Cisco press the IT career builders toolkit jan 2005 ISBN 1587131560

Publisher : Cisco Press Pub Date : December 31, 2004 PrintISBN: 1-58713-156-0Pages : 312 Your complete guide to building your information technology career in any economy The IT Career

Publisher : Cisco Press Pub Date : December 31, 2004 Print

ISBN: 1-58713-156-0Pages : 312

Your complete guide to building your information technology career in any economy

The IT Career Builder's Toolkit features market-focused skills and

proven methods you can use to jump-start and advance your career While other books cover just the mechanics of preparing your resume, writing a cover letter, and interviewing, this book provides all that plus additional insight from IT career

development expert, Matt Moran, to help you plan and create a rewarding IT career over the long term.

The toolkit approach allows you to use this book to suit your unique needs:

Are you new to the IT field? Benefit by reading the book cover to cover.

Just need to fine-tune your IT career? Choose a topic and dive in.

Understand and prepare for the various and changing factors that affect your career in both positive and negative ways Learn how to

Present the value of your technical skills in the job market

Position yourself as the primary commodity of your career

Remove the guesswork out of job searches

Highlight on-the-job skills and gain meaningful professional exposure

The companion CD-ROM includes career management tools such

as resume and cover letter templates, forms to track important contacts, and self-assessment tools Start or further your

consulting career with sample proposals, opportunity tracking forms, and a time-tracking and billing database Financial tools, including budget and cash-flow summary worksheets, help you gain financial well-being Use the Value-Added Technologist presentation to gain a clear understanding of the career-building process and how to use the toolkit to build a dynamic career Most of all, have fun! Every year, people advance along the path

to career stardom Let Matt help you to be one of them through his career philosophy "Do not accept mediocrity as a career objectivedemand more of yourself."

Publisher : Cisco Press Pub Date : December 31, 2004 Print

ISBN: 1-58713-156-0Pages : 312

information storage and retrieval system, without written

permission from the publisher, except for the inclusion of briefquotations in a review

accompany it

The opinions expressed in this book belong to the author andare not necessarily those of Cisco Systems, Inc

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Dedication

This book is dedicated to my wife, Laura, and our children forallowing me to disappear to write I also want to thank my

mother and father for recognizing my love of words and

encouraging my writing, both now and when I was young

Thanks I hope I did you proud!

Matthew Moran has been a technology professional since

1988 He started his career with Blue Cross of California as adata entry clerk While there, he created a variety of trackingand automation systems, including the application to track andautomate the generation contract documents His work thereled to several consulting engagements in the healthcare andlegal industries

Matthew's consulting has focused on business

solutionsproviding technology and business workflow

automation for Northrop Grumman, HealthNet, Power-one,Primerica Financial, and others

Matthew is the author of several articles on scripting

automation, professional development, and business

productivity

He lives in Cave Creek, Arizona with his wife and four children

Elaine Horn has been a CATC/Regional Cisco Networking

Academy Program instructor since 1998 She has a B.S andM.A degree in mathematics education from Ohio State

University Elaine has worked in the educational field for 27

years Currently, she works at Tri-Rivers Educational ComputerAssociation (the Ohio Cisco Academy Training Center [CATC])supporting and training Cisco Networking Academy instructors

in Kentucky, Michigan, and Ohio Elaine holds CCNA, CCDA, andCCAI certifications

(CEIP)

Vivian is active in the business community and several coachingand career associations, including The Professional Association

of Résumé Writers and Career Coaches (PARW/CC), The

National Résumé Writers Association (NRWA), The Career

Master's Institute (CMI), The Career Planning and Adult

Development Network (CPAD), and the International CoachingFederation, Los Angeles She has twice served as cochair of theInternational Career Development Conference and on the

Certification Board of PARW/CC

published résumé and career books including Résumés That Knock 'Em Dead; Expert Résumés for Computer and Web Jobs;

101 Best Résumés for Grads; 2500 Keywords to Get You Hired; Professional Résumés for Executives, Managers, and Other

started out teaching math at the U.S Naval Academy Whilethere, he also bought and maintained UNIX systems, wrote abook on a programming language, and wrote a major computerprogram in C He changed careers in 1993 to teach a wide

variety of the Cisco courses for Mentor Technologies, formerlyChesapeake Computer Consultants, while also doing networkconsulting whenever possible Pete is now doing high-level

network consulting with Chesapeake Netcraftsmen, with tasksincluding network design, security, QoS, wireless, and IP

telephony for several major enterprise customers He has

reviewed numerous books for Cisco Press and other publishersand has authored or managed development of several courses

for Cisco and others Pete writes articles for Enterprise

Networking Magazine He can also sometimes be found

presenting his own seminars at East Coast Cisco offices, ontopics ranging from campus network design to WLAN security.You can find the articles and seminars at

http://www.netcraftsmen.net/welcher

I want to thank Mary Beth Ray at Cisco Press for seeing enough

in my articles to track me down and for patiently listening to allthe tangential stories during our phone calls She had to learn alot about my past, my family, and many other crazy ideas to get

to this book

Kurt Underwood, thank you for the validation Your response topre-edited chapters helped me keep the faith and maintain abelief that there is important information in the toolkit

Special thanks go out to Barbara Lynch at Wellpoint/Blue Cross,for putting up with my eccentricities and allowing me to createsolutions for you for five years I learned as much during thoseyears as any time in my life

To everyone at Cisco Pressin particular Chris Cleveland for

saying I was a "good writer." All my bravado and

pseudoconfidence stripped away, that is something every writeryearns to hear from an editor

Lastly to all my past employers, clients, mentors, and peersyouhave been my best professors I hope to continue to learn fromyou for many years to come

In 2002, I started writing some articles for Power Media Group.During that same time, I occasionally posted on the

CramSession.com discussion boardsprimarily focusing on thecareer and job discussions

The response to my articles and to the posts was extremelypositive In June, I posted a question to the discussion boardasking if anyone would be interested in having me compile myprior posts and articles into a "career toolkit." The response wasoverwhelming and has led to this book

This is not a "technical" book Although this book certainly

contains techniques and methods, it's really about personal andprofessional growth It is directed at IT professionalsboth thosewho are just entering the field ("the newbies") and seasonedveterans who want to advance their career

No certifications are available to guide you on many of the

topics covered in this toolkit To a large degree, they are

adopted into a total working skill set that is more nebulous innature Configuring a specific brand of router to perform a

function or writing a program to achieve a particular end is

often more easily defined That's why I have framed the book

as a toolkit

I want you to see the techniques as one more set of skills toadopt in your overall career development program They areskills, just as your particular technical skills that you will usedaily over the course of your career Similar to the way youadopt new technical skills, use the toolkit to help define thosesoft skills that you must learn and put to use The result will be

a more well-rounded and complete professional skill set

The chapters include a brief introduction to the topic At the end

of each chapter are action points or key ideas These help toemphasize ideas you have learned in the chapter

Although it is important to play to your strength, work on thoseareas that are a challenge or intimidate you Mastery of a

difficult challenge or skill does wonders for your confidence.This confidence further enhances your ability in your areas ofstrength

expands to include them in an overall assessment and plan ofaction Armed with this information, you can begin to plan andimplement concrete steps into a complete career developmentplan

The approach is planned but agile Because your desires andinterests might change during your career, it is important thatyou are flexible in overall objectives However, planning anddeveloping key tools and attitudes are necessary for any career.Also, conceptual knowledge should be, wherever feasible,

transferred into any new career direction

The toolkit approach positions you as the primary commodity ofyour career This means that you need to create a strong sense

of the value you provide and your worth to an organization

For the career technologist, I go even further You must viewand position yourself as a service company Your employer is in

a very real sense your client You need to think in terms of

personal marketing, service level, and client retention

This is part of the ownership mindset I want to give your career.You should study and understand your career, just as you would

a business You need to understand the various and changingfactors that can and will impact your career in both positive and

Most of all, you must be able to make changes when necessary

If elements of your career plan are not working, you need towork to understand why and then take corrective action It isnot enough to say that it is the economy or some other exteriorfactor Your career must belong to you

As with any business, negative events will occur Your overallcareer plan should include an understanding that such eventswill happen Layoffs transpire, companies are sold, and

companies go out of business Your response to these eventscannot be shocked resentment You have been forewarned

Prepare for these events with the tools presented in this book

It will make them far less traumatic when they do occur

Most of all, have fun! You will hear this theme throughout thebook Every year, people advance along the path to career

stardom Endeavor to be one of them Don't accept mediocre as

a career objectivedemand more of yourself

Good luck and happy building!

Although you can read this book cover to cover, it is designed to

be flexible and allow you to easily move between chapters andsections of chapters to cover just the material that you needmore work with The book is divided into five parts, each withseveral related chapters The intent is that each part and eachchapter builds upon the previous one If you do intend to readthem all, the order in the book is an excellent sequence to use

- Chapter 2 , "Career Building Defined" This chapter

covers the concept of career building versus simply

getting a string of jobs It covers essential ideas to

place career building in perspective with the hope ofproviding you with a framework for pursuing your

education, the skills you use, and the relationships youdevelop Understanding career building can help yougrow your career more rapidly and with greater

satisfaction

- Chapter 3 , "Information Technology: A Great

failures of the dot-com debacle, and a general malaise

in the industry, this chapter paints a more balancedpicture The premise is that all those events are largely

to be expected and must be viewed for the impact onhow you approach your career Rather than focus onthose areas of struggle, the idea is to direct you towardareas of opportunity and how to best recognize them

- Chapter 4 , "Defining Yourself: Aptitudes and

Desires" This chapter explains some ways to better

understand what drives you By understanding thosethings that you believe are important for your careerand professional growth, you can better assess the

opportunities that come your way

Part II , "Filling Your Toolkit" endterm" The chapters in

this part are more concerned with the development of keyskills and ideas that you will use throughout your career

Part II includes Chapters 5 through 10, covering the

following topics:

- Chapter 5 , "Self-Assessment" This chapter covers

a simple set of techniques to help you assess your

performance and attitude The goal is to provide youwith ideas to remedy problems prior to performancereviews In doing so, you increase your job satisfactionand management's perception of your value

- Chapter 6 , "Attitude" This chapter addresses the

critical issue of attitude It is not meant to provide youwith positive encouragement but to provide you withconcrete steps to help you improve your attitude Thecentral theme is to create an attitude of value about thework you perform

- Chapter 7 , "Communication Skills" This chapter

covers the critical area of written and verbal

communications It explains how these skills impactyour career and provides you with resources and ideasfor improvement in both areas

- Chapter 8 , "Technical Skills" This chapter

addresses the need for excellent technical skills Moreimportantly, it removes the anxiety of learning the "nexthot technology" by focusing on strategies for more

Whether you are new to the IT field or building a morerobust résumé, this chapter can help you

Part III , "Putting Your Toolkit to Use" The chapters in

this part of the book help you put the various skills and

tools from the previous section to use This is the actualgroundwork of the career-building process Chapters 11

through 16 cover the following topics:

- Chapter 11 , "Breaking into IT" The entry-level

dilemma is the idea that you need experience to getexperience This chapter explains how you can gain

some tips on how to move into new areas of IT or findtechnology-related opportunities outside the IT

department

- Chapter 12 , "Building an Active Contact List" This

chapter covers the basics of professional networking.Using the adage, "It's not who you know but who knowsyou and knows what you know," this chapter discussesthe importance of continually building a professionalnetwork It also covers key ideas to help you rapidlybuild a thriving contact list

- Chapter 13 , "The Job Search" This chapter covers

techniques that will result in more rapidly finding a job

It covers how jobs are found and how to locate betteropportunities

- Chapter 14 , "The Interview" The interview is the

moment of truth for most job seekers It is the momentthat you get to better explain your accomplishments,find out if the opportunity is a good fit, and make a

direct impact on the potential employer This chaptergives some concrete tips for what to look for in an

interview and how you can have the greatest impact onyour potential employer

maximize your current skills and relationships and turnthese into advancement opportunities

Part IV , "More Options to Build Your Career" This part

covers some ideas to help further your career These ideasare often overlooked or apply to specific situations

Chapters 17 through 19 cover the following topics:

- Chapter 17 , "The Boundaries and Benefits of

Working at Home" This chapter explains the benefits

and challenges of working from home It covers ideas tohelp you and management come to an effective

telecommuting relationship

- Chapter 18 , "The Toolkit Approach to

Consulting" The consultant has the potential to work

on the most exciting projects, create a high salary, andgain incredible respect from his peers and clients Thischapter explains key concepts and ideas for those whoare interested in the consulting life In addition, it

covers the importance of marketing and the vital needfor a sound business mindset

- Chapter 19 , "The Move to Management" This

chapter explains the skills that are crucial to movinginto management It covers ways to begin using theskills prior to being placed in a management situationand how to assume the role before you assume the

position

Part V , "The Value-Added Technologist" The chapters

in this part teach some specific value-added skills that youcan use throughout the life of your career These ideas add

Chapters 20 through 23 cover the following topics:

- Chapter 20 , "Make Yourself Indispensable" The

ideas and techniques in this chapter apply universally tomany careers Specific ideas for the technologist arealso covered This chapter demonstrates ways to

- Chapter 23 , "Financial Control" The final chapter of

this book explains the need for financial control and itsimpact on your career It discusses how financial stresscan reduce your effectiveness on the job and how

financial struggles reduce your ability to pursue goodopportunities It also provides some tools for controllingyour finances

The Supplemental CD-ROM

areas of your career development You will need Microsoft Office

to open the documents Whether you want to find a new job,build and maintain stronger contacts, or move into consulting,the CD-ROM that is included with the toolkit provides you withvaluable tools to help you achieve your goals

On the CD-ROM, each section includes a summary of the toolsand instructions for their use:

CD-ROM Section 1: The Value-Added Technologist This

presentation provides a framework for the entire toolkit Itoffers a clear understanding of the career-building processand provides you with a greater understanding of the

CD-ROM Section 3: Consulting Tools This section

includes tools to help start or further your consulting career.The tools include opportunity tracking forms, time trackingforms, sample proposals, and a time-tracking and billingdatabase built using Microsoft Access

CD-ROM Section 4: Financial Tools This section includes

forms and spreadsheets to help you gain better control overyour financial well-being These include a budget

spreadsheet and a weekly cash-flow summary worksheet

Chapter 1 The Toolkit Approach to Career Development

projects on the back burner to pursue this? I have worked tocreate a comprehensive and realistic set of tools to help youachieve success in your career-building efforts

The reason stems from my experience as an IT professional,employee, employer, consultant, writer, and self-proclaimed

pundit of technical solutions Over the past several years, I

have witnessed a number of promising technology professionalsthrive I have had the pleasure of working on projects with

people I would consider the best and the brightest in their

fields

I would watch with excitement as their careers grew Just asoften, however, I would watch as good technologists with

excellent skills struggled to advance in their careers

I'm a people watcher by nature I find the human aspect of anyendeavor of life to be the most exciting People, as an object of

whom I would emulate in my own growth and those whose

careers floundered I wanted to discover patterns in both

groupsthe successfully growing professionals and those whostruggled

Much of what I witnessed and analyzed is familiar Most of theprinciples of successful career growth relate to "life

management" and are not specific to the technology field FromNapoleon Hill to Stephen Covey, the attitudes and skills of

success have been studied and extolled The information is bothwell known and availableit broadly addresses life and the

individual's approach to it

Don't forget luck! Yes, as much as the die-hard advocates ofsteering your own course and taking control of your destiny

might want to deny it, luck certainly plays a vital part Chancemeetings and unforeseen opportunities can arise and lift an

individual through dramatic professional growth from time totime

Certainly, some individuals experience more luck than othersthroughout their lives; however, all career builders do, at somepoint, experience luck With this as the case, my goal is to

prepare you to take advantage of that eventual lucky situation.Author Denis Waitley stated that LUCK is an acronym for

Laboring Under Correct Knowledge I believe this is true In

relation to career building, this would mean striving to buildyour career with the best information and tools available In thisway, when you are presented with a lucky situation, you arebest prepared to capitalize on it

That is the objective of this project and book Simply put, thisbook provides you with the tools necessary to create

opportunity and take advantage of those opportunities that

arise

What you, the reader, will discover is that you already know

to lift you out of professional obscurity, no single technique toseparate you from the masses of other professional career

On the two sides of this spectrum are two types of individuals:

The individuals who, when building and applying their

toolkit, meet with success immediately Their career is

launched with relative ease by being at the right place atthe right time For these people, the danger is an

abandonment of the toolkit approach

The individuals who, when applying the information andskills from the toolkit, do not experience the success theywould like in a time frame that suits them Perhaps they see

or hear of others who meet with immediate and tangiblebenefits or career growth without applying a special

approach They also might abandon the toolkit approach

For both types of individuals, my admonition would be to stayfocused on the long-term objective of building a well-roundedcareer As you will see emphasized throughout the rest of thisbook, your career is not synonymous with landing a job, no

matter how good

Your career is made up of a series of decisions over a long

frustration is of minor importance

I have coached with predictable results the careers of severalindividuals I have watched as relatively simple methods,

philosophies, and hard work have resulted in dramatic careersuccess and the success of the projects for which they werecharged I discovered over this time that, although I enjoy

defining and implementing high-tech solutions, I garner evengreater satisfaction in watching the career growth of those withwhom I work

I have presented and written several pieces directed at

technology professionals, particularly with assisting them atfurthering their careers in some tangible way Many of themasked me to write this information down Several suggested Iformalize my ideas into a book

This book is the embodiment of that work

Over the past several years, I have watched many technologistsflounder in the area of career development Some of these menand women I know to be extremely effective in their utilization

of technology For a number of reasons, however, their careershave faltered Some even chose to leave the field and find work

in other professions Sometimes I felt this was truly a loss, bothfor the individual and for the industry

This notion was emphasized during a recent conversation I hadwith a programmer I know I have worked with him several

times over the past seven years He is both diligent and

technically proficient, but he has spent the past three yearsstruggling in his career

He recently told me he was pursuing another line of work Hisdesire was to remain in IT, but he was burnt out and dejected

As we discussed his recent challenges, it was apparent that hisapproach to career development in general, and his perception

ideasideas that he largely ignored during the past IT boom butthat I cover in this book

It is not my goal to convince people to remain in an industry orcareer for which they do not possess drive or passion Instead,

I hope to create both hope and a plan that matches the driveand passion they already have

The field of IT and the individual technologists are suffering

through an industry correction This correction, the causes ofwhich are defined more clearly in Chapter 2, "Career BuildingDefined," is resulting in stifled industry and individual growth.Industries and individuals are suffering needlessly through acorrection that will produce incredible benefits for both the

industries and the individuals who choose to work in it

The IT field is maturing As it does so, the normal growing painswill make themselves known For the astute professional,

however, such times of correction provide opportunity

The opportunities in IT will still be abundant, but they will bemore refined and specific in their reach This will require IT

professionals to be equally refined and specific in their approach

to building a technology career IT professionals will have toknow where to look for opportunity, what it looks like, and whatsteps to take to maximize their potential in taking advantage ofthe opportunity

I have analyzed my career and those of my peers, some of

whom have met success and others who have not In addition, Ihave read articles, previewed career fairs, and discussed thetopic with IT employers and employees alike Over time, I havedeveloped a set of techniques and ideologies geared to assisttechnologists in wading safely through the myriad of optionsand questions they have regarding career choices

I have codified these options and questions and placed theminto this toolkit

To understand why a toolkit is important, consider the followingsituations

Recently, a client asked about my choice of a particular

technology to complete a task The client had been informedthat a more powerful technology was available I likened theclient's concern to an analogy I use often when addressing such

a question

I asked which of two tools was more powerful: a jackhammer or

a standard hand-held hammer Certainly, the jackhammer is themore powerful of the two, which the client acknowledged I

then asked if the client would use a jackhammer when hanging

a picture The client, of course, could see where I was goingwith this

A more powerful technology is not necessarily the most

appropriate or superior technology for a given application

In the same way, many technologists, even those who have metwith some degree of success, rely on either pure technical skills

or on the certifications and degrees that they have acquired Asyou probably already know (and will read more about),

In another example, an auto mechanic would be consideredfoolish if he carried only a screwdriver and 12-mm wrench Inthe same way, the career builder would be imprudent if he

relied only on a couple of career-building tools The IT Career Builder's Toolkit, although geared toward technologists, is a

package that can easily be adapted to other industries

I titled this book a "toolkit" to convey the idea of a completepackage of information and techniques that a person can useover the life of his career

Many of the ideas and techniques put in place here can be used,without modification, in other professions Although some

sections within this book are specifically technology related,even these contain concepts that are transferable in their

application

My hope is that you can apply the information in this book

toward your career in IT Why? Because I believe that for theperson who loves working with technology and enjoys the

challenge of rapid change and constant learning, no career

choice offers so much

Whether you have been looking to enter the field of technology

or have been working in the field for some time, this toolkit canbenefit you Look past the doom and gloom that permeates thediscussion boards and ignore momentarily the naysayers

claiming saturation in the field

The IT boom is continuing Employers will continue to look atcandidates walking through their door The need for

comprehensive skills is great Your ability to master a

comprehensive skill set (to fill your toolkit) will determine yourability to take advantage of the coming opportunities

This toolkit will make that goal a reality.