[Sigia-l] starting out in the business

[Listera]

"Rachel M. Murray" wrote:

> When does one become’ an IA?

One has to agree on what an IA is to become one :-)
Ask yourself a similar question: when does one become a photographer,
writer, designer, etc?

Fortunately, IA is not a licensed profession, a la medicine, law or
architecture, so there's no formal right of passage/licensing. Unless the
Canadian government ran out of things to do, I don't think they'll prosecute
you for having called yourself an IA before it's time.

Perhaps the more important question is, will the companies you want to work
for mind when you call yourself an IA?

The answer, as you'll hear throughout the rest of your professional life,
is, it depends. The easiest approach is to find yourself a place on a
project that can use whatever talent, knowledge and experience you currently
have. There's no point in trying to match your qualifications to a
"universal" (perhaps a romantic) notion of an IA. IAs perform business
analysis, application architecture, navigation design, search optimization,
workflow management, etc. Consider yourself lucky if you can figure out
early on what makes *you* happy, as opposed to following "what everybody is
doing." That, of course, is the unbiased truth, as I see it. ;-)

Best,

Ziya