If you are on the hunt for a job as a project manager in the rapidly growing field of information technology, then you may already be aware that there is some stiff competition out there. The good news is that you can get an edge in the IT job market if you understand what other employers are looking for in candidates. Having the right qualities and training can set you apart from other candidates, helping you to get the positive attention you deserve.

In a recent study, published by Mironov Consulting, it was revealed that many hiring managers in the IT field have a narrow focus when it comes to choosing a project manager. In a random sample of multiple IT job descriptions, both advanced and entry level, nearly all of the hiring managers wanted to see certain project management attributes presented by IT candidates.

• 76% asked for previous experience in a product management role, averaging 3 or more years.
• 93% asked for excellent verbal and written communication skills from candidates.
• 88% called out experience in their market segment as a very important factor for success.
• 83% named specific technologies, including 35% looking for Agile, and 20% hope to get PMs who also have UI/UX experience.
• 93% want a candidate with at least a BA/BS, 32% want MBAs, and 68% were looking for additional certifications

It’s clear that hiring managers are generally recruiting IT candidates who have some experience or a background in certain industries, because projects can vary widely. However, by understanding more of what they expect and look for in candidates, an IT job seeker can better hone his or her skills to attract the best hiring companies.

Another avenue to landing work as an IT project manager is to accept a temporary or contract assignment in a related area. Then become a subject matter expert and ask for opportunities to manage a project, working under the guidance of a more seasoned PM. Being a professional project manager takes a broad range of skills and experience, but the most critical path to success is by being proactive and taking command of your own career.

 Learn more about career opportunities in the IT field and project management:

How to Approach a New Style of IT Hiring – Advice for IT Job Seekers 

It’s no secret that searching for work can be an incredibly frustrating experience for many, especially when there are above average numbers of unemployed professionals flooding the job market at present. However, this doesn’t mean that the job search has to be an entirely negative thing. In fact, this can be an experience that helps to launch a brand new YOU. How? By using a smart job search strategy!

Stand out with a brand – In today’s job search, how well you demonstrate your worth and skills to potential employers is everything. This means, you will want to focus on your career passions and experience to develop a brand that’s consistently making you look like an expert.

Use the power of networks – The people you know and associate with can be your best source of job leads, career support, and testimony about the professional you are. While you may feel like becoming a hermit during this time, make a sincere effort to get out there and connect with your networks. Join job support networks and those in your industry.

Develop your elevator pitch – Being asked, “What do you DO?” can be an uncomfortable situation if you are unemployed or not currently working in your target industry. Yet, the best way to get around this is to discover your strengths and use this to create a compelling 30-second pitch about yourself that will leave others wanting to know more about you.

Take advantage of free resources – In every community, there are bound to be many free job seeker resources just waiting for you to take advantage of them. From career support groups and job fairs to free training at the local library, you’ll have a much better time if you get out there and remain actively focused on landing a career.

Register with a staffing agency – One of the smartest moves you can take as a job seeker is to get registered with a leading staffing agency in your industry and get connected with temporary assignments. This keeps you active in the work community, and you may even get an offer to stay on full time with a great company.

Write a killer resume – No smart job search would be complete without a well-written resume and cover letter. Take the time to update yours so that it truly reflects your value to potential hiring managers who are looking for people just like you.

Remember, take care of yourself as a job seeker to be at your best. The rest will come as you get out there and become part of the community. For more information and help finding your next job, contact the staffing experts at Venteon today!

As an information technology professional on the prowl for a new assignment, you are probably keenly aware that a lot has changed since the last time you looked for a job. Just a few years ago, the only way to get a job in IT was to either graduate from a top level IT college or happened to complete a preferred certification program. But today, the world is an open door, with multiple IT jobs readily available to you – if you know how to approach your job search that is.

Here are some tips for landing an IT job in the modern job search environment.

Brush up your IT resume and cover letter, pronto.

There’s nothing more annoying to today’s recruiter than an outdated resume, especially when It recruiters are looking for candidates with current skill-sets and presentations. Before you start sending resumes out, work with a professional resume writer or consult with a colleague about updating your IT resume. Draft up a concise cover letter for each assignment and make sure you focus on how your skills relate to each job.

Create a branded IT presence online.

Today’s IT recruiters are taking the time to do further research on any potential candidates to screen them before the actual interview takes place. This means they will likely be scoping you out on social networks like LinkedIn and Facebook, as well as any professional groups you participate in online. Make sure you are presenting yourself in the best possible light.

Get networked with multiple IT groups.

Utilize social networks and industry associations as a place for career support as you search for hiring companies who can give you the edge. Sign up for automatic alerts of new IT opportunities. Share your ideas and expertise to create a persona of being an expert in your field.

Go casual and expect collaborative work environments.

The IT workspace has also evolved with the addition of more collaborative technology and work environments that encourage up and coming IT pros to focus on their work rather than fashion. Take a look at the corporate culture and then dress casual for your interviews. Learn how to use new technology to your advantage.

A good avenue for finding an IT job is to work directly with an IT staffing and recruitment firm that has relationships developed with the top hiring companies. Take the time to contract with Venteon Technical for access to IT jobs in the USA.

Working in the financial world as a public accountant can be a highly rewarding and lucrative career. If you are good with numbers, detail oriented, and able to remember a great deal of knowledge about tax and business laws, you may be the right person for the job. The US Department of Labor and Statistics – Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2012-13 Edition for public accountants looks promising, with the average earnings of $61,000 USD annually, and growth of 16 percent projected to the year 2020.

The good news is that launching yourself in a public accounting career can be achieved within 2-3 years. To get you on the right path, here are some tips for building your public accounting career.

Educational Requirements for CPAs

In order to learn the things you need to know to be successful as a public accountant, you will need a minimum of a 4-year college degree in accounting or a related field. Some experts recommend getting a Master’s degree in accounting, as it’s often required by employers, or the equivalent of education and experience. Working as a junior accountant or an internship in a public accountant’s office can often meet these requirements. According to the Department of Labor, “As of 2012, 46 states and the District of Columbia required CPA candidates to complete 150 semester hours of college coursework, which is 30 hours more than the usual 4-year bachelor’s degree.”

Certification for Public Accountants

For public accountants who wish to become certified, a requirement of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), passing a 4-part exam from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants happens during an 18-month period.  Accounting professionals generally take a class to prepare them for the certification exam, around their work schedules. Continuing credits are required to maintain the credential. Some employers require this upon hire, so you’ll want to have a plan for taking this, particularly if you will be involved in the tax market, corporate finances, and audits.

Work Experience and Skills for Future CPAs

To get into the line of public accounting, you’ll want to focus on developing the skills that help top CPAs achieve more out of this career. Take temporary assignments during the busy tax season to learn how to manage work and people. Work as a junior accountant while in school. Learn accounting software, and become comfortable with its use. Read up on the laws surrounding accounting and finance. Be part of a community of CPAs by networking and being part of industry associations.

For access to full and part time, contract assignments in finance and public accounting, check out the recent job opportunities available at Venteon.

So you’ve poured your heart and soul into finding the perfect position. You know, the one that will make your long job search worthwhile. Now that you’ve found it, you’ve discovered that your dream position requires one thing you don’t have – a college degree. Do you scrap your search and give up your dream job?

No way!

When a door is shut, it’s time to start sniffing around for windows.

Match Other Job Requirements as Closely as Possible

Take your time to go through the job description, point by point, and create a resume that highlights each and every skill in the description you have. The more matched points you can create, the less significant a missing degree becomes in the eyes of the employer.

Highlight Your Adaptability

There are few things employers want more than a highly adaptable employee with skills that match their needs. Show them how you’ve had to adapt and overcome in previous employment situations.

Perhaps you’ve reinvented yourself or your career through the years. Make sure it’s notable on paper so they can see how far you’ve come and how far you can still go in your career. Employers, after all, like to see that you’re trainable and prepared to evolve to fit the role you’re hired to fill as it evolves over time.

Seek Inside Help

Go through your list of contacts, staffing agents, and business connections to see if there’s anyone working on the inside who can, and will, vouch for you on a professional level. Today’s job market is more relationship-driven than any job marketplace of the past. Use the relationships you’ve built over the years to help you land the job you really want rather than settling for a job elsewhere that isn’t going to provide as much satisfaction and fulfillment.

Let Your Confidence Shine

People find confidence attractive. It’s not just in potential dates and mates. Employers find that job candidates who are confident about their skills and ability to do the job are much more attractive candidates than those who lack that inner certainty or spark. Insecurity and uncertainty in the job interview process are lethal to your chances of getting a job even if you have the degree.

Don’t allow a golden opportunity to pass you by because you’re not the “perfect” match on paper. Many employers list the skills and qualifications they believe their dream employee will have. Most of the time, they’re much more concerned with finding a match for skills and experience than education. In fact, many companies are willing to substitute practical experience in the field over former education any day of the week. All you need is the confidence to go for it. You might be surprised by the results.

Venteon offers a wide range of temporary and contract assignments that can help you get the experience you need. Very often, you may be able to circumvent the degree requirements simply by having the equivalent in job experience. Be sure to check out our jobs in Troy MI today.

Cover letters are all about getting the attention of potential employers. However, with the job market in almost every industry literally saturated with applicants, how can you really knock their socks off, especially when all you have to do it with is a cover letter?

Believe it or not, your cover letter, when written the right way, is the only tool you need to really set yourself apart from the competition. Resumes start to blend together after 100 or so are received for the same position. Education, experience, these things are great, but they’re hardly the stuff dream applicants are made of.

An effectively crafted cover letter, can help you to stand out in a meaningful way, by grabbing the attention of the hiring manager. Here are a few things you can include in your cover letter that will leave them wanting to learn all there is to know about you as an applicant.

Create a Slogan that Sums You Up

Catchy little slogans don’t take a lot of time to come up with, but they really stand out in a sea of monotonous cover letters and resumes. It’s like adding a splash of vivid red in a room that’s stark white. It stands out. The one thing you want your slogan to do, though, is succinctly state the value you have to offer the employer in question.

Also keep in mind that short and sweet is what will get this job done. Make it a snappy one-liner for best effect.

Where should you put it?

Try using the line right below your name at the top of your cover letter if you want it to stand out while they’re reading your letter or add to the bottom of your cover letter as a parting note.

Remember to K.I.S.S.

You know the old adage, “keep it simple sweetie.” It’s a good idea when writing cover letters to remember this throughout the letter. Not only do you want to make your cover letter simple to read, but you also want it to tell a simple story. Don’t get so caught up in clever tricks with your cover letter that you make it too complex for the person on the other end.

Tell a Story

People like for cover letters to be clever and tell stories. Just make sure it’s a short story not a Tolstoy novel. More importantly, keep your story relevant to the job you’re applying for and the role you’d like to play within the organization. Don’t make them dig too deep to find the relevance either or they’ll simply dig into the next cover letter.

Cover letters are one of the most challenging aspects, for many people, of the job search process. However, if you take this advice to heart and apply these tips you should be able to write a cover letter that leaves you standing heads and shoulders above your competition.

For more career search, resume and cover letter advice from Venteon, be sure to review our previous posts on this topic:

How to Be the Candidate Employers Love

Creating a Relevant Resume – It’s Not What You Think

If you are struggling to land a job currently, it may not be you at all; it’s likely your resume. Hiring managers review literally hundreds of thousands of resumes every year, and it’s the resumes that are well designed and relevant to the job that get positive attention, while the rest end up in the trash. Therefore, it’s up to you to make sure your resume is appropriate for the types of assignments you are applying for.

A Resume That Gets Results  

Take a moment to look over the kinds of jobs you are targeting and compare them to your resume. Look at the informative words used in the job advertisement, which should closely match what the actual job description is. This is the information that a recruiter will be looking for as he matches your skills to the assignment needs.

Designing a Functional Resume

You may also want to get away from the use of traditional chronological resume formats and go with a more functional resume that highlights your actual achievements. This can put your skills and credentials at the forefront of your resume, which helps hiring managers to find out more about you right away. This can be a useful way to display your talents, and more information can be obtained during the interview process.

Online Resumes Support Your Abilities

Consider developing an online resume that allows you to share your relevant skills and access to your work portfolio instantly. Your regular resume can include a link to an expanded resume that is placed behind a password to protect your personal information on the Internet. Make sure the resume lists all your job history and includes links to any published work completed over the course of your career.

Include the experiences you have had in your career, such as committees you have served on, projects you’ve completed, and community service you’ve been a part of. These are the kinds of things that recruiters look for when evaluating a potential new hire. Going beyond just the nine-to-five experience, demonstrating your true talents and passions are what can help you rise above your dull resume.

It’s challenging to get in front of the right recruiters, let alone get an interview in today’s market, but it is possible by following the above advice on resume development. You can get a head start on your job hunt by visiting the Venteon career opportunities board today. Consider reviewing the job descriptions and gearing your resume to the jobs you are qualified for, so that it’s relevant to your abilities.

Mistakes happen. It’s a fact of life and of business. The world doesn’t stop when you make mistakes. Sometimes that seems like a good thing. Other times, you’d give anything for time to stand still just long enough to undo the mistake you’ve made.

In a career, the important thing isn’t that you made a mistake or two. It’s how you respond to them when you do.

Treat Yourself with Compassion

Sure. There might be a few moments where you want to pull out your hair over making a mistake, especially in your career. The bigger the mistake, the balder you may feel you need to be. However, it’s important to move beyond that as quickly as possible—preferably before the extreme hair pulling commences. Offer the same level of forgiveness and acceptance of human frailties to yourself as you offer to the people around you.

Chances are good that you’re the harshest critic you’ll ever encounter. If you treat yourself with a little bit of compassion after your mistake you’ll find that you’re able to not only move forward but also to bring about improvements much faster than if you wallow in a moment, or two, of self-castigation.

This idea of forgiving yourself for mistakes is not something that’s really new at all. But it is gaining credibility. A recent British Psychological Society Research Digest post indicated that students who forgave themselves for substantial procrastination on their first round of exams were less likely to procrastinate again on the second round of exams. This teaches an important lesson that it’s more important to be able to forgive yourself, pick yourself up and move on rather than attempting to punish yourself for the setbacks you encounter.

Once you can forgive yourself for making a mistake, take the time to make things right again. Learn to be a better person. Develop new skills. Focus on the positive aspects of your life instead of the negatives. Convey remorse and make amends with anyone you have wronged. Then, move forward in life and leave the past mistakes behind.

The bottom line is that it’s not our mistakes that define us. Rather it’s how we respond to those mistakes, and whether or not we’re able to rise up and prove that we are more than the mistakes we make along the way, that make us truly successful. In your career, you can bounce back after a mistake by taking a fresh approach to it and moving ahead, rather than looking back. To move forward in a new career, try Venteon for a fresh start in a temporary or contract assignment.

Accountants and accounting job applicants, listen up. There is no doubt that your resume is an important part of your application. In fact, it is one of the first tools and impressions of you that the hiring manager has. Yet, and here is what is most important to know, most people make mistakes on their resume that are costing them the job they desire the most! If your hiring manger finds problems with your resume – you are out in round one.

What Are the Big Ones?

Are you making mistakes on your resume? Many accounting and finance candidates commonly make the following mistakes.

• Are you including too much information about your life? Let us face it – time is money. No one wants to know your personal details. Include your personal information only as it relates to the position. If they want to know more about your desires, affiliations, kids or even your pets, they will ask.
• Are you including a photo in your resume? In the accounting and finance industry, a headshot in your resume or in your correspondence does not make sense. Unless you are applying for a Miss America competition or you are going with a modeling gig, there is no need to include this.
• What you did when you were a teenager is unlikely to fit into the mold either. If you are younger and you have experience working in management duties when you were 18 that may fit into your application. In other cases, such as your time working at the burger joint down the street, does not fit. Leave it out.
• Are you asking for money in your job application? Does your resume imply that you are demanding a certain salary? Unless they specifically ask for this information, do not include it. You do not want it to keep you from getting a job if it is too high or too low.
• Do not lie, either. Not only is it often obvious, it is the fastest way to get knocked out of the round of potential interviews. Do not lie about when you worked for companies, how long you worked there or what your responsibilities really included.

What else shouldn’t you do on your resume? Do not make overly verbose statements. Do not lie about being fired from a position. Do not provide confidential information from potential competitors. You also do not want even to include an objective statement any longer. It just is not necessary. To increase your chances of landing the job right for you, focus instead on creating an impressive resume packed full of useful information.

Looking for great opportunities in finance and accounting jobs in Michigan or Minnesota? Be sure to take a moment to review the finance and accounting temporary and contract jobs available at Venteon today! You can save time by submitting your application and your best resume online.

Are you in the engineering field? If so, you have the best chance at finding your dream job right now. With the employment rate in this field at an astounding two percent, there may not have been a better time to land that key position you have been dreaming and hoping for. From the electrical and computer programs to the environmental positions and even the auto industry, engineering candidates with well-qualified schooling are a shoe in.

The Rise of Employment

In September of 2009, unemployment rates for the engineering industry were at an all time high. They hit 6.4 percent then. Of course, this may seem minimal considering the total unemployment rate for all sectors stood at 10 percent at the time. However, by mid-2011, this rate was under two percent.

Who Is the Ideal Candidate?

If you are an individual who is young and have a promising degree behind  you, employers want to work with you. Demand is evident across the board in various industries too, including and especially electrical, biomedical, aerospace, environmental, mechanical, computer, automotive and petroleum industries.

Many engineers are finding new positions, too. For example, some are finding research and development work. Others are working in the pharmaceutical industry. From designing electrical systems for buildings to managing power plants, electrical engineers are finding a huge surplus of jobs in some areas. Jobs in sustainability are also promising.

How About Money?

Not only are positions readily available, but salaries are looking good, too. Some engineers in this field will be making close to $80,000. Sign on bonuses, company profit sharing and other key benefits are a part of the package. In some industries, for well-qualified candidates, that is just the starting pay.

Why So Much Demand?

There are many reasons why this field continues to be so in demand for employees. Consumers continue to demand solutions for technologically difficult problems. These are not small time problems either. They include shortages of clean water supply, faster computing, smarter computing, and global warming.

The demand is also high because there are fewer graduates leaving school with this degree. In some cases, just 4.5 percent of all undergraduates leave school with an engineering degree.  Keep in mind these individuals do not have licenses. To get a license in the field, you need four years of working experience to sit for the exam.

If you are in a position of being an engineer  now is the prime time to make that leap into a secure, big company that wants to hire you. Whether you are going to design amazing new products or just fill the gaps, there are jobs waiting for you.

For more information on engineering portfolios and finding the top engineering talent, contact Venteon today!