The therapy of writing your CV

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To most people in IT, and indeed to all of business, updating and refreshing your CV is, at best a burden and at worst torture. Particularly, if you have moved from role to role on the basis of reputation. This means that long periods can go without you having to sit down to rationalise and justify your knowledge and skill base.

This is a poor state to be in, as for most of us, our skills and abilities are what we are selling and you need the marketing for your “product’s” kept up to date and relevant.

I was once told that you’re supposed to redo your CV every six months, and yes I do normally do that, but I don’t do it with the same vim and vigour that I really should.

I’ve decided to change that. And given that I’m in the middle of looking at new roles I figured a proper sit down review of my CV was worth the effort, and it’s amazing what it turns out you’ve done in your life.

Not only does this point out items that you need to address and learn in the future, but It also gives you confidence in the sheer volume and amount of stuff. you have piled through in your life. I’ve been doing this nonsense for 25 years now and it really has been a busy couple of decades.

Filtering the hundreds of points of view and ideas on writing a CV, a few stood out

  1.  Keep it to 2 pages, no one is going to read a 10 page CV.
  2. Companies are not going to read more than a couple of paragraphs before making an initial decision.
  3. Agents, HR and job sites are going to mangle it anyway, so keep the format simple.
  4. Don’t just edit it in place, copy and type it up in a new file, it helps to shake out the useless bits.

The Result. My newly refreshed CV is here

When is gossip not gossip?

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In the corporate environment, gossip is a non positive term 1, and really implies that what you’re talking about is nothing really to do with you.

This would indeed be the case if it relates to the personal affairs of a colleague, e.g. changing job, pregnancy or something like that, that’s none of your business.

However if something is happening in your organisation and you are not being kept up to date and it could have a solid impact on your future life or career, it is not gossip. it’s a perfectly valid attempt to look after you and those that matter to you.

But that is not how corporations work, or how such companies communicate. Communication on large scale matters are cards held very close to the chest of those in power and thus you introduce an environment of fear, uncertainty and doubt in those that work for you. if I was to advise a truly senior manager on such communications it would be in the form of some simple statements.

  1. Your Authority is not stronger than peoples desire to pay the rent: If you as a senior manager tell your team “We will tell you in due course” about something that has a dramatic impact to their job, their livelihood or their ability to feed their family, they are not going to accept that, they are going to continue trying to find out information on their own.
  2. If you can’t say or don’t have some key information, then present a brief plan on when you will. : Flip it around, if you would not accept “We don’t know when we will be telling you” from a team member, then what would you accept? , present what you know in that format.
  3. Know the difference between an external press statement and an internal communication: Most of the people you will be talking to as a very senior manager will have more information sources than just your statement. Indeed, often they will know more than you on some areas you are talking about, as their information is not filtered. They see it in real life. So understand that when you make a corporate statement to such people they will know absolutely if some of it is being spun or twisted, which will call into question the entire credibility of any statement you might make.
  4. Understand how often you need to keep people up to date: When you don’t know something how often do you chaise your team members?, well that’s how often you should be updating them on the big things they are waiting for, even if you don’t have anything, show you are trying and that you share their frustration, be human.

Ultimately, understand that what as a very senior manager you might feel is gossip, is actually just normal people trying to plan their lives and protect the things that are important to them.

  1. I think the formal word is pejorative[↩]

Corporate term: Brittle Process

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Definition:

A brittle process is a business or IT process that is stable and works well providing nothing changes, with an overtone that any changes that come might not be predictable 1.

Explanation:

This is a relatively new term and comes due to many companies having a lot of different systems integrating with each other in a long chain of dependencies.  A brittle process might be strong, it might be stable, but its a process that if you change it in one place it breaks everywhere. This might be down to items being read off one system being very very dependent on a specific structure, or one system has poor quality code, or they might not be able to adapt to different structures, It might even be down to very strict timings. For example, if you have timed jobs that run a certain time every single day, and their receiving jobs depend on that timing. If you change the timing in any way, you can break the whole process. With modern systems that have processes that feed off other processes which in turn feed of even more processes, it becomes harder to identify and harder to document as people make assumptions with everything they do, and don’t realise that their systems are now critical to items further down the line. To try and get around this, insure end to end transparency. A good change control system with robust communication, and decent quality documentation. Also, code reviews help.

Disclaimer: As always these posts are not aimed at anyone client or employer and are just my personal observations over a lifetime of dealing with both management and frontline associates.

  1. I have been told that his comes from the book Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Tale[↩]

Corporate Armour

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By nature I am scruffy, very, very scruffy. To quote Terry Pratchett “He just seemed to generate an internal scruffiness field. The man could rumple a helmet.”

But when it comes to work, I find that I have actually started to dress up more and more, full ironed shirt and tie, even when I have no calls. Not for the traditional reasons such as: Your work outfit is a uniform or to give you authority or things like that.

No!, I have found that it’s actually mentally good for you. It acts as a demarcation between work and your social life, particularly as working remotely is basically here to stay. Putting on a shirt to work means I find that I can turn my brain off when I stop working. Also I talked to a friend who works in the service industry and when you put on your badge and your company t-shirt you’ve put on armour, what people say just for effect no longer hurts, because its no longer a personal attack, its now about the corporation you represent. I’m finding a similar thing is happening with a shirt and tie at the project level 1.

The more formal I get, the better the armour, the better the amour the more hits I can take to win the battle.

  1. Particularly with permy work, if I’m still working as a contractor its not the same[↩]

Keeping A Second String to your Bow

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A warning to managers.

Before we all became managers or started doing managerial things, we used to have a speciality, or as some might say “A real job” 1. We were technical or business focussed or operational but we had something, and when a lot of us turned to managers we forgot that, we left it behind. We didn’t need it. We are big and powerful people…

I personally don’t subscribe to that as a good plan. I take my lead on this from the fact that one of the directors I respect the most, still retains an extremely high level of competency in their business speciality, not merely in the business of being a director. In feudal times, people who used to wait on lords i.e. flunkies, Used to have to be double skilled, so that if they ever lost their jobs, they did not turn to either beggary or crime. I feel that this applies to modern managers.

You should keep up with whatever original skill(s) you had, you should maintain them, keep them sharp and up to date, Even if you don’t think you’re going to use them. Take it from me. If you are a manager, the amount of respect you receive from people that you are responsible for is far, far higher If they know you cannot be baffled with bullshit. If you know your stuff. it introduces a different level of respect at work.

I personally maintain 2 CV’s 2 and use them to judge if I am still worth the money that clients and employers would pay, I have never regretted the extra effort, as it validates my usefulness.

  1. Well most of us did, some people went into management as a defined career and they are beyond help[↩]
  2. I’ve just updated them[↩]