Five tips to help gear up for a job search

Author: Jody Gilbert

Maybe you know for sure you’re about to get canned. Or maybe you’re just bracing for a likely downsizing. Either way, it’s smart to get the wheels in motion now for landing that next job.

if you suspect — or you know for certain — that your current job is in jeopardy, it’s a good idea to get your job-search ducks in a row. Here are some tips to help you deal with an imminent layoff and the hunt for the next job.

Note: These tips are based on an entry in BNET’s Business Hacks blog.

1: Don’t be shy — tell your social networks

Are you on LinkedIn? Facebook? Twitter? Spread the word. Best case, your announcement will generate some freelance opportunities to tide you over or actual leads to a viable job offer. Worst case, you’ll get some sympathy from friends and acquaintances. Heck, maybe I was wrong about social networks.

2: It’s resume time

Think about three ways to pitch yourself and create a unique boilerplate resume that speaks to each of those visions of your next job. As you apply for specific positions, you’ll have an easier time fine-tuning your resume if you base your response on one of those semi-customized templates.

3: Safeguard your online work

If you’re a creative type, like a Web designer or a writer, capture your online work in a format that doesn’t depend upon someone else’s server. Make screenshots or PDFs of anything awesome you created for your job before they pull it offline or perhaps go bankrupt and go to the great 404 in the sky. You can make your best examples part of the portfolio you assemble for your next job search.

4: Ping your freelance clients

Let folks know that your shingle is out. I’m not talking about people you worked with last year. I’m talking about anyone you worked with or for in the last decade. Dig deep into your Sent mail and your archived PST folders.

5: Update your Web site

You probably haven’t touched it in months or years, and now you’ve got both spare time and a reason for it to shine. Showcase your portfolio and highlight the work you’re most proud of. Make sure it’s in great shape to sell yourself to anyone who might happen to visit.

Bonus tip: Do something utterly indulgent

And be sure it costs money. After all, you might be losing your job, but a hurricane didn’t just rob you of your every possession. Ideally, you want to do something that’ll help you on your upcoming job hunt: Buy a new suit, get an iPhone or a snazzy new netbook. Get your hair done. But this last step is part morale booster, too, so it can be as irrelevant as a nice dinner or an Xbox. Remind yourself that the world hasn’t ended.

TEN Surefire ways to kill morale

By Calvin Sun

The sad thing about killing morale is that you can do it without even trying. In the words of a George Strait song, "It just comes natural." But if you damage morale, you will lower the productivity of your group and create problems for yourself. Look at this list and see whether you recognize yourself in any of these morale-killers.

1: Punish desired behavior

This action, and the following one, fall under the category of sending mixed messages. Do you think you could never do something like this? If you're a parent, you may have had this conversation with your child: "Anytime you have a question or problem, please come see Mommy or Daddy." But then what happens when that child does come see you? "Come back later; can't you see I'm busy?!" With respect to the workplace, the number one example of punishing desired behavior is "shooting the messenger" following a management statement to "be open and honest about your concerns."

2: Reward undesired behavior

How many times has it happened: You show up on time, or even early for a meeting. But because several people still haven't arrived, the meeting leader decides to postpone the meeting for 15 or 20 minutes. What message does this action send? It tells the latecomers that arriving late is okay and tells the punctual people that their punctuality is useless. If you're running the meeting, and people are on time, be fair to those people and start on time. This same principle goes for other situations as well.

3: Play favorites

It's okay to like some people more than others. It's okay to feel more comfortable around some people than others. It's a problem, though, if you start treating people unequally because you like or are more comfortable around them. That "other" group of people will lose interest in doing a good job because they believe you will not recognize them for it. So regardless of how you feel about people, reward and evaluate them on their work, not on how you feel about them. The best example I've seen of not playing favorites happened at an organization that had just become a client of mine. The director of information technology was showing me around the office and while doing so, stopped by an area at which a woman was working. He explained my situation and introduced me, and then the woman gave me certain administrative system privileges. A few hours later, at lunchtime, I was heading out with this director, and who should show up? The woman I had met previously. It turned out that they were dating (and since then have gotten married). However, their demeanor was so professional that an observer would have been hard pressed to detect any special relationship. That is the kind of impartiality you too should strive for.

4: Change direction early and often

If you keep changing your mind on how you want staff to handle an assignment, don't be surprised at their negative reaction. Be sure of what you want beforehand. If you are changing direction because your own boss is changing direction, let that boss know the negative consequences.

5: Ignore the positives

Are you the kind of person who, when hearing that the Berlin Wall came down, felt sorry that the guards were now out of a job? If so, you probably ignore other positive things. Doing so will demotivate your staff. Without putting on the proverbial rose-colored glasses, try to see positive elements in a situation, even bad ones. It can make a difference to your staff.

6: Focus only on the negatives

Likewise, are you the kind of person who, if you saw someone walk on water, would say, "What a fraud! That person can't swim!"? The same discussion applies here as in point 5.

7: Use questionable measurements

Do you remember that old Dilbert cartoon where the boss says he will reward employees based on how many bugs they find in their program code? In the last panel, Wally says, "I'm gonna write me a new minivan this afternoon." If you measure the wrong things, you may get the wrong results. Even worse, you may discourage desirable behavior. Let's say you run a department store. One day, the housewares department decides to run a sale, thus marking down all of its items, even to the point of selling below cost. As a result, many people come to the store, buying things not just from housewares, but from other departments as well. The department store overall sees a huge increase in sales and net income because of the initiative of the housewares department. Yet if all you did was look at simple profit and loss by department, you would see a huge loss in housewares. If you then decided to punish that department, you would have acted unwisely. Make sure of what you are measuring.

8: Fail to give credit

If people do a good job, recognize them for it. Of course, people value money and salary increases. However, even a simple thank you or public acknowledgment of someone's good work will do wonders for their effort. Conversely, failing to give credit may make them less willing to make the same effort in the future.

9: Micromanage

To staff members or subordinates, nothing shouts "lack of confidence" more than your efforts to oversee everything they're doing. If you check everything or try to do everything, how will they people ever develop? More important, your lack of confidence will come through clearly. Therefore, unless you're really in a critical situation, let people learn and even fail if necessary. They will learn best that way and will have a higher opinion of you.

10. Freak out

If you constantly freak out over small things, your staff will become reluctant to approach you about bad news. Rather than focus on what went wrong earlier, try to focus on how to resolve the situation. That doesn't mean never speaking to someone about what went wrong. However, it does mean being sensitive to situations and also means knowing when to speak and when to stay silent. The more you maintain equanimity, the greater the chances your staff will have high morale.

TEN Lies managers tell themselves

By Steve Tobak

We all lie to ourselves. Why, I don't know. Guess self-delusion is part of the human condition, whatever that means. I'm sure a relatively competent shrink can explain it, but who needs all that psychobabble, right?

What got me thinking about this was someone on Michael Finney's consumer watchdog radio show explaining five lies people tell themselves so they can buy stuff they can't afford: I could have bought something more expensive so I'm actually saving money, it's an investment, I deserve it because something good happened, I'm comforting myself because something bad happened, that sort of thing.

Here's the problem. Usually when we lie to ourselves we're only hurting ourselves; worst case, our families. But with managers, it's a whole different ballgame. When managers lie to themselves they can hurt a lot of people. The bigger the title, the more people they can hurt. CEOs can hurt shareholders, employees, and customers by the thousands. Hell, they can take down a whole company. I've seen self-delusional executives destroy once-great companies lots of times. Sad but true.

But wait, managers are only human, right? They're allowed to make mistakes. Sure. Mistakes are one thing. But saying things to comfort yourself and prop up your fragile ego so you don't have to face the truth because it scares you or something is an entirely different thing.

Do I sound angry? Sorry. Guess the topic hits sort of close to home.
1: I know what customers want

CEOs often think they know what customers want. Actually they don't. They just know what they want, and they're usually not even in the target demographic.

2: We have the best (fill in the blank)

Technology, marketing, customer service, whatever. Typically, this is self-delusional BS, boastfulness, or ego transference (if there is such a thing).

3: It'll fix itself

When they don't want to do something that's a pain in the you-know-what.

4: Our customers love us

Usually a way to keep people from asking questions they don't want to hear so they don't have to learn the truth that they don't want to know.

5: My employees love me

Same thing as with customers.

6: Out of sight, out of mind

AKA solving a problem by ignoring it, firing it, or otherwise making believe it doesn't exist.

7: It's probably for their own good

Also "They'll land on their feet." Usually when they demote or fire somebody, or during a layoff.

8: The ends justify the means

Comforting themselves when they've done something terrible to others.

9: I know what the execs want

He probably doesn't; he's just afraid to ask or doesn't want you to go over his head.

10: It's my company

In small business, this is often true, but for CEOs of corporations, almost never. So why say it? I don't know -- is there such a thing as ego extension?

The fix

So what's the solution to the problem? You really need to ask? If you're a manager, don't do that! Grow a pair and face the truth. Board directors, beware of self-delusional executives. As for directors who prefer hearing sugar-coated BS, well, "May you be reincarnated as an NBC executive!"

TEN dirty little secrets you should know about working in IT

By Jason Hiner

If you are preparing for a career in IT or are new to IT, many of the "dirty little secrets" listed below may surprise you because we don't usually talk about them out loud. If you are an IT veteran, you've probably encountered most of these issues and have a few of your own to add—and please, by all means, take a moment to add them to the discussion. Most of these secrets are aimed at network administrators, IT managers, and desktop support professionals. This list is not aimed at developers and programmers—they have their own set of additional dirty little secrets—but some of these will apply to them as well.

1. The pay in IT is good compared to many other professions, but since they pay you well, they often think they own you

Although the pay for IT professionals is not as great as it was before the dot-com flameout and the IT backlash in 2001–2002, IT workers still make very good money compared to many other professions (at least the ones that require only an associate's or bachelor's degree). And there is every reason to believe that IT pros will continue to be in demand in the coming decades, as technology continues to play a growing role in business and society. However, because IT professionals can be so expensive, some companies treat IT pros like they own them. If you have to answer a tech call at 9:00 PM because someone is working late, you hear, "That's just part of the job." If you need to work six hours on a Saturday to deploy a software update to avoid downtime during business hours, you get, "There's no comp time for that since you're on salary. That's why we pay you the big bucks!"

2. It will be your fault when users make silly errors

Some users will angrily snap at you when they are frustrated. They will yell, "What's wrong with this thing!" or "This computer is NOT working!" or (my personal favorite), "What did you do to the computers?" In fact, the problem is that they accidentally deleted the Internet Explorer icon from the desktop, or unplugged the mouse from the back of the computer with their foot, or spilled their coffee on the keyboard.

3. You'll go from goat to hero and back again multiple times within any given day

When you miraculously fix something that had been keeping multiple employees from being able to work for the past 10 minutes—and they don't realize how simple the fix really was—you will become the hero of the moment and everyone's favorite employee. But they'll conveniently forget about your hero anointment a few hours later when they have trouble printing because of a network slowdown. You'll be enemy No. 1 at that moment. Then, if you show users a handy little Microsoft Outlook trick before the end of the day, you'll quickly return to hero status.

4. Certifications won't always help you become a better technologist, but they can help you land a better job or a pay raise

Headhunters and human resources departments love IT certifications. They make it easy to match up job candidates with job openings. They also make it easy for HR to screen candidates. You'll hear a lot of veteran IT pros whine about techies who were hired based on certifications but who don't have the experience to effectively do the job. They are often right. That has happened in plenty of places. But certifications do open up your career options. They show that you are organized and ambitious and have a desire to educate yourself and expand your skills. If you are an experienced IT pro and have certifications to match your experience, you will find yourself to be extremely marketable. Tech certifications are simply a way to prove your baseline knowledge and to market yourself as a professional. However, most of them are not a good indicator of how good you will be at the job.

5. Your nontechnical co-workers will use you as personal tech support for their home PCs

Some of them might even ask you if they can bring in their home PC to the office for you to fix it. The polite ones will offer to pay you, but some of them will just hope or expect you can help them for free. Helping these folks can be rewarding, but you have to be careful about where to draw the line and know when to decline.

6. Vendors and consultants will take all the credit when things work well and will blame you when things go wrong

Working with IT consultants is an important part of the job and can be one of the more challenging things to manage. Consultants bring niche expertise to help you deploy specialized systems, and when everything works right, it's a great partnership. But you have to be careful. When things go wrong, some consultants will try to push the blame off on you by arguing that their solution works great everywhere else so it must be a problem with the local IT infrastructure. Conversely, when a project is wildly successful, there are consultants who will try to take all of the credit and ignore the substantial work you did to customize and implement the solution for your company.

7. You'll spend far more time babysitting old technologies than implementing new ones

One of the most attractive things about working in IT is the idea that we'll get to play with the latest cutting edge technologies. However, that's not usually the case in most IT jobs. The truth is that IT professionals typically spend far more time maintaining, babysitting, and nursing established technologies than implementing new ones. Even IT consultants, who may work with more of the latest and greatest technologies, tend to work primarily with established, proven solutions rather than the real cutting edge stuff.

8. Veteran IT professionals are often the biggest roadblock to implementing new technologies

A lot of companies could implement more cutting edge stuff than they do. There are plenty of times when upgrading or replacing software or infrastructure can potentially save money and/or increase productivity and profitability. However, it's often the case that one of the largest roadblocks to migrating to new technologies is not budget constraints or management objections—it's the veteran techies in the IT department. Once they have something up and running, they are reluctant to change it. This can be a good thing because their jobs depend on keeping the infrastructure stable, but they also use that as an excuse to not spend the time to learn new things or stretch themselves in new directions. They get lazy, complacent, and self-satisfied.

9. Some IT professionals deploy technologies that do more to consolidate their own power than to help the business

Another subtle but blameworthy thing that some IT professionals do is select and implement technologies based on how well those technologies make the business dependent on the IT pros to run them, rather than which ones are truly best for the business itself. For example, IT pros might select a solution that requires more specialized skills to maintain instead of a more turnkey solution. Or an IT manager might have more of a Linux/UNIX background and so chooses a Linux-based solution over a Windows solution, even though the Windows solution is a better business decision (or, vice versa, a Windows admin might bypass a Linux-based appliance, for example). Excuses and justifications are often given for this type of behavior, but most of them are disingenuous.

10. IT pros frequently use jargon to confuse nontechnical business managers and hide the fact that they screwed up

All IT pros—even the very best—screw things up once in a while. This is a profession where a lot is at stake and the systems that are being managed are complex and often difficult to integrate. However, not all IT pros are good at admitting when they make a mistake. Many of them take advantage of the fact that business managers (and even some high-level technical managers) don't have a good understanding of technology, and so the techies will use jargon to confuse them (and cover up the truth) when explaining why a problem or an outage occurred. For example, to tell a business manager why a financial application went down for three hours, the techie might say, "We had a blue screen of death on the SQL Server that runs that app. Damn Microsoft!" What the techie would fail to mention was that the BSOD was caused by a driver update he applied to the server without first testing it on a staging machine.