Wednesday 4 July 2012

Which do you have? A job or a career?

Last year there was a post in the (members only) Bug Free : Discussions in Software Testing Linkedin Grp called 'What are the different types of things that can be tested?' it was by Todd who had been considering a new job.

He had been looking at job descriptions and wondering about the terminology, the descriptions and the general wish list which is job descriptions these days.

Todd was also wondering if he had the right skills "Well that's the problem - a huge majority of job postings I see have skills I do not have. So I'm trying to figure out what skills I need to learn to help increase my job pool."
I found it interesting that a few people just started banging on about learning Unix, SQL, etc without actually taking the time to find out what Todd's interests were.
I kinda of figure that if somebody is interested in something they would start reading/learning about it regardless of work.

While it's always good to keep learning new things, is it better to learn things that you're actually interested in?
Turns out Todd is interested in UX and his partner is a Front End Developer, seems to me that he has a fountain of info right in his home.

I'm going to move on from Todd now and write about 'what should I learn to get a new job/progress my career' posts in general.
I think, you should just learn what interests you, if you have a genuine interest you'll learn rapidly and continue learning and if you can manage yourself this will increase your job/career progress by default.

Am I crazy? Don't answer. Who? Shhh not now.

I guess it comes down to whether you have a job or a career.  Maybe it is time to decide.  If you have a job maybe you need to look for a career.  Maybe you're not worried and are perfectly happy with a job.
To me the difference is your general day.

Job = Clock watch, time seems to move backwards, can't wait to get out of work.  I know plenty of people who have a job, they seem miserable, although it could just be the ones I know.

Career = Not enough time in the day, too many things that interest you, there is no clocking off. I know plenty of people who have careers, they seem happy. I think they are happy because they spend their days doing things they are genuinely interested in.

Which do you have?

3 comments:

  1. This is so true. I am reading the web app hackers handbook for fun right now. It's not a part of my role, it is just really interesting to me. There is a bonus in that I can see some things that I can make pertinent to my job but it was its appeal as an unknown that made me pick the book up and start reading.

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  2. Totally agree, although now im looking at my own daily routine and asking myself some serious questions!. Im a tester by trade, but hate to think of myself as someone that just does 'testing activities', i enjoy learning about technology and i enjoy figuring out how things work. I think those things are pretty useful when testing, so guess im lucky i found a job that fits my interests......

    Although my ideal career would be drinking beer whilst watching re-runs of Sopranos.....

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