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 Topic: Career NewsThe new items published under this topic are as follows.
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Harvard Business School Working Knowledge, August 15
Based on extensive research of high-performance teams that produce outstanding and innovative results as the result of superstar contributions, two business school professors describe how any business organization can maximize the value of their star performers without diminishing the talent and ego that makes them unique. Quite simply, these so-called "virtuoso teams" play by a different set of rules than other teams. When virtuoso teams begin their work, individual stars pay little attention to group consensus. However, as the project progresses, the individual stars start to develop a group identity, linked by the pursuit of one overarching goal. Using a case study from Norsk Hydro, the article illustrates how organizations can develop group consensus and team harmony, while at the same time recognizing the superstar status of its individual participants.
Virtuoso teams -- work groups comprised of outstanding individuals united to undertake a specific goal - differ markedly from "garden-variety" groups. As a result, organizations need to take special steps to ensure that these virtuoso teams perform at peak capacity. After noting the challenges in getting elite experts to function together as a team for ambitious projects, the article examines why so many companies fail when implementing virtuoso teams. Based on extensive research data available on the performance of these teams, the two professors propose a framework for understanding how virtuoso teams begin their work, how these individuals slowly but surely attach themselves to the group, and how the group can eventually become "a plurality with a single-minded focus on the goal."
In order to illustrate these points, the article considers a case study of Norsk Hydro, which used a virtuoso team to handle an investor relations crisis. Instead of settling for mediocrity, the team leader of a major project assembled a high-powered group comprising the very best technical people from across the company in order to understand what had gone wrong in a major exploration project. The team leader ignored the prevailing corporate culture, choosing instead to publicly celebrate the members of the team and put them in the spotlight. By building a "group ego" while still enabling members to work autonomously, the team was able to accomplish what seemed impossible: to transform itself from "a collection of egocentric individuals" into "one great totality."
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Jobsite.co.uk
According to career consultant Sarah Berry, there are ten relatively easy ways to boost your self-confidence in an interview situation. Most of the steps are obvious -- like making eye contact with the interviewer and smiling. However, other steps may not be so obvious. For instance, Berry advises that it's important to ask for the job, at least indirectly, during the interview. Also, despite the temptation to make disparaging comments about former bosses or employers, it's best to adopt a positive approach throughout the interview. By doing all the basics well during the interview, you will be confident enough to focus on all the ways that you can add value to the organization.
Career expert Sarah Berry looks at a few simple and relatively easy ways to boost your self-confidence in an interview situation. Good manners -- like thanking the interviewer for his or her time - are important. A number of other basics also matter: good eye contact, smiling at your interviewer and listening attentively. Accept, too, that things don't always go according to plan, so be ready to improvise. In order to win over interviewers, think about ways to show that you value them as individuals
One tactic might be focusing on your interviewer's name and using it during the course of the interview. As Berry points out, "treating someone with respect is vitally important and shows a degree of self-confidence." Show enthusiasm for the job, and if the opportunity exists, state outright that you accept the job. Be positive throughout the whole interview and resist the temptation to be picky or critical. Don't be tempted to make negative remarks about previous jobs, bosses and management styles.
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Business Week, August 9
Even an expertly-crafted resume will not get the consideration it deserves if it is sent to people who are unlikely to respond. In order to determine where to send the resume, it is first important to network with individuals close to the target company. By essentially getting your resume "vouched for" by company employees, you can ensure that your resume ends up on the top of any resume stack. However, use discretion in choosing which companies you submit your resume to -- it's far too easy to bulk mail the resumes to too many companies using online job search sites. Even as you devote most of your energy to carefully selecting companies and positions to target, don't forget to draft a winning cover letter that spells out why you would be a perfect match for the job.
One overarching goal during the job hunting process should be ensuring that your resume ends up on the "short stack" of resumes received from someone linked to the company who can vouch for your candidacy, such as current employees or suppliers. So how do you ensure that your resume ends up in the right place? It requires a bit of networking, so that you develop the types of contacts to move your resume to the front of the line. Put most of your energy into person-to-person job hunting rather than online job hunting.
A few basic steps can mean the difference between success and failure. Your resume should be free of typos or mistakes. In addition, your cover letter should help to put your candidacy in a positive light. Despite the temptation of sending your resume to every headhunter possible, focus on sending the resume only to people who really can open doors for you. Many headhunters will simply contact every company possible to send along your resume; in the long-run, this might hurt you, if you are also contacting that same company through a different intermediary.
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UW-Madison (08/18/05); Devitt, Terry
A group of eminent women researchers and administrators present the case that most women scientists at universities must still contend with bias, a lack of respect, and even outright hostility in the Aug. 19 issue of Science. University of Wisconsin-Madison professor and group leader Jo Handelsman says most of the hostility is subtle and insidious. The analysis indicates that women seeking tenured faculty positions and advancement opportunities face a number of challenges, including a "chilly" campus atmosphere that many men do not perceive; unconscious discrimination; disproportionate family obligations; and fewer women being trained to the Ph.D. level in engineering and physical sciences. Alice Hogan, director of the National Science Foundation's ADVANCE Program, reports that these issues often hurt women's chances of advancing in their science careers. "While we as a nation have made considerable progress in attracting women into most science and engineering fields, we still see fewer women at the full professor and academic leadership levels than we would expect given the pool of women with doctorates," she explains. Handelsman reports that the gender bias issue is finally starting to come to light, which is a positive step. She also notes that people and institutions can address the issue through various strategies: She cites UW-Madison's Women in Science and Engineering Leadership Institute, which has set up workshops to teach solid search techniques to faculty search committees, as well as make committee members more cognizant of hidden bias. Georgia Tech, meanwhile, has launched a Web-based effort to make gender-, race-, and ethnicity-related biases understandable to deans, department chairs, and tenure and promotion committee members.
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Asbury Park Press (NJ) (08/15/05); Ash, Lorraine
The H-1B visa program was founded, ostensibly, so that U.S. industry could import skilled foreign workers to address a shortage of cutting-edge tech, science, and engineering positions. NexGen Infosys owner Manoj Prasad, who came to the United States 10 years ago on an H-1B visa and is now an American citizen, agrees with many people that fresh H-1B tech graduates are more likely to be hired by U.S. companies than industry veterans who have not brought their skills up to date. Yet Prasad acknowledges that hiring available domestic talent is preferable, given how much it costs and how much time it takes to locate, sponsor, and fund the arrival of an H-1B worker; what is more, H-1Bs are ineligible for any jobs requiring security clearance. Prasad and other tech industry players argue that the best workforce mixes domestic and H-1B professionals, and Prasad says he would rather import an H-1B worker to fill a domestic position than offshore the job. However, economist and National Research Council committee member Eileen Appelbaum contends that the H-1B option is usually framed in an unacceptable way: "Industry said in 2001, 'Let us have the H-1B visas and we'll do the work here, or you can say no and we'll just move the work offshore,'" she recalls. "Well, they got all the H-1Bs they wanted, and they still moved work offshore." The current yearly H-1B cap of 65,000 was recently raised by an additional 20,000 visas for people who must have earned at least a master's degree at a U.S. school, which industry representatives say is an attempt to encourage talent nurtured in the United States to stay on. This is an increasingly difficult task at a time when overseas opportunities and better schools in more nations are luring workers away, according to Compete America Chair Sandra Boyd.
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Denver Business Journal (08/14/05); Mook, Bob
With the number of women venturing into technology careers at its lowest point since the 1970s, nonprofits such as the National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWIT) at the University of Colorado's Boulder campus are endeavoring to find out why. A recent survey found that one quarter of 1 percent of incoming female college freshman list computer science as a probable major, down from the mid 1980s mark of 4.25 percent. Girls are frequently dismissive of math and science at the secondary school level, as only 15 percent of the students who took the science Advanced Placement exam in 2004 were female, while girls accounted for 55 percent of the overall number of students who took AP tests. The dot-com collapse has eroded general interest in technology, though IT suffers from an image problem that specifically deters women from pursuing it as a career, said NCWIT CEO Lucy Sanders. Despite the Bureau of Labor Statistics' estimate that 1.5 million IT jobs will be created by 2012, many young people are discouraged by concerns over the emerging trend of offshoring tech jobs. Sanders is concerned that the exclusion of women from the IT sector will undermine the healthy collaboration between genders that often generates the best results; rather than a gender-specific high school curriculum, Sanders advocates an effort by educators to overhaul the image of technology to make it more appealing to girls by debunking the myth of the isolated programmer alone in a cubicle for eight hours a day and emphasizing the broad relevance of IT in a diversity of fields.
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SiliconValley.com (08/13/05); Johnson, Steve
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service announced on Aug. 12 that all 65,000 H-1B visas for fiscal year 2006 have been depleted in record time, whereas the H-1B cap was not reached in fiscal 2005 until October. The announcement spurred business interests to push for expansions to the H-1B program: ITAA President Harris Miller said the program is critical to American competitiveness in the high technology market. "We believe a significant increase is required to meet the need for specialized skills and keep companies--and, as a result, jobs for U.S. workers--growing at a steady pace," he declared. A law enacted last year provided an additional 20,000 H-1Bs for foreign workers with master's or higher degrees from U.S. institutions, and 8,000 of these visas have thus far been apportioned for fiscal 2006. Intel's Tracy Koon said her company has been unable to find highly skilled computer engineers and other professionals in the United States, adding that the number of U.S. students enrolling in engineering programs is insufficient. However, Ira Mehlman with the Federation for American Immigration Reform claimed U.S. companies should not be courting foreign workers, given the vast pool of recently out-of-work domestic talent.
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ITworldcanada.com (08/05/05); Patrick, Ryan B.
A recent spate of IT recruitment in Canada is a positive sign, primarily for seasoned as well as aggressive technology professionals. Two months ago saw the launch of a Communitech-led hiring initiative in the Waterloo Region whose participants include over 50 area tech firms and several local universities; Communitech CEO Iain Klugman indicated a general recovery in the IT sector, with the region in particular need of IT pros with at least five to 10 years of work experience. Meanwhile, Sun Microsystems and IT solutions provider Dinmar recently opened an Ottawa-based health care IT research facility with the goal of promoting open-standards-based technology and making health care IT systems more compatible, according to Sun's Charles Mair. And SAP Canada's SAP Labs Canada division announced plans in June to double its workforce with 100 new software developers who will work at its R&D center in Montreal to design and develop industry-specific business software products and applications. New Age Consulting President Sathish Bala believes the IT hiring boom may be partially attributed to companies consuming their budgets on outstanding technologies, with the end of the year looming. "Companies are getting more focused on cost control through technology innovations so they are hiring contractors and perm staff to help execute," he said. Toronto-based IT consultant Robert Fabian does not expect a major shift in entry-level employment trends in the near future, noting that outsourcing, off-the-shelf packages, automation, and other factors are limiting hiring opportunities to mostly middle- to senior-level staff.
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IDG News Service (08/03/05); Martens, China
The mainframe is enjoying a comeback of sorts with a resurgence in centralized IT functions among many organizations; also contributing is the need for companies to replace retiring mainframe experts and Chinese, Eastern European, and other international companies investing in mainframes to acquire additional computing power. Murray McBain with the Royal Bank of Canada says mainframes support a significant percentage of business for 95 percent of Fortune 1,000 companies, while the Clipper Group's Mike Kahn reports that mainframe work offers job security, a key consideration for many computer science students. IBM is moving ahead with its plan to churn out 20,000 mainframe-trained employees by the end of the decade through collaborations with corporations and educational institutions under the auspices of its Academic Initiative. Kahn says many computer science graduates lack large-scale project experience and the skills to understand enterprise computing, as both they and their teachers have been trained on PCs. He observes that mainframe programs such as IBM's are particularly successful at community colleges and night schools, which are more firmly committed to graduating employable students than some of the more first-class schools. Academic Initiative program manager Mike Bliss notes that collaborating with smaller schools and community colleges can be easier because such institutions are less specialized, less bureaucratic, and can implement classes faster. There is a serious decline in student computer science enrollments in North American schools, and Kahn says the dot-com meltdown and the media's focus on outsourcing have contributed to this trend. McBain recommends playing up computer science's challenging or exciting aspects in order to attract more students.
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Seattle Times (08/04/05); Large, Jerry
University of Washington computer-science program director David Notkin, who recently joined the board of the Computer Research Association, suggests that IT jobs are more plentiful now than they were prior to the dot-com boom--at least for people with design and other higher-level computing skills. The surge in competition means that possessing just average computing skills is no longer enough to guarantee a job, according to New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. Notkin says the false assumption that IT jobs are scarce since the Internet bubble's implosion is partly responsible for a decline in the number of students studying computer science. He is attempting to encourage more people to pursue computer science by courting female and minority students, an effort complicated by persistent stereotypes of IT workers as socially maladjusted Caucasian males working in an isolating environment. Notkin says person-to-person interaction is an important element of programming, which means good social skills are a must. Computing is also a challenging and meaningful area of study that is applied to nearly every field. UW students, for example, are developing programs to assist people who suffer from Alzheimer's.
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