have a career

I graduated in May of last year and have spent the time since working on a project to build a green building, while looking for jobs. I thought that all one needed was a college degree, but its not enough. I know I’m a hard worker but I’m having the hardest time finding something. I don’t know if I should just get a job and forget about it relevance to my long term career goals or hold out until something shows up. Does anyone have an word of advice or… anything

not ready yet…

I have a job that I like It dosent pay much. But I like it.

I think technology is the best career path anyone can take. The technologies change so quickly, that nobody ever expects you to know everything, so the terms are pretty lax. Also, if you do well, you can drive a Porsche 911 in your mid-20s. Want to? Read on.

If you are young and like computers, screw the world and everything in it and spend all of your time learning about whatever you can IT related (you only have to do this if you want to succeed even faster, but you can be lazy like me, too). I recommend learning what you can about networking, Windows XP / 2003, and setup all of your own servers at home and get everything working, like Exchange 2003 and IIS. Get your email working, publish a simple website, and start fixing any computer you can get your hands on, for your family and friends. If you are in or going to college, it is cool to get a degree in computer science, but not as important as anyone says. For practice, you can even get some Microsoft or Cisco certifications, but I don’t think they carry a lot of value, otherwise. What is more important than even a degree is getting a job with a great mentor and to build experience. Before you get this job, though, you have to have… SOME… job where you can get around computers and then just FORCE your way into the job as the “computer guy.” A friend of mine was assembling air precleaners for a small company that out-sourced their IT. One day, their server was messed up, and their IT group couldn’t get there until later. That is when he stepped in and fixed it, and from then on, he became the “computer guy” and then the “Systems Administrator” soon after. So just start DOING the task, and you’ll BE that guy- COMPUTER GUY! Once you’ve gotten a job where you are at least recognized as a computer person, you can get an easy IT job with your weak resume, like fixing machines at a shop or doing tier 1 tech support, or you can do what I did and BS your way into a consulting firm, where you manage all of the IT for a long list of clients. These clients are usually lawyers, doctors, and the like, and you’ll be working around intelligent people, and also learn how to deal with difficult people (ehem lawyers). You will learn more than you could ever expect you could, because you HAVE to to survive. *Obvious advice here- You really need to live away from home in order to START your career and be done with school, aside from additional training or certifications, if you need it/them. If you don’t live on your own and have school off of your mind, you’ll never “get” it, or have the incentive to pay all of your bills and stuff. Want a better incentive? Get married, lol. Also, drop any dreams you have of doing anything else. I’d suggest that you start worshipping Microsoft, too, as they will probably be the ones that give you a career to make, if you plan to work at a major corporation one day.

ANYWAY, when you have that job where you interact with a lot of people, do EVERYTHING you can related to IT, from punching cables to administering multiple servers. Learn it all. Then start sucking up to everyone. MAKE CONNECTIONS. It is easy. Say something funny or witty, and agree with people unless they are saying something bad about someone, and then just ignore the comment. Be the go-to-guy, and make everyone LOVE you. Always be positive, professional, funny, and NEVER, NEVER say anything bad about anyone, ESPECIALLY your associates. Never promise anything you can’t deliver, and go out of your way to help people. Make them HAPPY TO SEE YOU. Once you can do this job in your sleep, and everyone loves you, then prepare for the most unusual move and the move you’ll make for now on- either one of these companies you deal with will try to grab you as the permanent sys admin guy, you’ll be offered a slightly better support job (in an endless ladder of support jobs) OR you can do the other route-- which I suggest—:

Forget what you know. Your next job, if you follow my advice, won’t be anything like your first or second job, or even third, where you are responsible for tons of things. You have to get corporate, and be responsible for a smaller set of items. At this point, you just have to kick ass and not burn out, because there are a lot of faces in a corporation and the competition is fierce (but getting the job is harder than keeping it at this stage).

Your job will basically be being responsible for some foreign technology you’ve never heard of, because only enterprises use it. You want a job where the only people you deal with are tech people. Why? It sucks dealing with users all day, and the further behind the scenes you get, the better you are paid. It is like how an anesthesiologist makes a lot of cash due to their proximity to the surgeon- people that deal with the developers and higher end admins make more, because they are closer to the technology and futher away from the users. They will probably teach you the ropes, and won’t expect you to know how to do, well, any of it. They just want to make sure you aren’t a dolt. This is the path to skip all of the “Tier 1, 2, 3” tech support crap- you want the jobs that support people don’t think about, like “Actuate specialist,” or “that COM+ guy.” To get this job, you have to go in the interview and just let them know that you KICK ASS at what you do, and you have huge responsibilities, but you want to go corporate. Don’t give up! Whore yourself out to contracting firms, because you’ll probably get this job as a contractor, and then they’ll hire you if you are awesome after a few years. After you have this job, find out who is the go-to guy. Do everything he does. Be just like him. Be his best friend. Make sure his manager now has TWO go-to guys, but don’t kick his ass. Just do everything you can to learn the stuff and be the BEST. This is the “man or mouse” moment. In this job, you have to KICK ASS, because they won’t give you your next job unless you are already doing it (sound familiar?). “Is this where the Porsche comes in?” you ask. Read on. After this, you can either go into development, higher admin roles, or management/team leader roles, until you don’t even touch the technology anymore. You could retire by 40-50 if you really wanted to. It only ends when you run out of energy or skill, or lose focus of how the game works.

Let’s take a step back. DO you really want this? and where’s the 911?
If you’re young, you’ll see that what’s cool changes; it goes from clothes to owning a car to having a NICE car, and then living away from home, and then renting a nice place with a roommate, and then owning a condo, then a sweet house, and so on. In IT, if you play the game, the money starts flying at you so fast that the stakes get high, your friends change, your hobbies, well, no time for that, really, and you have to decide how far you want to get into the rat race and buy into materialism- when you look up at age 26 and realize that you can afford a Porsche, you have to start asking yourself serious questions about life, and whether you are prepared to sell yourself out completely for money and for how long, and how you can start using your money to make money or instead sell out to a corporation for life. If you don’t balance your career, fun, and family, you’re going to crash and burn. For answers, I suggest visiting an under developed country, where people make 60 cents an hour, yet sometimes speak better English than you and know more about your country and global politics than you. You’ll learn a lot. Anyway, the main rules are- make money, have fun, don’t piss anybody off. Whether you keep going or decide to move to an island and become a hippie, that is for you to answer.

Last thing- the most important thing- more important than ANY OF ANYTHING I’VE WRITTEN-

“It’s WHO YOU KNOW, not WHAT YOU KNOW.” This is so important in IT. NOBODY really knows what the hell it is that IT people do or KNOW, so what is more important is that somebody says you are good or that somebody likes you. Honestly, IT PEOPLE don’t even know what the hell it is that they do, most of the time. They just solve problems. I hope this isn’t preachy or silly, I just wanted to tell you that there is no big secret if you want to make serious cash. Just realize, when you get there, you may find that you’re not driving a Porsche, because all of your friends have moved on while you were succeeding, and all of these guys pulling in $150,000 a year are driving Ford F-150s, Grand Cherokees, or Camrys. Then you think, “What the hell? Why did I start doing this, anyway?” Well, those guys have houses in Costa Rica that they’ve never visited, and own several rental houses, and spend most of their cash on their kids schooling and the Land Rover payments of their materialistic bitchy wives, or new golf clubs and stuff. WTF? Why did we start doing this again? Why the hell do these people like golf so much? Who knows. For me, working in IT is just a decent way to pass the time, it is interesting work, people usually aren’t jerks, your colleagues are smart, and at the end of the day, you know that you are responsible for millions of dollars worth of technology or transactions (even at smaller companies). Also, chicks dig computer guys, so it is easy to find a girl for whom you can purchase a Land Rover or an SLK Mercedes and secure for yourself a reason to keep succeeding in IT (I think IT people are all secretly nihilists that love the computers more than people, but that’s just me). Good luck.

I actually do not really care what it is that I do when I grow up, I just want to be really passionate about one particular profession. I decided that I would try to be an attorney. I haven’t ever really wanted to be one, nor do I have any particular love for the law. I just figure that if I can set up a goal for myself, then I will also be setting up my life for the next couple of years as I try to attain that goal. In other words, it’s like choosing a city you want to visit chooses the path you will take to get there and gives you all sorts of great things to see on the side of the road as you travel.

I don’t want just a job but a career. A career is something that when invested in gives back to you, can also help define you as a person. My job is average and I do not think that it says anything about me other than perseverance: I have been there way too long. Maybe the only good thing about me being there so long is that when I get myself together and get a good career going that it will relfect on my image well because I have worked in the same place for so long.

I am thinking it is time for a change. Actually, I KNOW it is time for me to make some changes.

Okay, I kind of sit on the fence on this one. I started my “career” at the tender age of 20. Here I am 11 years later. There are some days I wish I could just start all over…somedays I feel trapped because I need my career to support my family. There are other days I think wow, I really know what I’m doing and am fortunate to have the security of my career. All I can say is don’t start your career too young…live life a little and do some of your 43 things.

KCT

i dont want to have just a job