Kickstart Your Career in 2019 in 5 Steps

Here are some tips on how you can kickstart your career in 2019 using a range of social media tools and skills upgradation. The focus is on a combination of tech and non-tech skills with in-demand IT courses commanding higher pay packages.

1. Your Profile and Social Media: Recruiters scan social media platforms such as LinkedIn and Facebook to search for potential employees. They may include passive job-seekers too – the category of people who are open to the idea of a new job but do not update their online profiles are offline skills. To get noticed by the recruiters, it is imperative to update your job profile with your skills, experience, and achievements. The last one should ideally be with a reputed organization and/or a high-value project. The new year is the right time to update your online profile in job portals. However, a note of caution when you are updating your profile. Recruiters lookout for certain red flags while scanning through profiles. They include political affiliations, drugs, alcohol, and brush with the law.
2. Ask for a Hike: Employees in the IT sector must decide if they are happy in their current job. Once that is done, they should ask for a pay hike. This is because employers will be willing to hike their pay or offer a bonus to retain the talent pool. The employers also know that the primary reason why IT employees lookout for new opportunities is for a higher pay package. Several researches in this regard also point out that there was a noticeable increase in the pay packages of IT employees in the last year. Therefore, the bottom line for employees is “ask for a pay hike.”
3. Learn IT Security: It is imperative to learn or know IT security for two reasons – firstly it pays more than regular IT job profiles. Secondly, it gives an edge over employees without IT security skills. An increase in cyber attacks and data security have made IT security a sought-after skill set. Such a skill set includes cryptography, penetration testing, and ethical hacking. Interestingly, it is the team leads or manager level employees who have shown more interest to learn and implement IT security skills.
4. Honing Non-tech Skills: While tech skills are important, it is equally important to be aware of soft skills such as public speaking and inter-personnel communication. Why? Recruiters and employers have shown a preference for new-hires who can handle blended roles. That is, an employee should be able to understand and blend between a technical department and other non-technical roles. Researchers have therefore ranked, leadership skills followed by project management skills and business skills as the must-haves for career advancement and pay hike.
5. Specialized Skills: Here is a quick reference bucket list of specialized tech skills that could catapult you to higher pay bracket.

• DevOps – the most in-demand and hard to fill a position in any firm.
• Consulting – If you possess the necessary skills, then starting a firm and taking up project-based consulting is a rewarding route to take.
• Big Data and AI Project – The most in-demand IT skill for 2019 is Big Data and AI Project. Specialists in these areas command one of the highest pay packages in the industry.

Top Cloud Certifications to Land a Cloud Job

The demand for cloud skills is increasing sharply. IDC predicts that by 2021, 31 percent of IT positions will be related to the cloud. So, there is no better time to learn cloud skills than now.

To help experienced IT professionals and beginners learn cloud computing skills, cloud companies and certification providers are introducing certifications. Certifications are blueprints for learning. They are also a great way to convince employers that you have the right set of skills and knowledge necessary for the cloud computing job. Certifications validate your skills against the industry benchmark and prove that you are qualified for the job.

If you are new to the IT field and want to begin your career with a cloud computing job, you can consider vendor-neutral cloud certifications that give an overview of cloud architecture and cloud management.  If you want to learn about a specific cloud technology thoroughly, you can opt for vendor specific certification.

Here is a list of some of the most respected certifications in the cloud computing world.

AWS Certified Solutions Architect

AWS Certified Solutions Architect is a certification offered by Amazon for IT professionals working with AWS.  The associate level certification will evaluate your knowledge of core AWS services and AWS architecture best practices, ability to evaluate cloud application requirements, and skills in developing, deploying and testing cloud-based applications using AWS. The professional level certification will assess your expertise in designing, deploying and migrating distributed applications on AWS, and ability to select the right AWS service for an application.

Certificate of Cloud Security Knowledge

Certificate of Cloud Security Knowledge is a vendor-neutral certification. The test for this certification is based on ‘Security Guidance for Critical Areas of Focus in Cloud Computing v3’ by Cloud Security Alliance and ‘Cloud Computing Risk Assessment’ by the ENISA. To earn this certification you must be proficient in cloud architecture, cloud security, operations, virtualization, and encryption, and demonstrate your expertise in developing a holistic cloud security environment.

Certified OpenStack Administrator

OpenStack Foundation offers the OpenStack’s Certified OpenStack Administrator (COA) certification. The certification test is based on the OpenStack Pike version and it will measure your proficiency in managing an OpenStack public or private cloud. To be able to take this test, you need to have at least six months of hands-on experience with OpenStack.

Certified System Administrator in Red Hat OpenStack

System Administrators in Red Hat OpenStack is the certification offered by Red Hat. The test will measure your expertise in designing, building, deploying, and managing Red Hat OpenStack platform based private clouds.

Cisco CCNA-Cloud

The CCNA cloud certification is a job role focused certification. Cisco CCNA Cloud certification is a job role focused certification for Cloud engineers, Cloud Administrators, and Network Engineers.  To be able to get through this test, you should learn how to identify the components of the Cisco Cloud management software, understand the basics of cloud infrastructure administration and be able to perform cloud management.

Cloud Credential Council

The Cloud Credential Council (CCC) offers one Cloud Technology Associate certification and five Professional Level vendor-neutral cloud certifications. These certifications help you learn how to define, choose, build, operate and manage cloud services.

5 Tips to Write a Compelling Job Posting

A report by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics states that by 2020, there could be 1.4 million more software development jobs than candidates to fill them. This is a glimpse of how severe the shortage of skilled workforce is going to be in the IT industry. In such an environment, hiring managers cannot afford to turn off the few qualified candidates with an unappealing job posting.

These days, candidates are spoilt for choice when it comes to job search. The tech job listing sites that they can search to find job opportunities have multiplied. The online job postings have increased multitudinously. So, there is every possibility that your posting may go unnoticed by the candidates. The only way out of this situation is to stand out from the crowd with better story about the job. Here is some advice on how to do that.

Job Posting Is an Ad-Copy

A great job posting is an ad that appeals to the qualified candidates and helps them make a choice.

Build the ad-copy around the highlights of the job, especially those the competitor does not offer. Make the job sound exclusive.

Use compelling language and catchy words to draw attention to the job posting.  Ask questions to help the candidates identify with the job. Discuss benefits instead of features. For instance, you are writing a job posting for a role in a start-up. Sell benefits like ‘be involved in key business and technical decisions’.

Address ‘what’s in it for me?’

When a candidate finds your job posting, he will scan it to find what is in it for him. If he is qualified tech candidate, he will look beyond pay and perks, to purpose and value of his contributions to the company.

So, before you start writing a job posting, have a chat with the top performers at your company. Ask them what kind of work they find most challenging and engaging, and what they feel about the contributions they make to the company. Enquire what kind of opportunities they had for learning and growth. This information will help you build a compelling job posting that will attract qualified candidates.

Describe the Role

Provide a detailed description of the role. What are the daily tasks? What is the reporting structure? Embed job-related keywords that candidates use to search job opportunities.  For example, Oracle database administrator, software developer or project manager.

State clearly the certifications, technical skills and work experience necessary for the job.

Include any other details like physical location of the company, its size or recent achievements that may appeal to the candidates.

While writing the description, avoid using internal acronym that can confuse the candidates. Industry standard acronyms can however be used.

Call to Action

The call to action should stand out from the remaining job posting. Create urgency by including deadline to respond. Share the email address and phone number of the hiring or line manager for the candidates to connect with, instead of a generic corporate email address.

Formatting Matters

Use different fonts, font sizes and styles, subheadings, white spaces, numbered lists, bulleted lists and HTML, to make the job posting look appealing and to improve readability.

Smaller IT companies are happier workplaces: Survey

Disproving the popular notion that high paid employees are happy employees, a survey by Spiceworks proved that interpersonal relationships matter the most at workplaces.  A poll of 1300 IT professionals, revealed that relationship with users, peers and managers is the top driver of IT job satisfaction.

Based on the responses of poll participants, stress, working hours, vacation time, ability to work remotely and size of IT department to figure into the equation with monetary compensation as the top driver.

Top drivers of happiness in IT workplace

To understand how deeply these factors determine happiness in IT jobs, Spicework commissioned a survey of 850 IT professionals from the United States and the United Kingdom. Here are some interesting facts from the survey results:

• Nearly, three-fifth of happy IT professionals and only one fifth of unhappy ones reported to have strong workplace relationships
• Happy IT professionals reported to be less stressed out at workplace and also believe that they are fairly compensated
• Gender, marital status, and working full-time or part-time, have no influence on workplace happiness
• Most of the happy professionals are plan to stay in IT jobs for the rest of their careers

Differences between Happy and Unhappy IT Pros

The survey re-establishes the fact that stress levels are highly influenced by what the job involves. In other words, job titles determine happiness at work. As levels of responsibility increase, stress levels raise. 54% of IT directors who participated in the survey have reported being highly stressed. 44% of IT managers, 28% of system administrators and 21% of help desk technicians feel that they are stressed.

However, the interesting fact here is that, ‘higher stress levels’ does not mean unhappiness. For instance, IT managers though less stressed than IT directors are less happy; compensation, sense of achievement and other such compensate the high stress levels. This means that happiness is not affected by just one factor like stress.

Job titles, Stress and Happiness at work

Smaller companies:

The most astounding revelation of the survey is that the number of IT workers from small companies reported being happy is more than that in large companies. This trend is again related to workplace relationships. In smaller companies, every employee knows how each of his colleagues’ contributions to the company’s success. This results in mutual respect and appreciation between employees. As the company grows, it is harder to build and strengthen workplace relationships, know how someone’s work makes a difference.

Another interesting observation is employees in smaller companies are slightly less stressed than their counterparts in large companies. This can be explained by the fact that having to manage more devices and users makes routine IT operations complex.

Happiness in Small Companies Vs Large Companies

Moral of the story:

There is no single solution for workplace satisfaction. Workplace happiness is based on multiple factors, though interpersonal relationships have the maximum effect. IT professionals should therefore list down factors like salary, stress, vacation time, work hours etc that are important to them, even before hitting the IT job portals. Once they are clear on their priorities, they can seek out a job that best suits them.

Top Certifications to Land the Latest IT Jobs

The best tech job posting sites are inundated with IT resumes. Still, there is a shortage of experienced professionals to fill the latest IT jobs. IT managers are always in search of candidates who can apply their knowledge and skill set to solve real-time problems, an ability that comes with experience. Given that, certifications offer less experienced candidates an opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge and skills, and land a job.

Having said that merely adding certifications to your name cannot take you far. Certifications are just entry tickets. Managers will put you through a rigorous assessment process to evaluate command you have on the technology before offering you the job.

Here are a few pointers to help you choose and pursue a certification:

1. Choose the technology you are passionate about. Identify relevant certifications.
2. Know the technology fairly well before opting to go for a certification in it.
3. Understand the product life cycles and analyze whether or not a certification can help you in near future.
4. Explore if you have to opt for multiple certifications to gain mastery in an area of specialization.
5. While studying, do not memorize for the test. Understand the practicality of using the technology.

Here is a list of certifications that are some of the most valued ones in the US. The list will help you decide where to spend your time and money in earning a certification:

Certified in Risk and Information Systems Control (CRISC): ISACA, a non-profit group offers this certification. It is designed for IT professionals whose job is to use Information Systems (IS) controls to identify and manage IT and business risks. It covers the entire life-cycle from design to implementation to ongoing maintenance IS controls. There are only a few professionals, about 200,000 worldwide, who earned this certification. Because of the demand for professionals with these skills, the certification lists at the top of the highest-paying certifications.

Certified Information Systems Security Professional (CISSP): CISSP is offered by (ISC). It demonstrated expertise in security and risk management, communications and network security, software development security, asset security, security engineering, identity and access management, security assessment and testing, and security operations. The certification is useful for those who want to enter the security field. The certification does not necessitate that aspirants have relevant work experience.

CISSP allows professionals to earn an associate credential while working on the required experience, rather than necessitating them to have the experience already. This makes it a valuable certification for those wanting to break into the security field, Global Knowledge noted. Nearly 111,000 people worldwide hold a CISSP certificate.

Microsoft Certified Solutions Expert: This is a certification with a focus on implementing technology on a wide range of platforms. This is instead of the previous certification, Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer that focused on specific disciplines. However, it is still a respected certification and the certified professionals earn high salaries.

Cisco Certified Design Associate: To take this Cisco’s certification for network design, another Cisco certification like CCNP, Routingand Switching, or one of the CCIE certifications is necessary. Network engineers who earn this certification along with a CCNP certification are sought after in the market.

Project Management Professional (PMP): This certification is administered by the Project Management Institute (PMI). It covers topics related to the life cycle of a project – initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling, and closing.

This certification is the most recognized project management certification. About 730,000 PMPS in 210 countries have an active certification.

Certified Ethical Hacker: This vendor-neutral certification is targeted at IT professionals who wish to specialize in legally tackling malicious attacks on networks. Through this certification, IT professionals gain a thorough understanding of networks, and hands-on experience in using tools related to ethical hacking.