Double Journey

Most Economic majors at Princeton become bankers or traders.  It is the closest thing to business or finance that you will find there and it serves as an excellent launching pad to a career on Wall Street.  However, after my junior year I decided to pursue a different path and left Wall Street to my classmates.  Despite my love of finance, as evidenced by this blog, I have never really regretted the decision.

However, when I see headlines like this, I have to wonder if I chose the wrong profession.   Ken Lewis, the CEO and Former Chairman of Bank of America, lost his title of Chairman of the Board.  For those that are not totally familiar with the situation, Bank of America is one of the financial institutions most in trouble.  They have made several very questionable acquisitions such as Countrywide Financial and Merril Lynch.  The results for Bank of America is a stock priced that has dropped about 95%.  Since the CEO is chiefly responsible for the financial success and failure of the firm as measured by its stock price, I would say Ken Lewis has not done such a hot job.

His punishment, he loses the title of Chairman but keeps both his CEO position and his seat on the board.  God, how awful.  What’s next?  They dock his pay by $1000?  Yeah, that would really hurt him.  Don’t you just love demotions that aren’t really demotions?  I wish I had such a high paying job with such job security.  Must be nice.

I find today’s Dilbert to be particularly relevant to something I’ve been wanting to write about.   Life is wavy.  There are going to be ups and downs.  The hope for most is that the up times are bigger and lasts longer than the down times.  I have found that the people who are generally the happiest in life are those who do not let their mood deviate too far from their average levels.  That is, people who do not get too happy when times are too good or too sad when times are bad.

I am someone who is really happy with his life.  A lot of this has to do with the fact that I never let the bad times dictate my outlook on life.  In fact, I make sure to look for the hidden opportunities.  I did so recently when my company had its last round of layoffs.  While times may have seemed bleak because it was our second round of layoffs in about six months, it was a great opportunity for me personally to rally the team together and demonstrate how execution was more important now than ever.  Similar things happened to me two jobs ago when I was able to translate the layoff of my entire division into a me acquiring new responsibilities and opportunities to growth.  This lead to my eventual promotion to development manager and the created the launching point for my career growth.

I view the same thing with the current economic crisis.  While I am not using it to try and attract women (I already took care of that one), I am using my relative financial strength to take once in a lifetime opportunities.  While I remain bearish on the overall market,  I do think people need to be looking for pockets of strength that still exists.  There are always bright sides to any crisis, and this one is no different.

Just look at this rally we are experiencing right now.  I do not think it will last but if you got in at the right time, you would have seen a 25% rise in your portfolio in the matter of a few weeks.  In normal markets, gains like this could take years.  It is impossible to time the market perfectly, but even if you only got part of these gains, you would be set for the year.  I have one position that has doubled during this rally.  Do you realize how crazy it is to get a double in a few weeks?

So whatever your personal situation is, find a way to take advantage when others are panicking.  You will find that the times that make the biggest difference in your life will be when you keep a level head when others do not.

I had lunch with a coworker today who has decided to leave my company.  He tells me he was not looking, and I believe him.  He was in charge of a group that was gaining significant responsibility within the company and he was seen as a very strong leader.  However, he got a job offer that was “out of market”.  For those who are not sure what that means, it basically means he got a job offer that was way more than anybody could reasonably expect and something that was unmatchable by anyone, including my current employer.

Most of the people who leave my company naturally ask me if I am on my way out as well.  They see me as a strong contributor and someone who likely has options outside the company.  However, I always feel like this is a strange question.  I always answer it the exact same way, I could leave at any time if the right offer came along.  It is the truth and anyone who says otherwise is just fooling themselves.

Now, I have no desire to leave.  I recently got a promotion to the Director level and I wish to stay and see a few projects through to completion.  But it would be silly to say that I would not entertain offers if they came my way.   I do not see something coming along that would cause me to want to leave, but it definitely could happen if I received an “out of market” offer.  Also, if I am honest, it is not like my current employer is going out of the way to keep most of the employees.  I was one of the lucky ones, I got a raise, albeit small, because I got a promotion.  But this was the exception, not the rule.  Most people got no raises.  We are in the middle of cutting back some perks (some of the perks were a little over the top and deserved to be cut).  A situation like this leaves the door wide open to leave, it is just a matter of time before someone walks out.  The irony of it all, the people who walk out are the people you most want to stay.

Part of the problem with rising through the ranks of the corporate ladder is that you have to start acting the part.  I try and make it a point to be a model employee now.  For example, I keep very regular hours.  While I realize that a lot of people do this, it is not the norm in technology.  At almost every technology company, hours are relatively flexible.  People come in late or leave early; sometimes employees do both!

However, now that I am a director at my company, I do not really have the same luxury.  It just would not be OK to keep odd hours when others look to you as the model.  For the last 8 years, I have had the luxury of rolling in at ten o’clock if I had a late night.  This is no longer the case and it can be hard to adjust to.  Further, I force myself to stay somewhat more aloof.  In most technology companies, there is usually some sort of amusement around.  Maybe there is a TV, a video game system, or a foosball table.  Being the competitive person I am, I would normally take part but I have drastically scaled this back.  I have done this for a numbre of reasons.  Part of it is that I have too much work now and do not honestly have the time.  Some of it is that I do not want to give others excuses to goof off.  And still further, and perhaps the saddest is all, is that it is important not to become too chummy with the people who work for you.

That does not mean I am not friendly with my staff.  It just means that I have to be very careful about it looking like I play any sort of favorites.  Since only some employees partake in the games, I have to be sure not to make it look like I am “too friendly” with that group.

Oh well.  I am not really complaining.  I enjoy my job much more now than I have ever have so it is not like I would trade these “perks” in.  But still, being less visable sometimes really has advantages.

I was talking to a friend recently who was lamenting her government job.  It was not that she was particularly disgruntled with her job, it was just that she felt that she had reached the peak of what she was going to accomplish in the next dozen or so years.  You see, for her to move up anymore, she would have to wait for her boss to leave or retire.  Neither of these seem likely at the present time.

This is in contrast to my current situation.  I have had some pretty good growth over the last few years.  The one exception for me would be at Microsoft.  Ironically, I would say Microsoft, up until recently, is almost like a government job.  What do I mean by this?  One of the reasons people covet government jobs is the security.  Take my mom for example.  She never had to worry about layoffs.  She worked for the government for over 35 years.  Through booms and busts, she kept her job. She did not have fantastic career growth, but she always had a job.

Now think about this.  If you have a government job, and your job is pretty safe no matter the situation, that means all your coworkers also have pretty safe and secure jobs.   There can only be so many managers in any organization whether they be public or private.  If there is never any turnover, there are fewer opportunities to move up as the bosses stick around just like the people underneath them.  As I stated in my previous post, some of my best career growth came at times where there were layoffs.  Layoffs create voids.  Voids at work create opportunities for someone to step in and take more responsibility.  This inevitably leads to career advancement.

I felt this way at Microsoft.  I felt trapped under the weight of the management above me.  There was great opportunity for growth when the size of the company was doubling every other year, but the pace of growth had slowed down dramatically and it had reached a saturation point when it came to management.  Because people just did not lose their job anywhere near fast enough, I worked with several people that should have been kicked out long ago, and the benefits are good enough to keep many people around, I just did not feel I could move up at the pace I wanted to and I was used to.  So I left, because, while I liked a lot of things about the company, and I was certain I could have had a job for years to come, I was never going to get the growth I desired.

And as if to prove my point, my career growth has come much faster than I could have ever predicted.  I now run an entire technology organization for the main division of my company including development, QA, and project management.  This same position at Microsoft would have taken me at a minimum six or seven years and more realistically it would have taken me ten or twelve.  Some of this has come with a lot more uncertainty, I could lose my job tomorrow for all I know, but it is a trade off I’m willing to make.

What do you think?  Is job security worth sacrificing career advancement?

I sit here listening to the Automakers in front of congress lay out their plan to return to profitability.  In the proposals is a clause that states that management will not get a bonus in the next year.  My question would be why is this considered a concession?  Why would anyone think they should do anything else?  Why would anyone expect to get a bonus when there company is hemorrhaging money?  If your company does not make money, you should not get a bonus.   I understand, it is not the fault of the individual, but that does not justify paying bonuses when you are on the verge of bankruptcy.   I had years of not getting bonuses because my company was losing money.  I learned to live with it.  I have also had it where my company was profitable and the bonus was up for cutting because we did not meet the target number.

So I just find it funny that it is something that anyone think should not be done.  Does anyone think that bonuses should be paid out in this situation?

I look at resumes all day so I can be pretty critical.  But some people just do things I don’t understand.  Case in point, putting a advanced degree on your resume that has nothing to do with the job you are seeking or the career that you have had to date. Now this doesn’t apply to your undergraduate degree.  Everyone understands that you likely majored in something that has nothing to do with your current job. This was true for me as I majored in Economics but now work in technology.

But a graduate degree is something different.  First off, you made the decision to go after a graduate degree is totally voluntarily.  While technically getting an undergraduate degree is too, an undergraduate degree is basically a requirement for almost any white-collar job in today’s world.   Not only is it voluntary but a graduate degree is also very expensive and time consuming.  I understand that you may be proud of the degree.  I understand it may show you can work and study hard.  But if you got one, but aren’t using it, I’m going to want to understand why.  It goes to my assessment of how and why you make important decisions.

Now even if the degree is on your resume, it might not be a death sentence.   What is a death sentence is having a bad answer to the next question, “Why did you pursue this degree and then end up not using it?”  There are a number of OK answers to this question.  None of them involve you telling me that, “I just didn’t know what else to do” or “I needed to grow up”.  Both responses I have heard.

I will grant two exceptions to this rule

• You have a gap in your resume you can’t explain any other way.  A gap is worse than having an irrelevant degree.  However, it is only slightly worse since I may assume you just took some time off for family issues.  This is a path I usually won’t (and can’t) go down too far.
• It is your first job after you got your degree.  This you should explain away by being honest.  Either you have discovered you don’t like what you went to study or you can’t find a job in that field.  Both are acceptable answers. Just don’t expect me to pay you for the advanced degree that is irrelevant for the job.

So what do you think?  Is it a good idea to put your advanced degree on your resume even if it is irrelevant? If so, under what circumstances?

Most people probably think going to an interview is hard.  For me, this has never been the case.  I’ve always been able to do well in interviews thanks to the fact I stick to my basic interview tips.

But the thing I’m finding to be very difficult is to find good interviewers.   I think most people are worse at being the interviewer than being on the other side of the desk.  What types of problems do I find?

• Not going to the interview prepared
• Not asking relevant questions
• Not reading the job description
• Having no goal in mind on what they want to discover about the candidate
• Being non-committal in their feedback (not able to give a strong hire or no hire)

I think the problem for most people is that most people are never trained in how to give a good interview.  People are just told to go to the interview and ask questions.  So they ask questions that are not very good or or so general that they provide very little value.  Questions like, “Are you a good listener?”  How is the candidate going to answer anything but “Yes!” to that?

I’m not saying everyone has to be a great interview.  People just should not be put in that situation if they are not prepared for it.  I blame the company more than I do the people giving these bad interviews.  What do you think? If you interview people, did you ever get any training?  If not, how did you learn to give interviews?

As a manager in my company, I have to do a lot of interviews.  It surprises me how often I interview people who don’t have much idea about how to get through even the simplest of interviews. Now in defense of some of these candidates, I often see people for junior positions.  Many of these people are either freshly out of college or on their second job.  But even then, it still is surprising how some people perform.

Probably  most common mistake I see in people consistently make is to not engage with the interviewer.  People naturally like people they can have a good conversation with.  If you are answering questions too succinctly it can be a problem.  I was on an interview the other day where I was basically trying to guide the candidate down a certain path.  This candidate was answering my questions, but they were not doing much more than that.  I was hoping to have a dialog with the person to delve deeper into their background and skill set, but it was almost impossible without me doing all the talking.  I even went so far as to asking a purposefully vague question in hopes this person would ask me to clarify.  It is a technique I like to use to see how people deal with ambiguity and how good they are at asking meaningful questions.  No such luck.  The person just answered the question.

So my advice is simple.  It just involves

• Asking lots of questions - If you are asked a question, ask a question right back. There are no perfect interview questions.  Almost everything in life can be clarified.  I like it when people are confused about my question.  It shows they are paying attention and that they are being thoughtful about their response.
• Talk and be verbose - Don’t go overboard with this one but remember that this is a conversation.  You should probably be talking as much as the interviewer.  There are times I have gotten the interviewer talking more than myself by asking the right question.  More often than not, I do well in those interviews.

So don’t be shy.  You would be surprised how often interviewers wouldn’t mind a helping hand for themselves when trying to get through an interview.

I was chatting with a friend today that I hadn’t talked to in a while.  We were just discussing how things were with each other and the conversation eventually turned into how she was doing at her job.  She has been in the job for a while, and I know she has been thinking about leaving for a long time.  But as we talked it came up that she was thinking of looking for a job out of state.  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing until she explained that California has just gotten to expensive to live in.

And to a large degree she is right.  She is, like me, part of Generation Screwed.   She does OK by most standards, but she is, like me, a renter.  She wants to get married, raise a family, and eventually own a home.  Of course those in the generation face the daunting problem of saving a small fortune to buy a house.  Coupled with the high taxes and high gas prices in California, no wonder she is thinking of leaving.

It really makes me wonder how bad it is for those in California less fortunate than me.  I have started thinking about how I can save money when faced with these economic uncertainties.  Now for me, most of this is psychological in nature (more on that later), but for many many people it is a stark reality.    California is a very expensive place to live.  For many people, all the benefits of living in California don’t outweigh the lower standard of living. How does the average person achieve the American Dream in California?  How is it possible to start out, pay off loans, stay out of debt, save enough to buy a house, save enough to send your kids to college, and then save enough for retirement?  I find it difficult enough as is with a high salary, no kids, and no debt, I just can’t imagine how it must be for those faced with multiple challenges.

So what happens when more and more people start feeling this way?  Is it possible that we see a migration out of California?