Good article. However, I wonder about the "IT is a small world" bit. If you're a huge organisation of consultants and your organisation develops a reputation for doing a terrible job at great expense, I'm sure that's bad and word will quickly get round. If you're just a couple of guys - a micro-consultancy - or even a one-man band, does the same really apply? I say this mainly because I'm a one-man consultancy myself (in some sense, at least), and a bunch of the other people commenting are similarly positioned.
I was working recently with a hiring manager at a digital agency in London, sifting through some CVs to help them find another contract developer. One of the CVs was of a guy I'd worked with a couple of years before; I said, "Ah, I know this guy. His work was decent enough, within reason, but his attitude was quite problematic and he was pretty aggravating - I don't think they terminated him early, but it was a close call." I pointed out that his CV in the two years since I'd worked with him bore evidence of that attitude - lots of very short contracts which plainly hadn't been extended. The hiring manager put his CV in the reject pile, unread, on the strength of my non-recommendation.
There are over a hundred digital agencies in London, though - and that guy isn't going to have worked at enough of them, throughout his entire career, that his bad reputation would really precede him at every one. In fact, he could do a three month stint at half of them and that would still be a good chunk of a career. Or he could move to a different branch of the industry (finance, let's say) where he wouldn't have any reputation at all.
So, I wonder, is IT really a small world? Does an individual's reputation really matter that much? It's certainly helpful having a good reputation for all the obvious reasons - but does it really hurt you that much to have a bad one?
I was working recently with a hiring manager at a digital agency in London, sifting through some CVs to help them find another contract developer. One of the CVs was of a guy I'd worked with a couple of years before; I said, "Ah, I know this guy. His work was decent enough, within reason, but his attitude was quite problematic and he was pretty aggravating - I don't think they terminated him early, but it was a close call." I pointed out that his CV in the two years since I'd worked with him bore evidence of that attitude - lots of very short contracts which plainly hadn't been extended. The hiring manager put his CV in the reject pile, unread, on the strength of my non-recommendation.
There are over a hundred digital agencies in London, though - and that guy isn't going to have worked at enough of them, throughout his entire career, that his bad reputation would really precede him at every one. In fact, he could do a three month stint at half of them and that would still be a good chunk of a career. Or he could move to a different branch of the industry (finance, let's say) where he wouldn't have any reputation at all.
So, I wonder, is IT really a small world? Does an individual's reputation really matter that much? It's certainly helpful having a good reputation for all the obvious reasons - but does it really hurt you that much to have a bad one?