Career

How Your Safe Career Isn’t Sustainable

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A good career is one that’s sustainable.  It can take hits and return, it continuously evolves to more stability, and of course keeps paying the bills.  It’s like a sustainable agricultural practice, or use of raw materials, or what have you.

The thing is we mix it up with “playing it safe.”  There’s a big difference between a stable career and playing it safe.

Playing it safe is about doing things the same old way you did them because innovation seems threatening.

Playing it safe is about holding on to things no matter what – even if you don’t need them.

Playing it safe is about not taking chances even when taking chances is what’s needed.

Playing it safe is about not changing your goals even when they no longer form an overall, sustainable, picture.

Playing it safe . . . is usually stagnation.  Stagnation doesn’t last, just the same way stagnant water gets rather disgusting.  You career ends up all green and sludgy and attracts mosquitos.

OK, I sort of lost the metaphor there.

Anyway, when you’re playing it safe in your career, there’s no guarantee it’s sustainable – and quite likely it’s not.  You need to think of what you have to do, what you have to learn, to make sure the good state of affairs continues and improves.  The same old same old won’t cut it.

Your Next Step?  Look at your career and ask how sustainable it is, and what you have to do to improve that state – even if it scares you.

– Steven Savage

Thoughts On Relocation

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So lately I’ve been planning my relocation.  My roommate is moving out, I’ve got no current roommates (and that may change), and I want to take full advantage of being in Silicon Valley.

So since relocation is important to we progeeks (since too many of us need to for work), I wanted to share some insights I found in relocating.  It’ll be useful to you progeeks because my goal was essentially “how do I get further into geeky silicon valley, but still find a place that fits my job and career needs.”  That . . .  was informative.

Apartments Are The New Houses:

In several places in Silicon Valley, and I imagine elsewhere in the world, I was finding a surprising amount of apartment construction.  It was enough that locals remarked on how ridiculous it was.  So my guess is that this is the new “houses” in searches for quick living-related cash.

What it means is that some areas are going to have downward pressure on living prices in some locations here – and you should check your relocation targets for the same thing.

Public Transport Isn’t Always Obvious:

This is a big one.  I quickly discovered that “obvious” public transport benefits weren’t often the case.  There may be issues with timing, distance of stations, exchanges, and more.  Don’t take for granted that something is “near enough to take a bus to” until you check.

I found this was easy to test these by taking target locations and seeing:

  • How I could find my way to and from them from any target apartment via Google maps.
  • How they were served by public transport.
  • What the times of this transport was.

Any Reasonably Big Megaregion is not “Sensibile”:

Ever try and figure out all the small towns around Boston?  Navigate the “good” and “bad” areas of Silicon Valley?  Figured out the best places to live in Toronto?  Yeah then you know – regions that are the big boisterous geeky areas are not “reasonable” in many cases.

These areas in general have build up over the years, decades, and centuries.  You’ll find good areas next to bad, odd businesses sandwiched between apartment complex (really, I found a costume store), and more.  No it doesn’t make sense, and that’s OK.  You just have to figure out what it all means.

If things are confusing, looked for planned communities, they may add some sanity.

Work All The Costs:

I found a nice but expensive apartment complex at one point that didn’t seem to have the best public transportation, but when I realized it’s big advantages was buses that could reach anywhere (even with one or two exchanges) I realized its value.  The savings were disturbingly high.

People Want Amenities:

A lot of people renting apartments out noted that washer, dryer, and central air were becoming bigger deals.  The difference in prices got pretty substantial.

Plus, if you’re going cheap, and don’t mind hauling to the laundry room, you have a way to save some scratch.

Some Apartment Communities are Communities:

It depends on your region, but I’ve been to apartment complexes that were fully active communities.  Parties, events, parks, etc.   Some have stores on property (one had a Starbucks).  These may give you the community you seek (others may just seem overdone.

Also?  These communities have their own feel.  If you need one with the right “sense,” make sure you look.

Think Career:

Could your company move?  Do you plan to change jobs?  Can you access all the offices?  Can you reach your clients from your new location?  Think about the financial/career choices of where you go.

 

I hope these observations help.  The quest for the right area to live is hard, but worth it.

– Steven Savage

Mind The Recruitment Gap

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In a recent conversation about HR and recruiting, an acquaintance and I discussed the ‘age’ gaps in recruiting – namely, how a gap in ages between recruiter and recruit could negatively affect communication.  Such an issue makes sense as it’s basically a generation/demographic gap, of course, so we mentioned it and went on with our conversation.  We accepted such a gap as normal.

When we parted, that conversation stuck in my mind.  Such a gap seemed normal to us.  So what other gaps, I speculated, were out there that seemed normal – and we were so used to them it was, in fact a problem in recruiting and job seeking?

Very quickly, many, many gaps between recruiter and recruitee sprung to mind.  As I review, I can think of many:

  • The Age Gap – Obvious.  It may be hard to communicate with people due to different cultural experiences.
  • The Economic Gap – Now part of the age gap, a few years of difference means people grew up in radically different economies.  This affects people’s ideas of jobs, what they’re seeking, and how well they’ll trust others.  It also affects ability to move.
  • The Technology Gap – Is gaping in many cases, as even a few years difference may mean people have greatly differing technical experiences.  This makes it harder for people to understand and fill jobs – and understand when a lack of one skill is made up for in another.
  • The Geek Gap – Geek may be chic, but still there’s a difference in people who are geek/less geeky.  This is further amplified by technical gaps, meaning both gaps combine can create a situation where two people rarely understand each other.
  • The Regional Gap – The economic and cultural gaps, in my experience, have made regional divisions even wider.  Ever feel like someone from another city/state is speaking a different language?  You’re probably right.

What am I trying to do by listing these?  Frankly, looking at the things that may keep recruiters and recruitees from actually speaking the same language.  It’s more meditation for you and I, my readers, than anything else.

What do I find as Iook at this?  Actually I’m a bit disturbed.  I can see a lot of these acting synergistically to create insanely huge levels of misunderstanding among intelligent people.  Frankly, this makes me amazed two people of largely different ages, across the country, in different fields can even talk about jobs together . . .

This is also a reminder that we have to bridge these gaps, be we recruiter, candidate, or someone like me who’s a busybody trying to make this work.  There’s a lot of different experiences that can separate us in the career world, so no matter who we are, we have to help bridge them.

Get to it . . .

– Steven Savage