2012 - Let the Talent Wars Begin!

Among many of my professional colleagues they have noticed a significant upswing in hiring in our local area of the Silicon Valley and their local areas across the country. However in many cases while they see the hiring we have not been able to take the time to compare notes on what we see as trends.

While a totally informal poll with absolutely no scientific method, among the executives and technology specialists that I interact with on a regular basis there are a number of areas of growth:

• Cloud. This is both a mix of cloud providers such as SalesForce, Amazon, etc. Also there is growth in cloud enablement or provisioning where organizations are looking to create their own internal clouds.
• Mobile. Everyone I have spoken to has seen significant demand for mobile expertise. While there is a large amount of focus on Apple iOS and Google Android, there is also increased demand in Windows Phone 7 as well. 
• Big Data and it's corresponding analytics. I put both of these together because in my mind there are several facets to big data such as infrastructure/operation, and the very valuable analytics. While it is true that the ideal is to have data scientists, many organizations want the value of the analytics are looking to convert internal personnel to the task and/or looking for tools/services.
• Enterprise Applications. Surprised? As more experienced individuals retire or move away from core enterprise applications, younger talent finds such applications very boring and unattractive leaving large gaps in terms of having personnel capable of meeting the demand. This demand is unlikely to change as enterprise applications are not really capturing the imagination of graduating college students.
• Social Networking. A very fast growing area thanks to the competition between Facebook and Google, many professionals are finding significant demand in this area in terms of services, analytics, competitive products, and consulting. 
• Gaming. Casual and social gaming have certainly increased but the increased interest in gamification techniques and how they can be applied to companies have created a noticeable increase in companies looking for those with some degree of background in gaming. How much this grows remains to be seen but it is interesting.
• Enterprise Consumerization. Many organizations are looking to create large financial impacts by engaging and retaining orders of magnitude of customers. In order to do this, companies are looking at ways to introduce degrees of consumerization into their organizations and ultimately personnel who understand various aspects of this concept and what it entails.
• User Experience. Many companies now realize that user experience is tremendously important to attracting and retaining customers. As a consequence there is a very large increase in looking for designers, user experience experts, and other disciplines. This includes not only creating whole new experiences from scratch but transitional as well moving from existing ones to new ones. 

In addition to these areas, there are corresponding increases for a variety of experience levels ranging from college graduates to experienced professionals. 

Another observation about these positions is a commensurate increase in their expectations along a variety of dimensions: flexibility, entrepreneurial, adaptability, and many others. Many of my colleagues have also noticed that most of the organizations had in fact held conservative stances during the recession which while natural created skills gaps between what the market now demanded and their own skills. As a result, many find seizing these new opportunities more daunting than they had originally planned.

2012 signals a period of unparalleled demand for professionals that we all hope will be shared by others on the road to recovery.

Be Valuable - How Do I Get Jobs To Come To Me

Ever since I parted ways at my standing position for my previous employer all of my colleagues, friends and family had been concerned. I decided to be out in the toughest market in history with no "solid" prospects for renewed work.

However since my departure I have been able to consistently get opportunities presented to myself on almost a daily basis often times up to a dozen a day. This has been consistent even during the most difficult of times and as optimism in the market improves the opportunities have been piling up enough so that I have been challenged to reply to every one of them.

Most of my colleagues find what I do incredible and for many of them very unbelievable. I have taken a few of them and helped them along showing them my inbox, the opportunities that I have followed up with, and more importantly the steps I had taken to help me get to this point. Even with just a few helpful suggestions they have seen improvements in their own situations from what they were getting before. I thought to share some of these suggestions with others in the hope that others will be able to benefit from them and improve their own situation.

I have blogged about some of these before but here are the suggestions that I can make that have worked for myself:

• Know your value. What makes you valuable? What is your value? These simple questions need to be answered concisely and honestly. Look to past reviews or just general comments and compliments from others. Hidden in this feedback is the answer to these questions.
• Have a story. Make sure to have a central theme to what you are professionally speaking. Are you a leader? A troubleshooter? A miracle worker? Do not be afraid to take the time out to look at this carefully. A job title is not your story. I explain it the following way. If I tell someone that I am a "technical architect" for company "XYZ" that tells them very little about what I actually do. They draw their own conclusions. Your story should be able to stand alone without the preface of title or affiliation. After all your story comes up right after those anyway. Some things to keep in mind about your story:
  • A story is not just about your responsibilities, duties, or tasks. These are nice facts to fill in the space of the story. These are not the story itself.
  • Your value is your story. An example story I use all the time is "You are the world's best father." This is a great start. Why are you that? What do you do to get that? What inspirational examples do you have? These are the core of your story.
  • Your work experience is nice but secondary as well. It is what you accomplished throughout your experience that people care about.
• Communicate holistically. In today's world it is not merely enough to focus on a single source to present yourself. You need a mixture of several different sources blended and woven together to make a powerful presentation:
  • Resume. A resume is still used by many companies so make the investment in a good one. Spend some money. Spend the time to make it represent you. Keep it up to date.
  • LinkedIn. An online professional site, LinkedIn is fast becoming a place where professionals go to accentuate their abilities outside of a traditional resume. It is a good place to keep things up to date, professionally speaking. It is an excellent place to provide additional information about your professional abilities.
  • Blog. This is next big area that lets others know more about you online. This is far less structured than say FaceBook and less concise than Twitter, but a blog let's others know more about you on both a personal and professional level. A blog can be whatever you want it to be so take the time to get one, experiment and post something about yourself.
  • Twitter. Letting the world know what you are thinking is great. However keep in mind that Twitter must be concise and to the point. You can be whatever you want to be on Twitter just make sure that if you are going to use it for professional purposes, make your tweets align with your online presentation. 
• Practice! One of the most common mistakes I run into is that people do this but then fail during the actual interview or networking event. Take the time to practice what you have done. Look at it or have others look at it. Get their critiques and improve. Rarely do you get it right the first time and without practicing. So take the time and make sure it becomes second nature.
• Be honest. I am sort of shocked at how often this occurs which is people introducing little white lies. There is absolutely no need for that. Just stick to the honest facts and you will be fine. Be proud of who you are and what you have accomplished. That goes much further.
• Network. Even if you are highly qualified no one will offer you a position if they do not know you are looking. Make sure you reach out to your network and let them know you are looking. Many times I get asked the question "What if I am currently working and I want to look?".  My answer is simple, go look at other opportunities. If you are not happy with your current employer looking around for other opportunities is no great shame and nothing to hide. The worst thing you can do is not be honest to yourself and limiting your contact to your networks for new opportunities.
• Update everything at every major event. Deliver a big project? Move to a new city? Looking for a career change? All of these are big news to your network and create opportunities for yourself. If you are going to change make sure those that would want to hire you know what you are thinking about and why. It makes all the difference.

One big point I would like to make before I start which I have with my friends and colleagues as well. If you have something that is working stick with it. What I offer is just my opinion of what has worked for myself and from the feedback I get has worked for others as well. These suggestions might not work for you, but then again they might.

This process takes time but it is really worth it. Being on top of your professional career is a full time job. You need to stay on top of it and quite frankly manage it as if you were your own company. In the end you can only rely on yourself and that is where all doors to opportunities open and close.

Why Should Someone Hire You?

I am sure everyone has encountered this situation: a friend or colleague has lost their job and starts looking for a new one. They write a resume, start looking and find that what used to work for them no longer does. Initial optimistic concern turns into dire panic as time goes by as the person in question finds that they are not getting any kind of response. They seek advice from anyone in their network for assistance.

I have run into this more times than I care to count in the past year and the symptoms may vary but the cure is the same. I always explain to them that they can get a great start on their next opportunity by answering the question "Why should someone hire you?". This ranks right up there with my other question on "What do you want to do?" but is far more direct.

This question drives at what I call a "complete value proposition". Most people still think that simply having a resume and then going out to look is all it takes to find a job. While basically true there is much more that goes into this. This is what I recommend to friends and colleagues of mine on addressing this question:

• Get all of your value written down. Take a look at old performance reviews, emails, comments from peers on what they really appreciated or valued. I advise making 2 columns: one for thoughts, and one for value. You can write any thought down but always make sure to write down what the value is. In many cases to people that I speak with, they have no idea why they received the praise or what value they have. This helps a lot.
• Determine your core value. Look at what you have written down and see what the common theme is. It may be related to project management, writing code, getting costs down, delivering a marketing campaign, etc. It will most likely be more than one thing so make sure to jot down the various characteristics and weave it into a common theme.
• After knowing your value and getting a theme, plan your message. Everyone asks what is this and why do it? Simply knowing your value is not enough. You have to get others to recognize it as well. Also not everything fits onto a resume; only the most important items for the position you are seeking fit. This usually means a lot does not make it onto a resume. So what about these facts? The best use is for your overall message. They play pivotal roles such as bios for Twitter, descriptions for LinkedIn, descriptions in your blog, follow up emails, and even as practiced talking points.
• Practice, practice, practice! Now that you have your message planned out, go out and implement. Apply it to Twitter, update your Linkedin, write a few entries for your blog, and go to networking events or just plain interesting meetups in your area and see how your practiced dialogs go. I like to think of it as an iterative development cycle for your value and hiring. It will not be perfect the first time out in the public eye, but adjust it quickly and improve along the way, and it will become second nature.
• It takes time. This is the one single thing that I stress over and over. Most people think that they can do all of this in "a week or so". This is absolutely not true. It usually takes weeks to months from beginning to end. Unless you are continually practicing this sort of thing on a regular basis, it takes time to update everything properly and re-assess whether your value and message are accurate. The best time to start is before you actually need it. But even in the worst case, dedicated effort can really help.

Many of my colleagues and friends who have done some of what I have suggested have been really happy with how effective the approach can be. I am just happy that they find a new place to work at a time when the market is so challenging.