Seven steps to sharpen IT managers resume

When was the last time you took a good hard look at your resume? Even if your job description hasn’t changed much recently, you don’t want to become complacent. You need to make sure your resume refl ects your latest accomplishments so that you can be next in line for a raise or poised to pounce on the opportunity that’s just around the corner. A resume revamp doesn’t have to be intimidating, either. In fact, in seven simple steps, your resume can refl ect the more accomplished IT manager you’ve become.

1. Look at the big picture. This pertains to printed resumes rather than text-based ones sent via the Web. What does your resume actually look like? Ignore the words for a moment. Is the layout clear and concise? Is the font easily readable? Remember that a sans serif font is harder to read that a serif font—though a sans serif font can look more modern. Choose your font size wisely; don’t go smaller than 11 pt type if you want anyone to read about all your accomplishments. Use bullet points, bold type, and spacing to help break up the information on the page.

2. Use strong action verbs to describe your job duties and accomplishments. You don’t want to present a laundry list of your day-to-day duties. Focus instead on the parts of your job that earn you recognition. Stress your leadership skills. For example, instead of writing that you are “involved in running a team of programmers and keeping projects on schedule,” try saying that you “manage a team that consistently meets deadlines.”

3. Be careful with your jargon. Is the important information readily accessible? If you’re job-hunting, remember that the people who initially screen resumes often have only basic technical knowledge; they might not know an MCSE from a CCNA. Don’t hide your strong points in language that no one outside your field can understand.

4. Ease up on the technical details. Remember, you’re in management now, and even though your tech skills got you where you are, it’s a different skill set that will propel you forward. Yes, you can—and should—list your technical skills, but make sure the focus is on how those skills help you manage people and technology more effectively.

5. Stress benefits, not features. Think back to your days as a hardware engineer, for example. Did you stress that the chip you designed replaced up to 10 discrete components or did you stress the greater product functionality and smaller device sizes that your customers could enjoy when they used your chip in their devices? Now, apply that logic to your resume. Don’t just say that you devised a new off-site backup strategy for the company. Point out that your off-site backup strategy reduced hardware and labor expenses by more than 50 percent, reduced downtime substantially, and increased client satisfaction 100 percent.

6. Put the bottom line on top. Translate each of your accomplishments into hours saved, money earned, and other tangible results for the company. If you can’t figure out how the things you do every day fit into the big picture, you’re doing something wrong. If you know what the moneymaking tasks are and you’re not finding time for them, you also need to reprioritize. Your resume should reflect the net worth you add to your organization.

7. Ask someone nontechnical to read your resume. If someone who isn’t especially tech savvy can read your resume and get a sense of what you do and why someone might hire you, your resume is definitely on the right track. If that person can also proofread, have them do it and your resume will quickly be ready for prime time.

These pointers were taken from the article “Seven ways to revamp your resume ,” by Abbi F. Perets.

Making of successful leader

Who is a good leader? What is it that makes a good leader stand out in the crowd and mesmerize you with his/her finesse in everything he/she does? Experts say that along with numerous other qualities, it is the quality of feeling empathy towards your employee and colleagues that actually makes one a successful leader and eventually leads to the success of any organization.

You can find people in leadership roles almost everywhere you look. However, simply shouldering responsibilities of a leader doesn’t necessarily makea a person an effective leader. Leadership itself is a privilege and a skill. There are many leadership skils and competencies that when combined and applied, go towards making you an effective leader.

So what is empathy? Empathy is the ability to have an intuitive understanding of other people and their needs. Within a business setting, it is critical for empathy to be as widespread as possible, permeating all departments from sales to accounting to manufacturing. In today’s world, as evidenced by the terrible financial crisis of last year, there is a possibility that we could get too caught up in data. When we do that, we often fail to see truths that are right in front of us. Employees at ll levels of an organization need to understand the people beyond the office walls – their customers, their clients etc. This enables everyone to make better real-world decisions. Over time, even the smallest decisions influenced by empathy add together to produce a more informed and nimble organization.

Empathy is a necessary attribute of a great leader but i is not sufficient. A lot more is required. In fact, some highly aggressive corporate environments see empathy as a sign of weakness. A good example of such cold-bloodedness was the hot-shot chief executive Albert John Dunlap, who appeared to relish the title of ‘Chainsaw A1′, bestowed upon him for the way he could and would fire any number of employees without hesitation. Well, he was considered to be golder CEO for a while, but he ended up being denounced for an accounting fraud! And that’s the core of the matter – people who are not empathetic often end up being selfish and short sighted instead.

Effective leaders, make tough decisions when situations warrant, but hey also communicate with employees and understand what they are going through. Empathy distinguishes a good leader from the great ones, in a crises situations.

It has been understood that empathy is one quality that a leader must possess in order to be successful and it also plays a role in making an organization achieve its vision. So,, what are the behaviors that go into making any person empathetic towards others and how can this quality be developed?

Empathy can be built from three major behavior
- Recognizing your own shortcomings – past and present.
- Listening to others and learning more about their lives and their private challenges
- Explicitly aspiring to a noble deal of leadership.

If you want your business to adopt widespread empathy, there are really three steps to follow.
1 – Leave the office and get outside. Go to places where people are most likely to act like themselves.
2 – Be genuinely interested in other people. Forget about what is that you do and start caring about the needs of others. Find the real needs first and your solutions will dramatically improve too.
3 – Bring evidence of the real world back to your offices.

Empathetic leaders position people first. True empathy stems from the leader’s ability to display genuine concern towards the needs of others. High level of empathy is denoted by:
1 – Listening to people:
Pay attention to their tone of voice, to the hidden emotions behind what they are saying to you and to the context. Don’t interrupt people. Don’t dismiss their concerns offhand.

2 – Focusing on the non-verbal communication:
the body language of people often communicates what they think or feel, even when their verbal communication says something quite different.

3 – Being fully present:
when you are conversing with people, don’t check your email, look at your watch or take phone calls. Allow people to have their comment.

4 – A Smile:
it makes people comfortable and you more.

Hence, it can rightly be said that, even if you have all the qualities of becoming a successful leader, but if you miss the basic quality of feeling empathy towards your teammates, your journey towards success will be very short lived. Put yourself in their shoes and see how success touches your feet.

Seven S Framework of Management

A common adage in the management consulting business is that efficiency and effectiveness are completely different measurements. An organization can be extremely efficient, getting high productivity from their workforce and producing their product or service with very little waste or churn, yet be totally ineffective in meeting their objectives if, for instance, their product or service is not accepted in the marketplace. This difference is often distilled to the statement “efficiency is about doing things right, while effectiveness is about doing the right things.”

The Seven S approach is a framework that focuses on guiding managers to improving, not just our processes, but our entire strategic approach to the business.The Seven S approach is a framework that focuses on guiding managers to improving, not just our processes, but our entire strategic approach to the business.

So what are the Seven S’s, and how do they fit together to help consultants and managers improve business performance? Here’s a brief walk through of the attributes of the Seven Ss.

#1. Strategy: The overriding goal or objective that the enterprise wishes to achieve, and the course of action it intends to take to reach that goal. From the viewpoint of IT, the key question here is often about alignment. Are the activities of the IT staff focused on achieving the strategic goals of the organization? Is there a forward-looking IT plan or road-map that illustrates how the IT function will drive towards to long-term strategic objectives of the firm? Is the CIO involved in strategy formulation or just an implementer? Every IT professional has experienced situations in which a manager or executive becomes enamored of some technical solution, often sold to her by a sales representative as the “end-all fix,” and IT finds itself devoting all its energies to implementing a product that is disconnected from the firm’s strategic goals.

#2. Structure: The manner in which the enterprise is organized, and the relationships between the entities, such as departments, field offices, etc. Is the organization authoritarian, like the military, or decentralized or federated? How do internal processes and human resources work together to achieve the goals? In my consulting experience, I’ve seen many firms that want to migrate to an e-commerce approach to sales, and yet see e-commerce enablement as a project, rather than as a structural problem that needs to be solved. No matter how great the e-commerce engine an organization builds, if it’s internal organization and structure is not modified to adapt to this new channel, it has very little chance of success.

#3. Systems: Not just information systems and infrastructure, but also the processes and the functions that enable the organization to work, such as recruiting, accounting, and procurement. From e-commerce to data warehousing and knowledge management, and all across the array of processes and systems that companies employ to deliver their products and services, the ability to make the right technology decisions, to optimize processes, and to enhance productivity are make-or-break elements of success.

#4. Staff: The human resources that actually accomplish the work, and the recruiting, incentives, and compensation practices that encourage them to achieve. An organization’s ability to attract and retain the best talents and to keep them motivated and productive is key to execution of the enterprises goals. All the strategic innovation in the world cannot compensate for an unmotivated staff or low productivity.

#5. Style: The elusive “corporate culture” is captured here; is the enterprise customer focused and quality driven or focused on maximizing profitability at any cost? Does the enterprise strive to build a cohesive team of its staff, or does the organization view its workforce as a series of interchangeable hands-for-hire?

#6. Skills: The unique competencies that drive competitive advantage. From the “hard” technical skills of designing products and managing projects to the “soft” skills of communication and teamwork, staff capabilities are essential elements of strategic success. This element also addresses organizational skills: As we’ve recently learned in the case of General Motors, the ability of an organization to develop products or services that the marketplace values is the differentiating factor in the market battlefield.

#7. Shared Values: The core beliefs and attitudes that drive the enterprise. Values are not the mission of the company — that should be captured in the firm’s strategy. Values are about behaviors, taking the form of statements like “we’ll never sacrifice customer satisfaction for short term profit” or “we always thank the customer for choosing us.”

Seven S is just a conceptual framework; therefore, it doesn’t tell us how to fix those areas that require development. By applying your experience, reviewing the ideas found in the literature (such as Good to Great and other business classics), enlisting the insights and suggestions of members of the organization, and applying disciplines like Six Sigma where appropriate, you can help firms apply a consistent approach to strategy development and execution and improve their results and competitive position.