Funny - 10 Signs It May be Time to Quit Your Job

True -  7 Habits to Master the Art of Winning against the Odds

Actually, this second one shouldn’t even be how to look at each day.  These are some great points for how to simply be “successful”.  It’s also the fact that you need to learn from failure.  There are so many people out there who are simply unable to cope with failure.  The winners are not those who don’t fail, but rather those who come back from failure.  Don’t fear failure.  Anyone can go against the odds and lose.  Success is beating the odds.  The greater the odds are against you… the greater the success… (start cheesy cliches: “Bet money to win money. Greater change, the greater the reward.” etc. etc.)

Blaming your lack of success on circumstances or actions of others doesn’t help.

•  Do what you love
• IT is boring
• How do we keep America Competitive
  • John McCain and Barack Obama have LinkedIn pages…
  • The digital age of politics is now upon us.

Disclaimer: I am a registered Democrat.  I have been apathetic to politics for the last 12 years.

- Acing the situational interview - The situational interview has become more prevalent. It is to take into account how you deal with “soft” decision situations as opposed to solving equations. Some engineers find this difficult. For everyone, the 10 questions noted here serve as a good measure of your communication ability.

- Research, training fuel career change - (as soon as I find a link you this, I will update this post)

Dates:

• 2/13 - 10am-3pm- Peninsula job fair - San Mateo County Event Center
• 3/8 - 9am - 4pm - Starting an Import / Export Business
• 3/27 - 11am -5:30pm - Silicon Valley Career Fair - Santa Clara Convention Center
• 3/29 - 9am - 1:30pm - Interview Success Secrets

• How to find work that you love
• How to figure out people
• How to get a pay raise

Stories:

• Day in the life of a video game tester - (hint: it’s not as great as you think)
  
• Are we becoming a “cargo cult”? - or “you’re smart, you can fix things…”

Open Letters

• Presidential candidates and tech issues
• Economy’s need for science investment - related to the article above - by ex-Intel CEO Craig Barrett

&cid=RSSfeed_eetimes_newsRSS

(Name withheld) writes in:

1. Do you know what’s the expected salary for a person with 10 years of SW experience?  Companies want to negotiate with me from what I currently make.

qubelife.com - Short question, difficult answer.  Salaries are an EXTREMELY personal and touchy subject.  The easiest thing to start with is to use salary.com as a benchmark.  Please note the use of the word benchmark here.  Every company and person has their own limits, for the most part this site is accurate for the one sigma area, with the correct job description.   Be warned industries such as “software” are very broad.  This can be anything from embedded firmware writing (embedded C), driver writing (C or C++), OS porting, application writing (Java or C++) to anything in between.  Depending on the industry it may also include proficiency with other technologies like graphics or networking.  There may be supply and demand problems in some sectors of the industry while there are an excess of workers in another.

There are few things to keep in mind here: the years of experience as well as the next steps to be taken in your career.  If you’re happy with what you’re doing (happy being a relative term), then you should expect people to be negotiating from your current salary.  If the job has an increased amount of responsibility (manging people or a technology direction), you should expect a healthy increase in pay.

We have seen exceptions to this.  During the boom here in the Valley, you could walk through a door with “engineering” on your resume and get an automatic 15% bump.  Those days come and go (but man… they are fun when they’re happening.)

Here’s how you need to think of salary, the more responsibility you have and the more direct impact on your company’s business, the higher you should get paid.  Most people get caught up in the “I do more than he/she does” argument for salary.  When the reality is: are you the one who says “I was just doing as I was told” or are you willing to take the bullet when a mistake creates problems?  Salary is typically rewarded to those who need to make difficult decisions and stand by them.

2. Would you take a paycut for an interesting job? 

qubelife.com - Another tough question.  The general thinking is to NEVER take a paycut.  However, the factors that weigh in here are: career growth (upside), personal happiness and how much is the paycut.

If you are making a job change in the same relative field, it is not recommended to take a pay cut.  You can make up for the paycut in the short term with sign-on bonuses or in the longer term with additional vacation or PTO.

Many people make serious changes to their careers, in which case a drop in pay may be unavoidable as some of your work experience is no longer applicable.  If you take less responsibility, then you may also have a drop in pay.
There are an increasing number of schools of thought that are putting happiness before pay (it seems to work for a lot of Europe).  This is also called “work/life balance” or several other soft sounding terms.  You need to know what makes you happy.  I’ve known people who have quit jobs that paid them double digit percentages more than the “comfortable job” they return to.

In terms of being about money: First balance, living within your needs vs. your wants.  if you can live within the means of what your job can provide, then there is less need.  If you are having problems living within the means of your job, you may have other issues.  Then, if you want the big house and fast car, you need to be aggressive in your career growth.

As you mature, some people place more emphasis on spending time with family or having specific conveniences around that are very difficult to put a financial value on.  Also, for some, the people you work with and what you are doing may hold more attraction than negotiating additional salary.

This position is from this emailer’s (10 years of experience).  If you’re coming out of school, the general rule would be to NEVER take a pay cut until you know what you like to do.

• John Chambers (CEO of Cisco) talks about changes in usage of the Internet. 
• “The industry, I think, is littered with people who make the mistake of playing their hand too conservatively, especially during periods of market transitions…”
• Tougher regulations for the Tech Companies?
• Which goes along with: Today’s immigrants are becoming citizens faster… so they can vote!
• From the USA Weekend insert: 2008, the year of living smart.

Side note, I’m working on a new update format schedule for the Q, so I can be more regular on updates with specific topics.  Also working on a less “bloggy” appearance.

While you’re there take a look at a couple of Brian’s tips:

• Best Tip for a resume
• How to schedule and interview when you already have a job

Here’s a quick hit of 15 in demand careers.  The titles are horribly generic.  Almost all of these really require a form of specialization at some point.  Again, it’s worth pointing out that just getting the degree doesn’t guarantee you results…

Twentysomething: Why I regret getting straight A’s in college

Outstanding. Incredible. Dead on.

Where this article ends, is there I start with the debate of going to grad school or not.  As usual, my two cents follows:

1. No one has ever asked about my GPA.
This can close some doors to getting an interview.

2. I didn’t sleep.
I didn’t sleep either, but I had a lot of fun not sleeping… Think about blowing 80 hours a week for something you’re going to forget 95%.

3. I’ve forgotten 95% of it.
True. 6 quarters of math and calculus and now I barely use it on a day-to-day basis. The important part is that all of these types of exercises have be seen as a problem solving exercise. I hear too many people talking about “why do I have to learn this stuff”? This work is

4. I didn’t have time for people.
Really important point. The best people in my career have been people from college who

5. Work experience is more valuable.
Especially for engineers, this is key. If you

Now, I’m not saying don’t try for good grades. Doing so will open doors. Good grades will get you interviews. However, they will not ensure a good interview. However, if you know what you’re looking for, good grades are far less important.