Voice of the DBA

Tag: career

  • Interviewing for the PASS Board of Directors

    My nomination application made it through the committee. I got an email yesterday telling me that I needed to schedule an interview, and a list of available slots.

    I picked next Friday, August 6th, at 10am PST for my slot and it’s scheduled. It’s a phone interview, according to the process on the PASS Election site, and I’m guessing this will be an interesting conference call. I’ve had group interviews before, but never on the phone, so I’m wondering what this will be like.

    Time to prep, and thanks to Buck Woody (blog | Twitter), I have a list of tips to go over:

    • Try not vomiting on the table when you talk to them. Or at least more than once.
    • Also do not pause and look at one of them and say "did you just call me fat?"
    • Another tip: End each statement with "… in accordance with prophecy."
    • Tip #4: Grin really big the whole time and answer each question with "I’ve got new socks on!"
    • Tip #5: Say "Wanna hear the noise I can make with my finger and my nose?"
    • Tip #6: Wear skates.
    • Tip #7: For each answer, adopt a different accent.
    • Tip #8: Wrap your head in seran-wrap and cut little holes out to breathe.
    • Tip #9: Tell them you can hold your breath for over 7 minutes, then do it.
    • Bring several ferrets and allow them to run free during the interview. In the middle of the interview, add a monkey.
    • Tip #10: After each statement, say "Am I right, or what?" OK, that’s an even number, I can stop on that tip.

    I’m not sure exactly what to prep here, since I’ve never run for a position that had an interview. When I ran for the HOA board, they just had to have someone else second me. I understand this is a little different as the organization needs semi-qualified people, and it can be hard to sustain if people get on the board that won’t do work.

    There is a form that is used to rate people during the interview, so I’ll review that as well as my application.

    Hopefully this will go well.

  • Do As I Say, Not as I Do

    Do I follow my own advice?
    I’ve been asked that at a few of my Modern Resume presentations if I do all the things that I mention, and to what extent. My answer is that I do and I don’t. I’ve done them all at some point in my career, but I don’t necessarily do them all now.
    For the most part I have my brand on my mind most of the time. I think about what I post, I consider the impact to my reputation, and try to self-moderate myself. I do, at times, also send things to others for comment before I post them.
    I have tried to follow my own advice about promotion, but it’s hard. I struggle to write my own kudos, but I do try to post announcements when I am speaking, or doing something out of the ordinary. I also have such a presence with my daily editorial and podcast that I think sometimes that a regular note somewhere like Twitter might overwhelm my followers or overexpose me.
    One area that someone asked me about was my resume. Do I touch mine every quarter like I ask other people to do?
    No. I don’t, but I have a good reason.
    I have an employment contract. So even if someone contacted me about a job that is almost as awesome as mine, I have to give months notice to leave. Months as in 3 or 4 (can’t remember), and while I could possibly get out of that, I wouldn’t. I signed a contract, I need to honor it.
    So unlike when I worked in the corporate world, and have gotten calls that say “send your resume today” I wouldn’t, or couldn’t, do that right now.
    I do try to give good advice, and incorporate new things into the presentation and this blog as I learn them. I have a set of notes that I regularly keep working on as I get feedback and learn new things from others. If you find a problem with what I’ve written, let me know. Otherwise, start working on your brand.

  • Influence

    Do you influence people? How influential are you?

    I saw a link to The Influence Project, put on by Fast Company, looking for how much influence people have in 2010. The link actually takes you to my profile, which means I’ve influenced you to click the link. I got pulled in when Andy Leonard posted a link and I added to his influence.

    It’s an interesting idea, though I’m not sure what accuracy rating I’d assign to it. Only people that find it interesting will go through the links, so it’s a self-selecting group, not measuring anything absolute about how influential someone is in the world at large.

    However it did get me thinking about implementing something in the SQL Server community. I wonder if people would be interested to see who is contributing a lot to the SQL Server community, maybe by measuring some level of activity (blogging, forum posts, speaking, etc.). It would almost be like some sort of Que Score for SQL Server.

    I wonder how it would correlate to the MVP award. Would there people that had a high score that weren’t MVPs or vice versa? It might be a fun project to get going.

  • It’s the Journey

    I saw this on the 37 Signals blog as “I’ve already got the prize" and found it to be both true, and a little annoying. It refers to the Nobel Peace Prize, who Richard Feynman is apparently in consideration for.

    The speaker comes across a little arrogant, and a bit of an ass, but what he’s saying makes sense. He’s not necessarily a fun guy to be around, but I think many brilliant people, especially teachers and researchers, aren’t.

    However he’s saying that the journey, the fact that you are learning and figuring things out, is what’s important. It’s not the award, it’s not being a part of some group that recognizes your efforts that’s important.

    I agree with that. It is nice to be recognized, to get kudos, maybe some reward for your effort, but if you shoot for that reward and it’s the best part of your work, then I think you are going to be constantly disappointed.

    Enjoy the journey, smell the roses, take pride in your effort and what you do. If there is some recognition or reward later, that should be a small part of you enjoying what you do.