Don Xml's Grok This

Since it is New Year 2006 there are a lot developer bloggers out there giving their resolutions, and a lot of the seem to be centered around their careers.  So, I thought that I’d start a developer career tips thread and see if others pick up on it and add their thoughts.

Caveat – I’m an independent consultant and my political views tend towards libertarian ideas so they tend to be skewed toward an individual’s responsibility to themselves.

1. Complacency is a career killer.  -- Update your resume every quarter.  If a quarter goes by without something to add to your resume, you must consciously make sure that you have a major, new skill to add the next quarter.
2.  You decide your career path.  As an independent consultant, which projects I take will affect my career more than most, but the idea is the same even for FTEs (full time employees).  If, because of corporate reshuffling, you are moved into roles that have little to do with enhancing your career, it is time to move on, no matter how much money you are making or promises to “make it up to you”.
3.  Outsourcing is a fact of life.  --  Capitalism forces jobs to move from high cost areas to lower cost areas, as long as the quality is acceptable to management.  What is acceptable to one company may not be acceptable to another, so you a need to be ready to jump from one employer to another at a moment’s notice.  The key is to be one of the first people to leave once the hint of outsourcing is detected.  You’ll feel better about yourself, since you are leaving on your own terms (it can be a severe ego blow for some people to get let go), and if there are a number of people getting outsourced, the additional numbers of people looking for a new job may temporarily cause a glut in the local job market, making it harder to get a good job.
4. The Information Technology recruiting infrastructure was decimated by the dot com bust.  During the boom, every recruiting person (in human resources, consulting firms and headhunters) flocked to the IT industry.  Once the bust happened, the majority of talent left, along with all their contacts.  The current state of recruiting is back to it’s infancy at best (at worst it is just plan dead).  You can not rely on recruiters to be able to find a job for you, since most of them don’t have real connections to hiring firms, just an email address to submit a resume.  The opposite is also true, most recruiters don’t have relationships with a list of good potential employees, so firms looking to hire don’t use them.
5. Email is cheap, and networking is expensive.  Since hiring firms can't find new employees thru recruiting firms, they have to resort to advertising the jobs on sites like Monster.com.  The problem is that email is cheap, and lots of people are looking for jobs the old fashion way, by replying to ads.  But instead of having to pay for the resumes to be printed on decent paper, and then paying for the stamps, they can just send a resume via email.  So they just email every advertised spot, even if they are not qualified.  The result is a deluge of resumes, so even if you are highly qualified, your chances of it being read are almost zero.  The solution, make an end run around the old fashion way, and go back to an even older (and better) method, networking your way into companies.
6. User Groups and Blogging are great networking tools.  I’d be the first to admit that not everyone was made to write blogs, but it is a great networking tool.  But sometimes going to user groups every month is even better networking tool, since it is more focused.  Both my brothers are plumbers, and go to their monthly association meetings, so they can keep up with the new regulations, and programmers aren’t more then glorified plumbers or craftsmen, so there is no reason why you cannot attended a local user group.  Don’t have one local that fits your niche?  Then start one.  Groups like Ineta will even show you how.
7. Do what you love, and the money will follow.  I’ve seen lots of folks throughout the years that got into programming, not because they loved it, but because of the money.  Eventually they burn out, get complacent, and then laid off.  Programming is not for everyone.  But there are lots of roles on the fringes of development that you may find more interesting (management, quality assurance, business analysts), and better suited for your personality.  Most people that have been around can’t just up and quit for a lower paying job, so you will have to slowly guide your career towards your new goal.
8. Betas are a great way to jumpstart a stagnate career.  If you are stuck doing something like classic ASP, VB6, VBA or even COBOL, the great thing about programming is that everything is always changing.  The important thing is to take advantage of this situation by learning what will become the next new thing.  This way, once it is officially release, and firms are looking for developers already experience in this new thing, you are instantly as qualified as anyone else can possibly be.  You can go from “tail end Charlie” to “bleeding edge”, in one big jump.  But remember, this means that you will probably have to leave you current company.  Which is probably a good thing because they think of you as the person that knows that old technology, not as the person that knows the newest technology, and it is extremely hard to overcome that stigma.  The downside is that you will probably have to learn the new stuff on you own time, but in order to keep your career from stagnating again, you will have to learn to spend some non-work hours on your career, even if that means having to go out for drinks with a bunch of geeks at the local geek watering hole.