How do you find the right employer?
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@Minion-Queen said:
@DustinB3403 Again contacts that already are there or know the prospective employer well.
^ This.
If a friend says "Hey, this company I work for is pretty cool, and they have an IT opening. Why don't you check it out?"
I'd be heavily inclined to check that company out -- even if that friend doesn't work in the IT department.
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@Minion-Queen But how often does someone have those contacts with a potential employer?
Every job I've ever had, I've gone in blind, knowing no one at that potential job.
Now maybe that isn't the norm, but for me it is. So if you think of it like a blind date, you're effectively meeting on match.com or some other dating site.
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@Breffni-Potter said:
I've got some free beer tokens if you ever visit London.
Hey I'll be there this June!
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@Dashrender said:
@Breffni-Potter said:
I've got some free beer tokens if you ever visit London.
Hey I'll be there this June!
Ok, meet?
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@Minion-Queen said:
@Breffni-Potter said:
I've got some free beer tokens if you ever visit London.
Shush! He is TOO YOUNG for beer yet!
not in most of the world.
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You can vote for a President or enlist in the army, but not drink or smoke?
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@Breffni-Potter said:
You can vote for a President or enlist in the army, but not drink or smoke?
You can smoke....
That is often a slow painful death.... drinking you could immediately kill your self or others if you get behind the wheel...
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@Breffni-Potter said:
You can vote for a President or enlist in the army, but not drink or smoke?
Don't worry no one is doing either of those anyway here
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So my biggest piece of advice here is....
You always keep looking. Part of finding the right job is not settling for one that isn't the right one. Just like when dating you put your "Mrs. Right" as risk because you are busy dating "Ms. Right Now", even after you know that you are not long term compatible and you are not right for each other, I think that too many people settle for the job that they have, stop looking, stop working to make themselves more marketable, stop keeping their name out there and give up almost every chance that they have of making the connection.
Whether dating or job hunting, the chances of finding the right person or job for you is slim, you have to work hard to make sure that you are not taking away the chances that you have. You don't sit at home every Saturday night and hide and then wonder why you never meet any one. Likewise, you can't stop job hunting and wonder why the right job didn't come along.
Is that the answer? No. Finding the right job is very hard. But it is part of the answer. Finding the right job takes work and you can't settle. Your career is too short and the moment that you stop looking for the right job is the moment you stopping having any chance of finding it.
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@scottalanmiller said:
So my biggest piece of advice here is....
You always keep looking. Part of finding the right job is not settling for one that isn't the right one. Just like when dating you put your "Mrs. Right" as risk because you are busy dating "Ms. Right Now", even after you know that you are not long term compatible and you are not right for each other, I think that too many people settle for the job that they have, stop looking, stop working to make themselves more marketable, stop keeping their name out there and give up almost every chance that they have of making the connection.
Whether dating or job hunting, the chances of finding the right person or job for you is slim, you have to work hard to make sure that you are not taking away the chances that you have. You don't sit at home every Saturday night and hide and then wonder why you never meet any one. Likewise, you can't stop job hunting and wonder why the right job didn't come along.
Is that the answer? No. Finding the right job is very hard. But it is part of the answer. Finding the right job takes work and you can't settle. Your career is too short and the moment that you stop looking for the right job is the moment you stopping having any chance of finding it.
How do I diversify myself enough to make myself the right person for a good amount of jobs. Jack of all trades running domains, exchange, file servers, VM's, Managed Switches, etc?
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@wirestyle22 said:
@scottalanmiller said:
So my biggest piece of advice here is....
You always keep looking. Part of finding the right job is not settling for one that isn't the right one. Just like when dating you put your "Mrs. Right" as risk because you are busy dating "Ms. Right Now", even after you know that you are not long term compatible and you are not right for each other, I think that too many people settle for the job that they have, stop looking, stop working to make themselves more marketable, stop keeping their name out there and give up almost every chance that they have of making the connection.
Whether dating or job hunting, the chances of finding the right person or job for you is slim, you have to work hard to make sure that you are not taking away the chances that you have. You don't sit at home every Saturday night and hide and then wonder why you never meet any one. Likewise, you can't stop job hunting and wonder why the right job didn't come along.
Is that the answer? No. Finding the right job is very hard. But it is part of the answer. Finding the right job takes work and you can't settle. Your career is too short and the moment that you stop looking for the right job is the moment you stopping having any chance of finding it.
How do I diversify myself enough to make myself the right person for a good amount of jobs. Jack of all trades running exchange, file servers, VM's, Managed Switches, etc?
Yeah - I'm in the same boat - I kinda feel that most people here are ML are in that same boat -though some might be a bit more skilled at one thing or the other that they have manged here or there.
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Whoever said "on sites like this" has a good idea. @NTG has been hiring from communities of well matched people for a very long time. We haven't solicited resumes in, well, forever. I'm not sure we ever did. How we hire has changed over the years, but the basics are the same - we don't hire through random resumes and anonymous connections. We work with people that make sense. And vice versa. People who apply to work or ask to work or excited to work with NTG aren't excited because "it's a job", which is what most companies get, we get people who are excited because they already know their coworkers, already know their boss(es), already know the kind of work that we do, where we are based and what the culture is like. They've probably been out drinking with us. They've probably seen the offices, met in person, had dinner. They've probably been in contact for years.
By the time we are actually hiring the relationship is in place. Sure, it doesn't always match correctly. Sometimes it is the working from home that catches people off guard. Sometimes it is the hours. Sometimes the MSP lifestyle just isn't right or whatever. But the chances of success are so much higher and the opportunity to find people who are coming in for "forever" is easily 1,000% that of a normal company. Any typically people who stay past the the year mark or so... we know that they are likely to retire from here. Several have.
It's a much harder process for hiring on both sides, but the results are very different, too.
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The way the market is going, is jack of all trades "career safe" any more with a single company?
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@Dashrender said:
@wirestyle22 said:
@scottalanmiller said:
So my biggest piece of advice here is....
You always keep looking. Part of finding the right job is not settling for one that isn't the right one. Just like when dating you put your "Mrs. Right" as risk because you are busy dating "Ms. Right Now", even after you know that you are not long term compatible and you are not right for each other, I think that too many people settle for the job that they have, stop looking, stop working to make themselves more marketable, stop keeping their name out there and give up almost every chance that they have of making the connection.
Whether dating or job hunting, the chances of finding the right person or job for you is slim, you have to work hard to make sure that you are not taking away the chances that you have. You don't sit at home every Saturday night and hide and then wonder why you never meet any one. Likewise, you can't stop job hunting and wonder why the right job didn't come along.
Is that the answer? No. Finding the right job is very hard. But it is part of the answer. Finding the right job takes work and you can't settle. Your career is too short and the moment that you stop looking for the right job is the moment you stopping having any chance of finding it.
How do I diversify myself enough to make myself the right person for a good amount of jobs. Jack of all trades running exchange, file servers, VM's, Managed Switches, etc?
Yeah - I'm in the same boat - I kinda feel that most people here are ML are in that same boat -though some might be a bit more skilled at one thing or the other that they have manged here or there.
You and SAM are clearly at a higher level than I am with most things I'm sure. Should I be studying for certs? If so which certs?
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@Breffni-Potter said:
The way the market is going, is jack of all trades "career safe" any more with a single company?
Strong base knowledge in everything I'm sure would be a boon but I can only speak of my experiences and I do not know everything--or even enough in my opinion. I'm a very detail oriented person though. I require mastery over my career and I don't feel like I'm even close.
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@wirestyle22 said:
How do I diversify myself enough to make myself the right person for a good amount of jobs. Jack of all trades running domains, exchange, file servers, VM's, Managed Switches, etc?
That's a very different discussion. But my first point would be....
Making yourself a viable candidate for "every" job is what you do when you are concerned about getting any job.
Nothing wrong with that, that's what most people do. It's approaching job hunting from the perspective of "career risk mitigation." You sacrifice success in order to avoid failure. This is how doctors work... better to not cure a cold than to accidentally kill the patient.
The other approach is...
Make yourself the perfect candidate for the right job.
This is the opposite. You give up your flexibility in exchange for being ready to take the job that will make you super happy. You are approaching from the aspect of success while taking on risk that it is harder to find a fall back "acceptable" job. This is the business approach... it's better to go out of business once or twice because true success once will offset the losses.
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@Breffni-Potter said:
The way the market is going, is jack of all trades "career safe" any more with a single company?
Yes, but it is increasingly a risky career option. I see generalists becoming rarer and rarer, especially in the SMB where they traditionally are most common, and the remaining generalists roles moving closer and closer to the CFO and CEO and needing to not only be very strong in lots of IT, but also very market connected and business aware. So the generalists get to be fewer, but the ones that remain are more and more the big budget IT leaders.
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@wirestyle22 said:
You and SAM are clearly at a higher level than I am with most things I'm sure. Should I be studying for certs? If so which certs?
All of them, of course.
Just kidding, but I have nearly 200. I've written about ten of them! I find certs a very valuable way to force yourself to learn. But from a career perspective, only a few are going to help very much, especially once you get your career moving along.
Which ones specifically really come down to your career roadmap.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Breffni-Potter said:
The way the market is going, is jack of all trades "career safe" any more with a single company?
Yes, but it is increasingly a risky career option. I see generalists becoming rarer and rarer, especially in the SMB where they traditionally are most common, and the remaining generalists roles moving closer and closer to the CFO and CEO and needing to not only be very strong in lots of IT, but also very market connected and business aware. So the generalists get to be fewer, but the ones that remain are more and more the big budget IT leaders.
Let's assume that I want to have a strong foundation running the basic foundation of a company alone and in addition to that want to specialize in VM's/Server Administration--like Domain Controllers, Exchange and SQL Databases. I think that these are the bare bones necessities of a small to mid size business typically (correct me if I'm wrong). Take the SQL Database Admin with a grain of salt because that is an entire job by itself and will most likely be a work in progress for a long time.
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@Breffni-Potter said:
@Dashrender said:
@Breffni-Potter said:
I've got some free beer tokens if you ever visit London.
Hey I'll be there this June!
Ok, meet?
I'll wave as I fly over. I'll be over London on the 17th as I fly from Instanbul to NYC.
