ITCareerCoach Training - Coaching » marketing analyst training http://www.it-career-coach.net How To Take Your Career To The Next Level Mon, 06 Feb 2012 01:09:27 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Wearing Multiple Hats Gets The Job Done! http://www.it-career-coach.net/2011/10/27/wearing-multiple-hats-gets-the-job-done/ http://www.it-career-coach.net/2011/10/27/wearing-multiple-hats-gets-the-job-done/#comments Thu, 27 Oct 2011 14:57:59 +0000 ITCareerCoach http://www.it-career-coach.net/?p=3329

wearing multiple hats gets the job done!

wearing multiple hats gets the job done!


If you react negatively after reading a job description that requires cross functional skills, you may be throwing away a valuable learning opportunity!

Though the thought of working on a challenge outside your immediate area of expertise makes you uncomfortable, it will actually increase your value as a resource.

Information technology (IT) professionals are frequently asked to perform jobs completely different in nature from what they are hired or trained to do.

For example:

  • Business Analysts on web development projects may be asked to create cascading style sheets (CSS), design user interfaces (UI) or perform user acceptance tests.
  • Software Developers may be asked gather requirements from stakeholders or customers, verify / validate requirements, write Use Cases or create UML documents.
  • Project Managers may be asked to design databases, architect software programs, document business requirements or create user interfaces (UI) specifications.
  • Database Analysts or Database Developers may be tasked with designing front-end applications or data entry forms used in gathering or collecting data.
  • Technical Writers may be tasked with gathering or documenting business requirements even when they have little or no formal training.
  • IT Managers may help web development teams debug code, test software products, facilitate meetings or gather requirements.

Don’t reject assignments because you have never done them before or because they have not been formally written into your job description.

A can-do attitude or the willingness to do whatever it takes to get the job done, is required for success in today’s competitive workplace.

Why Do Employers Blur Job Descriptions?

Employers want you to develop cross-functional skills because they are short staffed, they want to save money or they want you to be a valuable asset to their organization.

Managers typically do not have the budget that allows them to staff their projects with all the specialized skills the project needs.

So, a good way to win your manager’s favor is to volunteer for tasks beyond your immediate skills or comfort zone, especially in areas where your project is short staffed.

Let’s take a look at the typical web development project which in a perfect world, needs to be staffed with project managers, business analysts, user interface designers, web designers, user experience analysts, data analysts, database developers, database administrators, software developers, web analysts, technical writers, copywriters, network administrators, web writers, software testers and more.

If every web application project is perfectly staffed, web development costs will be prohibitive for most organizations.

Also, staffing each project with all the needed resources may be counter productive because there may not be enough work for each role beyond the life cycle of the current project.

For example, the User Interface (UI) designer’s skills are required at the beginning of a web development project to help with the visual design / layout of the web site / application.

However, once the coding for the project begins, their may not be any use for the User Interface (UI) Designer’s skills until a new web development project is launched.

So, the organization that hires a UI Designer will be forced to fire him / her half-way through the software development life cycle!

As you can see, this approach is not ideal for both User Interface (UI) Designers and Project / Software Development Managers.

Employers solve this type of staffing problem by hiring professionals with cross functional skills!

That is why you may see job descriptions for technical business analysts or job postings that require specialized technical skills (CSS, HTML, User Interface (UI) Design, etc.) even though they are listed for business analyst positions.

The willingness to wear multiple hats is required for success in today’s information technology (IT) industry.

Employers want you to be confident and willing to tackle any challenge thrown your way, even when the problem domain does not lie within your immediate area of expertise.

For example, a Microsoft .NET Software Developer may be asked to write some PHP code or a PHP Developer may be asked to write some Visual Basic/ CSharp (C#) code even when these programming languages are not part of the programmer’s skills.

How To Gain Cross-Functional Skills

Developing cross functional skills, starts by acquiring a lot of new information on a new domain.

Here is some information that can help you in the quest for cross functional skills:

  • Start with a Road-map:

    Start with a comprehensive road-map or a curriculum that shows you all the lessons, concepts or topics you have to learn in a step-by-step manner.

  • Learn More to Earn More:

    Identify all the reading resources that you will need to accomplish your learning goals including blogs, videos, textbooks, newsletters, magazines etc.

  • Make Daily Progress:

    Plan to make consistent, daily progress instead of a strenuous, herculean effort.

    When it comes to learning, winning small daily battles is better than a mad, one-time dash that may end in discouraging failure!

  • Get Some Feedback:

    Incorporate third-party review or feedback from peers, coaches, instructors, etc.

  • Build Your Resume:

    Keep in mind that taking on challenges outside your immediate area of expertise, scores points in the eyes of current and future managers.

Keep in mind that wearing multiple hats is an opportunity in disguise.

Acquire a “can do” mindset and live outside the silos or boundaries set by your job descriptions!


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]]> http://www.it-career-coach.net/2011/10/27/wearing-multiple-hats-gets-the-job-done/feed/ 0 Can Certifications Take the Place of Experience? http://www.it-career-coach.net/2011/08/17/can-certifications-take-the-place-of-experience/ http://www.it-career-coach.net/2011/08/17/can-certifications-take-the-place-of-experience/#comments Wed, 17 Aug 2011 20:10:29 +0000 Russ Woodward http://www.it-career-coach.net/?p=3265

Certifications Or Experience Which Is Better?

Certifications Or Experience Which Is Better?

I have been in business development / sales side of the Financial Services Industry for the past 15 years.

I have worked as a VP for several Fortune 500 companies.

Due to the market downturn and layoffs, I find myself looking to other industries for stability.

I want to get into Software / Network Sales and wanted to know what is the best way for me to break into the Information Technology industry

Should I get A+ certified, get a masters in I.T.?

Since I don’t have years of experience selling I.T., what are hiring managers looking for?

Can a certificate take the place of experience?

Thank you

Russ

Can a Certificate Take the Place of Experience?

  1. What does a certificate prove to hiring managers?

    Just like a college degree, certifications also prove that you are knowledgeable on a subject.

    Just like self study or taking a training class, a certificate also proves that you have taken the time to study, learn or master a subject.

    A certificate proves that you have mastered the information or knowledge you need for a job.

    And a certificate proves that you will not be studying textbooks on the job or asking questions about how to do your job.

    However, Information Technology managers are not really looking for your knowledge but for the ability or skills to perform … and having knowledge is not the same as having the skills or ability to perform.

  2. What Is The Best Predictor Of Performance?

    In the Information Technology (IT) Industry, you are hired for your ability to perform or get the job done.

    And as far as hiring managers are concerned, “your past performance is the best predictor of your future performance“.

    So, when it comes to finding a job in the Information Technology (IT) Industry, your experience will always count more than your certifications because it is a better predictor of your performance.

  3. What Is The Value of a Certificate?

    A certificate measures your ability to retain or recall information and it is important from the perspective that it assures hiring managers that you have really studied the material you need for your job.

    But what a certificate does not measure is your real-world ability to get the job done or perform.

    When it comes to the Information Technology (IT) Industry, hiring managers take your past performance as the absolute best measure of your future performance … hence the principle behind hiring is: “Can you perform, prove it“.

    If you want to get hired for a job … any job, don’t focus on certifications because that is a distraction, instead focus on proving your ability to perform on the job.

    4. How To Prove That You Can Perform

    The real question that you should be answering is” “How do you prove to hiring managers that you will perform if you are hired“. Here is the answer to the real question:

  4. Make Your Past Experience Count

    The real reason why you have been successful in business development or sales is your ability to perform on the job by bringing in sales.

    And what information technology hiring managers want from you is that same ability to bring in sales.

    Don’t cloud issues for yourself by focusing on your certifications.

    The ability to bring in sales does not depend on your certifications or education but on your past successes as a sales / development Vice President.

    What you have to do is simple: document your past sales & business development successes clearly on your resume and work on identifying those sales, marketing & business development strengths, experience and skills which will help you perform in any job, even when you change industry.

  5. Rewrite Your Resume – Prove That You A Top Performer

    Your resume is one of the most important documents along the path of changing careers.

    Hire a professional resume writer to clearly identify and document tangible sales results that you’ve achieved in your past jobs.

    Document things like the size of business you brought in or how many millions of dollars in revenue, sales or profit are attributable to your efforts.

    Document things like the sales training you attended, the sales quota you achieved or exceeded, the conferences you attended, the c-level businesses executives you networked with, the size of the budget you managed, the divisional or corporate sales goals or objectives that you achieved and how they mattered to your company’s bottom line.

    At the end of the day, your resume must highlight you as a superstar, top-performer and show clearly how hiring you made a difference to the profit, sales, revenue, strategic and tactical goals of the companies that you worked for as a Vice President of Sales & Business Development.

    Just remember this, you success in getting hired will depend on how well you can prove that you are a top performer and not on anything else.

  6. Ace your Job Interview – Prove That You Are A Top Performer

    The goal of your resume is to get you into as many job interviews as possible. But your resume alone will not get you a job, you must wow your clients at the job interview to get a job!

    And yes, the job interview is really a presentation. So prepare and rehearse your presentation and what you will say or you will not succeed.

    You may want to take some time to read more advice on “How To Slam Dunk Job Interviews” – http://www.it-career-coach.net/?p=841

    Finally, you must be confident in your abilities and convey that self-confidence at your job interview.

    Remember this, the Information Technology Industry is a performance driven industry and no-one would hire you, if you first don’t believe in your own abilities.

    So, take the time to discover your own strengths, talents, abilities and then learn how to believe in yourself so that you will be able to convince others at your job interviewer, that you are a top performer!

Follow the strategy that I outlined in this post to change careers and get an information technology job.

Remember that Certifications are helpful because it helps you learn or master a topic.

But focusing on a certificate as a way of getting a job is not a high value strategy because that is not what hiring managers are really looking for.

Hiring managers are hiring for your ability to perform or get the job done!

You gain that ability to perform through rigorous real world problem solving or on the job experience.

You can prove your ability by highlighting your past successes which are the best predictors of your future performance or creating situations where you can grow and develop your experience through practical challenges.

[Ask IT Career Coach] is a Career Advice Column for Information Technology (IT) professionals looking for answers to their most challenging career situations …

Submit questions about your career using the [Ask IT Career Coach] service and I will answer it for you just like I am answering the question in this post …


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This post was submitted by Russ Woodward.

]]> http://www.it-career-coach.net/2011/08/17/can-certifications-take-the-place-of-experience/feed/ 1 6 Principles That Transform Your Work http://www.it-career-coach.net/2011/03/04/6-principles-that-transform-your-work/ http://www.it-career-coach.net/2011/03/04/6-principles-that-transform-your-work/#comments Fri, 04 Mar 2011 07:01:42 +0000 ITCareerCoach http://www.it-career-coach.net/?p=3132

six principles that transform your career

six principles that transform your work

Are you looking for a transformation in your work situation? Follow these 6 rock solid success principles that summarize what I have learned about building careers or online communities!

Whatever your industry, background or situation, these six principles will help you “Discover Your Passion“, “Do What You Love” or “Take Your Passion To Market“.

The first two (2) principles are designed to help you choose work that matches your strengths, education, training, background, skills, experience, hobbies or interests.

Principle #1 – Choose Work Based On Passion

Work is much easier or more fulfilling when you do something that you are passionate about as opposed to something that stresses you!

On the other hand, when you are not passionate about your work, you will lack the desire to excel or motivation to perform at work!

Some people don’t believe in the “Do What You Love And The Money Will Follow” principle because the picture that comes to their mind is that of starving artists who do what they love and yet cannot pay their bills.

The good news is that you don’t have to be a starving artist because you can actually do what you love and have the money follow you :-)

The first step on this path to success, is choosing work that is at the intersection of something you’re good at, something you care about and something other people in your chosen industry, niche or market need, find useful and are willing to pay for.

Read this article titled: “How The Starving Artist Achieves Career Success Using Social Media“.

Principle #2 – Learn the Most Marketable Skills

Learn the most marketable skills for the work that you have chosen to do.

Your skills are just a means to an end which usually involves meeting the needs of customers in the industry or market.

When it comes to choosing skills that you will learn, be as objective as possible and choose based on facts or data as opposed to emotions or personal opinions.

Remember that the more marketable your skills are, the easier it will be for you to find a new job, earn an income or stay employed.

Read this post titled: learn the most marketable skills

It is easy to learn the marketability of a skill, just count the number of job postings that require that skill!

For your own personal education, after reading this post, “Download the Free Report” below which describes the Top 100, Most Marketable Skills in the Online Employment Industry.

The next two principles described on this post belong to a coaching course titled: “Do What You Love“.

These two principles will take your performance to an advanced level or give you the freedom to do what you love without fear of failure.

Principle #3 – Stay Current In Your Industry

Stay current with the information coming out of your industry by reading a lot of blog posts, articles or books.

Do not neglect to read professional textbooks because the fundamental principles, concepts and techniques are often explained in great details in them.

Subscribe to and read the blog post of the most influential professionals in your industry. Nowadays, the latest, cutting-edge information is often posted in blogs before it makes its way out to industry textbooks.

Invest time and money in learning because ours is a knowledge-based economy and the most valuable currency is your knowledge, skills or experience and not the money saved in your bank account.

In other words, the more you learn and put to work, the more money you will earn … and the less you learn, the more likely you are to lose your income!

Principle #4 – Advance Your Skills By Taking Tests

Study hard but better still, take frequent tests because they improve retention, comprehension and recall and also help you excel at work by sharpening your skills!

Read more about the Benefits of Taking Tests in this post titled: How To Ace Job Interviews Using Practice Tests.

It is important that you become highly skilled because when the economy sheds jobs, the easiest jobs to cut are those employing the least skilled workers and the most likely to get hired again, are the most skilled workers!

In other words, the only safety net for your job is to become highly skilled at your work, career or business!

Remember that you live in a global economy where a job can be outsourced to a professional living in another country simply because that professional is better skilled than you.

An article by Pam Belluck of the New York Times reports a new scientific finding in the “January 2011 Science Journal” which backs up my findings about the importance of taking frequent practice tests.

Click here to read the article titled: “To Really Learn, Quit Studying and Take a Test”.

This scientific finding suggests that taking tests is good not only for certification exams or assessing knowledge but for helping people learn new information as well!

The conclusion is that students who read and take a test asking them to recall what they just read perform better than those who use traditional learning techniques!

The next two principles described on this post belong to a online coaching course or web design & web marketing consulting services titled: “Bring Your Passion To Market“.

These last two success principles are important because without marketing your ideas, skills or business, someone else who is less qualified but more visible will take the opportunities meant for you!

Principle #5 – Blog Your Way To Success

Don’t put all your eggs in one basket by depending solely on your resume and online job postings. Learn to market your career with a blog.

Blogging is the process of putting out well-researched, informative or authoritative articles on your industry. When done right, it will keep you visible to a high number of employers.

Blogging can distinguish you in a global, competitive job market by helping you develop and market a unique personal brand, which is something that employers apparently value!

The value of blogging is that it can open the communication doors between you and potential employers or customers.

As you talk or write, yo differentiate yourself from your competitors and potential customers or employers begin to value your expertise.

Principle #6 – Invest In An Online Community

Invest time, effort and money in an online community that incorporates your strengths, your blog posts and your social media networking activities.

Your online community must be built around your passion and your strengths so that members feel energized, inspired, motivated or helped when they interact with you.

If you passionately help out your community members by giving your time and expertise, they will reciprocate the favor by referring customers, employers or new opportunities your way.

Building an online community can only be described as the best publicity or customer relationship management (CRM) tool and in the end all the good work that you do will benefit your reputation, online brand, business or career as well.

Bring Your Passion To Market: regardless of how good your skills are, you must stay visible to employers or potential customers, if you want to get hired.

These six (6) principles are documented in my FREE thirty six (36) page Report titled: “The Survivors Guide To Unemployment” which you can download below.

Click here to discover your passion: or find work that is at the intersection of something you’re good at, something you care about and something other people in your chosen industry, niche or market need, find useful and are willing to pay for.

Or hire our web design & web marketing consulting services: to help you bring your passion (ideas, products, services, skills or business) to market.


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]]> http://www.it-career-coach.net/2011/03/04/6-principles-that-transform-your-work/feed/ 0 Why Sales / Marketing Graduates Can’t Find Jobs After College? http://www.it-career-coach.net/2010/12/10/why-sales-marketing-cant-find-jobs-after-college/ http://www.it-career-coach.net/2010/12/10/why-sales-marketing-cant-find-jobs-after-college/#comments Fri, 10 Dec 2010 17:26:01 +0000 ITCareerCoach http://www.it-career-coach.net/?p=3022

[Ask IT Career Coach] is a Career Advice Column for Information Technology (IT) professionals looking for answers to their most challenging career situations.

I get a number of questions along the lines of how to get a marketing and sales job after college from new college graduates who have a degree in marketing or sales and yet find it hard to get hired based on their college degree!

Why sales & marketing graduates can’t get jobs

Traditional Marketing and Sales Jobs expects skills in prospecting, cold calling, appointment setting, in-bound / out-bound sales, presentation and closing skills.

Traditionally, a sales or marketing professional would have to qualify a prospect for their ability to buy a product.

Then the marketer will have to prepare a list of companies and the key decision makers that need to be cold called on a daily basis.

The marketer will often call early in the morning or late in the day when they expect to get through the gate keepers, reach the decision maker and set an appointment for a face to face presentation.

Through a series of meetings and face to face presentations, they expect to move through a list of objections and then get the buy-in of the copoany or executive that they are selling to.

Finally, they need to be good at closing the sales and then they may have to work with the implementation team or Account Managers to make sure that the client is still happy after the sale.

But that is what traditional sales and marketing jobs used to be. Now, there is a whole new paradigm known as selling on the web and traditional sales and marketing skills tend to be less and less important.

That is why a lot of marketing and sales graduates end up not being able to get a job because they don’t have the new skills of selling on the web or internet.

Selling on the web or internet requires a different set of skills including

:

#1: Running a Blog using WordPress or Posterous or any of the other popular blog hosting platforms

#2: Blogging about your products or services

#3: Building a community using Social Media

If you can get these skills, add them to your resume and show them to potential employers, you will be well on your way to getting a marketing and sales job!


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]]> http://www.it-career-coach.net/2010/12/10/why-sales-marketing-cant-find-jobs-after-college/feed/ 0 How To Become A Data Analyst http://www.it-career-coach.net/2008/02/27/how-to-become-a-data-analyst/ http://www.it-career-coach.net/2008/02/27/how-to-become-a-data-analyst/#comments Wed, 27 Feb 2008 21:26:47 +0000 ITCareerCoach http://www.it-career-coach.net/2008/02/27/how-to-become-a-data-analyst/

How To Become A Data Analyst

How To Become A Data Analyst

The data analyst career is one of the popular Information Technology (IT) career tracks available today.

The term data analyst is loosely associated with business data analysts, systems analysts, database analysts, reporting specialists, data researchers, statistical data analysts or marketing data analysts!

However, in this article, I will explain who a data analyst really is and provide a career roadmap or plan for becoming a data analyst.

Who Is A Data Analyst?

The term data analyst refers to someone who works with data or makes sense of the information buried in raw data or draws inferences and conclusions from it.

A data analyst is someone who performs queries or mines data for information or nuggets of insight and information.

According to Wikipedia, data analysis is the process of looking at or summarizing data with the intent of extracting useful information and developing conclusions.

What Is The Job Outlook For Data Analysts?

There is an increasing need to aggregate information in databases and analyze, research or query it for meaning, clues, trends or insight that will help organizations do better or become more competitive in their marketplace.

This trend to store and analyze vast quantities of data at every level of business has spawned the “Analytics” industry.

For example, when you visit a website at Amazon.com or NetFlix or Ebay, your visit history is stored and analyzed by a group of people known as web analysts who specialize in analyzing web visitor data.

The data analyst is growing in importance because of the trend towards storing and analyzing increasing amounts of data, so that organizations can compete based on insight, information and intelligence gleaned from their databases.

Data Analyst Roles and Responsibilities

If you are looking for a data analyst job or position, make sure you can demonstrate the skills listed below on your resume when you apply for a data analyst position:

  1. You must demonstrate the ability to analyze large data sets
  2. You must show an expert ability to analyze, research or query data using SQL
  3. You must have the ability to report on data using enterprise, industry standard reporting tools like SQL Server Reporting Services, Crystal Reports and Business Objects
  4. You must have logical, problem solving skills.
  5. You must have strong analytical skills
  6. You must be able to present, interpret, discuss or write about the conclusions, inferences and results gained from researching data
  7. You must be able to analyze data in Excel, prepare Excel spreadsheets or PowerPoint presentation to explain your results.
  8. You must be able to research concepts and issues on the Internet using search engines and other web based research tools

Data Analyst Job Interviews

Job interviews typically address all the positions on your resume.

So, if you present a data analyst resume to an employer, you must be able to talk intelligently about all the positions, skills and responsibilities listed on that resume.

In addition, you may expect a data analyst job interview to include database design interview questions, database development interview questions, and SQL interview questions.

So you will must have SQL coding and Database Development skills.

You also need to have a strong mastery of a variant of SQL like T-SQL and database development on a specific enterprise database platform like Microsoft SQL Server.

Here is a link you can use to get all the data analyst education (statistical data analysis), relational database training and SQL query writing training you will need to fulfill your data analyst roles and responsibilities. Click here for more information on online data analyst training.

Finally, you need to understand trend analysis . For example, given a SQL Server marketing database, you need to be able to search for patterns or identify trends using SQL queries or T-SQL queries to be exact.

How Do Data Analyst Jobs Compare To Business Analyst Jobs Or Computer Programmer Jobs?

1. How does a data analyst job compare to a business analyst job?

One way of comparing the data analyst’s job to the business analyst’s job is to say that the data analyst majors on database analysis or data analysis while the business analyst focuses on business process analysis.

The data analyst is expected to be an expert at querying databases using SQL, writing reports in Crystal Reports, Microsoft SQL Server Reporting Services or Business Objects and analyzing or presenting data in Microsoft Excel.

On the other hand, the business analyst focuses on requirements analysis, UML, Use Cases and business process improvement.

2. How does a data analyst job compare to a computer programmer job?

Computer programmers focus more on the design and development of database applications and software applications.

Computer programmers need to master all aspects of the software development life cycle, database design, database development, web and windows application development and data reporting.

Data analysts focus on database analysis, database design, data preparation, data quality and data reporting.

Online Data Analyst Training Opportunities

One of the technical skills that is most in demand for data analyst positions is the ability to research data stored in relational databases like Oracle, MySQL, Microsoft Access (MS Access), Microsoft SQL Server using SQL.

The beginner to advanced online data analyst training offered on Data Analysts Boot Camp covers the training requirements for data analyst positions.

Be sure to register at Data Analysts Boot Camp for more information on data analyst online training opportunities.


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