Does All This Talk of Outsourcing Mean I Should Choose a Different Career?

There are a bunch of variations on my philosophy, but they all boil down to the old adage, “Do what you love, and the money will follow.”

It sounds trite and unrealistic, but in my experience, it’s true.

In a way, it’s how I came to find computer programming myself, and later, it was what I looked for in people I was interviewing as potential hires.

It’s all about passion.

When I entered the University of Washington, I was placed in the College of Electrical Engineering because I had expressed an interest in electronics on my university application. (The college raised their entrance standards shortly thereafter; it wasn’t enough to express interest.) One of the required courses in my second year was an introduction to programming (ENGR 141: Introduction to Fortran, to be exact). I’d never touched a computer before, and I aced that class and helped a couple of others through as well.

I’d found my passion.

I’d be working with computers even if I wasn’t paid to do it. The fact that I was (“You mean people will pay me to do this? Cool!”) was an added bonus that allowed me to focus on what I really enjoyed: computer programming and related endeavors.

The fact is, when I retired from Microsoft a few years ago, I fully expected to no longer be paid for practicing my passion. And yet, opportunities arose — opportunities I took advantage of such that once again I’m earning a comfortable living doing what I love.

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How you get there isn’t nearly as important as that you get there.

By that, I mean that your knowledge and abilities, and your passion and willingness to learn, are much more important than your education. If you can code the deep internals of some complex operating system device driver, I don’t care that you started in cooking school. Granted, you’re not likely to get operating system design instruction in cooking school, which is why a Computer Science degree is the “normal” way to get there. But ultimately, if you have the skills, it shouldn’t really matter how you got them.

It shouldn’t matter. The problem is that for many businesses, it does.

When faced with a ton of resumes to look at each day, many large companies filter on the easy: no degree in Computer Science? Not worth looking at. And from a large company’s point of view, it makes sense. With many people competing for the same job, they have to prioritize where they invest their time examining candidates. And yes, statistically speaking, they’re more likely to find a good computer programmer by looking at those with C.S. degrees than those with Culinary Arts papers.

Besides avoiding the large companies that take that approach, this is also where your passion can guide you, because beyond education comes experience.

Start doing the work. If it really is your passion, just start doing it. Do it for yourself. Do it for your church, or donate your efforts to some other organization. Get a job at that silly start-up that is totally clueless, won’t make it, and doesn’t pay enough, but will let you build the skills and experience you need and want.

Build a track record. Show that you can do the job by doing the job.

That’s passion.

And as your experience, track record, passion, and confidence all grow, so will the opportunities in front of you.

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But what about outsourcing?

Outsourcing just means that the talent pool got bigger. Technology has allowed certain types of work to be done remotely. So what?

There’s always been competition. And the cream always rises to the top.

As with any competition, the winners are those who differentiate themselves with skills, abilities, and characteristics that others cannot. Be better at what you do, be more literate, more reliable, more accessible, more innovative, whatever. There are always ways to make yourself more valuable than the competition.

And it doesn’t matter if the competition is next door or half a world away.

I keep coming back to passion because I firmly believe that if you have the passion to do the work, you’ll naturally achieve it. And you’ll have fun doing it!

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But what about aptitude?

I think it’s rare that people enjoy doing things that they’re not already fundamentally good at, have an aptitude for, or have the potential to become good at. We enjoy doing things because they “click”; they call to something inside we resonate with.

We like it.

I’m guessing that because you said “I am very much interested in learning all I can about computers, and love tinkering around with them…” that you’re well on your way. The next step is simple: keep pressing forward. Take more classes, do the work, learn all you can, try projects, and you’ll soon see if it’s coming together for you.

It’ll be work; a lot of work. But it won’t feel like it.

You’ll feel it in your gut.

And, you’re right: if you keep hitting your head against the wall and find yourself saying “this doesn’t make sense”, it may not be the career for you. But from what you’ve said so far, I’d be surprised.

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Why are so many not getting hired?

It’s hard to make blanket statements, but I’ll throw out a few ideas.

• They’re looking for a “job”. They’re looking for something they can do from 9 to 5 and then forget about. In an environment where there are a lot of people looking for work, you can bet that employers are looking for those who love to do the work and can’t wait to get into it, not those who can’t wait for quitting time.
• They’re aiming too high too soon. Graduating college is a major accomplishment; I don’t mean to belittle it. But it’s not a free ride to a high-paying job. Many graduates believe their abilities warrant a higher-level, higher-paying job, so that’s all they’re willing to look for. And they’re often disappointed.
• They’re applying for the wrong job. The fact that your passion and expertise is in, for example, writing HTML, or perhaps generating cool semi-complex interactive webpages, will not get you a job as a systems programmer, where the expertise requires much more intricate and low-level programming. My favorite example from years ago was individuals who built up expertise writing programs in Visual Basic, and then didn’t understand why Microsoft wouldn’t hire them to work on Visual Basic. It’s an entirely different kind of skillset.
• They just aren’t that good. Many people don’t get hired because they’re not as good as they think they are when compared to the job requirements. Sometimes it’s because of any of the previous points, but it’s also those who’ve “just scraped by” in school who just don’t compare favorably to others who are available for the same job.

There are obviously lots of reasons why people don’t get hired, but those, to me, are the biggies that really get in the way of people making progress within their careers.

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At the risk of beating the word to death, it’s all about passion.

If you find something you truly love to do, you’ll be inspired to learn more, do more, and do it better. In fact, that passion will set up a virtuous circle of learning, doing, and improving that will continually make you more valuable at what you do every day.

If you don’t enjoy what you’re doing — if what you’re looking at doesn’t speak to you, doesn’t make you want to stay up late and get up early just so you can do it more — it might be time to reassess.

I know it’s not always practical to pick it all up and refocus, but in the long run, work that you feel passionate about can only reward you in many, many ways.