Latest Posts - Page 94 of 198

May 11, 2020May 5, 2020 Mastering Your Career

Giving Back And Building a Brand

We have often looked at ways to provide content as part of a side-hustle. Thus, we will skip that topic this time around. Instead, let’s look at giving back and providing things for free. However, before you move to the next article, we will focus on how free to others does not mean it lacks value for you. We might even see situations where an altruistic approach is very beneficial to us and our brand. Start With Giving Back Before we look at the benefit of this type of action, we should focus on what we are doing. The goal for tasks like we discuss in this episode is to share our experience with others. This process is how we... Read more

May 8, 2020April 26, 2020 Mastering Your Career

Mastering Skills In Under Ten Thousand Hours

There is a well-known book that describes mastery of skills as needing ten thousand hours. The ideas put forth in the book have many arguments for and against, but that is for another time. In this episode, we look at ways for mastering skills in under the ten thousand hours mentioned in the Outliers book. This theory is critical for our daily exercises in getting better because we do want to reach mastery at some point. Complementary Skills We can assume that there is some amount of hours typically needed to master a skill. Likewise, many skills are related in ways that allow us to learn multiple skills in less time. The whole hours required are less than the sum... Read more

May 6, 2020April 26, 2020 Mastering Your Career

Mixing Side-hustle Tasks With Your Daily Job – Overlap Benefits

Time is arguably our most valuable resource. We can not buy extra time. We can only spend it as wisely as possible. That means we need to be mindful of the cost of our daily tasks for getting better. Fortunately, that time is not a loss. We can plan out our daily steps to improve in ways that allow us to get more done with little or no additional time spent. One way is mixing side-hustle tasks with your regular job. Killing Two Birds with One Stone We have examined how our side-hustle work and a daily job can overlap. Those tasks we do to improve may help our career while our day job can provide some experience that translates... Read more

May 4, 2020April 25, 2020 Mastering Your Career

Prior Work As a Starting Point For Higher Quality

Our daily work to get better is not without positive side-effects. One of the most powerful of these is the ability for us to build on prior work. These tools can be a huge productivity boost. That is the case whether we are starting with an application baseline or working from a document template. Prior Work Is An Investment Our daily steps to improve and become a better developer will generate deliverables at some point. These may not be highly polished production items we would send to a customer. Nevertheless, they are a start on that type of work. Therefore, our daily work on improving can also be seen as an investment in some yet-to-be-determined future projects. There is no... Read more

May 1, 2020April 19, 2020 Mastering Your Career

Self-Confidence That Comes From Incremental Improvement

A big part of a good interview is self-confidence. Those that answer questions directly and confidently are more likely to impress than those that waver or seem unsure of themselves. While interpersonal skills are often downplayed for technology positions, they are still essential for getting a job offer. Hard Work Equals Self-Confidence One of the complaints we hear that leads to imposter syndrome is a lack of “earning” the respect or position one has. A possible cure for this is the knowledge that you have put in the hard work and “earned” your position. I can think of no better way to do this than to take daily steps towards becoming better. Since we do this as part of our... Read more

April 29, 2020April 18, 2020 Mastering Your Career

Stories Instead of Buzzwords – Showing What You Know

There are numerous guides and articles on how to interview. They all provide some great suggestions. However, I rarely see an essential recommendation for technical interviews. Some technical interviews require dry and detailed answers. Nevertheless, you will make a better impression when you focus on stories instead of buzzwords. We Solve Problems The most important aspect of our skills is how they are used to solve problems. While a series of buzzwords can be useful for a job search, that is not the best way to show your skills. It is good to include those buzzwords in your answers to technical questions, but not sufficient. Turn the simple responses about your skillset into stories about how you used them. For... Read more