Hey, what’s up, John Sonmez from simpleprogrammer.com.
I got this email from Naseem and I’m going to paraphrase this because it’s a fairly
long email here but he’s basically got 2 questions on it.
The first question is really about how to get into management.
He wants to get into a leadership and management role.
He doesn’t have any experience.
He wants to know what should he be doing in order to get into there.
The second one is he wants to know about like recruiters always ask him for his current
pay, his pay slip and what to do about that.
Let’s talk about first of all the whole management, like how you get into management
leadership position as a developer.
I think Naseem said he has been a developer for 8 years which is good.
I mean obviously he’s got enough experience.
You have to have some amount of experience to be able to manage other people.
How do you get in when you don’t have any experience?
Well, it starts off with unofficial leadership positions.
I would say that what you really want to do is you want to start being a team lead if
you can.
I actually wrote a blog post I believe on becoming a team lead and you should read that
and it talks a lot about the kind of attitudes and how to be a good team lead and how to
do that.
It doesn’t have to be an official position as well.
You can just start being a leader and that’s going to be a key skill.
Now, that’s going to prepare you.
If you’ve been taking management and leadership courses, I don’t know, some of those are
good, some of those are bad.
What I would say is if you’re trying to do this in a company and you’re having trouble,
it seems like Naseem is, there’s a few things that you want to do.
First of all, make it known what you want.
Everyone you talk to tell them about your aspirations, “I want to be a manager.
I want to go the management route.”
Talk to your boss and say, “I want to go the management route.”
Make it known.
That’s number one.
Two, look and see what the manager is like.
If you want to be a corporate executive, how are they dressing?
This is something I think a lot of people ignore, but you want to look the part, you
want to play the part as much as possible.
This is something that will have an influence.
People are judged superficially and if you look the part and you’re acting the part
that’s going to make a big difference.
The other thing I would say is this is sort of a tactic that you can do is pick a mentor
high up in the company, maybe a couple of levels of management up and just say, “Hey,
could I just—could I just meet with you like once a week for 15 minutes max.
I promise I won’t take up a lot of your time.”
This is what you do, you’re going to sugar coat the hell out of this, right?
You’re going to be like, “I saw how you executed on this” give specifics and be
honest, something that you admire and look up their history and have a lot of details
and say, “I really admire you because of these attributes.
You have courage.
You do this.
You’re a person that I really respect.
I want to become like you.”
Those are magic words.
I admire you.
I want to become like you.
Remember, this might be someone like a couple of levels up in the company, someone who you
normally wouldn’t have access to but you’re just—the only thing you’re putting on
the table is that you like them a lot, you admire them, you feel like you just want to
learn from them and you’re only going to take up 15 minutes of their time a week.
This is the key because you don’t want to take up their time.
They’re going to give you more than that, I promise you.
Don’t say, “I want you to mentor me.
Do not say that.”
That implies an obligation.
Do not obligate them.
You’re going to send this email and you’re going to ask them to do that and just say
you want to learn from them.
I’ll tell you, as far as getting into management that’s probably going to be the biggest
thing that you can do because that person most likely is going to take you under their
wing and tutor you and groom you for the position and when that position opens up they’re
going to want their boy, their girl in there and that’s going to get you in.
That’s a shortcut to it.
But be sincere, I’m not saying like game system, I’m saying honestly like you’re
going to write this email and you’re going to be sincere.
You’re going to find sincere things to appreciate and that’s going to be something that I
think will help you a lot.
Of course read a lot of business books, get the business aspect.
Any type of management is going to involve 2 things that is going to be business skills
because ultimately we’re at the job to make money.
If you know how to make money that is going to make you valuable to the company.
Two, social skills.
You cannot be a manager if you are not dynamic in some way dealing with people.
You’re going to have to be out of your shell, be able to deal with people and situations.
Go to Toast Masters if you have any kind of trouble speaking in front of people.
Do things like start a YouTube Channel and start doing YouTube videos.
Honestly, that will get you really out of your shell and really relating to people,
things like that.
Pick things like that to do that are going to develop that aspect of you while you’re
doing this strategy and getting your mentor.
You could also even—let’s say that within your company this doesn’t work, you could
email someone at a different company that’s up and say, “I’ve seen what you’ve done.
I admire you.”
Again, don’t use the word mentor, “Could I just come to you office?
Could I buy you lunch once a week?”
something like that or take 15 minutes of your time.
It’s going to be—you’re probably going to get that offer accepted 75% of the time.
This is what I would really recommend.
Another thing I’d say is be careful who you hang around with.
If you want to go into management and be a manager and you’re hanging around with the
kind of—let’s say that you’re a software developer and you’re hanging around with
the warehouse guys and you’re going out and having drinks with them, it’s not going
to happen.
You’re going to be viewed and lumped in with them.
That might even threaten your software development job to be honest with you.
Be careful who you hang around with.
Try to hang around with the other managers if you can.
Try to get invited to their stuff if you can.
That’s all I have to say about that.
You did have the question about the pay slip thing.
I’m actually going to pull a trick on you here, because I’ve actually covered this
in depth.
I have a chapter in my book Soft Skills: A Software Developer’s Life Manual that talks
about how to negotiate your salary and it deals specifically with this problem of people
asking for your pay.
Definitely read that.
The only reason why I’m pointing you there is because I don’t need to rehash that whole
thing.
There’s a lot to negotiating a salary.
I don’t want to just give you a half answer there.
Anyway, thanks for the question.
I think this is one that a lot of people are wondering that are trying to get into management.
If you’ve got some ideas out there—there’s one person in particular I’m thinking of.
Send a comment here, put a link to your blog buddy if you watch this.
Let me know what you think.
If you like this video, subscribe to the channel.
I’ll talk to you next time.
Take care.