Tag: career

I ran across an article on ways to accelerate your career and for the most part I think these are good ideas and suggestions. Networking, finding a mentor, and more will help you no matter what business or field you are working. Some of the advice is geared towards those people looking to climb the corporate ladder and move into management, which is not necessarily what many of us want. If that’s the case, ignore those items. There was one item, however, that I thought was particularly interesting for data professionals.

The seventh item on the list notes that you should spend 10-15% of your time working on a project that’s outside of the scope of your job or team. That might sound crazy, and even dangerous, but it’s a good idea if your boss isn’t opposed to it. Having knowledge about the way your business works, the way they use data, or solve a problem, could be valuable in your existing job. You might notice a pattern or way in which you could improve either your job or someone else’s. Over time, helping in a variety of departments builds friendships, increases your networking, and might show your boss you deserve a raise.

Many of us end up working with data as a widget. The job of a developer or DBA is writing code or managing data, and sometimes don’t often think much about the actual industry in which we are working. Gaining deeper knowledge of the way your particular business works means you can better understand why you are asked to solve a particular problem. That knowledge can lead to a better solution. It might also make your job just a little more interesting.

For the typical US worker, that’s 4-6 hours a week. For the IT person, that might be a little more time, but I think it’s worth the investment. I wouldn’t be overly driven in this area, and if I were working on extra projects at work, I’d eliminate (or cut down) on the time I was spending learning new technologies. Life requires balance, and if you tackle something new in one area, make sure you know what you can give up.

Steve Jones

The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

We publish three versions of the podcast each day for you to enjoy.

• Watch the Windows Media Podcast – 14.5MB WMV 
• Watch the iPod Video Podcast – 17.7MB MP4 
• Listen to the MP3 Audio Podcast – 3.6MB MP3 

Recently someone posted a question on SQLServerCentral asking for potential interview questions. A few people were annoyed by this and their annoyance showed in their replies. I completely understand that feeling, with fewer jobs than candidates, people looking for jobs do not want anyone with less knowledge to get any help.

However there are other sides to this question, and I’m torn as to how I feel. If you haven’t interviewed in awhile, or if this is your first interview for a database job, wouldn’t you want to get an idea of what somoen might ask you? I wouldn’t want anyone to misrepresent their skills, but I’d also want them to be able to talk about the skills they have had. Perhaps realizing that they should think about their experience in T-SQL more than their experience with replication might be valuable information.

There’s another side to this. Plenty of managers, developers, and even DBAs that are tasked with interviewing candidates for a position don’t necessarily realize what questions might help them evaluate a candidate’s skills. This is especially true when you have a staff of people trying to find a senior level person because their only talented person resigned. Hiring someone to interview for you, especially for the first or second interview, just isn’t cost effective.

Many of us work in companies, and as much as we’d like to think we are gaining new knowledge and experience every year, it’s very, very easy to get caught up in our daily work and accumulate many years of similar experience. Without an effort to branch out, take on new responsibilities, and try new technologies, it’s easy to become very specialized in the skills needed for our job, even if those aren’t a broad range of skills.

I am highly torn on how to handle requests and content on interview questions, but ultimately I think that putting more information out there is the best way to handle things and allow people looking for jobs, as well as those hiring, to educate themselves.

Steve Jones

I talk about branding at many different events, with the idea that you should control your personal career brand, and make an effort to improve it. As more and more employers look to validate your experience and verify your skills, having a strong brand helps you to stand out amongst the competition. The cost of a bad hire is high, and companies are trying different things all the time to reduce the chance they’ll make a bad hire.

I’m not the only one that thinks you should have some brand out there. Troy Hunt wrote a piece about being a ghost programmer and how it hurts your career. It basically talks about how a programmer that doesn’t leave any kind of trail on the Internet is not likely one you want to hire. There are all sorts of reasons someone might not have a blog, or participate on a site like Ask SQLServerCentral, but many of the reasons are signs that a person isn’t really working efficiently. I’m not sure I completely agree with this interpretation, but I do think that the less information a potential employer can find about you, the more reason they might have to ignore your resume and move on to someone who they can perform more due diligence on.

I completely understand the desire for many people to keep their lives private. There’s nothing wrong with that, though it can be detrimental to your job search. However you can overcome some of this, but maintaining some documentation about your projects, skills, thoughts, and providing that along with your resume, or as additional proof to your resume when requested. You can even use anonymous handles on the Internet, providing them in the same manner you have “references upon request” on your resume. They can be sent in an instant, but they aren’t public. I’d even make a note on my resume to that effect, if I were inclined to maintain more privacy about my career.

You don’t have to be a Jon Skeet or an Iris Classon, but you should have some information you can share about your career when you are looking for a job. If you don’t, you might never know how much it impacts your job search. After all, is your phone not ringing because you aren’t qualified or employers just don’t know if you are?

Steve Jones

The Voice of the DBA Podcasts

We publish three versions of the podcast each day for you to enjoy.

• Watch the Windows Media Podcast – 18.1MB WMV 
• Watch the iPod Video Podcast – 21.6MB MP4 
• Listen to the MP3 Audio Podcast – 4.3MB MP3