May 28, 2008 at 3:37 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the item Job Specialization - Boon or Bane?
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|Ted Pin >>
May 29, 2008 at 7:30 am
Great editorial. When I applied to the position where I am working now, they had a HUGE list of "requirements". It turns out, they weren't looking for someone with all of them, it was ANY of them. Had it been a query, the bullet points would have said OR instead of AND.
In order to specialize, you need some foundation of general knowledge to specialize on. If we're talking SQL Server, how many SSIS gurus can't write basic stored procedures? If you're looking for an equivalent position, yes it is rare that your unique combination of experience and specialization is what a particular company is looking for. I've noticed that as well. If you're willing to take something less specialized, then there are usually positions available albeit at lower pay. It's always worthwhile to be flexible.
May 29, 2008 at 7:51 am
Companies have to to be very selective in the technologies they adopt and anticipate the available labor pool that will be able to support it.
If you decide to adopt a little known programming language or RDMS, you can expect that you will either have to train people to use it or have very limited talent available. You have to make sure that the benefits of non-mainstream technology are enough to overcome the drawbacks of limited labor supply. Unfortunately, many decision makers fall in love with technology and adopt it without giving serious thought to this issue.
May 29, 2008 at 7:55 am
I have only been in one position where I was able to specialize other than specializing in MS development (Windows, SQL Server, VB, .NET). The one position where I "specialized" was a short-term contract doing report development in Reporting Services, but even there the data source was DB2 on the iSeries so I was also learning IBM's implementation of SQL as I wrote the data access code as well as the display.
In my current position I am responsible for SQL Server Administration, Database Development, .NET development, and some Visual Foxpro. The diversity makes life interesting, but I also cannot become an expert in any one area, and SQL Server and its subsystems are hard enough to try to keep up with.
Jack Corbett
Consultant - Straight Path Solutions
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May 29, 2008 at 8:23 am
Specialization tends to happen over time, and it's not just technology; it could be industry or type of company. It's probably more common for development areas than administrators.
I haven't really specialized in one area of SQL Server, but I have gotten more skilled, becoming a senior person. Which also limits the jobs out there. Lots of people would rather pay a junior/intermediate to run things if they can, and avoid the costs of a senior person.
I also have a friend who's a talented CCIE, but there are few jobs for someone of his caliber and most involve moving somewhere else. That's somewhat the price of success.
May 29, 2008 at 12:01 pm
I agreed these days employers want to hire someone that knows everything under the sun or they just want to hire one person to do 5 persons work. In most jobs I applied, they required knowledge of SQL Server 2000 and 2005, DBA experiences (backup and restore, replication, data mirroring...), performance tuning, writing stored procedures, SQL scripts and reporting service or crystal report. In addition it is a plus if the candidate knows BI/data warehouse, analysis service, ETL process, data architect, data modeling, on top of it the candidate would be idea if having the knowledge of Oracle or DB2, .Net, ASP.NET, C#..... the list goes on and on.
The matter of the fact is the company may not even need people with those skills, one of the recruiter told me the company sometimes likes to put down things they don't need and just to see what kind of candidate they get. 😛
Companies keep saying they can't find the right person, do they know what they are looking for in the first place?
May 30, 2008 at 11:15 pm
Loner (5/29/2008)
Companies keep saying they can't find the right person, do they know what they are looking for in the first place?
That is a really good point. The shotgun approach makes me want to employ the counter strategy of applying even if I only match 40% of the requirements... but that breaks one of those "golden" rules of job hunting: don't waste HR's time if you don't meet the requirements. I think the desire to have people who are good, and good at truly everything under the sun at once, is unreasonable and doesn't really benefit anyone in the long run.
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|Ted Pin >>
May 31, 2008 at 9:14 am
Ted Pin (5/30/2008)
Loner (5/29/2008)
Companies keep saying they can't find the right person, do they know what they are looking for in the first place?That is a really good point. The shotgun approach makes me want to employ the counter strategy of applying even if I only match 40% of the requirements... but that breaks one of those "golden" rules of job hunting: don't waste HR's time if you don't meet the requirements. I think the desire to have people who are good, and good at truly everything under the sun at once, is unreasonable and doesn't really benefit anyone in the long run.
As someone who stubbornly has managed to stay relatively generalized, it's interesting to see how disconcerting senior "non-specialists" truly are to them. I mean - for better of worse - I've been a "utility guy" getting stuck dealing with the odds and ends for better than a decade now, requiring me to jump from one thing to another, and yet - it's very confusing to tell them "Sure I have 5 years in that technology but I haven't touched it in 9 months". Being great at everything just isn't plausible from where I sit.
I guess "Senior adaptable Wrench engineer" doesn't quite come across in an immediately useful sense to them: put me somewhere, I get myself back up to speed in whatever it is and we go from there.
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Your lack of planning does not constitute an emergency on my part...unless you're my manager...or a director and above...or a really loud-spoken end-user..All right - what was my emergency again?
May 31, 2008 at 9:58 am
@matt-2: To further your point, my experience has been that many employers focus on "years of XXXX" instead of realizing that many of us will get pulled off, say, a VB.NET project to do database design for 6 months. How long does it take to remember syntax? A few days? I have a difficult time understanding when hiring managers are scared off by the fact that you might need a couple days to get up to speed. It's simply human.
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|Ted Pin >>
May 31, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Ted Pin (5/30/2008)but that breaks one of those "golden" rules of job hunting: don't waste HR's time if you don't meet the requirements.
This definitely wouldn't be one of my "golden rules". Most HR departments/recruiters have a 6 second rule when it comes to looking at applicants; if you haven't caught their eye within the first six seconds, you're tossed in the trash. I certainly wouldn't be concerned about upsetting someone by perhaps wasting their time maybe with them thinking I'm not best suited to a particular role. Someone in a HR department isn't going to remember you either way from your CV so just go for it. I wouldn't advise someone who doesn't know the difference between a router and a firewall to apply for jobs that state "must be CCIE" but that would be more for their moral rather than it being a career limiting move. You can't expect a prospective employer to have confidence in your abilities if you don't have confidence yourself.
May 31, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Brian (5/31/2008)You can't expect a prospective employer to have confidence in your abilities if you don't have confidence yourself.
Amen to that.
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|Ted Pin >>
May 31, 2008 at 9:41 pm
I have intentionally stayed a generalist. However, like Steve I've gained more experience in the technologies I do support. What this means is sometimes requesting, justifying, and taking training courses and working in areas outside of what is typical of my job focus. For instance, last week I attending an SSAS class to refresh my skills from 2000 to 2005. A couple of years ago I pushed to take a C# course, again, to update skills. In the mean time I've tried to maintain a strong familiarity with SQL Server and its expanding basket of technologies, even though that's my primary job focus (and hasn't been for the last 5 years).
Staying a generalist has served me well. It meant getting out the Air Force and entering the job market as a system administrator. It meant finding a new job as a web developer. And at the company I'm at now I've moved from web developer to senior SQL Server DBA to senior server administrator to senior directory services administrator to infrastructure architect. At any point I could probably have stopped and specialized. However, I have found that every step of the way the additional technologies I've picked up have helped in my new position.
K. Brian Kelley
@kbriankelley
June 2, 2008 at 4:48 am
Excellent Article!
I've been a generalist for a long time - in fact when I first started contracting in IT, I would take a development gig then take an infrastructure gig to keep both sets of skills honed.
I've found though through the years I've become more focused on development and DBMS systems.
I think as technologies become more complex, IT workers will become more specialized; but we'll have to see as time goes by if that what will happen.
June 2, 2008 at 6:13 am
Job specialization is required to increase your salary but utility guys are more popular in companies......:)
June 2, 2008 at 7:03 am
Ted, your use of the term "qualified candidate" makes your editorial rather "soggy". What is a "qualified" candidate? Someone who fills the list of requisites? I find that logic much like internet dating - you look for someone with all "these" qualities - you find them - and then find out one added quality they didnt mention was that they are satan worshippers!
I once hired a "well-qualified candidate" in that he met every requisite listed. Within a few days of his work, I then discovered that (#1) if asked to do any work outside his "qualified comfort zone", he would whine and in fact, get angry. (#2) His "certifications" and "qualifications" meant that he would waste hours telling us how we did not do something "right" (his opinion) and no matter how much I told him that we had to get things done, he would spend more hours (#3) 'researching' the best way to fix things I didnt need fixed. Sure, our work was not always perfect, but it kept our business chugging along - and who in this world can say their programs and data schemes are "100% perfect". Business doesnt work that way!
Funny thing is, after my "well-qualified candidate" flopped miserably, I hired an older guy - quick on his feet, eager, and willing to take on any challenge no matter what I threw at him. What a blessing this guy has been to us! The one thing he has that shines above all else is the enthusiasm and base talent. These days I often call him my "McGyver" - seems there is nothing I cannot ask for his help on that he doesnt 'attack' with gusto and drive, and he gets the job done 10 times faster than my former "well-qualified candidate".
In my opinion, the internet is not helping us at all with finding talent. In fact, I see job posting and job searching much like internet dating. That is, its a joke. People "meet" the requirements but in the end, its the person, AS a person that matters, and that is all just getting lost.
Job specialization? Well, consider that we are electing a new President soon here in the good old USA. Do we want someone with certifications? Specializations? ...or do we want someone who can think on their feet, dive in and attack problems and needs? I will take the latter, NOT the former. And in business, I have found this to be true as well.
Give me a McGyver any day, and you can keep your 'specialists' who I have found for the most part to be highly limited, unmotivated, and often, so 'expert' at something that we get nothing done.
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