December 01, 2008 – Dan Tynan, InfoWorld
Working in today's cutthroat economy has become a lot like the old joke about two guys being chased by a grizzly bear. One guy stops to take off his work shoes and lace up some sneakers.
"Are you crazy?" says Guy No. 2. "You can't outrun a bear."
"I don't have to outrun the bear. I just have to outrun you," Guy No. 1 quips.
And with high-tech firms laying off nearly 20,000 workers in the past month alone, outrunning the other guy is fast becoming the survival mode for IT.
Here are seven tips for outlegging the competition and surviving the downturn with your job intact. What you find here may come off as common sense, but when it comes to keeping ahead of the guy in the cubicle down the hall, common sense just might be all you need to gain an edge. After all, how often do you see your coworkers demonstrating common sense these days?
The good news? You can survive in today's tight economy. The bad news? You may have to log longer hours and take on less-than-exciting projects.
Start by taking notice of the projects that get the most attention from management and ask to be a part of them, advises Betsy Richards, director of career services at Kaplan University.
"Ask to be transferred to a critical area, or volunteer for extra duties to support these activities," Richards says. "You'll be viewed as an employee who goes the extra mile while inoculating yourself against expendability when the pink slips get handed out."
More than just work harder than the next guy, you have to look like you're working harder, says Simon Stapleton, a technology careers coach who calls himself "the IT industry's answer to Indiana Jones" (but without the bullwhip). Show up before your boss gets in and leave after he or she leaves. Skip the long coffee breaks and work through lunch.
"My best advice is to roll your sleeves up—literally," says Stapleton, who's also chief innovation officer at Skandia Investment Solutions, a U.K.-based financial services firm. "Pick up the pace when you walk around the office. Carry a clipboard. Your determination to help your company succeed will show in your body language. Now is the time to display the visible signs that you're busting your ass."
And if you can, do it with a smile.
"IT people tend to be grumps," notes Curt Finch, a formerly grumpy software programmer who's now CEO of Journyx, a maker of Web-based time- and expense-management software. "The No. 1 thing is having a positive attitude. The glass-half-full guys, the optimists, the ones who say, 'Sure, we're in a tough situation, but here's how we're going to get through it'—those are the people I want around me during a recession."
IT survivor tip No. 2: Show off your mad skillz—or get some, fast
The most reliable path for self-preservation is to become the in-house expert on topics vital to the business.
"You need to be the one everyone comes to when they have a question about a particular topic or technology," says Nicholas Lore, career coach and founder of Rockport Institute. "When you're the person everyone goes to, you become indispensable."
Similarly, if you have skills that cross departments or systems, you're less likely to be canned than Johnny One-Note in the cubicle down the hall.
Be versatile, advises Colin Strasser, CEO of U2i, a software consulting firm. "If you've been doing nothing but Java for 10 years, try Python or Ruby. If you've been working under Windows, do some work with Linux."
According to a survey by Robert Half International, Web developers with social-media savvy or expertise in technologies such as .Net, SharePoint, Java, and PHP will continue to be in high demand. Help-desk pros with knowledge of a wide range of systems are also more likely to hold onto jobs.
Ask your HR department if the company offers training programs or reimburses tuition costs, says Kaplan's Richards. You may also be able to obtain low-cost continuing education from professional organizations or user groups.
If those options aren't available, you can still expand your expertise relatively cheaply, notes Iman Jalali, director of sales and marketing at Train Signal, vendor of IT training materials. For around $400, Train Signal helps you get up to speed on topics such as Windows Server 2008 or VMware ESX.
"Some people feel like if they've been in the same business for 25 years, it's a badge of honor," says Jalali. "In IT, that could mean you'll lose your job tomorrow. Everyone needs to stay up to date, or risk being replaced by someone who's up on all the newest technologies."
IT survivor tip No. 3: Remember, it's just business
You know how in Mafia movies the hit man always says, "It's just business," right before he whacks his best friend?
Well, it is just business. And you need to know how the business makes money and what projects or systems are essential to that mission—and get yourself assigned to them.
"Look at how your company is making its profit," says Finch. "You have to become indispensable to the success of that effort through adding real business value. Demonstrate through your timekeeping and meetings and activities that this is primarily what you are working on. Short-term revenue is more important than long-term in a down economy."
Getting the feeling your department needs to reduce head count? Come up with a plan for how to do it while keeping the lights on, and produce metrics to show how much money these cuts will save. If there's a line being drawn, you want to be standing on the same side as the CFO and the CEO, says Dave Taylor, co-founder of Sparxent, an IT management solutions vendor.
In other words: You're no longer a techie helping the business; you're a businessperson who uses tech to boost the bottom line.
"Transition your focus from technology to business value and business needs," advises Shane Aubel, co-founder of IT consulting firm Accent Global System Architects. "The more tangible, quantifiable results you offer, the more indispensable you will be. The business is the customer, and what the customer wants, the customer gets."
IT survivor tip No. 4: Work the numbers
Metrics are your friend. If you want to prove you're vital to the survival of your company, you better have the digits to back it up.
"IT people need to become experts at marketing themselves internally," says Sparxent's Taylor. "They need to provide more targeted and more detailed reports on where the IT dollars are spent; they need to put metrics in place to report on whether IT projects have generated ROI or not; and they need to be much more transparent in reporting on whether they've achieved the metrics or not."
In other words, be proactive. Don't wait for the CFO to call you on the carpet to explain where all the money went, says Taylor. Know down to the dollar how much it costs to provision applications or provide level-one support—and then suggest ways you can reduce it.
"You need to be able to say, 'We just deployed Office 2007, and it took an average of 43 minutes to install on every users' desktop at a cost of $180 an hour, so it costs more to provision Office than it did to pay for the license,'" Taylor says. "When you have that kind of detail at your fingertips, the CFO realizes you're focused on getting the company what it needs at the lowest possible cost."
Tying your projects to company profits is essential, adds Finch. You want to work on the projects that bring in the most revenue or save the most money.
"Companies always want to cut failing projects and unprofitable customers first," he adds. "If you do have to cut people, you want to be able to do it with a scalpel and not a chainsaw."
IT survivor tip No. 5: Be a peacock, not a turtle
Now is not the time to crawl under your desk and hide until the scary man with the pink slips goes away.
"The biggest trap people fall into during a downturn is to try and fly under the radar until it all blows over," says Nina Buik, president of HP's Connect user group. "Now is the time to show how you can make a difference. Be the person in your organization who sends an e-mail to the CIO saying, 'I've got a great idea I need to share.' You'll stand head and shoulders above the rest."
If you don't sell yourself, nobody will. But when you blow your own horn, sound less like a marching band and more like Miles Davis.
One of the best ways to promote yourself is to get other people to do it for you, says John Baschab, senior vice president at Technisource.
"People are always looking for anecdotal evidence of your performance," Baschab says. "If you're on the help desk and someone sends you an e-mail thanking you for your help, ask them if they can send a copy to your boss. When you get verbal kudos, get them written down and sent to the right place."
The praise of others is always worth more than self-puffery, agrees Buik. "But your boss may not know about all the little things you do. Take a win you've helped generate for the company, find someone else involved in it, and ask them to write it up for you and post it on your LinkedIn profile. Then offer to do the same for them."
Reminding your bosses all the wonderful things you've done is a start, but it isn't enough. You need to keep putting your hand up for new projects that keep revenue flowing.
"What you did last month is a lot less relevant than what you're going to do next month," notes Finch. "It's all about the bottom line. You could be Albert friggin' Einstein and still get fired if they have nothing for you to do for the next three months."
IT survivor tip No. 6: Schmooze it—or lose it
Everyone hates a suck-up. And yet the world is full of them, so they must be doing something right. The people who are retained in a downturn aren't always the most competent, notes Lore. They're often the ones who are the best liked and know the right people.
"You've got to network inside your own company," says Lore. "Make sure the senior people know who you are, the contributions you've made, and that they like you. Create a wider circle, so other people start talking about you. Very often, techs are shy about being forward with senior people in the company. This is not the time to be shy."
Although the cliché is that geeks are notoriously bad at social interaction, these are skills that can be easily learned, says Lore. In fact, he adds, they're the same skills found in books that teach nerds how to pick up girls—mimic your boss's body language, speak in the same tones, talk about the things they're interested in, and so on.
Joining user groups and professional associations will expand your network, exposing you to new skills and potential employers, notes Buik. Donating your tech skills to worthy organizations can also raise your profile.
"IT experts who volunteer their time to upgrade the network for a nonprofit tend to gain positive press and build name recognition in their locality," says Ari Kaplan, author of "The Opportunity Maker," a book on creative networking and business development.
Online networks such as LinkedIn can help, too. "Don't just put a little bit of information in there," says Buik. "Sell yourself. Tell everyone within three feet of you what you're trying to do. If you're looking for new opportunities, let everyone know."
Just be sure to use social nets wisely. Building up your résumé on LinkedIn is a good idea; sending your zombie to attack your boss' zombie on Facebook is probably sending the wrong message about how you spend your time at work.
IT survivor tip No. 7: If all else fails, move to Australia
Now is not a good time to be job shopping. Even if there's a photo of your boss next to the Wikipedia entry for "jerk," it's generally better to grit your teeth and stick it out until the economy recovers. But if the worst happens and you get downsized, you still have options—like relocating to Australia, for instance.
"A raft of big projects is keeping the local IT market relatively buoyant, and demand for skills remains solid," notes Peter Acheson, COO of Australia's largest IT recruiter, Peoplebank. "There will still be strong demand for IT skills in the market here in 2009—in fact, in some sectors it will still be tight."
Another option is to join the temp-to-perm workforce, says Tom Hart, executive vice president at staffing firm Veritude. Staff augmentation services offer both businesses and employees more flexibility, he says.
"There are so many good reasons to be flexible, even if all you've ever done is hold down permanent jobs," Hart says. "It gives you the opportunity to feel good about a potential employer, and for them to feel good about you. And you continue to collect a paycheck as you wait for things to get better."
It could even be time to consider going back to school or changing careers, says Lore, especially if technology isn't exactly your life's calling.
"Many people went into IT because they had strong analytical skills, not because they enjoyed the work," Lore says. "For them, a career change might be the best solution. Just because you have long legs doesn't mean you'll be happy as a Rockette."
Contributing editor Dan Tynan has legs and knows how to use them. When not kicking, he tends the Tynan on Tech and Culture Crash blogs.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Friday, December 12, 2008
8 Signs Your Employer May Be Going Out of Business
December 02, 2008 – Dan Tynan, InfoWorld
If your company is headed for a fall, it's usually better to jump than to be pushed. Don't let yourself be blindsided by quickly dwindling company prospects. These eight signs are surefire indications that it is high time to update your résumé and start networking.
Sign No. 1: Closed-door meetings If all the conference rooms are booked or doors keep closing, the tide may be shifting toward cuts at your organization.
"Pay attention to what your gut is telling you," says John Baschab, senior vice president at Technisource. "A lot of the time it knows what's going on, even if your brain doesn't."
Sign No. 2: Strange faces If you look around the lunchroom and all you see are strangers, your company may be surreptitiously replacing permanent staff with temps.
Sign No. 3: Bad press Forget the cliché about there being no so such thing as bad publicity. Bad press is a harbinger of tough times ahead.
Sign No. 4: Back-burner fever If projects previously billed as vital to the future of the company are being scaled down or put on hold, it's a good sign the future isn't as bright as it once was.
Sign No. 5: Major decisions are delayed "When decisions that used to take a few days now take one or two weeks, that's a strong sign things are going bad," says Simon Stapleton, a tech careers coach and chief innovation officer at Skandia Investment Solutions.
Sign No. 6: Your boss acts like she owes you money She may know the ax is going to fall and can't tell you yet. It's usually better to ask if something is up, openly and calmly, says Nicholas Lore, career coach and founder of Rockport Institute.
Sign No. 7: Slashed training budgets If your organization is no longer planning for the future, it may not have one.
Sign No. 8: Slimmer sales force If your company is losing big clients or the sales force is being cut, that's a sure clue your employer is taking on water, says Tom Hart, executive vice president at staffing firm Veritude. "You don't want to be the last rat off that ship."
If your company is headed for a fall, it's usually better to jump than to be pushed. Don't let yourself be blindsided by quickly dwindling company prospects. These eight signs are surefire indications that it is high time to update your résumé and start networking.
Sign No. 1: Closed-door meetings If all the conference rooms are booked or doors keep closing, the tide may be shifting toward cuts at your organization.
"Pay attention to what your gut is telling you," says John Baschab, senior vice president at Technisource. "A lot of the time it knows what's going on, even if your brain doesn't."
Sign No. 2: Strange faces If you look around the lunchroom and all you see are strangers, your company may be surreptitiously replacing permanent staff with temps.
Sign No. 3: Bad press Forget the cliché about there being no so such thing as bad publicity. Bad press is a harbinger of tough times ahead.
Sign No. 4: Back-burner fever If projects previously billed as vital to the future of the company are being scaled down or put on hold, it's a good sign the future isn't as bright as it once was.
Sign No. 5: Major decisions are delayed "When decisions that used to take a few days now take one or two weeks, that's a strong sign things are going bad," says Simon Stapleton, a tech careers coach and chief innovation officer at Skandia Investment Solutions.
Sign No. 6: Your boss acts like she owes you money She may know the ax is going to fall and can't tell you yet. It's usually better to ask if something is up, openly and calmly, says Nicholas Lore, career coach and founder of Rockport Institute.
Sign No. 7: Slashed training budgets If your organization is no longer planning for the future, it may not have one.
Sign No. 8: Slimmer sales force If your company is losing big clients or the sales force is being cut, that's a sure clue your employer is taking on water, says Tom Hart, executive vice president at staffing firm Veritude. "You don't want to be the last rat off that ship."
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Five Keys to Job Searching in a Volatile Economy
by Joy Martin, Associate Career Changer Coach
With the constant chatter of the news and media telling us 24/7 of our country's 'Economic Woes', how can an employee or business owner not be nervous about job security in these times!?!?
Hopefully you are not one of the thousands of people who have already been affected by today's economy and lay-offs; if you are, please keep your head up and read on. You may be a corporate employee worried about job security, an entrepreneur nervous about making ends meet or someone who is dreaming about taking a step in your career that will put you on the path to your dream job. Whoever you are - it is always a good time to look at building your 'Toolkit'. When I say Toolkit, I am referring to your Job Search Toolkit. You want to have a variety of different 'tools' (or skills) in your Toolkit before you need to use them! These tools are like insurance, you don't need them until it's too late!
Before you even set foot in an interview or call that recruiter friend to ask about job openings, there are a handful of steps you can take at your current job to assist you in the long-term for your career success. Whatever your situation is, below are actions you can take NOW!
1. Learn something new - There is no time like the present to start learning new things in your career. You can take an outside class or e-learning class in an area that interests you, ask your supervisor for reading material on a new product or service at your company or start doing your own research on trends in your industry. This is a perfect time to take a public speaking class, as well. This is a skill that is transferable and will always assist you in your job search. Take some sort of action to branch out and learn something new.
2. Offer to help - You can offer your assistance to your boss to help out with a new project or volunteer activity. Maybe you want to help out with the company's annual toy drive or offer to help out in any way possible on some new projects. It always looks good but also serves to help you in your career to meet new people and get exposed to some new things. Most employees are comfortable 'doing their job' - the people that go above and beyond are the ones who get promoted, noticed by senior folks and recommended for new career opportunities. Take this chance to get noticed. See next point...
3. Do your best - Again, a lot of people are comfortable just getting by and staying in the constraints of their job description. Think about how productive you could be if you gave your best every single day. You will feel good about the work you are producing and others will notice you. Being genuine at work pays off.
4. Research - Start doing some research on companies you would like to work for. Before you get into a position where you need to find a new job right away, have a list already prepared of some of the types of organizations you would like to work at. Get familiar with their websites and start checking company news. This preparation work will help you get a jump start on your job search when you need it.
5. Don't be an office gossip - It's easy to get mixed up in office politics, gossip and hysteria. It may feel good for a few minutes to engage in some office gossip, but it doesn't serve any purpose or help you in your career. Rise above it all. You don't have to get all high and mighty and tell your coworkers you can't listen to their conversations, but if you are talking and all of a sudden, speculation starts about who might be laid off first or why so-and-so got promoted and others didn't - maybe it's time to make a discreet run for the restroom or run out for an afternoon Starbucks. You will insulate yourself from the crowd of employees that are known to gossip. Believe, me, people know who these folks are...and you want to separate yourself from them.
The bottom line is, you should take steps to set your self apart from the crowd. Learn to see yourself as a top-performer and others will see that very soon. Building a strong reputation and new skills is the first step in preparing yourself for a new path in your career. Stay tuned for follow up articles on ways to continue to build your job search skills.
Read more about Joy at http://www.segaric.com/segariccoachingassociatecoaches.shtml
With the constant chatter of the news and media telling us 24/7 of our country's 'Economic Woes', how can an employee or business owner not be nervous about job security in these times!?!?
Hopefully you are not one of the thousands of people who have already been affected by today's economy and lay-offs; if you are, please keep your head up and read on. You may be a corporate employee worried about job security, an entrepreneur nervous about making ends meet or someone who is dreaming about taking a step in your career that will put you on the path to your dream job. Whoever you are - it is always a good time to look at building your 'Toolkit'. When I say Toolkit, I am referring to your Job Search Toolkit. You want to have a variety of different 'tools' (or skills) in your Toolkit before you need to use them! These tools are like insurance, you don't need them until it's too late!
Before you even set foot in an interview or call that recruiter friend to ask about job openings, there are a handful of steps you can take at your current job to assist you in the long-term for your career success. Whatever your situation is, below are actions you can take NOW!
1. Learn something new - There is no time like the present to start learning new things in your career. You can take an outside class or e-learning class in an area that interests you, ask your supervisor for reading material on a new product or service at your company or start doing your own research on trends in your industry. This is a perfect time to take a public speaking class, as well. This is a skill that is transferable and will always assist you in your job search. Take some sort of action to branch out and learn something new.
2. Offer to help - You can offer your assistance to your boss to help out with a new project or volunteer activity. Maybe you want to help out with the company's annual toy drive or offer to help out in any way possible on some new projects. It always looks good but also serves to help you in your career to meet new people and get exposed to some new things. Most employees are comfortable 'doing their job' - the people that go above and beyond are the ones who get promoted, noticed by senior folks and recommended for new career opportunities. Take this chance to get noticed. See next point...
3. Do your best - Again, a lot of people are comfortable just getting by and staying in the constraints of their job description. Think about how productive you could be if you gave your best every single day. You will feel good about the work you are producing and others will notice you. Being genuine at work pays off.
4. Research - Start doing some research on companies you would like to work for. Before you get into a position where you need to find a new job right away, have a list already prepared of some of the types of organizations you would like to work at. Get familiar with their websites and start checking company news. This preparation work will help you get a jump start on your job search when you need it.
5. Don't be an office gossip - It's easy to get mixed up in office politics, gossip and hysteria. It may feel good for a few minutes to engage in some office gossip, but it doesn't serve any purpose or help you in your career. Rise above it all. You don't have to get all high and mighty and tell your coworkers you can't listen to their conversations, but if you are talking and all of a sudden, speculation starts about who might be laid off first or why so-and-so got promoted and others didn't - maybe it's time to make a discreet run for the restroom or run out for an afternoon Starbucks. You will insulate yourself from the crowd of employees that are known to gossip. Believe, me, people know who these folks are...and you want to separate yourself from them.
The bottom line is, you should take steps to set your self apart from the crowd. Learn to see yourself as a top-performer and others will see that very soon. Building a strong reputation and new skills is the first step in preparing yourself for a new path in your career. Stay tuned for follow up articles on ways to continue to build your job search skills.
Read more about Joy at http://www.segaric.com/segariccoachingassociatecoaches.shtml
Saturday, December 6, 2008
USPS VP of IT on Making Sound Hiring Decisions Under Pressure
December 05, 2008
Retiring Baby Boomers, a competitive labor market in Washington, D.C., and the need to support a $74 billion business. In the latest Hiring Manager interview, the USPS's VP of IT Operations George Wright explains how he chooses the right candidates under cost and competitive pressures.
Anyone who assumes working for the United States Postal Service's (USPS) IT department would be a cushy job should read what George Wright has to say about the mail business. The vice president of information technology operations for the USPS describes an enormous enterprise—bigger than even Wal-Mart in some respects—with literally hundreds of thousands of moving parts:
We have 40,000 retail outlets, and we service 9 million to 11 million customers per day. Think about the information systems it takes to manage a company with 40,000 retail outlets and 11 million customers a day. We have 300,000 carriers on the streets, and we deliver to every household in America every day of the week. We are the largest user of airline capacity. We have 600 plants that process mail. We operate in almost every major line of business that exists in the Fortune 500. ... We run the world's third largest intranet. Our entire internal organization consists of between 650,000 to 700,00 people. Many organizations that are significantly smaller than us have more [IT] resources than we have. ... We currently have approximately 1,300 people in the IT organization.
Finding candidates for IT jobs who have the skills to support such a large-scale enterprise is one of Wright's biggest challenges. Wright says the need to recruit IT professionals is intensifying as Baby Boomers in the USPS's IT department start retiring and because the need for IT talent in Washington, D.C. is so high.
In such a competitive environment for IT hiring, Wright says it's difficult to make safe hiring decisions that aren't motivated by the pressure to fill a critical vacancy. He's been burned by that pressure before, and he's learned his lesson. That may be why he's become so set in his hiring decisions.
When a situation arises in which Wright disagrees with members of his team about a candidate, he sticks with his gut: He won't hire someone he doesn't think is right, even if the rest of his team does. But he always carefully considers their views and takes the time to explain his decisions to them.
Here, Wright talks about his hiring practices, how he acclimates them to the scale of the organization, and the many mistakes candidates make in interviews that irk him.
John Mann: Many people believe that government jobs are stable and that it is difficult to be fired. Is job stability, in general, better within your IT group than the private sector?
George Wright: Postal services are going through very challenging times. The chief executive officer [of the USPS] has mentioned that we need to reduce the number of workers we have. So while most people might think that government is a stable environment, we are required to be competitive and generate revenue. Our stability is contingent upon how well we perform and how well we grow. Like any company, if the revenue numbers go down, we have to adjust by reducing costs, and approximately 70 percent of our expenses are people. If you perform well, you have job security.
What are your staffing challenges?
We have several people who are getting close to the end of their career, so one challenge we have is the turnover of Baby Boomers. We have to figure out how to match turnover with bringing on new talent. We can consider recruiting somebody who has experience in building retail systems for Wal-Mart. However, Wal-Mart only has approximately 5,000 stores. The difference between the technology needed to run 5,000 locations versus 40,000 locations is significant. In addition, most people who build software do not design it to run on the scale that we operate on. So we have scale issues, size issues, and the number of applications we run. I have an enterprise data warehouse that integrates data from about 135 systems and continues to grow. When we implemented SAP, we had to do it for 800,000 employees.
Is it difficult to hire new talent quickly in a large government organization?
The challenge is hiring people in the Washington, D.C. area. I don't know what the unemployment rate is for IT in the D.C. market, but I would bet it is close to zero because there are not a lot of people available. We have multiple avenues for how we find resources, including search firms, our own website (e-careers) and word of mouth. At the end of the day, our challenges for hiring are no different than anyone else's.
Despite those challenges, we have been successful in hiring. If you look at my staff today, I would bet that half of my managers who have been promoted in the last three years have come from the outside and half from the inside. We believe that we constantly need to bring new talent into the organization at all levels, and we have a program for promoting from within in order to get the best mix.
What positions are you currently looking to fill?
We are interviewing and hiring talent from entry level programmers to people who run our data centers. We have two large data centers—one in Egan, Minn. and San Mateo, Calif. We typically look for people who have a programmer/analyst/program manager background. All we have to do is acclimate them to our scale. We put them on projects that allow them to grow to where they need to be to deal with our scale. The interesting thing is once they have gone through that process, they become very valuable to people on the outside.
When we recruit for top-level positions, like the two people that run our data centers, we try to match experience to the position. Then we bring them onboard in a staggered fashion with the existing manager, and there is a gradual hand-off of responsibility. It is a process that we use where the new hire's peers support the new hire and help bring him up to the level where he needs to be.
What is the process for interviewing candidates for IT jobs?
The process is fairly well structured because we have HR rules to follow. We post the position. People submit their résumés, and we review the résumés. We generate a list of candidates, which is then reviewed by a committee. The selecting official will interview three to five of the top candidates.
We were recently in the process of filling an enterprise architecture position. Four different managers interviewed six candidates. After the interviews, the managers discussed the candidates and how each met the requirements for the position. By having multiple people involved in the interviewing process for our senior-level positions, we get feedback on whether the candidate fits our culture, communicates well, and on other subjective components of the interview process. Someone on paper can have all the credentials, but if their communication style or personality do not mesh with the culture of the organization, you run into problems.
When we assess someone who I want to promote into a position that supports one of the functional areas, we narrow down the list of candidates and ask the customer [in the functional area] who they are going to support. When someone gets promoted to a management position, especially from inside, the customers have experience with them. So we engage the customer in that process because the IT person is going to support them, and we want to make certain we have the right chemistry and respect between the IT manager and the customer they're supporting.
How do you determine whether a candidate is right for a given position and for your IT organization?
I spend enough time to make sure that a candidate is technically qualified, then I flip over to the soft skills. I seldom get fooled by people's technical skills.
Personal skills are harder to assess because you see candidates in a very limited environment during the interview. I think my instincts about candidates' personalities have gotten better over the years. I try to listen for things that are going to cause problems. For example, if I am hiring someone who is going to run one of my development shops (we have four development shops with a couple hundred people), the key to making that work is people skills and being able to provide technical insight and new ways of looking at things. If a person comes across as process-oriented, people who tend to be process-oriented are interested in setting up new ways of doing things. That can create challenges because this person will want to change how the organization operates. I am looking for people whose temperament and approach to problem-solving will fit into where we are going and who have enough confidence in their ability to change something if it is wrong. At the same time, if something is working o.k. but is not the way they want it to work, they are flexible enough to adapt.
What is the biggest hiring mistake you've made, and what did you learn from it?
I have hired the wrong person because pressure to fill a vacancy were pushing me to make a decision. In situations like that, I've thought, "I'll take someone who is not the right fit, but maybe they can grow into it." I realize now that it is better to leave a position vacant than to fill it with the wrong person. That is difficult because it is getting harder and harder to find the resources. Demand is high and supply is low.
Have you ever had a case where you really liked a candidate you interviewed, but your team didn't?
I have never had that situation. Usually, it is the other way around—where people want to hire someone who I do not want because I see things that are a problem. And if I think I see problems, I will not hire the person.
In situations like that earlier in my career, I had thought that maybe my team was seeing something in a candidate that I did not see. But the answer generally was no, they did not see something I missed; I saw something they didn't see. Today I will go with my instincts before I will go with my team.
Retiring Baby Boomers, a competitive labor market in Washington, D.C., and the need to support a $74 billion business. In the latest Hiring Manager interview, the USPS's VP of IT Operations George Wright explains how he chooses the right candidates under cost and competitive pressures.
Anyone who assumes working for the United States Postal Service's (USPS) IT department would be a cushy job should read what George Wright has to say about the mail business. The vice president of information technology operations for the USPS describes an enormous enterprise—bigger than even Wal-Mart in some respects—with literally hundreds of thousands of moving parts:
We have 40,000 retail outlets, and we service 9 million to 11 million customers per day. Think about the information systems it takes to manage a company with 40,000 retail outlets and 11 million customers a day. We have 300,000 carriers on the streets, and we deliver to every household in America every day of the week. We are the largest user of airline capacity. We have 600 plants that process mail. We operate in almost every major line of business that exists in the Fortune 500. ... We run the world's third largest intranet. Our entire internal organization consists of between 650,000 to 700,00 people. Many organizations that are significantly smaller than us have more [IT] resources than we have. ... We currently have approximately 1,300 people in the IT organization.
Finding candidates for IT jobs who have the skills to support such a large-scale enterprise is one of Wright's biggest challenges. Wright says the need to recruit IT professionals is intensifying as Baby Boomers in the USPS's IT department start retiring and because the need for IT talent in Washington, D.C. is so high.
In such a competitive environment for IT hiring, Wright says it's difficult to make safe hiring decisions that aren't motivated by the pressure to fill a critical vacancy. He's been burned by that pressure before, and he's learned his lesson. That may be why he's become so set in his hiring decisions.
When a situation arises in which Wright disagrees with members of his team about a candidate, he sticks with his gut: He won't hire someone he doesn't think is right, even if the rest of his team does. But he always carefully considers their views and takes the time to explain his decisions to them.
Here, Wright talks about his hiring practices, how he acclimates them to the scale of the organization, and the many mistakes candidates make in interviews that irk him.
John Mann: Many people believe that government jobs are stable and that it is difficult to be fired. Is job stability, in general, better within your IT group than the private sector?
George Wright: Postal services are going through very challenging times. The chief executive officer [of the USPS] has mentioned that we need to reduce the number of workers we have. So while most people might think that government is a stable environment, we are required to be competitive and generate revenue. Our stability is contingent upon how well we perform and how well we grow. Like any company, if the revenue numbers go down, we have to adjust by reducing costs, and approximately 70 percent of our expenses are people. If you perform well, you have job security.
What are your staffing challenges?
We have several people who are getting close to the end of their career, so one challenge we have is the turnover of Baby Boomers. We have to figure out how to match turnover with bringing on new talent. We can consider recruiting somebody who has experience in building retail systems for Wal-Mart. However, Wal-Mart only has approximately 5,000 stores. The difference between the technology needed to run 5,000 locations versus 40,000 locations is significant. In addition, most people who build software do not design it to run on the scale that we operate on. So we have scale issues, size issues, and the number of applications we run. I have an enterprise data warehouse that integrates data from about 135 systems and continues to grow. When we implemented SAP, we had to do it for 800,000 employees.
Is it difficult to hire new talent quickly in a large government organization?
The challenge is hiring people in the Washington, D.C. area. I don't know what the unemployment rate is for IT in the D.C. market, but I would bet it is close to zero because there are not a lot of people available. We have multiple avenues for how we find resources, including search firms, our own website (e-careers) and word of mouth. At the end of the day, our challenges for hiring are no different than anyone else's.
Despite those challenges, we have been successful in hiring. If you look at my staff today, I would bet that half of my managers who have been promoted in the last three years have come from the outside and half from the inside. We believe that we constantly need to bring new talent into the organization at all levels, and we have a program for promoting from within in order to get the best mix.
What positions are you currently looking to fill?
We are interviewing and hiring talent from entry level programmers to people who run our data centers. We have two large data centers—one in Egan, Minn. and San Mateo, Calif. We typically look for people who have a programmer/analyst/program manager background. All we have to do is acclimate them to our scale. We put them on projects that allow them to grow to where they need to be to deal with our scale. The interesting thing is once they have gone through that process, they become very valuable to people on the outside.
When we recruit for top-level positions, like the two people that run our data centers, we try to match experience to the position. Then we bring them onboard in a staggered fashion with the existing manager, and there is a gradual hand-off of responsibility. It is a process that we use where the new hire's peers support the new hire and help bring him up to the level where he needs to be.
What is the process for interviewing candidates for IT jobs?
The process is fairly well structured because we have HR rules to follow. We post the position. People submit their résumés, and we review the résumés. We generate a list of candidates, which is then reviewed by a committee. The selecting official will interview three to five of the top candidates.
We were recently in the process of filling an enterprise architecture position. Four different managers interviewed six candidates. After the interviews, the managers discussed the candidates and how each met the requirements for the position. By having multiple people involved in the interviewing process for our senior-level positions, we get feedback on whether the candidate fits our culture, communicates well, and on other subjective components of the interview process. Someone on paper can have all the credentials, but if their communication style or personality do not mesh with the culture of the organization, you run into problems.
When we assess someone who I want to promote into a position that supports one of the functional areas, we narrow down the list of candidates and ask the customer [in the functional area] who they are going to support. When someone gets promoted to a management position, especially from inside, the customers have experience with them. So we engage the customer in that process because the IT person is going to support them, and we want to make certain we have the right chemistry and respect between the IT manager and the customer they're supporting.
How do you determine whether a candidate is right for a given position and for your IT organization?
I spend enough time to make sure that a candidate is technically qualified, then I flip over to the soft skills. I seldom get fooled by people's technical skills.
Personal skills are harder to assess because you see candidates in a very limited environment during the interview. I think my instincts about candidates' personalities have gotten better over the years. I try to listen for things that are going to cause problems. For example, if I am hiring someone who is going to run one of my development shops (we have four development shops with a couple hundred people), the key to making that work is people skills and being able to provide technical insight and new ways of looking at things. If a person comes across as process-oriented, people who tend to be process-oriented are interested in setting up new ways of doing things. That can create challenges because this person will want to change how the organization operates. I am looking for people whose temperament and approach to problem-solving will fit into where we are going and who have enough confidence in their ability to change something if it is wrong. At the same time, if something is working o.k. but is not the way they want it to work, they are flexible enough to adapt.
What is the biggest hiring mistake you've made, and what did you learn from it?
I have hired the wrong person because pressure to fill a vacancy were pushing me to make a decision. In situations like that, I've thought, "I'll take someone who is not the right fit, but maybe they can grow into it." I realize now that it is better to leave a position vacant than to fill it with the wrong person. That is difficult because it is getting harder and harder to find the resources. Demand is high and supply is low.
Have you ever had a case where you really liked a candidate you interviewed, but your team didn't?
I have never had that situation. Usually, it is the other way around—where people want to hire someone who I do not want because I see things that are a problem. And if I think I see problems, I will not hire the person.
In situations like that earlier in my career, I had thought that maybe my team was seeing something in a candidate that I did not see. But the answer generally was no, they did not see something I missed; I saw something they didn't see. Today I will go with my instincts before I will go with my team.
Monday, December 1, 2008
Hot IT Certifications for a Cool Job Market
– Tom Kaneshige, InfoWorld November 25, 2008
If the doomsayers prove right, throngs of laid-off tech workers will soon be competing for only a handful of available jobs. Technical certifications, once thought to be the ticket to higher pay and more prestige, may be needed to simply avoid the unemployment line. The trick is to get the ones that will really help keep or land that job, since it turns out many certifications won't be all that useful.
So what are the hottest tech certifications in today's cool job market? According to Foote Partners' fall survey of more than 22,000 IT professionals, covering some 170 certifications, the most valuable certificates today settle mainly into two camps: architecture and security. Microsoft and Cisco certifications also got good grades.
In terms of pay growth, here are the top five certifications, according to Foote Partners:
As the economic crisis has deepened, good enterprise architects have become treasured assets. In fact, over the last six months, seven of the eight fastest-growing certificates are for enterprise architecture, which barely registered a blip a year ago, says David Foote, president of Foote Partners. "One of the things you invest in during tough times is architects," he says, "because if you want to save money, you have to architect carefully."
Certification plays well in areas that are grand in scope (and thus ill-defined), business-critical, and chock-full of complexity. Experience varies from enterprise architect to enterprise architect. Job histories on résumés can be exaggerated or even contain outright lies. Enterprise architecture certifications, on the other hand, "bring industrial strength" to the résumé and can be more easily confirmed, says Carole Schlocker, who runs iSpace, a technical staffing firm.
Enterprise architects are "abstract thinkers at the design level, almost like business analysts," says Foote. They transcend technology and cross into the business realm. Indeed, many tech workers aspire to journey down this path, and a certification can show that they are making progress.
Hiring managers, too, want to see more than just technical chops from job candidates. "They're looking for people who are good thinkers, have a feel for what goes on in other parts of the business, and understand how IT can be integrated," says Jerry Luftman, vice president at the Society for Information Management. "They want people with a holistic view." (Luftman is also associate dean of graduate information systems at Stevens Institute of Technology, which offers a dozen credentialed IT-business programs, such as IT for financial services, IT for health care, and IT for outsourcing.)
Project and process management certs are also in demand
Certifications that command some of the highest pay have close ties to revenue, such as those that involve improved project management, process efficiency, increased productivity, and better budgeting. Katherine Spencer Lee, executive director of Robert Half Technology, has seen an uptick in demand for people with ITIL certification—most notably, the ITIL v3 Master—which can help an organization save money.
The oft-ballyhooed PMP (Project Management Professional) certificate and its related certificates from the Project Management Institute (PMI), for instance, ride on the process-improvement wave. "When companies are hiring project managers, they like to see the PMI certification," Schlocker says. "Often, the hiring manager is PMI-certified."
Most tech certifications are no longer so valuable
Conversely, technical certifications aren't faring as well, with the exception of security. "During a study of IT services firms, I asked if their client cared about [technical] certifications," says Foote, "and pretty much all of them said, 'Not really.'" The vast majority of certification categories showed a decline in value. Web development certifications, in particular, plummeted.
Of course, that's not to say technical skills in areas such as networking, databases, systems administration, and programming aren't in demand. Indeed, there are hot IT jobs out there, as well as recession-proof ones. What's happened is that the technical certifications in these areas are no longer as important in the hiring process.
The big exception to this trend away from technical certifications' value is security certification, says Foote. For starters, banking, financial services, and similarly regulated industries often require a security certification, so you often won't get a job in these industries without one. Security also is very specialized, so certifications can help clarify exactly what skills an employee or job candidate brings to the table. "Security is heavily technical, with so many facets and niches," Foote notes.
According to Foote Partners, security skills in demand include e-discovery, penetration testing, vulnerability assessment, security auditing, and ethical hacking. Banks also need anti-money-laundering pros who have prevention, detection, and investigation skills.
Another exception to the decreased value of technical certifications is Cisco networking certification. Cisco certs are hot commodities, too. But earning a CCNP certificate is no easy task, taking up to 250 hours of training, says Victor R. Garza, an InfoWorld Test Center reviewer who also teaches Cisco courses to telecom workers. Robert Half's Spencer Lee says she's also seeing a rise in requests for IT workers with Cisco Certified VoIP Professional certifications, given VoIP's growing adoption in the midmarket.
Employers spend less on training, but employees want it as insurance
Garza says certification training is likely "cooling off" because companies are less willing to underwrite employees, but he notes that IT workers still want it. "[Certification-seeking] students want to keep themselves marketable," he says. "As opposed to wanting to move up in the company, a majority of my students this past three months want training so that they can get a [new] job if they get laid off."
Indeed, certifications play an important role in a tough hiring environment, agrees Spencer Lee. When faced with two comparable candidates, a hiring manager can be swayed by a certification. Spencer Lee often receives IT job reqs that mention a preference for a particular certification, and she's noticed something very telling: "The person who gets the job usually has the certification."
If the doomsayers prove right, throngs of laid-off tech workers will soon be competing for only a handful of available jobs. Technical certifications, once thought to be the ticket to higher pay and more prestige, may be needed to simply avoid the unemployment line. The trick is to get the ones that will really help keep or land that job, since it turns out many certifications won't be all that useful.
So what are the hottest tech certifications in today's cool job market? According to Foote Partners' fall survey of more than 22,000 IT professionals, covering some 170 certifications, the most valuable certificates today settle mainly into two camps: architecture and security. Microsoft and Cisco certifications also got good grades.
In terms of pay growth, here are the top five certifications, according to Foote Partners:
- IT Certified Architect (ITCA/OPenGroup)
- Certified Information Security Manager (CISM)
- InfoSys Security Architecture Professional (ISSAP/CISSP)
- Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator: Messaging (MCSA)
- Cisco Certified Network Professional (CCNP)
As the economic crisis has deepened, good enterprise architects have become treasured assets. In fact, over the last six months, seven of the eight fastest-growing certificates are for enterprise architecture, which barely registered a blip a year ago, says David Foote, president of Foote Partners. "One of the things you invest in during tough times is architects," he says, "because if you want to save money, you have to architect carefully."
Certification plays well in areas that are grand in scope (and thus ill-defined), business-critical, and chock-full of complexity. Experience varies from enterprise architect to enterprise architect. Job histories on résumés can be exaggerated or even contain outright lies. Enterprise architecture certifications, on the other hand, "bring industrial strength" to the résumé and can be more easily confirmed, says Carole Schlocker, who runs iSpace, a technical staffing firm.
Enterprise architects are "abstract thinkers at the design level, almost like business analysts," says Foote. They transcend technology and cross into the business realm. Indeed, many tech workers aspire to journey down this path, and a certification can show that they are making progress.
Hiring managers, too, want to see more than just technical chops from job candidates. "They're looking for people who are good thinkers, have a feel for what goes on in other parts of the business, and understand how IT can be integrated," says Jerry Luftman, vice president at the Society for Information Management. "They want people with a holistic view." (Luftman is also associate dean of graduate information systems at Stevens Institute of Technology, which offers a dozen credentialed IT-business programs, such as IT for financial services, IT for health care, and IT for outsourcing.)
Project and process management certs are also in demand
Certifications that command some of the highest pay have close ties to revenue, such as those that involve improved project management, process efficiency, increased productivity, and better budgeting. Katherine Spencer Lee, executive director of Robert Half Technology, has seen an uptick in demand for people with ITIL certification—most notably, the ITIL v3 Master—which can help an organization save money.
The oft-ballyhooed PMP (Project Management Professional) certificate and its related certificates from the Project Management Institute (PMI), for instance, ride on the process-improvement wave. "When companies are hiring project managers, they like to see the PMI certification," Schlocker says. "Often, the hiring manager is PMI-certified."
Most tech certifications are no longer so valuable
Conversely, technical certifications aren't faring as well, with the exception of security. "During a study of IT services firms, I asked if their client cared about [technical] certifications," says Foote, "and pretty much all of them said, 'Not really.'" The vast majority of certification categories showed a decline in value. Web development certifications, in particular, plummeted.
Of course, that's not to say technical skills in areas such as networking, databases, systems administration, and programming aren't in demand. Indeed, there are hot IT jobs out there, as well as recession-proof ones. What's happened is that the technical certifications in these areas are no longer as important in the hiring process.
The big exception to this trend away from technical certifications' value is security certification, says Foote. For starters, banking, financial services, and similarly regulated industries often require a security certification, so you often won't get a job in these industries without one. Security also is very specialized, so certifications can help clarify exactly what skills an employee or job candidate brings to the table. "Security is heavily technical, with so many facets and niches," Foote notes.
According to Foote Partners, security skills in demand include e-discovery, penetration testing, vulnerability assessment, security auditing, and ethical hacking. Banks also need anti-money-laundering pros who have prevention, detection, and investigation skills.
Another exception to the decreased value of technical certifications is Cisco networking certification. Cisco certs are hot commodities, too. But earning a CCNP certificate is no easy task, taking up to 250 hours of training, says Victor R. Garza, an InfoWorld Test Center reviewer who also teaches Cisco courses to telecom workers. Robert Half's Spencer Lee says she's also seeing a rise in requests for IT workers with Cisco Certified VoIP Professional certifications, given VoIP's growing adoption in the midmarket.
Employers spend less on training, but employees want it as insurance
Garza says certification training is likely "cooling off" because companies are less willing to underwrite employees, but he notes that IT workers still want it. "[Certification-seeking] students want to keep themselves marketable," he says. "As opposed to wanting to move up in the company, a majority of my students this past three months want training so that they can get a [new] job if they get laid off."
Indeed, certifications play an important role in a tough hiring environment, agrees Spencer Lee. When faced with two comparable candidates, a hiring manager can be swayed by a certification. Spencer Lee often receives IT job reqs that mention a preference for a particular certification, and she's noticed something very telling: "The person who gets the job usually has the certification."
Friday, November 28, 2008
IT Careers Expected to Survive Global Economic Storm in '09
– Kathryn Edwards, IDG News Service November 25, 2008
With an abundance of projects on the cards for 2009, the outlook for IT recruitment remains positive, according to Melbourne-based IT recruiter Peter Acheson.
Acheson, chief operating officer of IT recruitment specialists Peoplebank, expects recruitment to pick-up by April next year, fuelled by a considerable amount of IT project work that is in the pipeline or already underway, including system upgrades at many of the large Australian banks.
"All of the major banks are doing core system upgrades. CBA and NAB have already commenced with theirs, Westpac have got the integration of St George bank, a project that is very big and will drive a substantial amount of IT work," said Acheson, who also cited the NBN as driving a considerable amount of IT work in 2009.
Acheson says that even thought IT has experienced a softening in permanent recruitments throughout the year, employers don't believe the current economic crisis will impact their ability to attract and retain employees.
That message is echoed in recruiting firm Hudson's latest Recruitment Focus IT&T research, released earlier this month and based on survey responses from 1056 IT&T hiring managers.
"Over a number of years now it has been difficult for [hiring managers] to source, attract and retain good quality IT&T staff, and the economic climate hasn't impacted on that," said Hudson's director of IT&T, Shane Blandford.
According to Hudson's research, 69 percent of employers claim they are not affected by the economic downturn; however 42 percent said they continued to find sourcing candidates with appropriate skills difficult.
Hudson's research also suggests there is currently a shortage of software developers and business analysts in the marketplace, with an over-abundance of project managers and SAP professionals.
Both recruiters also spoke of the trend for IT contractors to seek permanent employment in this time of financial uncertainty.
"Some projects are being canceled and some are on hold, in particular projects that were heavily reliant on the contractor workforce," said Blandford. "So there potentially will be increased number of contractors coming into the employment pool."
In the US this week, Google acknowledged plans to "significantly" reduce the number of contractors it uses, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
In Australia however, Peoplebank's Acheson said contractors will continue to play a critical role in IT and have an important part to play in both implementing new IT projects and supporting ongoing operations.
"IT is one of the sectors with the largest contracting workforce and I don't think that's going to change," Acheson said. "I think IT contracting over time will continue to be a substantial proportion of the future of IT going forward."
While Acheson acknowledged that there's a natural predisposition for companies to consider contractors during periods of economic uncertainty, due to their greater flexibility over permanent employees, he urged CIOs to boost their employees confidence to avoid them fleeing the nest.
"I think in the current environment it's really important that CIO's are talking to their staff about the outlook and where they see the business going in 2009 -- and what the key projects and initiatives are that the company they work for is going to be investing in -- to shore-up people so they feel comfortable and confident about their futures."
With an abundance of projects on the cards for 2009, the outlook for IT recruitment remains positive, according to Melbourne-based IT recruiter Peter Acheson.
Acheson, chief operating officer of IT recruitment specialists Peoplebank, expects recruitment to pick-up by April next year, fuelled by a considerable amount of IT project work that is in the pipeline or already underway, including system upgrades at many of the large Australian banks.
"All of the major banks are doing core system upgrades. CBA and NAB have already commenced with theirs, Westpac have got the integration of St George bank, a project that is very big and will drive a substantial amount of IT work," said Acheson, who also cited the NBN as driving a considerable amount of IT work in 2009.
Acheson says that even thought IT has experienced a softening in permanent recruitments throughout the year, employers don't believe the current economic crisis will impact their ability to attract and retain employees.
That message is echoed in recruiting firm Hudson's latest Recruitment Focus IT&T research, released earlier this month and based on survey responses from 1056 IT&T hiring managers.
"Over a number of years now it has been difficult for [hiring managers] to source, attract and retain good quality IT&T staff, and the economic climate hasn't impacted on that," said Hudson's director of IT&T, Shane Blandford.
According to Hudson's research, 69 percent of employers claim they are not affected by the economic downturn; however 42 percent said they continued to find sourcing candidates with appropriate skills difficult.
Hudson's research also suggests there is currently a shortage of software developers and business analysts in the marketplace, with an over-abundance of project managers and SAP professionals.
Both recruiters also spoke of the trend for IT contractors to seek permanent employment in this time of financial uncertainty.
"Some projects are being canceled and some are on hold, in particular projects that were heavily reliant on the contractor workforce," said Blandford. "So there potentially will be increased number of contractors coming into the employment pool."
In the US this week, Google acknowledged plans to "significantly" reduce the number of contractors it uses, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
In Australia however, Peoplebank's Acheson said contractors will continue to play a critical role in IT and have an important part to play in both implementing new IT projects and supporting ongoing operations.
"IT is one of the sectors with the largest contracting workforce and I don't think that's going to change," Acheson said. "I think IT contracting over time will continue to be a substantial proportion of the future of IT going forward."
While Acheson acknowledged that there's a natural predisposition for companies to consider contractors during periods of economic uncertainty, due to their greater flexibility over permanent employees, he urged CIOs to boost their employees confidence to avoid them fleeing the nest.
"I think in the current environment it's really important that CIO's are talking to their staff about the outlook and where they see the business going in 2009 -- and what the key projects and initiatives are that the company they work for is going to be investing in -- to shore-up people so they feel comfortable and confident about their futures."
Thursday, November 27, 2008
How to Recession-Proof Yourself
By Meridith Levinson
November 17, 2008 — CIO — Layoff fears are sending a shiver through the workforce as the U.S. economy lurches toward a full-blown recession. And no one is safe as corporate cost-cutters sharpen their axes. Though senior executives are less vulnerable to losing their jobs than the employees below them, they, too, can be casualties of restructurings.
How To Motivate Your Employees During Layoffs Whether you're a CIO or a help desk technician, career coaches say you can take measures to prevent the hatchet from falling on your neck. Here's a list of actions they say you can take to help safeguard your job.
1. Know your value and communicate it. "If you're flying under the radar, you're going to be the first to be eliminated," says Kirsten Dixson, author of Career Distinction: Stand Out by Building Your Brand. This goes for CIOs, too.
Dixson recommends compiling a weekly status report that outlines the project or projects you're working on, your progress on those projects and your key performance indicators, and sending that report to your boss each week.
If you're known as a "growth and innovation CIO," now is also the time to prove that you're as adept at cost cutting as you are at generating ideas, says Joanne Dustin, a 25-year IT veteran who's now a career coach and an organizational development consultant.
Dustin says CIOs need to talk up the efficiencies and cost savings that their innovations have achieved as well as the revenue they've generated. Your company may still decide that it needs someone with a different skill set in the CIO role, but at least you've given it your best shot.
2. Be a team player. Getting along with others—in the boardroom or elsewhere—is critical when downsizing is on the table, especially for IT professionals who tend to be independent, says Dustin, who's worked as a programmer, project manager and systems manager. "These times require cooperation, flexibility and a willingness to go the extra mile," she says.
IT professionals who "just sit at their desk or in the server room and do their eight-to-five" are at risk, says Ed Longanacre, senior vice president of IT at Amerisafe, a provider of workers' compensation insurance. The problem with hunkering down, he says, is that it gives the impression that you're not interested in the organization.
3. Keep your ear to the ground. Staying attuned to what's going on inside your company, including gossip, can help you anticipate changes, says Patricia Stepanski Plouffe, president of Career Management Consultants. "If there's a rumor that your department is going to fold or downsize, you can identify other areas of the company where you could transfer your skills," she says. Just remember that you can't trust everything you hear, whether it comes from the water cooler or the CFO.
4. Adapt to change quickly. "If you can develop an attitude that nothing is going to stay the same and that your organization and your job will always be in flux, that will help you cope," says Stepanski Plouffe. "Be ready for whatever change may come up."
5. Get out and lead. "Executives are expected to set the vision and reassure people of the path the company is on," says Dixson. "This is not the time to go in your office and shut the door. Show decisiveness, strength and integrity. Show that you're combating the rumor mill."
November 17, 2008 — CIO — Layoff fears are sending a shiver through the workforce as the U.S. economy lurches toward a full-blown recession. And no one is safe as corporate cost-cutters sharpen their axes. Though senior executives are less vulnerable to losing their jobs than the employees below them, they, too, can be casualties of restructurings.
How To Motivate Your Employees During Layoffs Whether you're a CIO or a help desk technician, career coaches say you can take measures to prevent the hatchet from falling on your neck. Here's a list of actions they say you can take to help safeguard your job.
1. Know your value and communicate it. "If you're flying under the radar, you're going to be the first to be eliminated," says Kirsten Dixson, author of Career Distinction: Stand Out by Building Your Brand. This goes for CIOs, too.
Dixson recommends compiling a weekly status report that outlines the project or projects you're working on, your progress on those projects and your key performance indicators, and sending that report to your boss each week.
If you're known as a "growth and innovation CIO," now is also the time to prove that you're as adept at cost cutting as you are at generating ideas, says Joanne Dustin, a 25-year IT veteran who's now a career coach and an organizational development consultant.
Dustin says CIOs need to talk up the efficiencies and cost savings that their innovations have achieved as well as the revenue they've generated. Your company may still decide that it needs someone with a different skill set in the CIO role, but at least you've given it your best shot.
2. Be a team player. Getting along with others—in the boardroom or elsewhere—is critical when downsizing is on the table, especially for IT professionals who tend to be independent, says Dustin, who's worked as a programmer, project manager and systems manager. "These times require cooperation, flexibility and a willingness to go the extra mile," she says.
IT professionals who "just sit at their desk or in the server room and do their eight-to-five" are at risk, says Ed Longanacre, senior vice president of IT at Amerisafe, a provider of workers' compensation insurance. The problem with hunkering down, he says, is that it gives the impression that you're not interested in the organization.
3. Keep your ear to the ground. Staying attuned to what's going on inside your company, including gossip, can help you anticipate changes, says Patricia Stepanski Plouffe, president of Career Management Consultants. "If there's a rumor that your department is going to fold or downsize, you can identify other areas of the company where you could transfer your skills," she says. Just remember that you can't trust everything you hear, whether it comes from the water cooler or the CFO.
4. Adapt to change quickly. "If you can develop an attitude that nothing is going to stay the same and that your organization and your job will always be in flux, that will help you cope," says Stepanski Plouffe. "Be ready for whatever change may come up."
5. Get out and lead. "Executives are expected to set the vision and reassure people of the path the company is on," says Dixson. "This is not the time to go in your office and shut the door. Show decisiveness, strength and integrity. Show that you're combating the rumor mill."
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Can You Delete Your Digital Past?
– Tracy Mayor, Computerworld November 17, 2008
An unsavory connection from your past. An annoying link to your name that's dragging down your career. A spicy quote you tossed off to a reporter that you wish you could take back.
As time goes by, more of us are being tailed by some little thing out there on the Web, an awful bit that emerges when someone Googles our names, a black mark that we'd like to erase before a colleague or a prospective employer sees it.
A whole industry—known online reputation management—has grown up around helping individual clients and corporate clients suppress negative information online by creating more positive and search-engine-friendly postings.
But what if you don't just want something massaged, manipulated or suppressed? What if you want it gone? Is it possible for an ordinary person to get some damaging tidbit entirely erased from the Web?
Computerworld decided to find out. We gave ourselves a week to try to expunge unwanted online mentions, using three real-life examples as test cases:
• A recent college graduate with a distinctive last name would like to get rid of an entry on someone else's long-abandoned online journal. The entry mentions her full name in a rambling tale of drug-induced debauchery and sexual high jinks. It always shows up as the fourth or fifth result in a Google search on her name—a real problem now that the young woman (let's call her WrongedGirl) is applying for jobs.
• A freelance writer is mistakenly identified as a movie critic on Rotten Tomatoes, a popular site that aggregates movie reviews from print, TV and the Web. Although she personally admires Rotten Tomatoes, she worries that her byline juxtaposed next to the word "rotten" in the first few Google search results sets up an unpleasant association in the minds of prospective clients—especially older business people who have no idea what Rotten Tomatoes is.
• In an interview seven years ago, an IT professional gave a quote to Computerworld that included a salty phrase. She recently contacted the editors, asking them to either remove her name from the piece or prevent the article from being found in a search. Her goal: "I don't want any hits at all when my name is searched."
We started by calling a couple of online image management professionals for some free advice.
What not to do
If you're trying to get something erased from the Web, your first instinct might be to pursue legal action. Resist this urge, says Michael Fertik, CEO of ReputationDefender Inc., an online reputation management and privacy company in Redwood City, Calif.
Why? The Communications Decency Act of 1996 gives almost total immunity to Web sites, says Fertik. Even if you can establish a legal case, the distinctly nonphysical nature of the Web—where you, your defamer and the company that hosts the offending material can be in different states or countries, or simply be unknown—means that sorting out jurisdictions can turn into a legal quagmire.
Likewise, Fertik adds, another surprise dead end is the place where many people launch their erasure efforts: Google.
If an item doesn't show up in a Google search, it's as good as being truly gone, right?
Wrong. "Removing content from Google or another search engine would still leave the original content that exists on the Web," says a Google spokesman.
The better route, according to the spokesman: "Users that want content removed from the Internet should contact the webmaster of the page or the Internet hosting companies or ISPs hosting the content to find out their content removal policies."
Strike One: Misbegotten Quote
Computerworld started with three real-life instances in which people wanted material expunged from online sites, but the experts we consulted were optimistic about only one case—the situation in which a young woman's first and last name were included in a salacious online journal entry.
Here's a look at another case:
• IT manager talks salty to a business publication—Computerworld—and later regrets it. On this topic, our experts were divided. Columbia University journalism professor Todd Gitlin says it would be exceedingly rare for any mainstream publication to change the record for any reason. (Computerworld's editors agreed. The quote, with the source's name attached to it, still stands.)
ReputationDefender CEO Michael Fertik sees a little wiggle room, however. True, The New York Times is unlikely to change the record, but some smaller outlets might, he says.
"I don't know if I buy the journalistic integrity argument—though I respect it. A lot of small newspapers will fold right away as soon as you threaten them," he says.
That said, he notes that ReputationDefender does not handle requests to expunge material from mainstream media.
Google does offer tools on its support page to help with urgent requests to prevent personal content from appearing in a search result, such as when credit card or Social Security numbers are accidentally or maliciously published on the Web. If you do manage to successfully remove such an item, you'll need to also make sure that Google no longer caches the information, the representative says.
If legal action is prohibitively complicated and Google and other search engines can't help, what's the best tactic for getting something erased? A little digital digging and a lot of good old-fashioned human contact.
Priority No. 1 is to try to reach a human being, says Chris Martin, founder of ReputationHawk.com, an online reputation management service. His company starts by tracking down someone who has access to the Web site in question—either the author of the material or a third party like a webmaster or Web hosting service. "If the Web host is billing that person every month, if it's a paid account, they'll be able to contact them," Martin says.
The talking cure
If that approach fails, his company tries to reach people through various social media sites such as MySpace or Facebook or Web portals like Yahoo.
The bottom line: An address or a live e-mail account is good; a human on the phone is better, Martin says. "We call," he says. "We say we're from an Internet privacy corporation. We explain the situation, and we say, 'You need to take care of this as soon as possible.' "
Many times, people do, he says. "The situation can resolve really quickly," Martin says. "If there's a legitimate problem, it's natural for someone to go in there and take the material down."
ReputationHawk's fees vary by case. For a situation like WrongedGirl's, the charge would be $500 or less, Martin says. ReputationDefender doesn't take on ad hoc erasure cases. Instead, clients pay $9.95 per month for a yearly subscription and $29.95 per removal.
Both services claim that they have a much higher success rate than individuals. The reason? You're a newbie; they do this all day, every day.
ReputationDefender has taken on about 1,000 cases with an 85% success rate, according to Fertik. He says the cases build upon one another as relationships develop. "If you call them informally enough times, let them know you're not an abusive company, you're not sending legal letters, then you can have a very high success rate."
In contrast, says Martin, an individual trying to clean up his own reputation starts from scratch and has almost no clout. "We can dig and find contact information pretty quickly, and we're going to have a lot more pull when contacting the Web site owner," he says.
Setting WrongedGirl right
Of our three cases, both experts said the case of WrongedGirl stood the best chance of being resolved. That's good news, since it's the type of scenario that's playing out ever more frequently as the Net generation enters the workforce.
Armed with advice from the pros, we set out one recent Monday to see how far we could get in righting WrongedGirl's reputation in a week.
We first tried to track down the journal author herself, with the idea that we could entreat her to take down the offensive material. (Perhaps she had matured since her partying days.) It seems that five years ago, she set up an account at a free online journal site and posted half a dozen entries in 10 days—most apparently written under the influence of one substance or another—before abandoning the site.
We knew only her first name, her hometown from five years ago and the bands she liked at that time. The e-mail address listed in the user account for her online journal was defunct.
Strike Two: Rotten Tomatoes
Our final attempt to erase someone's digital tracks also met with defeat.
• Freelance journalist wants her name taken off the Rotten Tomatoes movie-review Web site.
Good luck with that, say ReputationDefender Inc. CEO Michael Fertik, ReputationHawk founder Chris Martin and Columbia University journalism professor Todd Gitlin. Large, commercial (implication: lucrative) Web sites have little need to accommodate your petty requests. If you get through and find a sympathetic person on the end of a phone line, perhaps you'll get lucky. Otherwise, fuggedaboutit.
That prediction turned out to be on the money. Multiple e-mails to various Rotten Tomatoes addresses went unanswered or were bounced back as undeliverable. Messages left at the phone number for the parent company, IGN Entertainment Inc., likewise went nowhere.
Apparently, the journalist's best course of action would be to do what reputation mavens recommended in the first place: Create enough positive, search-engine-friendly content to push the "rotten + journalist's name" search result to Google's second page of results.
WrongedGirl provided us with a possible last name for the author, but unfortunately, like the author's first name, it was too common to be helpful. Her first and possibly last names together garnered 1,260 hits on Google, including multiple references on YouTube and multiple accounts on LinkedIn and Facebook, none of which appeared to be our author.
After a couple of mind-numbing hours trolling MySpace accounts, we did find an entry that looked promising (same first name, same state and county, if not exact hometown, and same favorite bands), but that too had been updated only a few times before being abandoned more than two years ago. It looked like we had a serial journaler on our hands.
We gave up on trying to track down the author and turned to the site where the journal was posted—Blurty. We posted our request to remove the offending material in the support forum. A few moments later, we received an automated e-mail response, with a tracking number, saying that our request had been received and would be addressed as soon as possible. But over the next four days, nobody responded.
Scoping out the site
Trying another angle, we trolled through Blurty's support, legal, privacy and terms of service documents and sent e-mails to any other addresses we found there (abuse@blurty.com, for example), asking that the entry in question be taken down.
Two days later, with no response on any front, we used WhoIs to try to find a physical address for Blurty. Its technical contact was listed as being in Encinitas, Calif. When we called the phone number given in the WhoIs listing, a recorded voice informed us we'd reached Sunlane Media LLC.
Back to the Web for more searching: Our heart sank when we found that Sunlane has registered hundreds of other domains, nearly all of which appeared to be porn sites. Wonderful.
We called three separate phone numbers we found for Sunlane in various WhoIs listings—two of which sounded like cell phones and one that had the quality of a home answering machine circa 1995. None had a live person on the other end. We left messages at each number, trying to sound professional enough to elicit a swift response and distressed enough to elicit sympathy.
Resolution
The next day was Friday, our self-imposed deadline. We sent one final e-mail—replying to the webmaster address from which we'd received the tracking number earlier in the week—and requesting a response that leaned even more heavily on the sympathy angle.
Still nothing. At the end of the day, feeling discouraged, we drafted an e-mail to Fertik at ReputationDefender, requesting suggestions for further action. But when we Googled WrongedGirl's name to find and furnish the link to the offensive journal entry, it was gone from Google.
Amazed, we flipped over to the Internet Explorer bookmark we'd made for the page and saw this message: "Error. This journal has been suspended."
Excellent! But just what had done the job—which e-mail or phone call? We had no way of knowing, though a full 10 days later, an e-mail arrived from the abuse@blurty.com address, telling us what we'd already figured out: The journal had been taken down.
Have your say
Have you ever tried to erase your tracks online? Tell us how you did.
We were ebullient but also chastened. Yes, we had managed restore WrongedGirl's good name, but we had no clear understanding of exactly how we had done it, and our other two attempts at erasing unwanted online tracks (see here and here) had come up dry.
In the end, Fertik's words came back to haunt us: "A lot of this stuff you can do yourself—if you have the time, the expertise and the temperament to get it done," he had told us before we began. "But how many people change the oil in their own car anymore?"
Of course, Fertik has a vested interest in urging people to hire companies like his own, but we had to concede that he also had a point: Erasing your tracks online takes time, perseverance and more than a little luck.
Mayor is a Computerworld contributing editor.
An unsavory connection from your past. An annoying link to your name that's dragging down your career. A spicy quote you tossed off to a reporter that you wish you could take back.
As time goes by, more of us are being tailed by some little thing out there on the Web, an awful bit that emerges when someone Googles our names, a black mark that we'd like to erase before a colleague or a prospective employer sees it.
A whole industry—known online reputation management—has grown up around helping individual clients and corporate clients suppress negative information online by creating more positive and search-engine-friendly postings.
But what if you don't just want something massaged, manipulated or suppressed? What if you want it gone? Is it possible for an ordinary person to get some damaging tidbit entirely erased from the Web?
Computerworld decided to find out. We gave ourselves a week to try to expunge unwanted online mentions, using three real-life examples as test cases:
• A recent college graduate with a distinctive last name would like to get rid of an entry on someone else's long-abandoned online journal. The entry mentions her full name in a rambling tale of drug-induced debauchery and sexual high jinks. It always shows up as the fourth or fifth result in a Google search on her name—a real problem now that the young woman (let's call her WrongedGirl) is applying for jobs.
• A freelance writer is mistakenly identified as a movie critic on Rotten Tomatoes, a popular site that aggregates movie reviews from print, TV and the Web. Although she personally admires Rotten Tomatoes, she worries that her byline juxtaposed next to the word "rotten" in the first few Google search results sets up an unpleasant association in the minds of prospective clients—especially older business people who have no idea what Rotten Tomatoes is.
• In an interview seven years ago, an IT professional gave a quote to Computerworld that included a salty phrase. She recently contacted the editors, asking them to either remove her name from the piece or prevent the article from being found in a search. Her goal: "I don't want any hits at all when my name is searched."
We started by calling a couple of online image management professionals for some free advice.
What not to do
If you're trying to get something erased from the Web, your first instinct might be to pursue legal action. Resist this urge, says Michael Fertik, CEO of ReputationDefender Inc., an online reputation management and privacy company in Redwood City, Calif.
Why? The Communications Decency Act of 1996 gives almost total immunity to Web sites, says Fertik. Even if you can establish a legal case, the distinctly nonphysical nature of the Web—where you, your defamer and the company that hosts the offending material can be in different states or countries, or simply be unknown—means that sorting out jurisdictions can turn into a legal quagmire.
Likewise, Fertik adds, another surprise dead end is the place where many people launch their erasure efforts: Google.
If an item doesn't show up in a Google search, it's as good as being truly gone, right?
Wrong. "Removing content from Google or another search engine would still leave the original content that exists on the Web," says a Google spokesman.
The better route, according to the spokesman: "Users that want content removed from the Internet should contact the webmaster of the page or the Internet hosting companies or ISPs hosting the content to find out their content removal policies."
Strike One: Misbegotten Quote
Computerworld started with three real-life instances in which people wanted material expunged from online sites, but the experts we consulted were optimistic about only one case—the situation in which a young woman's first and last name were included in a salacious online journal entry.
Here's a look at another case:
• IT manager talks salty to a business publication—Computerworld—and later regrets it. On this topic, our experts were divided. Columbia University journalism professor Todd Gitlin says it would be exceedingly rare for any mainstream publication to change the record for any reason. (Computerworld's editors agreed. The quote, with the source's name attached to it, still stands.)
ReputationDefender CEO Michael Fertik sees a little wiggle room, however. True, The New York Times is unlikely to change the record, but some smaller outlets might, he says.
"I don't know if I buy the journalistic integrity argument—though I respect it. A lot of small newspapers will fold right away as soon as you threaten them," he says.
That said, he notes that ReputationDefender does not handle requests to expunge material from mainstream media.
Google does offer tools on its support page to help with urgent requests to prevent personal content from appearing in a search result, such as when credit card or Social Security numbers are accidentally or maliciously published on the Web. If you do manage to successfully remove such an item, you'll need to also make sure that Google no longer caches the information, the representative says.
If legal action is prohibitively complicated and Google and other search engines can't help, what's the best tactic for getting something erased? A little digital digging and a lot of good old-fashioned human contact.
Priority No. 1 is to try to reach a human being, says Chris Martin, founder of ReputationHawk.com, an online reputation management service. His company starts by tracking down someone who has access to the Web site in question—either the author of the material or a third party like a webmaster or Web hosting service. "If the Web host is billing that person every month, if it's a paid account, they'll be able to contact them," Martin says.
The talking cure
If that approach fails, his company tries to reach people through various social media sites such as MySpace or Facebook or Web portals like Yahoo.
The bottom line: An address or a live e-mail account is good; a human on the phone is better, Martin says. "We call," he says. "We say we're from an Internet privacy corporation. We explain the situation, and we say, 'You need to take care of this as soon as possible.' "
Many times, people do, he says. "The situation can resolve really quickly," Martin says. "If there's a legitimate problem, it's natural for someone to go in there and take the material down."
ReputationHawk's fees vary by case. For a situation like WrongedGirl's, the charge would be $500 or less, Martin says. ReputationDefender doesn't take on ad hoc erasure cases. Instead, clients pay $9.95 per month for a yearly subscription and $29.95 per removal.
Both services claim that they have a much higher success rate than individuals. The reason? You're a newbie; they do this all day, every day.
ReputationDefender has taken on about 1,000 cases with an 85% success rate, according to Fertik. He says the cases build upon one another as relationships develop. "If you call them informally enough times, let them know you're not an abusive company, you're not sending legal letters, then you can have a very high success rate."
In contrast, says Martin, an individual trying to clean up his own reputation starts from scratch and has almost no clout. "We can dig and find contact information pretty quickly, and we're going to have a lot more pull when contacting the Web site owner," he says.
Setting WrongedGirl right
Of our three cases, both experts said the case of WrongedGirl stood the best chance of being resolved. That's good news, since it's the type of scenario that's playing out ever more frequently as the Net generation enters the workforce.
Armed with advice from the pros, we set out one recent Monday to see how far we could get in righting WrongedGirl's reputation in a week.
We first tried to track down the journal author herself, with the idea that we could entreat her to take down the offensive material. (Perhaps she had matured since her partying days.) It seems that five years ago, she set up an account at a free online journal site and posted half a dozen entries in 10 days—most apparently written under the influence of one substance or another—before abandoning the site.
We knew only her first name, her hometown from five years ago and the bands she liked at that time. The e-mail address listed in the user account for her online journal was defunct.
Strike Two: Rotten Tomatoes
Our final attempt to erase someone's digital tracks also met with defeat.
• Freelance journalist wants her name taken off the Rotten Tomatoes movie-review Web site.
Good luck with that, say ReputationDefender Inc. CEO Michael Fertik, ReputationHawk founder Chris Martin and Columbia University journalism professor Todd Gitlin. Large, commercial (implication: lucrative) Web sites have little need to accommodate your petty requests. If you get through and find a sympathetic person on the end of a phone line, perhaps you'll get lucky. Otherwise, fuggedaboutit.
That prediction turned out to be on the money. Multiple e-mails to various Rotten Tomatoes addresses went unanswered or were bounced back as undeliverable. Messages left at the phone number for the parent company, IGN Entertainment Inc., likewise went nowhere.
Apparently, the journalist's best course of action would be to do what reputation mavens recommended in the first place: Create enough positive, search-engine-friendly content to push the "rotten + journalist's name" search result to Google's second page of results.
WrongedGirl provided us with a possible last name for the author, but unfortunately, like the author's first name, it was too common to be helpful. Her first and possibly last names together garnered 1,260 hits on Google, including multiple references on YouTube and multiple accounts on LinkedIn and Facebook, none of which appeared to be our author.
After a couple of mind-numbing hours trolling MySpace accounts, we did find an entry that looked promising (same first name, same state and county, if not exact hometown, and same favorite bands), but that too had been updated only a few times before being abandoned more than two years ago. It looked like we had a serial journaler on our hands.
We gave up on trying to track down the author and turned to the site where the journal was posted—Blurty. We posted our request to remove the offending material in the support forum. A few moments later, we received an automated e-mail response, with a tracking number, saying that our request had been received and would be addressed as soon as possible. But over the next four days, nobody responded.
Scoping out the site
Trying another angle, we trolled through Blurty's support, legal, privacy and terms of service documents and sent e-mails to any other addresses we found there (abuse@blurty.com, for example), asking that the entry in question be taken down.
Two days later, with no response on any front, we used WhoIs to try to find a physical address for Blurty. Its technical contact was listed as being in Encinitas, Calif. When we called the phone number given in the WhoIs listing, a recorded voice informed us we'd reached Sunlane Media LLC.
Back to the Web for more searching: Our heart sank when we found that Sunlane has registered hundreds of other domains, nearly all of which appeared to be porn sites. Wonderful.
We called three separate phone numbers we found for Sunlane in various WhoIs listings—two of which sounded like cell phones and one that had the quality of a home answering machine circa 1995. None had a live person on the other end. We left messages at each number, trying to sound professional enough to elicit a swift response and distressed enough to elicit sympathy.
Resolution
The next day was Friday, our self-imposed deadline. We sent one final e-mail—replying to the webmaster address from which we'd received the tracking number earlier in the week—and requesting a response that leaned even more heavily on the sympathy angle.
Still nothing. At the end of the day, feeling discouraged, we drafted an e-mail to Fertik at ReputationDefender, requesting suggestions for further action. But when we Googled WrongedGirl's name to find and furnish the link to the offensive journal entry, it was gone from Google.
Amazed, we flipped over to the Internet Explorer bookmark we'd made for the page and saw this message: "Error. This journal has been suspended."
Excellent! But just what had done the job—which e-mail or phone call? We had no way of knowing, though a full 10 days later, an e-mail arrived from the abuse@blurty.com address, telling us what we'd already figured out: The journal had been taken down.
Have your say
Have you ever tried to erase your tracks online? Tell us how you did.
We were ebullient but also chastened. Yes, we had managed restore WrongedGirl's good name, but we had no clear understanding of exactly how we had done it, and our other two attempts at erasing unwanted online tracks (see here and here) had come up dry.
In the end, Fertik's words came back to haunt us: "A lot of this stuff you can do yourself—if you have the time, the expertise and the temperament to get it done," he had told us before we began. "But how many people change the oil in their own car anymore?"
Of course, Fertik has a vested interest in urging people to hire companies like his own, but we had to concede that he also had a point: Erasing your tracks online takes time, perseverance and more than a little luck.
Mayor is a Computerworld contributing editor.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Stick With the Job You Know, More Employees Are Saying
from the WSJ Career Center
A growing number of professionals are saying "no, thanks" to prospective employers asking them to change jobs.
Spooked by the shaky economy, 46% of U.S. middle managers polled in mid-September said switching employers in the current environment is risky, according to a survey by Accenture Ltd. Just 13% of respondents said they were actively looking for a new job, down from 30% the last time Accenture conducted a similar survey in 2005.
The findings are echoed by search-firm recruiters, who say they are having to work harder just to get professionals to hear out job opportunities they have to offer. And dire tales of people losing their jobs shortly after being hired, although rare, are helping to spread caution among workers.
Many employees are hesitant to join new companies because "there's a level of uncertainty," says David Smith, managing director of talent and organization performance at Accenture, a global consulting company. It's unclear whether a different employer will be able to provide sufficient job security, training, advancement opportunities and other benefits. By contrast, they know what's available to them where they work now, he says.
The Accenture survey, to be released Thursday, polled via the Internet 322 middle managers, including account supervisors, associate vice presidents and sales managers. In its 2005 survey, which polled 225 professionals about their job outlooks, Accenture didn't ask about perceptions of risk because the economy was strong at the time, a spokesman says.
Professionals who are considering switching jobs should carefully vet the financial health of a prospective employer, job recruiters say. To protect themselves, job candidates also should try to request that a severance package be included in any employment contract.
Workers may have good reason to be cautious about making a career move at such an economically volatile time. Consider what happened to an information-technology professional who resigned from his job at a New York investment bank. In late September, the employee accepted a written offer for a management job paying $120,000 a year. Days before he was to start, the new employer, a New York-based hedge fund, decided not to fill the position, citing upheaval in the financial markets as the reason, says Ron Weiss, a partner at search firm BMW Group Inc., who had introduced the parties to each other.
Though the hedge fund followed through on a promise to pay the candidate a $32,000 sign-on bonus, he was left initially without a job, says Mr. Weiss, who adds that this is the first time he has seen a job fall through at such a late stage of the process. The IT professional recently was hired by a foreign bank, the recruiter says.
Search firms say they are finding it harder to lure prospective candidates. "We have to really create for them something that is a sure thing," says Robin Bland, a senior recruiter at QuestPro, a search firm in Dallas that specializes in the insurance industry. "We have to bombard them with information about a potential employer so they feel secure about it."
Candidates also are taking longer to make up their minds about a job offer, says Aaron Brooks, managing director at Chicago-based search firm Mergis Group. "Companies need to realize that candidates are more in the driver's seat than they might think," he says.
Professionals should consider that when an employer needs to lay off workers, "sometimes it's last in, first out," says Dale Winston, chairman and chief executive officer of Battalia Winston International, an executive-search firm based in New York. In other instances, an entire division may be cut.
Kevin Burke was laid off earlier this month as a vice president of finance at a large chemical manufacturer after just seven months at the job. He had relocated his family for the position from Ohio to Missouri, where he bought a home. He says the company was having financial troubles and eliminated the department he worked in. "I certainly was surprised," he says.
Mr. Burke, 41 years old, had left behind a similar job at an automotive manufacturer. Despite the upheaval, he says, he doesn't blame his latest employer for what happened. "Market conditions dictated this result," he says. "Nobody expected the economy to burst as it has."
Job candidates may be able to protect themselves to some degree by asking prospective employers some direct questions, says Paula Marks, an executive coach and managing partner at Gilbert Tweed Associates, an executive-search firm in New York. For example: What's the financial status of the company? What is the employee turnover like? Do you expect the company to be sold anytime soon? When was the last time you had layoffs? What criteria did you use for those layoffs?
Meanwhile, do some research on your own, adds Ms. Marks. Search the Web for news articles for insight into a potential new employer's financial status and layoff history. If it's a public company, review its 10-K filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission -- documents that summarize a public company's performance. Networking is also critical, says Ms. Marks. Seek out referrals to past and present employees at the company you're considering joining to get their opinions and more information about the organization.
Candidates also should try to secure a severance package as part of their employment contract and have an attorney review it before accepting a job offer, says Ms. Marks. Propose the same size package your current employer has promised you if you were to be dismissed, she advises. Should you want another amount, offer what you're most comfortable with. If your request is rejected, consider turning the offer down. "You have to protect yourself," she says.
It's wise to weigh the pros and cons of a job change with a professional career coach or mentor, says Ms. Marks. "Don't discuss it with friends and family. They bring their own baggage, their own fears."
A growing number of professionals are saying "no, thanks" to prospective employers asking them to change jobs.
Spooked by the shaky economy, 46% of U.S. middle managers polled in mid-September said switching employers in the current environment is risky, according to a survey by Accenture Ltd. Just 13% of respondents said they were actively looking for a new job, down from 30% the last time Accenture conducted a similar survey in 2005.
The findings are echoed by search-firm recruiters, who say they are having to work harder just to get professionals to hear out job opportunities they have to offer. And dire tales of people losing their jobs shortly after being hired, although rare, are helping to spread caution among workers.
Many employees are hesitant to join new companies because "there's a level of uncertainty," says David Smith, managing director of talent and organization performance at Accenture, a global consulting company. It's unclear whether a different employer will be able to provide sufficient job security, training, advancement opportunities and other benefits. By contrast, they know what's available to them where they work now, he says.
The Accenture survey, to be released Thursday, polled via the Internet 322 middle managers, including account supervisors, associate vice presidents and sales managers. In its 2005 survey, which polled 225 professionals about their job outlooks, Accenture didn't ask about perceptions of risk because the economy was strong at the time, a spokesman says.
Professionals who are considering switching jobs should carefully vet the financial health of a prospective employer, job recruiters say. To protect themselves, job candidates also should try to request that a severance package be included in any employment contract.
Workers may have good reason to be cautious about making a career move at such an economically volatile time. Consider what happened to an information-technology professional who resigned from his job at a New York investment bank. In late September, the employee accepted a written offer for a management job paying $120,000 a year. Days before he was to start, the new employer, a New York-based hedge fund, decided not to fill the position, citing upheaval in the financial markets as the reason, says Ron Weiss, a partner at search firm BMW Group Inc., who had introduced the parties to each other.
Though the hedge fund followed through on a promise to pay the candidate a $32,000 sign-on bonus, he was left initially without a job, says Mr. Weiss, who adds that this is the first time he has seen a job fall through at such a late stage of the process. The IT professional recently was hired by a foreign bank, the recruiter says.
Search firms say they are finding it harder to lure prospective candidates. "We have to really create for them something that is a sure thing," says Robin Bland, a senior recruiter at QuestPro, a search firm in Dallas that specializes in the insurance industry. "We have to bombard them with information about a potential employer so they feel secure about it."
Candidates also are taking longer to make up their minds about a job offer, says Aaron Brooks, managing director at Chicago-based search firm Mergis Group. "Companies need to realize that candidates are more in the driver's seat than they might think," he says.
Professionals should consider that when an employer needs to lay off workers, "sometimes it's last in, first out," says Dale Winston, chairman and chief executive officer of Battalia Winston International, an executive-search firm based in New York. In other instances, an entire division may be cut.
Kevin Burke was laid off earlier this month as a vice president of finance at a large chemical manufacturer after just seven months at the job. He had relocated his family for the position from Ohio to Missouri, where he bought a home. He says the company was having financial troubles and eliminated the department he worked in. "I certainly was surprised," he says.
Mr. Burke, 41 years old, had left behind a similar job at an automotive manufacturer. Despite the upheaval, he says, he doesn't blame his latest employer for what happened. "Market conditions dictated this result," he says. "Nobody expected the economy to burst as it has."
Job candidates may be able to protect themselves to some degree by asking prospective employers some direct questions, says Paula Marks, an executive coach and managing partner at Gilbert Tweed Associates, an executive-search firm in New York. For example: What's the financial status of the company? What is the employee turnover like? Do you expect the company to be sold anytime soon? When was the last time you had layoffs? What criteria did you use for those layoffs?
Meanwhile, do some research on your own, adds Ms. Marks. Search the Web for news articles for insight into a potential new employer's financial status and layoff history. If it's a public company, review its 10-K filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission -- documents that summarize a public company's performance. Networking is also critical, says Ms. Marks. Seek out referrals to past and present employees at the company you're considering joining to get their opinions and more information about the organization.
Candidates also should try to secure a severance package as part of their employment contract and have an attorney review it before accepting a job offer, says Ms. Marks. Propose the same size package your current employer has promised you if you were to be dismissed, she advises. Should you want another amount, offer what you're most comfortable with. If your request is rejected, consider turning the offer down. "You have to protect yourself," she says.
It's wise to weigh the pros and cons of a job change with a professional career coach or mentor, says Ms. Marks. "Don't discuss it with friends and family. They bring their own baggage, their own fears."
Monday, November 17, 2008
Ethics, Morals Top IT Execs' Hiring Checklists
IT executives surveyed by the Society for Information Management cited ethics and morals as the top characteristics they look for in candidates for IT jobs, as their concerns about disgruntled IT workers grow
November 17, 2008 — Computerworld — Information technology leaders are hungry to recruit .Net programmers, desktop support technicians and voice-over-IP project leaders, according to an online survey conducted in June by the Society for Information Management.
Making the Best Right Decision But when asked by SIM to cite the top workplace skills that they're seeking in candidates for both entry-level and midlevel IT jobs, the 300-plus respondents placed the greatest emphasis on ethics and morals.
SIM didn't disclose the number of respondents who cited ethics and morals. But that choice overwhelmingly topped alternatives such as communication skills and business acumen, said the group, which released the full results of the annual survey at its SIMposium 2008 conference in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., last week.
Jerry Luftman, a professor at Stevens Institute of Technology and SIM's vice president of academic affairs, said that many IT executives have voiced concerns about reports of tech workers doing unethical things such as circumventing security systems.
Luftman, who is executive director of the information systems graduate programs at Stevens, also noted that cheating scandals at some U.S. colleges have grabbed people's attention.
"It's hot on everyone's minds," Luftman said. "This whole issue of ethics and morals is becoming paramount to IT executives."
"To me, this is the price of entry into my [IT] department," said Paul Major, CIO at The Aspen Skiing Co. in Colorado. Major noted that he recently had to fire two people from his 20-person IT organization because they didn't "exhibit the type of principles that we try to emulate with our team and in our company."
Major also said that prior to getting into any discussions about technical skills during job interviews, he does a "gut check" of the applicants based on how they're dressed and how they present themselves. "Then I give them the spiel on the company's guiding principles," he said.
Mike Close, chief technology officer at The Dannon Co. in White Plains, N.Y., said that gauging the moral fiber of job applicants has long been part of the vetting process at the yogurt maker, which has done "a significant amount of hiring" over the past couple of years.
This version of the story originally appeared in Computerworld's print edition.
November 17, 2008 — Computerworld — Information technology leaders are hungry to recruit .Net programmers, desktop support technicians and voice-over-IP project leaders, according to an online survey conducted in June by the Society for Information Management.
Making the Best Right Decision But when asked by SIM to cite the top workplace skills that they're seeking in candidates for both entry-level and midlevel IT jobs, the 300-plus respondents placed the greatest emphasis on ethics and morals.
SIM didn't disclose the number of respondents who cited ethics and morals. But that choice overwhelmingly topped alternatives such as communication skills and business acumen, said the group, which released the full results of the annual survey at its SIMposium 2008 conference in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., last week.
Jerry Luftman, a professor at Stevens Institute of Technology and SIM's vice president of academic affairs, said that many IT executives have voiced concerns about reports of tech workers doing unethical things such as circumventing security systems.
Luftman, who is executive director of the information systems graduate programs at Stevens, also noted that cheating scandals at some U.S. colleges have grabbed people's attention.
"It's hot on everyone's minds," Luftman said. "This whole issue of ethics and morals is becoming paramount to IT executives."
"To me, this is the price of entry into my [IT] department," said Paul Major, CIO at The Aspen Skiing Co. in Colorado. Major noted that he recently had to fire two people from his 20-person IT organization because they didn't "exhibit the type of principles that we try to emulate with our team and in our company."
Major also said that prior to getting into any discussions about technical skills during job interviews, he does a "gut check" of the applicants based on how they're dressed and how they present themselves. "Then I give them the spiel on the company's guiding principles," he said.
Mike Close, chief technology officer at The Dannon Co. in White Plains, N.Y., said that gauging the moral fiber of job applicants has long been part of the vetting process at the yogurt maker, which has done "a significant amount of hiring" over the past couple of years.
This version of the story originally appeared in Computerworld's print edition.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Is Asking For a Counter Offer a Good Idea?
from the Career Q&A at Dow Jones
Q: I work from home in Southern California in a niche field for a large Boston-based financial services firm. Because of my work from home arrangement, I have been paid less than I would have if I were to work in the Boston office. A recruiter recently contacted me about a job opening with one of the most well-respected, stable financial companies in the world. I was offered the job and would have to move – to a much less expensive area -- if I accept. The pay is 30% higher; and the bonus is also higher. I told my boss about the offer and asked if the company might increase my salary. He said he would ask his boss and see if there is some way they could match the base salary from the offer I got, but that the bonus couldn't be matched. Was I dumb to ask for this? Will it hurt me in the long run if I stay with my current job?
A: Before you approached your boss and told him about your competing offer, it probably would have been a good idea to find out how your employer has reacted to other employees who may have mentioned competing offers in an effort to get a pay raise. "Some company culture are unforgiving of employees who appear to be looking for opportunities outside the firm," says Alane Baranello, managing director at Eileen Finn & Associates, an executive recruiting firm. "In these cases, an employee might be "forced" to leave a firm if their request is denied," says Ms. Baranello.
[Getting a Counteroffer] Getty Images
This, of course, may not be the case with your firm especially since you work in a niche field. Still, "counteroffers rarely work as they often make the company feel like they have been held hostage," says Jo Bennett, a partner with Battalia Winston, an executive-search firm. The best strategy would have been for you to make up your mind and decide what you wanted to do first, then approach your firm.
Most people need to consider the money, as you have in this case, then the future career opportunity and finally the people with whom you would work, says Ms. Bennett. If two of the three criteria puts you in a better situation in the long run, then it might be worth it make the jump. Then, "you give notice and if your boss doesn't want you to go, you might get a counteroffer," says Ms. Bennett.
Now that your boss knows about the offer, he's going to be asked by his boss whether or not you're worth a raise. "You will be subject to an off-cycle performance appraisal with the addition question "Is he loyal enough to keep?," says Mr. Paul Gavejian, managing director at Total Compensation Solutions. You may need to assuage worries your boss might have in case he is worried that you just got another offer to leverage a pay increase—whether or not you did.
Truth is, your boss doesn't sound too encouraging; he's already told you that the bonus couldn't be matched. So, if your increase isn't going to be granted, "take the high road," if you decide to stay, says Mr. Gavejian. To that end, you're really just trying to ensure that you can meet the cost of living increases in an area where the cost of living is higher than the national average. You can say that you didn't mean to be disloyal to the company but that "you've heard your job pays a lot more in other companies and that you want to be sure that you're being paid fairly for your work," says Mr. Gavejian.
Of course, this all assumes that your work product, performance and dedication to your job remains high. In many cases, companies don't often take into account employee growth on the job. "It is okay to point these out to your employer and it is even considered a plus in some circles," says Mr. Gavejian. Try to position yourself as someone who is committed to your job, who is successful and who is therefore worth more money.
The most important thing is to do is to turn around any negative perception that you put your boss into a bind and forced him to raise your salary with a counteroffer. If you're able to do that, are happy in your current job and believe you can keep up the quality of your work, then "your future success with your current employer should not be affected," says Ms. Baranello. If you're not sure you can do that, you might want to consider the offer you received – or plan to look for another job even if you don't jump at the current offer.
Q: I work from home in Southern California in a niche field for a large Boston-based financial services firm. Because of my work from home arrangement, I have been paid less than I would have if I were to work in the Boston office. A recruiter recently contacted me about a job opening with one of the most well-respected, stable financial companies in the world. I was offered the job and would have to move – to a much less expensive area -- if I accept. The pay is 30% higher; and the bonus is also higher. I told my boss about the offer and asked if the company might increase my salary. He said he would ask his boss and see if there is some way they could match the base salary from the offer I got, but that the bonus couldn't be matched. Was I dumb to ask for this? Will it hurt me in the long run if I stay with my current job?
A: Before you approached your boss and told him about your competing offer, it probably would have been a good idea to find out how your employer has reacted to other employees who may have mentioned competing offers in an effort to get a pay raise. "Some company culture are unforgiving of employees who appear to be looking for opportunities outside the firm," says Alane Baranello, managing director at Eileen Finn & Associates, an executive recruiting firm. "In these cases, an employee might be "forced" to leave a firm if their request is denied," says Ms. Baranello.
[Getting a Counteroffer] Getty Images
This, of course, may not be the case with your firm especially since you work in a niche field. Still, "counteroffers rarely work as they often make the company feel like they have been held hostage," says Jo Bennett, a partner with Battalia Winston, an executive-search firm. The best strategy would have been for you to make up your mind and decide what you wanted to do first, then approach your firm.
Most people need to consider the money, as you have in this case, then the future career opportunity and finally the people with whom you would work, says Ms. Bennett. If two of the three criteria puts you in a better situation in the long run, then it might be worth it make the jump. Then, "you give notice and if your boss doesn't want you to go, you might get a counteroffer," says Ms. Bennett.
Now that your boss knows about the offer, he's going to be asked by his boss whether or not you're worth a raise. "You will be subject to an off-cycle performance appraisal with the addition question "Is he loyal enough to keep?," says Mr. Paul Gavejian, managing director at Total Compensation Solutions. You may need to assuage worries your boss might have in case he is worried that you just got another offer to leverage a pay increase—whether or not you did.
Truth is, your boss doesn't sound too encouraging; he's already told you that the bonus couldn't be matched. So, if your increase isn't going to be granted, "take the high road," if you decide to stay, says Mr. Gavejian. To that end, you're really just trying to ensure that you can meet the cost of living increases in an area where the cost of living is higher than the national average. You can say that you didn't mean to be disloyal to the company but that "you've heard your job pays a lot more in other companies and that you want to be sure that you're being paid fairly for your work," says Mr. Gavejian.
Of course, this all assumes that your work product, performance and dedication to your job remains high. In many cases, companies don't often take into account employee growth on the job. "It is okay to point these out to your employer and it is even considered a plus in some circles," says Mr. Gavejian. Try to position yourself as someone who is committed to your job, who is successful and who is therefore worth more money.
The most important thing is to do is to turn around any negative perception that you put your boss into a bind and forced him to raise your salary with a counteroffer. If you're able to do that, are happy in your current job and believe you can keep up the quality of your work, then "your future success with your current employer should not be affected," says Ms. Baranello. If you're not sure you can do that, you might want to consider the offer you received – or plan to look for another job even if you don't jump at the current offer.
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Networking? Here's How to Stand Out
from the WSJ - 11/4/08
Fans of Bruce Mount sang his praises to BzzAgent before he applied to become vice president of engineering of the Boston word-of-mouth marketer.
In late June, the software-development manager asked nearly two dozen present and past colleagues to tout his abilities. "Even one sentence will help!" he assured them. Their testimonials ranged from a brief haiku to a multipage missive dubbing him "a freakin' goldmine of knowledge, ingenuity and kindness."
Mr. Mount's creative approach "made him stand out," recalls Rossana Y. de la Cruz, BzzAgent's director of recruiting. He was the frontrunner among 166 outside prospects. And though the firm ultimately promoted an insider, Ms. de la Cruz vows to consider him again for a relevant vacancy.
Unusual times demand unusual networking tactics. Most candidates find work through networking, surveys show. But in today's dismal job market, many feel frustrated with standard strategies such as tapping friends for referrals.
Clients of Laurence J. Stybel, a Boston outplacement counselor, fret that acquaintances ignore their aid requests because the contacts fear losing their jobs. Anxious about unemployment, people hoard knowledge about openings for themselves and closest friends. Networking "is perceived to be a zero-sum game," the president of Stybel Peabody Lincolnshire says.
What's Wrong With My Job Search?
Possible questions to pose in an anonymous poll of your network:
* What three words come to mind when you think of my strengths? What three words come to mind when you think about areas where I could improve?
* Is there one aspect of my hunt where I am making a big mistake but appear unaware? If yes, what is my mistake?
* What jobs do you think I might be good at that I haven't considered?
* What type of jobs have I looked down on that might pay well?
Source: Diane Darling, CEO of Effective Networking Inc.
"The bar has been raised on what it takes to make networking work," concurs Scott Allen, a consultant about online networking. "Virtual interaction allows us to create the illusion of networking by making electronic links with people," but online ties represent "just a starting point," he says. "You still need some kind of relationship."
For job hunters who use networking Web sites like LinkedIn.com, Mr. Allen favors a more-sophisticated approach. When you invite someone to join you on LinkedIn, he proposes including a personalized offer of help, such as an introduction to a customer or a useful link to a relevant article.
In the real world, you can improve your networking by finding out whether key executives of potential employers will attend a trade group meeting and then scheduling encounters during the event, recommends Brandon Gutman, vice president of business development at Battalia Winston International, a New York search firm. "Don't expect to just show up and bump into these people," he cautions.
Robb Leland wanted to move into mobile marketing, which involves targeting promotions at mobile devices. He identified three mobile-marketing concerns that were listed on an industry association's site as being registered for the group's March 2008 conference. He then contacted officials at the companies, including Shira Simmonds, president and co-founder of Ping Media.
Seated beside each other during a conference seminar, they immediately found common ground. "That's why I'm here today," says Mr. Leland, who joined Ping Media as senior business-development manager in September.
There are additional ways to network more effectively at events. "Be the only person like yourself in the room," Dr. Stybel advises. For instance, he encourages human-resources managers to attend local meetings of Financial Executives International and share their expertise about compensation practices. Because many HR executives report to chief financial officers, those who belong to that professional organization probably hear about promising HR positions.
An offbeat but memorable "elevator pitch" will also make you stand out in a crowd, says Lorraine Howell, a public-speaking trainer in Seattle.
Several years ago, Ms. Howell coached Wimsey Cherrington, a Seattle massage therapist who unearths hidden causes of chronic pain. The therapist was having trouble describing her specialty during gatherings of a women business owners' group. "Networking wasn't working at all," Ms. Cherrington remembers.
Things changed after the therapist began calling herself "a body detective." The catchy description "at least doubled my practice," Ms. Cherrington says.
Still frustrated? Your network may know why. Ask friends, relatives and associates to anonymously assess your strengths and weaknesses through SurveyMonkey.com, an online polling tool, suggests Diane Darling, a Boston networking specialist.
The gambit worked for her. Based on her SurveyMonkey feedback, she realized her artsy-looking purple pantsuits hindered her career success because she didn't look "corporate." Those contacts never "would have ever told me this in person," Ms. Darling says. She fixed her image by buying costly, classic business suits.
Fans of Bruce Mount sang his praises to BzzAgent before he applied to become vice president of engineering of the Boston word-of-mouth marketer.
In late June, the software-development manager asked nearly two dozen present and past colleagues to tout his abilities. "Even one sentence will help!" he assured them. Their testimonials ranged from a brief haiku to a multipage missive dubbing him "a freakin' goldmine of knowledge, ingenuity and kindness."
Mr. Mount's creative approach "made him stand out," recalls Rossana Y. de la Cruz, BzzAgent's director of recruiting. He was the frontrunner among 166 outside prospects. And though the firm ultimately promoted an insider, Ms. de la Cruz vows to consider him again for a relevant vacancy.
Unusual times demand unusual networking tactics. Most candidates find work through networking, surveys show. But in today's dismal job market, many feel frustrated with standard strategies such as tapping friends for referrals.
Clients of Laurence J. Stybel, a Boston outplacement counselor, fret that acquaintances ignore their aid requests because the contacts fear losing their jobs. Anxious about unemployment, people hoard knowledge about openings for themselves and closest friends. Networking "is perceived to be a zero-sum game," the president of Stybel Peabody Lincolnshire says.
What's Wrong With My Job Search?
Possible questions to pose in an anonymous poll of your network:
* What three words come to mind when you think of my strengths? What three words come to mind when you think about areas where I could improve?
* Is there one aspect of my hunt where I am making a big mistake but appear unaware? If yes, what is my mistake?
* What jobs do you think I might be good at that I haven't considered?
* What type of jobs have I looked down on that might pay well?
Source: Diane Darling, CEO of Effective Networking Inc.
"The bar has been raised on what it takes to make networking work," concurs Scott Allen, a consultant about online networking. "Virtual interaction allows us to create the illusion of networking by making electronic links with people," but online ties represent "just a starting point," he says. "You still need some kind of relationship."
For job hunters who use networking Web sites like LinkedIn.com, Mr. Allen favors a more-sophisticated approach. When you invite someone to join you on LinkedIn, he proposes including a personalized offer of help, such as an introduction to a customer or a useful link to a relevant article.
In the real world, you can improve your networking by finding out whether key executives of potential employers will attend a trade group meeting and then scheduling encounters during the event, recommends Brandon Gutman, vice president of business development at Battalia Winston International, a New York search firm. "Don't expect to just show up and bump into these people," he cautions.
Robb Leland wanted to move into mobile marketing, which involves targeting promotions at mobile devices. He identified three mobile-marketing concerns that were listed on an industry association's site as being registered for the group's March 2008 conference. He then contacted officials at the companies, including Shira Simmonds, president and co-founder of Ping Media.
Seated beside each other during a conference seminar, they immediately found common ground. "That's why I'm here today," says Mr. Leland, who joined Ping Media as senior business-development manager in September.
There are additional ways to network more effectively at events. "Be the only person like yourself in the room," Dr. Stybel advises. For instance, he encourages human-resources managers to attend local meetings of Financial Executives International and share their expertise about compensation practices. Because many HR executives report to chief financial officers, those who belong to that professional organization probably hear about promising HR positions.
An offbeat but memorable "elevator pitch" will also make you stand out in a crowd, says Lorraine Howell, a public-speaking trainer in Seattle.
Several years ago, Ms. Howell coached Wimsey Cherrington, a Seattle massage therapist who unearths hidden causes of chronic pain. The therapist was having trouble describing her specialty during gatherings of a women business owners' group. "Networking wasn't working at all," Ms. Cherrington remembers.
Things changed after the therapist began calling herself "a body detective." The catchy description "at least doubled my practice," Ms. Cherrington says.
Still frustrated? Your network may know why. Ask friends, relatives and associates to anonymously assess your strengths and weaknesses through SurveyMonkey.com, an online polling tool, suggests Diane Darling, a Boston networking specialist.
The gambit worked for her. Based on her SurveyMonkey feedback, she realized her artsy-looking purple pantsuits hindered her career success because she didn't look "corporate." Those contacts never "would have ever told me this in person," Ms. Darling says. She fixed her image by buying costly, classic business suits.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Protecting Your Privacy When Job Hunting
from the Career Q & A at DowJones
Q: I have a good job with great benefits and pretty good working relationships. The department is challenged right now, as we do not have the ability to add people to do the work more efficiently or get funding for projects that are important to the business. I would like to start looking around for new opportunities, but in this digital age, I'm worried that a job search is no longer a private affair. Do you have any suggestions?
A: You are correct to be concerned that a job search might no longer be a private affair, especially when executed on the Internet. In the early days of digital job hunting, many job seekers' biggest concern was whether their current employers would get wind of what they were doing. But that has changed in recent years, according to Pam Dixon, executive director of the California-based World Privacy Forum. "Unfortunately, identity theft and fraud are alive and well," she says.
[Job Hunting Online] Getty Images
Ms. Dixon and her staff are constantly receiving calls from individuals whose identities have been compromised in some way because they gave away too much information during an Internet-based job search. Because of this, Ms. Dixon's first piece of advice to job seekers is to avoid openly posting their resumes online. "If it's open on the Web, then it's kind of like big game hunting," she says. "It's hunting season, and you are the game."
Whenever possible, contact the person doing the hiring and submit your resume directly to him or her, recommends Ms. Dixon. In recent years, this has gotten easier; one of the biggest shifts she has seen is that more and more employers are allowing prospective candidates to contact them directly.
What's more, most large and midsize companies now have fairly sophisticated Web sites where you can apply for specific positions. That's important, because when you submit your resume to a specific person or employer, there is an expectation of confidentiality, says Ms. Dixon. But when it is simply posted on the Web, any hint of privacy goes out the window.
These days, with the ease of identity theft, it's also a bad idea to include your home address on your resume. Consider renting a post office box for the duration of your search. You can also get a temporary cell phone number and email address dedicated to your job search. "Resumes go far and wide," says Ms. Dixon. "So, if you have the funds to make your information temporary, do it. You don't want to give up information that you'll want to take back later." That includes your social security number, which should never be shared unless required. Government applications, for example, are an exception.
On the flip side, by making your job search too private, you could inadvertently limit your exposure to legitimate sources for potential jobs, says Monster.com's Senior Vice President and Chief Privacy Officer Patrick W. Manzo. "There is always a trade-off between exposure and confidentiality," he says. "The most effective job search strategies typically involve maximum resume exposure."
One approach is to take advantage of the privacy features that many job sites – Monster included – offer. "Specifically, job seekers have the ability to control the degree of exposure their resume receives," says Mr. Manzo. "They may make the resume fully public and searchable in Monster's resume database – or they may choose a more limited exposure option."
Alternatives include hiding certain identifying information on a resume, such as your name, contact information and current employer. When this feature is activated on Monster.com, for example, interested employers can only contact the job seeker through a confidential Monster email address. The job seeker can then review the job posting and respond if interested.
Make sure you also consider other Web sites – not just job boards. With the explosion of social-networking sites like Facebook and Twitter comes a whole new host of challenges to the digital job search. You need to ask yourself: "What persona am I sharing with the world – and specifically to potential employers?" Having an online presence is important to the job search, according to Mr. Manzo. Just make certain that anything you post on a social networking site isn't going to offend or alienate a potential employer.
Q: I have a good job with great benefits and pretty good working relationships. The department is challenged right now, as we do not have the ability to add people to do the work more efficiently or get funding for projects that are important to the business. I would like to start looking around for new opportunities, but in this digital age, I'm worried that a job search is no longer a private affair. Do you have any suggestions?
A: You are correct to be concerned that a job search might no longer be a private affair, especially when executed on the Internet. In the early days of digital job hunting, many job seekers' biggest concern was whether their current employers would get wind of what they were doing. But that has changed in recent years, according to Pam Dixon, executive director of the California-based World Privacy Forum. "Unfortunately, identity theft and fraud are alive and well," she says.
[Job Hunting Online] Getty Images
Ms. Dixon and her staff are constantly receiving calls from individuals whose identities have been compromised in some way because they gave away too much information during an Internet-based job search. Because of this, Ms. Dixon's first piece of advice to job seekers is to avoid openly posting their resumes online. "If it's open on the Web, then it's kind of like big game hunting," she says. "It's hunting season, and you are the game."
Whenever possible, contact the person doing the hiring and submit your resume directly to him or her, recommends Ms. Dixon. In recent years, this has gotten easier; one of the biggest shifts she has seen is that more and more employers are allowing prospective candidates to contact them directly.
What's more, most large and midsize companies now have fairly sophisticated Web sites where you can apply for specific positions. That's important, because when you submit your resume to a specific person or employer, there is an expectation of confidentiality, says Ms. Dixon. But when it is simply posted on the Web, any hint of privacy goes out the window.
These days, with the ease of identity theft, it's also a bad idea to include your home address on your resume. Consider renting a post office box for the duration of your search. You can also get a temporary cell phone number and email address dedicated to your job search. "Resumes go far and wide," says Ms. Dixon. "So, if you have the funds to make your information temporary, do it. You don't want to give up information that you'll want to take back later." That includes your social security number, which should never be shared unless required. Government applications, for example, are an exception.
On the flip side, by making your job search too private, you could inadvertently limit your exposure to legitimate sources for potential jobs, says Monster.com's Senior Vice President and Chief Privacy Officer Patrick W. Manzo. "There is always a trade-off between exposure and confidentiality," he says. "The most effective job search strategies typically involve maximum resume exposure."
One approach is to take advantage of the privacy features that many job sites – Monster included – offer. "Specifically, job seekers have the ability to control the degree of exposure their resume receives," says Mr. Manzo. "They may make the resume fully public and searchable in Monster's resume database – or they may choose a more limited exposure option."
Alternatives include hiding certain identifying information on a resume, such as your name, contact information and current employer. When this feature is activated on Monster.com, for example, interested employers can only contact the job seeker through a confidential Monster email address. The job seeker can then review the job posting and respond if interested.
Make sure you also consider other Web sites – not just job boards. With the explosion of social-networking sites like Facebook and Twitter comes a whole new host of challenges to the digital job search. You need to ask yourself: "What persona am I sharing with the world – and specifically to potential employers?" Having an online presence is important to the job search, according to Mr. Manzo. Just make certain that anything you post on a social networking site isn't going to offend or alienate a potential employer.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Eight Things That Can Boost Your Pay
The value of the "face" - the person doing the job - is the value of the "space" adjusted for characteristics known to have an influence on an individual's pay. Salary.com calls these "personal variables," adjusting for eight personal variables in the Personal Salary Report.
They include the following:
1. Years of experience
Typically, more experience results in higher pay - up to a point. Similarly, if the position calls for someone with 10 years of experience in a particular occupation, and you don't meet those requirements, you may find yourself on the lower end of the pay scale. Negotiation tip: emphasize your years of experience if you have slightly more than what's required; if you have too much experience, you may be overqualified.
2. Education
The match between your education and what's normally required for your job usually affects your pay. Plus, the quality of education can affect salary. Earning a degree from a top program typically has a positive influence on pay, while earning a degree from a school that's considered weak in a particular field may decrease your earning potential. Negotiation tip: emphasize your education if it is more than what's called for in the job - and it's relevant.
3. Performance reviews
Since most employers base their pay decisions at least partly on individual performance, this is an important variable when being considered for a pay increase or promotion. Even when applying for a new job, this information may be important to your prospective employer, as it gives a more complete picture of your abilities. Negotiation tip: performance has a significant impact on pay, especially incentive pay.
4. Boss
The more discretion and latitude you have in relation to your company's success, the more directly your decisions and actions will affect the bottom line - and your own. And if your boss is higher on the corporate hierarchy, his or her recommendations concerning your pay have less chance to be overridden in the cycles of review. Negotiation tip: in the interview process, find out who the position reports to, along with the position's potential for growth.
5. Number of reports
The more employees you manage, the higher your pay in certain jobs. Of course, your level of success is also based on the performance of the employees you manage. Negotiation tip: emphasize the successes of those who report to you or who reported to you in your previous position.
6. Professional associations and certifications
Certifications and memberships in professional organizations or trade associations can have a positive effect on pay. However, if a job calls for a certification you don't have, you might not get the job or your pay might be set at the lower end of the range. Some employers require employees without certifications to work toward them. Negotiation tip: if you have a certification that is optional, but considered a plus, that means you can expect to earn a little more because of it.
7. Shift differentials
In certain jobs, workers may be expected to perform tasks during less favorable shift times. These employees are typically paid a premium due to the higher social and physical costs involved in working outside "normal work hours." In jobs that don't normally operate on more than one shift, the differential is negligible and usually only taken into account when a nonsalaried employee works overtime or on a special project. Negotiation tip: you can expect to earn a little extra for working the second or third shift.
8. Hazardous working conditions
In certain jobs, workers are expected to perform tasks under dangerous working conditions. Dangerous working conditions can be defined to include anything from handling dangerous chemicals in a research facility to walking a police beat in a dangerous section of town. Jobs that fall into this category are usually regulated by outside authorities, including labor unions and the government. Negotiation tip: ask for hazard pay if you are put on a temporary assignment in a dangerous location.
They include the following:
1. Years of experience
Typically, more experience results in higher pay - up to a point. Similarly, if the position calls for someone with 10 years of experience in a particular occupation, and you don't meet those requirements, you may find yourself on the lower end of the pay scale. Negotiation tip: emphasize your years of experience if you have slightly more than what's required; if you have too much experience, you may be overqualified.
2. Education
The match between your education and what's normally required for your job usually affects your pay. Plus, the quality of education can affect salary. Earning a degree from a top program typically has a positive influence on pay, while earning a degree from a school that's considered weak in a particular field may decrease your earning potential. Negotiation tip: emphasize your education if it is more than what's called for in the job - and it's relevant.
3. Performance reviews
Since most employers base their pay decisions at least partly on individual performance, this is an important variable when being considered for a pay increase or promotion. Even when applying for a new job, this information may be important to your prospective employer, as it gives a more complete picture of your abilities. Negotiation tip: performance has a significant impact on pay, especially incentive pay.
4. Boss
The more discretion and latitude you have in relation to your company's success, the more directly your decisions and actions will affect the bottom line - and your own. And if your boss is higher on the corporate hierarchy, his or her recommendations concerning your pay have less chance to be overridden in the cycles of review. Negotiation tip: in the interview process, find out who the position reports to, along with the position's potential for growth.
5. Number of reports
The more employees you manage, the higher your pay in certain jobs. Of course, your level of success is also based on the performance of the employees you manage. Negotiation tip: emphasize the successes of those who report to you or who reported to you in your previous position.
6. Professional associations and certifications
Certifications and memberships in professional organizations or trade associations can have a positive effect on pay. However, if a job calls for a certification you don't have, you might not get the job or your pay might be set at the lower end of the range. Some employers require employees without certifications to work toward them. Negotiation tip: if you have a certification that is optional, but considered a plus, that means you can expect to earn a little more because of it.
7. Shift differentials
In certain jobs, workers may be expected to perform tasks during less favorable shift times. These employees are typically paid a premium due to the higher social and physical costs involved in working outside "normal work hours." In jobs that don't normally operate on more than one shift, the differential is negligible and usually only taken into account when a nonsalaried employee works overtime or on a special project. Negotiation tip: you can expect to earn a little extra for working the second or third shift.
8. Hazardous working conditions
In certain jobs, workers are expected to perform tasks under dangerous working conditions. Dangerous working conditions can be defined to include anything from handling dangerous chemicals in a research facility to walking a police beat in a dangerous section of town. Jobs that fall into this category are usually regulated by outside authorities, including labor unions and the government. Negotiation tip: ask for hazard pay if you are put on a temporary assignment in a dangerous location.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
The Pros and Cons of Social Networks and IT Job Seeking
High-tech recruiter sheds light on how IT workers can help and hinder their job search with social networking sites.
– Denise Dubie, Network World August 14, 2008
Social networking sites offer IT job seekers the resources to find peers with similar skills and learn more about employers. But candidates should be aware that the online outlets also provide employees a glimpse into the personal lives of potential hires. That can be good or it can be very bad, according to Rona Borre, president and CEO of Instant Technology, an IT recruiting and staff augmentation firm in Chicago. Borre recently talked with Network World Senior Editor Denise Dubie about how new technologies can boost or torpedo job searches.
As an IT recruiter for some 15 years, what do you think has changed the most for high-tech job seekers?
With today's unconventional recruiting methods such as social networking sites, there are so many ways now to really put yourself out there and get connected to people with the same interests as you. That has really changed the landscape of recruiting for IT talent.
How has it changed the process for recruiters?
It has allowed us to better match clients with candidates in a cultural way. We can search on Facebook and Google, for instance, and get just a glimpse or even deeper insight into their character. Interests outside of work such as music or art could lead an employer that is in a particular industry to one candidate over another. We can use social networking sites to find out more about an organization's culture as well. If employees are in clubs or groups listed online, that gives us a perspective on the people that already work there and helps us culturally match others.
What would be considered a bad cultural match?
If you look at dot-com companies that are very fast-paced and work long hours, and someone coming from a structured financial institution and is accustomed to working set hours, such as 9 am to 5 pm—that is not a good cultural fit.
How can IT job seekers use those sites to find work?
A lot of candidates are going to sites and learning more about an organization and connecting with people that already work there to better understand the jobs and culture. For their own profiles, they should make sure the profile is well-written and tasteful. They need to display the work that could differentiate them as a candidate, such as interest in music, art, clubs or athletics. That type of information could give them the added boost with an employer and really make them stand out.
Do you have any examples?
We work with a lot of online media companies. One of those clients was looking for a developer, not just a coder, someone that offered a bit more to the role, someone more interesting and original. We had a candidate that was a rapper, a music video rapper. The client went to the candidate's YouTube site and found the candidate's personal information and rap video very original and creative in terms of music and other personal interests—attributes beyond his job qualifications and technical skills. It was a very positive representation for that candidate. The client saw that his creativity would translate well to their online media company and be able to provide what they needed to produce for their clients. It was more about looking at the person as a whole as opposed to a one-dimensional piece of paper that has their credentials. It's not really about that anymore.
What if you aren't a rapper or you don't have art to display?
It is also very important to not only talk about your education and work experience, but also what you did at the school or university or former employer, such as social clubs or teams you were involved in. And always remember to be human and relatable. These sites are about humans trying to connect with each other so you have to put that human element forward. Social networking is another sales tool, another way to showcase the best attributes you have.
How can putting personal information on social networking sites hurt a candidate's job search efforts?
There are a lot of don'ts in terms of what you want to do with your profile. People are definitely more aware of what they are putting on their sites, giving some people the ability to look at some things and keeping some aspects private. I think now people are becoming much smarter because they might have had pictures of themselves up partying in college and now they know that it can be seen and found by potential employers and that the information they post there can be applicable to their professional lives.
For instance?
In terms of things not to do, don't post a lot of personal pictures of questionable taste. My rule of thumb is if my mom couldn't see it, I wouldn't put it up there. You also have to be careful who you link to and who you accept in your profiles because people go beyond and look deeper into who those connections are. If you have political or social views, you want to keep that to a minimum because you never know how a potential employer could interpret those, especially if it is a bank or a financial institution, for instance. Your personal beliefs are your own and potential employers likely wouldn't ask that question in an interview, but if it is posted for the world to see, you have to be aware that the information could help or potentially hurt you.
How could personal beliefs hurt a person's chances at getting a job?
One example I can share. We had a situation that we posted for a position. The résumé for this candidate included phenomenal credentials and great experience, but the recruiter manager also did a search on Facebook. The candidate's theme was predominantly Satanic and that didn't work for the hiring organization's culture.
Should IT job seekers strip out all personal references on these sites?
No. In many cases, it depends on where they would like to work, the type of organization they would prefer. There are many things that can be taken as positive or negative, depending on the work culture. For instance, we hired someone that had pictures of him with his fraternity brothers and we viewed that as a very positive aspect of his personally in that he was committed long-term to an organization. But another employer could view the same picture differently. You have to be very selective and consider both sides of the fence when posting pictures or personal information. People use these sites to check you out and judge you essentially.
How can IT workers highlight their nontechnical skills on such Web sites?
Today's market is more about the soft skills. The technology demand is there, but it's how IT workers go into a situation and use their business acumen to handle a crisis. Employers don't want people to sit in a room and code, in all honesty those jobs are going overseas. You have to give concrete examples of how your technical know-how helped the business.
How honest do candidates have to be in their profiles?
They should be honest, but they can present themselves in innovative ways. We had an instance in which an older gentlemen who worked in IT went on Facebook and positioned himself as more youthful by joining nightlife, connections and dance-club groups. That profile helped him get an interview, but his technical skills and experience helped him land the job. There are many IT workers with a wealth of knowledge and experience at their disposal, but it's important that they convey how they are keeping current with their know-how.
– Denise Dubie, Network World August 14, 2008
Social networking sites offer IT job seekers the resources to find peers with similar skills and learn more about employers. But candidates should be aware that the online outlets also provide employees a glimpse into the personal lives of potential hires. That can be good or it can be very bad, according to Rona Borre, president and CEO of Instant Technology, an IT recruiting and staff augmentation firm in Chicago. Borre recently talked with Network World Senior Editor Denise Dubie about how new technologies can boost or torpedo job searches.
As an IT recruiter for some 15 years, what do you think has changed the most for high-tech job seekers?
With today's unconventional recruiting methods such as social networking sites, there are so many ways now to really put yourself out there and get connected to people with the same interests as you. That has really changed the landscape of recruiting for IT talent.
How has it changed the process for recruiters?
It has allowed us to better match clients with candidates in a cultural way. We can search on Facebook and Google, for instance, and get just a glimpse or even deeper insight into their character. Interests outside of work such as music or art could lead an employer that is in a particular industry to one candidate over another. We can use social networking sites to find out more about an organization's culture as well. If employees are in clubs or groups listed online, that gives us a perspective on the people that already work there and helps us culturally match others.
What would be considered a bad cultural match?
If you look at dot-com companies that are very fast-paced and work long hours, and someone coming from a structured financial institution and is accustomed to working set hours, such as 9 am to 5 pm—that is not a good cultural fit.
How can IT job seekers use those sites to find work?
A lot of candidates are going to sites and learning more about an organization and connecting with people that already work there to better understand the jobs and culture. For their own profiles, they should make sure the profile is well-written and tasteful. They need to display the work that could differentiate them as a candidate, such as interest in music, art, clubs or athletics. That type of information could give them the added boost with an employer and really make them stand out.
Do you have any examples?
We work with a lot of online media companies. One of those clients was looking for a developer, not just a coder, someone that offered a bit more to the role, someone more interesting and original. We had a candidate that was a rapper, a music video rapper. The client went to the candidate's YouTube site and found the candidate's personal information and rap video very original and creative in terms of music and other personal interests—attributes beyond his job qualifications and technical skills. It was a very positive representation for that candidate. The client saw that his creativity would translate well to their online media company and be able to provide what they needed to produce for their clients. It was more about looking at the person as a whole as opposed to a one-dimensional piece of paper that has their credentials. It's not really about that anymore.
What if you aren't a rapper or you don't have art to display?
It is also very important to not only talk about your education and work experience, but also what you did at the school or university or former employer, such as social clubs or teams you were involved in. And always remember to be human and relatable. These sites are about humans trying to connect with each other so you have to put that human element forward. Social networking is another sales tool, another way to showcase the best attributes you have.
How can putting personal information on social networking sites hurt a candidate's job search efforts?
There are a lot of don'ts in terms of what you want to do with your profile. People are definitely more aware of what they are putting on their sites, giving some people the ability to look at some things and keeping some aspects private. I think now people are becoming much smarter because they might have had pictures of themselves up partying in college and now they know that it can be seen and found by potential employers and that the information they post there can be applicable to their professional lives.
For instance?
In terms of things not to do, don't post a lot of personal pictures of questionable taste. My rule of thumb is if my mom couldn't see it, I wouldn't put it up there. You also have to be careful who you link to and who you accept in your profiles because people go beyond and look deeper into who those connections are. If you have political or social views, you want to keep that to a minimum because you never know how a potential employer could interpret those, especially if it is a bank or a financial institution, for instance. Your personal beliefs are your own and potential employers likely wouldn't ask that question in an interview, but if it is posted for the world to see, you have to be aware that the information could help or potentially hurt you.
How could personal beliefs hurt a person's chances at getting a job?
One example I can share. We had a situation that we posted for a position. The résumé for this candidate included phenomenal credentials and great experience, but the recruiter manager also did a search on Facebook. The candidate's theme was predominantly Satanic and that didn't work for the hiring organization's culture.
Should IT job seekers strip out all personal references on these sites?
No. In many cases, it depends on where they would like to work, the type of organization they would prefer. There are many things that can be taken as positive or negative, depending on the work culture. For instance, we hired someone that had pictures of him with his fraternity brothers and we viewed that as a very positive aspect of his personally in that he was committed long-term to an organization. But another employer could view the same picture differently. You have to be very selective and consider both sides of the fence when posting pictures or personal information. People use these sites to check you out and judge you essentially.
How can IT workers highlight their nontechnical skills on such Web sites?
Today's market is more about the soft skills. The technology demand is there, but it's how IT workers go into a situation and use their business acumen to handle a crisis. Employers don't want people to sit in a room and code, in all honesty those jobs are going overseas. You have to give concrete examples of how your technical know-how helped the business.
How honest do candidates have to be in their profiles?
They should be honest, but they can present themselves in innovative ways. We had an instance in which an older gentlemen who worked in IT went on Facebook and positioned himself as more youthful by joining nightlife, connections and dance-club groups. That profile helped him get an interview, but his technical skills and experience helped him land the job. There are many IT workers with a wealth of knowledge and experience at their disposal, but it's important that they convey how they are keeping current with their know-how.
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