Voice of the DBA

Tag: career

  • Planning for a Bad Day

    Are you ready to get a new job? I’m not talking about you deciding you want a new job and working towards that goal, but rather getting surprised by a layoff or termination today. If your boss called you into his/her office in the next 10 minutes and told you that you were being terminated today, are you ready for that? Kendra Little wrote a nice post recently asking who might be prepared.

    Most of us aren’t. In fact, in my branding presentation, one of my slides has a screenshot of a post from LinkedIn. A friend noted that they walked into work and found out his company had been purchased. It wasn’t a good day because they were also notified they were being laid off, hence the post on LinkedIn letting others know of their need to find one.

    The modern work world, especially for technology workers, isn’t stable and certain. While we have lots of positives in our jobs (work environment, low physical needs, remote possibilities, etc.), many of those can be detractions. Outsourcing IT jobs is something many companies do, and whether it’s a good idea for the company or not, it’s a reality. We also have lots of acquisitions in different spaces, and when sets of IT groups come together, there isn’t always the need to keep everyone employed. Even with double the workload, many in management would rather save money and give more responsibility to fewer people.

    Side note, this is one reason a good knowledge of DevOps, ITOps, GitOps, etc. is valuable for your career. When a manager is trying to decide who to keep, those with these skills may stand out.

    Unless you are ready to retire and merely padding your assets, you ought to have a plan for changing jobs. Even if you like your job, circumstances might force that upon you and when lots of people are scrambling for new jobs, competition can be fierce. Like Kendra, I don’t know you need a detailed plan, but documenting some skills growth and keeping your resume or CV up to date is always a good idea. I recommend everyone touch their resume every quarter. At least spend 5 minutes looking over it and thinking about it.

    Kendra has other suggestions, and I like them. In fact, I’m looking to think about a few of these. Not that I want another job, but you never know what might happen, and I’m not that close to retirement. Close, but not close enough. Certainly thinking through a few options at a high level is something I want to do with my wife.

    And make sure my resume is up to date.

    Steve Jones

    Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher, Spotify, or iTunes.

  • The Best Career Advice

    I don’t know that I have the best advice, but this month’s T-SQL Tuesday is asking for people to share what they think is the best advice they’ve been given or have for you. I wrote my own piece, where I noted that learning to say “No” was one of the best things I’ve ever done. Not that I say no to everything, but I do default to no, especially when someone asks for me to tackle something new.

    Actually, it’s slightly more nuanced than that. As I’ve gotten used to my workload, I will say yes to things, and certainly, I’m more likely to commit to one-off things. It’s the longer-term, larger things that I don’t want to agree to do unless I’m sure I can deliver.

    There are lots of other things people wrote. Deb said that you should trust your instincts and realize you can contribute, even if you’re new. Hugo notes the user is often right. Mala is more cautious with work and practices discretion. Rob got the advice to take it slow, learn his job, and figure out what he likes and doesn’t.

    There are lots of other advice, from Pragati telling you to get a mentor to Mikey saying you should find a job you love. If you check out the comments in the invitation above, you’ll see plenty more responses, many with interesting back stories and more details. If you only read through one set of T-SQL Tuesday responses, this might be the one to pick.

    I’m a big fan of actively managing your career. Make the decisions that move in the direction that matters to you. As noted in a few posts, we spend a lot of our lives at work. At times more than we spend with family, so be sure you have a career you enjoy.

    This takes work, but it’s an investment that can repay itself over many years. Both in financial rewards and less stress on a regular basis. Every job is a job some days, but when you enjoy your work, it doesn’t feel like work.

    Steve Jones

  • T-SQL Tuesday #163 – The Best Career Advice

    We’re a little delayed this month. Both the host and I forgot about this. So far in June, I’ve been in Fort Lauderdale, Las Vegas, Denver, and Cambridge for events. I head back to Orlando this week, and I’m a little out of sorts.

    Maybe one piece of career advice: try to avoid spending 14 of the first 20 days of June away from home.

    We have Gethyn Ellis hosting this month with a great invitation: what’s the best career advice you’ve gotten. I really have two answers, but I have to choose the best one, so I’ll do that.

    Say No First

    I was actually at the Redgate LevelUp 2023 Conference this week and two different speakers mentioned that they keep saying yes to requests. They told the audience that they struggled to say “no”. (a 2019 recap of the event here)

    I don’t know when I learned this, but at some point in my 30+ year career I started to say “No” as a default. I would just say no to requests from co-workers, customer, even my manager. I just wouldn’t initially commit to many things, at least not many things that can’t be finished in a few hours.

    I didn’t say no to everything, but the busier I was, the more I said no. Then I’d let them convince me why it was a good idea, and sometimes I’d change my mind, and sometimes not. However, this helped me in a few ways.

    First, I learned to better manage my workload. I hate not meeting a commitment, and I always try to under-promise and over-deliver. By saying no, I give myself time to think about whether I can sustain something.

    Second, this started to force others to really justify their requests. I’ve had no shortage of things people ask for that are really their dreams and ideas, often not thought through. Many people have learned to ask for something without really thinking about it. Just like many technical people start writing code and compiling it without really thinking through what is needed. By not agreeing right away and letting them make a case for why something is needed, I force them to really justify if something is needed.

    I get some pushback from managers, but learning to stand up and argue a bit is a good skill. Overall, I’ve frustrated some people, but most others learn that they can count on me.

    If I commit.

  • Highly Skilled

    The world of work has been changing quite a bit over the last few years. The pandemic appeared to be a boon to technology workers, both by allowing us to work remotely, but also taking advantage of our skills to deploy more technology throughout the world. At the same time, late 2022 and 2023 have seen many companies pull back and cut their staff, including technical staff. It seems that in mid-2023, we have both a demand for technology workers and a lot of people looking for technology jobs.

    A recent 2022 report on working in technology has some interesting insights. It is summarized at ZDNet, but you can see the original report here. The highlights from the report are that quite a few top performers left their jobs, recruitment doesn’t work well, and finding top talent is hard. These aren’t that surprising to many of us that actually write code or manage systems, but it is nice to see that founders and executives are reporting this (they were the ones surveyed in the report).

    For much of my career, I do think many executives have taken advantage of tech workers, pressing them to get more and more done with fewer resources. Even though many people were paid well (though not all), they may not have enjoyed their jobs. I’ve had a lot of great positions, but over the years, I’ve met a surprising number of people who wouldn’t recommend others follow them into their career choice.

    The pandemic made it easier for people to switch jobs since everyone was remote. That might not have benefitted lots of people, but it certainly helped top talent. If you’re one of those people, you likely got a better job, with better compensation, and hopefully, more interesting work to you.

    For others, we might still be looking for something new (or worried about the security of our current position). One of the main parts of the report talks about the problems with the traditional recruitment model. First, it takes too long, an average of 4 months to fill technical roles. There is pressure to speed that up, while also understanding that candidates will need some training and re-skilling or up-skilling to meet an organization’s particular needs. That would seem to be good for many candidates, but I think this report is biased to startups and newer organizations, not mature ones.

    I do think the impressions you make early are important. A candidate needs to ensure that they have technical skills. You should be able to solve problems but also think on your feet. Respond to the interviewer and showcase critical thinking. A developer should be able to answer general questions, like how to find duplicates in a table or sort data that is aggregated. You don’t need to solve all of Itzik’s query problems, but you ought to know some of them. I’d expect you to know the basics of this job. If you’re unsure, post a note on the forums and ask people what things they need to know to do their jobs.

    However, apart from the technical skills, you need good soft skills. A strong candidate will communicate well, display confidence, relate to the interview(ers), and build some rapport. They will look to ask questions that seek more information about what is asked, but without being confrontational or disagreeable. There’s a skill to debating a point rather than arguing with someone. The ability to get along with others and find synergy is important. When others think adding you to the team makes the entire team better, you stand a good chance of getting an offer.

    If you’re unsure of whether you present a good impression, get a few friends or co-workers to interview you and give you honest feedback. Maybe even ask a friend who hires people to mock interview for a position. Learning to present a better impression will go a long way toward increasing your chances of getting hired. Especially if firms are trying to make quicker decisions.

    Maybe the big change from the report is 80% of people surveyed say they are willing hire someone without a college degree. Whether they actually would to that, whether their HR or other policies allow this, and whether they convince existing employees to do this remains to be seen. However, many of us know that a college degree isn’t a good predictor of whether someone can do any job well. I hope future hiring trends confirm that.

    Steve Jones

    Listen to the podcast at Libsyn, Stitcher, Spotify, or iTunes.