Career planning - Valenco case study #12 - Hamid - To stay or not to stay?

Looking at the immaculately manicured foliage in the one-acre backyard of his home in central New Jersey, Hamid feels he has come a long way.

Growing up in the by lanes of Ahmedabad, he would see some of his neighbors suit up and head to offices every day.

It was his aspiration that one day he too would wear a suit to office.

Dreams

Graduating from the local engineering college, he landed a job with an IT services company as a project technologist.

Hamid was the best dressed in his team

Hamid’s cousin Arshad worked for a top services company and went on an assignment in Paris. He learnt to speak passable French and sent pictures when dining at the Eiffel Tower.

Hamid started to apply actively and joined a leading US brand in technology services.

Here too, he was the best dressed in the office.

Moving to the Garden State

Working as a project manager with the “big brand,” he caught the eye of a leader in the USA who sponsored him to come and work in the USA on assignment with a large pharma client.

Hamid led a series of successful project implementations and was promoted to a client executive. His responsibilities expanded to include the account P&L and growth of new business.

He has built a good network within his company and is able to marshal the different lines of service to support him in new business pursuits. The range of services offered is wide and there is always something new to sell. This has helped him make the 100% sales club in three of the last five years.

Hamid sits on the client CIO’s council. His team was recently awarded partner of the year.

Pictures of him receiving awards from his leaders and from the client CIO are prominently displayed on his work desk.

Hamid has the best collection of ties among his colleagues. He bemoans that the American workplace has become very casual in its attire.

Jolt

Hamid’s supervisor retired recently.

Three, including Hamid, were in the running for his role. One of them was a campus hire and had the longest tenure with the company. Valuing his tenure and consistent track record, he was elevated to the supervisory position.

Hamid too has been offered additional responsibility, which includes part of the work which his new supervisor was earlier handling.

This chain of events has got Hamid thinking. Will the elevations go to only the long tenured employees? If he wanted to move up into more senior roles, should he be looking outside?

Resolving the pickle

Hamid is part of a weekend pickleball group. The other players are also tenured technology services professionals who want to be kind to their knees

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On the way to the game one weekend, Hamid popped a question to the group. Should he be looking for a change and what would be good options?

To each his own

Shekhar was the first to jump in.  In his recent move as a client partner with a mid-tier IT services firm, he got a boost in base compensation and a VP title. In his view, smaller companies are more agile, responsive, and there is easier access to senior leadership.

Nitin left a top tier brand to lead the health and lifesciences sector for a staffing firm looking to build a project services business. He asked if Hamid would want to come on board to seed and grow the pharma sector. It will take doing, but if the team pulls it off, there will be a considerable upside in equity earnings.

There was talk of working with a cloud platform company in a business development role. Peers who had moved were focused on building channel partners and enabling business through them. The compensation is rich especially when the stock market does well.

Jason was quiet, focusing on driving the group to the game in his Tesla S. Having navigated three changes in top management, he leads a sub sector within financial services for a large tech services company which he joined 20 years ago.

Counsel

Coming back from the game, Hamid asked you, what you would recommend.

You muted the surround sound audio in the car.

What would be your recommendation?

The recommendations he received

By a 2-1 margin the recommendation was that he focus on and explore roles with his existing employer. The next close one was to look for roles with a cloud platform company.

What has he chosen to do

Hamid reflected on the recommendations and his own career path

He has come from humble roots and grown into a responsible role with a top global brand. He now has a seat on the table in meetings with the C suite of his clients.

The accomplishment and the associated status mean a lot to him.

A lot of his success the past years has been enabled by the power of the brand and the range of offerings available for him to sell.

While he has been passed over for the supervisor position, his role has been expanded, enhancing his stature further.

Keeping this, and the recommendations in mind, he has decided to focus on his enhanced role and grow into it for the present and work up to take on even higher responsibility in time

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