For students with a career gap, breaking into IT is challenging. Many believe faking experience guarantees a high starting salary, but this focus on salary is misplaced. If someone claims you can land an IT job without coding or with outdated academic training, don’t be misled.

These are not the days when interviews get cleared easily. You came with a career gap, or from a non-IT background into IT. How will you understand everything at once? To get a job in IT, it no longer happens in just 3 months. Now jobs take time. Talk about skills, talk about subject depth. Remember, only if you have skills should you enter IT; otherwise, don’t. If you think jobs come quickly through shortcuts, you will definitely face fraud, waste your time, and gain no knowledge. Approach it in a research-oriented way. See what jobs exist. See what fits you.

Why Students Have Career Gaps

Many students face a career gap. That means they might have finished B.Tech or a degree in 2015, 2010, 2018, or 2020. Later, they might have tried business, prepared for higher studies like bank exams, groups, civils, or other competitive exams, or done small non-IT jobs. Now, if they want to enter IT, what should they do?

10 Points Career Gap Students Must Follow

1. Focus strongly on communication skills

Many students have a career because they did non-IT jobs or stayed in villages, and their communication skills are very weak. They just learn technology and attend interviews. But in IT interviews, 25–30% is based on communication skills. Communication skills don’t just mean English. They include your confidence, body language, how you present yourself, and your storytelling capacity.

2. Build Multiple Skills

Only try for IT jobs if you have multiple skills. That means you should know programming, databases, cloud, and web services. You should also be ready to learn any new skill assigned. Without multiple skills, career-gap candidates cannot crack jobs. Gone are the days when learning just one course was enough. Now you must have multiple skills. Cloud has become mandatory. Python has become mandatory. Full-stack development has become mandatory. Even those already in IT are learning multiple skills to survive in their jobs. So when you shift from a gap into IT, you too must have multiple skills.

3. Learn real-time scenarios

Attending classes alone is not enough. Even if a good trainer explains for two hours, in subjects like cloud DevOps or data engineering, you need mentorship where real-time scenarios and projects are explained. Only then will you understand how work actually happens in companies. So get training with real-time projects and use cases.

4. Be Open to Startups and Lower Packages

Even if you have a career gap, many startups are coming up , especially after AI. So go to a startup, honestly accept your career gap, and say you are ready to work even for a lower salary or starting package. Very few career-gap candidates think this way. Most keep saying: “I need at least a 10 to 15 lakh package to shift into IT.” But if you already got 14 lakhs in non-IT, and now you want to shift into IT, you must have patience. The market is not great now; that’s the reality. So join a small company, gain knowledge, and then move to a better product-based company later. Opportunities exist, but expectations are different.

5. Avoid outdated trainers

Students still go to outdated trainers. Always check if your trainer is teaching with real-time experience or just giving bookish, academic knowledge. These are not the days when such knowledge clears interviews. Interviews are tough now. So avoid outdated trainers; learn only from real-time experts.

6. Repeat multiple batches

If you learn cloud DevOps once, you may only understand part of it. If you came from a non-IT background or have a gap, you cannot understand everything at once. So why rush with a three-month deadline? Career-gap candidates must repeat 2 or 3 batches. It takes time. Only then will you gain subject depth.

7. Get Out of the “Easy Technology” Mindset

Get out of the mindset that the technology you choose must be easy. Right now, there are no jobs for “easy” skills. Those days are gone. Earlier, jobs used to come even in manual testing, but now manual testing hiring has almost stopped. Why? Because companies are moving toward advancement. We must recognize this. So, prepare your mind to learn advanced skills.

Example

There are still good jobs in cloud and data engineering. Career-gap candidates can also go into cloud, DevOps, cybersecurity, data science, data analysis, generative AI development, or full-stack development. If someone tells you that without coding, you can get a job even with a gap, don’t believe it. Coding is necessary. Beyond coding, you need design thinking, prototyping, and the ability to handle complex tasks.

8. Don’t Depend on Shortcuts

Don’t depend on consultancies, proxy interviews, or backdoor jobs . Many candidates hope someone will attend interviews on their behalf or get them a job illegally. Remember: only skills can take you into IT. If you go through proxies or backdoors, 99% of the time it ends in fraud. Even if it works once, it is illegal. More importantly, when you set your mindset to enter IT through a proxy or backdoor, you stop preparing properly.

So never adopt that mindset. If you want to enter IT now, you must learn AI-relevant courses. Because of the recession, jobs are tough. A job that used to come in 3 months may now take 6 months or even 1 year. So stop looking for shortcuts. They waste your time and give no knowledge.

9. Be careful in course selection

When you have a career gap, never take a course without proper career guidance. Check if the course is outdated or if there are real openings in the market. See whether companies are calling for interviews, whether at least 10 to 15 interviews are possible, and research on Naukri or other portals. Only then, finalize your course.

10. Practice Mock Interviews Regularly

The most important practice mock interviews regularly. Now it is very easy to practice interviews using AI tools. Do regular mock interviews, keep updating your resume, and keep networking through LinkedIn and other platforms. Make sure your LinkedIn profile is correct and active. Resume updates, mock interviews, and networking are very important. If you follow these 10 points, shifting into IT from non-IT with a career gap is not impossible.

Conclusion

If you follow these 10 points, shifting into IT from non-IT with a career gap is not impossible.