Soft Skills, IT Certifications, Job Titles, and Job Interview Tips

Soft skills are the non-technical skills employers look for. Some of these important soft skills are listed here:

Don't make bosses (or co-workers) look bad. Remember everyone makes mistakes (including you). Figure out a way to address problems without making anyone look bad. Don't let others think that you think they made a mistake. Also, don't bypass your boss. Ask for their opinion before raising issues with others.
Know when a decision is final and when your opinion isn't wanted. Learn when not to point out the mistakes of others, and to keep quiet about problems that aren't your direct responsibility (unless you have solutions that make others look good).
Don't present problems without solutions. If you think you've found an issue that needs addressing, try to provide several possible ways to resolve the problem.
Learn to listen to others, patiently. This is not an easy skill to master!
Learn how your organization really works. Many times an organizational chart is worthless. See who gets CC-ed on memos, who goes to big meetings, etc. Then make a point to informally meet the influential people so they know who you are.
Reputation is important. Learn what others think of you. If others see a flaw, don't confront those liars. Instead go out of your way to show that they are wrong. Spreading recognition for your co-workers' job well done will get you a reputation as a professional with whom others like to work.
Learn who is trusted by management and establish a good relationship with them. They are people to whom you can make effective suggestions (and who will be listened to). These are the people you can use for a sounding board for your ideas or ask management/political questions.
Learn what is important to your management. You should avoid rambling on about things they don't care about, or appearing indifferent to things they consider vital.
Learn the business lingo of your organization's line of business. Unless you can understand that language you'll never realize what is important to your bosses, or how to communicate with them.
Develop teamwork skills: team decision making, collaboration on a project, group communication (and presenting to a group), conflict avoidance, and (when avoidance isn't possible) conflict resolution. Learn to compromise. This may mean gracefully accepting a stupid decision even when you know better.
Think ahead about any possible conflicts between corporate policy and your legal and ethical responsibilities. If you wait until the boss says to ship the buggy product and don't tell anyone it is too late to take effective action. At this point you need to become an accomplice or a whistle-blower; neither choice will enhance your career prospects! If you work out the problems ahead of time, you can point out legal and safety issues with the policy and effect change in a way that reflects positively on you.
Manage your time effectively. Don't give into the temptation to just saying yes whenever asked to do a new task. If you don't have time, present your supervisor with choices and deadlines. (A bad boss will tell you to just do all the tasks no matter how much time you need to spend per day to get it all done by their deadline. There's not much you can do with a poor manager except to make them confirm all such assignments in writing; bad bosses will be reluctant do leave a paper trail that proves they violated corporate policy!)
Look and sound professional, keeping in mind the local corporate culture. Make professional looking reports, memos, etc. Don't use profanity or tell off-color (or any bad) jokes. You need to be able to make effective oral and written presentations. Appearances matter!
Keep an eye on your career path. If you have a terrible boss (managers can be great, terrible, and somewhere in-between) you still need to make that boss happy if you wish to transfer to another position. Beware of bosses who change project goals frequently or who ask you to work over-time because they didn't budget enough time for the project.
Stay happy! You must enjoy your work or you won't keep abreast of the industry. Don't become complacent; stay humble and willing to learn!

Although most employers prefer employees with degrees rather than certifications, earning a well-recognized certification can't hurt! In some cases a certification may be required, in other cases it may be enough.

Usually you can find out which certifications may be useful to you by joining a professional society and asking other members. Once you know about some certification there is usually a web site for it, or a page on the site for the organization that provides the certification, where you can see the objectives, recommended study materials, certification requirements and fees, and sometimes sample exam questions.

Over time the useful certifications will change. For example in the field of computer security the most widely recognized (and respected) certification is CISSP. The U.S. department of defense has, in the wake of the 9/11/2001 terrorist attack, defined new required certifications for any federal employee handling sensitive information. (See DoD Directive 8570 for more information on this.) Obviously having the required certifications will open many jobs to you.

Keep in mind most employers know that most certifications can be passed by anyone who buys a practice exam and study book, and works at it for a week or so. This is why many employers prefer to hire those with college degrees or college credit certificates.

Workers new to the job force don't have much experience to show potential employers. Besides certifications and degrees, you should get involved in your field in a professional way. One good way is to join and be active in a professional society or two. There are large national and international professional societies that relate to most fields. For computer related jobs consider the ACM (association for computing machinery at acm.org), the oldest and second largest computer professional society; and the IEEE/CS (Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers / Computer Society at computer.org), the largest and best known internationally. There are well respected professional groups for programmers, system administrators, network professionals, database administrators, website authors and managers, etc. There are also some not well respected groups, and newer groups that are not well known to employers. Some of these have very compelling websites. You must do your homework to pick appropriate affiliations.

Additionally there are groups such as EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation at eff.org) and EPIC (Electronic Privacy Information Center at epic.org) that perform lobbying, political watchdog activities, or other activities to benefit society. Employers like well-rounded employees, so even non-professional activities show you in a positive light: volunteer work at school, beach or highway cleanup projects, working for blood drives, student clubs etc.

It's not enough to just pay dues to a professional society. Go to meetings (make professional contacts or network). You can meet people that have jobs and ask them about their companies, what they actually do, etc. You can hear about unadvertised job openings. You may get a chance to work on a public project. While just being a member may be useful to list on a resume, most employers will be more impressed if you were active. You can present at conferences or local meetings, review papers for the society's publications, or even write articles. Since many employers look for signs of leadership ability you should consider becoming an officer of a professional society's local chapter, school clubs, and other groups.

Besides the networking opportunities, most professional societies offer many educational and financial benefits. It is often much cheaper to join when you are a still student.

Another way to get involved with your profession is to participate in an open source project. There are lots of such opportunities if you are a programmer, but there are projects relating to all fields that can use volunteer effort.

(From www.ElisteinCartoons.com)

(From www.phikappaphi.org/honorcord/experience.html)

Besides technical questions most employers use behavioral interview techniques to get a good sense of the type of employee you'll make. These are designed to make you think on your feet. You should be ready to talk about your experiences that could fit situations your potential employer throws at you. It doesn't matter if what you talk about is from previous job experience or not. The employer wants to get to know about you and then make judgments on how they think you would fit into the job.

Indeed, most interviewers won't even pretend to understand the technical side of your job and will interview you to find out about your soft skills. (Only after passing your initial interview will another technical interview be scheduled. In some cases you will have an initial interview with a organization's human resources department, then one or more interviews with various managers, and finally a technical interview.)

Here are some questions you might encounter, courtesy of Scott Weighart, author of Find Your First Professional Job: A Guide to Co-ops, Interns and Full-Time Job Seekers: “Tell me about the time you:

failed at something
had to take an unpopular stand
really had to go way above and beyond
had to show exceptional attention to detail
dealt well with a difficult colleague/co-worker
showed that you can multitask under pressure”

Before an interview, prepare about five stories (if you have that many) that relate to the qualities of an ideal employee for the position you're interested in, and that show off your best qualities. A really good story (of a past experience) can be used to answer three or four different types of questions. Read your scenarios aloud to a family member, friend, faculty member, or adviser, and ask for feedback.

(From www.ElisteinCartoons.com)

Make sure you prepare your stories. You might be able to wing it but you won't give the best answers if you do. Make some notes of past achievements, experiences, certifications, and formal education as these relate to perceived responsibilities on the job. Make sure the story proves or shows something positive about you. The best way to do that is making sure your story has the ABC details: Affection (which shows emotion), Behavior (which shows your action), and Cognition (which shows your thoughts).

Do not make up stories. These can be seen through by an experienced interviewer.

Appearance counts! Dress for the job. So does grammar when writing and speaking; avoid slang. Try to control nervous habits such as moving your hand, shaking your foot, using um and and (when you should silently pause, as between sentences), and failing to look the interviewer in the eye.

Looking people in the eyes is a cultural issue; in some parts of the word it is considered quite rude. In the U.S. it is generally considered rude to not look people in the eyes when speaking with them. Try to be sensitive to other people's (and especially your interviewer's) culture!

Don't be afraid to admit you don't know something. Take your time to think about what the question is, and what you want to say, to convey the impression you will be a valuable employee.

Have some question of your own for the interviewer. It will look bad if you don't! Do your homework before the interview: check out the company's website and whatever other sources you can to find out about them. You should know something about the company size, locations, organization, line of business, and details about your job (job titles don't always mean the same thing to different people!) including typical work assignments. You should ask about compensation including time off, overtime, promotion opportunities, etc. Are you expected to be on-call after hours? Work uncompensated overtime if the project is behind schedule? (Don't ask this directly; be subtle!)

See also the article on experience.com: Top 10 Interview Tips from an Etiquette Professional, by Nancy R. Mitchell.

(Adopted from the article The Key to Finding a Good Job in IT by Warren E. Wyrostek. Posted December 9 2008 at www.InformIT.com.)

One problem when looking for jobs is that different employers use different job titles for the same job. If you don't search for the right title (or use the title an employer is expecting in your resume) you won't find all jobs available. Different titles are used in different industries and sectors: the U.S. government will use one name, the health care industry another, the aviation industry another, telecoms another, and the financial and banking sector yet another.

Here is a list of the names used by companies for those who offer IT training jobs: Trainer, Instructor, Technical Trainer, Technology Trainer, Technical Instructor, Technology Instructor, Training Specialist, Training Analyst, Training Consultant, Learning Analyst, Learning Consultant, Training Consultant, Education Specialist, Education Analyst, Education Consultant, Training Developer, Training Engineer, Education Engineer, and Learning Engineer.

A related job is a manager of trainers/educators, with job titles such as: Training Manager, Training Director, Learning Manager, Learning Director, Director of Technical Training, Director of Training, Director of Education, Director of Learning and Development, Director of Learning, Learning Manager, Education Manager, Education Director, and Technical Training Lead.

Networking jobs use different titles for different types of jobs, such as a LAN, WAN, Cisco certified, etc. Some names used for these jobs include: Network Engineer, System Engineer, Network Specialist, Network Analyst, Systems Specialist, Systems Analyst, Network Administrator, or even Systems Administrator.

For System administration jobs, the list of titles is even larger. Some such jobs will be listed by type of system, by some certification, or by some misfitting human resources job category such as Member of Technical Staff.

In addition to the job title, the level of experience desired by an employer may use different terms, such as Entry Level, Intermediate Level, Expert Level, or by some years of experience that are rarely meaningful. (When an organization wishes an expert in a new technology they may advertise for 5+ years of experience, even if the technology in question is only 1–2 years old!)

The USENIX/Sage (The system administrators guild) has carefully defined IT job titles and experience levels, such as Novice, Junior, Intermediate/Advanced, and Senior administrators. (See www.sage.org/field/jobs-descriptions.html for complete information.)

To determine what jobs are available you need to search the popular job boards on the web. However the listings change frequently, in some cases several times a day. When thinking of possible careers you should spend 10 minutes or so, several days a week, searching the various job postings. Do your searching on different days, and at different times, and examine several job boards using different job titles. If you keep this up for a month or so you will learn more about the job market than any instructor can tell you!

Many job postings are fake. This happens because head hunters (a.k.a. employment firms, employee placement firms, recruiters, etc.) get paid more for finding employees when they have more resumes to show. So they post enticing job ads. Learn to spot the fakes! They tend to list every popular buzz-word to describe the position. They also have long lists of certifications desired, many of which won't relate to a single type of job. When unsure of a posting, research it: check that company's website and see if they are head hunters or not.

Some of the better-known job boards (there are others) include:

BrainBuzz.com

Dice.com (One of the most popular.)

Experience.com — Entry Level Jobs & Internships, Useful articles

Find A Job in Higher Education

Florida Jobs, Tampa Jobs, Jobs in Tampa Bay, Florida Employment — Florida CareerLINK

IEEE Job Site

Indeed.com — Job Search

ITCareers

Kforce.com

Monster.com (One of the most popular.)

Pencom Systems Incorporated