Should You Job Hop for Your Career in IT - SAMIT Video
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We've already established, long before this point, that service providers don't count as job hopping internally, but do externally. That was in the discussion, not the video. So you have only made my point via that clarification. MSPs are, in a sense, a staffing firm. The difference is that staffing firms float IT pros between companies in the range of weeks or months, whereas MSPs do it in hours or days. But the result is the same - short term "employment" with different companies and the value of education is more or different companies that can utilize those new skills.
As an MSP, she doesn't really work for you, you pay her to work for someone else. Legally you get to call her an employee because her job hopping is so rapid that the IRS allows it in most cases, but certainly not all. Even as an MSP, if you assign her to just one or two large customers, she would legally switch (in most cases) to being their employee, not yours.
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@ccwtech said in Should You Job Hop for Your Career in IT - SAMIT Video:
@scottalanmiller While I don't agree with your definition of job hopping, if it is defined as job hopping you are right. However I don't think 'job hopping' is the same as staying with one service provider but working with a new client. Hell I job hop several times a day then.
Right, of course you do, because job hopping is the value. MSPs are a "job hopping engine" for all intents and purposes. If you look at the market as a whole, it is a continuous curve of job hopping rates. MSPs are just staffing firms that change customers faster. Staffing firms are just payroll firms that change employment faster.
There are subtle differences in those, sometimes, but not as often as you'd think. The lines between standard employment, third party payrolled employment, staffed employment or outsource multi-party almost entirely come down to the speed at which the customer is hopped. Once you think of all IT as being external, it becomes a lot more uniform. That there is a third party payroll handling firm in some cases or not other is really not all that relevant to anyone in practice.
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@scottalanmiller said in Should You Job Hop for Your Career in IT - SAMIT Video:
We've already established, long before this point, that service providers don't count as job hopping internally, but do externally. That was in the discussion, not the video. So you have only made my point via that clarification. MSPs are, in a sense, a staffing firm. The difference is that staffing firms float IT pros between companies in the range of weeks or months, whereas MSPs do it in hours or days. But the result is the same - short term "employment" with different companies and the value of education is more or different companies that can utilize those new skills.
As an MSP, she doesn't really work for you, you pay her to work for someone else. Legally you get to call her an employee because her job hopping is so rapid that the IRS allows it in most cases, but certainly not all. Even as an MSP, if you assign her to just one or two large customers, she would legally switch (in most cases) to being their employee, not yours.
I think you established your definition of job hopping. My definition would be different, but yes, if you apply your definition I see your point. Essentially to a service provider (not a company with an internal I.T. staff) the video doesn't really apply.
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In operating system terms, and this is where my computer science background comes out, think of different employment styles as different "scheduling engines" for IT works. Compare IT workers to threads on a computer. In the old days, when we had no multitasking, that was like having one job for a lifetime and never switching. You get what you get.
Once we get to multitasking, different scheduling engines produce different results. Some switch between jobs rapidly, some slowly. But it is all job hopping or thread context switching, just at different speeds.
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@scottalanmiller said in Should You Job Hop for Your Career in IT - SAMIT Video:
In operating system terms, and this is where my computer science background comes out, think of different employment styles as different "scheduling engines" for IT works. Compare IT workers to threads on a computer. In the old days, when we had no multitasking, that was like having one job for a lifetime and never switching. You get what you get.
Once we get to multitasking, different scheduling engines produce different results. Some switch between jobs rapidly, some slowly. But it is all job hopping or thread context switching, just at different speeds.
Given that very specific context I think we agree.
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@ccwtech said in Should You Job Hop for Your Career in IT - SAMIT Video:
@scottalanmiller said in Should You Job Hop for Your Career in IT - SAMIT Video:
We've already established, long before this point, that service providers don't count as job hopping internally, but do externally. That was in the discussion, not the video. So you have only made my point via that clarification. MSPs are, in a sense, a staffing firm. The difference is that staffing firms float IT pros between companies in the range of weeks or months, whereas MSPs do it in hours or days. But the result is the same - short term "employment" with different companies and the value of education is more or different companies that can utilize those new skills.
As an MSP, she doesn't really work for you, you pay her to work for someone else. Legally you get to call her an employee because her job hopping is so rapid that the IRS allows it in most cases, but certainly not all. Even as an MSP, if you assign her to just one or two large customers, she would legally switch (in most cases) to being their employee, not yours.
I think you established your definition of job hopping. My definition would be different, but yes, if you apply your definition I see your point. Essentially to a service provider (not a company with an internal I.T. staff) the video doesn't really apply.
Well, it does, because you still have to be able to hop. If your MSP can't find you more hopping opportunities, you are still at a major disadvantage. And, in reality, almost no MSPs can actually offer advancement of that nature. You have had an employee for 2.5 weeks and imagine that as she learns small skills that you will be able to increment her up the ladder. But are you actually confident that you can do that? Have you thought of a real world example of how that will work in practice? And will you be willing to pay for her education, and pay her for those skills whether or not you manage to sell them? If so, that seems like weird business logic. If not, it's not paying for the education that you are doing, but rather paying for the new job hopping that she was able to do.
Even very large MSPs struggle with this, but at least they have more ability to handle it than do smaller ones. But in a shop with just two people, I suspect that you will find that this does not work as you imagine that it does and that incrementing an employee up the ladder doesn't work very well because customers don't generally have any need with regularity for incremental movements in their providers.
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@CCWTech very likely what you will find, though, is that your employee will find more career advancement options not staying with you, regardless of your desire to pay her more as she advances. Eventually, and this could happen very quickly, she will gain skills with high market value that you are unable to leverage. In order to keep her you will either need to pay her far more than you can justify (or afford) or hope that she is willing to basically donate herself to you. One or the other of you will have to suffer unless you can get customers in a granular way that I've never witnessed an MSP do before. What do you do when she leaps in market value far outstripping the ability to market her to new customers?
So to her, even in a service provider situation, almost certainly the best thing for her career will be to job hob. It's just a reality. Companies, of course, want to discourage job hopping for their own benefits. But for the employees, it is almost impossible for this to be the best thing for them.
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@scottalanmiller How long have you been with NTG and when are you quitting?
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@ccwtech said in Should You Job Hop for Your Career in IT - SAMIT Video:
@scottalanmiller How long have you been with NTG and when are you quitting?
NTG is a service provider... I'm not sure where the disconnect is here. @scottalanmiller has said dozens of times in this thread and hundreds of times outside of it that service providers, MSPs, and Fortune 500s (100s in this thread) are different in that they have the upper mobility available that anyone in the SMB/E wouldn't be able to provide.
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@coliver I guess I don't know the size of NTG.
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@ccwtech said in Should You Job Hop for Your Career in IT - SAMIT Video:
@coliver I guess I don't know the size of NTG.
Why does the size of it matter? it's a service provider. That was an "or" statement not an "and" statement.
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Scott specifically mentions that for my company 'size matters'.
@scottalanmiller said in Should You Job Hop for Your Career in IT - SAMIT Video:
Even very large MSPs struggle with this, but at least they have more ability to handle it than do smaller ones. But in a shop with just two people, I suspect that you will find that this does not work as you imagine that it does and that incrementing an employee up the ladder doesn't work very well because customers don't generally have any need with regularity for incremental movements in their providers.
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@ccwtech said in Should You Job Hop for Your Career in IT - SAMIT Video:
Scott specifically mentions that for my company 'size matters'.
@scottalanmiller said in Should You Job Hop for Your Career in IT - SAMIT Video:
Even very large MSPs struggle with this, but at least they have more ability to handle it than do smaller ones. But in a shop with just two people, I suspect that you will find that this does not work as you imagine that it does and that incrementing an employee up the ladder doesn't work very well because customers don't generally have any need with regularity for incremental movements in their providers.
Ah I see. I won't speak for him. But what is your market currently? Doesn't that have a lot to do with what technologies you and your employees are going to interact with on a daily basis? if you're being the IT department for multiple SMBs you are still restricted to what those SMBs do/want/need. So training your employee in a technology won't, necessarily, mean that you are gaining any marketable skills for the customers in your field. Sure you can pay them more for have a new skill in their repertoire but does that actually add value to the company?
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@coliver said in Should You Job Hop for Your Career in IT - SAMIT Video:
@ccwtech said in Should You Job Hop for Your Career in IT - SAMIT Video:
Scott specifically mentions that for my company 'size matters'.
@scottalanmiller said in Should You Job Hop for Your Career in IT - SAMIT Video:
Even very large MSPs struggle with this, but at least they have more ability to handle it than do smaller ones. But in a shop with just two people, I suspect that you will find that this does not work as you imagine that it does and that incrementing an employee up the ladder doesn't work very well because customers don't generally have any need with regularity for incremental movements in their providers.
Ah I see. I won't speak for him. But what is your market currently? Doesn't that have a lot to do with what technologies you and your employees are going to interact with on a daily basis? if you're being the IT department for multiple SMBs you are still restricted to what those SMBs do/want/need. So training your employee in a technology won't, necessarily, mean that you are gaining any marketable skills for the customers in your field. Sure you can pay them more for have a new skill in their repertoire but does that actually add value to the company?
Absolutely. If she learns CISCO networking it opens up opportunities that I have had to outsource. If she learns data recovery I can stop sending Level III recovery's out to a lab (I do Level I and II in-house), all of the other skills added open up new opportunities for revenue.
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@ccwtech said in Should You Job Hop for Your Career in IT - SAMIT Video:
@coliver said in Should You Job Hop for Your Career in IT - SAMIT Video:
@ccwtech said in Should You Job Hop for Your Career in IT - SAMIT Video:
Scott specifically mentions that for my company 'size matters'.
@scottalanmiller said in Should You Job Hop for Your Career in IT - SAMIT Video:
Even very large MSPs struggle with this, but at least they have more ability to handle it than do smaller ones. But in a shop with just two people, I suspect that you will find that this does not work as you imagine that it does and that incrementing an employee up the ladder doesn't work very well because customers don't generally have any need with regularity for incremental movements in their providers.
Ah I see. I won't speak for him. But what is your market currently? Doesn't that have a lot to do with what technologies you and your employees are going to interact with on a daily basis? if you're being the IT department for multiple SMBs you are still restricted to what those SMBs do/want/need. So training your employee in a technology won't, necessarily, mean that you are gaining any marketable skills for the customers in your field. Sure you can pay them more for have a new skill in their repertoire but does that actually add value to the company?
Absolutely. If she learns CISCO networking it opens up opportunities that I have had to outsource. If she learns data recovery I can stop sending Level III recovery's out to a lab (I do Level I and II in-house), all of the other skills added open up new opportunities for revenue.
Yes, but how much of that kind of new selling can you do? Cisco is worthless in the SMB space, literally worthless. And outside of the SMB space, Cisco work requires an immense about training, experience, and is super expensive. In no way can Cisco be incremental. You are talking about a complete change of corporate strategy to handle a change like that.
And for her to be able to consult on Cisco, how will you afford to keep her once she is worth $120K to another job when you are just starting down the road of learning how to acquire Cisco customers? You'll not only have to figure out how to sell Cisco services, you'll also need to switch customer categories. That's a lot of learning curve to do when she has to already be worth a fortune to someone else.
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What if company policy says you need to be there for a certain amount of time to get the full investment benefits?
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@tim_g said in Should You Job Hop for Your Career in IT - SAMIT Video:
What if company policy says you need to be there for a certain amount of time to get the full investment benefits?
Then you are back to admitting that job hopping was better for the employee and you have to legally cripple them to keep them from doing so.
Remember the point here was "what is good for the employee". I think that we keep showing that hopping is good for them and businesses want to find ways to discourage it for their own benefits.
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An issue I have with company-provided training, in general cases for broad skills, is that companies tend to provide this via expensive, wasteful processes like degrees and boot camp classes. Things that cost a lot to provide but provide little educational value. But if the employee was to learn on their own, they might do so for almost no cost and learn a lot by doing their education well.
Company provided training almost always means high cost, low return. And is often focused on what is good for the company, not the employee.
Because of this, employees will often get locked to a company for skills that may be of little to no value to the employee. And their value to the company is generally determined by the company after the fact, so the employee often sees little to no benefit from having done so and staying.
Company provided training is way too often a tool to trap employees rather than to provide benefits to them.
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Somewhat off topic, but in my case, I am semi-retired (with a pension) and a 1 man shop. I know the incredible challenges of going from 1 to 2, 2 to 3, etc. I can't imagine myself going to work for a boss. I think I read in another topic that you (Scott) mentioned that bringing on a business partner was a better way to go than just an employee. (They have skin in the game).
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@scottalanmiller said in Should You Job Hop for Your Career in IT - SAMIT Video:
An issue I have with company-provided training, in general cases for broad skills, is that companies tend to provide this via expensive, wasteful processes like degrees and boot camp classes. Things that cost a lot to provide but provide little educational value. But if the employee was to learn on their own, they might do so for almost no cost and learn a lot by doing their education well.
Company provided training almost always means high cost, low return. And is often focused on what is good for the company, not the employee.
Because of this, employees will often get locked to a company for skills that may be of little to no value to the employee. And their value to the company is generally determined by the company after the fact, so the employee often sees little to no benefit from having done so and staying.
Company provided training is way too often a tool to trap employees rather than to provide benefits to them.
While I have worked for a couple of companies that said that they would pay for courses (friends have even had tuition for degrees) that pertained to their job roles, I can't see that as being a bad thing if you are already in your career. It would be strange for someone to think that the company would want to pay them to study underwater basket weaving when they could be learning about business or IT.
