Hi all, im trying to do my resume and just realised that in the past 4 years of IT i have been doing i dont have any professional memberships, nor do i know of any..

is there any i should be a member of? for example most accountents(well my friends) are members of of things like the CPA, CA, and Taxation institute of Australia.

anything i should be a member of? i do some programing but my study is all networking.

Do you really need professional memberships?
With IT, formal accreditation with Cisco, Oracle, Linux or lastly Microsoft would be more beneficial than "belonging" to some group I'd say once you have some time in the industry that you can vouch for

^^ Its not about certification, its about networking and staying informed about the industry.

As a software engineer there is an association, but I'm not sure what one you would fit in with. Surely there are other people in your field you can ask?

There are a bunch of them. Phone up some of the universities and ask what professional accreditation their courses have and then go look them up.

Australian Computer Society is the main professional body for IT graduates, but I'm not sure what benefits membership provides, you'd have to look that up

im doing my CCNA atm i have CCNA1 and CCNA2, just need 3 and 4 then ill go for the full certification.

If you want to be leet, try to become a member of IEEE:

http://ieee.org

A lecturer I know is a member solely to have his @ieee.org email address for a professional feel to his resume/card :)

i'm a member of the AIEH, but that has nothing to do with computers... i'll be off now.

I know people heavily involved in the Australian Computer Society, but i've not been a member since i could no longer get student membership.

I can't recall it being noted on any of the CVs i've seen either.

$125US! heh I bet he gets in for $25.

The standard professional society to join as an IT graduate is the Australian Computer Society http://www.acs.org.au/

Depending on what sort of networking you're interested in there are also associations such as

Software Engineering Australia http://www.seanational.com.au/
Australian Software Metrics Association/Software Quality Association http://www.asma-sqa-nsw.org.au/

Both should be able to put you into contact with more specialised special interest groups such as the SPICE project, Process Improvement SIG and Agile SIG which have regular networking events.

If you're a software engineering graduate rather than an IT graduate you may also want to look at:

Engineers Australia http://www.ieaust.org.au/
Association of Professional Engineers, Managers and Scientists (APESMA) http://www.apesma.asn.au/

Apart from attending events the best advice I can give you for professional networking is to stay in contact with your faculty and fellow students, and attend conferences or SIGs whenever they are affordable.

Most of these associations you can get graduate discounts for and the memberships are tax deductable. That should get you started, let me know if you need any more help.

awsome thanks Amaya

Wow. That was one damn informative post!