Is it the time to start looking for another job or keep the one you have

Hi Guys

At the moment, I’m very grateful to have full time employment and the job allows me the time to learn new skills. I mainly start learn programming at the moment because I feel this skill will help me get more senior positions if the future.

At the moment I will finish my degree and it will take me around 2 more years to gain my master degree in networking. I also working on getting my ccna/ccsa/ccnp and upgrade my Microsoft certifications.

At the moment my job is pretty secure and even if they was to get rid of people ( I'm pretty sure I wouldn’t be first out the door, due to being liked by management and for my technical skills compare to others)

However I do feel unpaid at 19k (live in the UK) and feel my skills and what I'm working toward demands more. (I won’t get any more money from this place)

So I have two options
1 ( leave in a couple of months time and go for a job with more money but take the risk of basically being the last in first out again)
2 (Carry on with my master degree and building my programming skills and wait until this current economic time improves and then start looking)

At the moment I’m 24 years old and will be 25 in a couple of months and I’m ok with option 2 but by the time things improve will I be too old to leave. Which means I’m struck for the rest of my life on a below than average wage.

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Comments

ptilsen

It sounds like you're ready to move on. Getting a new job is always a risk, but it's almost always a risk worth taking. That said, I'm not sure why you think you'd be "too old to leave."

I do think you're trying to do too much. Programming, Master's degree, Cisco and MS? It's okay to want to learn a lot from a lot of different areas, but you should really think about putting together a path. Right now, it sounds like you are trying to do way too many things at once. My concern with that is if you got a job that's more demanding, it's going to be hard enough to do anything at all.

CodeBlox

ptilsen wrote: »

It sounds like you're ready to move on. Getting a new job is always a risk, but it's almost always a risk worth taking. That said, I'm not sure why you think you'd be "too old to leave."I do think you're trying to do too much. Programming, Master's degree, Cisco and MS? It's okay to want to learn a lot from a lot of different areas, but you should really think about putting together a path. Right now, it sounds like you are trying to do way too many things at once. My concern with that is if you got a job that's more demanding, it's going to be hard enough to do anything at all.

Thats how I feel about myself sometimes. Doing cisco studies, working, school, trying to do programming in my spare time, studying for Microsoft AD exam. It all feels like too much to me sometimes. Some times it feels like so much that I end up doing NOTHING in my spare time (playing video games). I do generally make good use of time though.

jayc71

The eternal question... It's really up to you, if a new position sounds like a good idea and will make you happier/more successful in the long run, then go for it. You want to be smart about it, but taking calculated risks is a great way to get ahead.

Turgon

thomas130 wrote: »

Hi Guys

At the moment, I’m very grateful to have full time employment and the job allows me the time to learn new skills. I mainly start learn programming at the moment because I feel this skill will help me get more senior positions if the future.

At the moment I will finish my degree and it will take me around 2 more years to gain my master degree in networking. I also working on getting my ccna/ccsa/ccnp and upgrade my Microsoft certifications.

At the moment my job is pretty secure and even if they was to get rid of people ( I'm pretty sure I wouldn’t be first out the door, due to being liked by management and for my technical skills compare to others)

However I do feel unpaid at 19k (live in the UK) and feel my skills and what I'm working toward demands more. (I won’t get any more money from this place)

So I have two options
1 ( leave in a couple of months time and go for a job with more money but take the risk of basically being the last in first out again)
2 (Carry on with my master degree and building my programming skills and wait until this current economic time improves and then start looking)

At the moment I’m 24 years old and will be 25 in a couple of months and I’m ok with option 2 but by the time things improve will I be too old to leave. Which means I’m struck for the rest of my life on a below than average wage.

Welcome to the west.

Option 1. Not looking too good. You could get nuked
Option 2. Not looking too good. It will take 10 years for the economy to improve Im afraid, but it's a relative thing. We can eat. Also, the way we are going everyone who wants one will have a Masters degree inside 5 years time.

Option 3. Concentrate on understanding what your company, and other companies for that matter actually want and will pay for. Then do figure out how to that and be recognised for it financially. Companies want employees that add value to the bottom line. Learn to be good at that and you will succeed. Reduce costs and generate new business.

That is IT today.

dead_p00l

I don't really know anything about the tech job market in the UK but I know that there are actually plenty of tech/engineering jobs in the US. The problem is that with the current economy there are numerous qualified applicants for the available position. So the problem currently is not so much finding another job as having the education/experience/certifications or just being able to stand out in some way above the other applicants. I find myself in a similar position. Underpaid for my current position but I have tenure and job security with my current employer. Unless things drastically change i know that I will most likely ride it out for a while longer before I even really start looking. Good luck with whatever choice you make.

Turgon

dead_p00l wrote: »

I don't really know anything about the tech job market in the UK but I know that there are actually plenty of tech/engineering jobs in the US. The problem is that with the current economy there are numerous qualified applicants for the available position. So the problem currently is not so much finding another job as having the education/experience/certifications or just being able to stand out in some way above the other applicants. I find myself in a similar position. Underpaid for my current position but I have tenure and job security with my current employer. Unless things drastically change i know that I will most likely ride it out for a while longer before I even really start looking. Good luck with whatever choice you make.

The problem in the US is it's a competitive world but most people offer the same thing..

Same sort of job experience
Same sort of certifications
Same sort of education

As I have said for seven years on TE. Your work defines you. To stand out, you want to be spending your workstime getting involved in impressive work that you can boast about when you want another job..not kicking back doing the routine stuff to spend workstime either on facebook or studying for another certification that 100000 people already have..

thomas130

Turgon wrote: »

Welcome to the west.

Option 1. Not looking too good. You could get nuked
Option 2. Not looking too good. It will take 10 years for the economy to improve Im afraid, but it's a relative thing. We can eat. Also, the way we are going everyone who wants one will have a Masters degree inside 5 years time.

Option 3. Concentrate on understanding what your company, and other companies for that matter actually want and will pay for. Then do figure out how to that and be recognised for it financially. Companies want employees that add value to the bottom line. Learn to be good at that and you will succeed. Reduce costs and generate new business.

That is IT today.

Your right about that Turgon

With me learning programming I do feel I have proved my value to the business more. Recently I develop an application that does a job that use to take 3 hours to complete. Now while that doesn’t save money it does allow more free time for others things. There something else I’m working that will help the business managed it assets and licenses better as well.

After listening to what people have to say. I think the best thing for me to do is with wait a couple of years saved and build my programming skills. I'm thinking about leaving the masters degree and work on the other stuff. Then I will take the risk to help me moved up. [IMG]file:///C:/Users/Thomas/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image001.gif[/IMG]

I suppose the important thing for me is my mortgage won't be that big and would be cover by job seekers allowance. My food and energy bills aren’t that big so it I did lose that job. With what I plan on saving I probably survived around 18-24 months without a job before I started running into major problems.

ptilsen

thomas130 wrote: »

Your right about that Turgon

With me learning programming I do feel I have proved my value to the business more. Recently I develop an application that does a job that use to take 3 hours to complete. Now while that doesn’t save money it does allow more free time for others things.

Unless that operation was run by salaried individuals who would otherwise do nothing or by slaves or robots who would otherwise do nothing, that did save money. Improving operations efficiency always has an impact on the bottom line.

On your resume, you are going to say something like "Wrote programs that improved operating efficiency by 5% by eliminating manual processes".