Voice of the DBA

Tag: career

  • Vocation or Career

    Career: an individual’s journey through learning, work, and other aspects of life.

    Vocation: an occupation to which a person is specially drawn or for which he or she is suited, trained, or qualified.

    Which one describes your current employment situation? How do you feel about the technical work you do? A career is a good thing, and I hope that you all have long, successful careers, I hope you continue to learn and maintain a balance between work and your life outside of your job.

    However a vocation is what I’d hope drives you forward. You find some endeavor that you are drawn towards, and at which you have some skill at performing. As much as I never planned to be a technical writer, I find that I am really drawn to it, and I enjoy the work quite a bit. I’d say the same thing about speaking and presenting to groups of technical workers. My employment is more of a vocation, and certainly much more than “just a job.”

    As you go to work, accomplish tasks and finish projects, think about what you like and don’t like. Think about whether you look forward each day to the challenges you face or you dread each hour. If it’s the latter, then I hope you are making plans to change something. Find a new employer or position. Life is short and you need to remember that you’ll spend a lot of your time at work. Make what you do a vocation and work becomes an exciting piece of your life that enriches your time here.

    Steve Jones

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 1.8MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and LibSyn. feed

    The Voice of the DBA podcast features music by Everyday Jones. No relation, but I stumbled on to them and really like the music. Support this great duo at www.everydayjones.com.

  • Open Source the MCM

    It’s over. There’s no more MCM program or certification from Microsoft. The last MCM test was given last year and no upgrades are planned for SQL Server 2012 or SQL Server 2014. That’s a little sad, though there are quite a few of our SQL Server professionals that can still proudly wear the MCM title for the rest of their careers.

    The MCM tests were designed differently than all the other MCP type tests, requiring more thought and deduction, as well as practical skills. The lab in particular was daunting to many of the MCMs, most of whom would tell you about the difficulties in getting through the scenarios in the limited time alloted. All of the people I’ve talked to found the challenge refreshing and also informative, enabling them to learn a few things about their knowledge, even from the problems they didn’t complete.

    Since that chapter in Microsoft Learning is complete, and the tasks likely out of date, I’d ask that Microsoft Learning release the questions and scenarios to the world as an open source project. Unlike the other certifications and exams, these questions aren’t going to be re-used anytime soon and the knowledge could help many people learn to build better solutions.

    This would be a great move, allowing many DBAs to challenge themselves with the questions and scenarios in practice labs. The types of scenarios could be used in interviews for new employees, either as they are written or modified for a particular environment. Professionals using the SQL Server platform would get an idea of not only the broad level of knowledge that MCMs have, but they’d also have a way to test themselves and direct their own learning to become better rounded SQL Server developers and administrators.

    I doubt it would happen, but I’d think Microsoft could help the community, generate some goodwill, and help improve the overall quality of people working on their platform.

    Update: I have opened a Connect item for this. Please vote

    Podcast: http://traffic.libsyn.com/voiceofthedba/mcmoss_58_v1063.mp3

  • The Powershell Challenge Update

    I’ve fallen down on my challenge over the last month. It’s been a content time, with me working more towards presentations and writing most of Mar and April to meet deadlines and commitments. I also let my calendar reminder die in Feb and didn’t renew it.

    As a result, here I am, 6 months in and only done with 19 chapters. That’s a good way in, but it’s not complete. With some downtime coming, I’m looking to get back into this and using it a bit more.

  • Due Diligence

    I often talk with people about building their brands and finding a way to ensure they are a highly desirable employee. One of the ways that I think people can do this is with a technical blog about their career. Having a technical blog allows someone to show off their skills in a particular area. The blog doesn’t have to be ground breaking work or extremely innovative solutions to complex problems. While employers need those people, they also need people that do solid work every day on regular problems.

    An interview isn’t a great way to find good employees. Many of us have had experience with either (or both) sides of the interview table and realize that interviews aren’t necessarily that helpful. If we bothered to track the impressions we make of candidates and compare that to the actual work they accomplish over the first year or two, I suspect we’d find that we have no evidence that were making great decisions. The success of employees seems to be a bit hit and miss.

    A blog, however, provides the employer with a bit more confidence that a person can handle the job they are hired for. A blog takes time, and across months (or years), it can show quite a bit about a person’s knowledge and skills. It allows hiring managers, and co-workers that may interview a person, the ability to perform a bit more due diligence and investigation into someone’s skills than an interview provides. It’s much more of a representative look at a person than what they say or write on a resume.

    I know that it isn’t a perfect solution. People plagiarize posts and copy from Books Online and more, but the Internet helps here. Search a few of their paragraphs and you might catch plagiarizers easily. After all, someone that wants to copy posts to avoid work, probably has a few other tricks in their bag to avoid doing other work for you.

    Think about starting a blog today and giving potential employers a way to learn more about you.

    Podcast: http://traffic.libsyn.com/voiceofthedba/duediligence_57_v1062.mp3