Sunday, April 27, 2008
Welcome Denmark and India
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Data Analyst poetry?
Monday, March 17, 2008
Working with recruiters (part 6)
This is when you must make absolutely sure that your resume is not sent without your approval. You'll look disorganized if two firms present you to the same employer. Even worse, the employer may avoid you because it does not want to get involved in a dispute between two firms over who found you first.
Approach an interview with a recruiter as if it were with a potential employer. The employer's first impression of you will more often than not come from the recruiter. With that in mind, prepare for an interview with a recruiter just as you would for an interview with a hiring manager.
Even though the recruiter does not work for you, in some cases you can be more open with the recruiter than you would be with an employer without the adverse consequences. For example, specifying a number of job search parameters early on, such as maximum commute time, salary range, benefits, etc., may be considered presumptive or premature when interviewing with an employer, but it is much less so with a recruiter. In fact, skilled recruiters will appreciate the honesty, because they'll know not to waste their time and yours sending you somewhere you don't want to be.
If you aren't interested in a position, let the recruiter know. They may drop you if it happens more than once, but you'll probably be better off. Besides, why should they keep wasting your time sending you to positions you don't like? You deserve better.
Keep the recruiters in your network informed when you change jobs, get promoted, etc., especially those with whom you have already established a relationship (e.g., if they previously placed you).
To be continued....
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Upcoming posts
Working with recruiters - I'll be continuing this series of posts. At this time, I think that two more posts, part 6 and part 7, remain.
Preparing for your performance review - Performance reviews, also known as annual reviews, performance evaluations, etc., are used for many purposes, from helping determine your salary, to serving as justification for your dismissal, to being proxies for references from your managers when you don't want them to know you're seeking employment elsewhere. I'll be discussing the strategies you should follow for a successful evaluation.
Career Portfolios - What they are, why you need one, and how to create one.
Lessons I've learned as a business analyst - This includes a discussion of why true dimensional data models are a rarity, why metadata repositories are often missing critical information, why we must understand the political dangers inherent in a data quality initiative, why you should never believe that your one-time-only assignment is really one-time-only, and why you don't want to become VP in charge of weather, among other things.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Working with recruiters (part 5)
Once you meet with a recruiter, assess his/her knowledge of your field. Use this knowledge in deciding on the type of relationship you want with this recruiter. One example I often mention in the classes I teach: In 2000, I saw a job ad asking for someone with 5 years of XML experience, and 15 years of JavaScript experience. The problem? XML did not exist until 1998, and JavaScript did not exist until 1995 (when it was called LiveScript). Whoever wrote the ad had no clue what they were talking about.
Don't sit back and leave your future entirely in the hands of a recruiter. Be sure to keep looking for a job on your own to the degree that your schedule allows it. To avoid problems, however, be sure to require a recruiter to get your permission before sending your resume to an employer. The recruiter should tell you the name of the employer, and honor your wishes to not pursue employment with that employer, should you feel that way. Also, be sure to inform your recruiter of any companies to which you will be sending your resume on your own.
About eighteen years ago, one recruiter sent my resume to an employer that already had my resume as a result of my own job search. The employer told me what happened, and said that they would inform the recruiter that they already had my resume. They told me that, should they hire me, they would not consider me to have been presented by her. When that company eventually did hire me, the recruiter was not compensated. At that time, I was two years out of grad school, and she was an experienced recruiter, but we both should have known to avoid a situation like that.
If one recruiter is not getting you as many opportunities as you'd like as quickly as you'd like, then consider engaging more than one recruiter. Why not have more people working to help you find a position? Different recruiters know about different openings, especially retained recruiters, who typically have an exclusive agreement with a company for a particular opening or for all their openings.
Inform each recruiter with whom you are involved that you are pursuing other job leads, and that some of those will involve working with other recruiters. Use judgment in giving more details.
To be continued….
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Witajcie!
You may have noticed that I added a ClustrMaps widget just under the Feedjit widget to the right. It was added later, so it does not reflect all the locations from which I've previously received visitors. Also, I've noticed that it lags behing Feedjit in recording new visitor locations. However, it does have the advantage of using circle size to indicate the number of visitors from a particular location.
