Crazy Yo-Yo Job Market E-mail Gets an Actual Response

The Hon Mr Carter and his response do not leave me warm and fuzzy

To my complete and utter amazement, I actually got a response from my Texas Congressman, John R. Carter, to my email about the need to get past partisan bickering and ideological grandstanding and increase the budget debt ceiling. Alas, however, that response does not fill me with joy, nor does it raise my hopes about a workable solution to this crisis.

Here are the paragraphs from his canned response that garnered the bulk of my attention, as outstanding examples of political doublespeak:

The United States has financial obligations, and it is unacceptable not to honor those commitments.  Failing to win the necessary concessions on spending cuts would be detrimental to America’s future. That said, failing to raise the statutory debt limit would catastrophic to the world economy and would immediately and irreversibly weaken the full faith and credit of the United States. Fortunately, the United States has always paid its debts and remains in good financial standing with other countries, and we must make sure this good standing continues. However we must use this opportunity to ensure drastic spending cuts and reform Washington.

 

I will continue to fight for an economic agenda which reflects my principles as a fiscal conservative, emphasizing the value of common sense expenditures, and reforming wasteful government spending. Please know that I am committed to balancing our budget, reforming government spending, and reducing the deficit. Once again, thank you for taking the time to contact me. Please do not hesitate to do so in the future if I can be of any further assistance.

It looks like he understands full well that the USA must honor its financial obligation on the debt, but the message states flatly that ‘Washington spends too much and does not tax too little’ (my paraphrase) and that “The best way to increase revenue is to decrease the unemployment rate.” If anything, I am even more antsy about our prospects for a solution than I was before I started down this road.

Until SMBs know what the government is going to do, and are assured that markets aren’t going to crash, and interest rates skyrocket, they’re not hiring anybody. And until we get the debt crisis solved, it’s likely to stay that way. I could give the proverbial rodent’s hindquarters if we balance the buget, but I sure as heck don’t want to see the markets crash, and my retirement savings get decimated yet again, as they did after the .dot bomb debacle and then again in 2008.

It always comes back to soft skills

I just finished an article for Matt Gervais at SearchWinIT.com tentatively entitled “Write Your Way to IT Career Success.” Over the years, I’ve written numerous articles on the importance of soft skills for career development with a special emphasis on the following topics:

• written communication
• verbal communication and presentations
• project management
• time management
• people skills and people management (these are two different, but related sets of soft skills)

Although you will only seldom see these topics explicitly mentioned in your current job description, or in descriptions for such future jobs as may interest you, you’ll have to take my word for it that all of these things matter in varying degrees for any and every job around.

As you think about ways to improve your employability, and to improve your performance reviews and interview results, don’t forget to think, talk, learn, and and act in these various soft skill domains. As your skills and knowledge in these areas grow, so will your value as an employee. Even though they may not have the same cachet as an advanced degree or another high-end certification, soft skills can add as much value (and occasionally more value) than such things to your career prospects and opportunities. That’s why you should make learning, developing and improving soft skills an important aspect of your career and learning plans. Don’t forget: it really counts!

Arrgh! That Crazy Yo-Yo Job Market Is Straddling the Abyss

I’ve been noodling around like mad since last Friday, when the US Bureau of Labor Statistics posted the news that only a trifling number of new jobs — 18,000 to be precise — had been created for the month of June, 2011. After the first sign of substantial gains the month before (over 200,000 new jobs created in May) this comes as a shock, a warning that the economy remains far from vigorous, and to those dreading the August 2 deadline for raising the US Federal Debt Ceiling, a dire portent of things that very well could lie ahead in the next month or two.

Post-release of this information, most analysis has zeroed in on the fact that SMBs (companies with less than 500 or 1,000 employees, depending on who’s measuring) are still sitting on the sidelines, too afraid of the current situation and possible downsides to even think about hiring anybody right now. And if you understand the notion of an economic pyramid (which translates its shape: “Big at the bottom, pointy and narrow on top” into the recognition that there are a lot more bricks or stones at the bottom than at the top) and recognize that SMBs form its base, you’ll also understand that without SMBs becoming more sanguine about hiring staff, the unemployment situation in the USA is going exactly nowhere fast.

My friends, we are sitting at the cusp of a huge divide that will govern the future of this country and the global economy for the next decade and beyond. Unless the Congress can get its stuff together and make the compromises necessary to raise the US Federal Debt Ceiling, we are headed for a world of hurt. I must now believe that this means major market falls, a return to double-digit unemployment rates, and a double-dip recession with overtones of economic depression. At my most alarmist, I can see this as on par with or perhaps even worse than the Great Depression of 1929 and the subsequent decade of misery that followed.

Everybody needs to send an email to all of his or her congresspeople and both senators for their state that says: “We don’t care what you have to do to raise the debt ceiling, do it. Don’t let your partisan principles ruin the future prospects for economic recovery, and kill the American Dream for ourselves and our children. Fix it, now!” I just sent a message to this effect to my Senators, John Cornyn and Kaye Bailey Hutchison, and to my Congressman, John Carter. I urge everyone who reads this blog to do the same. It’s time to stand up and be counted. We must resolve this issue, or we will all suffer dreadfully. Party affiliations and partisan principles no longer matter: it’s time to stop the bleeding, or the patient will die!!!

The Secret to “The Secrets of Consulting” by Gerald M. Weinberg

From his mouth to your ear come Secrets of Consulting

I have the unique pleasure and privilege of writing today’s blog to recommend Gerald Weinberg’s fabulous book entitled The Secrets of Consulting (Dorset House Publishing, January 1986, ISBN: 0932633013). The title is actually something of a misnomer, in that it presents its audience as those who make their living by consulting with others (or who are considering a career change involving a consulting role). And while it is a peachy-keen reference for such professionals, it is also helpful to anyone who works in a service provider role to other organizations, or units within an organization. If that doesn’t describe IT perfectly, I’m not sure what does. At any rate, I’m firmly of the opinion that anyone who works in an IT job who also has to deal with users, or management outside of IT, will realize some amazing benefits from reading this book.

And that’s not the only reason IT professionals should read this book. It’s a paragon of communication all by its lonesome, and manages to be laugh-out-loud funny consistently from start to finish while also presenting incredibly valuable nuggets of information from a seemingly inexhaustible supply of same. There’s a good reason why this book hasn’t gone out of print since it first appeared in 1986, and why it remains a top pick for management, consulting, and even IT reading lists over 30 years after it first published. How can you go wrong with a book that includes such immortal labels as “Rudy’s Law of Rutabagas,” “The Inverse Gilded Rule,” and “The Potato Chip Principle?”

If you need some good, strong belly laughs to help you get some excellent career-enhancing advice down rush right out and buy this book (cheap used copies are plentiful, thanks to the number of years this book has been available, or you can pay around $60 for a brand-new or “like new” copy). My advice is: “Read. This. Book.”

ITIL Offers Potential IT Career Boost

ITIL is an abbreviation for Information Technology Infrastructure Library. Based on work originally undertaken for the British Government’s Central Computer and Telecommunications Agency (CCTA) in the 1980s, it evolved into a set of recommendations and best practices that exercise profound impact on IT practices, processes, and procedures all over the world today. The fundamental concept is that standard IT practices help to ensure proper implementation, management, and maintenance of information technology for businesses and government bodies alike.

The first version, known as ITIL v1, was published by 1996, involved publication of over 30 volumes of material. By 2001, ITIL v2 compacted these publications into a collection of 8 logical sets that combined related process guidelines and practices for IT management, applications, and services. The primary focus in these materials is called Service Management (comprised of Service Delivery and Service Support), and provide the most widely published and used elements within ITIL v2.

By 2001 the CCTA was absorbed into the Office of Government Commerce (OGC) which is an arm of the UK Treasury department. By mid-2007, the OGC produced ITIL v3 which is comprised of 26 functions and processes, grouped into 5 volumes organized around a service lifecycle structure. By 2009 ITIL v2 certifications were withdrawn, and a transition to v3 certifications was made public. Nevertheless, v2 materials and information remain both popular and in-demand in IT organizations around the world. But by the end of June, 2011, ITIL v3 remains the only ITIL version still current, and defines the topics around which IT Professionals will want to seek certification.

The ITIL v3 certifications are modular, where each qualification earns a specific credit value. Upon completion of any given module, an individual earns some number of credits and a specific credential. The ITIL v3 Foundation certification is the base level, and earns 2 points. Intermediate credentials require 15 points and may come from a collection of either Lifecycle or Capability topics, or a combination of the two, where each Lifecycle cert earns 3 credits and each Capability cert earns 4. Candidates seeking Expert level certification must earn 22 points (2 from the Foundation, 15 from the Intermediate, and 5 credits from a “Managing Across the Lifecycle” exam).

For more information about topics and credentials please see my PearsonITCertification blog entitled “ITIL Certs Can Be a Real Career Booster for IT Professional.”

ISACA and EC-Council Partner Up

Although certification sponsors who work the same industry patches are often inclined to regard others with whom they share such patches as competitors, that’s not always the case. Consider the recent announcement from the ISACA (formerly known as the Information Systems Audit and Control Association; read “ISACA and EC-Council sign MOU” for more details) and the EC-Council (aka the International Council of Electronic Commerce Consultants).

ISACA is best known for its CISA (Certified Information Systems Auditor) and CISM (Certified Information Security Manager) credentials, while EC-Council is best known for its CEH (Certified Ethical Hacker) and related code analysis and penetration testing credentials. The cooperative agreement between these two organizations lets individuals who earn the ISACA CISM use that credential in place of the CEH as a pre-requisite for earning the EC-Council’s LPT (Licensed Penetration Tester) certification, while ISACA grants applicants for the CISA continuing professional education (CPE) credits for their pursuit and attainment of the CEH credential as well.

This sort of mutual reinforcement between programs is a good idea, because it encourages IT professionals to broaden their horizons to encompass multiple certification programs, and encourages synergy between similar but not identical credentials and bodies of knowledge. I’d like to see more of this kind of thing become common practice. Today, beyond the various programs that recognize various CompTIA certifications as initial stepping stones onto their certification ladders, there really isn’t that much of this kind of thing going on.

[A shout-out to Anne Martinez, whose latest Certification Watch Vol14#7 alerted me to this cross-organizational agreement.]

Get Ready for a Cert Webinar from Yours Truly

On Wednesday, July 27, from 3-4 PM Eastern Daylight time (-05:00 UCT) I will be presented a Webinar on the PearsonITCertification.com Website. The working title for this presentation is “Planning Your Next Certification Campaign.” It will deal with the issues involved in establishing and managing certification goals over the long and short terms, and with various techniques to plan activities, and to monitor progress.

I’ll also get into some useful self-assessment tools and techniques, to explain how to figure out where you are, and how to help you get to where you want to go professionally. To this end, I’ll also talk about how to assess and develop career and certification skills, too. The presentation will conclude with a discussion of how to develop and implement a study plan for certification, along with a personal support system to help you meet your own stated goals.

Header from my IT Cert Success article collection

All of this information is also available in much greater depth and detail through the “Ed Tittel’s IT Certification Success” web page on the PearsonITCertification.com site, in the form of a whole series of articles we wrote late last year (2010) and early this year (2011) to dig more deeply into all of these subjects. Be sure to check it out!

Changes to Java Cert Exams Follow Move to Pearson VUE for Testing

Thanks to a blog posted on Anne Martinez’ always interesting GoCertify.com Website the news is out about changes to the former Sun, now Oracle, Java certification exams are going through some changes (check Harold Green’s 6/20/2011 blog entitled “Java Certification Exam Changes Due to the Move to Oracle/Pearson VUE” for more details).

Certiblog Headline On Java Exam Changes

What’s in this set of changes, you ask? Here’s the 10,000-foot view:

1. Exams renumbered to match Oracle-style Exam IDs
2. Exam scores enhanced to offer more detailed feedback, including a list of all exam objectives for which incorrect answers were received.
3. For some exams, lengthy, complex  and time-consuming questions are out, replaced with shorter alternative versions (exam length is now uniform at 150 minutes, or 2.5 hours, for all Java topics).
4. Interactive question types (drag and drop and matching type questions) are out, to simplify exam interaction and make it more consistent across all exams.
5. Passing scores have been readjusted statistically to maintain parity with previous exam versions, to keep levels of difficulty unchanged. (No changes have been made regarding exam objectives and topics covered).

Glad to see that Oracle is simply adjusting the program to better integrate it with other Oracle Education cert stuff and (so far) leaving the Java exam content and coverage alone.

Interesting Look at Top $$$ Certs

They’re a staple of the cert biz, and fodder for cert sponsors, training companies, publishers, and everybody else connected with getting candidates certified. Even so, it’s still interesting to peruse surveys of top-paying certifications as they become available. This one is entitled “15 Top Paying IT Certifications” and it’s from mega-training provider Global Knowledge. The following summarizes the net-net of these items, in the same order that they appear in the Global Knowledge materials.

I don’t see a lot of surprises in this line-up, but there are a few interestings items. First, I’m stunned to see the CCDP at the top of this list (I would’ve expected the CCIE to come out on top, but I see it nowhere in here). Second, I’m pleasantly surprised to see ITIL items and project management certs occupying four slots overall. And last, I’m amazed that the MCDBA has such continuing presence that it registers in this group of mostly newer or more-recently updated credentials. Across the board, the money ain’t bad, either.

Cisco Certification Tendencies? Check Out Cisco Live Online!

Anybody who’s been around the Cisco world for awhile knows about the company’s trade shows, called Cisco Live! Those same people also know that Cisco is moving aggressively into telepresence, video conferencing, and virtual training and lab technology. Well, in the grand tradition of “eat your own dog food” (Silicon Valley argot for “we use our own technology” or perhaps even “we are the premier and best-informed users of our own technology”), Cisco is bringing its upcoming trade show to be held in Las Vegas from July 10-14 to the virtual as well as the physical world.

I blogged about this in detail yesterday for PearsonITCertification.com in a piece entitled “Cisco Live Virtual: The Next Best Thing to Being There (It’s FREE, too).” While I recommend you read this item for more information, its net-net is that Cisco is offering online registration and attendance to Cisco Live Virtual at no charge to anyone who’s interested. Better still, there’s already a raft of training, certification, and product information available through this portal site already, with more to come as the kick-off date on July 10 approaches, and streaming live video from numerous show venues once the event gets fully underway.

Here is the virtual show blurb from the registration landing page

There’s some pretty peachy online certification content already available online, with PDFs from 10 courses to be delivered at the show already downloadable. If you’re of the Cisco persuasion, or considering Cisco certification, you definitely want to check this out. It won’t cost you anything except some time and energy, either!