Category: Career

Studying for the 70-767 to earn the MCSE

I really only planned on writing about the 70-767 in one post rather than two, but I thought this post may help other people while I continually study for my 70-767 exam. Microsoft is retiring the 70-767 and many other exams on January 31 2021. This is significant for several reasons:

  1. The exams were originally set to be retired by June 30 2020
  2. You will not be able to achieve an MCSA or MCSE after the dates
  3. Microsoft is changing how they design the certifications to be role-based involving Azure technology
Continue reading “Studying for the 70-767 to earn the MCSE”

T-SQL Tuesday #122 – Imposter Syndrome wrap up

I want to thank everyone who participated in this month’s #TSQL2SDAY! There are new folks starting their journey towards a new career every day and I believe that these stories can honestly help many individuals. Thank you, Steve Jones – (b|t) for letting me host this month and thank you Adam Machanic for starting this blog party back in 2009.

Overall, we had 27 individuals post or share their Imposter Syndrome stories and thoughts. I had a lot of great reading to do this week and weekend.

WriterSummary
Mala Mahadevan Mala shares her experiences and thoughts on Imposter Syndrome. She gives us five strategies to help keep us in the moment and be authentic to ourselves.
Todd KleinhansTodd shares his experiences with Imposter Syndrome and relates it to other experiences he’s had in life. He ends his post with final advice to padawans who may be experiencing Imposter Syndrome.
Rob FarleyAfter a mind-bending paradox, Rob dives into what Imposter Syndrome is like as a Microsoft SQL Server MVP and offers his solution to dealing with Imposter Syndrome.
Aaron BertrandAaron discusses how his career evolved and the various hats worn that forced him to work outside his comfort zone. He ends with solid advice and an image of a very suspect doggo.
Taiob AliTaiob shares how Imposter Syndrome affected his career and how his career evolved out of it. He also provides many fantastic links to resources that discuss and provide suggestions for Imposter Syndrome.
Martin SuraskyMartin discusses “YouTube syndrome”, the future of the next generation, and personal experiences. Final advice is offered by Martin and summarized with a quote from Ira Glass.
Lisa Griffin Bohm Lisa brings up the philosophy behind Imposter Syndrome while discussing how everyone differs in life. She ends with a positive message of encouragement to all those beginning their journey through Imposter Syndrome.
Jason BrimhallJason gives us a list of all the real imposters in the SQL community. Not really actually, but he does provide us with a very pragmatic approach to working through Imposter Syndrome. There are also some links to additional help dealing with Imposter Syndrome.
Kevin ChantKevin writes about when he’s experienced Imposter Syndrome and what the effects were on his work, specifically his phenomenal (whoops, spoilers) video: SQL Server related services in Azure. He ends with final advice on how to cope with Imposter Syndrome.
Deborah Melkin#BeLikeDeb, is my new resolution for the year after reading Deborah’s article. Deb talks about her experiences with Imposter Syndrome and gives us a great link to Mindy Curnett’s PASS presentation on this topic. The article ends with some sage advice.
Jess PomfretJess gives us great advice and insight into dealing with Imposter Syndrome. There is especially great advice if you are a speaker or want to get into speaking but feel like you aren’t up to par.
Taryn PrattThe article describes the challenges posed by Imposter Syndrome when Taryn arrived back to work at StackOverflow as a DBA. Taryn ends the post with final thoughts and ideas to overcome Imposter Syndrome.
Chris Voss; WITH ARTICLE ( SELECT [Chris shares two explicit experiences about Imposter Syndrome] FROM TSQL2SDAYPOST)
SELECT
[Suggestions and ways Chris resolved his Imposter Syndrome towards the end]
FROM ARTICLE
Sander StadSander summarizes their experiences meeting their idols on SQL Cruise and offers critical advice to anyone experiencing Imposter Syndrome. In fact, the experience Sander had is exactly the experience that led me to have this as an idea for TSQL2SDAY.
Nate JohnsonNate shares server migration pains and feeling the burn of Imposter Syndrome. After an entertaining read through Nate’s experiences, he summarizes some help for those who may be feeling inadequate at their job.
Andy YunAndy tackles Imposter Syndrome with assurance, self-examination, two core values, and a paradigm shift. It’s a quick read but has mountains of golden advice interlaced.
Shane O’NeillThe article talks about the moments where Imposter Syndrome sets in and also where Shane feels the most comfortable. I’m sure many people will be able to relate to this post.
Melissa ConnorsHere we read about Melissa’s experience where she was afraid to be found out as a fraud, only to discover a workplace paradigm that emboldens its employees. Melissa offers reading material and various resources to help overcome Imposter Syndrome as well as a fantastic idea for a series of printed stickers.
Leslie AndrewsLeslie shares how even Idera Ace’s and frequent presenters succumb to Imposter Syndrome. Leslie ends with some philosophic thoughts and what things help them perservere through those Imposter Syndrome feelings.
Kenneth FisherKenneth gives us a viewpoint into Imposter Syndrome and how he deals with those feelings. With a mindset adjustment, Kenneth keeps on swimming and gives their final tips
Drew Skwiers-KoballaDrew gives you three great tips for combatting Imposter Syndrome as well as a suggestion for your workplace. A quick but helpful read with some immediately actionable items.
Andy LevyHave you ever felt alone at work? Andy has, especially since he was the only DBA at his job. He writes about his experiences with Imposter Syndrome and how he pulls himself up again to deliver a great experience for his customers.
Elizabeth NobleElizabeth talks about the community and how they have helped with dealings of Imposter Syndrome. From role models to helping friends, there’s a good story to read here.
Shawn OdenShawn takes us down memory road where one career begets another. Once Imposter Syndrome takes over, he loops, rolls, spins, and hammerheads his way through. As with other participants, it seems as though he has found his inner voice to help qualm Imposter Syndrome.
Eugene MeidingerEugene also tackles this matter pragmatically and gives set directions for how he resolves his own Imposter Syndrome. You’ll read about his experiences and at the end he summarizes his suggestions nicely.
Allan HirtAllan gives us his take on Imposter Syndrome and shares a story “Closer To The Heart” in a different approach from many of the other articles. It features a close correlation between his life as a “Working Man” and the band Rush. He ties these two “Subdivisions” together neatly and ends with helpful advice.
Andrew PruskiAndrew gets a honorable mention here. It’s not a post made on T-SQL Tuesday, but it’s relatable all the same. Here Andrew gives us another view on Imposter Syndrome and suggests it’s more of a blessing than a curse.
I’m not quite sure how I got to where I am and now I’m too scared to ask for help. #ImposterSyndrome

T-SQL Tuesday #122 – Imposter Syndrome

As we enter the new year, I’m sure many of us are setting goals, resolutions, or perhaps beginning new challenges. Change can often be terrifying, but that’s how we grow. With this in mind, the topic I’d like us to write about this month is “Imposter Syndrome”.

Imposter syndrome isn’t a topic I’ve seen addressed before via T-SQL Tuesday and this is an issue I’ve commonly seen in the IT industry.

Imposter Syndrome – The persistent inability to believe that one’s success is deserved or has been legitimately achieved as a result of one’s own efforts or skills.

https://www.lexico.com/definition/impostor_syndrome

I can assure you that if you have felt this way before, you are not alone. People in the community who I would consider experts have stated they felt (and sometimes still feel) imposter syndrome. These are people with more experience than years I’ve existed on this planet and they still feel this way. Coincidentally, this triggers my own imposter syndrome when I think about that.

T-SQL Tuesday Topic

I want to read your stories about when you’ve experienced, seen, or overcome imposter syndrome! Was there a job that you felt you were ill-prepared for? Did you make a mistake or did someone say something that made you question if you were a true data professional? Maybe there was a particular task you ran into that made you question your experience? Did you resolve your tasks and succeed in your job? How did you overcome that feeling of being an imposter and solve your challenges? Maybe you haven’t experienced it yourself but you saw someone who was feeling imposter syndrome, were you able to help them?

You can be technical or non-technical with this post, the goal is to share experiences to help those also experiencing imposter syndrome. Maybe you are still feeling it, sometimes walking through your challenges can help you brainstorm solutions.

T-SQL Tuesday Rules

Here are the T-SQL Tuesday rules and a quick summary:

  1. Stay on-topic.
  2. Use the T-SQL Tuesday logo, and link it back to this post.
    1. Trackbacks should work, but if you don’t see yours on this post, please put a link to your post in the comments section.
  3. Publish your post between 0000 and 2359 UTC on 2020-01-14.
  4. If you have Twitter, you can tweet your post with the #tsql2sday hashtag

Do you want to host T-SQL Tuesday?

If you would like to host a T-SQL Tuesday you can read the rules on the T-SQL Tuesday site and ask Steve Jones if you can host.

Hurray! I earned my CDMP!

On 11/10/2019, I earned my CDMP (Certified Data Management Professional) certification! This certificate comes from an organization called DAMA which I’ve recently written about. Today’s post is more about the preparation and experience of taking the Data Management Fundamentals Exam. I would recommend starting by reading out what DAMA is and circle back here if you are unfamiliar with it.

Continue reading “Hurray! I earned my CDMP!”

T-SQL Tuesday #120 What were you thinking?

Thank you Wayne for hosting this month’s T-SQL Tuesday! Wayne shared last year a story where he had to reverse engineer a complex hierarchy pattern within a table. The developers appeared to do this to obfuscate how the software operated. This left him asking, “What were you thinking?” So this month, we are discussing stories that left you asking that same question.

Continue reading “T-SQL Tuesday #120 What were you thinking?”

Lessons from conferences

This month I’ve attended SQL Saturday in Denver along with the Pre-Con event featuring Steve Jones and Kendra Little who discuss continuous integration and development. I’ve also attended the Teradata Universe conference in Denver, so it’s been a very busy month. Besides trying to catch up on email and work between sessions, I’ve been trying to summarize material into educational and actionable items for my customers.

I would like to share with you three sayings and some examples around them that I heard at these conferences. I think these phrases have a lot of insight to them and I hope you can take something productive away from this.

Continue reading “Lessons from conferences”

T-SQL Tuesday #119 Changing my mind

Thank you Alex Yates for this month’s topic!

Something I’ve changed my mind on recently is working on contracting projects instead of performing work directly for a company. Very recently I had a (good) problem of choosing between a few different job roles and companies. The choice was not easy and two years ago I told myself I’d never do contract work again. I’m not talking about starting an S-Corp or an LLC but working for a company that contracts your work out to another company. I have also in the past changed my mind about how I update rows in critical systems and whether you can ROLLBACK a TRUNCATE statement (in SQL Server).

Continue reading “T-SQL Tuesday #119 Changing my mind”

Upcoming blog content

A lot of the content on my website is a mix of technical and conceptual. Over the next few months to probably the end of the year, I’m going to focus on more conceptual articles. The majority of them will cover my experience and time spent learning and working on certifications.

My goal is to achieve my CDMP (Certified Data Management Professionals) Associate certification and my MCSE (Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert) in Data Management and Analytics by the end of the year. These goals are relatively intensive in coordination with my new(ish) job that I accepted in June. Due to the intensity, I’ve pushed the work back on some technical articles and presentations I’ve been working on. So in order to keep up with frequent postings, I’ll be creating those two series of articles related to obtaining certifications.

The end result should be a series of studying articles and a final wrap up post describing my journey achieving the certs. I do have multiple technical projects planned in the pipeline to write about and distribute afterward. Creating a resume dashboard in PowerBI with ETL packages digesting data from LinkedIn is one. The other project is to create a business glossary generator with PowerShell.

T-SQL Tuesday #118 My fantasy SQL features

T-SQL Tuesday #118
T-SQL Tuesday #118

Thank you Kevin for hosting this month’s T-SQL Tuesday! It’s an interesting topic to reflect on features we wish we saw in SQL Server. I’m excited to read some of the other ideas and maybe we’ll see one or two get pushed out in the future!

I have three features I’d love to see from SQL Server. Two of these mostly exist already, but they are not easy to utilize. I wish so badly that SQL Server could generate smart Entity Relation Diagrams (ERD) and documentation. Really, I wish it could create the artifacts the way Redgate does. If I had a third feature to wish for while knowing it would be unrealistic, but I’d love if they had a feature to change the culture of a workplace.

Continue reading “T-SQL Tuesday #118 My fantasy SQL features”

Develop your career – Brand yourself!

This post should really be titled “Obtaining interviews – Building your portfolio”, but I honestly think the current title is better. (Both are still true!) Now, a lot of people are going to tell me that they don’t need to make themselves a brand to land a great job. I’m going to say that you’re right, but I’m also going to say that it’s easier when you do.

Continue reading “Develop your career – Brand yourself!”