There is strong evidence against taking a job in which you are overqualified, and for that matter, recruiting advice is telling companies not to hire overqualified candidates. These experts say you will inevitably be dissatisfied and those feelings will translate into being a poor, unproductive and bitter worker and that you’ll probably leave at the first whiff of a better offer.

While being overqualified may be a roadblock, there are some detours offering opportunities. The rise of online Internet-based work, the availability of mobile technologies and the global expansion of independent technology contract work are reshaping a more flexible and adaptive workforce.

They are also reshaping how companies hire. Some are using the recession to get at a talent base they were not able to afford in the past. Case in point is family-owned moving company Cartwright International in Kansas City, Mo., featured in a recent New York Times article.

While there is no hard edged evidence on the number of jobs being filled by workers who are terribly overqualified, The Timesarticle looks at a few examples where hiring overqualified workers–particularly individuals who landed in jobs roughly one ring down on the ladder–can actually work to everyone’s satisfaction.

Click here to read the full article.

Work may stink right now, but that does not mean you cannot get through it. Here are a number of strategies for making the best of a bad situation. Start with understanding what is wrong and accepting the situation. From there, you have a solid foundation to start change, say psychology, organizational management and career experts.



Click here to read the article.

By: Don E. Sears

2010-03-08

Q&A: eWEEK interviewed technology career expert and author Janice Weinberg, asking for job-seeking advice for IT workers in 2010. In Part 1 of this two-part article, questions to Weinberg cover resume trends in 2010, job-seeking approaches for laid-off technology professionals and advice on becoming a contractor. Part 2 of the article addresses issues for older technology workers and the three best ways to increase the likelihood of getting a job.

Janice Weinberg is a former IBM system programmer and a General Electric faculty member at the Management Development Institute, and currently runs the career-services company Career Solutions, of Westport, Conn. Weinberg has written the books “Debugging Your Information Technology Career: A Compass to New and Rewarding Fields That Value Computer Knowledge” and “How to Win the Job You Really Want.” The following is Part 1 of a question and answer session between eWEEK and Weinberg on a spectrum of career advice for technology workers in 2010 and beyond. Her latest book is, “Debugging Your Information Technology Job Search: A Compass to Winning the Management Position You Really Want.”

What are the resume trends that technology job seekers need to consider in 2010?

Greater emphasis on showing a connection between initiatives they led or contributed to and improvements in their employers’ performance. Job seekers should communicate this connection by quantifying the results of these initiatives, but many technology professionals find this to be a challenge, in contrast to, say, sales professionals, who can cite the number of new customer contracts they negotiated or an increase in revenues in their territories. Naturally, before the tech job seeker can even analyze each accomplishment to determine how it can be linked to a cost savings or a quantifiable productivity or quality improvement, he should feel confident that he’s identified as many accomplishments as he can claim. To help readers of ‘Debugging Your Information Technology Job Search’ do this, I included a list of 20 IT-specific questions for mining one’s experience for accomplishments. I also walk the reader through the process of transforming the kind of project statements typically found on IT professionals’ resumes, such as ‘Developed a field engineering dispatch application’ and ‘Reorganized the IT department for greater productivity,’ into strong accomplishments that better convey the value the job seeker can add.

Expect to create multiple resumes, each tailored to a specific position. Even though much of the material in each job seeker’s multiple resume versions will overlap, it’s important to critically analyze an ad, study the employer’s Website and conduct a more extensive search to obtain information that can be used to customize each resume. For example, while a large company might be interested in an application development manager’s experience in implementing an SOA [service-oriented architecture] initiative, if that job seeker is also applying for CIO jobs at much smaller companies, he might want to allocate more space to the agile software development methodology he implemented that improved the ability to deliver applications that incorporated users’ desired functionality.

Management candidates should focus on conveying their nontechnical competencies. An IT manager isn’t usually expected to know the nuts and bolts of the products used by her staff. Rather, she should emphasize such skills as developing budgets, controlling costs, enhancing service quality and restructuring the function she oversees to support her employer’s growth while minimizing staffing increases. Yet the resumes of IT managers who’ve consulted me after conducting a fruitless job search typically include a technical skills section listing the platforms, products and processes in which they are proficient. When I tell them I will omit that section if they hire me to rewrite their resumes, they always have a negative reaction because they feel it’s important for employers to know about their expertise in, for example, COBIT, ITIL or BPMN. But eliminating the technical skills section doesn’t mean that I won’t mention these; rather, I present them in a different way. Once my clients see this new approach, they agree that it conveys a higher-level impression of their capabilities.

What do technology workers who have been laid off need to do to increase visibility and desire from hiring managers?

They need to counteract the perception that they were laid off because of poor performance. If their employers publicly announced a large layoff stemming from a shift in strategy or a restructuring program, that would tend to offset such a perception. That said, I routinely advise any client who is unemployed to include one or two recommendation letters with their resumes to counteract any concern a prospective employer might have. In some cases, I’ve suggested that the job seeker attach a recent glowing performance appraisal from the employer that laid them off.

They should spend most of their search time directly contacting employers, rather than using IT job boards, IT recruiters or networking. Job seekers should proactively research and initiate contact with employers that meet their geographical, industry, size and other criteria. And, even if they find no suitable position posted on a desirable employer’s Website, they should contact the hiring executive. This may seem like a waste of time, but if they can connect with an executive when he has no openings, they’ll have a better chance of getting their qualifications reviewed for possible future openings. On the other hand, if they waited until that employer advertised a position, they’d be competing with hundreds—even thousands—of others, placing them at a great disadvantage.

Use the telephone to initiate contact with an executive. The most persuasive letter is not a negotiating tool—but a real-time conversation can be. Most people are uncomfortable using the telephone to negotiate an interview. And those who do will usually begin the conversation by saying something like, ‘I’m seeking a job as a project manager’—the wrong approach. Moreover, as soon as the executive says, ‘I’m fully staffed with project managers,’ or ‘I have no budget to hire now,’ job seekers typically do not attempt to get beyond that objection. Unfortunately, they may have missed out an opportunity because a project manager might resign the next day, or the executive’s budget might be increased next month. To help readers of ‘Debugging Your Information Technology Job Search’ reap maximum benefit from using the telephone, I included a script that demonstrates how an IT manager should deal with these and other objections he can expect to hear.

I should note that I advise all my clients—not only those who are unemployed—to follow the two previous recommendations.

If a laid-off tech worker is moving from former full-time worker into consulting or contracting, what specific things should he or she consider for resume, networking, interviewing and contract assignments?

Resume: Someone who wants to launch a consulting practice may feel at a disadvantage because he can’t present a list of past satisfied clients to prospective clients. But if he worked in an IT department, the business departments he supported should be considered his clients. Thus, where possible, the job seeker should cite quantitative improvements in internal client satisfaction, as measured by surveys, that can be attributed to initiatives he led. He should bolster any claims of increases in client satisfaction by arranging for the managers overseeing the departments he supported to act as references.

Networking: Naturally, aspiring consultants should use their membership in LinkedIn to try to connect with people who can refer them to potential clients. At the same time, though, they shouldn’t discount the value of offline networking, such as attending local users groups related to the services they want to market. Since these groups are always looking for speakers for their monthly programs, it should be relatively easy to arrange to deliver a talk that would allow the consultant to showcase her expertise.

Interviewing for a consulting engagement: Before the interview, they should inquire about the client’s experience in using consultants, including the causes of any dissatisfaction, which should guide them in preparing for the meeting. Also, let’s say someone left an application development manager job at a Fortune 1000 company, where a business analyst acted as the liaison to internal clients in defining requirements. Since the new consultant’s optimal business opportunities may lie with small companies that don’t even have a CIO, he should expect to interact with CEOs and chief financial officers. This means he’ll have to shift his communication style from a computerese-based vocabulary to the language his prospective clients understand. With this in mind, an important preparatory step before having any communication with a prospective client would be to familiarize himself with the company’s industry, including technological trends.

For a contract assignment: Firms that place tech professionals in contract assignments are very concerned about assigning people who will conduct themselves in a manner that will contribute to long-term repeat business from their clients. With this in mind, the candidate should make a point of inquiring about the firm’s policies regarding interactions with client personnel. For example, the staffing firm may want their contractors to refer questions about the progress of a project or the resolution of technical issues to one of its managers. The mere fact that candidates ask this question will enhance their ability to get the assignment.

To read the original article, click here.

To read Part 2 of this interview, click here.

The best way to find a job in 2010 is via a referral, preferably from someone inside a company. If using a social network happens to yield this result, all the better, shows a January recruiting and sourcing study.

A slight majority of full time hires in 2009–51 percent–were internal employee promotions or lateral internal moves, according to a recent study focused on hiring and employee sourcing. The report comes from CareerXroads, whose annual Source of Hire study evaluates the who, what, where and how of company hiring and recruiting trends. The jump in internal hires is up 12 percent from 2008 where internal hires accounted for 39 percent of total employee sourcing.

“The spike in internal movement is a strong artifact of the recession and suppressed many other Sources of Hire,” wrote the authors of the study and founding partners in CareerXroads, Gerry Crispin and Mark Mehler. “Expect internal movement to fall to more normal levels in 2010.”

It’s no surprise that 2009 was a tough year on hiring, but the study that polled 41 enterprise companies suggests a decrease in internal hires and some growth in external hiring in 2010 is coming.

Resource Library:
“This year, only 10.8 percent predicted further reductions in hiring while 48 percent expect to grow and the remainder to hold steady,” said the study. “If realized, the predictions for 29 percent growth in 2010 would bring the recruiting function back to front and center.”

Where are recruiters looking to source job candidates in 2010? Social media, search engine optimization and reduce the number of external job boards used “major job boards particularly.” The No. 1 source for external hires of full time employees was employee referrals at 27 percent. Other sources included Website job boards and social media, though social networks saw a decrease in the number of sourcers using social media to track candidates, so the technology was not as leveraged as expected. On referrals and social media, the study said:

“The yield for referrals is one hire for every 15 referrals, making this category the most efficient source by far. The growth of social media could change the dynamic of referrals and firms need
to re-examine their efforts to stay ahead of the curve.”

The implication is that the best way to find a job in 2010 is via a referral, preferably from someone inside a company. If using a social network happens to yield this result, all the better. Here is how Mehler characterized the study’s implications to The Wall Street Journal:

“Job seekers should use job board and corporate sites to find information about openings, but they should use their network to apply.”

Some of the most telling information in the study, outside the large internal hire spike, is the lack of tracking of what the human resource industry calls “contingent” workers, or what we know as temporary, freelance, contract or consultant work–something that is expected to keep growing in 2010, especially in technology. Essentially, the report suggests that recruiters and sourcers are not responsible for tracking contingent workers at all. Here is some “contingent” perspective from the study:

“[W]e did ask firms to provide us with an estimate of the size of their contingent population. Figure 1 shows 30 percent of the respondents saying they ‘really don’t know and can’t even guess’ the size of their contingent population. The reality is that most firms do not have responsibility for managing or tracking contingent workers. Of the firms who can estimate the size of their contingent population, the average percentage reported is 13.6 percent. Some experts predict this number may double or triple in the next few years and staffing leaders not in touch with contingent workers are likely to fall behind.

The technology job board Dice, which is known for having a large base of contract and consulting opportunities, garnered .8 percent of the number of hires. By comparison, CareerBuilder took 42 percent (though the WSJ reported that one company used them extensively, hence the skewed results), while Monster.com took 12 percent, Craigslist 2.8 percent and The Ladders .8 percent. A host of other sites accounted for 27 percent of external hires.

Read the full article here.

Older Workers Dis Retirement

The economy, health care and Social Security are all factors at play in older workers’ decisions to keep working. However, it’s not all about money and health. Older workers are also concerned about malaise and usefulness while some simply love their workplace environment.

Workers 60 and over have overwhelmingly put retirement on the back burner, says a new study from CareerBuilder. Concerns and fear from a year ago are still on the minds of those near typical retirement age.

Wall Street investment and the stock market grew in the last year, but that does not mean older workers have recovered all their losses. In March 2009, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was hovering at volume levels around 6,500. In March of 2010, the DJIA is more than 10,000. When 72 percent of 792 workers ages 60 and over say they plan to keep working because they cannot afford to retire, you know the economy is still in play.

“The economy continues to cast doubt in the minds of mature workers regarding executing on their future retirement plans,” said Jason Ferrara, of CareerBuilder, in a statement.” As a result, they are requesting to stay with employers a bit longer.”

Other concerns for older workers include the need for health care and other benefits, the fear of being bored and the comfort of feeling needed in a job. Another major reason stated for postponing retirement was the enjoyment of the workplace and not wanting to give it up. From the CareerBuilder survey:

“Twenty-seven percent of hiring managers say they were approached about postponing retirements last year and were open to retaining mature workers,” said Ferrara. “The key is to let your employer know sooner than later that you would like to put off your plans to leave.”

Even though the market has rebounded and somewhat stabilized, the attitudes and fears of older workers seem to be on par with how they felt a year ago, according to a  2009 study from Scottrade on American retirement trends that polled 1,000 adults.

“Boomers showed the most pronounced increase in their level of worry about the future – more than two-thirds (67 percent) describe themselves as being concerned about having enough money for retirement,” said the study. “This marks a 16 percent increase from 2008 and reflects the fact that Boomers have been hard hit by the economic downturn and have the least amount of time to recover. This generation’s concern is so deep, in fact, that this year [2009] saw a remarkable 38 percent increase in the number of Boomers who think they will never be able to fully retire.”

One of the major issues not mentioned in the CareerBuilder survey are concerns over the future of Social Security. Seventy-seven percent of respondents were worried about the future of Social Security in the United States, according to the Scottrade report.

What did those in their 20s–commonly referred to as “Generation Y” or “Gen Y”–think about retirement investment in 2009?

“Interestingly, Gen Y does not share the concerns of older generations,” said the report. “Despite the economic climate, members of Gen Y remain optimistic about their retirement and are something of an anomaly among American adults… Despite these indicators, the actual amount that Gen Y has saved has declined. Many Gen Yers report not thinking about retirement at all and few have a significant amount of money saved for it.”


(more…)