Careers

Career Thoughts Late 2017

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I haven’t done a career post in awhile. I’ve been focused on my worldbuidling books and expanding my repetoire, but I’m still the Geek Job Guru, and it’s time I do a bit more of that.

So with 2017 stumbling along, from political chicanery to security issues to media scandals, let’s talk the career landscape so far. It’s . . . weird.

Economy:

  • The stock market is humming along, but in the midst of political chaos, assorted scandals, and growing social and economic issues. In short, I don’t trust it, and expect a soft landing at best, or a steep (but not radical) decline in the next year or two.
  • Political uncertainty with our current administration can balloon out of control very quickly, especially in cases of military action or impeachment. It’s pretty hard to prepare for this, but you’ll want to. For instance, I have a few “economic emergency plans” in place just in case.
  • With all of the above, I think some economic downturn is simply unavoidable. The question is how severe it will be and how long it will last.

Speaking of Economic Emergency Plans:

  • As much as I like making Plan A work, it’s good to think ahead on your plan for an economic downturn both local, national, and global. This is because we might get one. It doesn’t have to be detailed, but it’s good to have a basic one so you don’t have to worry about it.

Where To Work

  • As much as I love the Bay Area, our housing issues are starting to impact recruiting. I consider this place a good area to move, but urge caution and careful research. I think we’ve got another 2 or so years of this so if you move here – keep this in mind.
  • Amazon’s big plan to make a new HQ is probably going to create a rush, but based on what they said, I wouldn’t expect it to be in a truly major area (Boston, Chicago, etc.). It’d be more a secondary or tertiary city. I also don’t consider it a guarantee of stimulating the economy.
  • My usual recruiting pings seem to be coming from all over lately, I haven’t noticed any trends except “all over.”
  • One big warning is that if you do move, treat it as permanent. You never know and I don’t trust current stability – make sure you’re in a place that can take economic downturns.
  • The bloom is very much off the Tech Company rose after the endless waves of scandals. This doesn’t mean these aren’t good places to work or good options, and people are still investing in some strange ideas. I take it more that we’re seeing things come back to oft-painful reality.
  • Side note on tech companies – considering the scandals we’ve seen from harassment to promoting propaganda, consider that there’s probably more to come by the odds. Adjust expectations appropriately.

Staying Mobile

  • I’ve seen a increase in recruiters looking for people willing to move around for temporary assignments. I’m mixed on this idea since it can lead you all over the place, affect your lifestyle and social life, and perhaps even health. But it might be good as filler.

 

Career Options

  • After the issues with Equifax, you can believe security is going to be an issue in jobs. I’d suggest playing that up if you have the experience and keeping an eye out for opportunities. This is a place to build a permanent career – that hasn’t changed, it’s just more urgent.
  • I’ve recently been introduced to a less-seen world of change control and training and business analysis. This is a fascinating area you may want to check out – because it’s omnipresent and it’s evolving. I’ve also noticed Analyst work is big for both starting careers and bringing them to a conclusion.
  • I’m seeing more and more people doing side projects quite openly, like my books or Seventh Sanctum. If you have one and can make it public, go for it.
  • As for what jobs people should do or train for – that’s something I’m honestly not sure of now. All I can say is do your research.

Job Searches

  • There seems to be a lot of talent mismatch out there with people, companies, etc. This is actually a warning as desperate people may hire wrong.  I think it may be getting worse.
  • On top of the above, I’m seeing more specific recruitment attempts – at times incredibly specific in ridiculous ways. These jobs then stay open forever. Applying for them if you don’t fit enough is probably a waste of time.
  • Recruiters are getting a lot more aggressive the last few months based on what I’ve seen. That may be good, but can be annoying, can lead to a bad mismatch. Also a few companies are outsourcing recruiting and these recruiters are kinda clueless.
  • Pay rates seem very stagnant as of late, possibly regressing, at least based on personal experience. You may need to be aggressive – and I suspect this is part of further problems (above). People want to deal with mismatches cheap and fast.

 

The entire economy and job market seems to somehow be moving forward erratically while also being in a holding pattern. So if you have any input, I’d appreciate it.

– Steve

Why Incompetence Is Something We All Choose

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com, www.SeventhSanctum.com, and Steve’s Tumblr)

Some thoughts for all the people out there that follow me for career and creative advice . . .

Improving our skills and abilities, learning new things, is something we all develop.  Most of us do it consciously, sometimes with a great deal of planning.  It may even obsess some of us as our jobs and lives require us to learn at a rapid pace. However there’s a shadow side to what we choose to become competent in – a choice to learn something means there’s a lot else we choose not to learn at that time.

Every choice to educate ourselves means we’re spending time and resources that aren’t used learn a different subject.  Each competency is paid for in not learning something else. For all you are good at, there’s a large amount of things you don’t know and can’t do, and you chose these “incompetencies” willingly or not.

We probably don’t look at learning as “choosing an incompetency” as a form of defense because there’ so much we don’t know and it scares us.  We’re taught to think only of being good (or acceptable) at something, not bad at something.  We’re taught not to admit failure or lack of ability because we seem weak, but to ignore it or pretend we’re good at everything.

But we have to accept the truth – choosing a competency is also choosing incompetencies. If we accept the we choose our ignorance and lack of ability, we can choose wisely.  If we’ve decided we can’t truly know or learn something, then we’re prepared for that gap in our lives.

We can develop that valuable competency of knowing what we don’t know – and why we don’t know it.

We can bring an innocent attitude to learning so those that know something we do not (that we may choose not to educate ourselves on) can teach us.

We can stop worrying about not knowing.  We’re all fools at one point, so let’s be fools consciously.

Exercise: List ten things you know nothing about that affect your life.  Why didn’t you learn them? What did you learn in their place?

– Steve

Q&A: Your Career In The Age Of Trump

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr)

OK Donald Trump is President-Elect. So I’m going to discuss what that means for your career, in a helpful Q&A format inspired by John Scalzi.

Why the hell are you writing about careers right now?

It is kind of what I do.  Geek Job Guru thing and all.

OK.  Uh, you know I didn’t vote for Trump.

I’m kind of guessing you didn’t if you’re reading my writings.  I don’t think I attract a lot of modern “conservatives.” But hey, whatever.

Fine.  Sure.  OK, what do you think Trump means for careers and the economy?

Trump’s thin-skinned, egotistical, easily-distracted, surrounding himself with terrible people, and easily manipulated.

Christ.  So anything good about this?

Trump’s thin-skinned, egotistical, easily-distracted, surrounding himself with terrible people, and easily manipulated.  This means people are going to be trying to control him and hopefully their various agendas will conflict enough to keep this from becoming a disaster.

Yeah, OK, uh . . . let’s talk about careers.  So what’s your basic view of the economy?

First of all, short-term, I think we’re good for about a year.  The economy is going good new, I’m not sure how much it can be screwed up short-term, and the above mentioned conflicts may help us.

In the next two years or so I’ve been expected a mild recession anyway merely because things have been going decently for awhile and I figure some kind of snag is due. There’s a few areas I’m concerned about like student loan debt and areas with continued sub-employment on top of this, so yeah, I figured we have a recession coming up no matter what.

The big issue twofold. First, past a year out I think we’re likely to see a Trump Administration create too much economic and political chaos, and I don’t see any stimulus proposals that create actual stimulus coming out of this. In the next four years I’d expect a serious recession, and it’s probable that mild one I predicted will be far more severe.  I’m also concerned about changes to bank regulations leading to a repeat of something like 2008 in the next four-six years.

So past 1 or 2 years we’re going to have somethig go wrong.

Well that’s depressing.  Are you saying that past one year out we’re going to have something bad happen, maybe twice, and some of the bad might be Voltroned together?

Pretty much, barring some radical changes or good luck.  Now some of this is going to be highly regional, so keep that in mind, but we’ll all feel it.

Uh, so . . . what’s your career advice?

Get your act together in the next year.  If you have a career plan, work on it.  If you don’t, make one. Make sure you have a five-year plan for your career, what you can do, and what you need to learn to make it happen. Get your certifications.

In short, get your s**t together career-wise.

What if I’m just starting college?

Well hopefully you can ride anything nasty out.  Either way, plan accordingly and watch your debt.  That could be a real soul-crusher.

Any specific career advice?

  1. Make sure you research your career and know what to do, what you need, and where best to do it.
  2. Follow all my other job advice.

Basically, this next year or so it’s not just a time to do the right thing for your career but to do the hell out of it.  Up your game.

Sort of turn my career and job search up to 11?

I admire any disembodied questioner who can joke about Spinal Tap.

But seriously, this is the time to follow not just “some” job advice but all of it.  Get your act together – the most important thing I can reccomend if you do not have said act together is make a career plan and review your plan and progress monthly.

OK, I’m thinking of relocating to a different city or state for my job.  Any advice?

Pick carefully.  I’d pick a good “Megaregion” area or one with good connections to such regions.  Make sure there’s a functional economy and a reliable government at least on the City level.  Right now in this political climate local city and state issues are going to be very important – and an area of severe division.

A good guide to me is does the city/state you’re looking at have distinct, healthy identity, economic identity, and idea of itself.  New York is . . . well, New York.  Seattle is Silicon Valley II.  Silicon Valley is itself. Virginia has growing technical areas.

Also make sure you network immediately when you arrive, or have friends and family there.  Get connected, it’ll help you stay.

Act as if your move is probably permanent – but be open to doing it again.

Well I’m thinking of just leaving the country, I mean . . .

Yeah, well if you’re young getting some experience out of the country is a good idea.  However don’t go thinking leaving America is going to solve all your problems. Also don’t you think other countries are tired of being the “second choice” of Americans?

If you’re over 35, if you do want to work overseas, act like any move is permanent.  Because it may be after you’ve stayed out of the country for a few years.

OK, long-term.  Investments and retirement?

First of all I’d consult with financial professionals or train yourself to handle investments. I know enough to do simple investing (I use a portfolio of researched index funds), but you have to find what works for you.

Secondly, save the hell out of things.  I always keep a good buffer of non-invested money.

As for investments, *I* am sticking with my index funds and riding out any changes, but I’m looking very long-term.  Consider your risks when you do your research.

Man you sound pretty positive about all this! Are you?

Actually, no, I think Trump’s going to be a lousy president. I think we’ll get through it, but he’s going to be kind of like Bush II in that Republcians try and forget him.  It’ll then take 4-20 years to undo the damage, but we won’t fix all of it.

Its just my thing is providing advice. So I do what I can!

 

– Steve