Episode 4

Last updated Sep 4, 2022 Edit Source

Topics 

1:49 How does company culture affect your career choices? 

• Disclaimer:  Our goal in this segment is not to be an infomercial for VMware. It is merely to share from our experiences as it relates company culture.  

• How do Nick and John define company culture? 

  • Stated values vs. observed values 

  • Relationship with immediate team 

  • Overall office environment / mood, social activities outside of work, existence of a culture committee 

  • Company culture as it relates to remote employees may include invitations back to corporate HQ, team building activities, etc. 

• Joining 

  • Some companies use culture to attract talent. 

  • What is the purview of company culture through the eyes of an interviewer? 

  • Current employees could give insight into culture. 

  • Listen to John’s list of goals when joining a new company. 

  • What aspects of company culture may exist that you haven’t considered? 

• Staying 

  • What if an aspect of company culture you want is missing from your employer?  

  • Are you willing to accept the shortcoming in spite of other corporate strengths? 

• Advancing 

  • Company culture can change as the company grows / shrinks.  

  • Make suggestions to leadership for changes to culture.  Are they receptive? 

  • Is promoting from within encouraged by management? 

  • Do managers make career advancement of employees a focus? 

  • Are lateral moves / exposure to other roles at the company encouraged?  

• Leaving 

  • Joining a larger organization may be the only way to get exposure to some of the offerings we have discussed. 

  • Sometimes leaving is not a bad thing.  Maybe you have outgrown the company and can only advance elsewhere. 

  • Nick’s podcast for this situation -  Datanauts Episode 101 - The Transformational CIO 

27:30 Resume writing tips 

• The Framing… 

  • Listen to John’s inspiration for this segment. 

  • Writing / editing your resume can be difficult without help from others. 

  • Check out the  Career Tools / Manager Tools Podcast. 

  • The hiring manager is trying to solve a problem, has budget approved for additional head count, goes to recruiter / HR rep, and must put together a job description. 

• Looking to address… 

  • What’s the point of resumes? 

  • Solving the problem 

  • Answering recruiter / hiring manager questions 

• The goal of a resume is to answer the questions of whether you can do the things required and whether you have relevant experience. 

• What skills are critical, learnable, and relatable? 

• Requirements in the job description may be listed in order of importance; do you need all of these? 

  • See  A Recruiter’s Advice to the IT Pro from DFW SpiceCorps 

• Who is the resume serving? 

  • First, the recruiter uses it to get qualified candidates. 

  • The applicant needs it to answer the questions asked by the job description in the first 15 seconds.  This might be a human screening but could be an applicant tracking system. 

  • Editing a resume for brevity is an art we do not always practice. 

  • Every listing on the resume may require additional color when talking with a stakeholder 

  • It shows you can solve the problems for the company stakeholders. 

• We welcome your questions and feedback.