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."
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
