Most of us will have more than one job in our career. In fact many of us will likely find a new job in the next five years. I hope I’m not in that group, but I recognize that it’s a possibility. We never know when our situation will change, or our employer’s situation will change. That is one reason I recommend you keep your resume up to date and continue to work on improving your skills.
I saw an office hours short recently from Brent Ozar, in which someone had asked him if they should apply for a job even though they didn’t meet all of the requirements or know all of the desired technologies. Brent recommended the person apply, and his reasoning was that often a DBA (or other data pro) often gets asked to do a variety of tasks in an organization. The DBA job often crosses lots of boundaries and may end up working on a Active Directory issues, reporting, ETL, and more. When A DBA leaves a job, the organization looks for a replacement that can handle that same wide variety of things.
I think this is good advice, and I usually tell people that if you meet 50% of the requirements, apply. Part of this is Brent’s reasoning, part of it is because I’ve had to write job descriptions, part of it is because I’ve interviewed people. While we often have a standard description, usually I then think about how our technology matrix has changed over time and add items to the job description. If I ask another employee what else we might need in a candidate, more requirements get added. At some point, the job description isn’t realistic anymore and it’s unlikely we’d ever find a person that meets 100% of our desires.
The other thing I’ve learned in interviews is that sometimes a candidate impresses us and makes the interviewer think about the position differently. Maybe the candidate is impressive enough in some areas that we can ignore their deficiencies in others. Sometimes the candidate might say something that causes me (as the interviewer) to pivot the job slightly to address other possibilities I think of at that moment.
Job hiring isn’t a meritocracy. It’s a mix of many things, often depending on what the interviewer thinks at that time, how the candidate impresses them, and maybe some restrictions on who they can hire. I’ve seen companies that won’t hire developers without a CS degree, regardless of experience. I’ve seen situations where the hiring manager creates a new position because the candidate is so desirable. I’ve sometimes chosen a weaker technical candidate over a near expert in an area because of soft skills.
There are lots of variables, and you can’t control them, but you can control a few things. You can work on the way you communicate with others and improve your skills, both verbal and written. You can also showcase your ability to learn and adapt, whether that’s with stories and examples or a blog that you can point to, documenting the work you’ve done on your skills.
This is a tough time for many tech professionals, but it’s also a time where there are many open positions in lots of companies. Part of this is an mismatch of candidates and opportunities not finding each other. Part is a more discriminating approach from companies who don’t just want people, but talented people, talented in multiple ways including soft skills.
You never know when you’ll need a new job, so make sure you’re prepared to impress others. Make sure you spend time on your career on a regular basis.
Steve Jones
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