How long is too long?
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@NerdyDad said in How long is too long?:
I would, someday, like to become an IT Manager, but am enjoying tinkering with the servers still.
So let's start with three things....
- How do you define "IT Manager" because that could mean any of several pretty standard things from "lone IT guy in charge of an SMB" to "Mid level personnel manager in an enterprise with zero technical responsibilities" with several things in between.
- How far are you from your goal now?
- How is your current job pushing you towards that goal.
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Then once we define those things, we can start figuring out if and when the current job starts to Peter out and what the next job might hopefully look like as a reason next "hop" along the path.
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An advantage to an MSP like Bundy or NTG is that we tend to see a wide variety of tasks (vertical experience) and technologies (horizontal experience) either day to day or year to year and tend to have some degree or either mentor or peer support internally. So in an environment like that, you can shift up the career ladder differently than say in an SMB where there is one or two roles to fill and no matter how good you are, you are just really killing that one role.
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@scottalanmiller said in How long is too long?:
Companies that move you around internally get a lot more years than those that keep you in one role.
Yeah, I've never had this happen personally, but would be complete fine with it.
But when things become stagnant, and there is no opportunity to either grow or learn something else its time to search.
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I really don't have any major career "goals". Main goal is to keep the family fed and with a roof over their heads.
A couple of aspirations would be
- The head guy in the IT department, including Policy Writing, Financials, along with being in the trenches, if necessary, but not being the only guy in IT in the company, but being the head guy in the IT in the company.
- Being a consultant for server solutions and IT holistically.
A couple of things that I have already taken care of since starting here
- Going from XS to VMware (don't hate me everybody, but it had to be done).
- Move from Symantec Backup Exec to Veeam for better backups
- Established a colocation for a better DR plan
A couple of things left on my to-do list
- Get all servers up to date
- No legacy servers older than 3-5 years old.
- Clean up GPO
- Establish WSUS (again)
- Establish a licensing server for MS
- Learn PS
- Possibly VDI
- Establish WDS
- Possibly escalate System Normalization to at least level 2, if not 3
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Did anyone mention "career stage" in this discussion? Wouldn't it make sense that earlier in your career that the numbers should be smaller and later in your career that they would get longer? LIke your first job might be 9 months. Your second a year and a half. Your third is three years. Your fourth is five years. And on and on?
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I am the "IT Manager" = "lone IT guy in charge of an SMB" sometimes i feel like GOD and sometimes i want to hide and cry under my desk...
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It's cool that your goals are clear to you. That's the first step. So now, you're in a great spot to ask yourself, "What do I need to do today to get where I want to be tomorrow?" You can map out your self learning plan and look for opportunities for growth.
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I've gone:
- 9 month contract.
- 2 years, one company, then promotion, 2 years again after promotion.
- 1 year at MSP.
- 1 year where I am now.
(I'd say for me, 1 - 1.5 years max anywhere).
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@Jimmy9008 said in How long is too long?:
I've gone:
- 9 month contract.
- 2 years, one company, then promotion, 2 years again after promotion.
- 1 year at MSP.
- 1 year where I am now.
(I'd say for me, 1 - 1.5 years max anywhere).
I did something like 40 different jobs (all contract plus one startup that went out of business) in my first three years of really active IT work. And even after that, it was only one every year or two. I did a 15 month stint at Dell that was a really big deal for me early on.
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@Jimmy9008 said in How long is too long?:
I've gone:
- 9 month contract.
- 2 years, one company, then promotion, 2 years again after promotion.
- 1 year at MSP.
- 1 year where I am now.
(I'd say for me, 1 - 1.5 years max anywhere).
Makes sense, did the contract work come through word of mouth? Or did you use any special recruiters to get the roles? I've always liked the idea... but steady perm employment seems more reliable.
I get bored after 1 or so years at any given place. Pretty much at that point where I am now, so am looking. Gets pretty boring once everything is in place, up to date, patches, and running smoothly etc...
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@Jimmy9008 said in How long is too long?:
Makes sense, did the contract work come through word of mouth? Or did you use any special recruiters to get the roles? I've always liked the idea... but steady perm employment seems more reliable.
Recruiters and agencies. Word of mouth doesn't get that kind of work at all, especially since the kinds of companies that use consultants like that have no association with each other. I'd work for an enterprise one day, an SMB the next, the federal government, state government, big IT firm, Indian nation and so forth - every few days or weeks would be a completely different entity in a different part of the country. So word of mouth would be impossible. Plus you need someone guaranteeing that the bills are getting collected.
From friends that tried the "steady employment" thing for exactly your reasoning... I always had more reliable work. Their jobs were always more precarious because they earned less per hour and had less leverage but the "perm" jobs, at least in the US, had even less certainty than the contract ones because a perm job had to fire you just "whenever" but a contract trying to duck out a few days early would make no sense. So "planning for uncertainty" made contracting more reliable in practice. It also made me more experienced, more senior and more in demand much faster; which in turn meant more reliability.
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@scottalanmiller any specific agencies? Any UK ones?
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@Jimmy9008 said in How long is too long?:
I get bored after 1 or so years at any given place. Pretty much at that point where I am now, so am looking. Gets pretty boring once everything is in place, up to date, patches, and running smoothly etc...
Same here, one year at Dell was tough. All of the challenge was done after five months. And even five months was only because I did three different jobs during that window:
- One week of proof of concept engineering
- Four weeks of process engineering
- Four months of Windows Administration
I went on for another year after that... but that's why the first five months were okay. And the first five weeks were at one site, the next year was three different locations per week, every week, no repeats. So I was traveling constantly and that kept things interesting for a little while.
