Demand for IT Networking Skills Continues to Rise

Did you know that IT networking is considered the second fastest growing occupation in the United States? According to the following infographic released by Cisco, it is.

Now, admittedly, Cisco has a lot to gain from the data presented here (i.e., "you need more Cisco certs!"), but I thought the stats still worth sharing across our network, especially with our NoddlePlace and ITtechExec followers who are looking to stay current on the future of IT.

The Road to Promotion: How Quickly They Forget

In my last post in this series called "The Road to Promotion," I touched on the short-term memories of many employers. In "The Road to Promotion: A Job Search Is a Job Search Is a," I went through some key points to consider when launching an internal promotion "campaign," and a main point that I want to reiterate here in more detail is how to remind employers of the contributions you've made.

Often when the promotion process starts, there is a disconnect between candidates and their employers. The candidates think their employers already "know" them and must surely remember all the wonderful things the candidate has done during his or her tenure. The employer, on the other hand, is usually thinking less about that and thinking more about strategy (or, often, politics). Therefore, the onus is then on the candidate to shift the focus back onto 2 things:  

1. What You've Already Done: Your Project Results and Solutions.

2. What You Still Have Left to Do: Your Innovative Ideas and Solutions.

To most effectively do these two things, hopefully you have been keeping track of your accomplishments from a Problems-Solutions-Results perspective. Also, hopefully, you have kept track of emails and other testimonials you have received from colleagues, clients, and management. Furthermore, you know you have ideas, things you see that could be improved. Here is your chance to showcase how you would go about using your new role to do that by building your own Innovation page.  

All of these items can be condensed into your promotion portfolio. Yes, promotion portfolio.

Don't just rely on performance reviews and whatever other data your current employer has on you. Don't just submit a resume. Make sure you have your own portfolio of your work to present.

Preparing Your Consulting Portfolio

No matter where you look expectations for consulting/contract work across the United States and globally are high. Some predictions are as high as 40% of the U.S. workforce will be contractors by 2020.

In the past, I have discussed some important issues to keep in mind when transitioning to a consulting role ("Five Steps to a Better IT Consulting Business" and "Hey, Consultants Are Entrepreneurs Too")....the biggest one being that as soon as you go from employee to contractor, you are now a small business owner, something that is often overlooked by independent contractors when they first start out. And even if your old employer is your one and only client, you need to begin to think like a business owner while continuing to massage your corporate presence. You are now walking in two worlds.

Because even if the job hasn't changed much, the relationship has.

In this post, I want to look at the importance of preparing a consulting portfolio. All too often, professionals apply for consulting jobs in the same manner they would apply for an in-house position, but even though once again the window dressing might look the same, the role is different and requires a slightly different approach.

Furthermore, with 40% of the workforce headed into consulting roles, competition is going to be strong.

 

The good news is that most won't be properly prepared, but you can be.

Here are some steps you can take to prepare a high-quality consulting portfolio:

• Your resume still matters. There are a lot of people out there saying that resumes are dead and that no one reads resumes so don't really bother. It's a nice sentiment typically coming from people who aren't out there trying to get a new job or contracting gig. But with consulting work, in particular, your resume should always be updated and ready to go. Read or not, someone will ask you for one before they hire you. And if you are doing short-term contract roles, that means you will be using it a lot. And you should know how to represent all those consulting roles on your resume in a way that is easy to review.
• Your LinkedIn Profile matters even more. With social recruiting on the rise, you want to be found. And when you're found, you want to have something to say. Sure, link up your resume with your profile, but make sure the profile is dynamic as well...and optimized for LI search. If no one is contacting you....or they are contacting you for ill-fitting roles, chances are that your profile is missing the mark. Remember, you are in business for yourself now. This is your marketing tool.
• Own your domain name. Personally, I think all consultants should have a website, even if it starts out as nothing more than an online business card. But at the very least, go buy your domain name. That's your personal name. Please see my post on this for more details, but essentially, you want to own your personal brand online, especially if you are going to be a contractor.
• Build a Problems-Solutions-Results (PSR) page. I've been a bit of a broken record about this one lately, but with consulting work, I think this is a very good option. Although you still need a chronological resume, as an addendum to it, you should highlight a few key projects and build the PSR page to show the problem, the solution you and your team came up with, and the results of your efforts. This means getting better at tracking your work and understanding how to quantify the results.
• Be innovative. Here is another subject I've been passionate about. Companies want to see that you have experience and skills but also ideas. Creating an innovation page helps you to lay out your knowledgebase and what you plan to do with it. Prepare some ideas that are either industry or position based (or both) and showcase how you would implement them. This takes some thinking and skill, but it can be very effective in showing new contracts how you think and that you are looking forward.

With a consulting portfolio that hits these key target areas, and does it well, you will be on solid footing for the competition that has already begun and is sure to heat up.

A Career in IT: Is It "All Ball Bearings Nowadays?"

"It's all ball bearings nowadays "

In case you aren't a Fletch junkie like me, this line is delivered by Chevy Chase in this "epic" film, where the main character Fletch (played by Chase) is an investigative journalist working undercover. At one point, he pretends to be an aircraft technician working in an aircraft hangar. Two other technicians, who begin to doubt his "technical knowledge," ask him a technical question, to which he famously replies, "It's all ball bearings nowadays."

It's one of those classic movie scenes that, if you are like me, you can use to annoy friends and family whenever some situation arises that even slightly remotely seems to fit the line.

Today, I want to use it to talk about some changes occurring in the IT job market that are shifting the landscape of what it means to have a "career in IT."

Right now there seems to be two camps, and they aren't necessarily opposed to one another. One says that the IT job market is ripe for non-IT people because soft skills are paramount. The other says those with true tech knowledge (and industry experience...and a desire to be more in "management") will be moved into other business areas within the organization with a dotted line back to old "IT." Together, these camps create a new image for the IT career path.

Below is more of an overview of these two camps:  

The Ball Bearings Camp

In this camp, non-techies are welcome, if not courted. The general belief is that anybody can learn IT...at least enough of it to get by (while the rest is outsourced to service providers anyway...the true "techies"). What matters most is that you are smart and execution oriented. Here are some key attitudes that are now starting to take hold in this arena (right or wrong, good or bad):

• Soft skills are more important than tech skills.
• Non-tech people can learn IT "on the fly."
• Business intelligence is an avenue into the tech world.
• We can never have too many project managers.

The general advice is to brush up on some IT "lingo" (aka computer code) and sell, sell, sell those communication and fast-learning skills.  

The "IT Is Everywhere" Camp

In this camp, it is IT that is taking over organizations, and tech knowledge in combination with business acumen/industry experience is king. IT pros are branching out across the organization into marketing, logistics, and other functions outside of IT into more strategic business partner roles. No longer is the path to CIO the only road to follow.  

The end result will be departments filled with (1) IT wannabes with strong soft skills and business operations backgrounds and (2) true techies who can envision how technology impacts industry and productivity and who want more of a management or strategic role.

 For those techies who want to remain in a hands-on tech experience, however, they will be pushed into contract and service provider roles, brought in to support in-house IT (who is busy "thinking" about IT..haha).

Therefore, the idea of someone "in IT" or who "knows IT" will become more and more nuanced. And separating out the depth of one's knowledgebase will be tougher to do, so that like the two technicians in Fletch, you may have to wonder whether it really is "all ball bearings nowadays."

IT Executive (Orange County, CA) Candidate Profile

CIO/CTO/Executive VP with 20+ years of Technology Leadership and Management expertise:

 

• Turnaround specialist, reversing 6+ years of major technical service delivery issues, bringing about complete transformation of IT infrastructure, mission-critical systems, governance standards, team composition, and IT culture.
• IT leader in PMO and IT Governance, Business System Integration and Optimization, and Cloud Services and Outsourcing.
• Keen recruiter of top technical talent, replacing poor performers with high-caliber specialists.
• MBA with Certified Master Project Manager (MPM), CISSP, and MCP credentials.

 

Want to know more?

For the full resume or in an introduction to the client highlighted here, contact Stephen at Stephen@ittechexec.com directly.

The Road to Promotion: A Job Search Is a Job Search Is a...

I've spent a great deal of time over the last year discussing how internal promotions will be on the rise over the next several years. After what has generally been a lull for at least the last 5 years in particular, this is welcome news. But it comes with a price: strong competition for the coveted spots so many have been waiting in the wings for.

So far in my "Road to Promotion" series, I have talked about the value of building a forward-looking innovation page that outlines ideas tech candidates can put forth to showcase how they can use their tech skills and background to be a true strategic partner for their organizations.

In this post, I'd like to look at the promotion process more broadly and point out a key factor that, for a variety of reasons, seems to get overlooked by most internal candidates.

The Job Promotion Process Is Just a Job Search by Another Name

Because of our familiarity with the organization and often our own sense of, well, entitlement (we've worked for them for 10 years, we deserve this), often when it comes to putting in for a promotion, we fail to approach it with the same gusto we do with an external search. And this is a mistake....maybe an even bigger one than being lax in your external search.

Why?  

Because with the internal process, no matter what happens, you still have to work there afterward.

At least with an external search, if you mess up or it doesn't go as well as hoped, you move on to the next opportunity. With the internal promotion process, you don't always get a second chance or it may be a long time in between opportunities.

Furthermore, if you thought the competition was fierce in an external search, just wait until you get into the internal promotion process. Now, most likely you are competing against some of your esteemed internal colleagues (who all think they deserve this promotion too) AS WELL AS the top external candidates your company is paying search firms to find. (And let's face it, more times than not, companies will lean toward bringing in a strong external candidate if they think it is the "sexier" hire.)  

With that said, your approach to the promotion process needs to be every bit as serious, if not more so, than your approach to the external search.

Here are some key tips for getting prepared to conduct your promotion process:

• Don't skimp out or rush through preparing your tech or IT resume...no matter what your internal "source" is telling you. I have seen this happen with candidates in the past, and it is a shame. They think because they are internal (and someone told them the job was theirs for the asking), the quality of the resume is less important because "no one reads it anyway." The problem, though, is that 1) no job is ever "yours" until its "yours" and 2) if there is strong competition, your resume will be reviewed against the others. Go back to your school days...don't submit shoddy work and expect a high grade.
• Brush up on your social media profiles. At the very least make sure your LinkedIn profile and Facebook bios are "cleaned" up and something you are proud of. Employers are checking! If you are one of those who thinks you are smart by staying off of social media, think again. As crazy as it might sound (and it is), not having a LinkedIn profile can typecast you as not engaged in today's marketplace. Over the next several years, companies are going to be embracing social media more and more, and they are going to be looking to their employees to help them with it (God help us all...).
• Optimize your LinkedIn profile to attract recruiters. OK, now I know this one sounds odd. After all, you are going for an internal promotion, right? Yes...but wouldn't it be nice to have leverage? Wouldn't it be nice to have a better understanding of your "value" in the marketplace, not just within your organization? This approach isn't meant to put your employer's back against the wall, but it is wise to have a good sense of your marketability. Some people are nervous to speak with recruiters unless they are really "ready," but in truth, finding a recruiter who has a placement for your skills is not as easy as you might think. And you can always turn him or her down! The point is that you don't want your current organization, as wonderful as it is, telling you what you're worth. Test the market and see for yourself so you can, gently, let them know what an asset they have.
• Recognize that employers have amnesia. No matter what you deserve, when it comes to the promotion process, the onus (fair or not) is on you to remind your employer what contributions you have made. They generally have short memories...in case you haven't noticed. AND they tend to play politics, which means they will easily forget what you've done if they think they have already made up their minds. One of the best tools you can bring to the table is a Project Highlights page along with a Testimonials page. Because you are on top of things, I am sure you have been keeping tracking of all your projects (and the results) and have kept emails and other messages from clients, management, or peers that have praised the work you have done...right? I hope so! Think of yourself as a small business owner who must remind a client of all the wonderful things his company has done for the client in the past, so that the client will hire his company again and again. In other words, let's make it as difficult as possible to turn you down.

The internal promotion process, in my mind, is one of the best types of job search there is because it can mean capitalizing on your current engagement and maximizing its potential without having to look elsewhere. BUT too often professionals don't take it seriously enough and expect their tenure with the company to "speak for itself." Good or bad, that is asking a lot, and it rarely plays out that way. So overprepare if you have to, but don't let it slip away.

The Age of Systems Thinking

If you aren't yet familiar with the term "systems thinking" (particularly as used outside of an engineering context), don't feel bad. Chances are, though, that if you work in an organizational setting, you might be experiencing some of its effects.

A recent client of mine was hit with it firsthand right before the holidays when his company decided to issue all new titles (or now "component names") and restructure the physical setup of the office (or now "community"). The phrase "systems thinking" was not used, but its effects were clear: less individualism, more collectivism; parts or components in relation to the whole.

Two Heads Are Better Than One

Systems thinking in its broad sense is a way of analyzing how a system's parts interrelate and cooperate in the processes of the system. It relies heavily on reinforcing and balancing these processes to create stability, usually through feedback, to evaluate the approach that is most productive to the system. If you were to contrast it with traditional analysis, the traditional method breaks systems down into the separate parts and analyzes/evaluates them individually instead of looking at them collectively and the relationship between the different elements. Systems thinking has been attributed to Jay Forrester from MIT's Sloan School of Management, who originated the concept in 1956.

One of today's main proponents of systems thinking is Peter Senge, also at MIT's Sloan School of Management, who has spoken extensively on how systems thinking should be applied in organizations to move away from highlighting "smart individuals" to "collective intelligence." According to Prof. Senge, we all operate in "webs of interdependence" aka "systems." For instance, we have our family, our community, our company.

And within these systems, we have complex problems that individually we cannot seem to solve, for various reasons, but that affect all of us. Thus, by bringing together our "collective," we can "triangulate" to come together to try to resolve the problem. Even more so, instead of just solving problems, we can also be a part of the creative process...moving from a reactive role into a proactive one.

The Dawning of a New Age

Essentially, the sky's the limit in systems thinking, thanks to the meeting of collective minds all energized around the same vision. Gone are the days of the need for a hero or an agreed-upon truth. And it goes much further beyond how companies operate into other social spheres, such as education and global citizenship, and into a deeper philosophical realm.

 I mean, who needs a savior when you can have a collective...right?

Opponents argue that there are undercurrents of "group think" and socialist political agendas at work here, claims that systems thinkers categorically deny (although, historically, collective action thinking, if not systems thinking specifically, has had socialist roots).

Undoubtedly, it is hard to argue against the value of collective minds coming together to create and resolve complex issues. And it would be nice to envision a work environment where the contribution of each team member was brought into balance with the whole "system" for the greater good.

But the overall philosophy of systems thinking does lend itself to some interesting questions:

• Don't we still need "smart individuals" to make up the "collective"? It seems, then, that individualism would still have value, and why is recognizing that individualism such a threat to the collective?
• Is heroism bad? After all, don't heroic leaders inspire and build that energy needed to sustain the collective?
• What do we do about ambition? Personal achievement? Is it wrong to want that? Can you really subdue it anyway, and if so, how?
• What happens to the unconverted? The collective might allow for different viewpoints, but it relies on a common purpose.
• Is the creative process always better when done in a collective sense?
• Solving one social problem as a collective could lead to others. After all, the atomic bomb was invented in a collective that thought it was working for the greater good. Is a collective omniscient?
• How do you enforce equal effort in a collective? Anyone who has ever worked in a team environment knows the difficulty in getting all members to put forth the same amount of effort or provide the same amount of talent. What do you do about freeloaders? What type of enforcement would be needed then?
• Do 100 flawed individuals ever achieve perfection? Even with calculating our corresponding strengths, we still won't reach 100%. So there are limits. What do you do with the weakest link conundrum?

Communal concepts or "collectives" have come and gone across the ages (like ~3000 of them; there really is nothing "new")...with a strong emphasis on "gone." So for systems thinking or collective action to be most effective, it seems it would have to overcome the same issues these other communes have faced: the extreme desire for individualism and the need to implement high-cost social mechanisms to ensure an equal commitment to cooperate.

Otherwise, what started out as a utopian ideal could get real ugly real fast.