You should be documenting your day, your week, your month, on a regular basis. Take a few minutes when you accomplish something and make a blog entry. This is a great way for you to keep track of what you’ve accomplished during the year, and be ready to talk about it in an interview, or in a performance review.
You don’t have to publically blog this. You can use Word, emacs, Live Writer, text files, whatever works, but, keep track of it. Read through it when you need it and summarize your accomplishments for the quarter or year. This is also something you consult every quarter when you touch your resume.
And when you get ready for that review, read Kendra Little’s post on asking for a raise.
These days it also seems that many people are disenchanted with their jobs. They work for the paycheck with little loyalty or concern for their company’s business, and I think that’s fair. When I hear about companies that are not very loyal or concerned with their employees, asking for more work every year without more compensation, with less people and the threat of layoffs hanging over the employee’s head, I think employees have to start treating themselves as self-employed. They should consider their employment as a “contract” with their employer, one that is temporary.
However I don’t know that this is how the majority of people feel. It seems that I regularly meet people that like their jobs, and feel their employers treat them fairly. I feel that way, and think my employer does an excellent job of partnering with employees, rather than exploiting them. People are treated fairly, trusted, and in return, they do a professional job, to the best of their abilities.
In the last few months, I’ve attended quite a few events and spoken with hundred of people. While the people that often attend events are a self-selective group, but most of the people I’ve had conversations with like their jobs. For the most part they think their jobs are fairly secure. That’s comforting, especially at a time when much of the news in the world relating to the economy and job outlooks is bleak.
If you don’t have a good job, it’s up to you to look to make a change. It can be a slow, drawn out process, but it doesn’t get done through delay. Make a plan, build up your skills, improve your brand, and set a goal to make a change to find a better job across the next year or two. Life’s too short to live with a crappy job for a long time, no matter how much they pay you.
Dundas controls make building interesting dashboards easy
Are you looking for a BI project in your company to get some experience with? I’ve got an idea that you might try tackling as a side project, or even an informal project within the business.
One of the problems that many corporations face today is a regular turnover of employees. That causes a loss of productivity, moral suffers, and projects may run late. This might be because of poor working conditions, poor management, or some other factor. While you might not be able to change that, perhaps you can help bring some visibility to potential problems.
Human Resource departments are similar to IT departments in that both of them are a cost to the organization without generating revenue. These are overhead departments, and often receive limited budgets and assistance to accomplish anything beyond the bare minimum. These departments can add value, and the good ones help companies in many ways, reducing the costs that might otherwise occur.
I have rarely seen HR departments with deep analysis tools available to them that might help them function more efficiently. If you want to tackle a BI project, think about building a detailed scorecard or set of KPIs for the HR department that might help them better understand what is happening in the company. Watching for the impact of vacations, turnover, etc. and aggregating exit interview data might help HR improve the conditions at the company, perhaps even for you.
I’d consider working on an HR BI project, even during some off hours if you have an interest in this area. I’m sure the HR people will appreciate it, and they might be the ones that are in the best position to help you with your career down the road.
It’s your career. It’s something you have to take ownership of and work on. I know that life is busy, and training budgets are tight. That’s one reason we started SQL Saturday; it’s a way to bring a training event and a conference experience to many people.
I posted this tweet almost a year ago, seeing Brent in a class somewhere, learning and taking notes during some session. It was in humor, but I’m a little serious here. We all have more to learn, and while you don’t need to cram it all in this year, you should be taking advantage of your user group, local events, conferences, classes, even reading something in a newsletter on a regular basis.
Many of us are out here to help. I’ve spoken at 12 events this year, 10 of them free, and will be at another free event this week (SQL in the City – LA). However, you’ve got to make the effort to improve yourself. I , and many others, will try to help you, teach you, but you’ve got to do some work yourself.
Pace yourself, learn at a reasonable rate given the other responsibilities in your life, but don’t ignore this aspect of your career.
PS – If you’re in the LA area, there’s still time to register for SQL in the City and get a free day of training. I’ll also be at DevConnections next week and SQLInspire the week after that.
