4.5 - Job Roles
Exam Board:
OCR
Specification:
2016 - Unit 1
There are several different IT-related roles within most companies.
Each role requires specific skills and attributes to be performed successfully.
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Try to apply the most suitable personal attributes that were described in 4.3, as well as any other important skills relevant to the role, such as programming.
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Self-motivation
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Leadership
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Respect
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Dependability
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Punctuality
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Problem Solving
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Determination
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Independence
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Time Management
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Team Working
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Numerical Skills
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Verbal Skills
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Planning & Organisation
Network Manager
A network manager must control a group of employees with strong leadership to clearly set out their vision for the team. They must be able to motivate and encourage the team members to meet objectives.
Because a network manager is high-ranking, there may not be many senior staff above them so they must be self-motivated and able to complete tasks independently, without being monitored.
Network managers must be dependable and decisive, able to weigh up the consequences of a decision and make tough calls whilst under pressure.
Time management is an important attribute for a network manager, they must be able to prioritise tasks and ensure deadlines are kept to.
IT Technician
IT technicians must have good interpersonal skills so that they can communicate clearly with other employees or customers. They should be able to use simplified terminology to help another person with their problem.
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They must be able to use questioning effectively to work out what the issue is to begin to solve it.
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IT technicians should have plenty of experience with hardware and software troubleshooting and be able to use a range of troubleshooting tools to solve a problem.
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They need to be respectful to customers and employees when solving a problem and show determination, as well as self-motivation, to fix issues within acceptable time limits.
Programmer
A programmer needs to be competent in specific programming languages that the company use. It would be beneficial to have knowledge of more than one programming language so they can be more versatile and approach a problem in different ways.
Programmers need to have a logical mind so that they are able to creatively solve problems. Using computational thinking is an important set of skills that programmers should have - for example, by using decomposition to break a large problem into smaller, more manageable chunks.
They must have good planning and organisational skills so that they can stay on top of the numerous tasks that need to be done. They need good time management skills to prioritise the more important tasks and stick to a deadline.
Programmers must be patient individuals, all programs will contain errors that must be debugged and rewritten numerous times.
Good interpersonal skills are necessary so programmers can work efficiently in teams - often multiple programmers will work on subsections of the same program that fit together later.
Web Designer & Animator
Web designers create, plan and code web pages to fit specific requirements made by their customers.
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They must create both the technical and graphical aspects of the web page, editing both how it looks and how it works.
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Web designers could also be responsible for maintaining a site that currently exists.
An animator may use a mixture of digital and hand-drawn images or even puppets and models.
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The main skill of animation is still artistic ability, but there is an ever-increasing need for animators to be experienced with technical computer software.
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Animators usually work as part of a team with strict deadlines.
Questo's Questions
4.5 - Job Roles:
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1. Describe the key skills and personal attributes that a new programmer should have. [10]
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2. A brief job description of a web designer and an animator are shown above on this page.
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Use the descriptions of what makes a suitable network manager, IT technician and programmer to help you explain which personal attributes and skills are required for:​
a) A web designer
b) An animator [8 each]