For IT professionals, certifications in technical areas serve as standard career currency. But even the most gilt-edged diplomas may no longer guarantee advancement. To reach the upper levels of the IT organization, training time is better spent sharpening interpersonal and project management skills. According to an IT skills research survey
Social networking sites are designed to let people reach out to one another. As virtual communities of professions and connections to experts, they can be valuable business resources. But these very interactions that make networking sites valuable are the same ones that can leave corporate networks vulnerable to IT security
Does industry certification for IT workers still matter? It depends on whom you ask. But most industry experts will tell you that technology skills are just one piece of what employers look for in their workforce. “Of course certifications matter, but do they matter in the scheme of everything employers
The perennial problem with teaching technology in an academic setting is that by the time cutting-edge applications reach the classroom, they’re often past their prime. IT professionals blame the distance between the ivory tower and the real world. The teachers “are mostly full-time professors and have no link to industry,”
The individual who was born to be a project manager is a rarity. If you’ve been given the title (and the responsibilities that go along with it), you may have had little or no prior training. Your expertise may be in traditional management or the specific subject matter or technical
Blackberries, Web 2.0 tools and other nifty widgets may make life easier, but they don’t change the primary responsibility of a senior IT executive. The basic job description still involves overseeing all the resources — personnel, financial budgets, software and equipment — invested in various projects, whether they are temporary
In the IT world these days, creativity frequently caves to pragmatism. To survive and profit from the converging and merging evolution of IT advancements, in-house proprietary and legacy systems have largely succumbed to out-of-the-box and off-the-shelf solutions. This situation is increasingly forcing IT pros out from behind their computer screens
It’s harder to move up the IT career ladder within your organization these days because the rungs don’t stay put. With downsizing, outsourcing, off-shoring and ever-shrinking corporate budgets, IT job slots are often re-named, redefined or replaced. The good news is that industry analysts report the field is healthy despite
How productive are your employees? That’s every organization’s big question. Employee performance management systems aim to provide an answer. But do their metrics measure what truly matters? By evaluating employees’ degree of engagement, a performance management system can “definitely impact the productivity you get from your workforce in many dimensions”
Times are good for technology workers looking for a new job or just entering the workforce. Already one of the fastest-growing industries in the U.S. economy, the tech sector will continue to expand, thanks to the ongoing innovation in computer systems design. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics,