[lopsa-discuss] Career planning

[Gabriel Krabbe]

Note: All I say applies at best to the European situation as tainted by
my German experiences. Occasionally I may be misrepresenting or I may
have entirely misread reality. Food for thought, maybe.

On Mon, Dec 05, 2005 at 09:14:59PM -0500, Andrew Maddox wrote:
[...]
> How permanent is any job these days in IT? In systems/network fields, 
> especially? How do I keep myself informed of what's going on, current on 
> technology, moving forward in my responsibilities, and all that?

Jobs appear to be about as permanent as employees. There are always the
chances of failure, of being bought out, of mismanagement, of making it
big, and all of these apply to companies as much as to people - some
aren't well suited to the job, some get a better offer, some are
disgruntled, some want to take a sabbatical. Same thing, different name,
and, yes, the impact of an individual's job going away tends to be
bigger than the impact of an individual walking from a job. "Permanence"
in the former IBM sense - you leave when you're pensioned, or feet first - 
is a thing of the past, in every way. "Full time, permanent employment"
is different from a fixed-term contract only in the fixedness of the
term (and in various termination hoops, depending on jurisdiction).

That said, there are notable differences by area (geographically and
skill) and by company. This is neither new nor surprising; maybe the
pace has picked up a bit with the increasing speed at which the ground
shifts under our skillset. This, too, works both ways - while companies'
commitments to their IT staff may appear to have become somewhat less,
that staff has for years been known to be loyal only until the shinier
toys came along; witness the discussions of eight or more years ago,
what recruiters/hiring managers thought of as reasonable periods to have
spent at previous companies, where the sweet spot between loyalty and
flexibility lay and lies.

Given the asymmetry in consequences depending on which party says
goodbye first, it is on us to keep ourselves, in your words, "informed
of what's going on, current technology, moving forward in [our]
responsibilities". There are a few obvious and often repeated answers -
trade publications, mailing lists, trade shows, conferences, usenet,
user and local professional groups. Beyond that remains the question of
how to actually learn that new technology, when it's too expensive to
buy for home and unavailable at the current workplace. 

It's simple, you don't. If your company doesn't have (a need for)
high-end SAN storage systems, then you'll not develop any skills with
that. But that's not true - you won't develop any skills with that
concrete manifestation, but there is absolutely nothing to stop you from
learning all about the theory, the concepts behind the technology, the
problems it'd solve and the ones it doesn't, the questions it answers
and the limitations inherent in it. And all that's required is a bit of
effort - gather some information, find out what people are doing with
it, see and hear people ask questions about it on mailing lists, on
usenet, at various meetings. See if you can transfer that theoretical
SAN knowledge to your dual-port SCSI JBOD[1], what the intricacies and
advantages of the concept of shared-bus-shared-disk storage are. 

That's a lot of effort, sure enough. The good news is that it gets
easier, the more knowledge you[2] already have to tie it all together,
the just-as-good news is that everyone else is in the same situation,
just regarding a different thing, the better news is that through this
behaviour you get a lot better at learning stuff you're actually in
contact with, and the neither-her-nor-there news is that this gives you
an honest way to say (and keyword-stuff) "understands SANs" in(to) your
resume.

> What does anyone else think? I think keeping in touch with people here
> is a good channel, and LinkedIn seems to be popular (anyone who wants
> to send or get an invite link and help me network, please let me
> know!). Got my local SAGE-like group, which I'm trying to help make
> more active, and I'm trying to find two or three reliable recruiters
> to build relationships with.

Those sound like good plans. The special case of myself shows that
knowing people is a great way to get a foot in the door, but won't get
you hired in and of itself[3]. As a rule, it'll get your resume past the
resume-screen, so whatever you submit should be the un-stuffed,
straightforward version. It's just doing everyone a favour. I have no
experience with recruiters, and I somehow doubt the true value of
services such as LinkedIn or OpenBC or, for that matter, orkut. Some
people swear by them, but so far those people have been from
non-technical roles. 

> But what else? Do I need a specialty? What should it be? Certifications - 
> training and studying for them, which are worthwhile? How do I keep myself 
> competitive so that when the company that never has layoffs goes into a 
> massive restructuring or downsizing, I can land on my feet?

A specialty is good, but unless it's "security", it doesn't mean that
you don't have to be able to do everything else. Maybe not as well, but
you have to honestly know how good you are and just what and why you're
not doing as well[4]. Too stretch the overused medical analogy yet
another bit, even a "General Practitioner" is a specialist, but it's not
widely reported. If your specialty is "security", then I have no idea
what your market is.

A reputation is good. Meet people, meet them face to face. E-mail only
goes so far. Make an impression. Make it a good one. There are ways of
being a "people person" even if normally you're a bit reserved where
making initial contact is concerned. Social skills are important, and if
yours are limited - say, by being extremely talkative once you get
started[5], be aware of this and give the other person a break by
wandering away a bit, if nothing else. 

Certifications and training have some value, but only some certs and
some trainings some of the time. There is such a thing as having too
many, and there is such a thing as being too proud of too little - if
you have a higher or better regarded one, don't mention the lower
stuff, like a PhD obviating the BA in your letterhead. ;-)

[...]
> Anyway, let's talk - I think we can form our own virtual career counseling 
> service with the brainpower and experience we have here.

That'd be the three-R[6] project that LOPSA (as embodied by Trey) is
embarking on. Thursday, 21:00 PST, Ascot. ;-)


Gabe

[1] If you don't have one, get one. Sun D1000, cheap on ebay.
[2] I keep saying "you". That may or may not be you personally, I just
    don't feel like writing in the first person - all of this is true
    for me.
[3] This is a good thing. I'd mistrust the ethics and deeply mistrust
    the competence of the people doing the hiring and getting so hired.
    The convenience is great if you've been out of work a while, I
    suppose, but that only brings us back to the question of "how
    permanent is 'permanent'".
[4] I'm rather proud of the grammar overloading in that sentence. ;-)
[5] That'd be me.
[6] Resume Reading 'n Riting...
-- 
A: Yes.
>Q: Are you sure?
>>A: Because it reverses the logical flow of conversation.
>>>Q: Why is top posting annoying in email?