Note: This post is not a technical one, but one focusing on a professional (and maybe personal) growth. As we’re already well on our way to 2019, I figured that now is as good time as any to look back, all the way to the year 2018! As I mentioned in passing in a previous post, I did end up leaving the company I had worked for 20 years, and while being a small step to mankind it was quite a huge leap to me.
It also taught me few things, which I figured are worth sharing.
About LinkedIn
To start with I think it’s a good idea to tell about how I was approached. Outside a very few exceptions (this time was not one of the exceptions), pretty much every recruiter that has contacted me has done so through LinkedIn, and this has been true for several years now. Now I am not very active in LinkedIn, but I do post there when I write a new blog post and keep my profile updated, but that’s pretty much it.
However, I do have some endorsements and some written feedback from former colleagues and people I have worked with. My personal gut feeling is, that most of the contacts started after receiving my 2nd or 3rd recommendation. I have no facts to back up the claim that it’d make a difference, but it would make common sense from a recruiting point of view. And of course I do have more connections now than years ago, giving me more visibility.
While most of the recruiter calls have come through the LinkedIn, not every recruitment contact has been useful. I usually get a handful of approaches through LinkedIn each year about database related jobs of various nature. From those between 1 to 3 are offers that make sense in a way, that they actually correlate with the skills I have listed, and are endorsed for in LinkedIn. As for the rest, I still tend to reply though, usually with a polite no thank you.
Change isn’t easy
I’ve been told by people that if you stay in any job for 10 years, then you’re unlikely to ever voluntarily look for a new job. In retrospect I can say that it is quite true, especially if you’re satisfied with the job you have and are not actively looking for a new one. When I was given the offer (which was quite good), I still had to give it some serious thinking over before I accepted.
And I am glad that I did…
The one thing that eventually won me over was that I saw the opportunity to professional growth. Nordcloud, the company where I now work, is purely focused on the public cloud platforms (Amazon, Azure, Google) and from a DBA perspective that was quite interesting. While I had worked with Azure previously we were still quite firmly rooted in on-premise installations, and possibility to work with two other cloud platforms. Well, that was just too good opportunity to pass.
What to learn from my experiences?
Honestly, I tend to suck at networking and self-promotion, but I do recognize the value of platforms such as LinkedIn when it comes to job seeking and recruiting. The other thing is blogging. If you already have a blog, share your posts on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc to build and to shape your professional profile. If you don’t have a blog, consider starting one. Most people know something they could and should share to help others.
If you are serious about finding a new job, being visible and active in social media will go a long way to help you in that. Now if you need help getting started on building your professional profile, just Google it, and you’ll get a ton of good advice on that topic.
It is easy to think that becoming comfortable with your work is a good thing, but that might not be when you are at your best. Take a good look at what you’re doing now, and if you feel that you are not learning something from your current job, think about what you would like to learn and consider what are the options where this learning can happen. Don’t settle for being comfortable, especially if you have decades to go before retirement!
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