From DICE, April 14, 2009...
Astute business managers are always looking to add a great employee, even if they don’t have an opening. That’s because managers face business and personnel challenges that can only be remedied by talented people, and job postings often produce a flood of both qualified and unqualified candidates.
The concept of proactively marketing your skills to pique the interest of hiring managers was discussed in a thread created by FM1 on the Dice Discussions board.
It seems FM1 had some success submitting his resume and cover letter to local employers who touted their open door policies toward talented candidates on their Web sites, even when they appeared to have no open jobs. FM1’s initiative resulted in several interviews.
If you decide to take FM1’s approach and cold market your skills, use these tactics to achieve the best return:
Read more...
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Making an Interview Work
From DICE, April 14, 2009...
Today’s ultracompetitive job market is inducing more candidates to adopt misguided methods to stand out in an interviewer’s mind. The old saw, “You want to stand out for the right reasons,” applies more than ever. Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal provides a useful roundup of tried-and-true interview advice.
A few tactics prone to backfire: Arriving an hour early for an interview (it’s best to arrive 10 minutes before your scheduled time); mentioning your own current financial or personal challenges; handing out bound summaries of your past work-related projects.
Other interviewing chestnuts that remain as valid today as 20 years ago:
Read more...
Today’s ultracompetitive job market is inducing more candidates to adopt misguided methods to stand out in an interviewer’s mind. The old saw, “You want to stand out for the right reasons,” applies more than ever. Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal provides a useful roundup of tried-and-true interview advice.
A few tactics prone to backfire: Arriving an hour early for an interview (it’s best to arrive 10 minutes before your scheduled time); mentioning your own current financial or personal challenges; handing out bound summaries of your past work-related projects.
Other interviewing chestnuts that remain as valid today as 20 years ago:
Read more...
How to get fired
From Computerworld, April 13, 2009...
A plunging stock market, crumbling budgets, layoffs and restructurings: So much of today's news is bad, so much of it can adversely affect your career, and so much of it is maddeningly beyond your control.
But there are things you can control, starting with your own behavior. Now more than ever, it's essential to ensure that idiosyncrasies and personal peccadillos don't undermine your career.
Here are five cautionary tales of real CIOs whose tragic flaws did them in.
Read more...
A plunging stock market, crumbling budgets, layoffs and restructurings: So much of today's news is bad, so much of it can adversely affect your career, and so much of it is maddeningly beyond your control.
But there are things you can control, starting with your own behavior. Now more than ever, it's essential to ensure that idiosyncrasies and personal peccadillos don't undermine your career.
Here are five cautionary tales of real CIOs whose tragic flaws did them in.
Read more...
Monday, April 13, 2009
Texas tech sector not too shabby, report says
From Austin Business Journal, March 31, 2009...
Texas’ technology industry hasn’t been hit as hard as the total private-sector nationally, according to a new report.
The number of tech jobs in the Lone Star State declined 0.6 percent during fourth-quarter 2008 compared with 1.3 percent for the national private-sector. Texas lost 38,000 tech jobs during the three-month period, trade association TechAmerica reported.
The decline came one year after Texas’ tech job growth (14,700) was the largest in the United States. The number of tech workers in Texas ranks the state No. 2 in the nation following California, the report shows.
Read more...
Texas’ technology industry hasn’t been hit as hard as the total private-sector nationally, according to a new report.
The number of tech jobs in the Lone Star State declined 0.6 percent during fourth-quarter 2008 compared with 1.3 percent for the national private-sector. Texas lost 38,000 tech jobs during the three-month period, trade association TechAmerica reported.
The decline came one year after Texas’ tech job growth (14,700) was the largest in the United States. The number of tech workers in Texas ranks the state No. 2 in the nation following California, the report shows.
Read more...
Austin job growth falls, but some see signs of turnaround
From statesman, March 27, 2009...
Austin employers are dramatically cutting back on hiring, with job growth falling to a five-year low last month.
The 0.2 percent growth rate was down from 3.8 percent a year earlier and 0.9 percent in January, according to the Texas Workforce Commission.
Still, Austin was the only major Texas metropolitan area to add jobs in the month, as the recession hit harder across the state.
And some local employment experts say they're beginning to see signs of improvement.
Read more...
Austin employers are dramatically cutting back on hiring, with job growth falling to a five-year low last month.
The 0.2 percent growth rate was down from 3.8 percent a year earlier and 0.9 percent in January, according to the Texas Workforce Commission.
Still, Austin was the only major Texas metropolitan area to add jobs in the month, as the recession hit harder across the state.
And some local employment experts say they're beginning to see signs of improvement.
Read more...
6 ways to ruin your resume
From Computerworld, April 13, 2009...
My vision is blurry. I've reviewed more than 40 résumés for a network administrator position, and less than half have made the cut. Although I rejected some candidates because of their lack of experience (or, rather, their lack of demonstrated required experience), others had errors in their application packages that lowered their ranking -- errors that could have been easily corrected.
Of course, the traditional job-seeking advice still applies. Always follow résumé best practices -- proper spelling, good organization, consistent font and so on. Realize, too, that if you simply don't meet the required minimum experience, it's very unlikely that you'll get the job. Beyond that, if you avoid these all-too-common mistakes that can be found in résumés for all kinds of IT positions, you'll boost your chance of landing the job.
Read more...
My vision is blurry. I've reviewed more than 40 résumés for a network administrator position, and less than half have made the cut. Although I rejected some candidates because of their lack of experience (or, rather, their lack of demonstrated required experience), others had errors in their application packages that lowered their ranking -- errors that could have been easily corrected.
Of course, the traditional job-seeking advice still applies. Always follow résumé best practices -- proper spelling, good organization, consistent font and so on. Realize, too, that if you simply don't meet the required minimum experience, it's very unlikely that you'll get the job. Beyond that, if you avoid these all-too-common mistakes that can be found in résumés for all kinds of IT positions, you'll boost your chance of landing the job.
Read more...
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Finding Stimulus-Based Jobs
From DICE, April 9, 2009...
Everyone is trying to anticipate where the government’s stimulus package is going to create jobs, so it makes good sense to follow the news to find out how and where new IT positions may be. TechCareers suggests there’ll be a need for engineers and project managers to oversee stimulus-based projects in manufacturing and construction sectors, and looks at when such jobs might be created in other industries:
Read more...
Everyone is trying to anticipate where the government’s stimulus package is going to create jobs, so it makes good sense to follow the news to find out how and where new IT positions may be. TechCareers suggests there’ll be a need for engineers and project managers to oversee stimulus-based projects in manufacturing and construction sectors, and looks at when such jobs might be created in other industries:
Read more...
No Surprise: Companies Cut Tech Budgets
From DICE, April 9, 2009...
Research firm Gartner reports technology spending will fall 3.8 percent worldwide and 1.6 percent in the U.S. this year. That’s down significantly from 2008, which saw a 6.1 percent rise worldwide. It’s also nearly double the decline that occurred when the tech bubble burst in 2001, says CNNMoney.
Meanwhile, companies have started to cut IT budgets, which doesn’t bode well for IT employment. Jobs are being hit particularly hard in sectors like services and finance, which combine to employ 50 percent of the nation’s technology professionals.
Forrester Research estimates U.S. tech jobs will decline by 1.2 percent this year, after three years of at least 2.5 percent growth. They ‘ve already fallen by nearly 1 percent since the November peak, according to the U.S. Labor Department. Year to date, 8,000 tech jobs have been slashed, including 4,100 just last month.
But not all IT jobs are in peril, according to Forrester:
Read more...
Research firm Gartner reports technology spending will fall 3.8 percent worldwide and 1.6 percent in the U.S. this year. That’s down significantly from 2008, which saw a 6.1 percent rise worldwide. It’s also nearly double the decline that occurred when the tech bubble burst in 2001, says CNNMoney.
Meanwhile, companies have started to cut IT budgets, which doesn’t bode well for IT employment. Jobs are being hit particularly hard in sectors like services and finance, which combine to employ 50 percent of the nation’s technology professionals.
Forrester Research estimates U.S. tech jobs will decline by 1.2 percent this year, after three years of at least 2.5 percent growth. They ‘ve already fallen by nearly 1 percent since the November peak, according to the U.S. Labor Department. Year to date, 8,000 tech jobs have been slashed, including 4,100 just last month.
But not all IT jobs are in peril, according to Forrester:
Read more...
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Career Advice Via Google
From DICE, April 8, 2009...
Should you land an interview soon, here’s a question you might hear that’s not out of left field: “What’s the last book you read?” Take the time to make it The Google Way: How One Company Is Revolutionizing Management As We Know It, by Bernard Girard.
What can Google teach you about better managing your career? Start by learning from its success, as well as what makes its employees successful and happy. Namely:
Read more...
Should you land an interview soon, here’s a question you might hear that’s not out of left field: “What’s the last book you read?” Take the time to make it The Google Way: How One Company Is Revolutionizing Management As We Know It, by Bernard Girard.
What can Google teach you about better managing your career? Start by learning from its success, as well as what makes its employees successful and happy. Namely:
Read more...
Overall, 2008 was a Good Year
From DICE, April 8, 2009...
For what it’s worth, the trade association TechAmerica says tech-sector employment went up, not down, by a total of 77,000 jobs in 2008. Says CIO magazine:
The total headcount for 2008? Just under six million American tech workers, up from 5.8 million in 2007. Contrary to the widespread presumption that the tech sector is shedding jobs almost as fast as General Motors, TechAmerica’s report says job losses in high-tech manufacturing and communications services (PR and marketing) were more than offset by gains in engineering and technical services. In particular, software services jobs jumped more than five percent, to a total of 1.7 million.
The TechAmerica Cyberstates 2009 report found tech jobs are no longer restricted to Silicon Valley. In 2008’s state-by-state comparison, the largest number of new jobs - 14,700 -were added in Texas. The state with the fastest growth, at 8.1 percent, was Kansas. Virginia led the nation with the highest concentration of tech workers - 92 of every 1,000 private-sector workers in the state were employed in the tech industry. Virginia was followed by Massachusetts and Colorado.
Read more...
For what it’s worth, the trade association TechAmerica says tech-sector employment went up, not down, by a total of 77,000 jobs in 2008. Says CIO magazine:
The total headcount for 2008? Just under six million American tech workers, up from 5.8 million in 2007. Contrary to the widespread presumption that the tech sector is shedding jobs almost as fast as General Motors, TechAmerica’s report says job losses in high-tech manufacturing and communications services (PR and marketing) were more than offset by gains in engineering and technical services. In particular, software services jobs jumped more than five percent, to a total of 1.7 million.
The TechAmerica Cyberstates 2009 report found tech jobs are no longer restricted to Silicon Valley. In 2008’s state-by-state comparison, the largest number of new jobs - 14,700 -were added in Texas. The state with the fastest growth, at 8.1 percent, was Kansas. Virginia led the nation with the highest concentration of tech workers - 92 of every 1,000 private-sector workers in the state were employed in the tech industry. Virginia was followed by Massachusetts and Colorado.
Read more...
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