I.T. Career Advice

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LM26

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Hi,


My husband was put on protective notice a few months ago and has been actively seeking a new job in the last couple of months. He's been to a few interviews and 2nd interviews and looks like he is getting very close to an offer. He went to a 2nd interview last week (3 other ppl involved)and then has a 2nd interview next week (2 other ppl involved) He works in I.T.

Best case scenario: If he is lucky enought to get 2 job offers as a result of the two 2nd interviews, it will obviously be great but because they are so different, he is unsure what would be the best move and I was wondering if anyone could give me their opinion.

Current Job - was part of a team of 3 initially working in a large company as a systems administrator. Husband is second in command. The 3rd guy was let go about a year ago. Boss dislikes his profession and therefore husband finds it unmotivating to work for so is looking forward to moving on. Hubbie is 27.

Possible Job Nr.1 - he would be working on his own which would mean he would have huge responsibility and as he is very ambitious and hard working I believe he could really shine. His current boss had threatened a few times to leave job over the last year or so and hubbie would have loved to have that lead role, but unfortunately never happened.

Possible Job Nr. 2 - working in a large team of about 20. Specialising in an area of I.T. Advantage of this job would be social side, being part of a large team who are motivated (he met a few and they have all been there between 6-10 years). Also getting to become an expert in an area, he says he has a broad general knowledge of alot of things but this would mean he could specialise in a specific area. I like the idea of this job because he hasnt enjoyed working with his boss for a good while and therefore never has fun in work like I would with my team mates. I think it would be good for him to be part of a team.

However at 27 I think he may be at an important stage of his career and maybe Job Nr. 1 is the smarter decision. Hope my post makes sense, its probably quite vague but any constructive advice appreciated.

Thanks.
 
Re: I.T. Career Advise

My advice would be for him to write out the disadvantages and advantages of each position and make a decision based on that. He probably knows in his heart which one he would prefer, I think it is really a decision that he has to make by himself in the end.
 
As a 27 year old who is also working in IT I would go with the second option. 27 is quite young to be looking at working by yourself unless you are an expert and the money is great. IT is tough enough and you'll learn more when there are others around you. If I were him I would go for option 2 but that would be my own preference.
 
I would be wary of over specialising in a particular area of IT (Im an IT professional for the past 13 years), as technology becomes redundant very quickly and your skills can go out of date in short order. It all depends on the area of course but its something to be aware of.
 
The thing about IT jobs is that while 2 jobs may have the same name they can mean seriously different things, it may well be that both jobs are system administrators but one might be looking after 3/4 servers for a medium sized company whereas the other could be looking after hundreds in a massive webfarm.

It sounds like the 2 jobs offer your hubby the chance to go in 2 different directions, one seems to offer more of a route to management whereas the other seems to offer a more technical route so it really depends on what way he wants to go. One word of caution though is to always pick your jobs carefully (if you have the luxury!) because you want to make sure that it'll offer you a stepping-stone to the next level up to where you want to be.

On the whole thing about specialising there's a trade-off here too because the people most in demand (and the best paid) are those with highly specialised skills, but as truthseeker says you just have to work very hard at keeping your skills current and relevant.
For my 2 cent worth the second job sounds like a lot less stress & better opportunities for (what I'm guessing) is the same money, also larger operations tend to have much better formal training programmes and supports.
 
truthseeker said:
I would be wary of over specialising in a particular area of IT (Im an IT professional for the past 13 years), as technology becomes redundant very quickly and your skills can go out of date in short order. It all depends on the area of course but its something to be aware of.
Click to expand...

At least when it comes to software I think the opposite. I think you should specialise as much as possible, be that in databases, asp.net or whatever.

You do need to keep uptodate with new technologies and techniques but you dont get radical changes. e.g. you go from asp.net 1.1 to asp.net 2.0 and onto asp.net 3.5 etc.
 
aristotle25 said:
At least when it comes to software I think the opposite. I think you should specialise as much as possible, be that in databases, asp.net or whatever.

You do need to keep uptodate with new technologies and techniques but you dont get radical changes. e.g. you go from asp.net 1.1 to asp.net 2.0 and onto asp.net 3.5 etc.
Click to expand...

All depends on the companies long term strategies and changing marketplace, I have had to move through a number of different technologies in the past 13 years - as old systems were replaced by completely different new technologies. On the plus side for me it means Ive a wide range of different skill sets (some out of date by now!!), but it does mean had I stuck with my original skills I wouldnt be in the job now. Im not saying specialisation is a bad thing, but one needs to be wary of the area of specialisation and that it doesnt lead down a blind alley.
 
Hi,

I know nothing about IT!

How long has your husband worked in the current company? He may be due a redundancy payment if he sticks with his current company that may come in useful. However, you seem to be on the ball and respect that it is not all about money and that if he is not happy in his current job it is not really worth staying there for any amount of money!

As for the two options I think you should do your homework on the two of them. Do a company search etc. last thing you want is for your husband to move only to find that the company is folding!

Other than that, I imagine your husband will be able to decide which option suites him best.

I'm a big fan of the writing everything down as suggested above! write down all of the pros and cons side by side, then rate each pro and con out of 10, do the math and I would be surprised if you dont come up with the "right" answer!
 
Thanks so much to everyone for their very valuable feedback...some interesting points made. I will forward to hubby...ultimately as some of you have said it is his decision and he will instinctively probably know what suits him best but from talking to him before I know it is a bit of a dilemma to him and thought it would be good to get outside perspective from other I.T. ppl.

Jack2009, just to clarify that he is being made redundant shortly and will be entitled to redundancy pay provided he doesnt have to leave before the end date, I suppose (all depends on next job).
 
Hi, I am closing this thread with a final update.

In the end Job Nr.1 and 2 did not become real offers however A job Nr. 3 presented itself which my hubby has accepted.He will have a week off between jobs and got his redundancy sorted earlier in the week so its all worked out well.

He is going to be in a senior team of 3 and will be supporting the network with these 2 other guys. There is a dedicated other person to answer all queries from users and these are routed to the relevant team so his team will only be dealing with serious issues as opposed to printer problems etc. They have been down a person for a few months and have been gearing him up that its going to be very busy when he joins which he thrives on so really have good hopes about it for him.

Although the feedback given was on 2 other jobs, I want to thank you again for your advice and as another poster suggested it may be too early to work on his own, and also that it may be unwise to specialise too greatly (non-software) this job seems to offer a good result.

Thanks again, LM26
 
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