Home Forums SQLServerCentral.com Editorials Jumping Ahead RE: Jumping Ahead

  • August 23, 2017 at 9:07 am

    #1956416

    Rod at work - Wednesday, August 23, 2017 8:22 AM

    Peter Schott - Tuesday, August 22, 2017 12:27 PM

    Have to agree about the regular learning. That's something I look for in candidates - how do they keep current? If someone has little desire to grow in their knowledge, it's a concern to me. You can be good at what you currently do, but with the changes constantly coming in this field, if you're not growing you'll be left behind quickly.  As I type this, I'm amazed at how much progress has been made with PowerBI and DAX lately. What was something to play around with a couple of years ago is now getting huge amounts of attention.  You mentioned the machine learning and data science aspects and pointed out that they're growing, but not an easy field to break into. That goes back to learning and growing, even if in small ways.

    You ask how someone who doesn't strive to remain current, growing their knowledge, in our changing field. I know of one way they can do that. If they work for an organization which puts no emphasis upon remaining current, then those who chose to learn nothing new have found a corporate home.

    True, but that sort of person wouldn't likely be interviewing if they were content there. And I still think you should try to stay up with what's going on around you in your field. My dad's been a MechE for decades, but retains everything from his years of experience and is still keeping up with what's going on now. Sadly, the age thing is working against him right now, but he's sharp and the younger guys working with him are sometimes amazed that he can point out (and come up with solutions for) potential issues by barely glancing at the designs.

    Yes, the current company might not encourage innovation, but that's not a good reason to sit still. It might be a good reason why you haven't been able to put some newer features in practice, but you should still know about them. I was stuck on 2005 for ages, but at least kept up with with what was going on in the product and was ready to make some improvements when we upgraded. 🙂