Voice of the DBA

Tag: career

  • Your Portfolio

    I believe in managing and working on your career regularly. Early in my life, I randomly went from job to job. I looked for new opportunities when I lost old ones. I took the first job I was offered. I really let my career happen, as opposed to actively trying to move it in a direction that was best for me.

    One of the things I have suggested to many people is to build a blog and chronicle their career. This is a way to showcase your knowledge and allow a potential hiring manager to perform some due diligence on who you are.

    However the front page of your blog, with the last 5-10 posts you’ve written on some random topics might not be the image you want to present. Perhaps you can better show yourself off and control the image that you present to the world.

    I thought about this when I read a piece about a photographer assembling a portfolio of their work. I thought, this might be a good exercise for a technical person as well. Perhaps there are specific skills, posts, software that you want to show. Put the links on your resume or cover letter that build the impression you want to make. Maybe send someone to a landing page that contains the projects that you are more proud of.

    Certainly this might not work, and a manager might just randomly look through your blog, but I think it’s worth a bit of time, especially for a developer. Showcase the things you are most proud of, or perhaps most applicable to the positions you’re seeking.

    Above all, it might be a good chance to re-evaluate what you think of your career and relive some of your proud accomplishments.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 2.0MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and LibSyn. feed

  • Catch up with T-SQL Tuesday

    T-SQL Tuesday is a monthly blog party where we get an invitation the first week of the month to write on a specific topic for the second Tuesday of that month. Adam Machanic came up with the idea and he chooses the hosts.

    If you’re interested in hosting, contact him.

    While there’s a sense of community and participation here, and certainly the chance to showcase some of your knowledge for others, it’s also got another benefit.

    It’s the chance for you to learn something.

    Not by reading other’s posts, but by writing your own. This is your opportunity to bolster your own skills, and teach yourself something new.

    Don’t Worry About Timing

    I know many of you are worried about the pressure of producing something good. I know many of you will find that the first weekend of the month is really busy and you can’t write.

    That’s fine.

    I’ve got a list of all previous invitations and topics. Go back and pick one of them and write your own post today. Start working on it, teach yourself something, and put some thoughts down. Research what others have done by looking through the roundups. Get a friend to review the work and see if it’s readable and makes sense.

    Do that ten times. It might take you ten months, but I’m sure you can write something down about SQL Server once a month.

    When you get ten, start a blog and publish them. Use the T-SQL Tuesday tag, but I’d also encourage you to use the #SQLNewBlogger tag as well. Start showing your boss that you’re improving your skills. Be ready to impress you potential next new boss with a series of posts on SQL topics.

    Your career will be better off, and the world will start to see better software being written.

    Start improving your skills this weekend, or start documenting the learning you already do. Either way, start building a better brand for your career.

  • The Tally Table

    I saw a someone post a question recently about solving a T-SQL problem. One of the answers given used a tally table, which the original poster didn’t understand. A few follow up links pointed them in the right direction, but it got me wondering.

    How many of you know what a tally table is and how to create one? I bet a few of you don’t, which might mean you’ve never had the need. Or it might be a hole in your skill set and you didn’t realize that a tally table can be very useful in solving a number of problems. Anything from generating dates to splitting strings. There are plenty more ways to use one, and feel free to mention more in the comments that others might not have tried.

    I’m not sure the tally table is a core T-SQL skill, but I think it’s an important one you should learn as you grow your skills. After you’ve mastered the basics (Insert/update/delete, aggregates, outer joins) Adding in an understanding of window functions, the APPLY operator, and CTEs are also important to allow you to become better at solving the problems you run into with more efficient T-SQL.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 1.7MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and LibSyn. feed

  • Teambuilding

    I worked in a large company at one point in a team of 20 people. My boss made it a point every month to take a long lunch with the team and engage in some teambuilding. Usually one of us would have to remain at the office, but we rotated the duty so that most of use could participate. We would go to movies, go bowling, have a team lunch, watch a baseball game, or something similar.

    At Redgate, the various groups schedule days out, and last month the company had a large “day out”, bringing many of the Americans over from the US to participate. It was a good time, and the chance to get to know some of people in the company I rarely interact with.

    Team building has been hit or miss, but I’m curious how many of you engage in the activity. I know I’ve worked in plenty of companies where there was no effort made to build a team. This week I wanted to ask you:

    Do you engage in team building at work and what events have you enjoyed?

    Maybe I should ask what worked well to help build a team, but sometimes the enjoyment and bonding go and in hand.

    I thought of this recently as my daughter wanted to ride zip lines for her birthday. We packed up the family to go, and while it wasn’t everyone’s first choice, we enjoyed it and had a few hours to laugh and joke with each other. It turned out to be a much better family bonding time than a few people expected. If you’ve never tried it, I might recommend it as a way to have fun with a small group of people.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 2.4MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and LibSyn.