Should You Job Hop for Your Career in IT - SAMIT Video
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@CCWTech very likely what you will find, though, is that your employee will find more career advancement options not staying with you, regardless of your desire to pay her more as she advances. Eventually, and this could happen very quickly, she will gain skills with high market value that you are unable to leverage. In order to keep her you will either need to pay her far more than you can justify (or afford) or hope that she is willing to basically donate herself to you. One or the other of you will have to suffer unless you can get customers in a granular way that I've never witnessed an MSP do before. What do you do when she leaps in market value far outstripping the ability to market her to new customers?
So to her, even in a service provider situation, almost certainly the best thing for her career will be to job hob. It's just a reality. Companies, of course, want to discourage job hopping for their own benefits. But for the employees, it is almost impossible for this to be the best thing for them.
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@scottalanmiller How long have you been with NTG and when are you quitting?
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@ccwtech said in Should You Job Hop for Your Career in IT - SAMIT Video:
@scottalanmiller How long have you been with NTG and when are you quitting?
NTG is a service provider... I'm not sure where the disconnect is here. @scottalanmiller has said dozens of times in this thread and hundreds of times outside of it that service providers, MSPs, and Fortune 500s (100s in this thread) are different in that they have the upper mobility available that anyone in the SMB/E wouldn't be able to provide.
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@coliver I guess I don't know the size of NTG.
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@ccwtech said in Should You Job Hop for Your Career in IT - SAMIT Video:
@coliver I guess I don't know the size of NTG.
Why does the size of it matter? it's a service provider. That was an "or" statement not an "and" statement.
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Scott specifically mentions that for my company 'size matters'.
@scottalanmiller said in Should You Job Hop for Your Career in IT - SAMIT Video:
Even very large MSPs struggle with this, but at least they have more ability to handle it than do smaller ones. But in a shop with just two people, I suspect that you will find that this does not work as you imagine that it does and that incrementing an employee up the ladder doesn't work very well because customers don't generally have any need with regularity for incremental movements in their providers.
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@ccwtech said in Should You Job Hop for Your Career in IT - SAMIT Video:
Scott specifically mentions that for my company 'size matters'.
@scottalanmiller said in Should You Job Hop for Your Career in IT - SAMIT Video:
Even very large MSPs struggle with this, but at least they have more ability to handle it than do smaller ones. But in a shop with just two people, I suspect that you will find that this does not work as you imagine that it does and that incrementing an employee up the ladder doesn't work very well because customers don't generally have any need with regularity for incremental movements in their providers.
Ah I see. I won't speak for him. But what is your market currently? Doesn't that have a lot to do with what technologies you and your employees are going to interact with on a daily basis? if you're being the IT department for multiple SMBs you are still restricted to what those SMBs do/want/need. So training your employee in a technology won't, necessarily, mean that you are gaining any marketable skills for the customers in your field. Sure you can pay them more for have a new skill in their repertoire but does that actually add value to the company?
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@coliver said in Should You Job Hop for Your Career in IT - SAMIT Video:
@ccwtech said in Should You Job Hop for Your Career in IT - SAMIT Video:
Scott specifically mentions that for my company 'size matters'.
@scottalanmiller said in Should You Job Hop for Your Career in IT - SAMIT Video:
Even very large MSPs struggle with this, but at least they have more ability to handle it than do smaller ones. But in a shop with just two people, I suspect that you will find that this does not work as you imagine that it does and that incrementing an employee up the ladder doesn't work very well because customers don't generally have any need with regularity for incremental movements in their providers.
Ah I see. I won't speak for him. But what is your market currently? Doesn't that have a lot to do with what technologies you and your employees are going to interact with on a daily basis? if you're being the IT department for multiple SMBs you are still restricted to what those SMBs do/want/need. So training your employee in a technology won't, necessarily, mean that you are gaining any marketable skills for the customers in your field. Sure you can pay them more for have a new skill in their repertoire but does that actually add value to the company?
Absolutely. If she learns CISCO networking it opens up opportunities that I have had to outsource. If she learns data recovery I can stop sending Level III recovery's out to a lab (I do Level I and II in-house), all of the other skills added open up new opportunities for revenue.
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@ccwtech said in Should You Job Hop for Your Career in IT - SAMIT Video:
@coliver said in Should You Job Hop for Your Career in IT - SAMIT Video:
@ccwtech said in Should You Job Hop for Your Career in IT - SAMIT Video:
Scott specifically mentions that for my company 'size matters'.
@scottalanmiller said in Should You Job Hop for Your Career in IT - SAMIT Video:
Even very large MSPs struggle with this, but at least they have more ability to handle it than do smaller ones. But in a shop with just two people, I suspect that you will find that this does not work as you imagine that it does and that incrementing an employee up the ladder doesn't work very well because customers don't generally have any need with regularity for incremental movements in their providers.
Ah I see. I won't speak for him. But what is your market currently? Doesn't that have a lot to do with what technologies you and your employees are going to interact with on a daily basis? if you're being the IT department for multiple SMBs you are still restricted to what those SMBs do/want/need. So training your employee in a technology won't, necessarily, mean that you are gaining any marketable skills for the customers in your field. Sure you can pay them more for have a new skill in their repertoire but does that actually add value to the company?
Absolutely. If she learns CISCO networking it opens up opportunities that I have had to outsource. If she learns data recovery I can stop sending Level III recovery's out to a lab (I do Level I and II in-house), all of the other skills added open up new opportunities for revenue.
Yes, but how much of that kind of new selling can you do? Cisco is worthless in the SMB space, literally worthless. And outside of the SMB space, Cisco work requires an immense about training, experience, and is super expensive. In no way can Cisco be incremental. You are talking about a complete change of corporate strategy to handle a change like that.
And for her to be able to consult on Cisco, how will you afford to keep her once she is worth $120K to another job when you are just starting down the road of learning how to acquire Cisco customers? You'll not only have to figure out how to sell Cisco services, you'll also need to switch customer categories. That's a lot of learning curve to do when she has to already be worth a fortune to someone else.
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What if company policy says you need to be there for a certain amount of time to get the full investment benefits?
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@tim_g said in Should You Job Hop for Your Career in IT - SAMIT Video:
What if company policy says you need to be there for a certain amount of time to get the full investment benefits?
Then you are back to admitting that job hopping was better for the employee and you have to legally cripple them to keep them from doing so.
Remember the point here was "what is good for the employee". I think that we keep showing that hopping is good for them and businesses want to find ways to discourage it for their own benefits.
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An issue I have with company-provided training, in general cases for broad skills, is that companies tend to provide this via expensive, wasteful processes like degrees and boot camp classes. Things that cost a lot to provide but provide little educational value. But if the employee was to learn on their own, they might do so for almost no cost and learn a lot by doing their education well.
Company provided training almost always means high cost, low return. And is often focused on what is good for the company, not the employee.
Because of this, employees will often get locked to a company for skills that may be of little to no value to the employee. And their value to the company is generally determined by the company after the fact, so the employee often sees little to no benefit from having done so and staying.
Company provided training is way too often a tool to trap employees rather than to provide benefits to them.
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Somewhat off topic, but in my case, I am semi-retired (with a pension) and a 1 man shop. I know the incredible challenges of going from 1 to 2, 2 to 3, etc. I can't imagine myself going to work for a boss. I think I read in another topic that you (Scott) mentioned that bringing on a business partner was a better way to go than just an employee. (They have skin in the game).
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@scottalanmiller said in Should You Job Hop for Your Career in IT - SAMIT Video:
An issue I have with company-provided training, in general cases for broad skills, is that companies tend to provide this via expensive, wasteful processes like degrees and boot camp classes. Things that cost a lot to provide but provide little educational value. But if the employee was to learn on their own, they might do so for almost no cost and learn a lot by doing their education well.
Company provided training almost always means high cost, low return. And is often focused on what is good for the company, not the employee.
Because of this, employees will often get locked to a company for skills that may be of little to no value to the employee. And their value to the company is generally determined by the company after the fact, so the employee often sees little to no benefit from having done so and staying.
Company provided training is way too often a tool to trap employees rather than to provide benefits to them.
While I have worked for a couple of companies that said that they would pay for courses (friends have even had tuition for degrees) that pertained to their job roles, I can't see that as being a bad thing if you are already in your career. It would be strange for someone to think that the company would want to pay them to study underwater basket weaving when they could be learning about business or IT.
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@scottalanmiller - Also, I am having a hard time picturing what company-provided training wouldn't benefit the employee.
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@wrx7m said in Should You Job Hop for Your Career in IT - SAMIT Video:
@scottalanmiller said in Should You Job Hop for Your Career in IT - SAMIT Video:
An issue I have with company-provided training, in general cases for broad skills, is that companies tend to provide this via expensive, wasteful processes like degrees and boot camp classes. Things that cost a lot to provide but provide little educational value. But if the employee was to learn on their own, they might do so for almost no cost and learn a lot by doing their education well.
Company provided training almost always means high cost, low return. And is often focused on what is good for the company, not the employee.
Because of this, employees will often get locked to a company for skills that may be of little to no value to the employee. And their value to the company is generally determined by the company after the fact, so the employee often sees little to no benefit from having done so and staying.
Company provided training is way too often a tool to trap employees rather than to provide benefits to them.
While I have worked for a couple of companies that said that they would pay for courses (friends have even had tuition for degrees) that pertained to their job roles, I can't see that as being a bad thing if you are already in your career. It would be strange for someone to think that the company would want to pay them to study underwater basket weaving when they could be learning about business or IT.
It's a bad thing if it puts your career on hold to do it. I know lots of people who have done it, and they have always suffered for it. In theory, if it was purely free, then yes. But I don't know anywhere where it is free. It is always one of two conditions:
- Learning something that is useless outside of the context of the business. Businesses have to pay for this kind of education and there is nothing wrong with it at all, but it doesn't really benefit the employee.
- Learning something that is valuable to the employee in the general job market. This always comes with strings attached that almost always make the employee 'pay' more than the education is worth.
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@wrx7m said in Should You Job Hop for Your Career in IT - SAMIT Video:
@scottalanmiller - Also, I am having a hard time picturing what company-provided training wouldn't benefit the employee.
Most of it, actually. Learning company specific processes and tools almost never apply to another company. I've learned so many things in my career, none of which were ever useful again. Even things that you'd be certain would be useful, they really aren't.
I learned Symphony clustering for high performance computing while at the bank. Does that go on my resume? No. Does anyone care? No. Did it help my career? No. Why not? Because it's a random, useless skill that is so specific that I'll never encounter the need for it again.
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@scottalanmiller said in Should You Job Hop for Your Career in IT - SAMIT Video:
@wrx7m said in Should You Job Hop for Your Career in IT - SAMIT Video:
@scottalanmiller said in Should You Job Hop for Your Career in IT - SAMIT Video:
An issue I have with company-provided training, in general cases for broad skills, is that companies tend to provide this via expensive, wasteful processes like degrees and boot camp classes. Things that cost a lot to provide but provide little educational value. But if the employee was to learn on their own, they might do so for almost no cost and learn a lot by doing their education well.
Company provided training almost always means high cost, low return. And is often focused on what is good for the company, not the employee.
Because of this, employees will often get locked to a company for skills that may be of little to no value to the employee. And their value to the company is generally determined by the company after the fact, so the employee often sees little to no benefit from having done so and staying.
Company provided training is way too often a tool to trap employees rather than to provide benefits to them.
While I have worked for a couple of companies that said that they would pay for courses (friends have even had tuition for degrees) that pertained to their job roles, I can't see that as being a bad thing if you are already in your career. It would be strange for someone to think that the company would want to pay them to study underwater basket weaving when they could be learning about business or IT.
It's a bad thing if it puts your career on hold to do it. I know lots of people who have done it, and they have always suffered for it. In theory, if it was purely free, then yes. But I don't know anywhere where it is free. It is always one of two conditions:
- Learning something that is useless outside of the context of the business. Businesses have to pay for this kind of education and there is nothing wrong with it at all, but it doesn't really benefit the employee.
- Learning something that is valuable to the employee in the general job market. This always comes with strings attached that almost always make the employee 'pay' more than the education is worth.
Wouldn't putting your career on hold mean quitting and learning full time? Some people do that but people who go to school that didn't do it out of high school (or other training) do it mid-career, no?
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@wrx7m said in Should You Job Hop for Your Career in IT - SAMIT Video:
@scottalanmiller said in Should You Job Hop for Your Career in IT - SAMIT Video:
@wrx7m said in Should You Job Hop for Your Career in IT - SAMIT Video:
@scottalanmiller said in Should You Job Hop for Your Career in IT - SAMIT Video:
An issue I have with company-provided training, in general cases for broad skills, is that companies tend to provide this via expensive, wasteful processes like degrees and boot camp classes. Things that cost a lot to provide but provide little educational value. But if the employee was to learn on their own, they might do so for almost no cost and learn a lot by doing their education well.
Company provided training almost always means high cost, low return. And is often focused on what is good for the company, not the employee.
Because of this, employees will often get locked to a company for skills that may be of little to no value to the employee. And their value to the company is generally determined by the company after the fact, so the employee often sees little to no benefit from having done so and staying.
Company provided training is way too often a tool to trap employees rather than to provide benefits to them.
While I have worked for a couple of companies that said that they would pay for courses (friends have even had tuition for degrees) that pertained to their job roles, I can't see that as being a bad thing if you are already in your career. It would be strange for someone to think that the company would want to pay them to study underwater basket weaving when they could be learning about business or IT.
It's a bad thing if it puts your career on hold to do it. I know lots of people who have done it, and they have always suffered for it. In theory, if it was purely free, then yes. But I don't know anywhere where it is free. It is always one of two conditions:
- Learning something that is useless outside of the context of the business. Businesses have to pay for this kind of education and there is nothing wrong with it at all, but it doesn't really benefit the employee.
- Learning something that is valuable to the employee in the general job market. This always comes with strings attached that almost always make the employee 'pay' more than the education is worth.
Wouldn't putting your career on hold mean quitting and learning full time? Some people do that but people who go to school or other training do it mid-career, no?
That would certainly be putting your career on hold. But I'm talking about avoiding moving up and stagnating because you become indentured in exchange for the education. The point of the conversation was how job hopping moves you forward in your career much more quickly than staying put, in nearly all cases (always exceptions for individuals.) If you are forced to give up one of your most powerful career advancement tools in exchange for some training, you are putting your career on hold for the company's benefit.
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@scottalanmiller I don't think it is as one-sided as you are stating. Delayed gratification/realization is not all bad.
I also think that this depends on types of careers. From someone that didn't go to college for more than a handful of classes and thinks most people are wasting time and money when going, I can still associate some value depending on career types.
For IT, getting a degree mid-career would be more of something that most people would consider a personal achievement; something that they wanted to do to say they did it. In other fields, say an SMB accounting department, getting a related degree would almost certainly be a decent career booster.
