Posts Tagged ‘Careers’

IT Sector Added More Jobs in January

Tuesday, February 8th, 2011 by jrajani

Following a strong 2010, IT employment continued its pattern of month-over-month growth by adding more than 6000 jobs in January.

According to a monthly index of IT jobs developed and published by TechServe Alliance, a collaboration of IT services firms, clients, consultants and suppliers, in January, IT employment stood at 3,997,400 jobs; reflecting incremental growth of 0.2, while overall non-farm employment only rose by .03 percent. On a year-over-year basis, IT employment was up 4.5 percent, compared to only a 0.8 percent increase in total non-farm employment.

“With January’s strong IT employment numbers, 2011 is off to a good start. With increased demand, we are again hearing of shortages of qualified IT professionals in certain skill sets,” commented Mark Roberts, CEO of TechServe Alliance. “We continue to maintain a very bullish outlook for IT employment in 2011,” added Roberts.

IT jobs are found in virtually every sector and industry in varying degrees. The following table presents information about the total number of jobs in certain sectors that provide a significant amount of employment for IT professionals as well as to the number of all jobs.

Technical note: TechServe Alliance’s IT Employment Index is the first specific measurement of IT employment. This unique measurement of total IT employment is created monthly by studying the ongoing staffing patterns of a dozen IT and computer related occupations in 22 industries and industry sectors employing significant numbers of IT workers including the manufacturing, wholesale and retail trade, financial, information services, business and professional services, and education and health industries. The monthly IT Employment Index is based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data, which is subject to monthly revisions, and therefore, the Index is revised accordingly. The IT Employment Index is also subject to annual revisions and was benchmarked this month (February 2011) with the publication of the BLS January 2011 employment report, which included revisions to several years of employment data. The next revision will be published in February 2012.

Source: Techserve Alliance

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Top 25 Odd Interview Questions

Sunday, January 2nd, 2011 by jrajani

The Top 25 Oddball Interview Questions of 2010 from Glassdoor.com:

1. “If you were shrunk to the size of a pencil and put in a blender, how would you get out?” – Asked at Goldman Sachs, Analyst position

2. “How many ridges [are there] around a quarter?” – Asked at Deloitte, Project Analyst position

3. “What is the philosophy of Martial Arts?” – Asked at Aflac, Sales Associate position

4. “Explain [to] me what has happened in this country during the last 10 years.” – Asked at Boston Consulting, Consultant position

5. “Rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 how weird you are.” – Asked at Capital One, Operations Analyst position

6. “How many basketball[s] can you fit in this room” – Asked at Google, People Analyst position

7. “Out of 25 horses, pick the fastest 3 horses. In each race, only 5 horses can run at the same time. What is the minimum number of races required?” – Asked at Bloomberg LP Financial, Software Developer position

8. “If you could be any superhero, who would it be?” – Asked at AT&T, Customer Sales Representative position

9. “You have a birthday cake and have exactly 3 slices to cut it into 8 equal pieces. How do you do it?” – Asked at Blackrock Portfolio Management Group, Fixed Income Analyst position

10. “Given the numbers 1 to 1000, what is the minimum numbers guesses needed to find a specific number if you are given the hint “higher” or “lower” for each guess you make?” – Asked at Facebook, Software Engineer position

11. “If you had 5,623 participants in a tournament, how many games would need to be played to determine the winner?” – Asked at Amazon, Manager position

12. “An apple costs 20 cents, an orange costs 40 cents, and a grapefruit costs 60 cents, how much is a pear?” – Asked at Epic Systems, Project Manager position

13. “There are three boxes, one contains only apples, one contains only oranges, and one contains both apples and oranges. The boxes have been incorrectly labeled such that no label identifies the actual contents of the box it labels. Opening just one box, and without looking in the box, you take out one piece of fruit. By looking at the fruit, how can you immediately label all of the boxes correctly?” – Asked at Apple, Software QA Engineer position

14. “How many traffic lights in Manhattan?” – Asked at Argus Information & Advisory Services, Analyst position

15. “You are in a dark room with no light. You need matching socks for your interview and you have 19 grey socks and 25 black socks. What are the chances you will get a matching pair?” – Asked at Eze Castle, Quality Assurance position

16. “What do wood and alcohol have in common?” – Asked at Guardsmark, Staff Writer position

17. “How do you weigh an elephant without using a weigh machine?” – Asked at IBM, Software Engineer position

18. “You have 8 pennies, 7 weigh the same, one weighs less. You also have a judges scale. Find the one that weighs less in less than 3 steps.” – Asked at Intel, Systems Validation Engineer position

19. “Why do you think only a small percentage of the population makes over $150K?” – Asked at New York Life, Sales Agent position

20. “You are in charge of 20 people, organize them to figure out how many bicycles were sold in your area last year.” – Asked at Schlumberger, Field Engineer position

21. “How many bottles of beer are drank in the city over the week?” – Asked at The Nielsen Company, Research Analyst position

22. “What’s the square root of 2000?” – Asked at UBS, Sales and Trading position

23. “A train leaves San Antonio for Huston at 60mph. Another train leaves Huston for San Antonio at 80mph. Huston and San Antonio are 300 miles apart. If a bird leaves San Antonio at 100mph, and turns around and flies back once it reaches the Huston train, and continues to fly between the two, how far will it have flown when they collide?”- Asked at USAA, Software Engineer position

24. “How are M&M’s made?” – Asked at US Bank, Leadership Program Development position

25. “What would you do if you just inherited a pizzeria from your uncle?” – Asked at Volkswagen, Business Analyst position.

These questions were part of the Glassdoor Interview Reviews section, offering in-depth accounts of the interview process for specific job titles at specific companies – all for free. To date, approximately 80,000 interview questions around the world have been collected. Interview Reviews include details from actual candidates about the entire hiring process — from the interview format and average duration to overall difficulty. Each review also includes details as to whether an offer was made and whether it was accepted or rejected — and why — along with any negotiation tips.

Source: Glassdoor.com

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Survey Finds Social Media Gaining Traction for Career Development

Wednesday, August 18th, 2010 by jrajani

As the economy starts to recover slowly most companies are using social media to rebuild their brand and hire employees from sites such as Facebook and Linkedin. The results show One-quarter (25%) of these employers said that they are using social media to connect with clients and find new business, while others are using it to recruit and research potential employees (21%), or strengthen their employment brands (13%). The survey was conducted among more than 2,500 employers between May 18 and June 3, 2010.

Businesses of varying sizes and in a diverse group of industries are using social media for promotion. 29% of organizations with 500 or fewer employees said they do so, followed by 38% of companies with 501 to 1,000 employees and 44% of companies with more than 1,000 workers. Comparing industries, leisure and hospitality topped those surveyed with 57% saying the use social media to promote their business, followed by IT, (48%), retail (43%) and sales (41%).

Social media campagins are being managed by diverse departments based on organization culture and resources. 43% of employers report that their marketing department handles social media outreach, followed by public relations (26%) and human resources
(19 %). One-quarter (25%) of employers have 1-3 people communicating on behalf of their organization, while 7% report that 4-5 people handle the work. 11% said that more than six people communicate for their company via social media. 57% said they didn’t know.

“As communication via social media becomes increasingly pervasive, organizations are harnessing these sites to help achieve a variety of business goals,” said Jason Ferrara, vice president of corporate marketing for CareerBuilder. “Social media allows organizations to communicate in ways that didn’t exist ten years ago, promoting their services and brands while also supplementing their recruitment strategy.”

On the employee part of the survey, participants are starting to use social media for more than connecting with colleagues and friends, they are using them to research companies and jobs. Here are the key findings when asked what visitors would like to see on a company’s social media page:

Job listings: 35%
Q&A or fast facts about the organization: 26%
Information about career paths within the organization: 23%
Evidence that working at the company is fun: 16%
Employee testimonials: 16%
Pictures of company events: 12%
Video of new products/services: 10%
Company awards: 9%
Research or studies that the company has conducted: 9%
Videos of a day on the job: 8%.

When asked what turns off visitors when visiting a company’s social page, the results were:

Company’s communication reading like an ad: 38%

Failure to reply to questions: 30%
Failure to regularly post information: 22%
Removing or filtering public comments: 22%.

Survey Methodology:

This survey was conducted online within the U.S. by Harris Interactive© on behalf of CareerBuilder.com among 2,534 U.S. hiring managers and 4,498 U.S. workers (employed full-time; not self-employed; non government); ages 18 and over between May 18 and June 3, 2010 (percentages for some questions are based on a subset of U.S. employers and/or employees, based on their responses to certain questions). With a pure probability sample of 2,534 and 4,498 one could say with a 95 percent probability that the overall results have a sampling error of +/- 1.95 and +/-1.46 percentage points, respectively. Sampling error for data from sub-samples is higher and varies.

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IT Job Openings Increase in July

Monday, August 2nd, 2010 by jrajani

upchart

Online advertised vacancies rose 139,200 in July to 4,293,300 following a very small increase in June, according to The Conference Board Help Wanted OnLine(TM) (HWOL) Data Series released today. The gap between the number of unemployed and advertised vacancies (supply/demand rate) stood at 3.52 unemployed for every advertised vacancy in June (the last available unemployment data) but is down from its peak of 4.73 in October 2009.

Job openings posted online rose by 139,200 in July to 4,293,300 in a substantial increase when compared to June statstics according to The Conference Board Help Wanted Online Data Series. The number of unemployed versus advertised vacancies is reporeted at 3.52 unemployed for every advertised job opening in June.

“After rising sharply in December and January, online job demand for the nation as a whole has settled into a more modest pattern over the last six months, with increases that have averaged about 43,000 per month,” said June Shelp, Vice President at The Conference Board. “The gains in job demand vary across the country with some East Coast states –New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Delaware and Maryland–posting steady and strong upward trends throughout this year. Steady but more modest improvement better characterizes online job demand in other states like Washington, Ohio, Oregon and Texas.”

Computer and Mathematical Science occupations were up 31,800 to 586,700 in July. The rise is based on increases in demand for computer systems analysts, computer software engineers (applications), and computer support specialists. Advertised vacancies in this field are at their highest level since September 2008. Demand for workers in this occupational category exceeds the number of unemployed looking for work by just under 3 to 1.

In July, all of the 52 metropolitan areas for which data are reported separately posted over-the-year increases in the number of online advertised vacancies. Among the three metro areas with the largest numbers of advertised vacancies, the New York metro area was 40 percent above its July 2009 level, the Washington, D.C. metro area was 22 percent above its July 2009 level, and the Los Angeles metro area was 20 percent above last year’s level.

The number of unemployed exceeded the number of advertised vacancies in all of the 52 metro areas for which information is reported separately. Washington, D.C., Oklahoma City, and Baltimore were the locations with the most favorable supply/demand rates, where the number of unemployed looking for work was only slightly larger than the number of advertised vacancies. On the other hand, metro areas in which the respective number of unemployed is substantially above the number of online advertised vacancies include Riverside, CA -where there are over 10 unemployed people for every advertised vacancy (10.4) – Detroit (7.3), Miami (5.5), and Sacramento (5.0). Supply/Demand rate data are for June 2010, the latest month for which unemployment data for local areas are available.

Source: The Conference Board Press Release

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Geolocation and app development lead the way in IT job growth

Tuesday, July 6th, 2010 by jrajani

Freelancer.com an outsourcing marketplace announced their findings on the fastest growing online outsourcing jobs in Q2 with the release of the Freelancer 50. The Freelancer.com Freelancer Fast 50 charts the top 50 rising job categories in the online labor market quarter by quarter. By comparing jobs posted on Freelancer.com in Q1 2010 to those posted in Q2, the site is able to give an accurate assessment of the most in demand skills in online outsourcing.

The Freelancer.com Freelancer Fast 50 charts the top 50 rising job categories in the online labor market quarter by quarter. By comparing jobs posted on Freelancer.com in Q1 2010 to those posted in Q2, the site is able to give an accurate assessment of the most in demand skills in online outsourcing.

The continued rapid advancement of mobile phone development and the ever growing popularity of cloud computing have also been on everyone’s mind. Cloud computing has become so popular even the US government is getting in on the act claiming they can save 25% to 50% of their IT costs by moving to cloud computing, according to the Brookings Institute.

The top trends from the report include:

Location Wars:

Geolocation grabbed the number one spot this quarter as the location wars heated up. While Foursquare and Twitter battled it
out, freelance workers reaped the benefits seeing a whopping 909% increase in geolocation jobs online.

The Apple Effect:

26% of all web video is available using HTML5 (The Register) and this number is only going to increase as Steve Jobs famously gave Flash the cold shoulder with the release of the iPad and new iPhone. This endorsement gave HTML5 the shot in the arm it needed and lead to a massive 721% boost in HTML5 jobs.

Head in the Clouds:

Amazon Web Services came in as the number three fastest mover in Q3, denoting the continued popularity of cloud computing. Up 446% from the previous quarter, anything related to hosting services over the Internet has seen an impressive increase.

Appetite for Apps:

The global appetite for apps continued unabated as mobile phone jobs rose steadily, up 282% from Q2. Having an app has become an essential tool for any business and SMEs are increasingly looking to online labor to get their apps build more cost effectively.

Source: Freelancer.com

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Federal IT workforce and the Net Generation

Thursday, May 20th, 2010 by jrajani
Net Generation Logo

Net Generation Logo

The department of defense released a report, “Net Generation: Preparing for Change in the Federal Information Technology Workforce” which demonstrates how to manage workflow changes as a result of retirements, changing technologies and the increasing influence of Generation Y.

“This is the first generation that was brought up with information technology, and it’s part of them,” said Joyce France, Director of CIO Management Services, who helped spearhead the research and development of the report. She says young IT workers don’t respond well to a “cookie-cutter” management approach.

The report lists 20 items that federal organizations need to cover as they prepare to engage the new net generation of workers:

1. Show that the organization understands their world.
2. Rethink authority and hierarchy within the organization.
3. Include Net-Geners in re-designing work practices.
4. Design jobs and work spaces to support collaboration.
5. Become social media savvy
6. Invest in technology to power high performance, creativity, and collaboration.
7. Examine how new technology is deployed within the organization.
8. Refresh organization websites and their capabilities.
9. Re-examine career paths for all generations.
10.Customize training programs for individual workers.
11.Encourage and incentivize Boomer and Net-Gen mentors.
12.Examine current and future supervisory bench strength.
13.Measure performance by productivity, not physical presence.
14.Retool performance recognition programs and provide more continuous feedback.
15.Create dynamic recruiting programs that employ a cross section of media.
16.Be authentic when recruiting; emphasize organization values and strengths.
17.Create a dynamic onboarding program.
18.Fund and use hiring flexibilities strategically.
19.Create a more flexible and fun working environment.
20.Craft lasting networking relationships with employees who leave the organization.

The report also recommends reviewing strategies from public sector companies such as Google and Yahoo to understand how they recruit and retain talent so that the Federal IT workforce can be filled by the best talent available.

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