What's the biggest threat to IT organizations today? According to global human resources and staffing solutions firm Randstad Technologies' 2016 Workplace Trends Report, it's the scarcity of skilled talent and an increasingly competitive landscape in which to attract and hire that talent.Of the 2,004 hiring managers and hiring decision makers surveyed between November and December 2015, 55 percent say finding the skilled talent they need is the biggest threat to meeting their revenue or business performance targets in 2016."These results validated for us what we already suspected -- there's absolutely a skills shortage, the war for talent is real, and it's having a corresponding effect on ROI and productivity and on companies' bottom line," says Bob Dickey, group president, technology and engineering, Randstad U.S.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Today's workforce is less concerned with perks like ping-pong tables, dry cleaning services and on-site massages than they are with their future, according to recent research. If your organization is struggling to attract and retain IT talent, perhaps it's time to rethink your benefits and perks strategy.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
8 biggest email pet peevesImage by ThinkstockEmail is both an incredible workplace communication tool and the bane of most knowledge workers' existence. While it can definitely enhance productivity and communication, the written word often has the potential to misconstrue messages, introduce unnecessary stakeholders into the conversation and generally make your work life more stressful. Based on a survey of 2,000 U.S. knowledge workers who use email, corporate intranet provider Igloo Software has compiled a list of the eight biggest email pet peeves.
1. SpamImage by ThinkstockTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Bold leadership is essential for companies to achieve breakthrough performance, but according to the 2016 Deloitte Business Confidence Report, 90 percent of the 600 C-suite executives (CXOs) and C-suite executives-in-waiting (CXOWs) admit to not regularly demonstrating bold leadership.Deloitte uses six characteristics to assess bold leadership: someone who sets ambitious goals; invites feedback from colleagues at all levels of seniority; innovates and looks for new ways of doing things; proposes ideas their company might consider controversial; takes risks; and builds strong teams and empowers them to succeed. Further, 52 percent of CXOWs and 60 percent of CXOs doubt that there are enough bold leaders at the highest ranks in their company.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In today's digital world, companies are struggling to find IT professionals with the cutting-edge skills they need to drive innovation and growth. If you're an IT professional looking to land a new role or a professional looking to make a career change, summer's the perfect time to brush up on new skills. And the availability and affordability of online learning has made it easier than ever to add critical hard and soft skills, even those from elite learning institutions like Harvard, MIT and Columbia University, says Anant Agarwal, CEO of online learning provider edX.
"Talking to CIOs and hiring managers, we find that they're struggling to find talent with the needed skills to grow their business and remain competitive -- a prime example of this is in data science and analytics which, as a career, has only evolved in the last few years. Traditional educational institutions can't keep up with that," Agarwal says.
If you're looking to beef up your IT resume, Agarwal suggests focusing on five areas: introduction to computer science; business and management including entrepreneurship; Java programming; data science and analytics; and agile software development.
[ Related story: 10 top-ranked tech-focused MBA programs ]
"These are a great Continue reading
Top-ranked tech-focused MBA programsImage by ThinkstockThere's a looming executive leadership crisis in today's IT companies, but there's certainly no shortage of excellent, rigorous programs designed to help build the next generation of great leaders. If you're looking for a resume boost or considering a career path that leads to the C-suite, consider an MBA with a technology focus. Based on the 2016 rankings from U.S. News and World Report, here are the top 10 technology-centric MBA programs, their costs and full-time enrollment statistics.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)Image by Vitor Pamplona/Wikipedia To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In a recovering economy and a tight IT talent market, candidates are finding they have more leverage when negotiating salary for a new position or angling for a raise. The key to managing this tricky, nerve-wracking process is to focus on your accomplishments, achievements and your overall value to the company -- and be able to quantify those.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
It's the catch-22 every new college graduate faces when looking for his or her first job: You need experience or a portfolio of completed work to prove your competency to a potential employer, but it's hard to get that tangible proof of your skills without having had a job first.That's one of the major benefits of the open source world, says Heidi Ellis, professor and chair of Computer Science and Information Technology at Western New England University in Springfield, Mass.Ten years ago, as a visiting professor at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., Ellis challenged her computer science students to use technology to solve some of the logistical and administrative problems than can hamper the effectiveness of humanitarian causes.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Hiring a diverse workforce is proven to positively impact a company's bottom line and improve performance. But diversity, inclusion and equal representation also are increasingly factors job seekers consider when they're looking for employment. In other words, diversity and inclusion all the way up to the board level makes you a more attractive workplace."We started to see a trend emerge among our job seeker users who wanted to learn about particular hiring companies' diversity, inclusion and representation statistics and information. More and more candidates have this as one of their criteria when they're researching potential companies -- and we see that for every 10 job seekers on our site, six to seven of them are women. What that says to us is that employers who emphasize diversity at all levels, but especially at the more public-facing C-levels and at the board level, have a greater competitive advantage for about 60 to 70 percent of job seekers," says Anthony VanHorne, CEO of job search and culture matching site CareerLabs.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It's no secret that working IT is stressful, but a new survey from TEKsystems shows that the pressure may be easing for some IT professionals. The 2016 IT Stress and Pride survey from IT talent management and solutions company TEKsystems polled 241 IT workers at all experience levels in April of 2016, and found that just 14 percent of entry-to mid-level IT professionals and 18 percent of senior IT professionals consider the work they are currently doing to be the most stressful of their career.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
For IT organizations hungry for talent, agile is key to helping attract and retain the next generation of engineers and developers, because the principles of the methodology dovetail with millennials' intrinsic motivation.Autonomy, mastery and purpose
One of the hallmarks of the millennial generation is its need for autonomy, mastery and purpose in the work they're doing, and a demonstrable impact on the success of the companies they work for and the larger world around them. It's one of the reasons millennial software engineers embrace the agile methodology, with its emphasis on flat management, self-regulating teams, business context, iteration and ability to adapt quickly to changing needs and demands, says Dave West, product owner at Scrum.org.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Don’t disturb Eric Poirier between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. -- he’s spending time with his family. Poirier, the CEO of Addepar, a Silicon Valley investment management software startup, makes it a point to block out “Eric time” on the firm’s publicly accessible calendar, and encourages the rest of the company to do the same.It’s one example of a growing trend in Silicon Valley; using family-friendly and work-life balance-focused benefits and perks to attract, retain, engage and motivate the workforce, says Lissa Minkin, Addepar’s vice president of people. As IT talent becomes more difficult to find and even harder to retain, many IT companies are focusing on what’s truly important to their employees, and that means offering more family-friendly benefits instead of flashy perks like free lunch, dry cleaning, massage, ping-pong tables or yoga, according to Minkin.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
At one point in his life, Michael Sage was a monk living in a monastery. Nowadays, though, he practices a different kind of evangelism in his job as a chief evangelist at BlazeMeter, a software load and performance-testing company.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
The Internet of Things (IoT) is poised to bring millions of devices online, and as many as a quarter million unique IoT applications will be developed by the year 2020. That means opportunities for skilled developers and technologists will abound. However, there are other, subtler ways the IoT will affect the job market."We're seeing tech companies around the globe getting organized and creating IoT strategies, but where they're struggling is they don't have the processes and talent in-house to make these things happen," says Ryan Johnson, categories director for global freelance marketplace Upwork. By tracking data from Upwork's database, Johnson and his team have identified major technology skills companies need to drive a successful IoT strategy.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Recruiting open source talent is a top priority for IT recruiters and hiring managers in 2016. According to the 2016 Open Source Jobs Report released today by IT hiring platform Dice.com and The Linux Foundation, 65 percent of hiring managers say open source hiring will increase more than any other part of their business over the next six months, and 79 percent of hiring managers have increased incentives to hold on to their current open source professionals.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Most in-demand Internet of Things skillsImage by PixabayThe Internet of Things (IoT) is in the midst of an explosion, as more connected devices proliferate. But there's not enough talent with the right skills to manage and execute on IoT projects. In fact, insufficient staffing and lack of expertise is the top-cited barrier for organizations currently looking to implement and benefit from IoT, according to research from Gartner."We're seeing tech companies around the globe getting organized and creating IoT strategies, but where they're struggling is they don't have the processes and talent in-house to make these things happen," says Ryan Johnson, categories director for global freelance marketplace Upwork. By tracking data from Upwork's extensive database, Johnson and his team have identified the top 10 skills companies need to drive a successful IoT strategy.Data is sourced from the Upwork database and is based on annual job posting growth and skills demand, as measured by the number of job posts mentioning these skills posted on Upwork from October 2014 to December 2015.1. Circuit design - 231 percentConnected devices require companies to adjust and adapt chip design and development to account for new system requirements. For example, applications Continue reading
Employee engagement is one of the most important key performance indicators businesses use to gauge success. But Gallup's most recent research shows that engagement's remained stagnant for the last few years. If organizations want to improve their competitive edge and attract elite talent, they have to make engagement a priority.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In 2013, a survey from cloud portfolio management provider Innotas revealed that 50 percent of businesses surveyed had experienced an IT project failure within the previous 12 months. Now, three years later, not much has changed. According to the most recent Innotas annual Project and Portfolio Management Survey, in fact, the numbers have increased: 55 percent of the 126 IT professionals surveyed between January and March 2015 reported they had a project fail, up from 32 percent in 2014.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Sharon Florentine