Happy New Year
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Happy New YearIt's the start of 2007 and a brand new year. Time for resolutions, a fresh beginning, and the chance to improve your life.
This week we've decided, or rather I've decided, to make it a career week. While I don't have tons of articles with career advice ready to go, I have got a bunch of editorials on career subjects ready for you.
So let's get started. I saw this interesting article on why you should turn down a job offer and it made perfect sense to me. After all, I've taken a couple jobs I shouldn't have and passed on many more. Some of the reasons I've passed are outlined in the article and they make good sense.
For example, I'm a casual dressing, not too punctual kind of worker. I work hard and get the job done, but those are two areas where I'm weak and I know it. Trying to fit into a culture of dressed up every day, on-time workers just won't work and I'll be miserable after awhile. Or I'll make my boss crazy by not adhering to the rules.
I've stressed many times that a good fit is important when you're looking for a job. I understand you have to make compromises, especially when you need to pay a mortgage, but if you have the choice, don't take a job that isn't a good fit. Don't talk yourself into it and really think about what it means.
I took a job as a DBA once with a company that had struggled to find someone to fit in the position and previous employees had been overwhelmed by the job. I was young, a little brash and arrogant, and confident that I could do better. I was wrong as were the two people that came after me.
Looking back I realize that there were fundamental problems there that a single DBA, possibly even a single Director of Development couldn't change. But more important that those issues were other things. There was a decent amount of travel, with me flying to NY and Boston from Denver more than I'd like. We had fundamental stability issues that really required a separate 2-3 person team to address over a year. Instead it resulted in lots of baby-sitting of systems overnight, weekends, early mornings at the office, and more. The only good thing was a relatively short commute.
I'd urge you to read the article, even if you aren't looking for a new job, and make some notes about the things you like and don't like in a job. The commute, the pay, the benefits, the perks, the challenge, and more are all important and it takes time to really stop and decide what matters to you and what doesn't. Don't overlook those small irritating grains of sand in your next potential employer.
They probably won't grow into a pearl.
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Nice editorial. I noticed the new format in the email as well, something new for 2007?
I can relate to this editorial, and article, because I left a corporate job in 2000 for my current university job. I was fresh out of college and wanted to experience the "real world" so I was dead set on working for a corporation, I even wanted a cubicle! Maybe it was just the environment I was in but the job felt like a dead end to me. I ended up basically writing Oracle scripts. It wasn't bad, just not really what I wanted to do which was doing web development. Their web development department had no openings so I was stuck where I was. Later on the job had me doing Crystal Reports a lot. Again, not bad, but I didn't really relish a future of being a Crystal Reports developer. To make matters worse the main application my team was supporting was kind of a niche one so it wasn't too likely I could take what I learned there to a new job.
I finally found a way to break out of the development mold I was being put into by taking the initiative to design an application, in VB 4. Yes, VB 4. This was in 2000 when VB 6 was standard but as part of their culture they didn't want to move to anything higher since the apps written in VB 4 worked and they didn't want to go through the support costs and whatnot of doing things in VB 6. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
My boss' boss actually liked that I took the initiative to do something that no one else was willing to do, but I could tell my boss wasn't exactly pleased I did it in VB since we were an Oracle area; I kind of went above her head so to speak, oops. Seeing how much of an uphill battle it was going to be to do what I really wanted to do I was really inclined to look for a new job. My former boss at my university kept in touch with me and knew of my job dissatisfaction and made me an offer. He knew what kind of worked I like so the offer was very tempting. Basically, near complete freedom to develop however I want. The only catch was the $4,000 pay cut. I thought about it for a month but decided to take it. That was about 6 1/2 years ago and I'm still happy with the position. I know I could make more elsewhere but I'm actually happy in my job and I'm finding that's more important, most of the time, than money. I make enough to support myself and live the lifestyle I want so I'm happy.
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...and sometimes, don't be afraid to take the first offer that comes in...
We had a need for a developer some time ago, so we did the usual hunt/search and hired the one we thought would be the best fit for the position; there were, of course, a few adjustments that she had to make and a few that we made to help her fit in. Worked out rather well.
But a couple months into it, she quit: the job that she really wanted had finally made her an offer, which she took. We talked and I told her to go for it: we'd rather have her happy somewhere else than unhappy with us.
So, I guess the point is, sometimes you have to take something to pay the bills, but that doesn't mean you should stop looking.
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