Posted by Jean Cummings on Tue, Feb 21, 2012 @ 01:12 PM
Who can improve on What Color Is Your Parachute, the all-time best-seller in the careers field? Who other than the cofounder/chairman of LinkedIn, Reid Hoffman.
From his lofty seat at the top of the top professional network in the world - through which daily flow valuable job postings, job searches, candidate searches, and networking requests - Reid has a unique vantage point for observing the life cycle of careers in 2012.
Along with his co-writer, Ben Casnocha, he brings into question the idea that each of us has a specific calling that requires only that we discern the color of our particular parachute to know what we should do with our life. This prevailing cultural myth is challenged, and rightly so in my opinion, by Reid's particular insight into the way most people's careers actually develop.
Sure, we've all heard of people who knew from a young age knew that they would be a president of the United States (Bill Clinton), or a composer (Mozart). But most of us, especially as the days of staying with one company for 30 years or more are long gone, follow a winding path where the twists and turns may take us to someplace we never thought of to a job we could never have envisioned.
He gives a number of examples of well-known people, himself (started out planning to work in academia), Tony Blair (started as concert promoter), Sheryl Sandberg (COO Facebook started in public health at the World Bank), and others who have found their way following a different dynamic.
Reid says that careers develop according to the interaction of your assets, your aspirations, and market realities. And that where we end up can be very different from where we started. He also says that often you can perceive an inner logic to the journey. (This may be more where we see Richard Bolles' ideas than anywhere else.)
The book, The Startup of You, is a must-read for anyone charting their career. I believe Reid's ideas have long been true, but technology is currently changing careers, industries, even functions at an accelerated rate. Although somewhat complex, Reid's remarks will help you keep your eyes open to signals of change both within yourself and in the world at large.
His perspective may also take some of pressure off for those who are frustrated trying to look deeply within to discover their purpose. I see the process he describes as more like a white water rafting trip than a fishing trip in search of a particular gold coin.
We each, in our own wonderfully unique way, find a twisting path that is both our own and profoundly influenced by our world. If we are lucky, each stage of the journey holds a fulfillment of its own while providing us with strengths that can transform the next leg of the trip.
I'm a believer, in part, because his observations have been true in my career: teacher of children with learning disabilities, handweaver, careers professional. ?? I think I know why I made those shifts. If anyone is interested, I'd be happy to tell them. But what has been your path? What has influenced you in your career decisions? Do you know where you will turn next? I'd love to hear.
Posted by Jean Cummings on Wed, Feb 15, 2012 @ 09:10 AM
or 
If you are an IT professional and looking to add certifications in order to advance and make more money, think again. According to Foote Partners, a boutique IT benchmarking firm, as reported by CIO blogger Meridith Levinson, the pay premiums for 82 specific IT skills and 88 IT certifications are falling. What they are seeing is none other than a sea change in how tech professionals are valued.
As technology continues to change in the blink of an eye and often in surprising directions (the death of the desktop?), companies are looking for people who don't simply have the certification de jour. Instead, they are demanding a much broader skillset, one that isn't limited to technology. For instance, they are looking for folks who have technical depth but a business perspective. People who can foster innovation, drive revenues, help evolve the organization in ever leaner, more profitable directions.
Foote reports, "...the restructuring of IT departments that took place during the recession, which in some cases continues today, is driving demand for business skills and contributing to the devaluing of pure tech skills." Pure-play technical expertise is becoming "a dime a dozen." In other words, technical skills are becoming a commodity. And, like other products and services that have been commoditized, their price goes down.
What should tech professionals managing their careers do to avoid becoming a commodity? Develop value-adds, such as another area of proficiency in a business function (i.e., marketing, accounting) and an abiity to continually apply business concepts (strategy alignment, product and service innovation, bottom-line growth) to the activity of IT.
"They're looking for walking Swiss army knives," says Foote. It can sound daunting. But the more aware you of these seismic shifts in your profession and the more you shape your professional identity in the direction of market requirements, the more you will have an edge in your IT job search, now and in and for the (foreseeable!) future.
Posted by Jean Cummings on Sun, Feb 05, 2012 @ 03:06 PM
Many things may happen before a recruiter or hiring authority ever sees your resume. These are some: s/he Googles your name, searches for you on LinkedIn, checks Facebook to see what kind of person you are, checks Twitter for evidence of thought leadership.
Then, if you pass those screens, s/he will typically, if hiring for a large company, see an Applicant Tracking System-generated form that has automatically sorted your resume into standard categories (summary, work, experience, education). If at that point you have passed muster, s/he may actually look at your nicely formatted Word resume or the ASCII/Text you submitted.
There are ways to optimize your online identity and resume submissions to improve your chances of being considered for a job. We've talked about some of them earlier in this blog. But what, fundamentally, do you have to do at every stage of your career attract the interest of employers? Show your work results.
Seth Godin has a gift for asking profound questions in a simple way and with few words, an anomoly even in the world of short-form blogs. One of his questions has to do with the answer to "Can I see your body of work?"
He says, "Few people are interested in your resume anymore. Plenty are interested in what you've done." So, how and where can you tell them what you've done, if your resume isn't the first thing they look at?
1. Your own website. Grab a URL from GoDaddy that is your name or your name + your professional identity: JimJames.com or, if that's been taken, JimJames_Agile.com. Build out a simple 5-page blogsite using Typepad or Blogspot. Home page: your headshot and your branded value proposition. A second page with a beautifully formatted branded executive resume. A third page with selected leadership initiatives, project highlights, or success stories. A fourth with Testimonials about your work. A fifth with your blog. (Yes, the more we know about current competitive job markets, the more blogging - or active tweeting - can help you convey your thought leadership.) And PUT YOUR CONTACT INFO ON EVERY PAGE.
2. Put your branded executive resume with Challenge-Action-Results success stories after every position up on Google docs. Then publish it to the Web making it searchable by search engines. Google docs also lets you share Presentations and Spreadsheets to enrich your presentation of your brand.
3. Build out your LinkedIn Profile. Make it 100% complete and then use some of the apps that allow you to showcase further the value you bring to the table. PowerPoint Presentations, videos, your Twitter feed, reading list etc.
Doing these three things will give you a good foundation to build on as you progress in your career. Keep these items current. You can do this by keeping a record of your projects or inititives with their results and periodically uploading it.
Your identity on the Web should be on-brand and on display on as many professional properties as possible. Godin, with his signature cut-to-the-chase communications, says that if you don't have achievements to convey, you perhaps need a different job.
So, celebrate the work that you and your teams do. Let people know about it. Go public. Ensure that the recruiter or hiring manager going through the steps of an online search on your name pre-qualifies you before ever seeing your resume in hard copy!
Posted by Jean Cummings on Thu, Jan 26, 2012 @ 03:20 PM
You'd be surprised, but only about one out of 10 of the technology executive clients I speak to have a built-out online identity - that is, they show up in more places than just LinkedIn. The time is past when a progressing executive can afford to be invisible on the Web. In fact, a built-out Web presence can serve as a critical competitive advantage, whether you are in a job search mode or not. The one thing to remember is:
EVERYONE GOOGLES EVERYONE!
This is even more true of recruiters and hiring authorities. In fact, the executive resume may well be one of the last pieces of marketing content they see, following the LinkedIn profile, FaceBook, Twitter, and whatever else they turn up in a Google search of your name.
This fact is actually good when you consider that you are able to present yourself and your career brand in full-color 3-D. Let's look at the sought-after candidate of the future:
- He doesn't just have a 100% complete LinkedIn profile, he takes advantage of everything LI can do. He adds a PowerPoint presentation to convey subject matter expertise or achievement. His Twitter feed on LI shows that he is in touch with what's going on in the industry and function. A video he embeds in his profile gives viewers a chance to see him in action and hear his voice. His Groups activity demonstrates once again that he is a player. He provides insightful Answers.
- She has a Twitter profile and a significant following of at least hundreds of interested followers. Her tweets are a record of her professional interests, expertise, and resource sharing.
- She skillfully blends professional and personal on her Facebook page, ensures that Timeline has a clean record of her comments, and puts up a profile on Monster's BeKnown.
- He uses Slideshare or Sliderocket to store PowerPoint presentations.
- He is on YouTube giving talks on his areas of subject matter expertise.
- She may have tasteful photos on Flickr that show more of her life, including travels, family, etc.
- He has profiles up on Jigsaw, ZoomInfo, and other similar sites.
- He has an about.me page with URLs to properties where he can be found online.
- She has her own personal website or blogsite where you can see her resume, testimonials, projects, leadership highlights, etc.
- She blogs regularly on professional issues and comments on other people's blogs.
Perhaps a Google of Bing search will also turn up entries from press releases, published materials, speaking engagements, etc.
It simply will no longer be enough to just have a resume if you are embarked on a job search or seeking advancement within your own organization. So begin now to build out your online identity so that a search will find on-brand content you want people to see. If you do so at the dawn of 2012, you will have an edge on the competition.
Posted by Jean Cummings on Thu, Jan 26, 2012 @ 07:05 AM
Job search today is bewildering to many. Social media. Job boards. Recruiters. Networking. Should you have your resume out on the Web? Or not? How do you get on recruiters' radar?
Today I'm only going to talk about one piece of the picture: the free sites recruiters visit to source candidates and, therefore, the sites on which you may well want to build out a presence.
1. LinkedIn Groups. Everyone by now knows that LI is a top resource for recruiters. But they may not just be doing keyword searches to pull up candidate profiles. They may also be joining groups where they look for the right kind of candidates. So join prominent groups in your industry and function. Also try to link with recruiters. And grow your network. If you're up for it, become a LION (LinkedIn Open Networker) to exponentially expand your network so that your chances of being found in a recruiter search go up.
2. Twitter. "Rapidly becoming a search engine in its own right," Nick Leigh-Morgan says in his post on "Free Hiring: the secret to $0 cost per hire." Now is the time to think seriously about developing a Twitter profile and starting to tweet on interesting ideas and resources in your field and function. Recruiters ARE searching Twitter for job titles, industries and functions in the hope of turning up interesting candidates. Can you afford NOT to be where they are looking?
3. Jigsaw.com & ZoomInfo.com. Like LinkedIn, these sites allow you to set up your profile with the career brand you want recruiters to see. Recruiters will be sourcing candidates here, so don't pass up this easy way to be found onlilne. Also, being on these sites will improve your searchability. Because recruiters also Google search candidate names, it pays to be on the Web on multiple properties.
4. Blogs. A great way to be more visible to recruiters is to comment on some of the top blogs in your field or function. If you use gmail, use Reader to identify those blogs and interact with them. Also, consider starting one yourself if you are willing to post once or twice a week.
5. Facebook. This one is a little trickier. The melding of personal and professional is sometimes happening and sometimes not. BeKnown, Monster's creature, is making inroads in this area. Another issue is that Facebook is often used by recruiters to rule people out not in. But, all that said, Facebook is HUGE and will assume a larger share of recruiter attention as time goes on. If you think you can maintain a Facebook presence that references your line of work while using it to keep in touch with friends (never veering off into areas you don't want the world to see), then by all means start now.
Of course, if you're not a senior executive and you want to post your profile on job boards, there are dozens where recruiters may be looking. Don't neglect the niche job boards.
But for everyone, take seriously the need to build a presence across most if not all of the five websites above. Just a few years ago, these five sites weren't prime recruiting grounds. Now they are. Just a heads up for savvy job seekers!
Posted by Jean Cummings on Fri, Jan 20, 2012 @ 07:30 AM
Thanks to CIO Magazine for the logo.
The top technology authority in an organization can be the CIO (Chief Information Officer), CTO (Chief Technology Officer),VP of IT (Vice President of Information Technology) or one of the newer hybrid titles that emphasizes leadership in both the business and technology organizations.
What aspects of your role do you want to emphasize in your CIO resume? How much do you want to emphasize your technology credentials versus your business acumen? Is the job you are targeting looking for a CIO who is primarily an innovator, a business leader, or a technologist? What is the role of the CIO in your target company? A full business partner, a support to the business, someone who ensures business agility, someone who makes sure the networks work, or other?
It's important to customize your CIO resume to the particular position, given the wide variability in corporate expectations of the top technology leader. But whichever slant you take, you need to pay attention to the following when writing your CIO resume (or CTO resume or VP of IT resume).
1. Establish your leadership brand in the top third of page one and consistently reinforce it in the body of your executive resume. This is where you incorporate the answers to the questions above for the particular company.
2. Tie your accomplishments in technology to their impacts on the business as a whole; consider P&L and margin improvement, cost reduction, risk management / security, business process improvements, product innovation, providing a platform for high growth etc.
3. As the top technology authority, emphasize your ability to think and plan strategically about technology and the wider business.
4. Leave summary of your technology skills to the end of your executive resume or leave them off altogether; you will most likely, in companies larger than startups, be managing the managers of hands-on technologists.
5. For each position, give Challenge-Action-Results stories that demonstrate the mission-critical nature of the challenges you faced, how you strategized and exercised leadership, and what the results were in both technology and business terms.
Follow these tips and you will be a long way towards writing a great CIO resume. For general tips on what makes for a great technology executive resume, click here.
Posted by Jean Cummings on Mon, Jan 16, 2012 @ 03:34 PM
Executive Resume Checklist
Unsure what you need to do to capture the attention of both search engines and recruiters and hiring authorities? This executive resume checklist will show you what you need to do with your resume to stand out in a competitive field of applicants.
Your personal / career brand and your value proposition
1. The reader can grasp a "reason to hire you" inside of 3 seconds.
2. The recruiter or hiring authority can get a sense of your career brand, that is, what makes you YOU professionally and distinguishes you from the competition.
3. The recruiter or hiring authority can find out precisely what your value proposition is - of supreme importance to the company.
4. Any other credentials relevant to your job such as certifications, multiple languages, global experience, big awards etc. can be found here.
5. You used a headline rather than a career objective unless you are targeting a significantly different career.
6. You customized your resume to the position you are targeting.
7. You matched your career brand and value proposition to the needs of the organization you are applying to.
8. You include any unusual and impressive non-work-related outside activities, community contributions, or skills, because perceived performance excellence in one area transfers to the work arena and this information will make you even more memorable.
Proving your value proposition in the body of your executive resume
9. Your accomplishments are expressed, as much as possible, in quantifiable terms in the body of the resume.
10. Your accomplishments are presented in context, so their proper significance can be understood.
11. Your 5 to 7 chief accomplishments over the last decade (one for each position) stand out visually so they can be viewed in a 3-second scan, with the sub-accomplishments under each of them.
Getting the formatting right
12. Your resume can be read easily across media, including on paper, on a laptop or desktop computer, on a tablet device, and on a smart phone.
13. Your resume uses the appropriate keywords for your function and your industry along with the critical obscure, rarer keywords customized to the position you are targeting.
14. You use common headings for the resume sections so that applicant tracking software will correctly read what's under them, i.e. Professional Summary, Professional Experience, and Education.
15. You have different versions of your resume for electronic and for human processing.
If, when you review your executive resume, you can check off all of these, you will be in a good position to capture interviews for the positions you are targeting!
Posted by Jean Cummings on Thu, Jan 12, 2012 @ 08:22 AM
You hear it from every direction. From LinkedIn, for starters, and from bloggers like Tim's Strategy. We are exhorted to limit our connections to only people we know, like, and trust. To strive for quality in our networking relationships on LinkedIn. To build our network strategically and nurture it carefully.
I can see that. I really can. I think, "Wouldn't it be great to be in contact with a couple of hundred professionals with whom I touch base now and then - so that we can benefit each other in meangingful ways?" Who am I kidding?? I barely have time to keep up with the daily demands of my work, much less nurture such a quality network!
I admire people who can develop an extensive high-quality network! But in advising my clients - technology executives in transition - do I advise them to work to build out such a high-touch network? Let me tell you what I tell them.
"If you want to leverage LinkedIn to get your next job and for long-term career advancement, connect with everybody who touches on your industry space as well as all the recruiters you can." Why?
Recruiters and hiring authorities are on LinkedIn often, if not constantly! Although many of the Fortune 100 firms are able to pay for unlimited access to the full network, many other companies are taking advantage of the free membership option. That means they are limited to searches within their own networks. Let me say that another way. If you have a relatively small network (one populated with people you know or know of), your chances of being included in the universe of profiles that that person searches in are small.
From where I sit, if you are counting on a passive presence on LI to get you a job and you haven't built out a large network, your chances of being found are slim.
The same holds true if you want to do a search for recruiters or hiring authorities and explore job opportunities. With a free membership, you are only able to search among your 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degree connections. That's a whole lot of possible job connections you will miss out on if you have a small network.
There are ways on LI to connect with LIONs (LinkedIn Open Networkers) in your industry (software, telecom, etc.) or area of functional specialty (i.e., IT, finance, sales & marketing etc.). LIONs usually have 500+ connections. By connecting with them, you will be expanding your network exponentially. Your chances of being included in a search go up. So does your ability to identify job possibilities within your own, now-much-wider network.
The job search benefit you gain from accepting all invites and proactively linking with LIONs in your space is very real. But that doesn't make the decision to explode your LI network a slam/dunk. That's because some people, including LI, frown on these practices. You may be concerned that people will think less of you if you don't have a carefully curated list of connections. Yes, there's a chance that will work against you - or even be a career disaster.
But I encourage my clients to take the risk of growing their networks beyond people known to them, because the upside long-term for their careers can be great. And if you are able to capture in your profile the keywords hiring authorities and recruiters are likely to search for, you have a much higher chance of being included in the resumes reviewed. And therefore a much higher chance of getting in the door. Don't forget to make your executive resumes agree in brand and content with your LinkedIn profile.
It strikes me as somewhat "precious" on the part of LI to expect people to disdain such an obvious opportunity. As a professional network, LI is all about work and career. Job search is an inevitableout to more recruiters, why is that so wrong? Makes sense to me. What do you think? I'd love to know! And...I accept all invites! So feel free to contact me on LI!
Posted by Jean Cummings on Wed, Jan 04, 2012 @ 02:01 PM
The wave is coming - and it's big. No, its not the cloud and virtualization. These trends are well on their way and will impact almost everything about how IT does business. The wave I'm talking about is emerging not out of business need, not purely as a result of new technologies, but because of what employees do when they are not on the job.
Yes, it's the consumerization of the workplace. How many Gen Ys (and most others) are going to be willing to relinquish their iPhone or Android at the door? Give up the touch screen, social networking connections, personal bookmarking, password recognition, intimate familiarity with their device, and almost unlimited functionality their smartphone gives them? Return to a life where work computing and personal computing have a Berlin wall between them? Willing to regress in terms of the technology timeline to earlier, clunkier, legacy technogies? Ask permission at every turn to share data and ideas across business boundaries and social networks?
A BYOC - Bring Your Own Computer - policy is being piloted by companies such as Avnet. Steve Phillips, CIO and Forrester analyst Bill Martorelli are interviewed on CIOTalkRadio about where they see this trend going. Bill says that he sees this trend as not only inevevitable, but potentially as disruptive as "the advent of the PC itself." That's saying a lot.
In this wide-ranging and fascinating discussion, Steve and Bill with the moderator discuss the obvious question of data security, but also the business case for integrating employees' devices into the workplace.
But what does all this have to do with going on a job interview? I have a picture in my mind of the medical specialist who enters the patient's hospital room with a tablet device like an iPad and, not only keeps track of patient health data and is able to connect to a broad network of resources, but shares the iPad screens with the patient. S/he can now easily show the patient what showed up on the MRI imaging and interventions planned to help with the healing.
In the same way, the IT job seeker of the future should have his smartphone available during the interview to demonstrate any of a whole range of things: from competitors' weak links to relevant thought-leader conversations on the Web to presentations they've delivered that reside on LinkedIn or other sites that show their personal brand in action.
In a larger sense, the IT job seeker should be ready to engage with the interviewer about the key changes taking place in the industry, including BYOC, which do or will touch every aspect of the enterprise and every employee in it. Show you understand the far-reaching impacts of key trends on the way you will do your work if hired. Demonstrate that you are riding or ahead of the wave. It will help you.
So bring your passion for IT and success stories to the interview, but don't forget your smartphone.
Posted by Jean Cummings on Tue, Jan 03, 2012 @ 02:14 PM
Our power word for job seekers in 2011 was LEVERAGE. We used it (and still use it!) in multiple ways: "Joe leveraged his people skills to turn around morale and retention in a team demoralized by multiple layoffs." Or: "Joe leveraged the group's expertise in project management best practices to collaboratively establish the company's first formal PMO."
We love "leverage" because it is able to say so much in just one word and because it is a "body language" word. We can feel what it's like to lift something up with the help of something else (a lever). It's also a word that teaches us about something we can do in our personal brand or our job. For instance, we can use one of our brand attributes to empower us in doing our main job. This attribute may be a strong differentiator for us as a candidate or as an employee.
Our power word for 2012 is ALIGN. It is defined by Meriam-Webster as:
Transitive verb
1. to bring into line
2. to array on the side of...
Intransitive verb
1. to get or fall into line
2. to be in or come into precise adjustment or correct relative position
For example: "The school had to align their programs with state requirements," or "She is aligning with other Senators to oppose his nomination."
Why is "align" a useful word for job seekers? Because employers are looking for applicants...
- who are aligned with the values of the company
- whose actions are aligned with their own personal brand
- who can (for example) align IT with the business objectives of the organization
"Align" can say so much in one word. It can say that the person's personal brand is unified and internally and externally consistent or that the person's work lines up with the values and goals of the organization.
"Align" is a "body language" word too. We can feel in our muscles what it is like to line up with or become parallel to something else.
So here's to 2012! May you align your actions with your core values. May you align the work of your group with the overarching goals of your organization. May you become aligned with a path that will enable you to reach all your personal and professional goals.