Finding New Employment

  • Comments posted to this topic are about the item Finding New Employment

  • If I have one regret in my career it is in not taking enough risks. While I have seen a few highly talented people soar in their careers. I have also seen highly talented people stagnate.

    Many of the people I have seen in senior positions have not been extraordinary, but they have taken greater risks. Their attitude to failure is "I haven't succeeded yet", rather than "I've failed".

    For people in the IT profession the risk of failure is much lower because demand outstrips supply. We can afford to take risks even if we are not comfortable taking them!

    With lockdown and remote working the distractions of office that are irrelevant to my career have gone. I don't need bean bags, free beer on Friday and pool tables. What I need is interesting challenges, learning opportunities and to acquire skills that will future proof my career. If you are getting all the irrelevancies and none of the career stuff then it's time to move on.

    I'm in my 50s too and some of my friends have found the things they were hoping to do in retirement they may not be able to do for health reasons. They are asking themselves what was all the overtime, late nights and weekends for? Were they paid any more? What did they get out of it other than tiredness and encroachment onto what should have been family time?

    Not that they are advocating shirking! It's more that they feel they have rendered unto Caesar rather more than Caesar was due and Caesar has not been grateful.

  • Very well put, David. I think I'm like you in that I think I've not risked much, either. Mostly due to fear of getting in trouble. There have been times in my career when my boss was the type who said, "Do as I say and do NOT deviate!!!" So, even if I took a risk and got it right, improved the process, etc., I'd only earn the person's anger and occasionally wrath. It wasn't worth the trouble.

    Now I feel more impostor syndrome.

    Kindest Regards, Rod Connect with me on LinkedIn.

  • Top lessons I've learned about employment:

    Take charge of your career. Decide what you really enjoy doing and find a job doing that. I waited far too long to pick a specialty.

    If you aren't getting paid what you are worth or getting appropriate periodic increases, find another job. The devil you know is always going to be a devil. There is at least a chance the next employer will be better.

    Don't care more about a work issue than the people signing your performance review or paycheck. Document them, email to the responsible authority, and move on to the next issue (or another job). Pick your battles. Not every hill is worth dying on.

  • m60freeman wrote:

    Top lessons I've learned about employment:

    Take charge of your career. Decide what you really enjoy doing and find a job doing that. I waited far too long to pick a specialty.

    If you aren't getting paid what you are worth or getting appropriate periodic increases, find another job. The devil you know is always going to be a devil. There is at least a chance the next employer will be better.

    Don't care more about a work issue than the people signing your performance review or paycheck. Document them, email to the responsible authority, and move on to the next issue (or another job). Pick your battles. Not every hill is worth dying on.

     

    Those are two great points! I had a coworker quit because "no one cared as much as ..[him]".

  • Two excellent points,  m60freeman

    Kindest Regards, Rod Connect with me on LinkedIn.

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