Guru - Go with the flow

In the fast-changing world of high technology, successful careerists need to strike a balance: loyalty to a company competes with the need to keep interested in the job. Sometimes this means job-hopping at a frantic pace, sometimes it means holding steady for a while. But gone are the days where high fliers became good at one thing and then climbed a bureaucratic ladder in a vast organisation.

It's no sin these days to pursue a career of constant motion: in fact, it's often considered an advantage to be seen to be the kind of person who keeps ahead of the game. Sticking loyally to the same job or company was once regarded as the pre-eminent employee quality, and highly prized.

But loyalty is a two-way thing, and as most companies are now fast changing, and forever altering their market strategies, employees are discovering that being totally loyal to one company can often end in tears.

Corporate ladders are now out of fashion, replaced by 'flat hierarchy' structures where middle management is being eliminated. To give yourself a new 'intellectual challenge or pay rise' normally associated with a move up the ladder, you may now need to change companies altogether.

Risk awareness

Often this can involve taking a risk, possibly in a new area of business or a start-up. And sometimes you can make a few bad decisions, but being open to new challenges is probably a better selling point on your CV these days than being stuck in a rut for a decade or more.

For much of the 1980s, Steve Durkin was a Sales Account Manager at Compaq.

"The company was young and the growth was explosive," he recalls. "It was very exciting working for it. But then in the early 1990s it started to move into another phase. It got large and autocratic and the products were being pushed as commodities. The organisation changed and their were fewer and fewer opportunities for me. I made a conscious decision to move into the network and internetworking market, which meant better money and greater challenges."

Durkin admits he made some initial mistakes - a year each with modem specialist GDC and network equipment manufacturer SMC - but eventually landed on his feet when he was offered a job at Cisco.

He now manages eight key accounts, including Siemens Network Systems, Anite, NCR and Lancare. "Cisco is going through that explosive phase and it's great being part of that," he says. "Job satisfaction is the key to it. You know when it's time to move on because you get stuck in a repetitive pattern. When you realise you're not doing anything new and you're not growing, that's when you should get out."

Parsnips bhaji

Unfortunately, being true to yourself does carry inherent dangers. What you regard as healthy career progression - or simply a strategy for staying sane - can be perceived by some as evidence of unreliability or bad judgement.

But whereas a CV with a list of jobs longer than Don Giovanni's list of conquests would have buttered no parsnips with potential employers a couple of decades ago, these days it may well curry favour.

One of the most colourful careers in the UK computer business has been that of Jamie Minotto, who has seen the inside of offices at companies ranging from resellers (ComputerLand) hardware manufacturers (Apricot, Commodore), direct suppliers (Centreprise) and software houses (Pegasus).

If there was a Guinness Book of Records for the IT business, he'd probably command a page of his own. His longest stint was Managing Director at Tandon for 6 years; his shortest a tumultuous 9-week stay at Elonex. Before coming to the UK he was a successful actor in Los Angeles (working for Dynasty creator Aaron Spelling at one stage) and his UK career has also involved work in the advertising industry.

"Jamie is regarded as the original revolving-door man," says a former colleague. "You can measure the depth of a person's knowledge of the industry simply by asking them the question: 'Where does Jamie Minotto work?'.

Few get it correct these days, though everyone knows the name."

Nevertheless, Minotto's wide knowledge and media-friendliness means he is regarded as an asset by firms, especially start-ups. At the moment he's Business Development Manager at Net Products, which has just launched the first UK set-top box systems for surfing the Internet and e-mailing through a TV set.

"OK, my CV does have lots of variety," he acknowledges good-naturedly, "but increasingly you need multi-disciplines and multi-skills because there's so much convergence going on. The entertainment industry and the IT business are merging, and to have an understanding of it all is helped by having a far-reaching background."

As with all good careers, the survivors are those who adapt to the changes happening around them. "Yes, you do need to be a kind of Renaissance Man these days, especially if you're working with the Internet. You need to know about communications, information management, marketing, all kinds of skills. The way you get that breadth of knowledge is by doing lots of different jobs."

Fence-hopping

In fact the real debate for many IT professionals is not whether to move, but how long to stay with one company. "I think it's in the nature of this business, with the constant technological changes, that people start to feel restless after five or six years in a job, and move on," says Kevin Alderson, who started a new job as Sales Director at the Leeds-based telephony integration specialist Bailey Telecom. Previous to this move, Alderson had spent six years at Octel, four with Hewlett Packard and nine with Burroughs and Unisys.

"The important thing is to move on for positive reasons, and not to get frustrated in a job. I've moved on when I want new challenges and to learn new skills which are denied in previous jobs. I came to Bailey Telecom, for instance, because I now have the opportunity to manage managers. I've never done that before. It also ties in nicely with my family needs - it means moving back up North where we want to raise our children."

Alderson has also crossed over from the vendors' side of the fence into the channel. "It wasn't a difficult thing to do to move from the manufacturer to middleman," he says. "The fundamentals of sales and management remain the same. What is different is the challenge of being in relatively smaller companies, where day-to-day decisions can affect the bottom line of the business. You're cushioned from a lot of that in larger organisations.

On the other side of the fence you're also more aware of what the manufacturers are up to when they're selling to you."

Knowing the tricks of the trade is what it's all about. And knowing the trade inside out often means spending time at a variety of companies - from manufacturers to channel organisations and crossing boundaries with intersecting industries. Variety is, after all, the spice of life.

So move over Mr Job-for-Life. Here comes Renaissance Man.

Why be in constant motion?

Develop alternative skills. Increasingly the need is for an understanding of a wide range of skills

When redundancy comes, as it most surely will, you're psychologically more fit to go out and get something new

An increasingly global marketplace rewards people with open minds about changing circumstances

Fast moving technologies demand staying where the action is and hence where the money is.

There is also a strong argument for staying close to the cutting edge of IT technologies.

Right now, the cutting edge has moved from PC companies like Apple, Microsoft and Compaq (now starting to become unfashionable as the PC takes a knock) to any companies associated with the Internet - ISPs, web developers, networking infrastructure suppliers, and network computer and set-top box manufacturers.