I've been around. Much of what I know is self taught as the few training courses I've been on have felt somewhat superficial.
The best way to do stuff is to jump in and play with it. It's how I learned such diverse subject as the maintenance and debugging of mainframe operating systems to developing VB applications.
The only down-side to this is that prospective employers see you as a 'jack of all trades, master of none'. They seem to want to employ experts but then want massive amounts of flexibility once you're employed.
It's a tough world.
That said, it's been fun amassing skills in the following:
Skills Summary
PC Based
- Visual Basic (All COM versions)
- C# (.Net) – relative beginner
- C++
- MS-Office (all versions) including complex macro developments
- Creation and support of Windows based help files
Internet
- Web site Design, Planning and implementation
- HTML
- CSS
- JavaScript
- PHP – relative beginner
- Java – minor modifications and simple applets
Mid-Range
- RS/6000 – AIX
- C development
- SNA gateway
Mainframe
- VM
- VSE
- MVS
- CICS
- DL/1
- COBOL
- Assembler
- APL
Database
Database planning, design, implementation and support on desktop systems. Applications were coded to use MS-Access databases using SQL.
Managerial
- Management of technical teams
- Control of budgets
- Planning and implementation of web based marketing campaigns
Customer Facing
- Technical consultancy (To organisations such as Manchester United, PowerGen, Severn Trent Water, MOD, Nabisco)
- Management of support teams
- Customer Requirements identification
- Systems implementation planning
Personal Attributes
- Self-motivated
- Highly logical
- Results oriented
- Very proactive
- High degree of loyalty
- Equally happy to work alone or as part of a team
- Cope well under pressure
- Used to working on multiple projects simultaneously