Elite IT Services Business Blog

Follow The Golden Rule

2008-07-08T11:10:39-05:00

Sandi Hubert is recognized in July 2008 as one of the 2008 Top Young Entrepreneur's by the St. Louis Small Business Monthly. When asked "What is one piece of advice you would give to other business owners?" Sandi Hubert responded with "Follow the Golden Rule, regardless of circumstance. It is the only path." See attached reprint of the article. Download sandi_hubert_july_08.pdf

St. Louis 2008 Regional ATHENA PowerLink Recipient

2008-07-08T11:05:21-05:00

Elite IT Servcies is named the St. Louis 2008 Regional ATHENA PowerLink Recipient. ATHENA PowerLink is a business mentoring program designed to increase the growth and profitability of women-owned businesses. Since 1999, the ATHENA PowerLink Program has been helping women-owned businesses expand profitability through the use of professional advisory panels. See attached press release. Download 2008athenast_louis.pdf

Focused On Growth

2008-07-08T10:51:26-05:00

Elite IT Services was featured in the March 2008 Edition of the St. Louis' Top Women Business Owners by the St. Louis Small Business Monthly. "We know that we can grow to be a multimillion-dollar company if we stay focused. That is my motivation." says CEO, Sandi Hubert. Download sandi_hubert_0308.pdf .

Back to the Basics

2008-06-26T10:46:12-05:00

By Rob Hubert

Everyone who knows me also knows that I have a passion for football. It's the ultimate chess match and game of strategy and execution. You may also know that I coached pee-wee football at one time in my life. For three years I had the blessing of coaching five, six and seven year olds. I myself being a student and always trying to gain an edge and knowledge began to search for information to help my team. That's when I found an audio cassette of a speech given by Lou Holtz, the former division one head football coach.

Your probably thinking what does this have to do with IT and why are you blogging about this. Lou Holtz said, we become a team when enough people care. He also had the philosophy that if anyone has a problem, then we all have a problem. Obviously we are in IT and most of us work as part of a team. How many times have I failed to ask for help and take on more and more work than I can handle and that eventually leads me to frustration. Lou Holtz sets a context for his teams, that we are a team and we are here to achieve our goals together. That is obvious, but often forgotten or overlooked.

I borrowed three even more powerful things from Lou Holtz that I taught my football team. I set this up as the "three rules" that we have on our team. At every practice and after every game, this group of twenty boys would repeat after me. 1. Always Do Your Best, 2. Always Do the Right Thing and 3. Always treat others as you want to be treated. Every football player could recite these three rules to anyone at anytime. These my friend, are the basics. May they come to the forefront of your work day every day.

Rob

IT Strategy Blows Like the Wind but Core Values Persist

2008-06-11T09:01:12-05:00

By: Rob Hubert

Imagine this, you are in a meeting with your boss and another team discussing the goals of a project that is about to start. You already have a full work load and you don't agree with the decisions that management has made about the project. You are feeling resistance towards the work and resentment for the impact that management decisions will have on you. You sit there with your arms crossed and ton of knowledge in your head that is relevant to the success of the project.

You are stuck in victim mode, where some else's decision has impacted your workload. The worst thing about victim mode is that you don't even know that you are stuck in a negative mindset. The questions you ask yourself are "Why would they make this type of decision"? "This doesn't make any sense, what other options did they consider and turn down"?, "Why didn't they ask me my opinion"?

What can you do now? What should you do now? Quit your job? Cry foul? Raise your concerns to the executives that they are making a huge mistake? Fight to the death against what you see as a poor decision?

What you decide to do is for you to decide. It's been my experience that management often sees trends that I'm not seeing. It has everything to do with the world that they live in, which is different than where we typically sit in our IT domains. It's also been my experience that decisions like the one you are living in rarely get over turned. Remember the book, "Who Moved my Cheese" by Spencer Johnson. Simply put that's what happened with this project. Your cheese was moved and you are struggling to find it.

Many complaints that I've heard from IT Professionals are related to IT Strategy. "I don't agree with the company's strategy" they tell me and that's why I want to leave. Here's a nugget that I learned from one of my mentors in IT. Strategy is something that blows like the wind, expect it to change. Remove yourself from the emotional attachment to Strategy and align yourself with your personal values. Values are your core belief system that guide you in everything that you do. If your company's core values are in alignment with your own, then you are in the right place. When the company's values change and they are no longer values that have congruence, consider making a change.

Back to the project choice. Successful IT Professionals use Emotional Intelligence to guide them in tough situations and they do the right thing. The right thing to do in this situation is to support the company to successfully implement the goals of the project and quickly overcome any resistance or resentment that you are feeling. The questions to ask yourself are: "What can I do to help make this project succeed"? "How can I be a team player and make contributions to the project"? "What knowledge do I need to share to ensure that the planning phase of the project is thorough"? The questions that you ask yourself frame you state of mind. Make it a state that will support you in career growth - not career decay.

Give me some feedback? What would you do?

The Most Succesful IT Resume Format

2008-04-09T18:27:09-05:00

By Rob Hubert

Can you look at my resume and provide me with some feedback? I get asked this question several times per week. I have found a format preference that has worked very well for my candidates and I'll be happy to provide that for you here. But more importantly job seekers spend too much time perfecting their resumes and not making contact with potential employers. The "Resume Rule of 5" states that if you ask 5 people for advice on our resume you'll get 6 or more opinions. Your resume is only a tool to assist you in attaining in-person interviews.

The bottom line is, finish your resume to your satisfaction and move on. If you keep tweaking it, you’re missing out on opportunities to meet with potential employers. You only need one version of your resume and you may need to occasionally add information or re-sequence information for specific jobs that you are applying for. The format that I use is referred to as a "Results Oriented Resume". This format follows the "3 and 30 Rule" which states you have 3 seconds to get the resume readers attention and then you get an additional 30 seconds of their time.

Here's the format that I have used to help hundreds of people get the results that they want.

Section 1 - Professional Summary
In this section you will create 4-5 bullet points that describe who you are using bold statements and a supporting sentence to backup the bold statement.

Format: Bold Statement; Sentence that supports the bold statement.

Example: Strong background in Project Management; Experience in project planning, requirements analysis, functional and technical design, testing and implementation

Section 2 - Key Accomplishments
In this section you will highlight 3-4 of the main accomplishments that you are most proud of in your career where your employer or customer has benefited. The key to making a results oriented accomplishment is to quantify it with a dollar value or a percentage of savings or increase. Always use the transitional phrase "which resulted in".

Format: Stated accomplishment described in a full sentence, which resulted in (quantify the result with a number that reflects savings or increase, if you can't quantify it, then use a positive words like "increased" to demonstrate your results)

Example: Successfully automated medical authorizations entry through a voice response system, which resulted in a staff savings of $140,000

Section 3 - Skills Summary
The skills summary is a table that lists your most relevant technical skills along with the number of years experience in that technology and the proficiency level you have attained.

Format: Skills - Rating - Years of Experience

Example: J2EE - Expert - 7 Years

Add a new row to the table for each marketable skill. If you want a copy of our skills summary form to help you determine your skills, email me (rob.hubert@eliteitservices.com), with the subject line: Skills Sample

Section 4 - Professional Experience
List your jobs in reverse chronological order (latest to oldest), include titles, company names, employment dates, responsibilities and additional achievements as bullet items

Section 5 - Education
List schools attended, degree attained and year degree was attained.

If you would like a sample resume using this format, send me an email (rob.hubert@eliteitservices.com) with the subject - Sample Resume Request and I'll send them to you.

If you use this approach and you don't get the results that you desire, contact me and I'll do my best to help you.

Top 100 Woman-Owned Businesses in Missouri!

2008-01-15T17:01:11-06:00

By Sandi Hubert

Elite IT Services is ranked 29 among Missouri's Top 100 Woman Owned Business List! This is our second consecutive year that we have received this recognition through www.DiversityBusiness.com.

The DiversityBusiness Top 100 List (Div100) is the 8th annual listing of the Missouri's top 100 women-owned businesses. The companies listed on the Div100 represent the Missouri's top multicultural earners and challenge the long-held notion that a woman-owned business is small or insignificant. Div100 members are sought after by major corporations wishing to increase spending with women owned companies.

Div100 - The Div100 is a classification that represents the top 100 small businesses in the state of Missouri, in sectors such as technology, manufacturing, food service and professional services. Large organizational buyers throughout the country that do business with multicultural and women-owned businesses use the list. The Div100 is produced annually by DiversityBusiness.com, the nation's leading multicultural B2B Internet portal that links large organizational buyers to multicultural product and service suppliers.

Elite IT Services is honored and grateful to receive this recognition for the past two years. We strive to provide our clients excellence in service and relationship in everything we do. We also continue to support and promote diversity businesses throughout our own community and beyond our immediate borders.

Elite IT Services will be honored at a special awards ceremony at DiversityBusiness.com's 8th Annual Multicultural Business Conference taking place April 23-25, 2008 at Disney's BoardWalk Resort in Orlando, Florida.

Can a Resume Mistake Cost You the Job?

2007-12-26T11:00:31-06:00

By: Rob Hubert

Can a resume mistake cost you the job? Hypothetically speaking, what if you have one mis-spelled word on your resume and the spell checker didn't catch it. Spell checkers are great, but they sometimes change words that you don't intend them to change. Let's take a simple word like "Assess", which is common to see on a resume, especially if you have worked in a role that requires analysis work. While no one would intentionally mis-spell assess, but by some mishap - what if you left off the last "s" and the hiring manager noticed. Assuming you had an excellent interview and you were neck and neck with another candidate. Who do you think would be selected?

Probably not the person with the misspelled word on their resume.

With 2008 coming up quickly, an important reminder for all of us for the new year is to pay close attention to the details. Especially on your resume and any correspondence that you have with potential employers. One way to catch mistyped words is to read the document backwards. This helps you identify words that are spelled correctly, but are unintended. For example, I wrote an email this morning and though I was typing the word "will", but my fingers typed the word "with". I read it backwards and caught it before I sent it. This works, because it removes the context of thinking about what you're reading. Try it on your own resume and let me know if you find any mistakes.

Happy New Year and may 2008 be your best year ever.
Rob

Are IT Certifications a Waste of Your Time and Money?

2007-10-31T10:37:59-05:00

My favorite Information Week author Marianne Kolbasuk McGee release a new article last week titled, "In Growing Job Market, IT Pros Get More for the Soft Skills" Here's an excerpt.

"One report concludes that employers are now paying higher premiums for non certified tech skills--areas like enterprise applications, e-commerce, and process management--than those paid for certified skills. That research comes from Foote Partners, which has done in-depth quarterly employer surveys of employers for eight years".

Isn't that interesting, the report indicates that tech skills areas that don't have certification programs are higher paying than positions that do have certifications available. It's been my experience that most certified professionals acquire their certification using their own time and their own money. It looks like the investment is not paying off the way it was anticipated. So many people have acquired certifications (especially Microsoft Certifications) that the value of the certification has been diminished. I know for a fact that my clients are not impressed by certifications. But they are impressed by Personal Leadership, Solution Oriented Mindsets, Excellent Communication Skills, Aptitude and Passion. There's more to the article including some statistics on job growth in specific IT categories. Read More.

The only exception to certification seems to be PMP. While I have not seen this here locally, but PMP certifications can gain a Project Manager about 10% more salary than non certified Project Manager.

Let's move on to the Job Growth Categories. Here's another excerpt from the article

"The biggest job growth categories continue to be software engineers, computer scientists and systems analysts, and IS managers. Two categories shrank: programmers declined 5%, while support specialists fell 4%. The jobs statistics continue trends that have marked IT employment's slow recovery from a fierce downturn between 2002 and 2004, when the number of jobs fell below 3.3 million".

I wonder about the growth category titles. Information Technology Departments have been moving away from the title of Programmer for over ten years, favoring the title Developer and most recently moving more towards the title of Software Engineer. While I'm sure that we could argue the semantics of the roles, at a core root level these positions are essentially the same.

Next the support specialist category dropped by 4%, I seen this as a growing trend as more offshore outsourincg contracts are executed for support services. It also may be related to the strides commercial companies are making in their efforts to automate more of their computer operations processes, which theoretically reduces support labor requirements and improves service levels. More research would be required to find out the details of this trend, but I expect it to continue.

One Year Anniversary of Elite IT Services Business Blog

2007-10-05T16:12:33-05:00

By: Rob Hubert

That's right - one year ago we started blogging. This post is a quick review of the highlights from year one of our blogging experience. An interesting note about blogging, news and history is that nuggets of wisdom are sprinkled throughout and sometimes forgot about.

It was October 6, 2006. Our president Sandra Hubert wrote the first post, titled "Should I Wear a Suit for an Interview at a Business Casual Company?" She was also quoted in Forbes Magazine about the same topic. Sandi followed up that post with several more, including: "Are You Passionate? - About Your IT Career?" and Setting Goals. Steve Stadler had some great posts throughout the year, including "Want to Improve Your Relationship with your Boss?" and Mastery A Process for Achieving Results

And of course, I made a few contributions, my favorites include: Ebay's Feedback System in the Office, The Most Successful Resume Format Ever and Accountability the Difference Between Average and Outstanding If you missed these posts, you may want to check them out.

While the frequency of our posts has been variable, our commitment to blogging is strong. I want to thank Jim Durbin from Durbin Media and Stlrecruiting.com for enrolling us in the exciting and fun filled blog world. If it wasn't for Jim, I wouldn't be writing this and you wouldn't be reading this. Jim Durbin is truly an innovative and leading expert on branding, marketing, the Internet and blogging. Thank You Jim.

And most importantly, I want to thank all of you who have taken the time to read our blog. You are the reason that we keep blogging.