The online guide to “Writing Highly Marketable, High Demand, High Visibility Resumes” is out.

Without much ado, here is how to fast track your career, your job search and your compensation by writing highly effective resumes, the kind that gets phone calls from Recruiters and Interviews with Job Offers from Hiring Managers.

You can read this free online article by clicking here

This is a tale of “How Once Promising Careers Started By Good People Ended Up In The Doghouse“.

At the end of the story, you have a chance to save lives by adding the funniest, quickest, smartest, most productive way to shipwreck your career, lose your job or get fired for your fault!

If this story makes any meaning to you or to someone you know, please share it and pass it on.

Click here to read the rest of the story

Staying on your track for top paying positions in high demand careers is desirable but not easy.

Your path to the fast track in top paying positions and high demand jobs includes researching the market for the skills that are in hot demand, aligning your strengths and career goals with what the market wants, identifying the gaps between where you are and where you need to be, defining actionable plans that develop strong marketable skills and experience and fast tracking your career with the least investment of money and time.

The IT Career Coaching website addresses this challenge by taking the most direct route to high paying high demand jobs in the fastest growing occupations in USA.

Read more at the IT Career Coaching website.

How has Information Technology certifications like MCDBA, MCSD.NET, OCP, MCSE, MCSD, MCP, CCNA or the lack of them helped or hindered your Information Technology career?

In the IT Certification vs. Experience post at Leadership Findings I discussed some of the myths and real world benefits of getting an Information Technology certification.

Continuing with the recent posts on Information Technology careers, I looked at how Information Technology Certifications can help or hinder you with:

• Getting an information technology job (interviewing and hiring)
• Compensation from recruiters and employers (compensation)
• How well you do your job (on the job performance)
• How you are perceived by your colleagues and employers (professional image)
• How satisfied you feel about your job (job satisfaction and career prospects)
• How well you understand your technology (skill and knowledge)

I hope that you end up understanding the views of both sides of the certification versus experience debate and that you add your own story to the discussion as well.

Click here to read about the post:

The word on the street is “Now Is a Good Time to Start a High Paying Career in Information Technology”.

I live in Saint Louis, Missouri and work as an Information Technology consultant. The demand for Information Technology consultants in general and Microsoft® .NET Software Developers in particular has been on the increase for the last 2 years.

Right now, I know of several Microsoft® .NET Job openings with hourly rates typically between 40$ per hour and $60 per hour ($80,000 to $120,000 per year). These jobs come with 401K and medical benefits and some with vacation and holiday pay as well.

In the month of June, a number of discussions for new .NET job openings have been at more than $50 per hour for six figure consulting assignments that could last 1 month or several years.

It looks like the demand for Microsoft® .NET jobs in Saint Louis, Missouri is outpacing the supply of Microsoft® .NET programmers. This demand versus supply game is also repeating itself in several cities in the USA. If you are interested in working with computers, I encourage you to continue reading the rest of this newsletter to learn how you can “Jump Start a High Paying Career in Information Technology in 3 Months or Less!”

To tell you a little about myself, I have been working in Information Technology for about a decade, however my background is not in computing or Information Technology. To jump start my own career in Information Technology, I did not attend computer science classes or earn any sort of degree in computing. Regardless of my background, I have worked in Information Technology sales and marketing, networking, contract programming, database design, database development, web design, web development, search engine optimization and Information Technology management. I have also worked as a full time salaried employee, as a W2 hourly contact programmer and as a consultant earning a fixed compensation per project.

My latest career role is that of an Information Technology Career Coach motivating, coaching, inspiring people to Jump Start Rewarding Information Technology Careers. I accomplish this through the articles on my website at http://leadership.findingsdirect.com/ and by connecting individuals to rewarding Information Technology positions, careers, employers and resources. If you want to subscribe to my Information Technology Careers free newsletter, go to Leadership Findings

My Information Technology career coaching is intended both for those who are already in Information Technology, who need to fast track their career and those who are not currently employed in the Information Technology industry.

Since rewarding Information Technology careers are usually fast paced, it is important to learn the value of using the most direct routes to acquiring the expertise and experience employers are looking for. This type of street smarts versus book smarts approach will serve you well on the job as employers are mostly interested in practical and pragmatic candidates. One of my axioms is “In Information Technology, Experience Is King”. Employers, hiring managers and recruiters in the United States of America place a premium on experience over certification, training, education, background or any other type of qualification.

Since practical learning is highly sought after in information technology, I intend to pass on street smart strategies for jump starting Information Technology careers, acquired by myself and others in the school of life, the kind employers are willing to pay for.

If you are ready, fast track to “How to Jump Start Your Information Technology Career in Three Months or Less” at http://leadership.findingsdirect.com/2006/06/13/how-to-jump-start-your-information-technology-career-in-three-months-or-less/.

Any question or feedback is welcome.

What are the insiders secrets to interviewing success and how do you get the jobs you want in life?

In my final year in college, I decided to pursue an after-school career in Information Technology. However, I was heavily invested in Chemical Engineering having spent the last 5 years taking chemistry and engineering courses. The challenge facing me was to find a way to jump-start my information technology career immediately I left college without having to spend more years in any kind of school.

The solution I came up with landed me an interview with an Information Technology Consulting firm which resulted in the hiring manager offering me a job the next day after my graduation.

Over the years, I extended my consulting practice by interviewing with hiring managers from Fortune 500 corporations to Mom-and-Pop shops.

Because of my background as a consultant, I take it for granted that everyone is comfortable with taking interviews for a job they love, that is, until I met a lady who has a computer science education, wants an information technology job but is unable to get one because she is afraid of failing at interviews.

After she narrated her discomfort with taking interviews, I put together this interview guide to help her and anyone else in the job market interview for and get the job they want.

I believe my personal interviewing maxims can also help you interview for and get the job you want. Some of these interviewing maxims are:

1. Be Bold (Confidence gets the job done.)
2. Experience Is King (Demonstrate your experience!)
3. Show Don’t Tell (Where is your proof?)
4. Power Dress (Dressing matters.)
5. Utilize your current job
6. Speak Out and Speak Well
7. Listen Hard
8. Be Prepared
9. What’s In It For Them? (Service always comes first)
10. What Goes Around Comes Around (Don’t badmouth your employer!)
11. Make small talk
12. Keep Recruiters Happy (Stay in touch with recruiters)

To read the rest of the article

“Insider Secrets To Interviewing Success and How To Get The Job You Want”, go to http://leadership.findingsdirect.com/2006/05/30/insider-secrets-to-interviewing-success/

If you find the article helpful, please share it with your friends and leave a note telling me what you find helpful.

Thanks,

What do you look for or expect from a web hosting company? Do you expect your web hosting service to save you time, money and peace of mind?

Because choosing a good web hosting service is not possible without knowing the level of service to expect or the right questions to ask, I put together these findings from my 8+ years managing websites.

Here are some of the reasons why finding a reliable, hassle free web hosting service is important.

1. Some web hosts limit how much web traffic your web site receives while others do not. You need to know if your web hosting company meters your web traffic.
2. Some web hosts do not have the staffing to answer customers email promptly, while others are adequately staffed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to provide phone support. You need to know if you will have 24X7 phone support or not.
3. Have you ever had your web site crash during a marketing campaign, only to find that you cannot reach your web hosting support personnel on phone? If you have, you will agree that the cost of hosting a web site with a company that may slow down the pace at which you do your online business is simply not acceptable. You need to know if you can reach a support personnel by phone at 3:00 am or if the company will have to call you back.

One of the downsides of being at the receiving end of poor customer service from a web hosting company is that you will spend more time working through issues and less time making money. At the same time, your competitors will conceive a web site similar to yours, register the domain name, host it within 1 hour and start providing more reliable web-based services.

To alleviate the pain and suffering caused by choosing the wrong web hosting partner, I put together the questions below. Use these questions to match your web hosting needs to the capabilities of your current or future hosting providers.

1. Will you have unlimited bandwidth for your web hosting plans?
2. Will you have a dedicated IP address?
3. Will you be allowed to send emails directly from your web sites?
4. Will you have a web based tool for creating and managing email addresses affiliated to your web sites?
5. Can you host as many web sites as you want?
6. Can you create as many sub domains as you want?
7. Will you have MySQL, SQL Server 2000 or SQL Server 2005 database hosting as part of your standard hosting plan?
8. Will you have access to toll free technical phone support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week?
9. Will you have access to free installations of WordPress, Community Server ™ and DotNetNuke ™ web sites (see my last post titled Save Time and Money by Using Tried and Proven Web site Development Strategies)?
10. Can you activate FrontPage Extension for all your web sites using your control panel?
11. Can you Open, Rename, Copy, Move, Delete, and Zip your folders and files using your control panel?
12. Is there an eCommerce module you can install and add to your web site from your control panel?
13. Can you buy new web site names (domains) from your control panel?
14. Can you point one web site to another web site or folder on you account using your control panel?
15. Can you add email accounts to your web sites using your control panel?
16. Can you submit requests for help to your helpdesk application from your control panel?
17. Can you create and manage default pages for your web site from your control panel?
18. Can you create and manage custom error pages for your web site from your control panel?
19. Can you create and manage virtual directories for your web site from your control panel?

The higher the number and quality of affirmations or yes answers to the above questions, the more likely it is you have found a good, reliable, hassle free, professional web hosting company that will save you time, money and peace of mind.

Share your own experience with us. How do you go about finding good reliable web hosting companies?

You can shave weeks or months from your next web design and development project and save thousands of web programming dollars by using proven, mature and reliable websites instead of creating your own website from scratch.

Do not spend more than 24 hours implementing your next personal or corporate website, blog or forum. Because, you will achieve greater success by investing time and money in detailed planning and marketing for your website.

Use proven websites which come with themes that enable you to customize the look of your website in a few minutes instead of several web design days.

Spend more time preparing the mission statement, vision and goals of your next web project. Spend more time researching your market, preparing your marketing plans, researching your potential customers.

Invest the time in specialized web design and web development projects if you must, only after you prove your internet business model by operating your website profitably for some months.

1. If you are in the market for a personal or corporate website, evaluate DotNetNuke (DotNetNuke.com).
2. If you are in the market for a blog, evaluate WordPress (WordPress.com)
3. If you are in the market for a Community Site (multi-Forums or multi-Blogs), evaluate Community Server (Communityserver.org)

Each of these pre-built, website software I listed above are well designed, well developed websites that come with a good set of features and functionality out of the box and with themes that allow you to change the look of your website in a few minutes.

Ultimately the success of your website (blog, forum, personal or corporate website) will depend on the quality and quantity of investment in the planning and marketing of the website and not on the web design or web development.

What is your experience using pre-built website templates versus designing and building your website (blog, forum, personal or corporate site) from scratch?

Dear Readers,

In the next 24 hours Web Analytics Blog will complete its migration to

Internet.FindingsDirect.com (Internet Findings)

The location of the new site is : http://Internet.FindingsDirect.com

The XML Feed for the site will remain here : http://feeds.feedburner.com/kdkeysorg

In addition there is a new feed for syndicating new comments from the site. The XML Feed for Comments on Internet Findings will be located here : http://feeds.feedburner.com/CommentsForInternetFindings

You can also receive the Comments on Internet Findings by email here : Subscribe to Internet Findings by Email

Those of you who registered at the previous site will have their accounts migrated to the new location at http://Internet.FindingsDirect.com

Please let me know

• If a feature on this site appears broken
• What you like or dislike about the look or usability of this new site
• Any questions or concerns you may have about this move, site or my posts

Please leave your comments on this post and I will be sure to respond to them.

Thanks