Posts Tagged ‘employment’

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Whoops – You’ve Been Reorganized IT Leader!

Thursday, May 7th, 2009
IT Leaders Need To Take Action When A Reorganization Occurs

IT Leaders Need To Take Action When A Reorganization Occurs

So there you are, doing a great job of being the best IT Leader that you can be and all of a sudden, everything changes around you. You’ve been reorganized!

In a recession (like we are in now), reorganizations are common either before or after a layoff. Just when you though that you knew what you were supposed to be doing and what everyone else was supposed to be doing, the music plays and everything is different.

When a reorganization occurs, the worst thing that you can do is nothing. You’ve got to realize that it’s almost like starting to play a game all over again. You’re going to have to quickly adapt to this new world and as you’re doing this you are going to have to take a long hard look at the future of your job.

Eileen Gunn over at the Wall Street Journal has taken a look at what we’re supposed to do when a reorganization happens to us. She’s got some tips that just might help us out:

  • First Meetings Count: Just like a first impression, your first meeting after a reorganization can be critical. This is a time for you to be bold – ask the questions that everyone else is thinking. However be careful, your new management may not have all the answers. Don’t drill them too hard if they start grasping for answers.
  • Look Inside: This is probably the best time ever for you to sit down with yourself and do an inventory of what you bring to the new world order. You need to make sure that your skills match what your boss is looking for – if they don’t, then you are going to have to change.
  • Meet The Big Guy / Gal: If the reorganization has resulted in you having a new boss, then  you’re going to want to have some one-on-one face time with them as quickly as possible. Basically, you’re going to have to interview for your job even if they don’t ask you to do so. You need to show them what you can bring to the table so that they will know what you are capable of.
  • Deal With It: You may not be happy with the new world order that has resulted after a reorganization; however, you don’t run the world (yet). The quicker you get over feeling this way and become a valued contributor once again, the more secure your job and career will be.

Reorganizations happen for a variety of reasons and they always seem to come at the worst time – just when we almost had everything figured out. They are a part of life and these suggestions can give us the tools that we need to turn these changes from pitfalls into opportunities.

Have you been through a reorganization lately? How did you feel about where you ended up after the dust had settled? Did you change your behavior starting with the first meeting? Have you met with your new boss yet? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

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How Should IT Leaders Use Outplacement Services?

Thursday, April 23rd, 2009
Outplacement Services Can Help The Laid Off IT Leader

Outplacement Services Can Help The Laid Off IT Leader

Dang it, you’ve been let go. It really doesn’t matter the reason why – just the fact that your (former) employer decided that they could get along without your services can really sting. However, before the door swings close behind you for the last time, the ball is in still in your court and you need to know what to do with it.

As IT Leaders, we are a pretty arrogant bunch.  A recent survey by the global outsourcing firm Right Management found that seven out of 10 job seekers thought that they knew exactly what they needed to do in order to land their next job. However, once they went through the outplacement service, that number dropped down to two.

At most firms, when a layoff sweeps through and you get caught up in it, you will be offered the services of an outplacement firm. Many of us poo-poo this because for one reason or another we think that it won’t be of any help to us. That’s where you’d be wrong.

If you find yourself in this position, here’s what you need to do in order to make the most of the outplacement service that has been offered to you:

  • Don’t Drag Your Feet: You’ve been let go, get over it and don’t delay starting to use your outplacement service. The longer you wait, the more competition you will face.
  • Pick Your Consultant Carefully: You can always ask to meet with a different consultant so make sure that the one that you’ve got is the right one for you. Consider things like track record, background, experience in your industry, and of course their current workload.
  • Do Your Homework: You’ll probably be asked to complete personality tests and career assignments. Do them! This is the time for you to make sure that the next job that you get is really the right one for you.
  • Stuff Yourself: The outplacement firm probably offers many different types of classes, workshops, seminars, and networking events. This is your best chance to find out if things have changed and if your type of job is now located in different parts of other firms.
  • Don’t Work Remotely: Although in this day and age it is possible to work with your counselor online, try not to. Instead go into the office and meet with them face-to-face. This will help to build a stronger relationship with them and who knows what other professionals you’ll meet there.

Nothing can make the initial pain of being let go from your IT job hurt less. However, as with so many things in life, the pain fades over time. You need to make sure that you get moving right off the bat so that by the time your pain has faded, you are already in your next job.

Have you ever used outplacement services that were offered by your former employer? Did you have a good counselor? Did you choose to meet with them face-to-face or did you do most of it online? How did it all turn out for you? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

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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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Why Are There So Few Women In IT?

Thursday, February 12th, 2009
Why Don't More Women Enter The IT Field?

Why Don't More Women Enter The IT Field?

Oh, oh – this is the kind of blog posting that can cause all sorts of folks to get angry. Before you build up a big head of steam and get ready to fire off an angry “women are just as capable as men” letter to me, wait just a minute. The question that we’re tacking here isn’t if women are better than men at IT, but rather why are there so many more men in IT departments?

With no scientific backing what so ever, I think that a lot of us have made up our own reasons why staff meetings and all hands gatherings sure seem more like a frat party than a balanced gathering of equal numbers of both genders. Some of the made up reasons for this include guessing that women have less interest in “hard” science that makes up parts of IT, women’s educational experience makes them not want to go into IT, or that women are just not comfortable working in the male environment that is today’s IT department.

As an IT Leader who wants to manage a balanced team of both men and women (the world is, after all, made up of roughly 50 / 50 of both), understanding why you don’t have more women on your team is a critical issue that you need to resolve.

Vicki McKinney is an organizational consultant who, along with a number of academic researchers, conducted a study of 815 IT workers back in 2003. They published their results in the Communications of the ACM and what they uncovered was quite interesting.

The first set of questions that they asked tried to answer why a man or a woman would enter the IT field in the first place. It turns out that men were more likely than women to cite “love of technology / computers” as their motive. Women cited “job security”, “ease of entry”, and “flexible work hours” as their motivators for entering IT. What this means to an IT Leader is that men are more driven by factors in an IT job itself. Women are more motivated by factors around the job. This is key knowledge when you are trying to motivate a team.

Another question that was asked dealt with role models. The ability to socialize is critical to advancing one’s IT career and role models can help greatly with this. The surprising answer that came back from the survey was that both men and women had a similar level of experience with role models. What this means is that women have had no problems finding men to act as their role models in IT.

You’re going to like the next set of questions that were asked. This batch was designed to discover if there are any gender related differences in a variety of work-related experiences. What’s interesting is that the answer is YES. Specifically, women reported that their supervisors provided them with greater support in the meeting of their career goals and improving their job performance.

The final set of survey questions centered on career satisfaction. The result of asking these questions was that the researchers found no significant differences between men and women’s level of satisfaction with their IT careers.

So what’s an IT Leader to make of all of this information? Basically two things can be learned. Once in IT, women seem to be just as happy and driven as men. They may have come to IT for different reasons, but once there they share many of the same experiences. However, IT has had and continues to have what the researchers call “an input problem”: too few girls are being attracted to IT as a career path.

If IT Leaders want tomorrow’s IT department to be gender balanced, then more work needs to be done to improve young girls’ knowledge of computer careers as well as making them aware of computer related education. We all need to play a role in getting the message out…!

Do you feel that your department is gender balanced? Do you feel that women have as good of an IT career as men? Do women in your department have a better relationship with their supervisors than men do? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

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How To Protect Your IT Career From Sabotage

Friday, November 21st, 2008
Your Career Is Being Threatened By Backstabbers - Do You Know What To Do?

Your Career Is Being Threatened By Backstabbers - Do You Know What To Do?

They really are out to get you, you know. All those schemers who want your job, your promotion, your bonus are even as you read this sitting at their desk scheming how best to make you look bad, take credit for your work, or even how to get you fired. In this down economy, those who have it in for you are even more likely to take action because so many firms are in the process of trimming headcount that they want to save their jobs by taking yours. What’s an IT leader to do?

Your career sabotage problems begin when you detect that someone is out to get you. Once you are aware that something is going on, it’s going to bug the heck out of you. You are now officially in a bind: if you complain, then there is a good chance that you are going to be viewed as “… not being a team player”, if you ignore it and do nothing, then you can pretty much kiss any future promotions goodbye.

So just what kind of actions do backstabbers take to bring you down? Here’s a quick list – let’s see how many of them you recognize as having been done to you either now or in the past:

  • Taking Credit For Your Work: this is a classic. The backstabber talks with you to find all about work that you have been doing and then represents that work to others as having been done by them. Sometimes they will even tell you that you’ve done a poor job and ask you to not talk about it so that you don’t look foolish – and so they can take credit for it.
  • Spreading Rumors About You: this can be a sneaky one because it can go on for a long time without you knowing about it. If you have a good network, somebody besides you will probably hear about the rumors before you do and tell you. Otherwise you’re just going to have to keep your ears open and detect what people seem to be saying about you.
  • Project Sabotage: In this case, the saboteur realizes that your career advancement depends on the project that you are in charge of being a success. Once they know this, they will be willing to work very hard to cause your project to fail. Withholding needed resources or providing needed information late are two easy ways to drill holes in your project boat.

It sure seems like it will be easy for others to sneak in to our rooms in the middle of the night and make off with our careers. Is there anything that we can do? It turns out that yes, there are things that you can do to protect yourself and your career. They aren’t easy and they don’t always work, but they sure are better than sitting around and waiting for the axe to fall on you because of the actions of others. Here are some thoughts:

  1. Keep your cool: the last thing that you want to do is to flip out. If you let your temper get the better of you, then you’ll have fewer options for solving the sabotage problem.
  2. No Direct Confrontation: Look, if they’ve been clever enough to try to get you out of their way, then they’ve probably not left any evidence lying around. Even if you could get all CSI on them, you are in a workplace and nobody really cares about that piece of hair that you found that clearly shows that your saboteur was the one that spread the rumor that you were hard to get along with.
  3. Make Sure The Rumors Are Not Correct: So this is just a bit awkward, is there a possibility that the rumors could be right? Take a moment to look in the mirror and do some hard thinking. If the stories are correct, then you’ve got other problems to solve.
  4. Love Those Timestamps: people can only take credit for your work if nobody else knows that you did the work first (first come, first served). What this means is that email can be your new best friend. When you are reporting on results or completed work, send out an email telling as many people as possible. This way the world will know that you did the work and when you did it. This can stop a saboteur in his / her tracks.
  5. Talk To Your Boss: At the end of the day, your boss is the one who really has control over your career. You need to have a talk with him/her and let them know what’s going on and ask for their help in resolving it. After all, this is just the kind of personnel thing that bosses are there to take care of.
  6. Talk To Your Boss’ Boss: Of course, if it’s your boss that is doing the backstabbing, you really need to get some outside help. Talking with his/her boss is one way to do this. Another way is to talk with someone else at that same level and ask them to intervene.

Of course, if it turns out that it’s your boss that is doing your career in, you’ve got a real problem. There is a very good chance that in the end it’s going to be either you or him/her once you start to put a stop to the sabotage. Make sure that your resume is up-to-date because there is a good chance that you just might be needing it soon…

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where someone was trying to sabotage your career? How did you find out about it? What did you do to stop the sabotage? In the end were you able to save your career? Leave me a comment and let me know what you are thinking.

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