Archive for the ‘career’ Category

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Is Your CIO Resume Blackberry Ready?

Wednesday, July 21st, 2010
Image CreditHow Will Your Resume Look When Viewed On A Blackberry?

How Will Your Resume Look When Viewed On A Blackberry?

When you go hunting for your next IT job (and it may be sooner than later), will your resume be up to the job? Come to think of it, when was the last time you dusted off and updated your resume? Do you still have that quaint “objective statement” or “career goal” hanging out at the top? If so, you may be in for a shock – that’s not going to be the best use of resume real estate when it’s being reviewed on the hiring manager’s Blackberry…

The Need For A New Resume

Parting is such sweet sorrow… or so the classic line goes. Look, when did you first create your resume? Awhile ago? Even if it was only a couple of years ago, the world has changed dramatically since then and it’s time that you (and your resume) kept up with it. It’s time to say goodbye to your old style resume.

About that “objective statement” up at the top – ditch it. The next company that will be hiring you really doesn’t care about what you are looking for. Instead, they are facing pain right now and they are looking for someone whom they can hire to come in and make that pain go away. That’s what really matters.

This means that we’re going to have to make some changes to your current resume. Prepare to get out the sharp knife.

Length

How long is too long? How long is too short? This rule of thumb has not changed even in the 21st Century – a resume should be two pages max. In fact, it’s really only the first 25% that you can count on a hiring manager reading so that’s where you’ve got to really shine.

If you’ve had some amazing IT department experiences that you think would really help your case, then feel free to include them – as an addendum. This extra stuff can be anywhere from 4-12 pages long; however, remember that there is no guarantee that anyone is going to read it.

Skills

Are you the world’s best Cobol / Fortran / Java programmer? Drop it. Look, you’re going for a IT leadership job and it’s really your finance and people management skills that are going to get you the job – not your programming chops. Use your limited resume real estate to explain how your leadership skills have made your past departments successful.

Skip The History Lesson

A resume is designed to tell your next employer about how you’ll perform in the workplace. This means that pretty much anything that does not have to do with the workplace should be dropped. This list will include civic accomplishments, professional associations that you belong to, charity work, etc. Use the freed up space to provide more details about your most recent job and how it relates to the job that you are applying for.

Say No To Descriptions, Yes To Accomplishments

I must confess that this has been a mistake that I’ve made in the past and I found it hard to stop doing it. Instead of providing your work biography by listing every single job you’ve ever had, use the space instead to list your accomplishments. Ultimately this is what your future employer really cares about. Don’t worry about all of those “title only” promotions that you’ve gotten over the years, instead just focus on the teams that you’ve managed and the challenges that you’ve mastered.

What All Of This Means For You

Everyone has a resume. However, not everyone has a resume that will work for them. In this day and age of everyone having too much to do and too little time to do it in, you’re going to need to shape your resume to be scanned quickly on your future boss’ Blackberry as he/she dashes off to their next meeting.

What this means is that you’re going to have to cut to the bone and get rid of everything that doesn’t pertain to how you would do in your next position. Detailing what you’ve accomplished in your most recent leadership positions is what that Blackberry scanning hiring manager is going to be looking for.

Take the time to craft a new resume that is tailored to read quickly in digital form and you’ll be one step ahead of everyone else who is applying for the same job. If you make it easy for them to see why you are the perfect fit for the job, then you’ve just shown them why you’re the type of IT talent that they need to hire…

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World IT Department Leadership Skills

Question For You: If a hiring manager is only going to scan the first half of the first page of your resume, what do you think that you need to put there in order to land the job?

Click here to get automatic updates when The Accidental Successful CIO Blog is updated.

P.S.: Free subscriptions to The Accidental Successful CIO Newsletter are now available. Learn what you need to know to do the job. Subscribe now: Click Here!

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

CIOs are learning that they need to develop the staff and tools that are needed in order to start using analytics to make the company more competitive…

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CIO’s With No Time Find An Alternative To An MBA

Wednesday, June 9th, 2010
Image CreditIf You Really Want An MBA But Don’t Have The Time, Maybe There’s Another Way…

If You Really Want An MBA But Don’t Have The Time, Maybe There’s Another Way…

As CIO wanna-be’s who live in troubling times we are always trying to do two things: hold on to our jobs and be more successful. One of the best ways to do both of these, or so we have been told, is to go out and get an MBA. Well that’s all great and fine if you’ve got four or five years to burn, don’t need to do anything else at night, oh and have a big chunk of cash sitting around that you had no other plans for. Maybe it’s time to look for a better way to accomplish what we’re trying to do…

Say Hello To The Alternative To The MBA

Before you decide to either quit your IT job and go back to school in order to get an MBA (really, really expensive) or start going to night school to get an MBA (just really expensive), maybe you should take a moment and consider all of your options. Maybe what you really want is a specialized Master’s degree.

Yeah, yeah – I know what you are thinking. We’ve all been drinking the “get an MBA” Kool-Aid for so long that it’s hard to imagine doing anything else. However, depending on what you want to do with your life, this might actually be a better solution for you.

If having spent time being on the IT side of the company has gotten you interested in what goes on over on the business side, then getting an advanced business degree of some sort is probably a good idea. However, one of the things that keeps us from doing this is often the time involved to get the degree.

The Appeal Of Specializing

Business schools are starting to get the message. They are beginning to offer more and more specialized business programs that are only 12 months long. In the 2008-2009 school year there were 645 programs offered. This is up from the 614 programs that had been offered just two years earlier.

What these types of degrees offer are parts of the typical MBA curriculum, but they are often more technical in nature and generally spend less time on general management skills.

Here in lies the rub: these types of specialty business degrees are not designed to get you promoted to eventually become the CEO. Rather what they are designed to do is to sharpen your business skills in a narrow area and make you more valuable to the company in your current job. Since we’re interested in becoming the CIO, not the CEO, this might be just what we’re looking for.

This type of continuing education especially appeals to nre IT professionals: those who don’t have the five years of work experience that most MBA programs require for entrance. No matter if this is your case, or if you’ve just found some part of the company’s business side that you are really drawn to, a narrowly focused master’s degree might be just the ticket for you.

What To Do With Your New Degree

Ok, so let’s say that you bite the bullet and run off and skip the MBA and instead get a very focused master’s degree in marketing, finance, or some other business discipline. What then?

It turns out that taking this path, might feel like the right thing for you to do, but as they like to say on TV, your results may vary. Since specialty master’s degrees are not as well known as MBA’s you’re going to have to deal with some lack of recognition issues.

Although it may change in the future, right now MBA students still seem to get the best deal when it comes to getting the economic benefits from going through the effort of getting an advanced degree. The people who design the GMAT test that everyone takes to get admitted to graduate programs are reporting that MBA students are saying that they get a 73% increase in salary after graduating while students with specialty master’s degrees are only reporting a 26% increase.

What All Of This Means For You

In the end the decision rests with you. We all know that continuing our education is an important thing for every up-and-coming almost CIO to do. Going back to school almost seems like a no-brainer until you realize that you need to spend some time thinking about just what you want to get out of doing so.

A specialty master’s degree offers IT professionals who have been working for less than five years or who found one particular part of the job most interesting with a new option. By investing 12 months of study, they can walk away with both another degree as well as a deep understanding of one area of business.

The value of taking this educational route will really depend on the career that you want for yourself. If you are comfortable working inside of the business instead of running it, then a specialty master’s degree might be the right way to go for you!

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World IT Department Leadership Skills

Question For You: Do you think that specialty master’s degree will become more or less valuable in the future?

Click here to get automatic updates when The Accidental Successful CIO Blog is updated.

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

As though running an IT department wasn’t enough, now CIOs are being asked to become more valuable to the business – to start thinking about the company’s bottom line. If only there was some methodology that we could use to unlock all of that business value that we know is within the IT department. Oh wait, there is: it’s called the IT-CMF.

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Does A CIO Need To Have An MBA Or Is There Another Way?

Wednesday, May 12th, 2010
Image Credit CIO’s Who Really Want An MBA But Don’t Have The Time Have Another Way…

CIO’s Who Really Want An MBA But Don’t Have The Time Have Another Way…

If you want to be a CIOs, then there’s no need for me to tell you that we are living in troubling times We are always trying to do two things: hold on to our jobs and find ways to move up the corporate ladder. One of the best ways to do both of these, or so we have been told, is to go out and get an MBA. Well that’s all great and fine if you’ve got four or five years to burn, don’t need to do anything else at night, oh and have a big chunk of cash sitting around that you had no other plans for. Maybe it’s time to look for a better way to accomplish what we’re trying to do…

Say Hello To The Alternative To The MBA

Before you decide to either quit your current job and go back to school in order to get an MBA (really, really expensive) or start going to night school to get an MBA (just really expensive), maybe you should take a moment and consider all of your options. Maybe what you really want is a specialized Master’s degree.

Yeah, yeah – I know what you are thinking. We’ve all been drinking the “get an MBA” Kool-Aid for so long that it’s hard to imagine doing anything else. However, depending on what you want to do with your life, this might actually be a better solution for you.

If having spent time in your job has gotten you interested in the business side of the company, then getting an advanced business degree of some sort is probably a good idea. However, one of the things that keeps us from doing this is often the time involved to get the degree.

The Appeal Of Specializing

Business schools are starting to get the message. They are beginning to offer more and more specialized business programs that are only 12 months long. In the 2008-2009 school year there were 645 programs offered. This is up from the 614 programs that had been offered just two years earlier.

What these types of degrees offer are parts of the typical MBA curriculum, but they are often more technical in nature and generally spend less time on general management skills.

Here in lies the rub: these types of specialty business degrees are not designed to get you promoted to eventually become the CIO. Rather what they are designed to do is to sharpen your business skills in a narrow area and make you more valuable to the company in that niche.

This type of continuing education especially appeals to new IT mangers: those who don’t have the five years of work experience that most MBA programs require for entrance. No matter if this is your case, or if you’ve just found some part of the business job that you are really drawn to, a narrowly focused master’s degree might be just the ticket for you.

What To Do With Your New Degree

Ok, so let’s say that you bite the bullet and run off and skip the MBA and instead get a very focused master’s degree in marketing, finance, or some other business discipline. What then?

It turns out that taking this path, might feel like the right thing for you to do, but as they like to say on TV, your results may vary. Since specialty master’s degrees are not as well known as MBA’s you’re going to have to deal with some lack of recognition issues.

Although it may change in the future, right now MBA students still seem to get the best deal when it comes to getting the economic benefits from going through the effort of getting an advanced degree. The people who design the GMAT test that everyone takes to get admitted to graduate programs are reporting that MBA students are saying that they get a 73% increase in salary after graduating while students with specialty master’s degrees are only reporting a 26% increase.

What All Of This Means For You

In the end the decision rests with you. We all know that continuing our education is an important thing for every up-and-coming member of the IT department to do. Going back to school almost seems like a no-brainer until you realize that you need to spend some time thinking about just what you want to get out of doing so.

A specialty master’s degree offers IT workers who have been working for less than five years or who found one particular part of the job most interesting with a new option. By investing 12 months of study, they can walk away with both another degree as well as a deep understanding of one area of business.

The value of taking this educational route will really depend on the career that you want for yourself. If you believe that when you become CIO that you’ll need to be able to have a detailed understanding of how your business works, then a specialty master’s degree might be the right way to go for you!

- Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World IT Department Leadership Skills

Question For You: Do you think that specialty master’s degree will become more or less valuable in the future?

Click here to get automatic updates when The Accidental Successful CIO Blog is updated.

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

When you become CIO, it turns out that you’re going to have a lot more on your mind than just how to use the latest and greatest technology to help the company run faster. You’ve got a problem that starts with “F” and rhymes with “Baud” and that stands for Fraud…

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What CIOs Need To Do In Order To Get Some Respect

Wednesday, April 7th, 2010
Image Credit
An Article Over At CIOZone.com Talks About CIO Respect

An Article Over At CIOZone.com Talks About CIO Respect

When you become CIO things are going to be different aren’t they? You’ll be one of those CIOs that has the respect of both their peers in the company and in their industry, right?

Lisa Yoon over at CIOZone.com just got done interviewing me for an article that she was writing titled “CIOs and the Road to Validation in the C-Suite”. I think that she’s done a pretty good job of answering the question of what CIOs need to do in order to get some credibility.

For her article, Lisa and I had a free ranging discussion that covered a lot of different points. The big issues that we touched on included just exactly why today’s CIO’s don’t seem to be able get a seat at the company’s planning table with the other C-level executives.

The reason that I think that you might want to pop over and take a look at Lisa’s article is that instead of just talking about the problem, we also discussed what an up and coming CIO (like you) needs to do. I don’t want to give the answer away, but let’s say that just like with everything else in life it has to do with who you know…

What do you think that a CIO needs to do in order to get a seat at the company’s strategic planning table?

Click here to get automatic updates when The Accidental Successful CIO Blog is updated.

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

When you become the CIO, you’re probably hoping that you’ll be spending your time setting the strategic direction for your company’s technology future. However, perhaps you’ve forgotten about the lawyers…

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CIOs In Crisis: Do We Have A Problem Here?

Wednesday, February 17th, 2010
Image Credit
What Is It Going To Save The Role Of The CIO?

What Is It Going To Save The Role Of The CIO?

What’s Happening To All Of The CIOs?

You and I both know that a well run IT department is what can make one company more successful than its competitors. That must mean that the IT department is important, and therefore the CIO must also be important, right? If that’s true, then why are some of the really big companies like News Corp, Harrah’s, ConocoPhillips, etc. getting rid of their CIO and then choosing to not replace him / her? What are they thinking?

What’s The Problem Here?

If firms feel comfortable getting rid of their head of IT (the CIO) and not replacing that person, then clearly there must be a crisis here. It sure looks like today’s CIOs have not done a good job of advertising just how valuable they are to the rest of the company’s executive leadership team.

This is pretty easy to understand. However, there’s a problem with this explanation. You would think that all of the upper management positions would be faced with this same challenge of conveying their value to the company. However, it seems like the CIO is the only position that companies feel comfortable leaving either open or in the hands of a less senior member of staff. You can’t say the same for operations, finance, human resources, etc.

What Could We Do To Solve This Problem?

Arthur Langer has been researching this issue and he believes that the problem that IT has is that we’re lacking support. If we worked in accounting, then we’d all be CPAs and everyone would agree on the way that things needed to be done.

IT has no equivalent accreditation system. Langer points out that the field of IT is lacking any sort of professional body that could provide its stamp of approval for how an IT department is run or what goals it chooses to focus on. Although such an organization may be a long way off, in the near term IT at least needs to do a better job of getting the message across to the CIO about IT actually does.

Langer makes a good point when he states that he believes that there is no question that CEOs value what an IT department does. It’s just that what we do is so far removed from what he understands, that CEOs really have no clear idea how to manage their IT resources.

Ultimately, this is what is currently missing: an IT best practices organization that can provide CEOs with this kind of management guidance. Sure we’ve got the ITIL standards, but those are far too detailed. What’s missing is that top-level “here’s how you run an IT department” type of guidance.

What All Of This Means For You

Even though you may not yet be a CIO, you need to start thinking about how you are going to effectively deal with this issue. The last thing that you want to have happen is for you to finally become the CIO only to lose your job because the job itself was seen as being not all that important.

As CIO what you are going to have to do is 1) do a good job of running your IT department, and 2) do a good job of educating your CEO on how to manage his / her IT assets. This means that you’re going to have to do a lot of different tasks: create IT best practices for your company, collect industry research and show it to your CEO, create management guides to instruct your CEO on what you need him / her to do for IT. Congratulations – when you become CIO, you also become a teacher!

Although this may seem like it would take up a lot of your precious CIO time that could be spent forging strategy and harnessing new technology, think again. Teaching your CEO how to manage the CIO and showing how to use IT to make the company more successful just might be the best thing that you’ve ever done – it could even save your job!

Do you think that at your company the CIO is necessary or do you think that someone lower down could do all the same things?

Click here to get automatic updates when The Accidental Successful CIO Blog is updated.

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

At the end of the day, an IT department is simply a collection of projects. Some of these projects are short lived (“we’ve got an outage!”) and some are much longer (“let’s install a new ERP solution”). However, it turns out that today’s CIOs have been taking the wrong approach when it comes to scheduling these IT projects and it shows…

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