career improvement – Page 2

T-SQL Tuesday #059 – My Hero

It turns out that Tuesday, October 14th, the day your contributions are due, is also Ada Lovelace Day. As you probably know, Ada Lovelace was one of the first female computer programmers (considered by many to be the FIRST computer programmer). If you didn’t know that, here’s your chance to learn some history of our industry. Wendy suggested that we take advantage of this date and do some sort of a tribute to Ada. I agreed, and here we are.

Your Assignment

Ada Lovelace has been an inspiration to many. In keeping with my blog theme, let’s call her a hero. We all have our heroes, those people who we admire, who inspire us, who we strive to be like. Who is your hero?

Your assignment is to acknowledge, in writing, your hero (or heroes). You don’t have to mention them by name if you’re not comfortable doing so, but you do have to tell us how you met them, how they have inspired you, and what qualities or traits of theirs you have striven to adopt.

T-SQL Tuesday #054 – Interviews and Hiring

Invitation and summary from Boris Hristov.

My idea here is to hear from you anything related to interviews and hiring SQL Server professionals. That could be any of those below:

The story of how did you get hired on your latest position?
The most interesting interview you ever had?
How do you think an interview should be handled? What should it include?
Any “algorithms” of how to find the perfect candidate?
If you are the one that leads the technical interview – what do you focus on?
What are the most important questions to ask for the various SQL Server positions out there?
Any combinations of those above?
Anything else you’d love to share…

T-SQL Tuesday #042 – The Long and Winding Road

Invitation from Wendy Pastrick. No roundup.

Here’s what I thought it would be fun to share with the community this time around – we all experience change in our work lives. Maybe you have a new job, or a new role at your company. Maybe you’re just getting started and you have a road map to success in mind. Whatever it is, please share it next week, Tuesday May 14th. Make sure you note what technologies you find are key to your interests or successes, and maybe you will inspire someone to look down a road less traveled.

One thing I think would be great to see included in these stories is to hear about how you always thought technology “X” was so awesome, and either it lived up to the hype for you, or maybe it morphed into something else over time. Let’s make these stories about the tech and how that has led you down a certain path.

T-SQL Tuesday #32 – A Day in the Life

Invitat i on and roundup from Erin Stellato .

When we were kids, sometime during elementary school, adults started asking, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” The professions initially mentioned varied, but they were often along the lines of teacher, doctor, nurse, fireman, policeman, singer, engineer, etc. Obviously these are not the only professions in the world. There are so many different occupations that exist, that whenever I meet someone, I usually ask what they do. It’s not unusual for someone to list a title I’ve never heard (Improvement Coordinator is one I heard the other day). But a title doesn’t tell me what that person does. Even when someone’s a doctor or a teacher, there are so many variations nowadays that I always follow up with, “Well what do you do every day?” And I ask because I really want to know. So tell me…

This month’s T-SQL Tuesday post is about you and your job. Specifically, on Wednesday July 11^th or Thursday July 12^th, track what you do for an entire day and then write about it. Hopefully one of those days is a “typical” day and not a vacation day (if it is, then just pick another day or do your best), but ideally, everyone writes about what they did on one specific day.

The scope of this topic is wide open, you don’t have to simply list what you did – feel free to elaborate on what tasks you love or don’t love, your favorite or least favorite part of the day. Make the post as non-technical or technical as you want (maybe you learned something new that was really cool). My only request is that you list your official title, as I plan to include them in some way in my summary post.

T-SQL Tuesday #31 – Logging

Invitation from Aaron Nelson.

I’m excited to be hosting this month’s T-SQL Tuesday. This month we’re talking about logging. Logging comes in many form and fashions. If you think about it, when you go to the grocery store with at big list, Do you put the items in the cart and then check them off the list? If so, isn’t that a kind of write-ahead log?

I point that out because I don’t want anyone to constrain themselves to talking about logging within just SQL Server. Please bring your ideas for file transfers, report generating, performance gathering, uptime monitoring and the like. But don’t stop there! This is an open invite to anyone that does anything in the SQL Server community.

If Karla Landrum ( blog | twitter ) wants to explain to us how on Earth she keeps track of all these SQL Saturdays around the world, that’s logging! If Tim Radney ( blog | twitter ) wants to tell us how he makes sure he keeps in touch with all of the chapters he’s responsible for as a PASS Regional Mentor, that’s logging!

How you keep track of blog ideas, white papers you read, or however it is you life-hack *your* SQL world: please share it with us!

T-SQL Tuesday #014 – RESOLUTIONS

Invitation and summary from Sean McCown.

OK, it’s time for TSQLTuesday again and Jen’s making me write something since we’re hosting this month. So the topic is resolutions, and that in itself isn’t a topic that’s near and dear to me because frankly I just don’t believe in them. I don’t think you have to wait until a new year begins to resolve to do something you’ve been meaning to do. In fact, that pretty much dooms you to not completing it because it takes more than the turning of a calendar page and a romantic notion to accomplish something. If it were really that easy, you would have done it already so it wouldn’t be a big deal.

Your new year can start anytime really. Hell, doing a new year’s resolution doesn’t even line up with my review period at work, so if I relied on the new year to start something new I’d lose 3mos making good on what I’m supposed to accomplish for work. People in IT quite often put personal goals in their yearly goals at work. Things like getting certified, or perfecting a process, or taking management classes, etc are all things that are commonly found in your yearly goals at work. So if you’re going to make some kind of resolution to do something, or to stop doing something, why not put it where it actually makes more sense… in your work goals. Your bonus quite often relies on you completing your goals so it’s really the perfect place. And it gives you a better excuse to have the resolution to begin with because you can use the bonus as motivation.

So even if you’re going to make a resolution at work, try to make it something you can actually do. One of the biggest reasons for failure is someone will set a goal that’s completely ridiculous for them and when the goal starts slipping they get discouraged and just give up. I’d like to get my MCM this year, but I don’t even have any of the lower certs yet. Well, chances are you’re not going to make it dude.