When IT Director Henry Hirschel started his job search in June 2011, his first move wasn't to hit a job board looking for ads for IT leadership positions. His first step was to connect with his network.
More than a few worker bees figure top executives simply sail from one six-figure job to the next, whisked along by suave executive recruiters who coach them on secret job interview tricks and help them negotiate lush compensation packages. Right.
Too often, problems with IT projects go unrecognized until it becomes impossible to ignore them, such as when the project budget has grown wildly overblown or the schedule is careening off track.
Jason Alba always wanted to write a book. When he started his own business, a service for job seekers called JibberJobber, in 2006, he finally had the time. One night in January 2006, while dining out, Alba shared his book idea -- an explanation of how job seekers could use LinkedIn in their job search -- with some friends who had books published. Alba says they loved the idea, and one of them offered to introduce Alba to his publisher and serve as his executive editor.
No one likes to address workplace conflicts -- not the employees who get embroiled in them and especially not the employees' managers, who pretend they don't exist. After all, conflict is messy, often political, and requires confrontation -- an activity most people aim to avoid.
IT professionals looking for new jobs need not fear that the recent spate of bad economic news will hamper their job searches. IT staffing industry executives agree that IT hiring in the U.S. will remain robust through the end of the year, bucking renewed fears of a double dip recession recently brought on by stock market corrections, the ongoing debt crisis in Europe and the U.S., and Standard &Poor's downgrade of America's credit rating.
Gossiping, backstabbing, bullying and complaining co-workers will ensnare even the best employees into their unhappy world of drama and deceit. In so doing, problem employees transform otherwise efficient, benign corporate environments into tawdry scenes from Ally McBeal, The Office, House or any number of comedy shows poking fun at the dysfunctional American workplace.
When I screened résumés for CIO.com's résumé makeover, I observed a variety of mistakes IT professionals repeatedly made. They included not emphasizing relevant work experience, failing to explain the business benefits derived from their work, and including too much information.
The IT job market is improving, and CIOs are once again looking to hire permanent, full-time IT staff. But because the labor market is saturated with IT pros looking for work, IT hiring managers are being choosey, say IT staffing industry experts.
If there were ever an IT Olympics, in which software developers could compete to solve programming problems, the event would likely take place on Gild, an online career development community where IT professionals from around the world do just that.
For CIOs who experience some kind of enterprise IT failure in the course of their careers-whether a high-profile security breach, massive network outage, or multi-million dollar ERP boondoggle-the incident can feel like a career killer. But unless a CIO repeatedly makes the same mistake, or the failure stemmed from some illegal or "just plain stupid" action, it won't end a CIO's career, says Mark Polansky, senior client partner and managing director of Korn/Ferry International's Information Officers practice.
It's not uncommon for people to worry about their performance, ability to come up to speed and adjust to a new work environment in the days leading up to their start date, says Ben Hicks, a partner in staffing firm Winter Wyman's software technology group.
James Jordan had been trying to fund his own healthcare technology company with the profits from his independent IT consulting business for 15 months when he concluded that the embattled healthcare industry was just not ready for his software product and that it was time to start a job search.
Arguments with the CEO are an inevitable aspect of the CIO role, whether they're knock-down-drag-out battles or civil attempts to persuade the CEO on IT matters of importance. They arise in large part from CIOs' inability to communicate on the CEO's level and from CIOs' and CEO's diverging views on how best to spend the company's money.
Project managers seeking training funds have new evidence that training improves project success rates, thanks to a survey that links the two.