August, 2009

Does Age Matter When Seeking Employment? Sure, but…

As a baby boomer myself, I can’t help but be sensitive to continuing reports or complaints about age discrimination for job seekers over 50. But in talking to technical recruiters and reading recent reports on boomer job search and unemployment woes, I’m not completely convinced that a single-factor explanation of “age discrimination” is sufficient to explain the genuine phenomenon that older workers take longer and have to work harder to find new jobs. According to the AARP (as quoted in this MSNBC careers story) the average length of unemployment for workers 55 and over is almost 30 weeks, while it’s under 22 weeks for their younger counterparts.

Here’s what other factors I believe may be involved, thanks in part to my research and thanks in part to a conversation with local technical recruiter Steely Dipuccio of Accountability Resources I had last week:

1. Boomers have been in the work force for a long time (even those who, like myself, have changed careers in their 30s or 40s) and thus also tend to earn (and want to keep earning) higher salaries. It’s well documented that those who make more money also tend to take longer to find work (the old pre-recession maxim that “it takes a month of search for each $10K you wish to earn when looking for a new position” has certainly increased, perhaps even doubling). Some lowering of expectations can offset this phenomenon to some extent, but be warned: Dipuccio notes that hiring managers are wary of seasoned professionals who accept serious pay cuts to find work, because they expect them to bolt as soon as something better (or higher paying) comes along, for good reason.
2. The longer IT professionals stay in the same job, the more likely it is that they’ll find their skills and knowledge outdated or irrelevant when they go seeking new work. This is age independent, but does affect older workers more, because they’re more likely to have been in positions for more years by virtue of age. The best counter for this phenomenon is a cover letter and resume that focus on recent and relevant learning, training, skills, knowledge, and experience, backed up by talking the talk, and walking the walk if and when you get into an interview situation.
3. As workers get older, they become more set in their ways and less flexible in what they’re willing to accept. Dipuccio observed in our discussions about job search that “flexibility is the most important characteristic a prospective employee can bring to the search process and the interview these days.” We older folks may have to work more at being flexible than younger folks, but awareness and attention to this need can help to remedy this defect.

If you’re in the over-50 category and looking for IT employment (or thinking about changing jobs) you’d do very well to keep these things in mind as you work through the job search process. Don’t rely too much on Web 2.0 to lead you to your next position, either: Dipuccio reports (and I concur) that the best jobs still get filled by word of mouth and personal relationships, often without ever being posted online or advertised in print. Though online social networks can help with the job search process, the old-fashioned personal network remains the best pathway to a good job, even for tech-heavy IT in this always-on Internet age.

Don’t forget that certs have perks…use ‘em!

In her own most recent blog on August 24 entitled “Remember to grab those certification perks,” fellow certification maven Anne Martinez of GoCertify.com offers some good advice about checking into the privileges that rank sometimes prefers. That is, you’ll often be eligible for various types of special information access (password-controlled Websites or forums, publications, and so forth), discounts on products or trade show attendance, inclusion in directories or online listings, and so forth, once you earn certain certifications.

How do you know if this means you? Dig into the information that the certifying body provides to tout its certifications, and/or to explain their benefits. Once you earn the credential, as with the old American Express ads, you get all the “rights and privileges” (yeah, right! ;-)) that pertain thereto. In some cases, that means a monthly magazine and a one-time shot at free software, but in other cases, it can mean discounts on products, training, or trade show attendance. You won’t really know what’s what until you check–so check, already! Tell ‘em “Ed sent me!”

Shine a LAMP on Open Source Web Server Technology

Speaking of other good old ideas on technology, I stumbled across a couple of articles on LAMP recently that reminded me this potent combination of Linux-Apache-MySQL-and-scripting-languages-like-Perl-PHP-or-Python is still alive and kicking. In the wake of Sun’s acquisition of MySQL (and the infolding to Oracle) it’s interesting that Sun’s interest in and commitment to LAMP continues unabated. In fact, rumors are swirling that a Sun-sponsored LAMP certification may be in the offing (you can already take a LAMP test from Indian ISO 9001 company ExpertRating, and of course numerous certs already address other LAMP components individual, especially Linux, MySQL, and PHP).

For those IT professionals and organizations seeking Web server technologies that are both sustainable and maintainable, LAMP is certainly worth a close and careful examination. If you’re unfamiliar with this concept, you might start your investigation with the Wikipedia “LAMP (software bundle)” article, or dig into the various references cited therein (the External links section also includes some good stuff as well). Certainly, the O’Reilly ONLamp website merits a visit, and you’ll find numerous books dedicated to LAMP as well, including:

• James Lee and Brent Ware: Open Source Development with LAMP… (Addison-Wesley Professional, 2007, ISBN-13: 978-0201770612)
• Eric Rosebrock and Eric Filson: Setting up LAMP… (Sybex, 2004, ISBN-13: 978-0782143379)
• Jason Gerner, et al: Professional LAMP… (Wrox Press, 2005, ISBN-13: 978-076497237)

Those already familiar with this technology should be cheered to learn that more credible and substantial certification in this area may be in the offing. Those to whom LAMP is new should probably dig into to see if there’s something of potential interest or use in this combination of open source technologies.

An Old Concept Keeps Its Legs

Dear Readers:

After seeing Emmett Dulaney’s latest selections for “Books of the Week” in his latest CertCities.com Certs Column, I sent him the following e-mail:

Dear Emmett:
When I came up with the idea for the Exam Cram series in 1996, I was unable to sell the concept to any of the big publishers. Today, it’s part of the Pearson Education family of imprints and still going strong. Nice to see your capsule summary of the original concept in your latest CertCities column, which reads “The third edition of the Network+ Exam Cram by Mike Harwood is a good study book for someone who has been implementing and administering networks for quite some time and now just wants to get certified in it. [italics added here for emphasis]” That impetus drove me to create this series, and it’s nice to see it’s still alive and well, even though I’m no longer involved in it day-to-day.
Hope all is well with you, too.
Take care,
–Ed–

Indeed, it is nice to see that people still understand why I was compelled to create this series of books in the first place. I was frustrated that somebody like myself — an experienced professional with a good technical background who just wanted to know how best to deal with an upcoming cert exam — had to purchase and wade through a great, big, expensive study guide simply to glean the information about what was on the exam and how best to prepare for its rigors and questions.

If you’re looking for a good tool for cert exam preparation and an Exam Cram is available on your exam topic, it’s probably worth a once-over in a nearby bookstore, or a trip to Amazon to see if it gets mostly picks, or mostly pans. When its rating is mostly positive (like the Harwood book to which Dulaney rightly gives the nod in his column) it can be a valuable addition to your arsenal of cert prep tools.

HTH,

–Ed–

Performance-based MS exams take an 83 prefix

Call it the end of an era, or perhaps the start of a brave new world. Others who, like myself, have gone looking for MS Exam 70-640 (TS: Windows Server 2008 Active Directory, Configuring) probably also walked away scratching their heads when they couldn’t find hide nor hair of this exam. A blog posted on MS “Born to Learn” yesterday entitled ‘What happened to “70-640?”‘ makes everything clear. This is a performance-based exam and as such is a relative rarity that will soon gain numerous other cohorts in the MS exam annals. As such, it gets a prefix of 83- (so it’s exam number 83-640), rather than the more familiar and expected 70-640. The exam is the same, and the same objectives still hold as described in the MS preparation guide (whose URL still includes the string ‘70-640′ BTW! ;-). You just have to scroll down further in the Prometric exam listings to get to those that start with 83- and to finally wind up at 83-640.

Sign up today! Who knew?

Do’s and Don’ts On the IT Job Hunt

Once again, Esther Shein at IT Career Planet has struck gold in a recent story on the IT job front, as she did in April with her Social Networking story (about which I blogged on April 13 right here). This time, it’s a June 8 story entitled “Searching for an IT Job: The Do’s and Don’ts.” I stumbled across this story in response to an e-mail from a friend asking for good sources for resume rewrite tips, thanks to a lucky search engine hit on this lode of good advice.

Shein’s observations don’t necessarily introduce anything new or especially startling, but do include some excellent advice to consider as you re-read your resume with a gimlet eye, and think about how resume, cover letter and interview should all work together while you’re on the hunt for a new position. Here, I distill some of the most useful points from the story but also encourage you to follow the link in the preceding paragraph to read it in its entirety:

• Focus on results, not just skills and knowledge. Tell prospective employers how you put skills and knowledge to work, what wins they led to, and how they helped the bottom line. Much more compelling than a list of stuff you know or have learned, or certifications earned.
• Don’t sacrifice important detail to keep your resume short. It you have to leave important stuff out of your resume just to cram it into a page or two, you may short yourself in the candidate selection process. Provide more detail on your most recent positions, and only list jobs ten or more years old, with a proviso such as “Additional information on older positions supplied upon request” to help keep the length manageable, if necessary.
• Go into specifics. While this notion gains importance for cover letters and interviews, tailoring your resume to meet specific employer needs or situations is smart, if you have the time and energy to craft your materials for specific opportunities. Use what you can learn or already know about the outfit and the open position to present yourself in the most appropriate and positive light. Here again, remember that technical info is good, but explaining how what you know and can do can help the bottom line is much, much better.

If you keep these ideas in mind as you prepare your materials, and go through the interview process, you’ll be much more likely to put yourself in a situation where you can pick and choose among multiple opportunities, rather than having to take the first offer that comes along. Good advice to remember, even when the economy picks back up and offers become more predictable and normal, rather than rare and unobtainable.

Good Advice On Striking Out on Your Own

When I was a kid, lots of people smoked and thus, matches were everywhere, and matchbook covers provided the informational equivalent of cereal box copy in a slightly different venue and often in a very different vein. Of course, that was quite a while ago (I celebrated my 57th birthday last weekend) and the catchphrase “Be an Artist” probably doesn’t resonate with Gen X and 7 readers who never saw it plastered all over the inside back covers of  comic books and on matchbook covers at a young and tender age as I did.

If “Be an Artist” was a slogan for schoolkids seeking escape from the grind of daily studies, then “Be a Consultant” is the anodyne for work-weary IT professionals seeking a creative outlet from the daily grind. To those for whom this updated catchphrase has more than passing appeal, I’d like to recommend a recent article in Certification Magazine by Ken Sternberg entitled “Trend Spotting: Life as a Self-Employed Consultant.” In this story, Sternberg makes numerous valid points about scoring in the consulting game, using a profile of independent consultant Ken Conquest to illustrate them. Here’s a sampling of what you’ll find therein:

• Nail down a technical degree from a good school
• Pay your IT dues, and work your way up the food chain, wearing as many job hats as proudly and effectively as you can
• Customer service skills and knowledge are good, because consulting is all about customer service
• Soft skills to develop include conversation, effective listening, restating what was heard to clarify understanding, managing expectations
• Whenever possible, under-promise and over-deliver
• Make your certifications work for you, and put them to work in your resume, on your business card, and in your conversations with current and prospective clients

Readers seeking a lengthier, more humorous, and truly wonderful exposition of the consultant’s role in business could do a lot worse than to turn to Gerald Weinberg’s immortal classic The Secrets of Consulting (Dorset House, ISBN: 0932622013, 1985) or to turn to his identically titled blog. If you’re thinking about following the singleton’s route to IT bliss, be sure to check out these various resources. Good luck!

Hmmm! What does “230 mpg” really mean?

In looking over the Larry Dignan blog for SmartPlanet, I find the headline “Chevy Volt: 230 mpg in city driving: $2.75 per 100 miles…” tantalizing at first, infuriating as I read on and discover the basis for the mathematics. This is only the charge for gasoline in a car that drives 40 miles on stored electrical power alone, and fails to include the charges for powering up the battery in the first place.

I don’t know where Larry lives, but in my part of the world, electricity is pretty expensive. Austin Energy, for example, charges $6 per month, plus 3.55 cents for the first 500 kWh, and 6.02 centers for each additional kWh over 500 from November through April, and 7.82 cents for each added kWh from May through October, not to mention the fuel adjustment charges that kick in. According to MichaelBlueJay.com, for an example, the 2009 average for Texas electricity is about 9.16 cents per kWh including all charges.

This all goes to show that when you decipher claims about performance, it’s essential to understand what’s being measured, and how related measurements are taken. While the old adage “you can’t monitor it, if you don’t measure it” remains as true and important as ever, it’s still important to know what’s being measured (and in this case, upon closer investigation) what’s not being measured as well.

Ultimately, the old IT acronym TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) will come into play for the Chevy Volt, as it does for all motor vehicles. Only then will we really understand what the $40,000 price for the vehicle actually pays for, and what other costs must be incurred to operate this vehicle over time and distance for commuting, travel, and so forth. Whatever those turn out to be, this promises to be a fascinating phenomenon to observe, and from which to learn.

Maybe we can start making similar claims about the Internet for miles per kWh. In that case, I’m sure the Internet will leave the Chevy Volt far, far behind!

The Economist Echoes July 09 Job Situation Conclusions

One my favorite and most trusted news sources, in addition to NPR, is the British weekly news magazine known as The Economist. I’ve been a subscriber since the early 1990s, and have never had much cause to regret the $100-plus it costs me to get it delivered to my mailbox 51 weeks a year. I was therefore pleased to see the conclusions in my last Friday’s blog subtantially echoed in a recent story from their August 1 issue entitled “First, the good news.”

Although this story deals with the euro-area economy rather than the US economy, many of the same observations and conclusions emerge from its coverage. Although things still aren’t exactly good, and such recovery as we’ve seen still can’t be characterized as either strong or vigorous, indeed things lately aren’t as bad as they’ve been in the past. In some EU member countries, and some industry sectors, unemployment remains a pressing problem, particularly in Spain where rates in excess of 18% (!) are reported.

In European IT likewise, I suspect that bunker mentality (”hunker down and wait for things to improve”) also prevails. In e-mails from Europeans and Americans working in European IT-related jobs, I’ve confirmed that things aren’t completely dire, but that it’s still not time to be looking for a high-paying new position just yet, either.

Sounds like the situation on both sides of the pond is about the same for IT professionals. Let’s look for more signs of improvement when next month’s Employment Situation posts on September 4, just before Labor Day.

The July 2009 Employment Situation Finally Posts

The markets and their followers have been abuzz with anticipation of the US Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation Summary for July 2009, which just hit the Web and the newswires at 8:30 AM EDT this morning. Although analysts had anticipated a climb in the unemployment rate from 9.4 to as high as 9.7 percent, the lead paragraph includes the following very cheery items, which I expect should buoy those markets substantially today:

• “the unemployment rate was little changed at 9.4 percent”
• “the average monthly job loss for May through July (-331,000) was about half the average decline for November through April (-645,000)”
• “nonfarm payroll employment continued to decline in July (-247,000)”

The last item actually appears first in the original source, but I list it last so I can remark that this is the lowest monthly job loss in quite some time. The ongoing trend that things are not as bad as they were before is continuing, though we’re still losing rather than gaining jobs.

Not all the items in this report are necessarily cheery, however. Here are some that might give pause to the inevitable thoughts about recovery, and let us know how far we have to go to regain equilibrium and move beyond into true economic and job growth:

• “the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) rose by 584,000 over the month to 5.0 million”
• “in July, 1 in 3 unemployed persons were jobless for 27 weeks or more”
• Table A-11 indicates that unemployment in the “information” industry stands at 11.5 percent (as compared to 4.1 percent in July 2008), and in the “professional and business services” industry stands at 10.9 percent (as compared to 6.1 percent in July 2008) Table B-4 indicates that average hourly earnings in Information declined by 0.5 percent, and increased in Professional and Business Sevices by 0.2 percent.

What does all this mean? With a total of 15 million Americans still unemployed, things remain tough all over, particularly in IT, where things are somewhat worse than they are overall. It’s still time to sit tight, stay put, and keep an eye out for trouble heading your way. Hopefully all the talk about and longing for recovery will translate into tangible signs of same soon.