Professional Worth

Warning: This post ended up being more about some of my personal-professional thoughts than I had originally intended. I am not sure exactly what I was aiming for but I ended up with a hodge-podge of my thoughts related to professional worth, compensation and career development. Read on at your own risk ;-)

How much are you worth?
What is your value?

Those are hard questions.

Even if we put it into a specific context (e.g. "how much is your time worth", or "your value to your team"), the questions become only vaguely easier. I have often heard, and have quoted myself, "something is worth what someone else is willing to pay for it". Well, this definition works OK when we consider the monetary value of an object or service, but thats only a crude middle-man. Money can gain or lose value (look the American dollar). Its value is separate from the amount of effort it took to earn or take it.

But I digress. My current curiosity revolves around professional worth. How can one make an honest assessment of their value to a company/team/organization? And how can the larger entity appropriately value you?

My previous companies abrupt purchase by another, my transfer from one office to another, changes in clients, more than one performance review and a promotion review have left me contemplating this question often over the past 9 months or so.

There is nothing wrong with my current job, but being forced to evaluate myself so many times has pushed me to evaluate my employment as well. Trying to find the right mix of challenging and interesting work, a good work environment, coworkers you like, compensation and future planning is a daunting task.

In the next few years I want to purchase my first home (next spring) and start a family (2010 ;-) ) both of which are life changing events and ones that are more easily faced if I feel that I have a good challenging job where I am compensated well and have confidence in its long term future. I have been told (and seen several signs) that the market in my area is very strong and have been told time and time again by close friends that I shouldn't have any trouble finding work. This is a good sign, but not one I want I look forward to pursuing.

Plus there is the question of loyalty. I am not one to hop fences just because the grass over there looks a little greener, but if the fence is small and the grass is a LOT greener on the other side, and your farmer forgot to water the lawn a few days in a row .... what is a cow to do?

The fact that I work for a consulting company makes the issues a bit more fuzzy. As a consultant you have job security in the sense that if your current client wants to cut its work force, your not out of a job, and if you finish a big project you have a staff of people looking to find you more work. However, at the same time, as you change clients every so often, you are forced to start fresh: losing most if not all of the good will, seniority, respect, etc that you had built up at your last client. Its good to get the change of scenery, but its hard to feel like your working toward an end goal, when the goal keeps changing.

I have enjoyed consulting over the past few years and relish in the number of experiences I have had in that time and the number of different types of people I have been able to work with.

My main concern at this point is that of being recognized for the work I have done and the work I am going to do over the long term. Its hard for a consulting company to reward short term accomplishments and good work b/c bill rates are dependent on contracts that have dates associated with them ... and they have margins they need to keep between your pay rate and the bill rate. Over the long term, the consulting company can make the appropriate changes but only to a point. At some point the overhead of consulting prices your work significantly above that of an employee and therefore the consulting company's room to help you seems to diminish over time.

I guess thats enough random thoughts for the time being. Please feel free to comment if you think I am crazy, or agree, or have had a similar situation/thoughts.