I think there are multiple sides to the coin when it comes to hiring a person who is ambitious and may jump ship more quickly than a sys admin that is less ambitious.
If that sys admin is ambitious to advance their career but also ambitious to advance their craft, it may be worth the trade off. As a manager, I would much rather hire somebody who is going to be great and leave after a year than somebody who is going to be average. The risk/reward there for the hiring manager is that the ambitious and confident person they interview is going to be ambitious in their trade (and not simply their career advancement) and in return for them jumping ship after a year, you're going to get a year of productivity out of them that would have taken the average person two years to accomplish. The risk however is that they are going to join your company, be unproductive, and then leave before they can be exposed, therefore continuing their pattern of advancement without any real accomplishment. The alternative is to hire somebody that is less confident or ambitious who will stick around 3+ years. While the probability that they are going to be a homerun for your department may be a bit lower, their loyalty will eventually pay dividends for your team because after 2-3 years they will have the same level of knowledge that the superstar would have had. In the end, either of these scenarios can work out well for a company. In fact, the ideal scenario may be a mix of all of this. Having a team full of superstars doesn't necessarily mean your team will excel. The NY Yankees are the perfect example of this. They have all the superstars money can buy, yet they only manage to convert all that talent into a team cohesive enough to win it all once every 5-10 years. Putting together a winning team, whether in baseball or IT, is a matter of finding the perfect balance of talent, ambition, and loyalty (in addition to taking care of them as a manager). On Thu, May 3, 2012 at 6:35 AM, Cameron Beere <[email protected]> wrote: > I'm not going to get bogged down in the nitty gritty too much, but I will > say I think we're coming from two very different places. One way loyalty > is obviously bad for the giver, but not every business operates in an > environment where it's all one way. [Insert big bank here]? Sure, they're > probably not concerned about you beyond what you can immediately do for > them, but a lot of startups and small business don't operate that way. In > these environments, where a lot of responsibility and a lot of the > business' success rides on a couple of people, you start to see more of the > give and take than just the take. From a pure business perspective, having > happy and motivated employees who feel like you're loyal to them is > probably going to be a benefit to your company rather than a liability. > > > > > Yeah, being ambitious can mean being ambitious in terms of gaining > knowledge or responsibility; but again, most of the big changes there? > Rarely happen at the same company. > > Again I think we might be coming from a different place here. At a > startup which pivots a couple of times before finding their thing, or a > small business which has the agility to change their services and products > with the times (as the company I work for has done once or twice), there's > a tremendous opportunity to grow and learn new things. This doesn't have > to even mean learning a new technology, but even some of the softer lessons > like 'not everything has to be 100% optimal', 'read contracts carefully', > and 'keep current backups'. If you're not at the senior sysadmin level > especially there's probably a huge amount you can learn no matter where you > are, as long as you look hard enough and have a measure of self-motivation. > > > >> The ability to do something interesting and to grow my knowledge and > skillset means far more to me than a few extra dollars. As long as my job > is meaningful and I have the opportunity to work on interesting and novel > projects (as opposed to resetting passwords over and over for a year), then > my ambition is directed internally, towards building and improving the > company I'm currently with. > > > There is a conflict of interest even here. The new and interesting > technology that you want to learn is quite often not the best business > choice for the business. The best business choice is usually doing the > thing that you know will work. The thing you know will work in a > suboptimal fashion in a fairly well-known timeframe is usually superior, > from a business perspective, than an optimal thing that might or might not > get done and that has a high degree of uncertainty in it's timeline. > > Just to clarify this point, I'm not necessarily talking about learning the > latest and greatest technology here. There are far more things which are > interesting at a job than just the flavor of the month tech. In a lifetime > you can't possibly have in-depth exposure to even a fraction of the > software packages and technologies which are out there. Something can be > novel (to me) which is 20 years old and has been implemented by hundreds of > thousands of companies. Learning to use Postfix, or learning some project > management skills from my boss isn't necessarily new, but it's interesting > as hell. Learning doesn't necessarily need to mean trying to pick up a > brand new technology from scratch and running the risk of overshooting your > project deadline, it could just be a cool bash trick you see a co-worker > do. Learning doesn't even need to involve technology - I'm learning new > things about how aspects of our business work and to deal with our > customers and vendors all the time. > > > I would personally rather do the right thing by a company which does the > right thing by me, as long as I'm not stagnating or stalling in my personal > growth or career path. I don't think that staying in one place indicates a > lack of ambition necessarily, but it's probably pretty dependent on the > company you work for and your personal situation - your mileage may vary. > There are a lot of other reasons for staying in one job for a number of > years - lifestyle, family, external benefits - and it's certainly possible > that for me at least, these things would outweigh a 5%, 10%, 20% payrise. > I would hope that I wouldn't come across in an interview or on a resume as > being a mediocre worker, content with retreading the same ground, > regardless of how long I was at my previous job. > > At the end of your day, you're probably right in that employers would > prefer to hire someone who's ambitious and confident over someone who has > retread the same ground over and over again for the last 10 years of their > career. But maybe they should be looking for the third option, the person > who's ambitious, confident and isn't going to jump ship after a year and > $10k worth of training. > > I'm not going to venture an opinion as to how employers should find those > people though. > > > > > ------------------------------ > *From: *"Luke S. Crawford" <[email protected]> > *To: *"LOPSA Discuss List" <[email protected]> > *Sent: *Thursday, 3 May, 2012 6:36:43 PM > > *Subject: *Re: [lopsa-discuss] Do Sysadmins have a half-life? > > On Thu, May 03, 2012 at 04:30:58PM +1000, Cameron Beere wrote: > > I think you're conflating ambition and.... I don't want to use a term as > strong as disloyalty, but something along those lines. > > It's not so much that I'm disloyal as I believe the concept of > loyalty (as in staying in a job position longer than it is in your > best interest to do so, in order to benefit your company, in the > hopes that this will be somehow reciprocated.) is obsolete. > It's very clear that "It's just business" for your employer, > so why shouldn't it be "just business" for the employee, too? > okay, I guess that makes me a disloyal employee. > > I mean, I think it's important to be honest and up front and to honor > your contracts, make sure the next guy has passwords, etc, etc, and to > give your traditional two weeks notice (if longer notice hasn't > been specified in your contract) and to spend that two weeks writing > documentation and tying up loose ends, and to answer short questions > (and consult for longer questions) if they call you up later; > there's no reason to be a jerk about it; it's just business. > > I'm just saying, one way loyalty is obviously bad for the giver, > and I think it encourages exploitative behavior on the part of the > receiver, and all loyalty you give to an entity with a legal mandate > to maximize shareholder value is going to be one way. > > I mean, it's your job, not your kid or you mom or something. > the rules of business apply, not the rules of family. In my > experience? when someone tries to invoke the rules of family > in a business situation? they are trying to take advantage > of you (e.g. they want /you/ to follow family rules while > /they/ follow business rules... or worse.) > > > I'm not sure that being ambitious necessarily means that you're going to > leave as soon as you see the opportunity for a 5% pay increase. > > There is a big difference between a 5% raise and a 20% raise. > If your salary only goes up 5% in a year? you should see that as > a 'neutral' evaluation from your boss. (okay, maybe with inflation > and interest rates being what they are right now, it's a slightly > positive evaluation. For most of my career, 5% was neutral at best.) > a 20% raise? that's an 'excellent' evaluation. I've only gotten a 20% > (annual) raise without switching jobs twice in my career, and one of > those was when I moved from phone monkey to programmer. Both followed > dramatic and externally obvious increases in my own productivity. > > Switching jobs for 5%? well, you better not be switching jobs for the > money, as there is only so often you can switch jobs (as a younger person, > you want to switch jobs not more often than every 12 months, but not > less often than every 36 months. I imagine by my current age, > I should widen that out a bit, but fortunately, I am not working for > other people.) and like I said, 5% a year is not a "you are doing > a good job" level raise. > > Yeah, being ambitious can mean being ambitious in terms of gaining > knowledge > or responsibility; but again, most of the big changes there? Rarely happen > at the same company. > > I mean, as an example from my early life, during the froth of the first > dot-com, I was a phone monkey right out of high school, working at > a local ISP. Not a very good phone monkey, either. I accidentally > sent my resume to jobs@mycompany rather than jobs@ the local college, > and I got an interview. It was like '97 or '98 and I wasn't illiterate, > so I got the job. I learned a lot, and a year later they wanted > to ship me to the east coast headquarters of the company that > bought them. I went over and interviewed, and they liked me. > > Well, I was 19, and my parents didn't want me to move all the way to the > right coast, and my neighbor was Paul Vixie's sister. So my dad > cajoled people until Paul emailed me, I sent him some patches for apache > and other code I had written, got an interview, did well, and then had > to choose. Go work for some random dot-com ISP that didn't seem to have > a lot of technical talent, but that had given me a chance? or go work for > Paul fucking Vixie running a dnsbl that at the time something like half > the mailservers on the Internet used? > > I mean, it was an intensely disloyal thing to do to the company that > really had done a pretty great thing for me; they had taken some poor > kid that barely made it through highschool and gave him a pretty good > programming job. I mean, everyone told me that without college, I'd > be working at the local 7-11. I applied for programming jobs anyhow, > 'cause thinking a goal unrealistic has rarely deterred me from > a goal, but I figured it'd be years before I got a programming job. > > So what do I do for this company that made my dreams come true 5 years > before plan? I jump ship to some place where I'll be surrounded by > people who are terrifyingly better than I am. > > (the salary was the same both places; at the ISP, they had stock options, > Vixie's thing didn't have stock options. I chose the experience over > the stock options, which turned out to be the right choice. Even > at that time, it was blindingly obvious that this was not sustainable.) > > I mean, that's ambition, even though I chose less money in the short > term. (well, the same money without the chance of selling my stock > options to a greater fool.) I took the best opportunity I could > get. (Of course, I blew the whole thing a few years later because > I was a dumbass kid, but I'm not really comfortable telling that > part of the story in public yet.) > > > > There are a lot of opportunities for the ambitious to advance outside of > job hopping, and outside of the number of figures on your paycheck. I > consider myself extremely driven and ambitious in the sense that I'm > constantly working towards being better at what I do. The ability to do > something interesting and to grow my knowledge and skillset means far more > to me than a few extra dollars. As long as my job is meaningful and I have > the opportunity to work on interesting and novel projects (as opposed to > resetting passwords over and over for a year), then my ambition is directly > internally, towards building and improving the company I'm currently with. > > There is a conflict of interest even here. The new and interesting > technology > that you want to learn is quite often not the best business choice for > the business. The best business choice is usually doing the thing that > you know will work. The thing you know will work in a suboptimal > fashion in a fairly well-known timeframe is usually superior, from a > business perspective, than an optimal thing that might or might not > get done and that has a high degree of uncertainty in it's timeline. > > This has been one of the really interesting things about running my > own business; I see myself in the conflicts I have with my employees. > "Yes, I know that new technology is cool. Yes, I want to learn about > it too. But you know what I want more? I want those dedicated servers > up today; we've got three new customers waiting, and that means doing > it in this suboptimal way that we know works." > > I used to be on the other side of those arguments. > > > I don't think there's anything wrong with an ambitious sysadmin, but > maybe there is in the sense of the word that you're talking about. > > I'm just saying; right now? ambitious folks, confident folks? bosses > have a very strong preference for us. Ambition (and especially > confidence) doesn't correlate much at all with getting more done > for the employer that the employer needs done, and ambitious people > well, they leave more often. and yeah, sometimes they try to > change your company from the inside instead of leaving, and sometimes > that is good. but sometimes that's bad, too. I mean, I try really > hard to avoid arguments about things that are not worth the time. > (I've declared bikeshed, for example, on server names. If you have a > name you want for a server, put it on the list. If you have a server > that doesn't have a series of names assigned to it's class, make > one up. You can't change names that are in production. you aren't > allowed to argue about names.) > > Some things are worth arguing about, but often I find that the two > ways to do it both work, it's just that there is disagreement > about which way is optimal. I am attempting to instill a > "do-ocracy" into company culture; e.g. if you want to make > it better? great. do it. But so far, I have failed at that, > and still waste a lot of time on technical arguments. I mean, > I'm not saying it's not my fault, either; it's one of the > classic nerd-traps; I can see it coming, but it's really hard > to pull out once I'm in it. > > I mean, I'm not suggesting that you start discriminating against > ambitious people > > I'm just saying, the current common case is to discriminate against > people that aren't particularly ambitious or confident. Most employers > see it as a negative if someone under 30 has been in the same place for > more than three to five years; and that's incredibly harmful to all > involved. > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators > http://lopsa.org/ > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.lopsa.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/discuss > This list provided by the League of Professional System Administrators > http://lopsa.org/ > >
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