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New Job, Same Company: What’s An IT Leader To Do?

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

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Moving From One Job To Another Can Be A Big Hassle

Moving From One Job To Another Can Be A Big Hassle

Changing To A New Job In The Same Company Can Be Difficult

Times of change can be difficult for everyone, including IT Leaders. We all know how hard it can be to lose your job – in fact I think that we’ve probably either experienced it or have friends who have gone through it. What this means is that we all have a basic understanding of what to do if it happens. But what if you don’t lose you job, it just changes on you. What do you do then?

When an IT department shrinks, there are suddenly fewer people to do all of the work that was being done before. If you were working on a project that all of a sudden becomes less important, then there’s a good chance that you may get “repurposed” to work on a new (to you) project. Got any skills to make that transition?

Ways To Make The Change Go More Smoothly

In my life I’ve moved residences a number of times. Sometimes they were big cross-county moves, and sometimes they were short across town moves. What I’ve found is that the big cross-county moves always went better. That’s because I took the time to sort things out, packed properly, and scheduled enough time to do things right. The cross-town moves were always a disaster – I’d throw things in the car and move them bit by bit losing things and never taking the time to put things where they really deserved to go.

Likewise, moving to a new IT job in the same company can be a disaster if you don’t do a good job of managing the move. Unlike going to work for a new company, a lot of the players and the rules are the same. However, it’s not the same job – there are differences. This is where things can trip you up.

In order to provide you with a little guidance on how best to manage this move, Jane Porter has gone out and talked with people who have lived through it in order to get their advice on what you need to do to make this a successful move:

  • Talk, Talk, Talk: When you get assigned to a new IT job, it’s sorta like being married to two people for awhile – your old boss and your new boss. Just like having two spouses, things can get awkward quickly if you aren’t careful. What you need to do is as soon as possible sit down with both bosses and review what they are expecting you to do. Instead of having you push back when they want you to do the work of two people, have them come to a mutual agreement on what and when you’ll be doing work for both of them.
  • Learn The Rules (Again): you used to know how things worked but you can no longer make that assumption. Silly little things like when your boss expects you to be available and if a weekly status report is still required are some of the details that you need to quickly get a handle on. Once again, communication is the key here: asking what is expected is the best way to make sure that nothing is missed.
  • Don’t Close Your Door: it’s not just your new boss that you need to be talking with, but also your new co-workers. If your job was just created, then nobody knows what you are supposed to be doing. If you are replacing someone who got let go, then you’ve got to help everyone work through their resentment of you. Either way, you’ve got to take the time to build bridges not only to people within your new department but also to those in other departments that you will now be working with.
  • Prepare To Leave (Again): nothing lasts forever, and your new job just might last for a very short time. All too often after a reorganization, something will happen that will require you to return to your old job for awhile in order to deal with a big issue. Although successfully solving problems is a good thing, you need to remember that your career no long lies with this old job. Keep your new boss updated while you are gone and make sure that your new tasks are being covered by someone.
  • Network: hopefully this goes without saying, but we’ll cover it again anyway. You need to start reaching out to everyone from your first day on the new job. Your old network is still there, but its value is now less. You need a new network that can support you in your new job and you are the one who is going to have to build it.

What All Of This Means For You

You can go to countless book stores and find books on how to start a new job at a new company. However, starting a new job within your existing company is a bit more difficult because the rules are not so clear.

Realizing that you need to treat this change of jobs as seriously as you would joining a new company is a good first step. Next you’re going to have to take the steps that we’ve outlined in order to quickly make yourself valuable and well connected in your new position.

Change happens and there’s not a lot that we can do about it. Savvy IT Leaders understand that developing the political skills needed to switch jobs within a company can go a long way in boosting their careers…

What do you think is the #1 skill that you need in order to do a good job when you suddenly find yourself in a new position?

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What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

As the global recession starts to fade away, IT Leaders who are searching for a new job are starting to feel some new hope and IT Leaders who still have jobs are starting to get the itch to take a look around at what other opportunities there might be out there. Sounds like it’s time to get some resumes in order…

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Posted in IT jobs | 1 Comment »

How Come You Don’t Know What Your IT Dream Job Is?

Thursday, November 19th, 2009
Image Credit What Does Your IT Dream Job Look Like?

What Does Your IT Dream Job Look Like?

Stop. I know that your normal day-to-day is crazy, you are overworked, underpaid and nobody really appreciates all of the fine things that you do. I get all that. My question for you is do you have any idea why you are doing what you are doing? What are you really working towards? If you don’t know, then perhaps now is the time to find out…

What Is Your IT Dream Job?

At the start of each year we all feel sorta guilty if we don’t come up with at least a few New Year’s resolutions. Generally these are quickly forgotten and we move on with the daily grind of life. However, if that’s all there is to life, then things pretty much suck. Wouldn’t you like to be one of those people who always seems to be happy and motivated – like they are working towards something?

Outside of getting a lobotomy or starting to take some happy pills on a regular basis, how can you become one of these “motivated” people? It’s actually rather simple, you need to have a goal. I’m not talking about one of those New Year’s resolutions in which you say that you want to lose 20 pounds or you want to start being nice to everyone. Nope, I’m talking longer term here.

I’m sure that you’ve all seen coworkers who put up pretty pictures of far-away beaches and fantastic locations all around their work cubes (maybe you do the same?) so that when things get bad (everyday), they can imagine that they are somewhere else. It turns out that they are on the right track.

To give yourself something to work for, you need to have a goal that you are working towards and the writer Marvin Walberg suggests that an IT dream job is as good of a goal as any.

Defining Your IT Dream Job

If you are going to be motivated to work towards a future IT dream job, then you are going to have to be able to visualize what that job looks like. Note that is different from how you are living your life right now!

Sure you could just sit back, shut your eyes for a bit and try to picture your dream job, but generally you just end up falling asleep when you do that. How about if we set some ground rules here to help you along?

First off, lets try to make this somewhat realistic. In your dream job you won’t be sitting on a golden throne getting foot massages while lower IT staffers feed you peeled grapes. Get over it. Instead of a visit to fantasy land, let’s try to keep things grounded in reality.

First, you need to come up with a job title – what would your dream IT job be called? This title does not have to currently exist – what would you like the job to be called?

Next, write down a job description. Yes you actually have to write it down or else there is no way that you are going to remember all of it. When you are describing the job you need to add as much detail to it as possible so that you’ll be able to create a vivid mental image of what you want.

Identify who you would be working for. Go ahead and identify who they would be working for. Not all IT dream jobs have you working as the CIO, lots of times we just want to have our own area to focus on and be left alone! Identify who would let you do that.

Who would you be working with? Who would be working for you? Give this some serious thought because often the other people in your work environment determine how much you like your job. It’s your IT dream job, so you get to pick who else is there.

Finally, describe a typical day at work in your IT dream job. When do you arrive at work (do you even go into work)? What is the first thing that you do? How many meetings do you go to? How long is your day? Once again include as many details as possible in order to make it play like a movie in your head.

What All Of This Means For You

We all picked the IT field to work in for a number of reasons. One of these was that it is a dynamic field – it’s always changing. Although at times this can be very frustrating, it also means that the future is not set in stone – we can still shape it.

In order to give yourself the motivation that it takes to be able to move forward with a purpose, you need to be able to picture what you are working for – your IT dream job should be part of this. The key is to sit down and spend the time to write down the details of exactly what that IT dream job would look like.

Once you are able to visualize it in your head, you can come back to your description over and over again in order to get reenergized. It’s this kind of daily motivation that will allow you to become a true IT Leader – you know what you want and you are working towards it.

Do you think that your department’s succession plan should be public knowledge?

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What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

Isn’t it every IT Leader’s nightmare: you work long hours, pull of miraculous feats of IT project accomplishment in order to create one of the most complicated pieces of software ever, only to have all of your customers hate it?

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Posted in IT jobs | 1 Comment »

Is Your Body Secretly Sabotaging Your IT Job Interviews?

Thursday, October 22nd, 2009

Don't Let Your Body Language Let The Interviewer See You As A Dog (c) - 2009

Don't Let Your Body Language Let The Interviewer See You As A Dog (c) - 2009

Times are tough all over and a lot of IT Leaders are out pounding the pavement looking for their next position. For some of you it may have been a long time since you last had to do an interview – you are much more used to being on the other side of the table doing the interviewing. Well guess what – no matter how well you prepare, your best efforts may be undone by what your body is secretly telling the interviewer…

Why They Didn’t Call You Back

I can’t even begin to tell you how many job interviews that I’ve gone on, left feeling good about how things turned out, and then sat by the phone waiting for them to call me back as eager as a dateless teenager the night before prom. Heck, I had half expected them to give me a call later in the same day that I had interviewed with them saying that I was the perfect candidate for the job and could I start working the next morning. Well that never happened.

Phyllis Korkki over at the New York Times has done some looking into why sometimes those jobs interviews that IT Leaders think that we’ve nailed end up going nowhere. If it is of any comfort, it turns out that we rarely screw-up an interview because of some huge social mistake such as showing up in shorts and a T-shirt. Nope, our problems are a lot more subtle than that…

How To Get Your Body To Behave During An Interview

Korkki has discovered that in a lot of cases what’s been going on is that we’ve been sending out the wrong signals to the interviewer. These signals are virtually invisible social errors or gaffs that can cause us to be rejected and someone else selected for the position.

“Tell me what I’m doing wrong, tell me what I’m doing wrong” I hear you saying. Sorry, it’s not nearly that easy. There is no checklist of social rules that you can follow in order to avoid making any of these mistakes. You already know the basics: always wear a suit no matter how casual the company’s culture may be – you’re not onboard yet so you still have to dress up, show up on time, be respectful to everyone that you meet, etc.

In order to get your body to actually help you get the job instead of actively working against you need to do two things. First, you’ve got to turn on your “spidy-sense” and make sure that you quickly pick up on the company’s culture.

This starts when you arrive – what does their lobby look like: grand and forbidding or cool and hip? The person who greets you first – what are they wearing, are they smiling, how fast are they moving, do they talk in long sentences or just quick bursts of words? As quickly as possible you’ve got to become a chameleon and match the environment that you find yourself in.

The second thing that you’ve got to do is get your darn body language under control. It turns out that this may be the most difficult thing to do – and the most important.

Just What Is Your Body Yelling To The Interviewer?

Yeah, yeah – you’ve done your research, you’ve got a sharp looking suit on, and your resume has been tweeked by four recent Nobel Prize in Literature winners. In the end it’s going to come down to what the interviewer “thinks” about you and that is something that you really can’t define. If you could crawl inside of your interviewer’s head, here’s what you might discover:

  • Confidence: They want somebody who is going to be confidant enough to get the job done without being so overconfidant that they’ll tick off everyone that they work with. How can they determine this? Well, your ability to get and maintain eye contact is one way. Too little and you’ll come across as lacking confidence, too much and you’ll be pegged as being overconfident.
  • Communication: IT Leaders are people who can clearly communicate their thoughts. In order to show that you are able to do this, you’re going to have to watch your words: how you enunciate, what words you use, and how you use them will all play a role. Clearly cursing is not going to win you any points here.
  • Control: You are going to how to show that you can control the job – that it doesn’t get the best of you. Since you’ve taken the time to research the company that you are interviewing with you should be able to map what you’ve done for other firms to what this company is looking for you to do. The key here is to be able to succinctly show how you’ve made a difference at the companys that you’ve worked at in the past.

Question, Question, Always Have A Question

What do you say when you get to that part of the interview when the interviewer starts to gather up their stuff, pauses for a moment, and then says in a casual, almost offhanded fashion, “do you have any questions?” There are two mistakes you can make here: the first is to not have any questions and the second is to ask the wrong type of question.

Not having a question is inexcusable. Look, there is no possible way that as an outsider you could fully understand how the company operates or just exactly what they are looking to potentially have you do.

The interviewer has taken a chunk out of their day to talk with you and you had better darn well show some appreciation by having something intelligent to ask them that shows that you’ve been paying attention.  Whatever you ask, make sure that it shows that you’ve researched the company and that you are looking for ways that you can make it even more successful if they do hire you.

The second mistake is almost as damaging: asking the wrong type of question. This can come in two different flavors. The first is the ultimate geek screw-up – asking a question that the interviewer has no possible way of knowing the answer to.

Things like “I noticed that you dividend payment was a week later than usual in the 3rd quarter of 1996, can you tell me why that was?” Great – now you’ve made the interviewer look stupid, that should go a long way in helping your chances at getting this job.

The other way that you can go wrong is to ask a question that is focused on you and not the company: how much would I make, how many vacation days would I get, etc. There will be time enough for these types of questions later on if they make you an offer.

Final Thoughts

In the end, a job interview is like an IT project. As an IT Leader you’ve got to convince the interviewer to support you and to do what you want them to do (offer you a job). If you’re going to have any hope of success here, then you’re going to have to get the non-verbal part of interviewing down cold.

This can be done, but it’s not easy. Practicing an interview with friends can be one of the most painful & awkward things that you’ve ever done, but at the same time it can be immensely rewarding. Good luck and make sure that your tie is tied correctly.

What do you think is the #1 social mistake that IT Leaders make when they are interviewing for a job?

Click here to get automatic updates when The Accidental IT Leader Blog is updated.

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

So IT Leader, what are you going to do about boosting the innovation within your team? Your hands are tied when it comes to giving out raises – not that money really helps innovation. You don’t have any spots to offer promotions into because the company has adopted a “flat” organizational structure. Oh, and all of your workers are running around afraid that they might lose their jobs any day now. Good luck with making innovation happen here!

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Posted in IT jobs | 2 Comments »

Shh! How To Keep Your IT Job Search Secret…

Wednesday, February 18th, 2009
IT Leaders Need To Always Be Searching For Their Next Job

IT Leaders Need To Always Be Searching For Their Next Job

Do you plan on working at your current IT job forever? Nope, I didn’t think so. In fact, there’s a very good chance that you won’t be working for the company that you are currently working at forever. What this means is that you’ve got to start that search for your next job now. Oh, and you’ve got to keep it a secret…

Sometimes we IT leaders get just a little bit too caught up in ourselves. This happens when we think that our technical skills or job experience will do the speaking for us when we next go looking for a job. Bad news, finding your next job won’t happen this way.

The key to a successful IT Leader’s job search is to prepare for your next job long before it becomes necessary to go looking for it. You know what I’m going to say next: you’ve got to keep up with what’s going on in your professional network. This network needs to include people both inside your current company as well as outside it. Keeping up with your network is important because you don’t want your networking activities to suddenly trigger suspicion among your coworkers.

It is possible to keep the search for your next job invisible. The key is to make sure that you are always meeting with professional contacts, attending industry gatherings, and (of course) being active on social networking sites.

This being said, you can overdo the social networking thing. For example, in LinkedIn updates on changes to your account are sent out to your contacts. Fellow workers may start to notice it if you all of a sudden start to gather new recommendations to your LinkedIn account. Not just social networking can be a tip off, if you dramatically improve how you dress in order to combine your current job with interviews, then your coworkers are certain to notice.

This all leads to the most delicate of questions: when should you tell your current boss that you are planning on leaving? I can answer this one for you: as late in the process as possible. Since you can never really be sure how your current employer is going to react to your announcement that you are leaving, it’s best to provide yourself with as much time to get your act together as possible. My suggestion here is to make it so that if after you make your announcement your boss blows his / her top and angerly orders you to leave the building, you are ready for it.

The second most delicate question has to do with what you should say if your company (or boss) conducts an exit interview with you. When I left my first job, I was young and naive. When they asked me what I would have changed in my old department, I opened up with both barrels. Not a good idea!

Only as I’ve grown older have I come to realize that the real purpose of an exit interview is to detect if the company is going to be facing any discrimination lawsuits. What you say about your boss / department / job might get written down, but in the end it probably won’t have much of an impact.

So there you go, IT Leaders should always be searching for their next job. This search should involve talking with real people as well as connecting online. You can keep this search a secret for as long as you want it to be, but make sure that you prepare to leave before you tell your boss that you are leaving!

How do you search for your next job when you are currently working for another company? When do you think that you should tell your current boss that you are leaving? How important do you think that online social networking will be in finding your next job? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

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Bad Money After Good: Preserving Your Employee Investment

Sunday, August 24th, 2008

How can you preserve the investment in your IT employees?

The great thing about talent portability in today’s IT market is that whenever you have a need to fill a position that requires a specialized set of skills or experiences, you can generally go shopping and find exactly what you need. The downside to this is the simple fact that your competition can do the same thing and they might be selecting from your employees!

Gone are the days in which firms developed their talent from within. Carefully nurturing those-who-would-be managers, giving them the training that they needed and rotating them among job assignments so that they would be ready when the trumpet sounded for them to take center stage in the Colosseum of business. Perhaps somewhat sadly, that model no longer exists.

Instead, today’s IT professionals are free to move on whenever a better opportunity presents itself. Applicant-tracking company Taleo has done a survey in which it was revealed that 80% of firms that participated in the survey have moved away from this “we know whats best for you” model to now starting to use internal job boards that are designed to make it easy for employees to apply for open positions and move around within the firm instead of leaving it. The poster child for this approach is Dow Chemical who was able to cut its turnover rate in half when it moved to using the internal job board approach to fill positions.

A small note of experience is probably due at this point. I’ve worked at a number of large firms in which it was mandatory that all openings were posted on the job board. However, the position was often already effectively filled by the posting manager long before the posting. Once the rest of the firm starts to understand that the job board is basically just window dressing, its value and its ability to retain staff goes down significantly.

What’s interesting about the shift to using a job board approach is that it moves the burden of managing an employee’s career from the company over to the employee. This has, of course, caused a great deal of chaos. The disconnect comes when an IT team member wants to move on to another job opportunity and his/her manager doesn’t want to let them go. Now we’ve got conflict! Welcome to the world of negotiations – somebody needs to be able to step in and find a way to preserve the investment that the company has made in this employee.

Different firms are finding different ways to deal with this issue. McKinsey tries to resolve this type of issue by (of course, it’s McKinsey after all) using rankings: how did the employee rank the job posing opportunity and how has the employee’s team ranked them on the current project that they are working on? If all of this analytical work does not resolve the issue, then the Senior Partner gets brought in to play the role of King Solomon. Before they imploded, Bears Sterns had created an office of mediation which took on the job of working out such differences between employees and their managers when an employee wanted to move on to another internal job.

In the end, the world of employee training and retention has been turned upside down. Where once firms were responsible for training and managing the careers of their employees, now that is no longer the case. Instead, the responsibility for managing one’s career is now the responsibility of each employee and training, which used to be a given, is now viewed in terms of its short term payback to the company. The old system of talent management had been set up along the lines of an engineering system: given a set of inputs, a predictable set of outputs would be produced. Today’s talent management is much more fluid. It is driven more by external market conditions and viewed through operations tools that are better able to adapt to increasing levels of uncertainty. It is possible to manage your pool of talent, you just need to update the tools that you are using to do it with.

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Posted in IT jobs, IT manager, employee, recruiting, retention | 1 Comment »

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