In this latest Hiring Manager interview, Joseph Seibert, the senior vice president and CIO of The New York Times Company, counsels job seekers on how they can make great first impressions with their resumes and during job interviews. He also offers hiring managers advice based on the lesson he learned from his biggest hiring mistake.

When it comes to hiring staff for his technology department, Joseph Seibert has a soft spot for candidates who are underdogs. He admires IT professionals who’ve charged ahead in their careers despite starting at a disadvantage.

In the past, Seibert has grown so excited about an underdog’s personality that he says he has made the mistake of advancing a candidate through the interview process who had a great story but who was not right for the job. Seibert, now senior vice president and CIO of The New York Times Company, says the lesson he’s learned from that mistake is to know himself: to be aware of his tendency to get excited and to keep his excitement in check so that it doesn’t undermine his effort to hire the best person for the job. It’s practiced advice that all hiring managers can benefit from.

Job seekers can benefit from Seibert’s advice, too. In this latest Hiring Manager interview, Seibert describes the mistakes IT professionals make on their résumés and during job interviews that kill their chances of wooing employers. He spoke with CIO.com about his hiring practices and how the transformation of the media industry is affecting IT staffing at The New York Times Company.

Sarah Mitchell: How are the challenges facing the news industry affecting your hiring?

Joseph Seibert: The news industry is transforming. Traditional print and media organizations have to become multi-channel distributors of news and information, including digital channels, such as websites, blogs, iPhones, cell phones and BlackBerries. I was hired to transform the technology organization so that it has the right structure, skills and capabilities to support multi-channel distribution.

The technology organization is extremely important to this overall transformation, and it is very important that I get the right structure and the right people within that structure who understand multi-channel distribution, digital technology and traditional technologies. I need leaders who have worked in some type of media, including a pretty sizable digital environment, and who can work amidst transformation and uncertainty. They must know how to build the infrastructure that provides speed-to-market, flexibility, and that supports those many channels efficiently and effectively.

What organizational changes have you made to the Read more…

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In these days of accelerated mergers and acquisitions, it’s important for banks to remember the people who keep the institutions running — IT workers. Technology staff are usually on the front lines of any M&A activity and are vital to ensuring that there are no interruptions in operations and service. Unfortunately, however, they also are often at the front of the line when it comes to receiving pink slips.

Bank IT staff warrant special care when an organization undergoes a merger, argues Bradford Newman, chair of the Silicon Valley Employment Law Department and leader of the International Employee Mobility and Trade Secrets practice with the New York law firm Paul Hastings Janofsky & Walker. “They are the people who know where the bodies are buried,” he quips. “IT folks are often the unsung heroes of [M&A] integration efforts. You may have some outsourcing activity in IT, but there will always be a core IT function within the financial institution to integrate the acquired institution’s systems.”

Retaining top tech talent at both the acquired institution and the acquirer is of utmost importance, Newman adds. “These are the people who understand the systems, the technologies, the security Read more…

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The key to acing — not just surviving — the technical interview isn’t so much what you know but how you convey it.

Most prospective technical hires are looking for a pretty penny in return for their services. So how can you tell who will actually be worth it? The answer is effective interviewing.

When you seek advice on this issue, look for someone who has been there and done it. Someone who has interviewed many people for IT positions and has a proven track record. Jack Molisani, executive director of ProSpring Technical Staffing, fits the profile. He runs a staffing company that finds qualified contract and permanent staff for technology companies. He has interviewed thousands of people in the last several years and knows what to look for.

In IT, he said, it’s not so much about the qualifications and certificates — though those play their part. The most important single skill in interviewing is being able to discern which of the Read more…

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Dress attire for an Interview

Dress attire is extremely crucial to your success in an interview! First impressions are the best impressions and impressions, once ruined, are hard to piece back together again.

So make your first impression count! Dress well and feel better about yourself in the process! Remember that only if you put your all into your interview impression, do you have that chance of bagging the job.

Here are some tips of things you should do and wear in order to put your best forward when going for an interview appointment: Read more…

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