Alexandra Levits Water Cooler Wisdom CIOs Treasure the Old While Bringing in the New

Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom CIOs Treasure the Old While Bringing in the New IT leaders including Miami-Dade County database manager Sue Camner, Wal-Mart CIO Karenann Terrell, and NSM Insurance Group CIO Brendan O’Malley, share their views on effectively managing legacyIT. Miami-Dade County’s Sue Camner According to GCN’s Stephanie Kanowitz, Florida’s Miami-Dade County IT department faced a tough choice. One of its middleware stacks had reached end of life, and officials could either upgrade or get rid of it and convert the forms and reports applications on it to two other stacks. County database manager Sue Camner decided to go with the second option. The county received assistance from legacy IT modernization firm Morphis to help with the conversions as it did away with its Oracle Application Server (OAS). Oracle had stopped supporting this server a few years back, and Miami-Dade needed to upgrade to Oracle WebLogic. Unfortunately, that suite provides a lot of functionality Camner’s team didn’t need. “We’d have to have the servers and all the resources to support this application just for this small piece,” she said. “It didn’t seem to be cost effective.” Kanowitz explained that because Miami-Dade has two other middleware stacks â€" IBM’s WebSphere for Java-based apps and Microsoft’s IIS for .NET applications â€" the department decided to convert the Oracle Forms and Reports code to work on one of those stacks. The move would save the county money by removing a stack and all its related maintenance. “Once all of the applications are out of OAS, we can get rid of that whole infrastructure â€" the servers and the storage, the licensing, everything involved in that stack â€" and just migrate everything to one of the other two,” Camner said. And, users aren’t lost because the new programs look much like the legacy applications. Miami-Dade is experiencing decreased costs and improved security as a result of the modernization. Since the technology is tighter, the county is in a much better position to protect its data. Wal-Mart’s Karenann Terrell For its part, retail giant Wal-Mart isn’t getting rid of its legacy systems anytime soon. At Information Week’s recent conference, Wal-Mart CIO Karenann Terrell said she prefers to refer to legacy IT systems as classic. “Classic is respectful for the people who keep the lights on,” Information Week’s Chris Murphy reported the CIO as saying. At present, Wal-Mart is undertaking a major IT modernization. But one of Terrell’s chief priorities is to keep engaging those who are operating legacy environments as well as those who are transforming them. “Both are equally valuable but for different reasons,” Terrell said. “Dealing with legacy IT environments, and particularly with how well companies connect legacy systems to their modern, often customer-facing mobile and cloud environments, will make or break some companies.” There have, of course, been situations where the “classic” systems have had to be retired. “There are some no-brainer improvements we’ve had to take action on,” Terrell told Deloitte University Press for its article on re-imagining core systems. “For example, we had applications with kernels built around unsupported operating systems. We had to get rid of them.” But, she added: “Our IT strategy is not about reacting to the technology trend of the moment. I’m sometimes asked, ‘Why don’t you move everything to the cloud?’ My answer is because there’s nothing wrong with mainframes; they will likely always play a part in our solution stack. Moreover, there’s not enough dark fiber in the world to meet our transaction volumes and performance needs.” At Wal-Mart, modernization is a process rather than a project. It doesn’t have a beginning and an end. It’s usually not a matter of throwing out an entire system all at once, but rather evolving it as new trends and capabilities emerge. For more examples, read the rest of the piece at QuickBases Fast Track blog.

Coaching Resume Services

Coaching Resume ServicesUsing a coach resume service can prove to be very helpful. They can help you build up your resume in a way that will make it stand out from the others and make it even more successful.A professional coach will take a look at your resume and be able to tell you if it is clear enough for you to go ahead and send out. The coach will analyze it for areas that need improvement, and then suggest ways to improve it further. He will give you tips on how to create the resume that you would like to send out and make it stand out in the crowd. So, what are some of the things that a coach can do?A coach can help you rewrite your resume. By rewriting your resume, you will make sure that it will have clear goals. The resume must also have a good balance between key words and bullet points. It is best to combine both of these techniques to come up with a well-written resume. A coach can help you make sure that you put all the best parts of your resume.If you are unsure about what to put in your resume, a coach can help you decide what to include. For example, you can include your education history. The reason why a coach can be very useful is because he or she knows which skills to emphasize and which to leave out. So, he or she can help you decide what to include. A coach can also help you brainstorm the best ways to present your qualifications.A coach can help you make the most of your education background by recommending to you resume services that focus on your field. A coach can help you determine which companies need new graduates and how to approach them. Most resume services focus on specific industries and help you find jobs in these industries.A coach can help you improve your high school diploma. He or she can help you work on your writing and education history and determine whether you can improve your education after graduating. It is important to have a high school diploma so that you can get better jobs and build a good reputation. A coa ch can help you learn how to improve your knowledge and education, helping you find employment and get a good education. In addition, he or she can help you research how to write a resume and prepare for interviews.Your coach can help you when it comes to searching for a job search. He or she can take you through the process of finding a job and help you find out which companies are good and which ones you should avoid. There are many things that you can learn from your coach. A coach can help you work on your personal and professional life. For example, your coach can help you improve your communication skills, problem solving skills, organizational skills, and negotiation skills.Coaching resumes is something that you will never regret doing. It will help you improve your skill and improve your chances of landing a great job.

4 Ways to Keep a Recruiters Attention for More Than 6 Seconds - Classy Career Girl

4 Ways to Keep a Recruiters Attention for More Than 6 Seconds Youve probably heard that a recruiter spends an average of 6 seconds looking at a resume before deciding if an applicant is suitable for the jobbut do you know why? Its a popular recruitment technique known as eye tracking. At the end of the day, if a recruiter has to go through 100 applications for a job, theyre not going to sit and read through every single one. However, there are a couple of techniques you can use to guide your reader into feeling compelled to read more and see whether you’re the right person for the job, giving you the maximum opportunities to secure the job of your dreams. With a little bit of time and effort, you can revive your resume from one of the most torturous aspects of the professional world into a document that will secure your future. 4 Ways to Keep a Recruiters Attention for More Than 6 Seconds 1. Put Your Best Accomplishments At The Top Your achievements are what defines you as a person (okay, not really, but on a resume they are.) They brought you to success in your past positions, which is why you feel youre suitable for the job youre applying for. When structuring your past achievements, for example, when listing out your responsibilities for every job, place your best accomplishments at the top. This is the first thing your future recruiter will see and is the feature that will draw them into the rest of your CV. 2. Remember You’re Human When it comes to resumes, it’s best to remember that you are trying to describe yourself, and (as you well know) you don’t spend your whole life working (unless you do, in which case, refer to our articles on self-care and love yourself.) You’ve got personality, ambition, and traits that make you the person you are, and this should be evident in your resume. Simon Romero, a writer from Paper Fellows explains, “The hobbies and out-of-work area of the CV is one of the most neglected. By being honest and including things such as any side projects you’re working, you can give the recruiter a real insight into who you are and what you’ve got to give. All this combined with your work history builds up an accurate image of who you are”. [RELATED: The 13 Best-Kept Resume Secrets] 3. Accuracy and Precision One of the biggest turn-offs for recruiters reading through pile after pile of resumes is the quality of the resume itself. It’s all well and good creating a 2,500-word document detailing the ins and outs of your past (not actually though, please dont this), but if it’s riddled with mistakes, the recruiter is throwing your resume straight into the garbage. Thomas Walsh, head of HR at Ox Essays says, “During our days, we review countless CVs for various positions, 40% of which we place straight in the ‘reject’ pile. On paper, we’ve seen some really amazing applicants, but being concise in your work is such an important trait to have. A lot of the mistakes we see could be simply resolved with a quick read through, something most of these applicants haven’t done, which just shows how much care they have put in.” 4. Avoid Traditional Buzzwords The final aspect of making your resume stand out from the crowd is to actually prove youre different. If you can keep a recruiter on your resume for more than those 6 seconds, your chances of securing the job increase tenfold. Try to avoid using traditional keywords such as ‘motivated’ and ‘responsible.’ The vast majority of resumes will have these words, making yours seem like any other. Mastering the art of creating a good resume can take a couple of attempts to get right but once it’s there, it’s a skill that will stay with you for life.