Tag: career

I was listening to Mike and Mike on the radio a few Mondays ago and Mike Greenberg was returning on a Monday morning after being gone for a week’s vacation. He mentioned that he was happy to return to work and looked forward to it. Not that he didn’t enjoy vacation, but he likes his job and said he was thankful that he didn’t have a job that he dreaded returning to after time off.

That’s how I feel, and it’s how I’ve tried to pick my jobs over the last decade or so. That wasn’t always the case, and early in my career I picked jobs that would be good for me growth and development, would pay me more, or provide some exciting challenge. I was willing to put up with long hours, or lots of demands from the company. I even took jobs with people that I didn’t like, or wouldn’t bother to ever socialize with.

These days I feel differently, and the advice that I’ve given to people lately is “Don’t take a crappy job.” You can define that however you like, but I’d really think hard about whether you’d look forward to going to work. Whether it’s the people you want to meet or the challenges of doing the work you do, I hope that you do look ahead positively and not with trepidation.

Life is short, and remember that when you pick the place and position where you’ll spend a lot of time in the future.

Steve Jones

One of the main reasons that I got into IT was the salary. Honestly, there were relatively few places where I thought I had a skill AND could make good money. I graduated with an economics degree, with the idea that I’d go to Wall Street, follow Gordon Gecko, and work 140 hours a week and make a few million.

That was until I wrecked my shoulder playing rugby my senior year, realized that I wasn’t invincible, and decided there were more important things than my salary. However I still wanted to have a good living, I had some skills in technology, and I moved in that direction. When I heard that our DBA was making $90k a year at a time when I was making $45k, I decided I should learn more about databases.

Across the last two decades of my career, I think I’ve been fortunate in my career. It’s been a lot of work, , and a lot of fun. I’ve tried to grow my career, learn new things, and find better opportunities over time and in new positions. I’ve had success, and I’ve found the experience has resulted in higher salaries for me. I found a blog about salaries recently that says it’s not only experience, but also location that matters in terms of salary. That’s probably true, though I think industry, the particular company, and other factors are important as well.

For most of us, we don’t necessarily want to change locations, but we can do something about our experience. I’ve seen it written before that for people that have 10 years of experience, it could be gained two ways. They could have one year of experience ten times, or ten different years of experience (or some combination). The point is that you should be continually expanding on your experiences, not just relying on skills you learned a long time ago.

You may or may not be able to get a job that pays you more with more experience. I’d like to think, however, that any investment in improving your skills and learning more about your craft, is never wasted.

Steve Jones

As I’ve given my Modern Resume talk at a number of events, I’ve found that there are quite a few people out there in the technology business that are searching for work. Or searching for better work. I’ve tried to give them some advice on things that might make them more attractive for employers and more likely to find another job. One of the things that I advise them to do is volunteer. Putting forth some effort to help others with your technical skills, or even with leadership or management skills, can help fill up your resume and show employers that you are motivated.

But how should you volunteer? I’ve suggested contacting a local non-profit or school and asking them if there is someting you can build for them that might be useful in their mission. I’m sure that there are many ideas and needs for these groups, who often can’t afford to hire a technology professional to work in a formal way.

Arnie Rowland, longtime SQL Server MVP, has a great new project that looks to assist those people out there that have a project idea. Project Phoenix looks to provide some resources to developers, or aspiring developers, out there. With a combination of software, books,and training, Arnie has built a program that will give people and non-profits some assistance in implementing technology into their environments.

This is a great program that looks to give back to communities and help some technology workers at the same time. If you are interested in applying, or know someone that might benefit from the help, please point them to the Project Phoenix page. You can view the people that have been awarded here.

Steve Jones