Get your CV on top of the pile

It’s time to write that winning resume. Here are some basic guidelines.

A poorly written curriculum vitae (CV), despite the glowing achievements it may contain, will almost certainly create a negative first impression on a potential employer. After all, your CV is the initial point of contact companies have for judging how well you present yourself. Here are some basic guidelines to create the best line of communication.

Watch your length
List personal information
Order your content
Prioritize your past experience
Include professional and academic qualifications
Remember your language skills
Concentrate on skills when applying for an overseas position
Limit personal interests
Provide detailed references
Double check and triple check

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Topping Up Skill India: An App To Help Skilled Youth Find Jobs

Is it sufficient to just train the youth? What about jobs? How and where will the skilled youth find jobs? Skilling India is not enough, employing India is equally important.

The Economic Times reported yesterday that Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojna has completed 10 lakh enrollments under Skill India mission. Seventy percent of those enrolled, have already completed their training under 382 job roles. There are currently 8749 active centres across the country through which the central government is implementing the scheme with the help of NSDC, local training partners, state governments, local MPs and MLAs.

Why do we need Skill India program?

India is going through a demographic transition. By 2020, 64 percent of its population will be in the age group of 15-34. Every year, 12 million youth enter the job market. On top of that, there is a huge gap between the number of people who are looking for employment and the number of people who are employable. To reap the demographic dividend, a programme like Skill India would help.

So, what’s missing?

Though the NDA government set an ambitious aim to train 400 million people by 2022, the scheme so far has been able to enroll only 1 million. However, this is bound to change once the government expands its programme, becomes more efficient, involves more private partners, and as more people become aware of it. The government is working on these.

Skilling India is not enough. Employing India is equally important.

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The 33 worst lines ever said by tech recruiters

Everyone loves to talk about terrible pickup lines from the world of romance, but there's a far worse kind of misguided enticement going on right here in the realm of technology. I'm talking about the delicate dance of tech recruitment -- if you work in any area of IT, you probably know precisely what I mean.

The men and women tasked with recruiting tech talent go to great lengths to attract the attention of their targets -- (often unsuspecting) tech pros viewed as valuable "gets." While some recruiters prove to be invaluable in improving your career, finding exactly the right words to pique your interest in a new gig, far more seem to stammer, stumble, and elicit exasperated sighs.

You don't have to take my word for it. Several brave tech workers from around the globe have taken the time to share their favorite (if you can call them that) tech recruiter horror tales, and we have highlights for you here.

Category A: The cliché-loving recruiter
Category B: The trying-too-hard-to-be-hip recruiter
Category C: The shamelessly overselling recruiter
Category D: The woefully-out-of-touch recruiter
Category E: The completely clueless recruiter
Category F: The 'WTF?'-eliciting recruiter

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Questions From Data Science Interviews

You’ve just spent the last year working on honing your skills through the Data Analysis program. You dutifully spent your evenings — sometimes late into the night — on homework and projects, ignoring friends, family, and the ever-growing mountain of laundry in the corner. You coded hobby projects for your local municipality and wrote up an entire epic (at least, you thought it was epic) series of blog posts on your findings. And when a friend mentions her department’s struggling marketing efforts, your mind spins away on ways you might capture meaningful data and process the results.

Now you want to get a job. Which, despite your best efforts as a data analyst, depends almost entirely on acing the interview.

It should come as no surprise that careful preparation, and understanding the expectations going into the process, is what it takes not only to survive an interview for a data analyst position, but to set yourself apart as the best and most qualified candidate.

And even if you’re not actively looking for a position — if you’re still learning your craft and working your way through your projects — you can get started right now practicing interview questions, so that in six or twelve months, you’ll have done all the legwork necessary to wow your potential employers and win that coveted dream job offer.

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26 Books Every Recruiter Should Read

Reading resumes, job descriptions, and candidate requirements may be part of the job, but if you’re looking for a change of scene, we have just the thing to one-up your hiring game.

We spoke with The Sourcing Institute President Shally Steckerl to get his list of must-reads for talent pros determined to change, improve, and learn the ins and outs of effective outreach, engagement, and hiring.

What we came up with is the official World’s Greatest Sourcer collection of 26 books that should be sitting on your nightstands, packed in your work bag, marked up and tagged on your desk, passed off to every recruiter you know – you get the idea. Here’s the grand list.

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The 10 worst body language mistakes job seekers make

It takes a nearly flawless resume, an impressive cover letter, and, in many cases, a few inside connections to land a job interview. But all it takes to blow it is a weak handshake or bad posture.

"Body language can have a big impact on the way you're perceived by others, especially at work," explains Rosemary Haefner, chief human resources officer for CareerBuilder. "It can seem silly but there are psychological reasons behind it, so thinking about how you're carrying and expressing yourself at the office shouldn't be forgotten."

A new survey conducted by Harris Poll on behalf of CareerBuilder asked 2,500 hiring managers to identify the biggest body language mistakes job seekers make in the interview. Here's what they said:

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41 of the trickiest questions Google will ask you in a job interview

Google has a reputation for asking difficult brain-teaser questions that challenge how you act under pressure.

Most of them require you to think quantitatively and broadly, and test the way you tackle problems on the spot.

Google probably switches up its questions over time, but career website Glassdoor provides a glimpse of the types of brain-stumping puzzles Google has asked in the past.

Not all of Google's tricky questions are necessarily meant to be brain teasers - some of them sound simple, but turn out to be difficult to answer in a concise way.

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The Future of Jobs

The Fourth Industrial Revolution, which includes developments in previously disjointed fields such as artificial intelligence and machine-learning, robotics, nanotechnology, 3-D printing, and genetics and biotechnology, will cause widespread disruption not only to business models but also to labour markets over the next five years, with enormous change predicted in the skill sets needed to thrive in the new landscape.

This is the finding of a new report, The Future of Jobs, published today by the World Economic Forum.

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10 top sites to find legit work-from-home jobs

Where to find legitimate work-from-home jobs

The traditional 9-to-5 office has become an abstract concept in today's age of mobile computing and cloud-based services. Workers can now log on and work from virtually anywhere at any time. In the past, finding legitimate work-from-home jobs wasn't easy. But today, thanks to the same technology that has made remote work possible, you can find a number of sites that curate legitimate telecommuting positions.

If you're looking to make the move from corner office to home office, here's a list of websites that will get you on your way to finding your dream career.

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Computer World -- 100 Best Places to Work in IT 2015

Computer World's 22nd annual report ranks top organizations across the country that offer technology pros challenging projects, robust salaries and flexible work/life options. We honor employers that offer high salaries, superior benefits, and unsurpassed access to training and career advancement opportunities.

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How to revamp your IT resume

Meet Deron Lespoir, an SAP training consultant with more than 10 years of experience managing learning initiatives for big-name companies. Lespoir wraps up a five-month contract with Viacom/MTV in December and has his sights set on landing another contract opportunity -- six months or longer -- ideally in the New York City area.

Lespoir's experiences fall into two categories: managerial roles and training roles. As a manager, he's responsible for a company's SAP training lifecycle: hiring other trainers and content developers, understanding organizational learning needs and current processes, and then developing a strategy and training plan to facilitate that. On the training side, he is responsible for understanding the company's business processes, developing training materials, and facilitating employee training.

He told us he is looking for a leadership role next. "The one thing I love about my jobs is that [they're] people-based. In every organization, you have easygoing people and difficult people. It's all about being able to relate to them, and I have a great track record with that."

Lespoir met with Felix Fermin, senior technical recruiter with the IT recruiting firm Mondo, to fine-tune his resume for his next job. Here's a look at the resume's positives and negatives, plus how they reworked the resume to better showcase his experience and strengths.

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Internet matters: The Net's sweeping impact on growth, jobs, and prosperity

The Internet is a vast mosaic of economic activity, ranging from millions of daily online transactions and communications to smartphone downloads of TV shows. But little is known about how the web in its entirety contributes to global growth, productivity, and employment.

These (the report) findings suggest that corporate leaders will need to sharpen their focus on the opportunities the Internet offers for new products and expanded customer reach. Companies should also pay attention to how quickly Internet technologies can disrupt business models by radically changing markets and driving efficiencies. Public-sector leaders ought to promote broad access to the Internet, since Internet usage, quality of infrastructures, and Internet expenditure are correlated with higher growth in per capita GDP. For governments, investments in infrastructure, human capital, financial capital, and business environment conditions will help strengthen their Internet supply domestic ecosystems.

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10 reasons for quitting IT

There are a lot of upsides to working in IT — but depending on your situation, you might find yourself considering other career options. Jack Wallen describes a few factors that could be the last straw for some IT pros.

1: Stress
2: Hours
3: Getting paid
4: People (in general)
5: The chain of command
6: Technology
7: Competition
8: The cloud
9: Lack of standards
10: Respect

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10 reasons to stay in IT

Thinking about quitting IT? Alan Norton did — more than once. See why he says there are 10 good reasons to hang in there.

1: Money, money, money
2: The professionals
3: Career continuity
4: The challenges
5: The rewards
6: Marketability
7: The skills
8: The respect
9: The geek factor
10: The love of IT

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Cloud computing: What does it really mean for IT jobs?

As adoption of cloud computing services takes off, some argue demand for certain IT jobs will all but disappear.

Just as manual labourers were replaced by the machines of industry in the 19th century so certain IT roles will be swept away by cloud computing.

That’s the argument put forward by Gartner research director Gregor Petri - who believes that many roles managing IT infrastructure will all but disappear.

Manual management of IT infrastructure - for instance provisioning additional storage, servers or network capacity for a particular application - will increasingly be automated as software layers in the cloud automatically divert IT resources to where they are needed, he said.

“It is very much like industrialisation,” he said.

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Interesting articles to read -- 05-09-2012

Interesting articles to read -- 05-09-2012

Vishy (chess champion and five-time world title winner Vishwanathan Anand )to help businesses make the correct move Read

Hiring scandal: How corrupt recruiters are cheating jobseekers, colleges and IT companies Read

14 Things You Should Do at the End of Every Work Day Read

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Top Ten Reasons Why Large Companies Fail To Keep Their Best Talent

Whether it’s a high-profile tech company like Yahoo!, or a more established conglomerate like GE or Home Depot, large companies have a hard time keeping their best and brightest in house. Recently, GigaOM discussed the troubles at Yahoo! with a flat stock price, vested options for some of their best people, and the apparent free flow of VC dollars luring away some of their best people to do the start-up thing again.

Yet, Yahoo!, GE, Home Depot, and other large established companies have a tremendous advantage in retaining their top talent and don’t. I’ve seen the good and the bad things that large companies do in relation to talent management. Here’s the Top Ten list (by the author Eric Jackson) of what large companies do to lose their top talent:

1. Big Company Bureaucracy.
2. Failing to Find a Project for the Talent that Ignites Their Passion.
3. Poor Annual Performance Reviews.
4. No Discussion around Career Development.
5. Shifting Whims/Strategic Priorities.
6. Lack of Accountability and/or telling them how to do their Jobs.
7. Top Talent likes other Top Talent.
8. The Missing Vision Thing.
9. Lack of Open-Mindedness.
10. Who’s the Boss?

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10 Mistakes to Avoid if You Want a Promotion

Unfortunately, unless you open your own business, chances are high that you are going to have a boss for a rather large portion of your career. And chances are equally high that getting on the wrong side of said boss is not going to do your career any favors. While that certainly doesn't mean that you need to bring your boss a cup of coffee every morning, it does mean that you should probably avoid making any of the following mistakes. After all, you do want to be promoted, right?

Attempting to Hide Problems
Pretending You Know Things You Don't
Regularly Talking Behind His Back
Being Unable to Handle Criticism
Being Full of Excuses
Not Knowing How to Use an Iron
Not Keeping Your Word
Keeping Agendas Hidden
Generally Being Irritating
Showing Zero Initiative

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The 9 Endangered Species in IT

Darwinism is no stranger to IT. Given the pace of innovation, today's plum post is almost always one shift away from becoming tomorrow's pink slip. But the trends currently taking hold of IT organizations may have a broader impact on IT employment than we've seen in years.

It's no secret that the cloud computing revolution and the infusion of consumer devices into the workplacehas wrought massive changes in IT. Job titles that were once considered secure are suddenly on the verge of extinction, thanks in part to a world where business users no longer have to go through IT to get to the technology they need to do their jobs.

Call it the new IT ice age. And tech pros who don't evolve with the times risk joining the T-Rex and the triceratops in the tar pits.

We spoke with a number of IT pros about the jobs they see going away in the years ahead. Here are nine of the most endangered species in IT, along with advice on how you can avoid becoming one of them.

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9 Simple LinkedIn Tips To Help Find A Job

If you are an older skilled worker who is in the market for a job you should be taking advantage of the significant benefits LinkedIn can bring to your job search: including warm leads into companies or to people you are targeting, the possibility of creating new job leads through recruiters who frequently use the site or people who are impressed with comments you post on the site, and access to posted and unposted job openings. So how do you take advantage of LinkedIn if you’re a job seeker?

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