This is an interesting question.

Some employers that I have worked for have encouraged continuing education, and becoming more skilled in certain areas, and other companies almost discourage that because that would get in the way of work. That would be the short sighted versus long sighted approach. Some environments want brilliant, experienced people and others want a warm body to fill a seat in the office.

In almost any tech position, learning more about specific topics will generally lead to you as the employee providing more value. For instance, if you have your annual review coming up and you are looking for something more than just a cost of living adjustment, your skills may impact that.

Imagine your annual review going one of two ways:

1. Your employer telling you that you need to learn more about …
2. You explaining to your employer that you completed trainings, and now know more about SQL Server than you did last year at this time. You argue that those skills make you more valuable.

The reality is that even if your employer does not realize that those additional skills make you more valuable, the job marketplace does.

Years ago I worked with a developer who had been thrown into some specific database programming areas that he did not have experience with. His code certainly showed that. I worked with him to help him understand what he was lacking, and that it needed improvement. The only thing he found was week long conference in Rio de Janeiro, that after considering flights, hotels, travel time, and the costs of the conference, was well over $10,000 (US). The company at that point was not willing to pay that for him, but they certainly would have paid a few hundred even a couple thousand dollars for him to learn, but he was not interested. Several months later he was let go by management because he was not willing to learn.

There was a meme that I saw not long ago that stated “Change is Inevitable, Evolution is Optional”, which really reminded me of this story.

It the ever changing world of IT, things are changing every day, new technologies, new SQL Server versions, new ways to do things, and evolution is optional.

If you want to improve your SQL Server skills, here are some of our classes to help with that:

Getting Started with SQL Server – $19.99

Microsoft TSQL JOIN Types – $29.99

SQL Serve Backup and Restore – $99/year or $119/lifetime access

Using Database Health Monitor – $99/year or $189/lifetime access

Ransomware Awareness – FREE

 

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