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Thursday, October 14, 2010

50 Hot IT Skills on the Rise



Here are the 25 certifications and non-certified skills most likely to increase in value over the next six months, as determined by Foote Partners LLC. But President David Foote cautions, "There is simply no such thing as a reliable six-month IT labor forecast in these volatile market conditions." 

 Rank
 IT Certifications
 Non-certified IT Skills
 1
SAS Certified Base Programmer
SAP Basis components
 2 
Red Hat Certified Security Specialist
RAD/extreme programming/agile programming
 3
CompTIA Security+
Virtual private networks 
 4
 SAS Certified Advanced Programmer
Business continuity and disaster recovery planning
 5
VMware Certified Professional
Web 2.0 skills (AJAX, Adobe Flex, Adobe Flash, JavaScript, JSON) 
 6
GIAC Security Essentials Certification
Windows 7 
 7
Citrix Certified Enterprise Administrator
SAP Web Application Server 
 8 
Cisco Certified Network Professional
SAN/storage administration 
 9
Cisco Certified Internetwork Professional
RFID/wireless sensors 
 10
Red Hat Certified Technician
Python 
 11
HP Accredited Integration Specialist
HTML/DHTML/XHTML
 12
Microsoft Certified Professional Developer (all)
Business performance management software/systems 
 13
Sun Certified Systems Administrator for Solaris
SAP BPC (Business Planning and Consolidation)
 14
Microsoft Certified Database Administrator
SAP EBP (Enterprise Buyer Professional) 
 15
Cisco Certified Design Professional
SAP FI -- FSCM (Financial Accounting -- Financial Supply Chain Management) 
 16
GIAC Certified Incident Handler
Linux
 17
CyberSecurity Forensic Analyst
Ruby/Ruby on Rails 
 18
Certification Authorization Professional
Social networks (tagging, virtual communities, social bookmarking, etc.) 
 19
Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist (virtualization)
SAP SCM (Supply Chain Management) 
 20
GIAC Security Audit Essentials
SAP SRM (Supplier Relationship Management) 
 21
GIAC Secure Software Programmer
ITIL v3 Foundation 
 22

IBM Certified Specialist - AIX Basic Op
SAP WM (Warehouse Management) 
 23

Avaya Certified Specialist
Web Dynapro 
 24

Check Point Certified Security Administrator
SAP APO (Advanced Planner and Optimizer) 
 25
GIAC Certified Windows Security Administrator
SAP PP (Production Planning)
Source: Foote Partners IT Skills and Certifications Hot Lists, July 2010. Rankings are based on interviews with hundreds of executives and primary decision-makers from the 2,000 companies in Foote's database of research partners.
(Courtesy: Jamie Eckle. CIO.com)

IT Industry Outlook for 2011 - Budgets and Salaries

Funding for IT budgets—including allocations for salary increases—will go up next year, but cost cutting is still a major concern. Business intelligence—despite its expense and effort—continues to be a No. 1 technology investment priority in 2010.

IT workers, listen up: Management is budgeting for raises next year.

These raises, however, come with an expectation for technology to be a strategic cost-cutting and simultaneous revenue-producing investment. Business intelligence—despite its expense and effort—continues to be the No. 1 technology investment of 2010.

In exact terms, 61 percent of executives are planning to give technology worker salaries a boost in 2011. Only a third of employers will be keeping salaries flat. The silver lining is less than 10 percent will be chopping salaries next year, according to annual data compiled by SIM (Society for Information Management), which surveyed more than 172 companies.

Of most concern to executives such as CIOs and senior IT managers is business productivity coupled with cost reduction. Other major concerns include speed to market, business agility, business and IT alignment and the reliability and efficiency of IT practices.

“The No. 1 response is getting more revenue from IT investments as in leveraging IT to reduce business costs,” said Jerry Luftman, professor of information systems at Stevens Institute of Technology, in an interview with eWEEK. “It is also clear that the trend for offshore outsourcing is expected to continue to rise.”

Luftman is a former SIM executive vice president who will be presenting the survey results to SIM attendees Oct. 3 at its annual conference in Atlanta. Luftman has been producing the research for this report for the last 10 years.

For IT budgets, 38 percent of executives are increasing them next year, 27 percent are decreasing them and 35 percent are keeping them flat. Compared to last year, there is an 11 percent increase in budget spending—a good sign for projects and resources that have been on hold or postponed.

Many executives are looking for IT to lead the way in business process re-engineering, in strategic planning and keeping data and intellectual property secure. Making the list of concerns for the first time, however, was globalization.

The No. 1 technology investment for these 172 organizations is BI (business intelligence). According to Luftman, BI has been the top technology investment for the last three years despite a recession and challenges for many with effective BI implementation. Given the emphasis on cost reduction, how is it that business intelligence ranks above virtualization, ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), continuity planning/disaster recovery and cloud computing?

“I am surprised too that it remains so high other than they recognize its importance but are still struggling to implement it,” Luftman said.

Cloud computing made the top five technology investments for the first time in this year’s SIM report, further confirming its ascendancy as companies look to reduce costs in areas across the landscape of cloud-based services. Another trend that continues to be taken advantage of is offshore outsourcing, which will see an increase of 2 percent, from 5 percent in 2010 to 7 percent in 2011 IT budgets, according to the SIM report.

IT turnover rates were low in 2010, according to the study. Seventy-one percent of SIM survey participants saw less than 5 percent of IT workers leave their company. Nearly 16 percent saw 6 to 10 percent turnover. The average rate of turnover was about 5.5 percent for 2010; last year, that rate was 6.9 percent.

“The insights from the study confirm that the economic downturn is continuing to cause a significant shift in IT priorities,” said Luftman in a SIM statement. “It is essential to recognize how organizations are leveraging IT during this prolonged economic conundrum, as well as preparing for when the economy will improve.”

Another thing Luftman noted is that as the economy improves, many people are expected to hit the retirement ranks, though he expects to see a larger hiring pool next year.

(Courtesy: Don Sears, eWeek.com)

Monday, October 11, 2010

10 useful books on IT Recruitment, Staffing and Job Search

The following are few books on IT recruitment which can be very helpful tools for serious recruiters looking to add knowledge and acquire knowledge and self help coaching.



This is an instruction manual like no other. With The Complete IT Recruitment Survival Guide you have a constant, easy-to-understand yet knowledgeable companion as you tackle the murky waters of the world of IT recruitment.



A well-designed interview is demanding, yet still respectful of the candidate. Dale's tried-and-true techniques enable managers and HR professionals to pinpoint exactly what qualities they want in their applicants, assess candidates, and hire the best fit for the organization.



Learn about valuable insights on e recruitment.



There are few books available which cover the full job-searching, application, interview and negotiation process. The Definitive Job Book is just that



Hiring the Best, 5th Edition offers managers and HR personnel a proven and practical approach to recruiting and selecting the right people for the job.



Heneman and Judge’s Staffing Organizations, 6/e, is based on a comprehensive staffing model. Components of the model include staffing models and strategy, staffing support systems (legal compliance, planning, job analysis and rewards), core staffing systems (recruitment, selection, employment), and staffing system and retention management.






There are currently over 8 million resumes in each of the databases of some of the big Internet recruiting sites. Learn how to give your resume a competitive edge so it gets the attention it deserves.



Ken Tanner guides entrepreneurs through the three critical components of staffing a business—recruiting, teambuilding, and retention. As he shows time and again through advice, anecdote, and example, solving these challenges is like adding rocket fuel to the entrepreneurial business.



"A Manager's Guide to Recruitment and Selection" is designed for busy managers who are responsible for recruitment at any level.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Social Media Recruitment: Advanced techniques to reach out to candidates on Twitter and beyond


Social Media Recruitment:  Advance techniques to reach out to candidates on Twitter and beyond

As a recruiter how can you reach out to a potentially large candidate pool on social media space in a short span of time? The answer is in carefully crafted social media strategy.
Link your social Media Accounts

As a recruiter build your professional profile carefully on Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter. A strong presence in these 3 social media forums are an absolute must if you want to taste success in social Media Recruitment. Linking up your networks is even more important as it allows maintaining uniformity across social media networks.

It may seem a little daunting to start with but with but maintaining all 3 networks can be automated in such a way that if you do a Twitter update it will automatically update your statuses in LinkedIn and Facebook  saving valuable time and energy. Both Linkedin and Facebook offer Twitter widgets and all you need to do is to activate the widgets to link all your 3 accounts together. Once you link up your Twitter account with Linkedin and Facebook you are ready to move to the next level.

Create your Blog Site for Job Posts to harness RSS Feeds

Do I need a blog? The answer is no if you have applicant tracking system which generates RSS feeds for your jobs and offers a job publishing platform. If you don’t have system to rely on than a blog can become an indispensible tool for your recruitment process.  Blogs can be used as a remarkably cheap platform to publicize your jobs and hundreds of smart recruiters are doing so.
So go ahead and create your blog. Build your profile on your blog carefully with links to your Linkedin, Facebook and Twitter accounts. Make sure the banding is uniform across all 4 platforms. The best approach here is to keep things simple and professional to start with. You can always add bells and whistles as you grow confident. And yes there are ready-made widgets to integrate your social media profiles with your blog and can be unearthed with a little research.

All popular blogging platforms (Blogger, Word Press, Typepad etc to name a few) generate RSS feeds. The innocuous RSS feed are most effective form of content syndication on the Internet today and offers limitless possibilities in spreading your content on the internet.  We need to harness RSS feeds to reach out to a larger audience. Once build your blog and start posting, your blog site with generate your RSS Feed.  There are many ways to publicize your feed:

You can submit your feeds on all major search engines; you can integrate them on Feed Directories. And you can integrate your RSS feed into your social network which is what I will focus on this article.

Use FeedBurner to auto publish your blog RSS feeds as Tweets

Create a FeedBurner (http://www.feedburner.com ) account and burn your feed to make your blog feed RSS reader friendly.  After you burn your Feed use the FeedBurner tools to optimize and publicize your feed. To publicize your feed FeedBurner offers a  gem of a feature called socialize which integrates your RSS feed with your Twitter account. The interface is simple and intuitive and can be activated with a few clicks! The system allows you to send your blog feeds to your twitter account in 1 hr intervals in a twitter friendly format.

Now you have created a system where the moment you post your jobs on your blog the post will be automatically fed into your Twitter account as Tweets via FeedBurner .  Once your feed is published on Twitter your already linked accounts on Linkedin and Facebook will automatically pick up the tweets and publish them as your status updates. In other words all your connections across 3 major social networks can view your job posts as status updates with a link to click on. This in turn which will lead them to your blog to view your jobs and apply. Now you are ready to move to Level 4.

Moving beyond your network using Twitter

Now you have created a system to publicize your jobs across your Twitter Linkedin and Facebook contacts.  Is there a way to move beyond your network? Social Networks tend to grow organically depending on how aggressively you are building them and your jobs can spread quickly via viral mode to a larger network of 2nd and 3rd degree contacts.  You can move to an audience beyond your network with the help of a few twitter tools.

Create an account with http://www.twitjobsearch.com/ and integrate your twitter feed. You Job tweets will become part of a large twitter job platform and will reach out to thousands of followers beyond your network.
Also use http://www.twitterjobcast.com/ all you need to do is use the word hiring in your job titles. Twitter job cast will automatically pick up your posts and publicize on twitterjobcast.com. As a strategy start your job posts with the word hiring and use the position and location in a tightly constructed blog title. Example “Hiring Mortgage Sales Officers in San Francisco, CA”. 
You can also explore the following paid services as part of your broader outreach strategy: http://twitterjobs.org/http://tweetmyjobs.com/ and http://tweethopper.com/

Closing the Loop

Now you are reaching beyond your networks and effectively closed the communication loop for effective social media recruitment. 

This article at best lays a very basic foundation of what can be achieved in social media recruitment. There are hundreds and twitter tools out there and possibilities are limitless.  You can refer http://www.twitglry.com/  OR  http://www.feedmyapp.com/ to experiment with social media tools and to move your social media recruiting strategy forward.

Monday, August 16, 2010

2 simple web 2.0 mashups / tools to make your Blogger site more interactive


One of the dilemmas I had faced after publishing my blog on Blogger was how to integrate forms? A simple feedback or Contact Us form can go a long way in making your blog more user focused and interactive. I have found to simple methods to overcome this handicap. And yes you don’t need to be a coder to do this!

1.  Use formstack to build professional looking online forms:

A simple but very effective solution is offered by www.formstack.com . Formstack allows you to design and build forms online and then allows you to embed forms on any blog or website. The Process is very simple:
  1. Sign up on Formstack.
  2. Build your forms using the form builder.
  3. Assign the email address where you want to send form data.
  4. Select a suitable design template and Save your form.
  5. Generate the code to embed on your Blog.
You are pretty much done with Formstack!  Now log in to your Blogger account:
  1. On your blogger add a page using page widget.
  2. Create a new page with the name “Contact Us” using pages widget. If you don’t have the widget already you can do so my going to Design > Add Widget and Select Pages Widget.
  3. On the page editor click HTML source.
  4. Paste the embed code generated from Formstack. And Voila! You have a working feedback form on Blogger!
Do a quick preview. You may have to do small adjustments to the form field lengths if there are any overlaps with your Blogger sidebar but that is simple. The Formstack form builder interface is so simple that you can quickly find your way for small UI twicks. You can view the contact us form on my blog http://xrecnet.blogspot.com .

2.  Use feedback tool from getsatisfaction.com

Get satisfaction is one of the most popular feedback tools on the Internet. Integrating this on blogger requires some careful template code embedding. The Integration process is simple though:
  1. Sign up on getsatisfaction.com.
  2. Generate the code for embedding.
  3. Go to blogger Design  > Edit HTML
  4. On template XML look for code.
  5. Paste the code just before the and save the template and you have the feedback widget!
You can view both these forms in action on my blog http://xrecnet.blogspot.com . Do not hesitate to send me your feedback! Just use the form at http://xrecnet.blogspot.com/p/contact-us.html !

Friday, August 6, 2010

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Jobs blogs & blog posts

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