What do you do when you are presented with a job that's not in your plans?

N2IT

Example

Employee X is studying for networking and servers however gets an opportunity with an info sec team or a project management team. Does he pass up the position to go for the one he really wants? Or is this foolish?

Part of my brain is saying hold out for the position and be patient the other is saying go for it you fool.

How do you decide?

I find this to be one of the harder parts. I am always quick to jump, to what I think is the most prestigous position or the one that pays the most. Also the one that can lead to bigger and better things. Those are some deciding factors I ponder when looking at a new potential job.

My problem is I have no patience. I am quickly looking for the next challenge. I usually learn the jobs so quickly I want to test another facet of IT or business.

I sometimes wondering if I really need to get into BA or PM work. It has deadlines and it's not operational style work. Operational style work seems to be boring and eventually I lose my focus. On high stressed projects I seem to really shine. I always rise to the top and work the best when I have a tremendous amount of pressure.

cxzar20

I had this come up when I used to work in the NOC years ago. I was determined to go to our security team but an opportunity came up to join the network engineering team. I jumped at it and haven't looked back since. Even if the new opportunity isn't what you were shooting for you may find that you like it and want to go that path instead. If nothing else at least you would learn a new skill and nothing prevents you from going down the other path at a later date.

the_Grinch

Life is what happens when we're busy making other plans. As long as I grow, whether it be in knowledge or in salary, then I find I have nothing to lose. Learning something other that what you have been working towards isn't a bad thing, you might find that you like it. It will also help to round out your skill set and bring something new to the table if/when you leave. I couldn't tell you the number of positions I interviewed for where the employer mentioned something off the cuff and I could reply "yeah I worked on that before." An example would be a security position I interviewed for where they took me out to lunch. Over lunch we were discussing just general topics when they began to speak about switching ticketing systems. So I asked what system? They told me and it just so happened it was the system I had helped to integrate at my then current employer. Now they were really getting the bang for their buck because they were filling a needed position and also getting some experience with a new system they were implementing. Every day is a chance to learn something new, come on in the water is fine!

powerfool

Re-evaluate and see if the opportunity somehow helps with the career path in a way that was previously not realized, or re-evaluate and see if the new opportunity opens up a career path that may be better than previously considered. If not, pass.

Mstavridis

Well if you do not have much IT experience? If not jump on board and do it. Its all IT right, well my philosophy is to learn everything and anything, these days no one wants just a network guy or just a server guy that one it all. Personally I have most of my knowledge invested in networking, but i am going to get my MCTIP ( 3 in total, should be ready for 2 tests on friday). Then I am going to tackle Juniper and round back to LPIC-1 and 2 while finishing up to college degrees. DO IT ALL, hahaha you will not regret it.

xenodamus

I was pretty set on moving from Desktop Support to Network Engineering about a year ago....and I did. I spent 3 months neck deep in Cisco supporting an international infrastructure. I was loving it....when along came an offer from my previous employer. They had an opening for a supervisor over my old team. I made the jump back, and now I'm wondering if IT Management might be my 2nd calling.

I still like networking, but I like my current position as well (and I'm paid at a level that would have taken me a few years of network experience to reach). Besides, if every IT Manager had a CCNA the world would be a better place anyway.

N2IT

Thanks for the different "takes", I appreciate it.

Most of my experience lately, has been either management, adminstration (business), or coordination. Lately I have been training and providing support.

I'm at the point of just letting it go and seeing what happens. The days of me trying to control my direction is over. I basically do what I like and hope for the best. Again thanks for the input.

paul78

N2IT wrote: »

I'm at the point of just letting it go and seeing what happens. The days of me trying to control my direction is over. I basically do what I like and hope for the best. Again thanks for the input.

There's actually nothing wrong with just letting it go. Sometimes you never know if the job/role will add a new perspective. If you have a long-range goal in your career, sometimes a detour may offer some new added perspective.

In the past, I've sometimes taken on challenges that simply do not have much to do with my career goal. For example, a short-term assignment to manage/fix a group. But if I was asked and it was a opportunity to learn something new and help the organization because someone felt that I could do it - then there's also that loyalty that can be earned in the eyes of the person that is looking for help.

erpadmin

N2IT wrote: »

I'm at the point of just letting it go and seeing what happens. The days of me trying to control my direction is over. I basically do what I like and hope for the best.

To me, that attitude works best if one has an entrepreneurial spirit. When you're your own boss, you can be somewhat creative and go where the wind takes you. Sometimes that works, sometime that doesn't.

When you're working for someone else (in my opinion), I can't see this attitude taking one very far, especially if one is still trying to figure out what one wants to do in one's career.

Career-wise, a lot of times people get sidetracked. But one when one works toward a goal, it is best to continue on the path, while adding to one's skillset.

My advice to either you or someone else reading this is to just work toward a end-goal:

-Have a plan.

-Work the plan.

-Tweak the plan, but not so much that it deviates into something unrecognizable.

-Reevaluate the plan after a certain amount of time. If you got to where you wanted to go within that amount of time, then congratulations on your success. If you did not succeed, then go back to square one and develop a new plan.

N2IT

I agree about the planning part, that is spot on. I also agree with Paul just letting it go and not worrying about things outside your control.

My plan at this point is keep trucking away at PM and BA related role. If another position comes up that is similiar go for it, if not really consider all my options at that point.

BradleyHU

N2IT wrote: »

I am always quick to jump, to what I think is the most prestigous position or the one that pays the most. Also the one that can lead to bigger and better things.

This is how i do also...i would probably jump at it, because it does usually pay more than just networking or server admin...plus is usually harder to get into, and maybe more challenging too...

i tell pplz, i'm a mercenary, i'll go where ever pays the most money...

tpatt100

I go with the flow and most of my career changes was mostly luck and it has worked out fine for me *so far*.

I was helpdesk, desktop support, sys admin. My SOC experience was just an accident and was all due to sitting across from a Captain in the chow hall in Iraq. He asked what I did for a living and the next day they moved me to the head soc in Baghdad. That experience got me a call from a recruiter and I was in a SOC full time career wise.

I do auditing now based on my tech background and policy experience which consisted mostly of "nobody else wanted to do the paperwork".

Now I am trying to get back into Microsoft certs but I can't get motivated about Microsoft products anymore. I want to get at least 1-2 that cover basic sys admin skills so I can be barely proficient for future security work.

Right now I am kind of at a crossroads. I want to learn Linux, and get good at it and focus on that to make myself stand out from the crowd but who knows what next year will bring.

log32

I will give you a real life example of the dilemmas we deal with on every job opportunity that pop up once in a while.
I'm a system administrator (Microsoft) and I received a random phone call with a job offer from a local bank (very large one) where I live,I guess they had my C.V in their system. the job was to be part of a risk management team in the sec info department, they were looking for someone with system administration knowledge.
I thought to myself, "why not?", the job description I heard over the phone sounded interesting and I just couldn't be apathetic towards it. so I went to the job interview few days later.
some really nice guy Interviewed me and asked me few questions about active directory and GPOs. and described me the job role, and mentioned that since I'm a student, they will really go towards me on that issue with shift times.
basically what didn't sound too glory is that a lot of monitoring was involved, which sounded kind of boring. but sec info jobs don't always come around too often, not to me anyways.
1 day later I received another phone call from the HR that they want me. and I turned them down.
I turned the job down since it was also an outsourcing job and it was a 6 days week job (we work 5 times a week here) for quite a low salary.
after sometime i really thought to myself that maybe I made a mistake for not taking it? but then again, jobs come and go and opportunities may pop just like this one did. so im not worried.