How can I successfully switch career paths to Information Technology?

I have a degree in Financial Management, and four years of experience in Sales. I have always been interested in IT and would like to change career paths. Which way of doing so would yield the highest likelyhood of success. Many thanks to best answer!How can I successfully switch career paths to Information Technology?
The spambots are crazy in this category ... seems like every other answer posted is just spam. Every time I see a post that says ';try this job site, I think it's grate!!1'; I click the ';report'; button to flag it as spam. Oh well.



But to the root of your question ... if you want to move into technology, you are facing an uphill run. The number of good paying jobs in IT is going down (relatively speaking) while the number of people competing for those jobs is going up.



The other poster was correct about jobs moving to other countries ... I work for a major American technology company who shall remain unidentified for the time being, and over the past year or two they've made a concerted effort to move all possible jobs offshore. If the work can be done remotely, then by all means fire the Americans and go hire people in Brazil or India for half the salary. It kinda sucks not knowing if I'm gonna have a job in six months, let alone until retirement age.



Still ... it can be done. Are you really good at math? How about logical thinking? Those are big pluses. Is your preference for an office job or are you willing to take a risk with running your own business? Being an entrepreneur is a big risk, and most fail, but if you hit things just right you could be the next Larry Ellison or Jerry Yang.



In the technology job market in general, there's still lots of room for programmers, but you have to have the right skills to get the hot jobs. Obviously, web technologies are number one these-a-days, so that's one area you can focus on.



The key factors to changing your career path is in determining what specific kind of thing you want to do, then preparing yourself as best you can to do that particular %26amp; specific thing. The fact is that IT is a very very very broad category ... there are many many little niches that exist, and some can be very lucrative, while others are career dead-enders.



Spend some time trying to find out more of what's hot or new in the industry. See which things picque your interest. Try to make contact with people in the IT industry, and specifically people who work in the specific area of IT that interests you so that you can get advice %26amp; information from people on the front lines.



Check out Wired(.com) and other techie magazines / web sites to get a feel for what's coming up or being touted as cool and hip. Something there may just be the next iPod / Facebook / Google / YouTube to hit the streets, or maybe something there will spark an idea in your own mind to create that next iPod / Facebook / Google / YouTube.



Well ... I've run out of advice here ... too much thinking is cramping my brain. Hope this helps, tho!



Cheers :-)How can I successfully switch career paths to Information Technology?
I'd stick to finance, since you already have a degree in it, and have experience. Especially in the USA, the IT field isn't all that stable, and it's very competitive. Many American IT jobs are being outsourced to India.



You could try getting into technology to use with finance.