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| Yahoo Outsources Messenger Voice Service To Jajah Posted: written by W. David Gardner, courtesy of InformationWeek  |
| Brokerage IT Spending Expected To Grow 1.3% Through 2011 Posted: written by Penny Crosman, courtesy of Wall Street Tech  |
| How To Handle Tricky Interview Questions Posted: Make sure you're not caught off guard the next time a hiring manager throws you a curve ball.  |
| Qimonda Cuts Jobs, Posts $767M Loss Posted: written by Mark LaPedus, courtesy of EE Times  |
| Resume Tips for Those Lacking Job Experience Posted: If you’re at a loss for how to start your resume writing process when you have one or no jobs to list, you can always begin with your life experiences.  |
| FormFactor Hit By Another Layoff Posted: written by Mark LaPedus, courtesy of EE Times  |
| Downturn Be Damned, Info Tech Jobs Surged Ahead Last Quarter Posted: written by Chris Murphy, courtesy of InformationWeek  |
| Posted: The future of personal branding could be in at your fingertips—with a blog.  |
| Writing Resumes and Cover Letters – Words and Phrases to Avoid Posted: Learning the words and phrases you want to avoid on your resume and cover letter will help you to provide more accurate information regarding your career skills.  |
| Say The Right Thing During Your Job Search Posted: Are you doing as well at your job search as you'd like? If not, maybe the problem is the words that are coming out of your mouth.  |
| Your Resume’s Design – How Important Is It? Posted: You’ll find that the effort you put forth on your resume and its design will pay off in the end. Stick with the basics and keep it simple. After all, this is the easy part of writing your resume.  |
| Have Expectations and Standards For Employees, Not Rules and Regulations Posted: I’m told that many, even most, companies maintain thick employee handbooks jam-packed with all shapes and types of rules -- rules about when you come to work and when you leave, rules about how often you get a break, rules about coarse language, rules about penalties for defacing bulletin boards, rules about this, that, and everything, so many that even the person who wrote them couldn’t possibly know them all. Every year or so, they make revisions to the handbook, usually sticking in still more rules but rarely, if ever, discarding or updating any of them to reflect a changing world. So you have a business drowning in rules that no one can remember, including the managers who dreamed them up. In this regard, companies are as bad as governments. I’m always reminded of this when I read about some antiquated local or state law that never got updated for common sense. For instance, South Carolina has a two-hundred-year-old law banning games with cards or dice -- even in your own home. So I guess the police can bust in and haul you and the kids to the pen for playing Monopoly or Go Fish! When you have piles of rules, we believe it makes people extremely uneasy. They feel like they’re back in school -- or, worse, in prison. And the upshot is that they don’t feel as if they’re trusted. One of our sales associates shared how, at another company, she came to work one day despite having wrenched her back the previous night. She was in a fair amount of discomfort, but didn’t want to miss a day. So between customers, she sat down to ease the pain. Her supervisor spotted her, stomped over, and barked: “Get up right now. You can’t sit, because it sets a bad example. It’s the rule.” You know the old saying “Rules are made to be broken.” Well, we find that people look on rules as meaning that you’re testing their integrity. Which translates to “I don’t trust you.” So one of the most important ways we show that we trust our people is by not having rules except those required by law. Now, when we say that we don’t have any other rules, we don’t mean that we operate in complete anarchy -- maybe a touch of organized chaos, but not anarchy. No business could be successful if it were run that way. People don’t come and go as they please, they don’t have limitless expense accounts, they don’t come to work in bikinis. You see, we’re a hugging culture based on values and principles, not rules and regulations. So how do we establish parameters? Rather than rules, we have expectations. And if you have a company comprised of trustworthy people, setting examples and expectations works a lot better than rules. What’s the difference between rules and expectations? To our mind, rules are unbending. If the rule is that you have to take lunch from noon to one o’clock and you don’t take it at that time, then you starve to death. So rules are rigid. To me, they’re cold and impersonal. Expectations, on the other hand, are warm, and they’re flexible and freeing when they need to be. The clear understanding is that you are expected to live up to our expectations, and so you come in and leave when you are scheduled to, but you don’t need a time clock to keep you honest. Expectations are mutually agreed upon -- and they can be fulfilled in different ways by different people. No two individuals are completely alike in talent, strengths, motivation, or personality -- everyone has plenty of quirks or weaknesses -- so why should everyone have to follow rigid rules? Expectations are pliable and they may be adjusted to suit an individual and build on his or her strengths. What, then, are some of our expectations? There are seven key expectations that are important to me: 1. Be positive, passionate, and personal. 2. Work and play hard -- and work smarter, too. 3. Understand the power of the team. That means exhibiting mutual respect and trust. Fun and success mean we, not I (remember the old expression, “There is no ‘I’ in team”). 4. Dress appropriately (this especially applies to us since we’re in the clothing business). 5. No surprises. 6. Always, always be open and tell the truth! 7. Hug one another and hug the customers! We also like to use the word standards a lot in place of rules. In general, we set very high standards, and we expect everyone to do their level best to live up to them. My tenth-grade civics teacher wrote in my Staples High School yearbook, “Live up to your potential,” and I obviously never forgot it and think about it often, and that’s what we want our people to do: live up to their highest potential. That’s why effort, hard work, and education are emphasized. We like people to keep raising the bar, especially in areas where they are naturally strong. We realize that if the bar is raised appropriately with each individual in mind, then everyone will reach his or her personal and professional goals and will enjoy -- indeed love -- the journey, the process, the playing of the game of the career of life. And so within our expectations we establish specific standards, or targets. For instance, we expect our sellers to achieve $1 million in sales their first year with us (but we don’t horsewhip them if they do $900,000). We expect tailors to be fast and accurate -- we never like pants that end six inches above the ankle -- and to work as a team. And, of course, we expect everyone to support one another in a sale, to share their skills and “secrets” on personalizing relationships with other huggers, and to store data for everyone to use in an open and honest way with respect for privacy and confidentiality. So set expectations for your associates, but leave rules to the prison wardens. Excerpted from the book HUG YOUR PEOPLE: The Proven Way to Hire, Inspire and Recognize Your Employees and Achieve Remarkable Results by Jack Mitchell. Copyright (c) 2008. Hyperion. Available wherever books are sold. All Rights Reserved.  |
| Aviza To Cut Staff, Revamps Tool Efforts Posted: SAN JOSE, Calif. — Aviza Technology Inc. plans to cut about 15 percent of its workforce amid a downturn in the IC-equipment market. Aviza (Scotts Valley, Calif.) said that it will also ''downsize'' programs, products and spending related to trench capacitor technology for DRAMs, and will decrease its overall dependence on the DRAM market. It will also cease development of large batch thermal systems for the trench capacitor market. One of the company's biggest customers is Qimonda AG, which develops DRAMs based on trench capacitor technology. The German DRAM house is going in another technology direction. That company could cease to exist in the long run, according to analysts. Still, Aviza will continue to service and support its large global installed base of these products and will retain the capability to manufacture those systems when customers require additional units. The cost of the restructuring program and other one-time charges is estimated to be in the range of $20-to-$24 million, primarily attributable to the write down of assets relating to non-core products which include inventory revaluation, cancellation of purchase commitments and fixed assets. Aviza expects additional savings to occur when the company vacates its current location in Scotts Valley and relocates its headquarters to a facility in Santa Clara County. Volume manufacturing will no longer be performed at Aviza's current location. Aviza anticipates that the restructuring plan will result in annualized savings of approximately $16 million to $20 million. Going forward, Aviza will refocus on its core strengths in the areas of ALD, etch and PVD technologies for the 3D-IC and related market segments. ''This restructuring effort is designed to allow Aviza to focus on our core market strengths, shed some underperforming products, and ultimately position the company for growth," said Jerry Cutini, Aviza's president and CEO, in a statement. Aviza also announced that on March 28, the company received a letter from Nasdaq notifying the company that the bid price of the company's common stock closed below the minimum $1.00 per share requirement for continued inclusion under Marketplace Rule 4450. According to Nasdaq's letter, the company will be provided 180 calendar days, or until Sept. 24, 2008, to regain compliance in accordance with Marketplace Rule 4450. On Jan. 31, Aviza provided guidance for the second quarter of fiscal 2008 and forecasted net sales in the range of $30-to-$35 million, with an operating loss in the range of approximately $7.0 million to $8.0 million. Aviza anticipates second quarter results to be towards the low end of this guidance, excluding any restructuring charges. It currently anticipates net sales for the third quarter of fiscal 2008 to be above $36 million. Separately, Aviza announced a new order for its Omega fxP system, with two Inductively Coupled Plasma (ICP) process modules, to a key foundry based in China. The Omega fxP will be used for silicon trench and polysilicon etch-back processes in manufacturing power device products. It also announced the follow-on shipment of multiple Omega etch systems to Anadigics Inc.  |
| Posted: Here's how to ensure that when a potential employer Googles your name, he likes what he sees.  |
| The Talent Pipeline for Insurers Is Diminishing Posted: written by Michael George, courtesy of Insurance Tech  |
| Posted: written by Christopher Diggins, courtesy of Dr. Dobbs  |
| Dell To Close Texas Plant, Cut 8,800 Jobs Worldwide Posted: written by Jennifer Lawinski, courtesy of ChannelWeb  |
| India's People Power Is Also Its Problem Posted: written by Rick Merritt, courtesty of EE Times  |
| What are Professional Services and can Information Technology be an example? Posted: Professional Services are infrequent, technical, or unique functions performed by independent contractors or consultants whose occupation is the rendering of such services. Can IT Consultants fall into this category?  |
| The 7 Most in Demand IT Skills for 2008 Posted: Are you in demand?  |
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