Sharon Florentine

Author Archives: Sharon Florentine

6 traits engineers need to succeed as IT leaders

Engineers and developers often make the best IT leaders. Not only are they forward-thinking and tech-savvy, but they've already have the trust and the loyalty of your IT team and they know the ins-and-outs of a great culture. If you're looking for good IT leadership, you should start from within your own ranks, says Kathy Harris, managing director of technology executive recruitment firm Harris Allied. Not only will this foster greater trust and engagement, it can be a powerful recruiting tool for other elite talent, Harris says."Top people always want to work with other star talent. They understand that within that environment they can learn, grow and be challenged professionally. Including engineers and developers in your IT leadership also means there's someone at the table who understands the technology, the methodology, the quirks of your organization and the culture," says Harris. Here are six traits to look for in a great IT leader.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Is student loan assistance the next big thing in corporate recruiting?

As of 2015, more than 40 million Americans had some kind of student loan debt. According to a survey from education finance portal iontuition of the 1,000 student-loan-debt-holders surveyed in July 2015, 80 percent say they'd appreciate it if their employers helped with repayment of their debt through a matching opportunity, much like a 401k. As businesses struggle to attract and retain talent, is student loan repayment assistance becoming a must-have benefit?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Are you ready for peak hiring season?

It's (almost) summertime and the hiring's easy -- or, at least, it's easier in May, June and July than at other times of the year, according to internal data from recruiting and hiring software platform Smart Recruiters.SmartRecruiters polled 700 companies and approximately 100,000 employees and gathered data between January 2015 and January 2016. They found May, June and July were the most strategic hiring times for companies, because those months offered the highest number of job seekers. The fewest candidates were available in October and November. For job seekers, the SmartRecruiters' data suggested that the best time to search for a new job was January, February and March when there is the highest number of open positions.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Performance reviews: 10 things to do before, during and after

While many organizations are experimenting with the notion of eliminating traditional performance reviews, most companies are still doing annual or semi-annual reviews. The process can be nerve-wracking and cause anxiety if employees don't know what to expect or aren't prepared, but it doesn't have to be like this."The most important thing to remember is that these reviews are supposed to be a two-way street with communication flowing both ways, between employee and manager or supervisor. And while, yes, it can be an anxious event, in the end, remember that you both want the same thing -- success and productivity within the organization," says Dominque Jones, chief people officer and vice president of HR at Halogen Software. Here, Jones shares her tips for making sure your next performance review process is productive, fulfilling and successful.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to identify, engage and nurture high-potential talent

In a tight talent market, succession planning should be a core part of any business's workforce management and development plan. Building a pipeline of talent ready to take on progressively greater responsibility and leadership in an organization is key to driving success, especially in the constantly evolving IT market.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Why referrals make the best hires

Looking for a new job but can't seem to land one? Maybe your poor networking skills are to blame? A new national survey reveals that while HR professionals say employee referrals are the best source for finding great candidates, only 7 percent of job seekers are using referrals as part of their job search.The Active Job Seeker Dilemma survey, from Future Workplace, a research firm and workforce management consultancy and Beyond.com, a career and hiring marketplace, polled 4,347 U.S. job seekers and 129 HR professionals. The survey revealed a major disconnect between job seekers and the HR pros who are looking to hire when it comes to how candidates are identified.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Tips for hiring the right remote worker

Interviewing remote workers is much different than hiring for a traditional, on-site position. In addition to the usual questions about knowledge, hard skills and experience, interviewing candidates for a remote position must take into account commitment, ability to work independently, oral and written communication skills, conflict resolution, motivation and technology prowess."There are some differences to look for when you're hiring remote workers. You need to emphasize constant communication, availability and collaboration skills, as well as the ability to work independently, to solve problems and resolve conflicts and be able to gauge productivity," says Madhav Bhandari, head of growth at cloud productivity management and time tracking software company Hubstaff.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Are agile, DevOps and similar certifications worth it?

Certifications have always been about benchmarking and assessing IT professionals' ability to use technology and provide something of a guarantee that candidates are competent with needed skills in the workplace. But as DevOps, continuous delivery, agile, scrum and other frameworks become necessary, the question around certification of these skills becomes this: How can you accurately assess and measure the less-tangible, softer skills hiring managers require? And if you're an IT pro, do you need one or more of these certifications at all?"This isn't so different from the existing certification world in that it's about measuring people's ability to use tech to drive the business. We can use certifications to verify that they have the hard skills to do the job and use certain tools, but we also need to measure understanding of principles and best practices around technology," says François Déchery, co-founder and vice president of customer success at continuous delivery solutions company CloudBees.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IT pros happy but open to new career opportunities

Today's workplace landscape is in a state of flux. Workers are still adjusting to a new normal in which job tenure is shorter and the hunt for a new position never stops. The annual Job Seeker Nation study from recruiting and hiring services company Jobvite shows that while 74 percent of the survey respondents say they're satisfied with their current job, that same percentage say they're also open to new opportunities.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IT career roadmap: How to become a data scientist

A data scientist is one of the most in-demand, high-profile careers in IT today, but Tom Walsh and Alex Krowitz have been working behind the scenes in the field for years. Walsh, a research engineer and Krowitz, a senior research engineer at cloud workforce management solutions company Kronos, sift through the influx of proprietary and customer data to identify patterns and gain insights based on that data."We both work in the workforce management and timekeeping division here at Kronos. There are generally two kinds of projects we regularly handle; mining patterns within data to improve our own products is one and the other is taking on specific sets of customer data to gather and deliver insights from that," says Walsh.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

10 interview questions to ask remote workers

Interview questions to ask remote workersImage by PexelsInterviewing remote workers is much different than hiring for a traditional, on-site position. In addition to the usual questions about knowledge, hard skills and experience, interviewing candidates for a remote position must take into account commitment, communication skills, conflict resolution, motivation and technology prowess. "There are some differences to look for when you're hiring remote workers. You need to emphasize constant communication, availability and collaboration skills, as well as the ability to work independently, to solve problems and resolve conflicts and be able to gauge productivity," says Madhav Bhandari, head of growth at cloud productivity management and time tracking software company Hubstaff. Here are 10 interview questions for remote workers that will help you find the perfect fit.1. What's your remote work experience?Image by PexelsTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

5 career-killing conversations to avoid at work

No matter how progressive, open and casual your workplace, there are some conversations that should be off-limits no matter what. A new study from corporate and leadership education and training firm VitalSmarts found that of 775 respondents to a recent VitalSmarts survey on workplace behavior, 83 percent of employees witnessed their colleagues say something that has had catastrophic results on their careers, reputations and businesses.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Who’s the boss of workplace culture?

Who really drives culture in your workplace? According to a study from The Workforce Institute at Kronos and the research and consultancy firm WorkplaceTrends.com, HR believes it does. So do managers and executives. So, too, do your employees.There's clearly a disagreement about who's in charge of creating, maintaining and supporting workplace culture, but there's one thing every group agrees on: Workplace culture is incredibly important. The disconnect, though, isn't just comical. Without understanding the who, what and why of workplace culture and how it affects engagement, retention and loyalty, organizations risk destroying it and losing out on top talent.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

8 tips for recruiting cybersecurity talent

Good IT talent is hard to find. You know what's even more difficult? Finding good cybersecurity talent. Demand for skilled cybersecurity professionals is growing at an astonishing rate -- four times faster than the IT jobs market and 12 times faster than the overall labor market, according to research from Burning Glass Technologies.Unfortunately, supply isn't keeping up with demand, according to online cybersecurity training and MOOC platform Cybrary's Cyber Security Job Trends Survey for 2016. Of the 435 senior-level technology professionals who completed the survey between October and December 2015, 68 percent affirmed that there is a global shortage of skilled cybersecurity professionals. Only 13 percent of companies said there was an abundance of cybersecurity talent in their local areas.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Is the office desk phone obsolete?

It's found in every modern business, on every desk. It's powerful enough to connect even the most geographically distant workers, and yet, it strikes fear into the hearts of many millennial workers. It's the desk phone, and despite the prevalence of text messaging, collaboration apps and video conferencing, rumors of its demise have been greatly exaggerated."Maybe the desk phone is headed for retirement, but it's not there yet. There's still a significant portion of the workforce that prefers using their office phone to conduct business and mission-critical calls," says Curtis Peterson, senior vice president of operations at telecommunications provider RingCentral.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

8 most in-demand IT security certifications

In-demand IT security certifications Image by ThinkstockAs high-profile security breaches (e.g., Target, Sony, Adobe and most recently, Ashley Madison) continue to dominate headlines, companies are doubling down on pay to hire the best and the brightest IT security professionals. The most recent IT Skills and Certifications Pay Index (ITSCPI) from research and analysis firm Foote Partners confirms that IT pros holding security certifications can expect premium pay. Market values for 69 information security and cybersecurity certifications in the ITSCPI have been on a slow and steady upward path for two years, up 8 percent in average market value during this time, states co-founder, chief analyst and research officer David Foote in the report.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How a university’s data center overhaul makes a green impact

To say that University of Cambridge deployed disparate and diverse data storage and data center infrastructure would be a vast understatement. In a 2013 IT review, data center manager Ian Tasker and his team discovered almost 200 servers across the University's 120 departments. These installations ranged from single servers housed in closets to larger rooms containing 20 to 30 servers, but all contributing to a major drain on power and cooling resources, as well as creating one heck of a management headache."Our IT review is a periodic way for us to look at how we're carrying out the responsibilities of IT, and how to best align IT with the work of the university. What we found was everything was fragmented and each department was doing their own thing when it came to provisioning, storage and management. Where we had a small number of racks, they weren't powered or cooled efficiently, and that was our other mission: to reduce our carbon footprint as a university by about 34 percent by the year 2020," Tasker says.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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