New Grad’s & Career Management in Down Times

I wrote a post this summer on career management for new grads, talking about weighing going to a bigco or the startup route.   I’ve had some people reaching out, especially recently, with questions specifically orienting towards what to do wrt career management in a crazy market environment like these. 

Given that all hell is breaking loose, what’s someone to do?  Head to a safe harbor–go back to school, take a safe job that pays well but that you don’t really like?  Etc.  Here I’d like to provide some advice. 

First, caveats.  This is focused specifically at new college or grad school grads who are thinking through their moves.  This advice targets people without massive non-financial obligations, i.e., children.  Having children and the responsibilities that they entail would invalidate my advice. 

Think Big.  With that out of the way, let me start with one of my favorite all time quotes:

“Make no little plans, they have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work…”

Daniel Hudson Burnham

In my experience speaking with people about career management at any time — not just new grads — there is a surprising lack of ‘big plans.’  Often (90% in my estimation) of conversations I have drive towards how to get such and such a promotion or whether to continue working for a certain manager who one finds stifling.  This stuff is interesting, but it’s ultimately trivial in the absence of a big ambitious plan.

Same advice I tend to give start-ups, I give anyone who wants to build a high performing career.  Aim high. 

The downturn is beyond your control, don’t sacrifice a big plan to adjust to that.  Yes, there is a downturn, and it will make things more difficult.  At the same time, if you really have thought about building a high performance career, and you really want to drive towards something you enjoy and excel at, then the downturn is mostly irrelevant.  You have a direction and an idea that you wish to pursue and you should do it with the full force and energy that you can bring to it.  On the margin, you may adjust your approach slightly, take potentially a slightly more conservative step.  But in general stay the course.

Make the most of your options, you won’t ever have as many as you have now.  As a new grad, you’ve gotten yourself a degree and you may have entered the work force or grad school.  You probably face what feels like immense pressure to pay back loans.   Also seemingly important is the social pressure of getting a job, getting on the path towards respectability. 

While both are important, I think there’s a far more important aspect to being a new grad, namely you have maximum options.  No matter what you studied in school, if you realize you are called in a different direction, then its all possible.  You never took a cs class and you want to be a programmer?  You took pre-law, and then decide you want to be a doctor? Go back and do it. 

After college, I was an actor for two years in New York.  Loved it, but also over time realized that I had a different plan in business.  The shift was hard–I had to take out massive loans, etc.–but it was absolutely the right thing. 

The key, looking back, was that looking at the shift at the time seemed huge and nearly impossible.  It was hard, but in retrospect, I was lucky I did it.  Three keys.  First, sticking to a plan that I thought worked for me.  Second, it was key to remember that the debt and the social pressure against changing was nothing next to pursuing the plan that made sense for me.  Third, in reality, I had no encumbrances really–I had no children, nothing tying me to anything. 

Talk to people, build your network.  No one succeeds alone.  The last piece of advice I’d have is that building a network for friends, mentors, and coaches who you trust and who can support, advise and help you.  This is a must-do.  Spend time on this, reach out and seek ideas, get feedback, and listen.

 

Good luck. 

Filed under: business, career management, mba career advice

A new grad’s dilemma: start-up or bigco?

Last night I attended a social mixer in San Francisco, attended several hundred young professionals representing alums from a bunch of schools.  It was the first one of these I’d attended up in San Francisco, and it did a lot of good to reinforce several of the impressions we’ve had of the Bay Area during the first year we’ve lived here.  People were really welcoming, social, and friendly.  Relatively less attitude than you’d likely find elsewhere.

As I was mingling, I got into several conversations with current undergrads, grad students and recent alums, which tended towards a similar theme around career management.  Namely: should I go to a big company or join a start-up?

The thing I’ve noticed as I’ve spoken to people with this question and as I’ve read advice about this on blogs and so forth is that there’s this rather stark line that gets drawn.

The narrative here is familiar.  Generally parents and other stakeholders who might be more risk averse tend to advocate strongly for the BigCo.  They rightly see the benefits of getting a brand on the resume, having a stable income, and building out a set of contacts and useful skills and experiences.  That the parents have often footed a hefty bill to get the kid through school, this urge is understandable.

On the other end, there are a host of bloggers and advice givers who advocate strongly that the absolute best time to work at a start-up is right out of school.  You’re young, your burn-rate’s low, you’ll learn, and you can always go to a bigger company later.

This approach reminds me a lot more of this, and in my view does a real disservice to the individual trying to make some hard and important decisions in his or her life.

So what’s the right answer–which makes more sense for a hungry young professional bouncing out of undergrad, grad school, or even a few years at something like consulting?

The only logical answer with something as individualized as your personal carer path is: it totally depends.  Having worked both in a big enterprise (Microsoft) and now currently at a start-up, I’d say both have benefits and opportunities.   Both can benefit you at different points in our career.  And different people can find either optimal at different points in her career.

The real question then is what makes sense for the person right now?  What are the most important and useful question to answer when thinking through which approach makes more sense given where one individual is right now?  This is a classic ‘no answers, just more questions’ type of thing, but at the end of the day, there are too many individualized situational factors to give a straight up or down answer.

With that in mind, here’s my attempt at putting together the best questions I can think of that will help someone thinking about which direction to head.  I’m coming at this assuming you have considering approaching companies that may be large or start-ups.   Specifically, I’m writing this as though I had an offer from both types of firms and these would be the questions I’d try to parse as it related to my own individual career management.  If you’re not getting answers to these questions, I’d suggest you should.

1. At which company will you have a greater opportunity to learn new, useful things? Basically, the point here is to get really specific and concrete about what you’ll be on track to learn or experience over the course of a period of time.  Big companies will generally be able to articulate this to some level of concreteness, but definitely drill in on them.  Talk to others who’ve been there for a year or two and get a sense of what they think they’ve learned.  In smaller companies, ask the same question and press on this.   Know that small companies are by definition more fluid and may be less specific.  Still, beware of leaders who roll their eyes and say ‘we’re on a rocketship–you’ll learn what it’s like to go to the moon!!!”  (Unless you’re talking to Facebook and about 3 other start-ups of that ilk.)  In general though, if the start-up guy you speak to can’t at least fake some concrete, articulate things you might learn, then he may well be a coconut.  Working for coconuts at big companies or small companies is no fun and not good for your career–avoid.
2. Find out who you’d likely be working for and determine his/her track record on people development. People development is a vital task for both big company and small company leaders.  Understanding very specifically who the person is and what their value systems are as it pertains to managing people and developing talent.  Some start-ups and high tech companies will make the case that they’re growing too fast to deal with people development.  This is bogus–if you hear this case being made, I’d count that as a big red flag.  You may decide to still work there, but do it with eyes open.
3. Determine which business you’re more likely to run yellow lights to get to in the morning. At the end of the day, to build a great career, you’ve got to build a great track record.  To build a great track record, you’ve got to pay the piper–you’ve got to work hard.  I’d argue that to do great things you’ve got to love what you do to put in the dedicated time and passion to make it happen.  Given

that, then the gut check of which company or which opportunity gets you more fired up is a simple but super important factor to weigh.  You and only you can answer this question.  No blogger and no parent can really take this on

4. Finally, in which opportunity will you have an opportunity to build out a useful network of people.   One thing that’s become apparent in my time an entrepreneur–your network is super important.  I’ve been pretty shocked at how many people have been in Silicon Valley for decades and who know relatively few people.  Given the loosely coupled nature of getting companies going and started, etc., having a broad group of people that can help connect you with ideas, talent, and is massively important.  While you’d think there’d be a stock answer here–advantage small company–I don’t think there is.  The fact is that people who work at networking, whereever they are, do better than people who don’t.  Now I’m not saying be a LinkedIn troll or whatever, but definitely pay attention to the sense of how you’ll build connections in a given organiation.

So those are my 4 basic questions that I’d suggest you answer as you weigh which opportnity–start-up or big co you might head down.  There are obviously a host of other important, relevant question around job role, salary, location, etc., which I’m not going to touch.  My sense is that those are the questions and factors everyone weighs.  The ones above are in my mind the ones that can help you sift through the many good ideas that are out there on guiding your career and hlep you start to make a good and well reasoned decision that will meet your own best personal interest.

Cheers, and if i can be of any help, please reach out at jeremiah.s.jamison [at] gmail [dot] com.

Filed under: career management, mba career advice , career management, mba career advice

PPT vs Working Code : Lessons for BigCos & Start-ups

Fred Wilson’s post here is spot on, based on my experience as an entrepreneur.  ‘Having code’ > “Not having code’ by a country mile. 

There was a great saying that rock-star coders I knew at MSFT would use at times: “The code doesn’t lie.”  Reinforces the point, and in my view makes Fred’s assertion stronger.

Having worked now as an entrepreneur for a few months after a decade at a big co, what’s weird to me is the relative usage and implied value of ‘good decks’ at big co’s, relative to trying to get a company started, where it’s all about the code. 

In the end, most meetings you have in BigCo (all due respect to my fellow softies out there) are less ‘bet the company’ occurrences.  They’re updates, discussions, whatever in the vastly safe environment of being all in the same company, often with people you’ve worked with over a long period of time. 

With a start-up, meetings are literally life-and-death.  And what’s more, you’re often meeting people whom you don’t have years of experience with.  (I’m meeting folks basically for the first or second times.)

And yet, I’ve had many meetings in start-up land where we don’t even look at the PPT.  At MSFT, conversely, all anyone cared about was what was literally printed on the slides.

What’s a BigCo to do: I think two things–both apply to start-ups too

1) Enforce Guy K’s 10/20/30 rule.  If you’re going to use PPT, follow Guy’s rules.

2) Always ‘bring a demo.’  That could be an interactive ad (for the mktg people), a playback of support calls (customer support), or good old fashioned coding (for the engineers) 

A VC: Powerpoint vs Working Code?

Filed under: business, career management, entrepreneurship, internet, mba career advice

Career advice for MBAs looking to go into tech : the first 90 day plan

With technology on a strong run, and hints of bubble 2.0 many upcoming MBA graduates are looking increasingly to get into tech after graduation. I have an MBA, no engineering experience, and I’ve worked in technology for a decade. Actually, when I started at MSFT in 1998, I was in the Windows Server group. On Day 1, I wasn’t quite sure what a server was. Since then, I’ve worked closely with engineers in all phases of software development. I’ve read, heard and experienced directly some of the negative biases people in the tech industry have towards MBAs who lack technical degrees. At its extreme, you may hear some claiming that the MBA’s worthless and that there’s a high bozo factor, etc., etc.

Though I totally value the engineers and I understand this bias, I also know this bias can be overcome. Having a focus on building a business, leading people and connecting with customers are all vitally important skills in the mix of a technology team. This provides the opportunity for MBAs to deliver vitally important value and leadership into these teams. To be sure, however, much of the feedback engineers and technical minds will give is valid–this is not to ignore that, but to prepare the non-technical MBA with the mindset, tools, and resources to begin to deal effectively with the issue.

This post focuses on how to think about and plan for the first 90 days of your new role post-bschool. I’ve tried to keep this broad, as you might join a company with vastly different technologies in vastly different functions. Still, in my mind, there are some key themes that are useful for anyone looking to have a strong start–no matter which tech firm, no matter which role. This post aims to summarize those briefly.

First off, from the standing on the shoulders of giants category, if you are at any point in your career (undergrad, high school, MBA, post-MBA), Marc Andreessen’s posts on career planning are world-class and must read. I find this a useful and very broad thinking piece, helpful to think about at many phases of one’s career.

Second, when starting at a tech firm, get your hands on your company’s technology as soon as possible, and get to know as much as you can about it first-hand. When I started in the Windows Server Product Management group, the first thing I asked to do was get a copy of Windows Server and I set up a network in my office. I did this, had DHCP, DNS, file/print, built a bunch of the walk-through demos, and so on. This was super useful. It demystified a bunch, and it gave me a real sense of what the product did. Moreover, it also gave me a great sense of what the product didn’t do–namely how difficult it was to get stuff setup, how hard it was to use, how difficult to find the right documentation, etc. So if you’ll work at Cisco, Google, Foo or Bar, whatever–get your hands on the technologies they build and use them, use them, use them. From my experience, especially in IT-focused software groups, few MBAs had actually spent time installing and using hte software. It’s hard to be effective if you’ve not done that. I’d recommend no matter what kind of company or product you work on, you’ve got to know the products inside out. Find a way to make that happen.

Next, do whatever you can to get to know customers and what they think of your products. Customers are everything. In my last job at MSFT, I worked in Japan running our Windows business there. The Japanese language has a whole different set of language indicators and status indicators for “customers” as a class. It’s awesome–it drives home in a way that I’ve never seen the level of importance the customer’s input has on a company. This is good learning–the customer is king. You want engineers and the powers that be at your company to respect you–don’t point to your MBA, point to your knowledge and first-hand conversations with customers. If your engineers think they know all the important customers (e.g., they know all the big Wall Street Banks), then go find some mid-market customers and get chummy with them. Build a deep, clear voice and expertise of the customer, and you’ll never have a problem being seen as a bozo.

After that, learn to communicate effectively with engineers. There really should be a class on this offered at B-school–how to communicate effectively between Engineering and Business groups. At the core of any technology company is the fundamental opportunity of shrinking the distance between the customer and what they want and the engineers and what they build. This fundamental issue and challenge covers all companies. It highlights why VCs like Sequoia will show a strong preference towards founders who are also users of the product their building (this shrinks the distance!). If you are not the founder/engineer/customer, then your job is to make the distance between what customers want / business strategy requires and what engineers can build. This is not about strategic objectives, it’s also generally not about MBA-speak. It’s about concrete, data-oriented language that is crisp, concrete. The thing you as an MBA want an engineer to think when you communicate with them is this: they understand how what you have told them helps them build a better product. If you can’t do that, then in my experience, good engineers will not have much patience with you.

In my view this skill is not taught well at all in b-school today. This is unfortunate, as I think that this is where I think most of bozosity sentiment comes from in tech firms–i.e., engineers think their mba counterparts speak at a level that’s not crisp or helpful for them. I have no easy way to describe to a non-technical MBA how to gain this communication skill with engineers, but I cannot recommend highly enough that you invest time building it. In my experience, start with the steps I outline above. Then I’d recommend getting yourself as close to engineers as you can in the workplace. Understand how they work, what they do all day, how they take input. If you do this, and use your brain, you’ll get there.

Finally, have fun. Technology in my view is a blast of a place to work. It brings me joy every day to be in this industry and to watch and work on such amazing things.

career, mba career advice

Filed under: career management, mba career advice