Finance: Stable IT Spending, Less Hiring

With all the gloom around shrinking technology budgets in the financial sector, the news that trading firms are likely to at least keep IT spend in line with last year is a surprising bit of good news. Even more improbably, some areas may actually be growing.

Tech firms Sybase and Financial Insights took in responses from 200 investment banks, broker-dealers, fund managers and hedge funds and found that the majority planned to keep IT spend on a par with last year.

The old favorites, risk and compliance, are expected to see an increase in technology spending this year. Other areas are also set to see a slight up-tick in IT investment – market risk, security and fraud management, enterprise SOA, server virtualization, network management, collaboration technologies and CRM.

Sean O’Dowd, capital markets senior analyst at Financial Insights, says: “While capital markets firms are confronted with an extremely difficult market environment, the study’s evidence suggests that they are diligently working to position themselves for future success.”

However, while this is good news and gives you an idea of at least some areas where there could be job opportunities going forward, sadly recruitment is not on the agenda yet.

The one area where firms are pulling back is hiring staff.

– Paul Clarke

The News: More on Watching Your Online Self

Employers Watching Workers Online Spurs Privacy Debate [WSJ]

Capital Factory incubator chooses five startups [VentureBeat]

A CIO’s Take on the Future of Green IT [Data Center Knowledge]
Green IT is all about best practices, regardless of what happens to the technology.

Can Geeks Go Green and Still Stay Ahead of the Tech Curve? [eWeek]

Survey: SMBs Still Positive on IT Spending [eWeek]

E-Prescription Adoption Picking Up [InformationWeek]
Stimulus or not, ehealthcare’s a long-term effort. But here’s another step forward.

JC Penney CEO And CIO Put IT At Heart Of New Strategy [InformationWeek]

Are IT Management Frameworks Effective? [CIO Update]

People

Founder and Chief Is Leaving MySpace [NY Times]

Top E.D.S. Executives Leave H.P. [Bits]

Support Yourself By Blogging? Not Really

For refugees from an intellectual and real-time-oriented business – like many aspects of tech, for example – the notion of blogging for profit has natural appeal. An ex-colleague of mine blogs for a living, and a few professional acquaintances in transition have at least toyed with the idea.

How achievable is it? Not very – unless you’re able to get by on $22,000 a year even after putting in enough work to attract what’s considered a large audience for a blogger (100,000 unique visitors every month). That’s what evidence from a widely cited survey indicates. And it’s reinforced by anecdotal evidence from individual bloggers.

The economic potential of blogging is suddenly a hot topic, due in large part to an article in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal by guest columnist Mark Penn (better known as one of the nation’s leading election campaign strategists). Penn cobbled together statistics from disparate surveys to argue that some 450,000 Americans rely on blogging as their main income source – more numerous than computer programmers or firefighters, and almost as numerous as lawyers – and those with substantial readership earn $75,000 on average.

Figures Don’t Lie, But….

Other authorities – who apparently have greater respect for the numbers and sources they quote – call Penn’s conclusions suspect (to be polite).

“This article is ABSURD!,” one well-known financial journalist and blogger e-mailed me in reply. “My blog gets more than 100k unique visitors and was earning $200/year before we removed the ads (no point in having them).” He goes on to cite a friend whose site also draws heavy traffic, is highly targeted to a well-defined group… and brings in about $6,000 a year in ad revenue.

“No one is living off this money!” my contact concludes. “The notion that half a million people make anything near subsistence on blogging is total crap. I’m used to bad statistics, but this is really beyond the pale.”

(For a rigorous dissection of Penn’s methods, see Waldo Jaquith’s post in the Virginia Quarterly Review.)

– Jon Jacobs

Still in Demand: Java, .NET, Linux Skills

Researcher Foote Partners’ newest IT skills and certification data shows that IT professionals with expertise in Linux, Java/J2EE, unified communications, Microsoft .NET, virtualization should see their pay increase, according to Foote Partners’ IT Skills and Certifications Pay Index. These skills increased in value during 2009’s first quarter, the company found, as did ERP and business process management/modeling and improvement.

As for certifications, CIO magazine reported:

… the Sun Certified Programmer for Java Platform, HP Certified Systems Engineer and Cisco Certified Security Professional certifications rebounded in value during the first quarter, after having experienced declines during the final months of 2008. The three certifications that remained in demand from the fourth quarter of 2008 to the first quarter of this year are GIAC Certified Incident Hacker (GCIH), HP Accredited Systems Engineer and EMC Proven Professional Technology Architect – Expert.

In general, Foote research found that pay for IT skills fell by 0.5 percent overall during the first three months of this year. But while 60 skills and certifications declined in value, 46 increased in value, according to the latest quarterly update of Foote Partners’ IT Skills and Certifications Pay Index.

The News: Real Green, Real IT

Earth Day: The Best Of Green IT [ChannelWeb]

Google Me. No, Really! [Mashable]

Does Avoiding a 9-to-5 Grind Make You a Target for Layoffs? [WSJ]

If You Haven’t Laid People Off Yet, You Probably Won’t [ERE.net]

How to Hide Your Twitter Habit From the Boss [Bits]

More loss, More Layoffs for Yahoo under Bartz [VentureBeat]

Oracle to Lay Off Thousands of Sun Workers? [eWeek]

New Military Command to Focus on Cybersecurity [WSJ]

People

Jeff Russakow Joins Yahoo! as Senior Vice President of Customer Advocacy [Yahoo via BW]

Pano Logic Appoints Executive VP of Engineering [ReadWriteWeb]

Verifi, Inc. Selects Edward Katzin as Chief Technology Officer [Verifi via BW]

Cheaper Routes to Certifications

EarthWeb’s Eric Geier is well aware – as you likely are as well – that studying and testing for IT certifications can be expensive. Luckily, he offers two great suggestions for getting the study materials you need at a bargain price. His first idea: Join the IEEE Computer Society.

For $28, for a half year, and non-students can join the society only for a half year at $49. This gives you free access to a conglomerate of study resources and networking outlets. You’ll have access to 3,000 distance-learning course modules, where your favorite certifications will probably be included. Course subjects range from Cisco to Java to project management. You also have access to 600 selections from Safari Books Online, Essential Tech, and Business Library. Plus you are given access to 500 books through their e-Learning Campus, provided by Element K. You’ll also get discounts on select conferences and be able to participate on committees.

Geier’s other good idea: Join the Association for Computing Machinery.

Students can become members for as little $19, for an entire year. Professional membership starts at $99, also for a year. All individual members receive full access to over 2,500 online computing and business courses, in multiple languages, and 1,000 virtual labs provided by Element K. Also like the IEEE Computer Society, ACM gives you access to 600 selections from Safari Books Online. The ACM Online Books Program also includes an additional collection of 500 online books from Books24×7.

Geier also points out that it’s worth checking out your local library. You never know what they may have on hand.

Job Hunting Tips for IT Graduates

Folks about to graduate from college must be thinking they have lousy timing. Not only are they competing with everyone else getting their degree, but they have to prove they’ll be a better hire than hundreds – even thousands – of newly unemployed, experienced IT workers. InformationWeek and TechCareers was kind enough to offer some tips.

• Take Advantage of Your Youth: Hiring managers tend to think younger workers are more comfortable with technology. This is the time to use that to your advantage. Companies want to stay ahead of the curve on new technologies, so you should emphasize this strength.
• Describe Your Experience Creatively: Highlight any experience you’ve gained while obtaining your degree. If you don’t have any “real” experience to point to via internships, then discuss what kind of volunteer work you’ve done with various organizations.
• Make Use of Your Contacts: This probably is the most critical part of your job search, so make sure to develop good relationships with professors, on social networks or within any organization that can help you build professional contacts. Developing strong social skills now will help you in job searches throughout your career.

Protection During Your Job Search

If you’re unemployed and searching for a job, having your identity stolen or receiving scam job offers just adds insult to injury. Although it’s important to conduct online job searches with a bit more caution, remember recruiting was one of the first business processes to move online, and the industry’s experience has resulted in few incidents of candidate identity theft. Nevertheless, you can protect yourself by using a little common sense and following these tips:

• Provide limited contact information: Consider using a professional alias like: Innovative Network Specialist or just your first initial and last name and provide only your city and state of residence and a cell phone number, until you’re certain you’re communicating with a legitimate employer or recruiter. Never include your social security number on your resume or the year you graduated from college, because you want to make it as hard as possible for a perpetrator to trace your identity. Use a free e-mail account (with a professional-sounding address), or a mailbox dedicated exclusively to job search activities. That way you can keep search-related e-mail separate from personal e-mail and shut down the extra mailbox, once you’ve landed a position.
• Provide additional information with caution: While it’s certainly possible that your ID could be ripped from the database of an employer or staffing agency, landing a job requires trust and most legitimate employers and agencies take precautions to make sure your data is secure. To be on the safe side, never give a prospective employer or recruiter your social security number, unless you know why they need it. If the recruiter needs the information to process a background check, ask which background screening company will be used and who will have access to the report.
• Spotting a scam: Research the sender of any e-mail to make sure the requestor is a legitimate recruiter before responding. Don’t respond to any request for money or any advertisement offering to find you a job for a fee. And although it’s not unheard of, it’s rare for employers to post job openings confidentially. Remember, if it sounds too good to be true, it’s probably a scam.

California Streamlines Its IT Hiring Process

About 50 percent of the California government’s IT workforce will be eligible for retirement in the next five-to-seven years. So state IT executives like Christy Quinlan, the chief deputy director of  the information technology department, expects the government to be hit with an IT talent shortage.

How is the Golden State preparing to handle the challenge?  For one thing, state officials are streamlining their hiring process, which in the past could take three to nine months to put out a job offer. That didn’t put the state in a strong position to snap up IT talent.

Interested job applicants now can take the required statewide open civil service exam online, click to get their results, then go to California’s site to apply for a job. In the past, retrieving test results took two months, and you needed them to look for a job. The new system is expected to reduce the hiring time considerably.

Quinlan says addressing the issues is particularly important to recruiting Millennials to replace workers opting for retirement.  Millennials – also known as Generation Y, or those born between 1980 and the mid- to late 1990s – aren’t known for waiting. “Kids are not patient,” says Quinlan. “We want to recruit new people, new talent and new blood. Historically, we haven’t had an easy hiring process. We are now competitive with the private sector.”

Survival Hint: Meet Your Deadlines

If you’ve spent a sleepless night or two worrying about your job and what – if anything – you can do to hang on to it, you’re not alone. What might give you the edge? A dedicated following on Twitter? Bringing doughnuts to staff meetings? Completing yet another professional development class?

None of the above. What employers want most isn’t tweet, chocolate-glazed or gold-framed. “Employers want to know that you can be trusted to do what you say you’ll do,” says Sandy Allgeier, a former HR executive and author of The Personal Credibility Factor. One of the most telling factors, she observes, is an employee’s ability to meet a deadline.

“Meeting a deadline isn’t optional. It’s essential,” says Brett McQuiston, an infrastructure architect for SPX Service Solutions, a division of Charlotte, N.C.-based SPX Corporation. He manages a team of six. “My department serves the customer. If we miss a deadline and the customer is dissatisfied, we risk losing their business.”

More than revenue can be at stake with a deadline, managers note. “Making deadlines is an important part of working in the financial environment,” says Dennis O’Brien, president of Coastal Financial Advisors in Farmingdale, N.J. “Clients have expectations, and it is the reputation of the firm that is at stake.”

And while the ability to meet a deadline may not be more important in a challenging economy, it certainly is more noticeable. “Lower performing employees don’t last,” says McQuiston. “When the economy dips and companies downsize, the first people to be cut are the ones who are perceived to be poor performers.”

Let Reality Be Your Guide

Oftentimes, employees fail to meet a deadline because they underestimated the breadth of a project. “The reality is that the very technology that makes our jobs easier is the same technology that is likely to interrupt us countless times in the process,” Allgeier points out. “Because we want to be seen as the go-to person, we often make commitments on the spot that aren’t realistic. A better solution is to let your supervisor know that you need to create a schedule for the project, and then get back to him or her within a couple of hours or the next morning.”

So, what, if anything, can be done if you do blow it? “You can drop the ball, but you’ve got to be in a position to pick it right back up again,” says Allgeier. “Take ownership. A simple, ‘I’m sorry. I overcommitted. I’ll have the project done by X,’ can go a long way.”

– Amy Rauch Neilson