BRIDGE Blog

Amy went to visit the New Horizons Computer Learning Center on October 9^th and had the opportunity to meet with Athena Aguiar about exciting training opportunities offered right here in Providence, RI

As I pulled into the parking lot of New Horizons in Providence I saw what appeared to be old factory buildings.  Walking toward the buildings I could see it had an old world charm oozing with history, as I got closer I saw it looked clean and sleek as if the old building had been given a new life.  Since October 2008, this building is the location of New Horizons Computer Learning Center.  New Horizons is a part of the NH Northeast family of centers, they offer training in Microsoft, Security, CompTIA, Cisco, Citrix and more.

I was greeted by Athena Aguiar, New Horizons Educational Advisor, who gave me a tour of the state of the art facility and explained to me the benefits of training at New Horizons.  Are you unemployed or under-employed?  Through their Career Training program students who qualify can receive up to $5,500 for training in any of New Horizons’ approved programs through the Workforce Investment Act from the Department of Labor & Training.  Training is geared towards real-world experience and certification in each field.

After training is complete, they also offer job placement assistance with their onsite career counselor.  Athena is there to take you through the process from beginning to end.  If you have questions about the program, including the free training, or you’re interested in enrolling please contact Athena at 401-654-5252, ext.3915 or at Athena.Aguiar@nhrhodeisland.com for more information.

Do you have a company in need of training?  New Horizons also offers customized training for companies and will customize a solution to help you meet your specific goals.  Many companies can’t afford to have employees out of the office, or feel like standard courses don’t meet company needs.  They can come to your location or can schedule private courses at one of their NH training center locations.  Here are some benefits of Onsite or Private Training:

• Customized or standard training
• Learn with real-world, mission-specific examples
• Maintain productivity with flexible scheduling
• Lower training costs
• Train all employees or departments at one time
• Eliminate travel expenses

Looking for college credit?  Baker University (http://www.bakeru.edu/index.php) and New Horizons Computer Learning Centers have developed a unique partnership that allows you to earn college credit for your New Horizons computer courses.  Below are some of the benefits of this program:

• Earn college credit while you train
• Apply New Horizons’ credits to a degree
• Use tuition reimbursement funds you have earned
• Get training that will help you advance your present career
• Prepare for new career possibilities

Please contact Chris Pereira or 401-654-5252 ext. 3914 or CPereira@nhrhodeisland.com for more information regarding training for your company.

New Horizons understands how critical it is for individuals in IT roles to be proficiently trained and skilled to support business goals and objectives.  They offer a mentored learning environment, which merges multiple learning styles to create an effective and efficient learning process.  This is accomplished by providing students with simultaneous access to information delivered via audio and video, a simulated production environment, and a mentor to guide them through the process and provide one-on-one support. Students control the content covered and the pace at which they learn so that they can focus on the specific skills they need to achieve their goals.  You can also use your Microsoft Software Assurance Vouchers and Cisco Learning Credits at New Horizons of Providence.

Check out the New Horizons Website here www.nhrhodeisland.com. 

A couple of weeks ago I made a presentation to the Southern New England Chapter of the PMI called “Optimizing Your LinkedIn Profile”.  Since I wasn’t a LinkedIn guru, I needed to get smart fast. I did lots of on-line reading which was helpful but I really came up to speed when I bought and read several books on LinkedIn. Two are worth picking up depending on your level of LinkedIn knowledge. If you’re relatively new to using LinkedIn pick up Patrice-Anne Rutledge’s book Sams Teach Yourself LinkedIn. This is a very straightforward, easy to read guide to the basics of LinkedIn. This book covers the full gamut from creating a LinkedIn account to using some of the most advanced features in very short chapters which are designed to take only 10 minutes to read.

However, If you have some experience with LinkedIn but want to really optimize your results you should pick up Jason Alba’s  I’m on LinkedIn, Now What??? Jason has excellent suggestions for among other things; improving your profile, developing a connection strategy, managing your recommendations, participating in “Groups”, and asking and answering questions in “Answers”.  In addition to the many suggestions for using LinkedIn, Jason offers related tips to improve your “personal brand” such as adding your LinkedIn public profile URL to your email signature. It would be considered bad taste to attach a copy of your resume to every email you send out but including your LinkedIn profile page is completely acceptable and may accomplish the same goal of promoting your personal brand.

If you’re too digital to actually pick up a book (you could get either for your Kindle) you can check out these web sites that also provide some nice LinkedIn advice:  Guy Kawasaki blog post “10 Ways to Use LinkedIn“,  Andrew Brandt’s “The Job Seeker’s Guide to Online Networking and Using LinkedIn”, or Phil Rosenburg’s “Build a LinkedIn Profile That You Can be Proud Of”.

Joe Devine, Partner, Bridge Technical Solutions

When you’re in a career transition, you want to utilize all the resources available to you. That only makes sense if you want to secure the best opportunity available as quickly as possible. As a recruiter, I’m certainly hoping you’ll work with Bridge Technical Solutions, but it’s important you also use other networking tools. And the primary networking tool you should use is LinkedIn. LinkedIn has not so quietly become the “go-to” social networking platform for the work-world portion of professionals’ on-line persona.  As of this August, they have over 45 million users and in June 2009 they had 16 million unique visitors and 331 million page views. These stats are more than double the June 2008 numbers!

Employers are increasingly using LinkedIn and you need to be visible where companies are actively recruiting in order to get the interview that might lead to your next job! You most likely already have a LinkedIn profile.  It’s time to update your profile for the best results. If you don’t have any LinkedIn account, get one now and check out this guide to getting started.

Using LinkedIn isn’t difficult but optimizing your results with it does require some tried and true practices. I will be sharing some of these practices in a presentation titled “Optimizing your LinkedIn Profile” at the SNEC PMI’s Career EXPO on Wednesday, September 16^th at the Four Points Sheraton in Meriden, CT. Here’s a registration link.  If you’re not able to make it to the EXPO email me joe@bridgetechnicalsolutions.com  and I’ll send you a copy of the PowerPoint.

Joe Devine, Partner, Bridge Technical Solutions

A popular employment issue over the past few years has been the use of social networking sites by employers for information on prospective and current employees.  Millions of people worldwide have joined sites such as Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Friendster.  The focus of these sites is to build online communities of people who share similar interests.  The sites allow users to create pages where you can display photos and share information about yourself with friends and the public at large.  While these sites may have originally appeared to have been tailored to teens and tweens, their usage has become widespread.  A recent survey revealed that 65% of business professionals are utilizing personal and professional social networking sites.  Not unexpectedly, employers have become more aware of such sites and it is easy for them to find information job seekers may have preferred to keep private. 

A 2007 survey by Careerbuilder indicated that 22 percent of hiring managers said they use social networking sites to research candidates prior to making a hiring decision.  This is twice the number that the same survey found in 2006.  34% of these hiring managers reported that they found content that caused them to dismiss a candidate from consideration.  Employers have also fired employees for information found on social networking sites.  For example, one person in Boston divulged on Facebook that his workday consisted of “screwing around on IM” and “talking to my friends and getting paid for it.”  After being confronted by the CEO about these entries, the person was fired.  Examples like this highlight the need for job seekers to consider the content they post on these “social” sites in the context of their professional, as well as private lives. 

Multiple articles on this subject have focused on the legality of using social networking sites as background checks of current employees or job applicants.  Before I begin discussing this subject, please note that this is not intended to be legal advice.  The common claims and questions have involved discrimination and invasion of privacy.  As one author put it “like it or not, as a general proposition employers are free to make . . . hiring and termination decisions, even based on false information, as long as in doing so they do not violate some specific law.”  At the moment no law prohibits employers from searching social networking sites on the Internet to conduct their own background checks of current employees or job applicants.  An employer can then terminate an employee or refuse to hire an applicant based on information found on the Internet so long as the information learned from the Internet is not used in a discriminatory manner or is otherwise prohibited by law.  An example of discrimination in this case would be if an employer only checks for damaging information on applicants or employees based on race or gender.  A claim of invasion of privacy is unlikely to succeed as this claim requires a “reasonable expectation of privacy.”  This is especially true if the site is readily accessible to the public.  However, there is a potential argument that using social networking sites to conduct background checks violate state statutory law.  For example, California and New York have statutes that prohibit employers from interfering with employees’ off duty private lives. 

It has been difficult to find any example of a successful claim against an employer for the unlawful use of social networking sites.  At least one expert believes that lawsuits over internet snooping are only a matter of time.  However this is merely speculation.  There is only one true way to prevent your social networking sites from negatively impacting your career: be careful about its content.  You should assume that future employers will read everything you post. 

On the other hand, using your sites affirmatively can give employers a positive view of you.  In the same Careerbuilder survey mentioned above, 24% of hiring managers indicated that they favored some job seekers over others because of their social networking profiles.  These job seekers included/illustrated attractive information about themselves in their profiles such as great communication skills, wide range of interests, good fit for employer’s culture, professional image, and creative ideas.  There are other ways of preventing negative attention from employers based upon information on social networking sites such as changing your privacy settings on sites such as Facebook so that only certain people can view your profile.  Periodically checking your friends or acquaintances’ sites for contents concerning you can also help to make sure you don’t get any unpleasant surprises during the hiring process or during your employment.  Finally, Google yourself!  Use a search engine such as Google to see what information people can find out about you on the internet and make sure that what you find is appropriate.  Look at what you’re putting out to the world about yourself with a critical eye if you don’t like what you’ve found be proactive and change it – don’t let your social networking persona negatively effect your real life career.   

Surprise, surprise. Giving away food, drinks, and a mini-laptop was incentive enough to bring over 100 people out to our Young IT Professionals Happy Hour on April 16^th.  We were pleased to see how many people stayed to socialize long after we did the drawing for the laptop and the McFadden’s gift certificates.  The opportunity to meet other young people in the IT industry was clearly as strong a pull as the invitation of free food and drinks.  

One of the main goals of our Happy Hour was to address part of the RI Tech Community (recent graduates and new members of the workforce) that rarely get out to networking events.  Networking events can be intimidating, especially for young professionals.  With that in mind, we were particularly thrilled to see all the new faces: a few people who are regulars at ProvGeeks and TechCollective events all mentioned how refreshing it was to come to an event where they hardly knew anyone. I kept walking up to groups of people and asking how they’d heard about the event. One of the most common ways was through RINexus, which is clearly a site that the RI IT community admires and follows.

Regardless of where our attendees heard about the event, it was great to see that the turnout included a variety of companies and professionals all getting together to enjoy Happy Hour (or three hours) with us.  We were pleased to meet so many great new people at the event and we engaged in some really wonderful conversations throughout the evening.  We also had a chance to catch up with some young IT professionals we had successfully placed in companies throughout Rhode Island, along with people we have known for the past few years who were nice enough to come out and support our efforts.  The laidback atmosphere at McFadden’s seemed to be a great space for mingling and we noticed there were many people who didn’t know each other and had a chance to make connections.   

Thank you to everyone who participated in our online survey and congratulations to our winners of the night Barsha, Aura, and Chris!  We are looking forward to sharing our survey results with you very soon!

 Overall, our happy hour proved there is an audience for these types of events.  We’d like to help build the community and provide younger IT professionals with networking opportunities. People kept asking if we were going to have another event. The reality is that holding regular events like our Happy Hour is unsustainable – we can’t give away a laptop every month, but everyone had a great time and we are looking forward to hosting more events in the future to get IT professionals together.  Thank you to everyone for making our event a success and keep an eye out for our next events!  Until then, don’t be shy – drop us an email and let us know what you think. 

I went to the Providence Chamber’s Congressional Breakfast on Monday morning. It was a great “only in Rhode Island” event: what other state could get the entire congressional delegation and a host of the State’s business leaders in one room for a relatively inexpensive breakfast? It’s events like this that highlight the adage that our size is our strength. Rhode Islanders enjoy accessibility and a flow of ideas and contacts on a scale unimaginable in most other states. Simply put, unlike in other states, in Rhode Island you don’t have to shout too loud to be heard.

One thing that was missing at the Congressional Breakfast was many people under the age of twenty-five. No surprise there. B-o-r-i-n-g. Not many recent college grads are interested in a Congressional Breakfast. But with this and so many other events, Rhode Island’s young professionals are missing an opportunity to have their voices heard. And it’s hard to blame them: at that age you’re often focused on different priorities, if you’re focused at all. When I was twenty-four my time horizon stretched out about as far as the next vacation and “long-range” planning was buying a plane ticket home to see my parents over the holidays.

But these talented young people are a key to the success of our state. The clichés ring true: young professionals are the brainpower and creative engine that will drive RI’s economy in the future, the entrepreneurs and idea sparkplugs who will help us jump the curve. These young people have the time, energy and risk tolerance to power RI’s next phase of growth.

So how do you build a vibrant network from people who often resists networking? How do you get them involved when they’d prefer swilling Red Bulls and playing Wii? How do you connect with a notoriously hard-to-reach demographic?

We don’t claim to know the answer, but Bridge Technical Solutions is going to try. We’re starting with a Happy Hour for young IT/DM professionals.  

Bridge Technical Solutions RI Young IT Professionals Happy Hour

McFadden’s

April 16^th, 5:30 – 8:30 

RSVP: http://www.bridgetechnicalsolutions.com/pages/RIYIT.cfm

OK, so “young” is a relative term. We don’t want to be overly selective or get hung up on age…if you feel young come on by. Bring a friend. Bring a friend who’s not in IT/DM; it’s a happy hour after all. We have our own resident 23 year old recruiter, Amy McDermott, planning the party and bringing along a bunch of her friends, and we’re hoping to get a strong turnout from other young RI professionals. We’ve set up an online RSVP site, where people can enter to be in our raffle (we’re giving away an ASUS-Eee mini-laptop) and get a free drink ticket at the door. There’s a short survey on the RSVP site, where people will have a chance to give us some opinions about their experience living and working in Rhode Island and let us know what’s important to them.

Bridge Technical Solutions is proud to be a sponsor of RI Nexus. We want to help develop a strong IT/DM community in Rhode Island and hope that reaching out to young IT professionals will be a way to do our part. Come join us. 

Oh yeah, and I almost forgot! To spice things up we’ve invited Beyonce, Megan Fox, LeBron, Michael Phelps, Panic! at the Disco and a bunch of others. No confirmation yet on whether or not they’ll be there…

James Wright, Partner, Bridge Technical Solutions

New Years has come and gone and now that we are in the early stages of March have you been able to keep up those goals that you vowed to accomplish on that cold night two months ago?  Maybe you want to save more money or lose those extra few pounds from the holidays, whatever it is it’s not too late to get yourself back on track and achieve your goals in 2009.  

I’m sure you’re sick and tired of hearing about all of the bad news out there in regards to the economy.  Regardless of whether you are happily working or looking for your next opportunity, it’s a smart idea to set up career goals because the first step to getting what you want is knowing what you want.  Maybe you already set career goals for New Years, are you still making a conscious effort to keep on track with those or have you changed your mind and want something completely different now? 

First, start by asking yourself “What do I really want?”  A promotion?  A new, exciting opportunity?  Just something to pay the bills and get back in the job market?  Your goal can be as specific or general as you see fit.  Maybe you want to learn some new skills on the job or get that certification you’ve been thinking might set you apart from other job seekers.  Whatever it may be, once you have made your decision you can follow through by making a plan for how you will achieve your goal. 

Before you make your action plan, don’t forget to do your research.  If your goal involves salary, check out recent salary surveys for the year of 2009 to see where you fall in comparison to other professionals in your field (see the links in this month’s BRIDGE newsletter for more salary information).  Finding out how you compare to your peers can also help you focus your goals.  If your goal is to advance in your career part of your action plan could be to take some classes to sharpen your skills or to attend local networking events to scope out the local business scene.  Research local class schedules or check out the latest publications on the skill you’re interested in developing.  You can also find event calendars to see what’s going on in the area for networking, volunteering, and community events.  Think about different ways you can make yourself stand out so employers know that you will be an asset to their company. 

If you take the time to sit down and map out how you can achieve your goal it will make it less daunting.  This will give you something tangible so you can see your goals in action.  Remember you don’t have to change everything in your life at once, in fact that is the best way to not achieve your goals, it’s too overwhelming.  Writing it down will make it harder to ignore, you can even post it someplace you see every day like on the fridge.   If you are afraid that posting it will only bring to your attention that you are falling short of expectations, maybe you’ve set your expectations unrealistically high.  Take the time to reassess every so often to make sure it is still something you really want and brainstorm new ways to reach your destination. 

The final part of achieving your goals is putting your action plan into ACTION!  Once you have set your goal and have some ideas written down for how you can achieve them, go out and do it!  You can start small, ask a friend to attend a local networking event with you or get a few people together and practice interviewing with mock interviews (remember Jon’s Interviewing Tips blog last month?)  Making it fun will help make it more effective because it will be something that you actually want to do.  Don’t be afraid to ask for help when it comes to updating your resume or writing a cover letter.  Check in with a BRIDGE recruiter to see what kind of opportunities are available and if they have any tips for what you can do to get where you want to go.  Remember to stay in touch because if there isn’t anything available at the time something is bound to come in.   

If you’ve gone off track from your New Years Resolutions, just remember you still have 10 months to make it happen.  By establishing realistic goals, making a plan, and setting it in motion you can make 2009 a happy, healthy, and successful year.  Good luck!   

Amy McDermott

The internet is full of examples of interviews gone bad.  Many of these examples are humorous, from candidates challenging interviewers to arm wrestling, to mid-interview phone calls to therapists  you don’t have to search long to find examples of really poor decision making during interviews.  A personal favorite of mine is that of a candidate who came to an interview with a moped and proceeded to leave it in the reception area.  He didn’t want it to get stolen, and said he would require indoor parking for the moped if he were hired.  He wasn’t. 

While most of these examples seem far-fetched, any recruiter can give you similar examples (let’s just say that it’s not a good idea to bring a pet to an interview unless it is a service animal).

The importance of a successful interview has seldom been greater as our economy is undoubtedly in desperate times.  Simply put, you can’t waste the opportunities you’re given. Whether there is a science to good interviewing is debatable.  The so-called “experts” on the subject have led at least one interviewee in my experience to disaster even when the person followed instructions to “alleged” perfection.  This particular example came about as a candidate answered some of the most common interview questions (particularly “What are your biggest weaknesses?”), with pre-planned answers according to how a popular book on the subject informed interviewees to do so.  To make matters worse, this candidate had already interviewed successfully with the employer more than once.  Both the candidate’s technical skills and “soft” skills passed the test.  In the end, one “X” from Human Resources was all that it took to derail his successful interview train.  The cause … they didn’t like the way the candidate answered the most commonly asked questions. 

Although all employers are different in what they are looking for, there are a few “universal truths” to help you put together a successful interview.  The first of which occurs before the interview begins.  Research the employer and  - if possible -  try to learn the credentials (at least the name!) of the person that you will be interviewing with.  I have found that the impact of doing this successfully has been tremendous.  For example, one recent interviewee discussed an article that the interviewer had written to assist in the answering of a question.  Major bonus points.  More important, though, is learning about what the employer is looking to accomplish with a particular project, software, etc…  Establishing an understanding of what they are looking to accomplish, and then stating specifically how you can help them attain their goals is paramount to success.  Preparing to do so before the interview has clear benefits. 

Keeping a positive attitude and personality throughout an interview is also an important factor.  This should go without saying, but far too often candidates have been nixed for not being a “personality fit.”  As a hiring manager once told me, “you can teach someone technical skills, but you can’t teach personality.”  Some actions that can immediately raise red flags are speaking negatively about past or current employers, or prematurely discussing the issue of compensation.  The desired personality certainly does not have to be that of the life of the party.  Rather, the characteristics necessary are those of someone who will be able to get along well with most people while displaying some form of enjoyment for performing one’s job.  Seems simple right?  Of course that is greatly simplified, but it is surprisingly accurate.  And please, please do not speak over the person interviewing you!             

Finally, practice interviewing as much as possible.  If at all possible, practice with a friend or family member.  This will increase your comfort level, and will help ensure that you answer questions clearly and directly.  An interviewer, much like the rest of us, is not a mind reader.  He or she will not know what you are capable of unless you tell them.  It is always unfortunate to hear from a hiring manager that “I feel that he has good skills, he just could not get across the knowledge in his answers.”  Practicing interviews will assist in preparing you to get all of the points across that best illustrate your skills.  While practice may not necessarily make you perfect, it will optimize your chances of impressing the interviewer.        

There are multiple other interview tips to help you make the best of your opportunities.  Much like how the internet offers you access to humorous interview horror stories, there are also helpful websites to help prevent a disastrous performance.  Below are a few of our favorite links …

http://jobsearch.about.com/cs/interviews/a/aceinterview.htm

http://www.job-interview.net/interview.htm

http://www.jobopenings.net/interview_tips.htm#TIPS

Over the last several years, there has been a dramatic increase in the need for Project Managers. Large and small organizations are increasing their use of Project Managers for IT initiatives. Along with the increase in positions, we have seen the number of job requirements for Project Managers increase steadily. In the past, many clients expressed only a preference for certifications. Now, it seems, the majority of job descriptions for Project Managers require that candidates be a Project Management Professional (PMP). This trend has us thinking about the value of getting certified versus the potential danger of not.

To that end, BRIDGE would like to share information about the PMP certification: where to get it, required time, costs associated, and potential benefits. Read on:

The Project Management Institute, which administers the PMP Certification, has designed the process to ensure only serious project managers are eligible by requiring a minimum of 3 years of project management experience (more if you don’t hold a bachelors degree). During your three years they require 4,500 hours spent leading and directing project tasks. There is also a four hour computer-based exam. The exam costs $550 ($405 for PMI members) and covers material from the Project Manager Professional Examination Specification. The 200 multiple choice questions cover content from six domains including; initiation, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling, closing, and professional and social responsibility. Once you decide to get certified it can take from one month to one year to get through the application and testing.

There are many reasons why you might decide to get certified; it could be a personal goal, you want to distinguish yourself from others, you want get a promotion or a better job, or you think it might be required for your next job. This last reason might be worth considering given that many companies are moving from preferring to requiring PMP certification.

Related Events:
On Thursday, January 8th, BRIDGE Technical Solutions will be sponsoring the Ocean State PMI dinner meeting at the Marriott Hotel in Providence, RI. The topic will be “Case Study: How Project Management Guided Harvard Pilgrim from Near Collapse to #1” presented by Lisa DiTullio of EPMO Advisory Services of Cohasset, MA.

Check out our new web page exclusively for Project Managers. We have collected information on PM certification, training opportunities, and current news which we hope will be useful. We also provide links to local project manager professional organizations. If notice something missing from our page please let us know.

So what do you think? Is PMP certification worth the cost? We appreciate your insight.
Thanks, Joe Devine

Our own James Wright is a CELEBRITY! Ted Nesi @ the Providence Business News posed 5 questions to James, one of the partners here at BRIDGE, and the result is a read that’s engaging, informative AND provides a much needed shot of optimism.

James Wright, who worked on the West Coast through the dotcom bubble (and burst), shares his perspective on our current economic climate, how it impacts the tech sector, his predictions for tech industries that will experience growth, the skills and specialties most sought-after by employers NOW, and some solid advice for Technology Professionals considering new opportunities. James also talks about the united efforts within R.I. to support the growth of the Information Technology and Digital Media sector.

Enjoy the full article here: Providence Business News: 5 Questions with James Wright

Honestly, when you consider that (Rhode) Innovation Island is already abuzz with entreprenurial academics and tech-centered networking groups, there is no doubt the Providence Plantations will be harvesting a bumper crop of new technologies — and enjoying the opportunities that follow. I ask you: “Silicon Valley who?”

GO Rhody!
~Amber