OTHERS – i2ctraining.com

Your Career Path

Fahim — Mon, 31 Oct 2022 05:07:45 +0000

How to Overcome Career Change Blues

Do you wish to change your career but fear consequences? You are not alone. Most people who dream of changing their careers do not take the first step due to many reasons. Today let’s discuss why most of us are afraid to switch our career path and how to overcome that fear.

What stops us from taking the plunge?

Leaving the comfort zone
You might be feeling this is not the right job for you, or you might have started liking a new field but still unable to leave the current job. This happens when you have been working in the same industry or organization for long time. You feel you are familiar with people working there, you have got used to the organization culture, and you know the work very well. In contrast to this, joining a new organization in a new industry can mean need to prove yourself to everyone. You might feel will they accept me? Will I be comfortable working there.

Fear of failure
The next thing that stops you from changing career is fear of failure. You might feel a bird in hand is better than two in the bush. You might start doubting yourself as to if you will be successful in the new job.

Peer Pressure
Peer pressure can affect some of us. Our friends and family might feel its safer to continue in the current profession. They might be feeling its risky to make a career change.

Fear of being too old to change the career
Some of us might also think ‘I am too old to make a change now’. There might be many question marks as to can I learn a new skill at this age? Will I be able to go through the process of sending resumes, facing interviews and working with new people.

Fear of losing progress
If you have worked for a considerable number of years in a career path, you might be feeling you are almost near to next promotion. Is it wise to change career now? Will I be given due weightage to depending on my experience? Will I be losing all the progress I have made so far? These questions can bother you.

Fear of making the wrong choice
Finally, you might be thinking what if I am making the wrong choice? What price I would be paying for that if I must switch back to my original career?

All these types of fears are not at all uncommon. In fact, you should have some of those fears which you can use as a tool to succeed in the next role you would be embarking on.

Now let’s try to understand how to overcome these fears.

Acknowledge the fact that it’s okay to have self-doubts
Its normal to have self-doubts. When we doubt ourselves, we try to prepare in a better way. It also shows that we are serious about our choices.

Explore your fear and raise your self-awareness
You should try to understand why you are afraid. Note down the points which you are afraid of and points which motivate you to make a career change. Then you can try to address each reason for fear and find a solution for the same.

New and welcome challenges
Look at the positive aspects of career change. You will be meeting new people; you will learn new ways of doing work. You will have challenging tasks which will keep you on your toes. Your professional network will also expand.

Better Growth opportunities
New experience adds more value to your resume. Even if it is a different industry, you can always make use of the experience you have had in your previous jobs. See what skills overlap in your previous job and the future job. You can feel more confident now that whatever change you are making is not entirely new.

Do some research
Do some research on the career change you are planning to make. Understand the industry, the organizations, the major players of the industry. See what skills you already have to succeed there. Things like communication skills, mathematics, business skills and many others can be used in all industries.

Speak to a career consultant
Speak to a career consultant and check what certifications are needed. How can you be better prepared for this career change. If you do all this homework before switching, there will be nothing to be afraid of when you are making that career change.

Do you want to change your career and do not know where to start? Does the IT industry interest you? Then do join our WhatsApp group for more tips and helpful resources. You can also book a free consultation with us using this Calendly meeting link. We wish you all the best for your career progression.

5 tips on how to use job search sites.

i2ctraining — Wed, 02 Jun 2021 14:17:38 +0000

First working from home, now finding work from home — COVID-19 has ushered in a new era of online everything, and the job search is no exception. While online job search engines were already a popular way to find work, COVID-19 has made them even more important when it comes time to find a new gig.

Using job boards effectively goes beyond exhaustive searches. You should be viewing job boards as another networking resource to find and be found. Knowing how to successfully search and navigate job boards will not only maximize your time, but enhance your results. Start by following some basic best practices for your job search efforts, then utilize the advanced job search techniques used by recruiters that are outlined in this article.

1. How to find online job postings
For all too many job seekers, trying to navigate the online job sites for a job is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. This is especially true when searching using simple, non-specific keywords like “engineer” or “software developer.” The result is a return of thousands of results, many of which are completely irrelevant to the job opportunities you are seeking. There is a better way!

Using job boards effectively goes beyond exhaustive searches. You should now be viewing job boards as a primary networking resource to find and be found. Knowing how to successfully search and navigate job boards will not only maximize your time, but enhance your results. Start by following some basic best practices for your job search efforts, and then utilize the advanced job search technique used by recruiters.

2. Aggregate — don’t aggravate!
One of the easiest ways to start your online search is to use a job aggregator. These websites will scan through various job boards — like employer sites, small industry boards and newspaper classifieds — and will return results based on your search criteria. An aggregator can help you save time during the job search and may direct you to a position you wouldn’t have found using a traditional job board.

Another benefit of using an aggregator (and some job boards)? The ability to create saved search alerts, which will send appropriate jobs directly to your email inbox. Randstad offers a similar feature: You can sign up for job alerts and we’ll email you when a position is posted that matches your requirements. Try it! You might be surprised by the effectiveness of this approach.

3. Using advanced search techniques
It doesn’t matter if you’re using an aggregator or a traditional job board. To conduct more advanced searches, understanding Boolean logic is your secret weapon. If you haven’t heard of “Boolean” before, don’t fret. Its name may sound complicated or scary, but it’s quite easy to master. Boolean logic has been used for decades by database administrators because it’s an information retrieval tool that allows several search words and phrases to be combined using operators or commands.

From an execution standpoint, there are probably five Boolean operators you should at least be aware of when navigating job search sites.

“or”

Using this operator allows you to combine keywords so that a page or document is retrieved if it contains any or all of the keywords. For example, “nurse or pediatric” will find all instances in which the words “nurse” or “pediatric” appear.

“and”

“And” can be used to combine terms so that information is retrieved only if all those terms occur in the same place. Searching for “software and engineer” will bring up results where both keywords occur.

“not”

This operator will prevent any results in which specified terms occur together. This is helpful when a specific keyword may have many meanings. For example, “engineer not mechanical” will find instances in which “engineer” occurs but “mechanical” doesn’t. However, it’s important to note that this operator is not recognized by Google. If you’re using Google to job search, use the minus sign (-) in place of the “not” operator.

“near”

This is particularly helpful if you want to search for words which appear near each other. When you use this operator, the search will only find instances where your keywords appear between one and 20 spaces of each other.

“ ”

Quotation marks allow you to search for words or a phrase exactly as you type it. For example, “financial analyst” will only find results containing those two words in that exact order.

Finally, while there are a few other Boolean operators that can help you narrow your searches even further in future, mastering these basics will dramatically improve the accuracy and success of your searches and avoid further frustration.

4. Find and be found
Job seekers aren’t the only ones using job boards. Many recruiters frequent resume databases to search for available candidates — even more so now that networking events, conferences and job fairs are prohibited. By posting your resume online, a hiring manager could find you and invite you to apply for a job you didn’t even know existed.

If you choose to post your resume, consider the following:

Use a dedicated email address for your job search.
Focus on niche job boards for your location, industry or position type.
Use a Microsoft Word version of your document named with your target job title(s).
Refresh your resume weekly so that it remains at the top of search results.
If you really want to make sure you’re posting a resume that has all the right components, then check out our complimentary resume builder which can put together a polished document for you that checks all the right boxes.

Key takeaways
Job boards may be the only way to find work for a while, so it’s a good idea to get comfortable using them. Try experimenting with various search strings, following the tips we’ve outlined, to see which work best for you. Once you have identified the appropriate search strings, you can also set job search alerts and tweak your search parameters so you can receive emails when new jobs are posted that meet your criteria. Finally, if you find a position that interests you, be sure to review our tips and best practices for submitting applications before you click “submit.”

Find out the moment opportunities become available by signing up for Randstad’s job alerts. Just tell us the kind of position you want, and we’ll email you when we find it.

Tags Talent , job hunting

Source : https://www.randstadusa.com/jobs/career-resources/job-hunting/5-tips-on-how-to-use-job-search-sites/356/

Developing Your Data Privacy Skills is Key to Many Technology Jobs

i2ctraining — Fri, 21 May 2021 16:05:31 +0000

Data privacy skills are in high demand, offering opportunities for technologists and compliance professionals to gain new abilities that are critical in today’s evolving regulatory environment.

Businesses are trying to comply with new regulations on collecting customer data. In addition, technology teams that handle this data must be very clear about tracking and managing it, including its categorization and storage.

Data privacy specialists also must know how to protect sensitive data, making it inaccessible to those who shouldn’t see it, and ensuring it is protected from breach. As you can see from the following chart, generated via data from Burning Glass (which collects and analyzes millions of job postings from across the country), technology consultants and cybersecurity professionals are those most often tasked with data privacy—but as concerns about the sanctity of data increase, more technologists will need to have data-privacy skills:

Kevin Dunne, president at Pathlock, a provider of unified access orchestration, suggests that, for those looking for a career in data protection and privacy, the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP), which offers the Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP) certification, is a good place to start for remote or in-person learning.

“For many just starting out in their career in data protection, a CIPP certification will be the best starting point,” he said. “From there, they can add on other certifications depending on how they want to specialize or progress their career.”

Dunne said data protection regulations such as the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and theCalifornia Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) are core tenets of an overall Governance Risk Management and Compliance (GRC) program: “Typically, what data privacy specialists do will feed into overall tools that measure GRC program health, including progress towards compliance and audit progress.”

In larger companies with a wealth of customer data, there might be specialized data privacy teams or even departments specifically tasked with reporting to the overall GRC program on GDPR or CCPA compliance. In smaller companies, meanwhile, there may be a need for individuals to focus on data protection alongside other types of compliance such as ISO 27001 or Sarbanes-Oxley Act compliance.

“Depending on the structure of the organization, data privacy specialists may want to expand their breadth of technology expertise into other areas of GRC, including third party risk management, identity and access management (IAM), audit workflow management, and integrated risk management,” Dunne said.

Translating Law to Technical Specs

Data privacy engineers and leaders have to be able to translate regulatory requirements (from GDPR or CCPA, among others) to technical requirements that apply to engineers and analysts. According to Mohit Tiwari, co-founder and CEO at Symmetry Systems, a specialist in data storage and object security, doing so requires understanding the limits of what privacy technologies can and cannot do.

“This means working out which precise use-cases—if any—fit the use of more dated or limited technologies like tokenization or k-anonymity,” he said. “Internal data management is hard in large, legacy, or fast-moving environments. Companies have built tools like DataHub to do this, but the vast majority of companies rely on manual processes for this.”

As Tiwari also noted, privacy management is a fragmented space, with some solutions for data inventory and a separate set of solutions for access governance, including data store access control, cloud IAM, with many organizations relying on substantial custom tooling to manage data. Data privacy specialists must have an understanding of what GRC entails, how it transcends IT, security, privacy and risk corporate-wide, and not be siloed to only one organization within an enterprise.

“I would recommend learning identity and access management—both on the cloud and specific to SQL, NoSQL, graph, time-series, or analytics—and how to scale through DevOps-like processes for authorization and detection-response,” he said.

Finally, he recommended learning the legal requirements and translating user or societal concerns, such as the right to be forgotten or segregation of duties, into engineering-level mechanisms, such as data store deletion capabilities or access to customer data.

For David Gochenaur, senior director of cybersecurity at Ensono, essential skills in data privacy begin with an understanding of information security, risk management and the ability to translate control gaps into risk for business leaders.

“The ability to understand technical concepts and discuss them with technical leaders, such as when, where and why to apply encryption, is another foundational skill for data privacy professionals,” he said. “Overall, strong communication skills, especially an ability to communicate with senior leaders, will help when the time comes to discuss the value of technical concepts.”

When it comes to Governance Risk Management, specialists must have an understanding of threats and risk management as it relates to the data that is being protected. “Knowledge of international privacy law and how information is stored in the cloud also play a key role in data compliance,” Gochenaur said, noting how ServiceNow, Navex and SAP GRC are all important tools on that front.

Pathlock‘s Dunne said he thinks the future is bright for data protection specialists in the U.S., given the increasing regulations around data privacy (and higher stakes for non-compliance). He pointed to Virginia’s recently joining California in creating its own Consumer Data Protection Act as an example of new regulations forming data privacy and data protection expectations: “As further regulations arise, there will be a need to evolve data protection strategies, which should create a continuing, long term need for trained data protection specialists.”

Source : https://insights.dice.com/2021/03/29/developing-your-data-privacy-skills-is-key-to-many-technology-jobs/