Job Hunting/ Job Interviews

[DonQuigleone]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

Ex-Goldman bankers warn: get out of the industry before you’re 30, or else

Interesting. This strikes me as a bit of "sunk cost fallacy".

[SaintessHeart]

Team-Building Does Not Improve Work

[Who]

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

Team-Building Does Not Improve Work

Not surprised overall. Some of the methods surprised me however, such as the bikini bed baths and massage sessions.

As for my own job hunting, not going too well. Hindsight tells me I should have done computer science out of practicality, which I started to learn on my own a few weeks ago (and actually found out I enjoy), as opposed to doing cultural studies because it was interesting. Post-grad is hitting me hard at the moment.

That being said, I do have a second interview this week at Costco, which is essentially my last resort job application, should I get turned down for the research assistant internships, and office assistant positions (waiting on responses). Gotta start somewhere, I guess, and I am grateful to even have an opportunity (shouldn't count my chickens before they hatch)

[deathcoy]

Team Building is all bullshit propaganda to show the higher ups that the department is united hence productive. There will always be office politics and rifts between colleagues/groups.

@Who
Yea, job hunting as Post grad is tough here too. I'm not a uni grad but i do know competition here is just too strong and mostly new graduates do not know where to "start". Most of my friends just take on any job with a kinda reasonable pay but have nothing to do with their major in uni, out of desperation. Good luck to you bro and hang on there.

Coincidentally i'm also job hunting now, quit my Telco company more than a mth ago, as usual not easy finding a suitable job. Whats worse is my job hunt got extended due to my reservist call up. Very disruptive, have to put my hunt on hold and i'll be jobless for longer.

[willx]

Originally Posted by DonQuigleone

Interesting. This strikes me as a bit of "sunk cost fallacy".

That's kind of Interesting.

So I have been a bit scarce around these parts recently as .. well, things at work were super busy and then *thud* .. For the first time since I was ~15 I was laid off. Seeing a lawyer today with respect to negotiating my severance and going to have to look for work seriously for the first time in over a decade..

[Ascaloth]

I started the first day at my new job the previous day. After nearly three years of slaving away and getting comfortable (for a given definition of 'comfortable') at my previous workplace, I'm once again grappling with being the new guy, coming to terms with unfamiliar work processes, and basically going "oh gosh what did I get myself into?!" to myself.

So, yeah. Any tips for dealing with 'new guy at work' jitters once again?

[DonQuigleone]

Originally Posted by willx

That's kind of Interesting.

So I have been a bit scarce around these parts recently as .. well, things at work were super busy and then *thud* .. For the first time since I was ~15 I was laid off. Seeing a lawyer today with respect to negotiating my severance and going to have to look for work seriously for the first time in over a decade..

Don't envy you! You just need to keep applying consistently for jobs. If you're lucky you'll get snapped up quickly, but better to be prepared to be "unlucky". In that case, I would recommend being persistent, and prepared for rejection! It's hard to be rejected, but well, you just have to be thickskinned. I don't think the rejections get less painful, but you do get used to it at least...

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Ascaloth

I started the first day at my new job the previous day. After nearly three years of slaving away and getting comfortable (for a given definition of 'comfortable') at my previous workplace, I'm once again grappling with being the new guy, coming to terms with unfamiliar work processes, and basically going "oh gosh what did I get myself into?!" to myself.

So, yeah. Any tips for dealing with 'new guy at work' jitters once again?

Get to know people, talk to them, stay out of politics.

The IT Talent Problem

Way back in 2000, just before the dot-com bust, I wrote a weekly column for CIO magazine, and I spent months covering “the technology workforce crisis.” The big issue was the cap that the U.S. government had put on H‑1B visas and the strong need that companies had for developers and other technologists. Then along came the dot-com bust, and the news (and my column) was all about layoffs and identifying the real goats in the Internet debacle.

As the economy recovered from the bust, we all took a more balanced view of technology hiring. Companies needed good technology people, and they were able to recruit them pretty easily or augment their teams offshore.

Enter the 2010s. With cloud, mobility, big data and consumerization, companies are in even greater need of technology talent than they were in the late 1990s, and that talent is in even shorter supply. Computer science enrollments are at an all-time low; baby boomer workers are retiring and taking all of that legacy-systems knowledge with them; and Silicon Valley is hot again. Would that young, brilliant developer rather join the next Zynga or upgrade the payroll systems at your insurance company?

Two weeks ago, I asked the IT executive readership of my weekly newsletter, The Heller Report, to answer the question: If you had a magic wand, what one talent problem would you solve? Responses poured in and addressed challenges around recruiting, developing leaders, and retaining the talent that they currently have. But more than 70 percent of readers would use their magic wand to do only one thing: give business skills to their technologists. Their people, they worry, are so narrowly focused on the technology that they fail to see the forest through the trees. They do not understand the business context of their technology work, nor can they have a meaningful discussion with the leaders of the business areas their technology supports.

This lack of business-savvy technology talent is a serious problem for every company that relies on technology to exist (which is, of course, every company). Those beautifully “blended executives,” who can talk technology in one meeting and can talk business in another, are rare birds. Yet with technology moving directly into the revenue stream of your company, you need them, and your need is only going to increase.

One option is to spend all of your time (and money) recruiting blended executives from the outside. You will be in heated competition with every other company in your market, and if your recruiting function is not a competitive weapon for you, you will find yourself in a losing battle.

You would be much better off growing your own. Here are some ideas:

Build a rotational program.
Encourage your head of human resources to work with your CIO and a few of your other business leaders to build a program that rotates IT people into different functions of the business. This kind of program is not easy, with your CIO having to survive without a trusted IT leader for a period of time, but the long-term result of a good rotational program can be tremendous. It may well be worth the investment.

Involve your business leaders.
If a rotational program is too much to take on right now, build a leadership development program for IT that involves your business executives. Encourage your CIO to invite the heads of your major business units to meet regularly with the senior IT team to educate them on their business area. And be sure that you, CFO, are spending enough time with IT. Use that interaction to chip away at the long-standing wall that often exists between the business and IT.

Embed your IT people in the business.
By now, your CIO should have restructured the IT organization so that each major business or functional area has a dedicated IT leader. These positions are called “business relationship executives”, portfolio CIOs, or customer relationship managers and they often report both to the CIO and to a functional or P&L leader. The more time they spend in “the business,” the more they learn skills beyond IT, and the more valuable they become to you over time. (You know you are on the right track when you walk into a business unit meeting, and from the dialogue taking place, you cannot easily distinguish the IT person from everyone else.)

Use the “buddy system.”
If an embedded structure is currently beyond your reach, start with a “buddy system” where each major IT leader has a partner on the business side. Your head of IT operations can buddy up with your head of business operations; they head of application development can buddy up with your head of sales. They sit in on each other’s meetings, get to know each other’s organizations, and learn the major drivers – and challenges – of each other’s areas of responsibility. The buddy system can be a good way to ramp up to a more formally aligned structure.

In some ways, getting technologists to be better at “business” is fighting the natural order of things. Many technologists are drawn to the bits and bytes of what they do, and are not overly interested in broader context (or in building the relationships that come along with working with their business peers). But with the right leadership development program, you can fight the natural order of things and develop a new high-value generation of blended executives. Now, all you need to do is retain them.

Martha Heller is president of Heller Search Associates, a CIO and senior IT executive recruiting firm, and a contributing editor to CIO magazine. Follow Martha on Twitter: @Marthaheller.

[Mr Hat and Clogs]

I am a plague upon businesses. The last four places I worked at all ended up collapsing, because of lack of business and so on (because of the GFC). Still it's a pretty big downer having to be let go because places can no longer afford you - only one of those places bounced back, and with a reduced staff at that.

Should hopefully have a job at a local Aged Care facility in the next week or two I guess. But other than that, doing a Uni Degree, Bachelor in IT, Maj. in Software Development, Min. Education.

[SaintessHeart]

Originally Posted by Mr Hat and Clogs

I am a plague upon businesses. The last four places I worked at all ended up collapsing, because of lack of business and so on (because of the GFC). Still it's a pretty big downer having to be let go because places can no longer afford you - only one of those places bounced back, and with a reduced staff at that.

Should hopefully have a job at a local Aged Care facility in the next week or two I guess. But other than that, doing a Uni Degree, Bachelor in IT, Maj. in Software Development, Min. Education.

Can you please do well in Uni and go work for Wall Street. Please.

[Mr Hat and Clogs]

Bring down Wall Street? They did a fair job of that themselves, for beginners, I'd just be overkill.

[Kafriel]

Time to bring this thread back from the dead...

After a six-month internship and another seven months of work, I find myself at life's crossroads. I earn about €640 per month in a job that doesn't make use of my bachelor in electrical engineering and has absolutely no room for promotion. Still, my living expenses are currently minimal, so I can focus on saving up.

Should I consider signing up for a master of science (and if yes, a PhD after that)? Should I re-enroll and get a degree as another kind of engineer? Should I freelance it and open up my own office, or cooperate with another person or two?

While I can stay where I am right now until the company goes bankrupt, the pay's okay but won't get much better - I doubt I'd be able to sustain a house and family with it - and my professional status will never be anything more than that of a plain old technician. The only good thing about it right now is stability; nobody gets fired, the working environment is decent and payroll's steady. It's definitely better than being unemployed, but I don't feel like it's a job I can do for a living.

OTOH if I further invest in my studies, what are the chances of my flashy little papers staying as nothing more than decoration on my wall? Cheapest Msc here is ~8k for a two-year program, that's a lot of time and money to give up for something uncertain...

[frivolity]

^I'm not familiar with the job market practices in Greece, nor am I familiar with your personal circumstances, but as a guy who up to two months ago was unemployed before finding something close to my dream job, I would say that it's usually not a good idea to go for postgraduate education within a year or two of completing an undergraduate degree if it is done purely in the hope that it would bring better entry-level opportunities.

While postgraduate education generally will not have a negative impact on your job search, it is also unlikely to be the key factor that wins you a good position. It would be better to focus more on the other aspects of your application that are preventing you from landing that job.

Imo, further education should only be pursued if you:
1. wish to make a career change to a completely different industry;
2. are transitioning to a mid-level or higher managerial position; or
3. are passionate about going into academia.

[Kafriel]

Thanks, that actually helped a lot. I'll keep working for now and go for a BMA in order to get a position in management later on. That sounds like something that is indeed better and more suited to me, without carrying the risk of a personal project (which is rather costly here right now).