Posts by "Roxana"

Employer

Escalating Cyber Attacks Spark IT Security Job Growth

March 14, 2019 Comments Off Roxana read

The world has gone a long way when it comes to cyber technology with several and rapid advancements which have taken place over the years. However, it is highly disheartening that this growth has also led to an increase in the rate and damage caused by cyber-attacks. For instance, a very high profile cyber-attack took place on the US Energy Department in 2013. Also, the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and even Twitter have been victims of cyber-attacks over the years.

A lot of US government Agencies have suffered from cyber-attacks in recent time. These are sites that are generally assumed to be safe and immune to these attacks because they have several layers of firewalls and security nets which protect them.

These cyber-attacks have led to security breaches and unauthorized access to confidential information by hackers and political dissenters. More so, vital information can be lost due to the activities of these cyber attackers. As a result, firms and companies have come to realize the need for seasoned personnel in the IT department, leading to an increase in the demand for capable IT security specialists. It is projected that several thousands of new jobs will be created within the next decade in order to solve cyber-security problems.

This article will enlighten us about some recent high-profile cyber-attacks and the skills needed to tackle future reoccurrences.

Justice Department Site Closed by Hackers

The website of the US Justice Department’s Sentencing Commission (USSC.gov) has been the target of several attacks by the hacking group “Anonymous”. The January 2013 attack was one of the most serious scenarios. They broke into the site and replaced the normal content of the site with a cold war video and written threat to publicize the Department’s confidential files. The DOJ regained control of the site but it did not take long before “Anonymous” took over again.

These successful attacks have shown that even government portals can be insecure. The attacks can be minimized or totally averted with a larger team of internal IT experts.

Department of Homeland Security’s Cyber-Security Taskforce

There are a specific set of skills that will be required to combat this type of politically-motivated cyber-attacks. The DHS has a cyber-security task force which has a lot of job opportunities for tech experts. Skills such as network and systems engineering, vulnerability assessment, digital forensics and investigation, cyber-security risk analysis, cyber incident response, etc. are always needed at the DHS. These skills are also required by big companies who employ internal tech experts to combat cyber-attacks.

Anxiety Among Citizens After 2012 Cyber-Attacking South Carolina

Towards the tail end of 2012, the governor of South Carolina, Nikki Haley, announced that the State’s Department of Revenue had been breached and taxpayer’s data had been stolen from the Department’s computers. Although public funds were unaffected, about 3.6 million Social Security numbers and credit & debit card data of almost 400,000 persons were lost. This attack greatly exposed the weaknesses in important government agencies.

Rapid Growth in Preventive Services Sector

These cyber-attacks, as well as a lot other similar breaches elsewhere, have buttressed the importance of improving cybersecurity protocols. Services of specialists in “preventive services” like Certified Ethical Hackers will be increasingly required.

Employer

Interview Questions for Evaluating SAP Specialists

March 12, 2019 Comments Off Roxana read

Finding SAP talent is not so easy and you get the added pressure of having to move fast and do the onboarding quickly. SAP is an ERP software in need of large staff. Depending on the type of SAP consultants you are looking to hire, you need to know what skills you are aiming for. These are the SAP categories: functional consultants, technical consultants or network administrators. To help you in your job, here is a guide of interview questions for assessing SAP candidates.

SAP Material Management (MM)

MM is a module that focuses on planning, buying, managing inventory, evaluating vendors and invoices. It shows the way products move from production all the way to the customer.

Sample Questions:

What is SAP MM?

What are the modules inside of SAP MM?

What is the difference between CBP & MRP?

What type of document is a purchase requisition?

Walk us through a procurement process.

What are the steps in the life cycle of procurement?

How can you turn a purchase requisition into a purchase order?

Talk about transaction, master, and metadata.

SAP Advanced Business Application Programming (ABAP)

It is essentially a programming language used to develop RICEFW objects. Its purpose is mainly for databases, operating systems and business applications.

Sample Questions:

What are the steps and the necessary attributes to define a work area or field symbol that can only be accessed through single lines in a table?

How you define an entry to make sure it is unique when using the SELECT SINGLE* statement?

Define an UPDATE function module.

What forms can a search string have when the system looks for the search string?

How do you sort a table in a specific way using the SORT statement? Will any data be left out when sorting?

SAP BASIS

The SAP Basis part of an SAP system holds the architecture of a client-server with all the technical functions. A professional in this field should master R2 and R3 architecture and SAP landscape.

Sample Questions:

Background jobs can be divided into classes. What are these classes and their functions?

Which scenarios would you follow when deploying a SAPGUI together with a SAPLogon session?

How would you configure a table to hold entries in productive and quality environments?

Can you configure printing settings to need authorization? How would you do that?

Can you tell us the scope and configuration of SAP Early watch client?

What are the steps of changing the definition of operation modes to maintain the instance definition?

SAP Business Intelligence (BI)

It is a software technology of vital importance because it enables users to gain access to information. An expert in this area needs some administrative skills.

Sample Questions:

How do you anticipate which InfoObjects go through analysis authorization?

How do you eliminate duplicate data loaded in Cubes?

What navigation attributes could you use to allow the end-user to navigate in BI queries based on the InfoProvider?

Do you think it is recommended to use more than one non-cumulative InfoCube? How do you incorporate this to generate correct results?

SAP Business Warehouse (BW)

This is a product of SAP Enterprise Data Warehouse that is able to turn business information from any source system.

Sample Questions:

How can you use a meta chain to configure the start of the process chain?

What are the main features of a MultiProvider that combines data from more than one InfoProvider?

What are the types of DataStoreObjects and how are they configured?

How can you integrate a Web template containing a header and footer with the company’s logo into the Web applications?

How can you undo changes that were not intended when testing a new function and its parameters?

SAP Financial Accounting and Controlling (FICO)

This module of EPR is an important one because they store all the data concerning finances and transactions. A consultant in this kind of position needs to possess knowledge of finance functions, know how to implement strategic financial plans and turn out results.

Sample Questions:

Describe the difference between Residual Payment and Part Payment in an Accounts Receivable.

Where are the payments terms and dates of invoices stored?

What customer attributes do you need to input when creating a customer master data using transaction FD01?

How do you define a Credit Control area for a customer in accordance with the areas of responsibility for monitoring a credit?

SAP CRM

In this type of position, you need to be able to map the business process and configure the CRM system.

Sample Questions:

What are the requirements and configuration steps to create a custom Campaign Template?

If a product is available to be added to a sales order, how do you validate it?

What are the steps of implementing pricing scenarios and determining prices?

What are the main functions that you can perform in SAP CRM and the types of sales channels?

SAP HANA

HANA is a data memory platform that can allow real-time analytics and deployment of applications.

Sample Questions:

How do you create an OLAP connection in CMC?

Describe the different folders and their uses when adding a HANA system to Studio.

What are system requirements for loading large amounts of data using Information Composer?

When using Calculation Views, how do you create a calculation view and are their types?

Describe the differences between rows and columns store when working with SAP HANA Modeler Views.

There are other SAP fields that look to employ professionals and each requires different sets of skills and knowledge. When you are in a rut about recruitment processes and questions, you can also use already developed tools to begin the assessment of candidates.

Employer

Sell your New Developer Hiring Strategy to Managers

March 7, 2019 Comments Off Roxana read

As a recruiter, you need to stay on top of your game to find strong candidates and attract good applications. Remaining loyal to a set of techniques is not effective on the long-term and also kind of dull. So you decide to release your inner creative demon and come up with an amazing new strategy that could innovate how you attract talent. But before you can actually use it, you need to get the OK from your C-Suite.

When preparing your presentation, it is helpful to pay attention to three main aspects in order to have a successful first pitch.

No. 1 Build your presentation in a progressive manner that will strike their concerns

Managers who are not closely connected with the tech team cannot totally empathize with the pain of being understaffed. Therefore, you need to make them understand how this has an impact on the business.

Therefore, make sure to clearly outline what makes your idea a great one in their business context and how valuable it is. Speak their language!

For example, the vice-president of Marketing does not employ developers in his team so he can’t fully grasp their role. However, when the marketing team needs to develop some software to use in campaigns, they will need to come to the developers hired by you. Here is your cue to paint them a picture of the developer hiring process and its importance. Show them how your strategy is important to them, not to you.

No. 2. Key Performance Indicators should be your best friends

Numbers tell great stories. This is why you need to be able to explain to your C-suite, in numbers, how you will assess the effectiveness of your strategy. During your presentation, you should deliver some expected numbers and results.

If, for instance, you plan to use salary ranges in your job advertisements, talk to them about the increased traffic this change would bring. More traffic means more applications to sort through. Be ready to explain to them how you’re planning to check whether this change will positively impact recruitment.

No. 3 Listen to their opinions and use them

Listening to feedback is a power tool. But not just polite nodding while you stick to your idea, but actual active listening. Even if you have a strong strategy in place, more ideas can lead to even better plans. Not to mention that your relationship with executives will grow stronger.

It doesn’t mean that you need to accept all their ideas. Be brave and out-spoken when their pitch isn’t good for your initiative and they will respect you more. Make this presentation a conversation instead of a one-man speech looking for applause in the end. Whatever you do, always place yourself in a position that shows you have the company’s best interests at heart.

Employer

Get a Peek into the Future of Hiring and the Role of Machine Learning

March 5, 2019 Comments Off Roxana read

When you talk about the future of any aspect of daily life, you are actually talking tech. Because we are moving towards everything digital, machine learning will have a major role. Let’s talk about what machine learning is, how it will impact future recruitment processes and why it is important to get up to date.

Q1: What is machine learning?

Machine learning is based on data science, but being a subject with many ramifications, giving a proper definition is not possible. But in order to simplify it to our understanding, machine learning is a computer’s ability to learn through patterns of data. The more patterns it processes, the more it learns to improve its recognition ability. By going over these patterns or samples of data, the machine is able to predict or decide on different matters.

Another way of explaining it is this: “A computer program is said to learn from experience E with respect to some task T and some performance measure P, if its performance on T, as measured by P, improves with experience E.” – Tom Mitchell, Carnegie Mellon University

Task T: predict shopping patterns in the Tesco store

Experience E: run an algorithm on past patterns in the store

Performance measure P: improves predictions for future shopping

If your machine successfully learned from running past patterns, it should make better future predictions.

Q2: How does Machine Learning influence recruitment processes?

First of all, recruitment relies on large amounts of data. This alone creates a strong connection with machine learning. If we look closely, we will easily infer that Machine Learning will have a major role in predicting job trends, demand on skills, shortages or over-demand based on location, human resource spread across areas and so on.

This gets the work cut out for recruiters who now need to source out prospective candidates, adapt to changing trends in the industry and analyze working patterns of candidates and employees. ML will also provide info on a company’s’ hiring habits, the lifespan of employees inside the company, satisfaction with jobs and migration tendencies.

The ability to “see into the future” and prepare for a shift in industries is invaluable information for recruiters when putting up a plan and sourcing out people.

With data analysis out of the way for the humans in HR departments, you get to focus more on quality of relationships, building valuable connections and nurturing long-term collaborations. Let the machine do the number crunching and you, the recruiter can develop your soft skills: intuition, empathy, approach, coping with changes and better supporting the people you meet in the process. Machines can do an assessment of skills and place in suitable positions. This will eliminate missing potential candidates because there was a mismatch in term use.

Futuristic as this sounds, you need to gear up for this change in approaches to make your recruitment successful.

Employer

This is not How You Hire Top Talent

February 28, 2019 Comments Off Roxana read

The methods of recruiting vary from one recruiter to the other. In fact, a recruiter tends to have styles of recruiting which are unique to him. While the overall goal of recruiters is to get a quality and capable candidate for the job. But it has been observed that recruiters often fail to do so.

Due to the variation and unconventional styles of recruiting employed by recruiters, a fair deal of errors has been incorporated. This article seeks to examine the blunders associated with hiring and also suggests possible panacea to correcting the mistakes. The mistakes include:

Salary Attractiveness

Candidates tend to go for jobs with the highest possible salary available. Some candidates create themselves very high and will demand salaries that is excessive. Of course, this is subject to negotiations, but recruiters usually fail at this, leading to wasting of the applicants’ time.

Money is the most important factor that determines the choice of job for candidates. It is therefore usually surprising that recruiters at times decide not to include the range of salary in their job description. This will naturally lead to major problems, which includes:

Wasting the applicant’s time – The effort such a person has put into applying for the job is also wasted.
There is the likelihood of receiving applications from a whole lot of people – both experienced and inexperienced. This proliferation of applications makes it difficult for you to meticulously examine each applicant.

The solution is to make sure you highlight any privilege that the candidate would enjoy. You should also state the salary you want to offer in clear terms.

Not Calling, Texting, or Replying

Sometimes, job seekers can run into a brick wall. They may get fed up, perhaps because they have been looking for a job for too long. A good recruiter will help their candidates by preparing them for a wide range of interviews. Most often, a candidate would want to be informed about how things develop after the interview. You should try to oblige them. It is bad to keep candidates waiting and not reply to them.

Try to keep in touch with the candidate. Even if the employer has not given you a reply, it will do the candidate a whole lot of good if you update them on the current situation of things.

Poor Interview Etiquettes

People tend to blame the candidate for failing an interview. The truth, however, is that hiring managers cannot be exonerated from this. What recruiters often do is to intimidate their candidates, setting up tension in them in the process. As a result of this, the candidate might be jittery and unable to deliver their best. As a recruiter, you should endeavor to smile to your candidates, assure them and make them feel at home. Do not ask silly questions that can put them in tension. This will ensure that they will give as much information about themselves as possible, and you will be able to make informed decisions based on this.

Employer

Should You Share Leadership with Your Tech Recruitment Team?

February 26, 2019 Comments Off Roxana read

When there is pressure on team leaders to employ new developers, it is not uncommon for talent acquisition managers to micromanage their team. One of the biggest mistakes you can make as a manager is to micromanage your team because it will cause you to miss out on potentially beneficial service and insights which these team members can offer.

On the other hand, giving your team too much autonomy might be deleterious to your leadership autonomy. Although, taking them along on how you optimize your management strategy is very important. But it should not be done at the expense of your supremacy as the leader. Therefore, there should be a balance in your talent management strategy. How can you now share your leadership responsibilities with your recruitment team without losing your supremacy? Below are ways by which you can get this done.

Be Open-Minded

As an HR Leader, you must be able to embrace diverse opinion from your tech team since your goal is to create and implement a sustainable management strategy. No doubt, you are the leader and at the same time, you make the final decision on which tool and tactics to use. But then, you have to understand that some of them will likely have some experience or they can even be more experienced than you. Taking this into consideration, you should listen to their opinions and recommendation in order to fully implement your plan.

Although it is not mandatory for you to ask for feedback from your subordinates on everything you do, it is usually wise to take time to listen to anybody who comes to you for clarification as well as to give suggestions regarding your methods. Ask questions on the ideas the person is bringing and how it may benefit the team and firm as a whole. At the end of the day, you may not necessarily make use of the idea but your discussions and interactions will most certainly boost the morale of the team members and help the team in discovering new ways of dealing with developers.

Let Them Take the Lead Whenever They Propose New Initiative

Sharing leadership is far beyond passing tasks on to your team. You must also make them feel leadership potential. Suppose one of your tech recruitment team suggest a new employer branding campaign and you feel it is a way in which you can get your work optimized, why can’t you let him or her take the lead?

It should be said, however, that the fact that you are giving your team a little more responsibility to lead does not mean that you are on the same pedestals. Instead of thinking this way, give them proper countenance and also find a way to be actively involved and make them feel motivated by your action. If they do not have the requisite confidence and support from you, the recruitment team could end up failing.

Employer

How Ad Retargeting Impacts Tech Recruiting

February 21, 2019 Comments Off Roxana read

Keeping your developer on all the time is not only necessary but very essential as an HR leader. In view of this, ad retargeting as emerge as a suitable way to keep your developer on. Although ad retargeting is not a requisite to HR certification, as an HR leader, it is very important you get yourself acquainted with ad retargeting campaign to boost your employer branding strategy. Ad Retargeting is a process whereby you keep your brand in front of your developers when they leave your website without checking out, thereby touting them to reconsider your offer when they are in need of it.

During retargeting, specific developers are targeted with specific ads in order to tout them to consider your offer. Ad retargeting is a good initiative, retargeting can serve banner ads to people who have already visited your website (According to Dan Hecht and HubSpot). Retargeting can also serve as a way to aid your employer branding strategy because relevant ads attract developers. However, a survey conducted by Nanigans reveals that 77% of developers believe that they see many ads placed by the same companies.

As an HR leader, have you been thinking of how to boost your branding strategy or perhaps you have been ruminating on how to stay relevant without turning developers off? Consider ad retargeting for your tech recruiting and also keep at the back of your mind the following significant ways by which ad retargeting campaign can impact tech recruiting.

Targets Developers Based on Site Activity

Creating a retargeting campaign based on site activity give you an edge among competitors. According to Aaron Doades of search engine land, creating a retargeting campaign based on site activity enables you to change the ad on the specific product category. Also, it helps to put in a very strong call to action.

When you want to start an ad retargeting campaign, you must be aware of which developer types are clicking on your open roles? Which roles are they reading? Which positions do you want them to see? You can use the result from the questions to create a list of keywords to target in your ad campaign for tech recruiting. This will ensure that you are engaging with the right candidate.

Tech Candidates Know How They Are Being Targeted

Retargeting is a difficult way to create banner ads for developers and programmers because they have in-depth knowledge about the working principles. Many developers (Software developers) have claimed that data are shared in an implicit manner with separate advertisers.

These remarks are not too good for ad retargeting. For instance, you create a campaign to hire a desktop developer. You start by targeting a suitable candidate at any reputable company such as Apple or Microsoft. This is not bad, but if you stopped there, your ads would be seen by desktop or mobile developers at Apple or Microsoft company. The only intended candidate would found the campaign relevant. In the long run, this will definitely leave a negative impression on other developers that saw the ads.

Employer

How to Recruit an Engineering Manager

February 19, 2019 Comments Off Roxana read

A results-oriented and efficient team is one with two main components: skillful developers and a manager to show them the way.

First of all, management, no matter the type is a title that focuses on people, the team members who make things happen. No manager can do a great job if he or she focuses on tasks and data only.

In order to make a team work and be successful, you need to make sure that each and every member works at the best of their abilities in a healthy environment and optimized workspace. Here is where the manager comes in to listen to them, coach them and optimize the dynamics.

An Engineer Manager is, of course, a developer or technical person at core. But aside from the tech skills needed to understand the process of the team, that individual needs to have great people skills. Not a combination you find lying around. Here’s how to approach the recruitment process for a position like such:

Hit their hubs & gathering points

More often than not, those who aspire to be managers or to become better managers, won’t gather for public coding sessions, but rather for self-development, people-oriented trainings, and other similar events.

Find out about the places where qualified people might hang around. Meetup events or Stack Overflow get-togethers can be linked together in the bigger cities. Get to know the insides of such people!

Listen to their concerns or issues

In a technical manager role, the main task in your hand is to tackle people. To do so successfully you need to understand what they experience daily and yearly. Once you’ve done this, you can address these concerns when targeting a candidate. Help them find the optimal way of working with the team and build an evolving path for the near future. They need all the support they can get.

Empathy – the key to driving businesses

Because a technical manager will tend to preoccupy him/herself with the technical workability of their responsibilities, they will miss on the business side of things. You should not dump numbers and pressure on them in terms they don’t understand, but rather try to see their point of view and stir the boat gently in your desired manner.

Code reading – a key skill

A manager in a technical team will most likely have less code to write, but a lot to read. Because their main task is not to develop code, but to ensure the team does so successfully, they might get frustrated or try to contribute with some code themselves to break the routine. However, coach them on code reading so that they can easily supervise where the team is headed and adjust in consequence while keeping the focus on team management.

Developer Employer

How Important Is the Cost per Hire for Developer Positions?

February 14, 2019 Comments Off Roxana read

Ever since the market for developers experiences such a gap and there are so little potential candidates out there, managers stopped consider the cost of hiring one programmer. If you talk to them, they will justify this by saying that the benefit of hiring a developer far exceeds the money spent on doing so.

In reality, however, the cost is very relevant to your recruiting strategy and this is why you should pay more attention to it. Even though the cost per hire (CPH) is not the only way to measure return-on-investment (ROI) as there are quite a few other success factors to consider, it plays an important role Knowing this figure can help you make smarter investment decisions, define your referral bonuses and save your organization money in the long run.

Get a better understanding of the real cost of a bad hire

Lately, people focus on the subject of quality-of-hire. Since the goal is not only to fill up a position but to find a right fit, many say that you can go over budget as long as your company acquired a good developer.

While this makes sense, you should also keep in mind your return on investment. Making a bad hire will eventually cost you more. Losing a developer will also take a toll on your overall profit because you will lack productivity and will have to invest in another recruitment and hiring process.

Having a good sense of how much it costs you to hire a dev, gives you a better image of how to adapt your screening and recruiting process in the future. Because a professional that is not the right fit for your particular position will drain you after.

Justifying the money spent on recruitment

There isn’t a moment when your team does not need new recruits and, additionally, a budget for it. But in order to receive an increased budget, you need to show the ones in charge that your hiring history is clean and effective.

Not knowing the price per hire will not present you in a good light. A graphic of the number of applications, interviews conducted, potential candidates and final hires tells a story about your approach.

When you plan on stepping up your recruiting strategy and you already know how much you spend on new hires, the managing board will be happy to let you try a new approach that might reduce costs significantly.

With data such as cost-per-hire, it is easier to find the appropriate tools for your team. As a manager, you will be successful in getting new talent while the team will increase productivity because the right people are in the right positions. You can now ass to your portfolio the strategic planner and talent acquisition expert skills.

Employer

Is Your Candidate Experience up to Par? Ask Yourself These 5 Questions:

February 12, 2019 Comments Off Roxana read

According to CareerBuilder, a good number of candidates see the candidate experience as an indicator of how much a company values its people. Every contact with candidates throughout the recruitment process is a chance for them to learn more about your company. Considering how important these interactions are, it is important that your company positions and portrays itself accurately.

Applicants generally hope to validate their preconceived perception about your company using the candidate experience. Since the recruiting process provides a glimpse into the daily life of the organization they may soon be joining it is important that you ensure that your candidate experience is up to par with the needs of the job seekers. Here are 5 important questions you can use to evaluate this.

How Good Are Your Job Descriptions?

Your job description is most times the first contact a candidate has with you. As yourself this, what do candidates see when they open the job listings on your website. Are they seeing generic posts which can be filled by just anyone on the street or they get a clear picture of the specific requirements of every position including a comprehensive list of the goals and responsibilities they will be required to fulfill?

If you want to make a good first impression then your job description is one of the important places to look at. Try to make sure it answers every question the candidate might have about a position and your organization including the vision and mission of your company, the structure, and culture of your organization as well as the benefits packages of the position.

Does Your Candidate Experience Reflect Your Culture As a Company?

The recruitment process should be aimed at giving candidates a taste of the culture within your organization. Your candidate experience should be based on the values of your internal culture. For example, if your company is team focused, ask candidates to demonstrate how well they can perform in a team or invite them to meet multiple team members within your company to demonstrate how you emphasize on teamwork.

Do You Have A Mobile-Friendly Recruiting Process?

These days everyone is on their phone and as a modern company, it is important that you keep up with the trends. The bulk of traffic to your recruitment pages is from mobile devices which means for convenience your career site should be mobile-friendly.

How Great Is Your Follow-Up?

While it is true that breaking a bad new isn’t easy on anyone, you owe it to the candidates to inform them about their status in the recruitment process. It also helps your company’s reputation as well. Let the promising candidates know that they did well even if you will not be able to employ them. Also, try to let the declined candidates why they didn’t get the position and what they could have done better to improve their chances the next time. This way you maintain a good reputation with the candidates and increase the chances of them applying for future positions in your company

What Do The Candidates Have To Say About You?

Asking the people that have gone through it to evaluate it is one way to get a picture of how great your candidate experience was. Ask your new hires to give feedback about the recruitment process. This will give you an idea on which part of the candidate experience you need to change or improve upon.

Not everything that works great for the company is great for the candidates. These questions will help you if you are thinking of adjusting and improving your candidate experience in 2019