soft skills

Prepping for Cert Exams

You know that old saying: "You can never be too rich, or too thin?" Well, I think a variation on that theme applies to preparing for certification exams: "You can never be too prepared, or too ready!" To that end, I've compiled a bunch of advice on preparing for exams that readers may find...

If at first you don’t succeed, try again!

Microsoft Learning has been running its Second Shot program on and off since the late 90's. It works like this:

• You

What about the Microsoft Certified Master credentials?

In June, 2008, at Tech-Ed in Orlando, Microsoft announced a new high-level certification program to attendees and the rest of the world. As the name is intended to convey, the new Master credentials are intended...

Give Yourself an Annual (Career) Review

With the end of 2008 now less than three months off, and 2009 chugging resolutely into view on the horizon, it's time to lift your eyes from the day-to-day near horizon of workaday life, and look a bit further out at the bigger career picture. This means asking questions such as:

• How...

What Makes Cert Programs Succeed?

I drop in on CertCities.com pretty regularly, to catch up on IT certification news, reviews, and opinions. Of the last variety, my old coopetitor, Emmett Dulaney, often has some pretty good ones. Today is no exception as he digs into an interesting and wistful illustration of the old principle...

“Why Certifications Matter…”

In my previous blog, I started digging into a recent article from Redmondmag.com entitled "IT Salaries on the Rise." Here, I'm going to continue that excavation by exploring and commenting on the section in the story whose...

Soft Skills (Part 4 of 4): Project Management

When it comes to getting any kind of serious IT work done in businesses and organizations, nearly all such efforts fall under some kind of project heading. I'm not talking about routine maintenance, provisioning upgrades, and other ongoing day-to-day efforts. I'm talking about implementing or...

Soft Skills (Part 3 of 4) Spoken Communications and Presentations

Where written communications are important for lots of routine work-related tasks--for everything from e-mail, to reports, to product and personnel evaluations, research, analysis, and lots more--spoken communications are pretty important, too. For this segment of our multi-part soft skills...

Soft Skills (Part 2 of 4): Written Communications

It's no exaggeration to say that written communications are important to nearly every job. This is especially true or IT, where reports, analyses, evaluations, and even plain, humble e-mail messages, are part of the regular grind. Though it's rare to hear of IT professionals garnering promotions or...

The Importance of Soft Skills (Part 1 of 4 Parts)

Soft skills have a lot to do with career opportunities and development, just as do harder technical skills. What's this distinction mean? Soft skills refer to abilities that make people better employees, and open doors to opportunities, that aren't directly related to the subject matter for their...