Is "moving on" the best way to go?

[Turbo]

I have been told (and seen in some cases) that moving to another job is the best way to increase my income. Of course I am refering to the technical industry. I am a VB programmer wanting to expand my knowledge to internet programming. I have the desire to move on to (1.)make more money and (2.)expand my knowledge base.

Is this the best way to accomplish this?

What is the best way to make this move?

Where is the best place to look to find the job I want?

Please advise,
Turbo

"There is a fine line between confidence and conceit" - Ken Mai

 

[horsefly]

It has been my experience that the two best ways to substantially increase your income (outside the normal here and there raises) are (1) For your current position to be reclassified or (2) To change positions (either whithin the company or elsewhere).

The above are the best way to make more money. As for expanding your knowledge base, it depends on who you work for. Much of this may have to be done on your own. If your employer knows your doing some training yourself they will usually reward you for it when its completed.

I switched jobs early last year but only for a little more money. But my hours are better and I get a good deal of training paid for by the company (I wish for more). The good side is they will let me study at work on things I am paying out of pocket to learn (time permitting). I also got rid of that nasty on-call-always pager. I could always make more money but I think I would be miserable doing it.

I suggest you make a list of goals and a time frame to reach them. Next. write down the positives and negatives of your current job and prospective jobs out there.

The bottom line for me was that I wanted to work somewhere I enjoyed going to each day and a place where I didn't carry work "crap" home for the wife and kids to hear.

I hope some of this helps.


. . . . the grass is always greener on the other side - until you jump the fence!

 

[Karl Blessing]

I am a Programmer/Analyst at my company ( I do VB, ASP, Interdev, C++, VB/Java Script, and other Web-Development related stuff)

In one year 1 month now, I went from (same company here, same position) Above Average Hourly to Salary, and just this month now doing 1.5 times more than my previous salary, so in my experince (it's a smaller company) without changing positions , or promotions (other than the new salary was for being directly placed on the customer's projects now that I have my year of experience in) I feel that in a smaller size company, the way to increase your income, is to increase both knowledge and dedication to the customer, if the customer is happy , your employers are happy
[my salary is actually much better , since they pay for my appartment and utilities]

Especially when your customer is the Employment Security Commision of North Carolina.

if you want a job internet related, then the logical place to start would to place your resume on the internet, post at places like hotjobs.com or monster.com or something of those sorts, you'll probally get a ton of emails if your experience is good (one of the things I didnt have when starting this job was IT experience, just had it as a hobby)

When posting your objective, be very clear what you are looking for. Nothing is worse than getting a job that does indeed pay out more, but is something you are not too favorable of. (why make more money, if you dont like your job)

Also if you just want to give yourself some quick test, I know

http://www.brainbench.com

has some free exams, I take a couple usally to see where I stand, I hope to just go in and take an MCSE exam for Visual Interdev (now that I have a year experience on the platform, last time I took it, I was 50 points behind the 700 point passing marker, and that was just from 2 weeks cram studying without prior knowledge)

In any case good luck.
Karl
kb244@kb244.com

http://www.kb244.com

Experienced in : C++(both VC++ and Borland),VB1(dos) thru VB6, Delphi 3 pro, HTML, Visual InterDev 6(ASP(WebProgramming/Vbscript)

http://www.brainbench.com/transcript.jsp?pid=629151