|
ExcessiveForce posted:Perhaps I'm not following, but why is retroactive tough since I was also working my old job? corkskroo posted:I am no negotiation expert but I'd say asking for retroactive doesn't make sense. It's common for someone to "step up" and take on higher-level responsibilities as an opportunity to show you can do it and learn the ropes, then get the promotion. That sounds pretty much like what happened here. Negotiate for the best salary and benefits you can get, but consider what's happened to date your "training and try out" period. This is pretty much what I meant. You were doing your old job and they were trying you out for your new job. If they had moved you fully into a new job then maybe you could ask for retroactive. I this case it is reasonable to ask for it to start when you started you new position full time. Heck, most of the time I have changed roles recently the salary has lagged a bit and there was no retroactive.
|
#
¿
Aug 3, 2013 16:29
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 15, 2024 05:31 |
|
|
The project management certification standard and acronyms will in part depend on your location in the world. Totally agree that some places value certificates and some don't care. I have no formal certification and can run circles around most PMs I have worked with (I also know enough that being a PM is not the job for me). PMI or similar are good to get a baseline if you have no experience with project management. I still keep a copy of the project management handbook on my bookshelf and crack it open a few times a year.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 10, 2013 03:46
|
|
|
Brotein_Shake posted:I am officialy coming to terms with the fact that I royally hosed up with my degrees the first time around in school. I did my undergrad in communication (idiot) and then a masters in a program I later found out doesn't do much to qualify for anything. I was a theater major and have a career in IT. If you already have a masters and have practical IT experience you may not really need an IS degree. If I were looking to hire new graduates I would put a lot more value on something like EE, lesser in proper CS, and even less in Information Systems. Have you thought about getting an MBA? There are various MBA programs with some emphasis on computing that might be much more lucrative long term.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 11, 2013 21:30
|
|
|
Jet Set Jettison posted:There are enough companies that aren't too far from my current apartment, but none seem to have positions open. I want to cold-call these places, or just drop an email in some HR departments mailbox. Is there a right/wrong way to do this? How do I send my resume/cover letters to these companies without being put as spam in the inbox? Yes, this is a good thread for this sort of thing. There has been some discussion on changing career paths, maybe in different industries but worth a read through this in general. Find and meet the HR people (staffing or recruiting job titles perhaps) and tell them that even if they don't have openings today you want them to know who you are and be ready when a position becomes available. No harm in networking, and if you can get to know the hiring managers for the job you want, even better. If you make it your job to be a networking machine and know all the local companies and know the specific people you would want to work for, the job you want is likely to happen (assuming you are competent and can befriend the people you want to work with and are a good fit and all that). Spinning your experience to being relevant is good, though I am not in the food industry...
|
|
#
¿
Aug 16, 2013 22:06
|
|
|
Tamarillo posted:I'm going to be the devil's advocate here and say that (yes, cultural differences come into play here) I really don't like it when people do this. ^^^^ I am super happy to see a totally different perspective. Since I pretty much do my own sourcing for people who report to me, I like to have a stable of candidates and a network that would allow me to hire quickly when I have openings. You are totally right that many places may hate that, and the HR people would not want to waste their time with future candidates. For all the rest of the Career Path Thread observers, this just goes to show that there is no one right way, and that industry and company and person all come into play.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 20, 2013 15:40
|
|
|
100 HOGS AGREE posted:I just had a good talk with my boss about potential avenues of advancement at the company I work at he gave me a bunch of stuff to think about while I've got all this downtime at work lately. There are many people in this thread who can help you, but a little more info might help. Keep in generic or whatever to protect your anonymity, but give us something to work with. Some things that would help: What kind of industry are you in? Large company or small? How much experience do you have? What is your current job? What do you like/dislike about your job? Sales jobs, in my opinion, require a certain type of person and personality and drive to be a good fit. I do not carry quota, but am very close to sales and work directly with sales people, some of whom make insane money. Talking about knowledge or project management and sales in the same career discussion is highly unusual, but may make sense in your industry or company. If you don't want to air stuff here PM me or any of the other posters in this thread who have posted things that resonate with you.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 6, 2013 05:40
|
|
|
Jet Set Jettison posted:I'm considering applying for a job but I'm not sure its a step in the right direction. Always apply. If anything it opens the door for you to learn more about the job and the manager. I am sure there are people here with the opposite opinion, but I always encourage people to talk to me about jobs.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 19, 2013 19:16
|
|
|
ProFootballGuy really did something amazing in transitioning from pre-sales to sales person. In Enterprise software sales I have seen maybe one or two pre-sales engineers transition to long term, successful, quota carrying sales persons. For me its not about pigeon-holing, its about skills and personalities. In general, the kind of person who can make seven figures every year selling complex solutions to big companies is very different from the kind of person who can convince everyone from developers and admins to the executive leaderships that the software we sell really works and can solve their problems. Sales can also be the kind of grind that engineer-minded people cannot handle for more than a short time. The number of calls and meetings every day, the sheer amount of rejection you encounter as you build a pipeline. The incredible challenge of getting a deal through a customer's procurement chain. Sure, the pre-sales engineers I have known all would love to make a million bucks a year, and great sales people make it look easy. Those who try to move over to sales then, and only then, realize that as a pre-sales person they only saw 10% of the sales person's job, and the other 90% is really, really hard for them.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 20, 2013 16:32
|
|
|
Xguard86 posted:Could you elaborate on this? They seem like they'd be similar so interesting that they're not. For the overlap between sales and presales, they are pretty similar. That is the 10% part. Sales Engineers have to maintain a blend of technical and soft skills. They have to stay current in the technology area and industry in which they sell, and have to have considerable expertise in the solutions they sell and the good ones tend to be leaders in their domains. There are dozens of skills that are important and pretty unique for presales. Salespeople/Account Managers/Client Executives have to have much more of the soft skill and sales/selling expertise, and really have to understand an end to end sales process. Who are your customers/accounts? How do you generate leads and interest in those accounts for the products you need to sell? How do you get the customer to a point where they want you, the sales person, to bring in a sales engineer for a demonstration? What the process to get technical buy in on the solution you are selling AND show value and ROI at the price point where you and your company make some money? What does the procurement person(s) need to sign off on the deal? What about all the paperwork and forecasting and deal reviews? What about the ten other deals you need to close this quarter in order to make your number? How about the twenty to fifty other calls you need to make today to generate pipeline for next quarter and the quarter after that? Some people excel in that environment and step up to the challenges of carrying a quota. Those people tend to not want to do all the things the presales engineer does. The presales engineer (sometimes) sees the money the sales people make and think 'I want to make that money and I can do everything the sales person does,' and fails to see all the work the sales person put in BEFORE the engineer got involved, and doesn't see all the work that happens after the engineer is done. The presales engineer tends to miss the total grind that comes with establishing your territory as a sales person, and that grind tends to burn out the true engineer types who want to move into sales. So you are a Systems Analyst. What kind of systems? What kind of company and industry? Systems Analyst to Pre-sales isn't uncommon. Maybe you have some skill with a certain kind of system or domain that would be interesting to a software vendor or partner or implementer? Maybe instead you want to reboot and go into sales. Where I work, the way to get in without any sales experience is 'inside sales.' You will be given a desk and a phone and a computer and a list of customers and you will be calling and emailing trying to find people who are interested and qualify the leads and hand them off to sales people. You will mostly be dialing for dollars (well asking for the next meeting that if you are lucky will become and opportunity and eventually lead to dollars). Get good at it and then maybe they make you a junior salesperson and give you a few accounts. Then the real work begins. Typically takes a few years, if you make it that long. Which would you rather do? Spend a year making phone calls trying to find someone interested in your solution, or learning how to present and demonstrate said solution and doing so for potential customers who are somewhat qualified?
|
|
#
¿
Sep 20, 2013 18:45
|
|
|
Xguard86 posted:Interesting stuff. Obviously I'd rather not take a probable pay/lifestyle cut to start at the bottom of a sales position so parlaying sounds like the way to go. I'm just trying to figure out a way to take my kind of technical base to move into a more communication soft skill oriented field. To be honest, those problems yall name sound like something I can handle more easily than: "we have 27 unique fields for 12,000 entries and need to gather and sort all of them here is your excel sheet and headphones". Either share here or send me a PM with some information about the industry and solutions you work in and around. I went from system analyst to consultant to architect to presales to leadership. The specific company I work for really isn't set up for presales engineers to become sales people, but many others (see ProFootballGuy) may make it easy to make that move. There are probably ways to parlay from where you are now to where you want to go without starting over. We in this thread just can't give you advice without knowing if you are in like large medical technology hardware or big data search optimization or help desk or what. As for pipeline, sales people live and die by pipeline. It is also why many people who move from presales into sales do great for two or four quarters and then have the bottom fall out (they inherit a territory with pipeline and opportunity and never figure out that building more pipe is the key to long term success; they close all the deals there are to close when they walk in the door then they starve). I know that I am not the kind of person who can build pipeline every day, but I sure as heck figured out to help make that kind of person outrageously successful.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 21, 2013 00:03
|
|
|
VideoTapir posted:I may have an opportunity to take a marketing job in a new division in a company that makes a product that I can actually get behind (I don't exactly like the things, but I recognize their utility...online transaction security devices) with people who in the interview seemed alright. If you have never worked in Marketing because you didn't like marketing coursework, that's a pretty clear statement. Dealing with customers is probably a small percentage of the job. Design campaigns, run them, track results, set up events, drive attendance, do ALL of the logistics, show up four hours early to set up your sign and table and make sure the venue didn't massively screw things up, then deal with the customers who actually show up, eat a $60 steak and then mention they just bought your competitors solution. There is probably a lot of BS, just not with the customers themselves. Yes, you can move around in field marketing pretty easily in the tech sector, I have known several who have bounced around places like EMC and VMWare and do pretty well. I have worked with many (dozens of) marketing people over the past 15 years. There are maybe two, two of them, who I would choose to work with again. I hope there is some awesome marketing goon here who can prove me wrong and post about how awesome marketing is!
|
|
#
¿
Sep 25, 2013 15:06
|
|
|
VideoTapir posted:It's more the amorality of it combined with the propensity for bullshit (which came up a lot in the one course which was specifically marketing); not that much of an issue when dealing solely with people who ought to be less susceptible to bullshit, in a more or less equal power relationship, I would hope. Theoretical discussion are nice, but it boils down to: What are the daily tasks and duties of the job, and how do those things compare to what you actually like to do? Just like the discussion earlier in the thread on presales versus sales people, the tasks and duties of the jobs are different, and different people gravitate to different aspects of the job. You may really really like the day to day work of that particular marketing role, or you could totally loathe it. Get to know the good, bad, and ugly of the role and choose based on what will give you good job/life satisfaction.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 25, 2013 16:35
|
|
|
chupacabraTERROR posted:So, I need some career advice. I'm currently a tax accountant (2nd year) at a big 4 firm. My degree is in business/economics with an accounting minor. I've got my CPA. Have you thought about leaving the Big 4 and going into industry or a smaller firm? The big firms are a total grind and you might enjoy things a lot more on the outside. With two years I don't know that you could just straight into management (maybe you could though), and the work might be a little different but still pay well and there are probably interesting and fun places to work to do this. Your CPA is certainly worth something and just throwing it away might not be the best long term decision career wise.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 26, 2013 00:23
|
|
|
sim posted:My skillset: front end web development, is in very high demand right now (I'm contacted by a recruiter almost daily). I'm being paid top market value in Austin, Texas, one of the hottest markets for software development outside of Silicon Valley. But I don't want to be in Texas anymore; within a year I plan to be in San Diego, near family and better weather. Shop around and cast a wide net. Service Now is supposed to be hiring like mad, they are worth finding someone and talking to over there. Sony online and SCE also have big operations and with the Ps4 launch they may have need as well.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 6, 2013 18:11
|
|
|
tzien posted:Not sure if this is the appropriate thread for this (or if it's been previously discussed) but here's my question: If you have full time, exempt employees, just give them the additional responsibilities/work that you were giving to contractors. Maybe offer a bonus or incentive to do the extra work, but you should not need to double dip. Think about it. These people already work for your company. There are already contracts and they get paid. You have extra work to be done. Just find a way to incentivize them (or not) to do it.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 17, 2013 15:46
|
|
|
Professor Tomtom posted:I'm really stoked that this is here because I have some job questions. I've been in sales since I finished college, and my company basically turned me from someone completely green to a top 10% on my division (roughly 600 people) salesman. I made a good living as a sales person, I bought a home at a very young age and lived it up, but the constant stress eventually got to me and I asked for a way out. I made a lateral move into pre-sales support and I'm not sure if I did the right thing. I didn't see anyone else take this so I will chime in. Presales and sales are pretty different roles. Since you did the sales gig, you have the advantage of understand what sales people at your company need to be successful. If you can get on board and help the sales team sell a ton of teapots, you can do very well. As for raises, I think industry and location have a lot to do with how that happens. I have personally given people 20k raises, but those people already made low six figures and a 10-15% raise doesn't sound the same as OMG twenty thousand loving dollars. Still really good though, and I have seen others make 20k over a couple of raises. If you are in Presales and don't have some kind of bonus attached to sales attainment (different from straight up commission), you are doing it wrong and need to do Presales elsewhere. In my industry and location 30-40% bonus on top of a higher base than sales is typical. If you had a 30% incentive on top of your base would you still be making less money?  In other news I gave notice today and will be able to post here about my career advancement. Super excited about what I am doing next.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 16, 2014 06:13
|
|
|
1500quidporsche posted:Figured I'd post this here since I'm at a dead end of what to do. What is your job history/career experience before this job? How I answer this might depend on your other background and experience. If you were fresh out of school and effectively have a year and a half of experience, you have some resume building to do and don't want to necessarily blow up your boss to their boss. If you have experience and background then maybe there are different levers you can pull. Regardless it would be good if you could quantify your contributions to the business, any metrics or measurements in which you can prove you performed above level, etc. Simply stating that you did more work than your peers sounds like whinging. Stating that you did 25 widgets an hour with no errors and the benchmark for the next level is 20 sounds a lot better.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 4, 2014 05:48
|
|
|
Dreamer101 posted:In search of advice any comments welcomed. Find a copy of the official HR Policy on sexual harassment and non-retaliation. Print it out. Have a discussion with HR and make sure they are aware that you know the policy. If the policy sucks and the company won't protect you, get the gently caress out of dodge. If the policy is reasonable and protects you and prevents any kind of retaliation, it is your duty to report it. If you report it and anything further bad happens, well that's a different thread. I have had more than one female who works for me have sexual harassment kinds of things happen (not from me of course and nobody who worked for me), and my company was awesome about handling things, but then because it was reported and the appropriate steps were taken. Heck, if it's a big company and what happened was serious or ongoing, they may very well offer to move you out of that situation and towards what you want. But seriously, so long as there is an official policy of non retaliation you should report it.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 9, 2014 05:11
|
|
|
Dreamer101 posted:The company has a good ethics on non-retaliation in their policy. The policy also states that they can protect me and be anonymous in reporting. However, there is only one other lady at the office, they will know it was me. Today I reached a breaking point with my manager. He told me " I'll bend you over my knee and spank you"! He said it in front of entire office personnel as he continued to talk down to me and referring to me as his daughter. I can't handle his crude jokes anymore, he takes it to extreme measures and even the guys get annoyed with his comments. I did speak with the HR manager that is located at another location. He's taking it serious and wants to meet in person at his office. I am horrified reading this. This is so extremely serious and the HR person sure better do what's right. I know it's hard to speak up but you are doing the right thing. Even if you can transfer out, you would do your replacement a favor by making sure everything is documented and the perpetrators of the harassment are dealt with.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 11, 2014 05:46
|
|
|
Dreamer101 posted:After giving my statement to HR yesterday evening, I feel so much better already. Then I came into work this morning and was bombarded with two similar actions. I wanted to slap him and leave the office. Spoke with HR and they are taking it seriously. They said not to worry about coming into work tomorrow and that they are working out a plan. I'm thinking that they will place me at another near by location temporary during the investigation or just transfer me. Well done, very well done. Even if you don't end up staying long term at that company, you will be in a better situation for this, and have a good interview story for handling a hard situation professionally.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 12, 2014 06:17
|
|
|
Dreamer101 posted:Thanks for the advice. I knew I had to do it after putting up with it my entire first year with company. Still nervous about what HR is going to do. I told them I'm at the point where I don't want to be at that office. They told me not to worry about going into work tomorrow and that they are working on a plan. I'm thinking they will place me at another location while they investigate. Better yet, it would be great if I could just transfer into the position I was looking into at the other location a little closer to my home. Did things turn out okay? 1500quidporsche posted:Super busy the past couple weeks, hope this answer isn't too late. Don't ask for that. Ask about detailed role descriptions for your role and the job one level up. Seek out and quantify the differences. Prove that you quantifiably meet the qualifications of the job the next level up already.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 27, 2014 06:35
|
|
|
MoosetheMooche posted:I'm not sure where to go with regard to my career. I have a BA in Music which is pretty useless given that I don't have the passion to try to make my living by performing. I am currently working as an office clerk but the chances of moving up are pretty slim. I am considering picking up a masters degree, since my BA almost looks useless on a resume it seems like it might become more worthwhile if I use my BA to access a masters program. Some possible ideas are Business of Environmental Studies, Health Administration, or Masters of IT (I don't have much programming experience but it seems like many IT jobs just involves setting up printers and getting overpaid for it). Any suggestions? Are my ideas way off base here? Can I even get into these masters programs with a Music BA? My priorities are: to move into a field that is in high demand, has good job security, and pays well. I don't care what the job is beyond that except for the fact that I'm a good writer and am good with computers but I'm not too good at math or science. How many years of experience do you have? What do you actually enjoy doing? Are you in a metropolitan area or in a cave on June side of a mountain three hours from civilization? Getting an advanced degree and finding a new job are also divergent paths in a lot of ways... Right now it looks like you feel as if you are in a dead end job with a degree that may not be relevant to anything and you want something *different*. Maybe go back to school. Maybe a new job. Maybe join the peace corps. Oh but you want to have job security and make a lot of money. Get humble. Get real. Focus on your strengths. Find a job other people maybe don't like so much, figure out how to do it really really well and get filthy stinking rich from it.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 5, 2014 06:30
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 15, 2024 05:31 |
|
|
Dreamer101 posted:Yes things are great now. The company transferred me to another location. I almost gave up hope on HR.. Then I found out that there were procurement investigations that came out from my HR investigation. He was fired for ethical reasons due to taking gift cards, bribes from the vendors, etc. As his secretary, I had seen many red flags with ethical issues come through just the mail and stories from other managers. The catering company was owned by his neighbor and they discovered he was getting kick backs. It was no secret about how he handled vendors and his crude sexual jokes. Posts like this are why I love this thread. Post a trip report in a few months please!
|
|
#
¿
Oct 12, 2014 17:26
|
|