No Quick Fixes

I gave my career talk recently at an event and quite a few people had questions about starting careers (in or just out of college) or finding another job (out of work). I answered as best I could, but there was one thing that I emphasized over and over and need to do here.

There is no quick fix.

The things I suggest to you, the ideas for building your brand and creating a modern resume can work and they will help you. However they take time. They take an investment in yourself across time.

You don't build a network in a month. It takes many months and years.

You don't build a blob that showcases your knowledge in a few weeks. It's a journey and a chronicle across time.

You don't volunteer, or lead, or research, or anything else in short periods of time.

Build your brand, slowly, steadily, using determination and focus, but remember that it takes time to get there.

Out of touch

My apologies for the delays in posting new content. There's no shortage, but I keep getting distracted with work. I've almost run over my own "update every quarter" time limit without a post.

I'll work on a few and get back to weekly posts next week (I hope).

In the meantime, I hope you're enjoying your career, and here's a short video to watch. If you don't find these three things in your career, start to make a change.

Why Should You Network?

A piece I wrote a few years ago. It still applies.

Why should you network? I'm speaking about interpersonal networking, not the bits and bytes in the ether kind :)

It's an interesting question and one I've been thinking about a lot since reading Andy Warren's posts on the subject. He thought it was interesting enough to engage Don Gabor for his business and spend a little money to learn how to do it better. After having a few sessions, Andy thought it was helpful enough to get a pre-conference session at PASS on this topic. It's a short pre-con, 2 hours, and won't interfere with anything else you've booked. It's an additional $60, but I've paid my fee (it's a business expense) and will be there.

Whether or not you attend the session (it's limited in size), I think there is value in learning to network better. Andy has reviewed a few books, and I'm sure I'll have some quick techniques to give you after PASS, or even during it. If you see me during the conference, please don't hesitate to come up and say hello to me. It's always great to meet new people.

Back to me question: why network? I'll give you a few examples in my life. I involuntarily networked myself into this field. When I was in graduate school searching for a job, I saw an internship at the power company. There were a few positions, but one of them was in the EE department, slightly out of my field. The guy in charge, however, was an alum of the University of Virginia, and I applied, and he gave me the job because we were fellow graduates. I had asked him a few months later and he said I got preference for that reason.

In 4 other cases later in my career, I've heard about consulting jobs in various places in the US. I haven't been interested in any of them, but I have passed them along to friends that I've gotten to know over the years from SQLServerCentral. These were people that had taken the time to say hi to me at some event and then correspond with me a little. Many of them were authors, and as I got to know their skills, I became comfortable with recommending them for work. It didn't benefit me other than a little goodwill and the feeling of helping others.

I have heard about similar situations all the time, where people have built a friendship, or some other bond, and then referred work or helped someone get a job. As much as it may upset technical people, it's still often who you know that matters much more than your technical skills. Networking is a great way to grow your career by knowing more people.

Blog for you

In my talk, I give that advice that your blog is for you, it’s a chronicle of your career, and it’s really written for the person that is considering hiring you, not for everyone else.

Matt Mullenweg agrees. He’s one of the founding developers of Wordpress, and his post was picked up on Twitter by John Batalle and a few others. He says you should:

• write for yourself
• write for a single person who you have in mind as the perfect person to read what you write

That second, single person, is the HR person, the hiring manager, the person that might offer you a job.

The first one, that’s you. Your present self, that’s solve a problem and is explaining it (showing your communication skills), and your future self, who might come back to this later and learn from it, or revisit the

However in both cases, you want to do a good job. Proofread your work. Get opinions from friends. Make sure that you are proud of what you write.

Blog for your interview

There are any number of reasons to blog about things. Perhaps you want to become famous and well known, perhaps you want to help others, perhaps you just want to unload your knowledge. All of those are valid, and good, reasons to blog. However I have one more: blog for your interview.

Most of us don’t want to be famous, or even well known. Most of us just want to have a successful career and want to be sure we can get a job if you need one. Blog for those reasons.

I could encourage you to write about your career, but not to teach others. Write about your career to show the person that might consider offering you a job what you know. Write your posts that show that you have knowledge and

• can solve a problem
• have knowledge on a topic

As I mention in the talk, If I am interviewing you, or considering it, I don’t care if everyone else in the world knows how to backup a database. I care if *you* know how to do it. Your blogging on the topic, on simple topics, lets me know what you understand and how you solve problems.

This doesn’t mean going through Books Online and re-writing all sections. However it does mean that as you perform tasks, even simple ones, write about them. Tell me why you did something, why you chose those options for backup, what the implications are. This tells me what you know, and what you don’t.

Becoming a Leader

Leadership is a skill and quality that so many companies desperately need. Sometimes they aren’t even aware of how little leadership they have; they just know they can’t seem to get work done well.

You don’t have to work in management to be a leader. Some of the best leaders in my business, software, are the developers that convince others to work in a certain way. They find ways through their sharing of knowledge, setting a great  example, encouraging others to just be a better professional.

I’ve got a few links here that might help you improve your leadership skills and stand out a little more from others. Think about building skills, saving these stories and examples, and writing about them on your blog, or mentioning them in a resume.

• The Best Way for New Leaders to Build Trust
• Motivating Your Team: The Importance of Why

Learning to Write Better

Recently I ran across a blog post from Brian Kelley, a colleague in the SQL Server world. He noted that one of the things that makes him a better professional in his business is being able to communicate well.

I agree, and it’s one of those things I mention in my branding presentation, but don’t emphasize. Whether you blog, speak, or communicate in any way, poor communication skills stand out. Great communication skills just flow, and let people understand your message easily.

I have a few ideas for you to improve your skills.

• 15 Grammar Goofs (from Brian’s post)
• Improve your writing skills
• Improving your spelling
• Proofreading

Bookmark these links and then periodically take a few minutes and learn to improve your skills.

One other resource I’ll recommend as a place I ask questions or learn from the pros is English.stackexchange.com. I suspect there are exchanges for other languages as well (like Spanish).