SUMMER OF TECH 2011

SO WHAT DO YOU WANNA BE WHEN YOU GROW UP?

As always, the lunch hour was well invested at last Friday’s Xero Summer Seminar, when Nat Torkington shared his perspective on today’s technology career.

Before honing in on Getting a Job & Keeping a Job, Nat considered what a “Career” looks like these days, in this fast-moving technology world, and what “Choices” are available to tech professionals.

CAREERS

Turns out, the linear career path is a bit of a myth, the future career you’re preparing yourself for right now probably doesn’t exist yet.  Every 5 years, opportunities are different.

[warning: career advisors and university staff skip this paragraph: Your degree may be a useful piece of paper that grants you entry into your first job (or into some countries if you’re looking overseas) but for the most part, it’s proof you can sit still & pay attention. Tertiary study is a great way to connect with your peer group & learn how to think, but most of your real learning won’t happen till you’re out of the institutions and in the real world.

Technology is all about change.  Our job is to MAKE change.  To create something new.  This is scary to most people.  Human civilisation is all about preventing change.  Political systems, institutions, all of it has been built up to prevent rapid change.  Science & technology disrupts this.  We assume that the future will be different, and that it will be better.  This is a rare & wonderful thing, but as you go out into the world you’ll realise that most organisations are fighting (not embracing) change.

Choose your employer with care!

CHOICES

So… if you’re passionate about the NEW, about change, about making a difference, think about what type of organisation you want to join.  Do you want to look (through job ads) for a hole that is a perfect fit for you?  Or find a roughly-you-shaped-hole and build it to fit?  Starting a business or working at a small business is going to be a whole different ball-game to working for a corporate or a government department. There’s no right or wrong choice here, just make sure you are aware of the choices you’re making!

You’ve already chosen a highly skilled industry and developed technical competencies that are in demand.  You can choose paths that are open to change, to doing new stuff, to being passionate and engaged in the problems that you’re solving.  Do your research on employment opportunities and make sure it’s a good fit.

Now, how to land that “dream job”?

GETTING A JOB

Be interesting (i.e. multi-dimensional).  You don’t have to be the Best in The Universe at a particular skill, it’s a whole lot easier to be good at a unique combination of things.

Be interested (and pay attention).

Have a good CV.  In the early days of your career, your CV matters.  Look at successful ones (ask friends who’ve got job interviews recently to show you their CV).  Put yourself in the shoes of the hirer.  SPELLCHECK is your friend.  Pay attention to detail.  There is a time & place for a sense of humour, and your CV is not it.  Show that you’ve got depth but stay away from TOO much personality in your CV.  The tone (professional) is important.

Have a good reputation.  If you’re a software developer, your work is your reputation.  You can build your reputation by contributing to open source projects.  It’s a no-brainer.

Follow the checklist.  Recruiters tell you what they want, the job ad is their checklist.  Make it easy for them to see that you are the answer to everything they’re looking for.

Be you at the interview.  Your CV is a ticket to the job interview, the interview is where you prove you’re a real person, and that you weren’t making all that stuff up in your CV.

KEEPING A JOB

Stay interested (and interesting).  A lot of people change tacks/technologies/paths every 3 years or so.  They key to keeping a job is not getting bored.  If you’ve chosen the right organisation, and scored a real job (i.e. one that engages your brain), the key to keeping the job is staying interested and excited.

Be Independent.  Own the company’s problem, don’t just do your piece.  Nat’s mate Jesse was Amazon’s “Master of Disaster” and the disaster response ethic is a good one: if you find a problem, you’re responsible for solving it or finding someone who is one step closer to the solution and formally handing it off to them.  Someone who says “that’s not my problem” is asking for trouble later on: it does you no good to be the best programmer if marketing can’t describe what you’ve built, customers don’t know it’s there, salespeople are approaching the wrong people, the company runs out of money, etc.  Know what’s going on, help with facts and your skills when you can, don’t let problems fester unseen.

Keep paying attention.  Don’t be a dick.  Get along with people.  Chances are that if you’re working in the technology field, it’s because you love technology, not necessarily because you love people.  Learn how to work with human beings.  One of Nat’s big learnings as a software developer starting out in the world, was to respect (and learn to work with) other parts of the business.

Keep upskilling.  Get skills to resolve conflict and work together to make it work.  If you’re male, talk to women in the IT industry about what their experiences have been. Don’t be a dick.

*********************

For more insights into career paths and choices, to getting a job & keeping a job… talk to people who have jobs!  Demonstrate that you’ve got what it takes for your next role, and keep connecting with others in the industry.

We’ll get videos of Nat’s talk, and other Xero Summer Seminars up online soon, in the meantime, hope to see you at our next one!

More about Nat: Nat Torkington ran the first web server in New Zealand, cowrote “Perl Cookbook”, and while in the US ran conferences on topics as diverse as bioinformatics, Internet mapping, and open source software. He is advisor to a number of startups. He lives and works north of Auckland, where he builds communities of innovators and helps corporates fail to suck.  He blogs here, tweets here, and you can pick up his “4 short links”, here.