Presentation: how to get a job and be at the top (for IT Students)

This is a presentation conducted @ MSA University in 2009 for  CS Graduate Students, it aims to answer the following two questions:

1. How to get a JOB
2. How to excel in your new JOB

Original presentation: how-to-get-an-IT-job-and-be-at-the-top.pps


How to get a JOB

Topics

1. Know your target
2. Gap Analyses
3. Prepare good CV
4. Choosing a company
5. Applying
6. Passing Exams
7. Passing Interviews
8. Miscellaneous

Know your target

•  What do you want to do ?
•  Type of work
•  R&D
•  Web development
•  Testing
•  etc
•  Country
•  Academic / Practical path
•  Your own company

Gap Analyses

•  Estimate the Gaps between your current position and your target
•  Fill the Gaps
•  Reading/Courses/etc
•  Know yourself
•  What are your strong points
•  What are your weak points
•  Handle your weak points
•  Be proud of your strong points

What is expected from you in an entry level position

Personal Skills

• Problem solving skills
• Communication skills
• Team work
• Ability to learn new technologies and tools

Technical Skills

• UML
• Object oriented  programming
• language: Java  or C#

        Note: other skills may be expected


Prepare good CV

•  CV is a key factor for employment
•  What makes a good CV?
•  Two pages max
•  Most important/recent first
•  Well formatted
•  No grammar mistakes
•  Persuading: shows your Skills/Achievements/Activities
•  Targeted
•  Compare your CV with other professional CVs on the net
•  Let your CV be reviewed by a senior professional

Choosing a company

•  By name, by salary, by size, by area, by technology
•  What makes a good company
•  Professionalism
•  Projects, Clients, Opportunities and Experience
•  People inside
•  Management
•  Flexibility
•  Career path
•  Training
•  Work environment/resources
•  Salary
•  Empowerment
•  Innovation/ Technologies
•  Stability

Applying
Steps to get a job

•  Send your CV to recruitment companies
•  http://www.thejobmasters.com/
•  Send to the employer directly
•  Send your CV to HR personnel through a friend or relative
•  Send your CV by email or through company’s website
•  Watch job offers on the web
• http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EgyptPro/
• http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/Job_Masters/
• http://itjob-egypt.blogspot.com/
•  Watch job offers on companies websites
•  Attend employment fairs
•  Read newspapers

Passing Exams

-Exam types

•      IQ  ( Average IQ for computer programmers : 120-130 * )
•      English
•      Programming
•      C, C# or JAVA
•      Algorithms
•      UML
•      General knowledge

-Try to know your employer’s exam topics and prepare yourself
-Take online exams ( Specially IQ )


Passing Interviews

General Interview guidelines

•  Preparation
•  Be prepared to answer questions about yourself and your CV/Rehearse
•  Be confident, energetic, interested
•  Two way game ( WIN-WIN )
•  Know information about your employer and ASK
•  Appropriate dress
•  Be there on time
•  Listen carefully/Speak clearly/Eye contact/Smile
•  Don’t try to hide your mistakes, but try to focus on what you have learned from them
•  Don’t lie

Types of interviews and expected questions

Technical

• Coding questions
• Design questions
• Problem solving questions
• Networking questions
• Math questions
• Very hard/unsolvable questions  ( to know how you will handle it )

Personal

• Describe yourself
• Achievements in your life
• Bad situation and how did you handle it
• Why should we hire you
• What is more important for you in a job
• Why did you choose our company

Miscellaneous

• You must do a lot of effort to get a JOB, don’t wait for it
• Don’t wait for your military status
• Do some online work to get attention and show your talent

How to excel in your new JOB

Topics

• Work environment overview
• First impression/build your reputation
• Keep your performance high
• Continuously update your knowledge and skills
• Contribute to your company/society
• Work/Life balance
• Miscellaneous

Work environment overview


IT Company organizational chart

Terminologies

• Attendance
• Tracking
• Annual Evaluation
• Raise
• Escalation
• Meeting minutes
• Company Intranet
• Contracting

IT Jobs/Skills - Areas/Roles

source: http://www.agencycentral.co.uk/agencysearch/IT/skills/skillsearch.htm

Technologies/Concepts

Emerging Technologies (2009)

source: http://www.marketvisio.fi/Tietoayrityksest%C3%A4/Uutisarkisto/gnews110808/tabid/750/Default.aspx



First impression/build your reputation

•  First impression is always lasting
•  Start building your reputation in your first project
•  Dependability
•  Persistence
•  Discipline
•  Quality
•  Team work
•  Proactively
•  Ownership

Keep your  performance high 

•  Keep your reputation
•  Keep your performance high
•  How is performance measured ?
•  Projects evaluation
•  Quality/Quantity/Timing
•  Contributions
•  Non-project  activities
•  Peer evaluation
•  Communication/Negotiation/etc
•  Manager evaluation
•  Self evaluation

Example of peer evaluation criteria ?


Technical Competency

1. Deep knowledge 
2. Self reliance
3. Identify/resolve technical problems
4. Quality of work

Commitment to work

1. High ownership and dependability
2. Meet required delivery dates 
3. Availability at core working hours 
4. Dedication to work
5. Persistence to accomplish work needed

Team work

1. Communicate effectively taking audience into account
2. Effective listening skills
3. Constructive negotiation skills in resolving conflicts
4. Accepts responsibility for errors without defensive attitude or blaming others

Continuously update your knowledge and skills

•  Reading
•  Courses
•  Certifications
•  SUN , IBM ,  Microsoft,  Oracle,  CISCO,  PMP
•  Conferences
•   JDC
•   ICT
•  Intra/Extra-company activities
•  Internal community
•  Open source involvement

Contribute to your company/society

•  Share knowledge
•  Presentations
•  Mails
•  Talking
•  etc
•  Contribute to your company
•  Tools to facilitate daily work
•  Ideas to get more business/money
•  Patents
•  Society
•  Presentations/Courses/Education/Etc

Work/Life balance

If you followed the steps above, there will be no room for your personal life  

•  Balance between Work and Life
•  Strict actions with your company if they are consistently affecting your  personal life - After first year
•  Working from home – If your company supports it
•  Apply time management techniques

Rules

•  Work time for work activities only
•  The rest of the day should be balanced between your personal life and your non-work activities

Miscellaneous

•  Be Creative
•  Work smarter not harder
•  Monitor your performance
•  Ask for feedback
•  Accept criticism
•  Be flexible

References

Performance Measurement

• http://www.hrworld.com/features/16-ways-measure-performance-021908/

CVs

• http://www.bradleycvs.co.uk/cv-writing-tips/cv-better-cv.htm
• http://www.natives.co.uk/skijobs/cv.htm
• http://www.wowcv.net/cvtipsandtricks.html
• http://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~aelhelw/cv.pdf
• http://laksmono.com/curriculum-vitae/

IQ Tests

• http://www.intelligencetest.com
• http://www.iqtest.com
• http://www.3smartcubes.com
• http://www.pages.drexel.edu/~nst22/iqtests/iq.html
• http://www.mensa.org/workout2.php

Interviews

• http://www.careermideast.com/en/Seeker/Resources/InterviewTips/Success.aspx
• http://www.careercc.com/interv3.shtml

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