10 Must-Have Apps for IT Recruiters and Hiring Managers
Finding good tech help is no small task. Take your IT recruiting and hiring practices to the next level with any of these sourcing apps.
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via 10 Must-Have Apps for IT Recruiters and Hiring Managers CIO.com.
There is a women’s leadership movement afoot that needs to transition from underground grassroots to mainstream establishment. This isn’t about goodwill, preferences or representation. Mobilizing women into leadership positions is mandatory for sustainable economic growth, global competitiveness and innovation across all industries.
It’s time for women to dive-in, head-first and heart-strong. They must actively deploy their unique ability to see with wide-angle vision and sow opportunities with a passionate pursuit – as do all great pioneers that change the status quo and build new bridges. International Women’s Day, recently celebrated on March 8, reminded us of “the economic, political and social achievements of women past, present and future.”
Women are ready to live with an entrepreneurial spirit and activate their ability to connect the dots of resources and relationships to create and sustain momentum. Women wired to naturally promote the spirit of giving and lead to leave a legacy will cultivate continuous impact and influence in the industries they serve.
In order to consistently deliver on the natural leadership skills that they possess, women must confidently convert today’s shallow waters into deep reservoirs of endless possibilities in business, government and the media. This is not just about having a voice; it’s about changing the conversation about what is required to enable growth, innovation and opportunity.
Since the publication of my article titled, The Most Undervalued Leadership Traits Of Women, I’ve received hundreds of emails from women all over the world who were inspired, yet surprised that a man understood that women in leadership represented today’s new normal. While I was equally inspired by their voices and touched by their stories, I was more impressed by just how ready women are to lead.
Not just because they believe they deserve a seat at the table, but more so because they see that their natural abilities to lead are in alignment with what the marketplace warrants during this time of survival, renewal and reinvention. Their instincts tell them that their time has come to dive-in and get things back on track.
One of those emails introduced me to two senior female executives at Deloitte LLP who exemplify leadership at its highest level: Maritza Montiel, Deputy CEO & Vice Chairman, and Jennifer Steinmann, Deputy CEO and Chief Talent Officer. This led to the opportunity to conduct a candid interview about their leadership journey and their advice to other women.
Following is Part 1 of my conversation with them. Part 2 will run tomorrow.
Glenn Llopis: Maritza, why are you so passionate about women in leadership?
Maritza Montiel: My passion for the topic of leadership came from observing women and men in different leadership roles and from sitting on the executive committee and multiple boards. When you get to see women in action from many different dimensions, as well as men, it can be quite insightful if you pay attention.
I started my career back in a different era, the early 1970s, a pioneer stage of the women’s revolution when we were told – and many believed – that you could have it all. Not exactly true; my philosophy always was: “You can have it all; you just can’t have it all at once.”
Llopis: What has made women successful in business since then?
Montiel: Women through the years have had to face multiple challenges, making them the world’s greatest multi-taskers. I think this is one reason why women succeed in business.
For example, many mothers work day and night as caretakers, CEOs of the household – and yet they also come into the workplace and compete in very challenging environments, where they have to put in long hours to get ahead. This challenge is a real balancing act. As Jen’s mentor, I encouraged her when she was 8 ½ months pregnant to take the job and we would figure out the work/life balance.
Women today are in a much different place than we were when I started out. But we still have a lot of barriers to overcome and ground to cover. When you look statistically at women in corporate America – and organizations throughout the world – it is still highly disproportionate. Only 4 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs are women – a number that has not changed in the past decade.
When we begin to see more role models and more women defining the rules, we will see what that success looks like and can begin to emulate it. Not that you should be like everyone else, but it does cause you to begin to think about what is possible.
Llopis: How did it affect you, not having role models?
Montiel: When I was young, and thinking about getting to the next level, becoming a partner – we had two different evaluation processes: current performance and long-term potential. Even though I got good performance reports every six months, I always got “undecided” for long-term potential.
When I asked a lead partner at the office why, he said, “We just don’t know about you because there are no other women partners.”
They may have thought my potential was limited, but I never did. That is why you have to dive in, not just lean in. You can’t whisper, you have to roar – and be assertive about your desire to lead and to succeed.
Llopis: Jennifer, what are the top barriers that women can overcome faster than people might think?
Jennifer Steinmann: People make assumptions about your willingness to take on a challenge, especially if you’re in a unique situation (in my case, being 8 ½ months pregnant). I broke down those assumptions, that barrier, by making an impact running our talent organization.
There aren’t that many women in senior leadership roles, so as Maritza pointed out, that can be a barrier when you don’t have enough role models. What women have done this before you so that you can see how things work and orient yourself around their example in order to better position yourself and adjust to the environment most effectively?
When I walked into my first executive meeting, I was aware of being new in this role and making a jump into a leadership role where someone was perhaps taking a chance on me. I hadn’t necessarily cleared all the leadership hurdles normally required for someone taking a leadership job at this level.
This led to another barrier of sorts, what I would call the: “lots of people want to help me” syndrome.
Llopis: How was that a barrier?
Steinmann: In the beginning, I was surrounded by other people and this made it hard to filter out the noise. Several people felt entitled to tell me what to do even though I was the one that had the job.
But the final, most important barrier was myself. I got the job, and I had to derive confidence from that. Support from women’s groups helped me to see that it didn’t matter how I got the job – I had the job because someone saw something in me and believed I could get the job done.
I needed to take in the input I was getting from others but ultimately follow the vision I had as a leader. I needed to “leader up” and make a mental shift from being a mentee to being a leader, get others to follow my lead, seize the opportunity and run with it.
As a constant reminder, I have a poem on my desk (Invictus by William Ernest Henley) that was hung on the wall of our kitchen by my father. The last line reads:
“I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.”
That’s how I look at my role and it helps me overcome the challenges and the barriers, even when they are self-inflicted.
Llopis: As you think about how you grew into the role, how can you use that to inspire other women leaders to elevate their own confidence?
teinmann: The critical glue that holds everything together is finding those 1 or 2 people who can give you a pep talk when you need it and champion you when you need it. The right mentors and sponsors will give you straight talk and have no agenda other than helping make you successful. Day or night I knew I could ping Maritza and ask her to take a look at something and let me know her thoughts. I could ask: “Am I off on this, or on the right track?”
If you do all of your homework in assessing the situation and determining what direction to go, you will build confidence in yourself that you have set the right vision and that you’re going to execute the job well.
Llopis: Was there a defining moment for you, when you felt your confidence grow as a leader?
Steinmann: The mental shift happened for me in one meeting when we were very close to launching a new operating model for our talent organization. Two senior partners sat me down and started to lecture me. I didn’t know what their objective was, but I came out of it saying I’m going to do this my way and stop worrying about what other people think.
Every now and then, take a step back, look at what you’ve been asked to do, and then have the courage to see it through, because you’re the one that’s done the work and nobody’s in a better position than you – because you’ve got the knowledge, the ownership, and the responsibility to get it done.
Llopis: You know you’ve found yourself in a defining moment when preparedness meets opportunity.
Steinmann: Our gut tells us when we are ready, even when others may not think we are. That’s when you take it upon yourself and just go for it.
Llopis: When you were mentoring Jennifer, when did you start to see things clicking for her?
Montiel: I remember that same meeting and saying, “You don’t work for those two individuals. You work for the CEO. Thank them for their input and let them know you will discuss it with your boss at the appropriate time.”
This is the way to establish your own authority. Show interest in what they have to say, but you’re not there to do what they think you should do. You’re there to execute your job as a leader, based on the vision and expectations your boss defines for you.
This is something I see with a lot of women: they think they have to ask for permission to lead.
Llopis: Why do you believe women need to ask permission?
Montiel: Men don’t suffer from that (in general), but women are brought up more not to offend anyone. They worry how it will come across if they push too hard. This leads them to worrying about things that have nothing to do with their job.
At the end of the day, it’s about having conviction, focus, and self-confidence. Knowing you’ve been asked to take this job, so you take the risk, and even if you fail, even if you are taken out of the job, you’ll learn a lot more from failing than if you hadn’t tried at all.
There is a moment when you have to take that leap of faith, and have the courage to stand up and speak for yourself. When Jen gave herself permission to do that, it was very liberating. Her confidence during and after that meeting dramatically changed.
Her new-found confidence said: “I deserve to have a seat at the table.”
“I am equal in terms of knowledge and I can contribute equally to any other person in this room.”
“My opinion matters and my opinion counts, so I will speak up and talk about the things I think are important.”
This is what great leadership is all about. But first you have to take that initial step, and eliminate the fear you have inside you.
Llopis: It sounds like you played a pivotal role in helping her get over that fear.
Montiel: Well, Jen came in at a pivotal time for us. We really needed to transform the talent organization for 21st century leadership and the new rules to compete. Jen is working on this paradigm shift and understands the different generations, their desires, their needs, their demands – and that we needed to work in a different way to achieve our goals and objectives.
It all came from that one defining moment; she did it, all I did was cheer her on and tell her: “I’ve got your back.”
This is the end of Part 1 of my interview with Deloitte’s Maritza Montiel, Deputy CEO & Vice Chairman, and Jennifer Steinmann, Deputy CEO and Chief Talent Officer.
via Women Leaders Must Dive In, Not Just Lean In (Part 1) – Forbes.
Despite a relatively high rate of national unemployment, many companies are facing a talent gap. When it comes to the tech industry and top tech talent, the gap between supply and demand of candidates is especially wide.
With tech candidates so hard to find, part of the solution is knowing just where to look. In this infographic, we analyzed our own database to determine the best areas for recruiters to find tech talent – and found the cities that are most rich with tech talent (per capita).
While the jury on telecommuting is still out, your company will fall behind if you don’t find the top candidates, wherever they might reside.
The new role of the CIO can be summed up in one word: consultant.
“Technology’s role in the business is increasing” beyond the purview of the traditional CIO, says Andrew Wilson, CIO at giant tech consultancy Accenture. “The CIO has to embrace the challenge.”
In the old days, the CIO would green light or, more often, red light technology purchases and manage all the technology in their data centers. They would provide service to internal customers much like a big telephone company would for customers — that is, at the CIO’s discretion and with varying levels of customer service.
“A good consultant comes at it from an industry and client perspective and with an outcome rather than with tools and technology.”
The CIO’s Role Is A-Changing
Times, though, have changed dramatically in the last few years. New and exciting technology in social media, mobile and cloud have empowered business leaders to seize control and benefit from technology directly. Today’s business leader seeks to adopt immature, consumer technology that the CIO used to shun.
It’s now contingent upon the new CIO to make the technology sales pitches, not receive them. The new CIO must show how IT services can help business leaders become better within their particular operations, as well as how a cross-departmental, holistic approach raises the tide and lifts all boats. The new CIO must advise and assist on technology adoption, not give orders and mandates.
In essence, the new CIO must become an internal tech consultant and reach out to business unit leaders in marketing, finance, human resources and other departments, Wilson says.
CMOs, CFOs and chief human resource officers (CHRO) are all facing digital disruption within their departments and must quickly become technology evangelists. While they need help in doing so, many are loath to reach out to the CIO because of past experiences. The old CIO had a reputation of throwing up barriers.
In truth, though, the CIO is in the perfect position to make a sales pitch.
“I spent time with our chief marketing officer on how to bring alive the value proposition of technology, which may be quite leading edge and possibly something we might not have automatically adopted in the way we used to operate,” Wilson says, adding, “Don’t be competitive with the C-suite.”
CIOs and CMO Suddenly Must Be BFFs
There is no question that the relationship between the CIO and CMO is going through a sea change, as the CMO is forced to become tech savvy. Social networking, mobility, customer data and analytics are giving rise to the digital marketer. Suddenly, the CIO and CMO roles are overlapping. Thus, the CIO has to become a partner with the CMO or risk being left out of the technology purchasing decision.
While technology is shaking up marketing, finance is also undergoing a transformation. A joint Oracle and Accenture survey of 1,275 mostly CFOs and senior finance executives found that the CFO needs to be a technology evangelist. Nearly three-quarters of finance executives believe new technologies, such as cloud, mobile and social media, will change how finance is structured and run.
Yet only 20 percent of C-level respondents say their finance departments have adopted leading-edge technology. New skills and analytics capabilities are needed to execute on modern finance’s mandate, the study concludes. All of this makes a sales environment ripe for an internal tech consultant, such as the CIO.
“A good consultant comes at it from an industry and client perspective and with an outcome rather than with tools and technology,” says Wilson. “I must not just be a technologist. I must be an articulate, collegiate business operator who also owns the technology responsibilities that enable the firm.”
The new CIO will need to speak the language of the CFO, the CMO and even the CHRO.
The HR function, too, is looking at a technology facelift with social tools for internal collaboration and external communication. Many CHROs are seeking transformative technologies in talent management and analytics.
Yet many CHROs lack a digital strategy. They’re only beginning to apply analytics and social business to their processes. According to a recent IBM study, only 50 percent of the HR organizations surveyed use workforce analytics, with far fewer using predictive analytics to optimize decision making in areas such as sourcing and recruiting. Helping CHROs are at the top of the CIO’s list this year, the IBM study concludes.
By now, it should be clear that CIOs must expand their role and be a consultant to the rest of the business, in addition to their current responsibilities. A recent study by Forrester found that the share of IT projects primarily or exclusively run by IT will decline from 55 percent in 2009 to 47 percent in 2015.
“Change in the CIO role is more prevalent now than at any point in my career,” Wilson says, adding, “It’s about running IT as a business.”
What business would that be? A consultancy, of course
via CIOs Must Become Technology Consultants – CIO.com.
CIOs still have the last word over most IT spending but over time they will work more closely with business units on buying decisions, a Forrester Research survey finds.
Only 6.3 percent of new technology purchases in the U.S. were made and implemented solely by business units in 2013, according to the report’s author, Forrester vice president and principal analyst Andrew Bartels. Some 9 percent of spending involved technology the business unit chose but the CIO’s team implemented and managed.
However, “the ideal tech-buying process is one in which the business and the CIO’s team work together to identify a need, find and fund a solution, choose the right vendor or vendors, implement it, and manage it,” Bartels wrote in the report. “We estimate that more than a third of tech purchases will fit that profile by 2015.”
Moreover, the share of tech purchases the CIO’s group “primarily or exclusively makes” will drop from 55 percent to 47 percent by 2015, Bartels added.
Still, “pundits who make sweeping statements about tech spending shifting from the CIO’s department to the business fail to appreciate the complex process involved in buying and owning technology,” he wrote.
Business units’ share of new technology spending went up from 2010 to 2012, fueled by purchases of smartphones and tablets, but this trend will wane as such items become part of consolidated IT budgets, according to Bartels.
Meanwhile, business unit purchasing of SaaS (software as a service) and IaaS (infrastructure as a service) is growing, “though the actual volume of spending is relatively small because many of these purchases have first-year costs measured in the tens of thousands of dollars,” he added.
Although control over tech spending is shifting slightly away from CIOs, they shouldn’t be alarmed, according to Bartels: “The fact that business users are taking the lead in identifying opportunities to apply technology solutions to business problems is a good thing, not something to be deplored.”
But CIOs should make sure their relationships with various business executives are strong, so they will come to the CIO’s office for help, he added.
While the report focused on the U.S., the same trends are likely to be found worldwide, particularly in countries such as the U.K. which have similar technology adoption profiles, Bartels said in an interview on Monday.
But many other countries aren’t as advanced in their usage “and still tend to view technology through the lens of the IT department,” he added. In those nations, the amount of tech spending led by business users is probably lower than in the U.S., according to Bartels.
via CIOs Still in Control of Most IT Spending, Forrester Says – CIO.com.
Before you write blog posts for the masses, before you apply for those positions, before you even set up your LinkedIn profile there is one thing you should do – craft your very own personal brand statement.
Your bio, elevator pitch and any other descriptive text about you will invariably start out with your personal brand statement.
Your statement is 1-2 sentences answering what you are the best at (value), who you serve (audience) and how you do it uniquely (USP). It sums up your unique promise of value. Your personal brand statement is distinctive to you and you alone. You could liken it with a tagline, strapline or even a catchphrase that product brands will have.
The personal brand statement is not a job title. A job title is what others will try to classify you with, what employers and others want you to be to fit you into a corporate setting. You deserve better than that.
It’s also not your personal mission statement, career objectives or even life purpose. These are much more long-term concepts intended to guide you through life and not aimed at marketing you to anybody.
A personal brand statement is memorable, punchy and solution oriented. As opposed to simply saying “John is a boiler man”, why not “John keeps families warm through bespoke heating installations”? To be continued…
How many times have you been asked what you do? Do you feel like people really understand what you do or is it merely pleasantries? I bet you can tweak what you say and leave a lasting impression with that person, an impression that might just lead to business one day.
Just being another hairdresser or plumber is not going to allow you to stand out. When you don’t stand out, you will have to compete against everyone else on price which isn’t a great situation to be in. To be successful in today’s economy you have to specialize; you have to choose a topic and master it. Your statement will clarify exactly what you do, how you do it and for whom. By communicating this, you and your target audience will know exactly what you are capable of.
Start with listing your key career or business attributes on a piece of paper. Once the list is complete, take a good look at it and pick out the ones that make you unique. These will form your unique selling points, or USPs.
Look at your unique values and key attributes and you should be able to develop a 1-2 sentence brand statement, answering these three questions:
• What value you provide (what problem do you solve)
• How you do it uniquely (your USPs)
• Whom you do it for (your target audience)
Remember to be clear on the value, don’t confuse anyone with any fluffy terms that don’t mean anything. Furthermore, what makes you unique in one place may not be unique in another, e.g. big cities will have lots of specialists and experts in certain fields, small towns only one and that makes him or her unique to that location.
Whom are you aiming your services at? A particular industry, geography, age demographic? Try to stay somewhat focused on a sector of the market and don’t spread yourself too thin. The reason personal branding has become critical for business and career success is that nobody wants to buy from the person that does everything for everyone. Look at what target audience would benefit the most from your services and zero in on this.
When writing a personal brand statement it’s easy to get carried away and putting down what you’d like to be one day. The old “fake it until you make it” approach does carry some merit but don’t overdo it. Never call yourself a guru, ninja, samurai, expert or even thought leader unless you truly are one. Only your audience can determine whether you are an expert and you will know if that is the case. The aim of your statement is to inform and inspire the reader, not to scare them off with fancy titles.
Using technical or big words could alienate your target audience. You want a seven year-old to understand and be able to repeat what you do. Whenever you introduce yourself at a networking event, stay punchy and memorable. Ideally you will want that person you were talking with to tell other prospective customers what you do – this will cover a lot of ground, trust me.
Less is more as they say. Your ability to describe exactly what you do in one sentence says a lot about your introspection and professional focus. In some cases you have to take up two sentence but always aim for one. I will give you a special dispensation to write more if you have done more things in your life than Tim Ferriss.
You will soon find that you are going to tinker with your statement after it’s written up. It’s easy to change it but just don’t get carried away and change it every week. On the flipside, some people will never look at it again. Even though it’s time consuming, your personal brand statement should be revised at least once a year to reflect changes and advancements in your professional career. In order to be effective, it needs to stay current.
Back to our Scottish boiler man, here’s an idea for a statement:
“John keeps families in Edinburgh (target audience) warm (value) through bespoke heating installations using only the most advanced German boilers (unique)”.
This clearly tells you what John does, for whom and gives you an insight into how. I would say the statement is memorable, I for one think of a family keeping warm and snug over Christmas all thanks to the fantastic boiler man John.
Finally it’s your turn to start looking at your statement. Don’t put this off, you’ll find that it’s a wonderful marketing tool that you are going to use over and over. Most people haven’t really thought about their statements so you will stand out with an effective one. Over time I would think personal brand statements will be part and parcel of any successful career or business.
Do you have a personal brand statement? What is it?
How to Craft Your Personal Brand Statement.
Guest Blog: Jorgen Sundberg
I will assume that you have already crafted a personal brand statement and you may even have used it a few times. Before you spray every social media outpost with it, take a few minutes to go through this checklist to make sure it does you justice.
Here are seven hallmarks of an effective personal brand statement:
1. The length of one out-breath
You should be able to take a deep breath and then comfortably deliver your statement. If it’s any longer than this, you risk not making that impact you were looking for so chop it down.
2. The WOW-factor
Just like any performance, your personal brand statement should be received with a mixture of surprise and delight. If this isn’t the case, you are probably saying something very similar to your peers. Make it unique and you’ll evoke the WOW on people’s faces.
3. An eight-year-old understands it
Or a four-year-old if you are really tough on yourself. Your statement should never contain any technical terms or jargon, it should be in plain English and touching on the lowest common denominator. Test it on your children and see how you fare, can they tell you exactly what benefit and value you add?
4. Yours and only yours
Can you be sure that your statement is unique? Well and easy way to test that is by asking colleagues, peers and competitors what they use. Or you can go to an industry event and do some eavesdropping to see what NOT to say. If you find that your statement is similar to others, try harder to really make it stand out by examining exactly what you do uniquely and how to present this.
5. Delivered with confidence
stating the brand personally
The delivery is equally important to the content. You must be able to put on your best story telling voice and really mesmerize your new found acquaintant. Great delivery comes with practice so get in front of your mirror and get rehearsing today.
6. Leaves them wanting more
A classic trick in show business is to dazzle the audience and have them begging for more. By only giving out a teaser that is interesting enough, you are likely to be asked to elaborate and that’s when you go into selling mode.
7. Catchy, memorable and repeatable
To cover a lot of ground you are going to need others to spread your statement via word-of-mouth marketing. In order for them to do this, you have to stay punchy and memorable enough to get repeated over and over.
Final thought
Remember that your personal brand statement will always be a work in progress and you should update it as your career or business changes over time. Revisiting the statement every now and then is great for introspection and give you great direction in your professional life.
Would you say your statement cuts the mustard?
via The 7 Rules of Effective Personal Brand Statements.
