From accidental DBA to intentional one..

  • So I am considering moving to a different area of the country, meaning I will need to be looking for a new job. If what I enjoy the most is the building of DB's, queries, tuning, warehouse and BI related tasks, are there general standard job titles to be looking for? This work does not strike me as typical DBA sorts of tasks.

    Since I also work where there are no DB related titles/positions, what is a good way to decide where my job level is, ie, junior dba, dba or senior dba sorts of things. I would not want to get in way over my head.

    Does anyone have thoughts?

  • All those (and more) come under the heading of "DBA" in most job listings. The BI duties are sometimes listed as "Business Intelligence" instead of DBA, but it's about 50/50 between those two titles. Pretty much anything that has to do with databases is usually lumped under "DBA", even those things that have nothing to do with database "admin".

    On the Jr/Mid/Sr question, probably your best bet would be to hit Brainbench or ProveIT and take a test. Those will tell you where you rank (on testing, anyway) in relation to others who have taken the same tests. It's not a perfect metric (honestly, it's a seriously flawed one), but lots of employers use those to determine Jr/Mid/Sr, so it will help narrow that down on what kind of jobs to look for.

    Beyond that, talk to recruiters in the new area. They'll know what their clients are looking for, and will definitely help you tailor your search, and your resume, to match what you can do to what they want. A few will be creeps and will ask you to falsify data on the resume. Immediately stop working with anyone who asks for that. They have plenty of honest competitors, and, if they want you to be dishonest about your quals, you have to assume they're being equally dishonest about what a company wants and will offer, etc. Note, asking you to change the wording on something so it sounds better isn't necessarily dishonest. Asking you to add skills you really don't have, definitely is. If you can avoid the creeps, recruiters will definitely be able to help you match skills to opportunities.

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