IT field. Technologies are changing every day. Keep updated and should have done at least on hands-on exercise on that particular technology to know the foundation of it. Practical knowledge always outruns the theoretical knowledge in any field. That doesn't mean zero on theory parts. You should prepare for the interview. At first, it will be a bit hard. But it will change. You should not lose your hope. If you didn't succeed in the first attempt, you might get in the next. So keep on trying.

If you really think you won't get it, try changing the domain or structure of what you wanted to work on. You have many freelance options available online like freelancer, upwork, etc. You might get work on your specific area there. The IT field is not the end of the world. You will get plenty of other options using your knowledge of computers. You can do anything online. You can be an online tutor. Or a content writer. There are many websites like ISC which provides income for the work we do.