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Putting off thinking about the GDPR? We really recommend you start now. Whether you like it or not, the GDPR is well on its way and if your business operates in the EU, you have clients that operate in the EU, or process data of EU citizens then you will need to comply with the new regulations by 25 May 2018.

Statistics from a recent survey conducted by Invenias show that 85% of recruitment agencies are not yet actively planning for the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). In addition, the survey illustrates that:

• 30% of agencies have not yet taken steps to prepare for the GDPR.

• 55% have started to think about how they might prepare for the GDPR

• Only 15% are actively planning for the GDPR

The changes that are coming will have a massive effect on recruitment agencies, and those who demonstrate an effort of making changes and making their agency compliant will be a lot better off than those who do not do anything. 

Don’t forget, if you breach the new regulations then it could result in fines of up to 4% of global annual turnover or €20million (whichever is greater).

How to comply with the GDPR?

To start with, you will need to complete a data audit. What data do you currently hold? Where of you hold it? Why? You will also need to assess how often you review your data for accuracy, how long you keep it, and whether you can easily and efficiently react to requests from your candidates. An example of this is that individuals will have “the right to be forgotten” and the “right to object”, allowing them to object from their details being used, shared or held.

You are obligated to only contact using the channel they have opted in to. Therefore, you must ensure that you are only using the contact details that your clients and candidates provided you with. 

If a candidate has requested to unsubscribe, you cannot contact them again.

Make sure GDPR is understood across your agency, especially those who have access to your data. If you do not do this, you will be held directly responsible if your employees are still emailing or phoning candidates when they should not.

Review your relationship with your clients and any suppliers or jobs boards you use. They will also be affected by the GDPR and it may affect how you work with them.

Ask candidates if they would like to remain on your database. You can also use this as an opportunity to ask if they would like to be kept up to date with other forms of communication.

You must appoint a Data Protection Officer (DPOs) if you:
        – are a public authority
        – carry out large-scale systematic monitoring of individuals
        – carry out large-scale processing of special categories
        
If you are not required to appoint a DPO you should document and keep records of everything you do to prepare for the GDPR.

    •    As data protection is getting stricter, your internal processes should follow suit. Be extra cautious to ensure that data is safeguarded, and make sure regular tests take place. We also suggest that you have a breach response plan in place. 

    •    Establish retention periods. Over the course of time, some users will become inactive or unresponsive. Establish retention periods so you can keep candidate information accurate and your database responsive.

    •    Put in place privacy notices. Once you have assessed all of the above, make sure you clearly communicate to your clients and candidates what data you are capturing and why.

At Certes, we advise that by May 2018 you ensure your agency can demonstrate that you are abiding by the new regulations and can show a process/ plan you have put in place to make your agency compliant.

Gemma Bowron, Certes resource consultant has been affected by Cystic Fibrosis “The need to raise awareness of Cystic Fibrosis is something very personal to me, having 2 nephews with the condition. Joshua, who sadly passed away in July 2014 at just 10 years of age after losing his fight with the disease and Dylan who is 9 years old and currently doing well with daily treatment to manage it, I also have a friend with CF who has just recently undergone a double lung transplant from which he is currently recovering in hospital; I know he would like me to thank the family of the donor".

Today, Certes are helping to raise awarness for Cystic Fibrosis. Look out for our Selfies (#CFYelfie) on our Facebook and Twitter.

For more information on Cystic Fibrosis and how you can help spread awareness visit the Cystic Fibrosis Trust

“91 Percent of Recruiters Use Recruiting Technology”

A study compiled by Software Advice, a company that reviews and compares recruiting software, has shown that a majority of recruiters are using some form of recruitment technology or software in order to place candidates in specific roles.

From the study 33% of the 91% that use recruiting technologies believed that recruiting the use is extremely important for high job performance and 56% believed that it is very important. 2% thought that the use of recruitment technology is moderately important while 9% noted that they do not use any form of technology in their recruitment besides emails and job boards.

Importance of Recruiting Technology for High Job Performance
 

Software advice delved in deeper to why the 9% were not using technology to assist in their recruitment. 50% stated that a limited budget was the most common obstacle to adopting recruiting software. 25% thought the manual method to be less complicated and quicker.

Top Obstacles for Recruiters Who Don’t Use Technology
?

Even though the cost of technology is a factor for recruiters to incorporate recruiting technology most say that the benefits of using recruiting technology outweighs the costs associated with them. 93% of recruiters who use technology felt that using recruiting software was either extremely or Very beneficial in comparison to the costs.

Certes embraces technology use and believe that using recruitment technology and software is essential, it will never remove the recruiter from the equation in any way as recruitment is a people business but it allows Certes to access our database of over 250,000 candidates and another million available through our online partners. Recruiting technology has also opened the doors to screen potential candidates with the use of project management and business analysis capability assessment tools and full background checks to BS5758 level if required. Certes also uses innovative web based recruitment tools that offers our clients access to the markets most innovative online interviewing tool TalkingCV™. For more information on how Certes can help you find your new role or provide staffing for you needs visit certes-dev.inlifedev.co.uk/

For more information about recruiters and the technology that recruiters use you can visit Software Advice

This is part of a five-year plan, and one of the key focuses is to fully convert health records, so that a patient’s NHS number could be accessed across both the NHS and a range of different social care systems, to aid integration and allow professionals to manage the quality of care provided.

One of the possibilities being considered is to begin using mobile devices across the health care sector, allowing staff to update electronic health records in real time. This change would eliminate the need for nursing staff working out in the community to go back to the hospital at the end of the day to input information, and would help to improve the recording of medical data in the long term.

Following investigations into cases such as Baby P, the lack of co-ordination between hospitals, social care and the police was highly criticised. The move to make records easily accessible to all of these departments would significantly improve community care and potentially save lives.

NHS IT roles at certes

For information on roles available for IT professionals in the NHS, please click here.

Many people resort to pointing to their 1^st class or 2.1 degree from such and such university as proof that they are the right person for the job. And of course, a degree can be an excellent asset to have as it can demonstrate someone’s dedication to learning, hard work, and at its most basic level – a foundation of knowledge in a certain field / industry. However, for those of us without degrees – are we at a disadvantage? Most certainly not.  

We want to answer the question that gets asked a lot – how can you best sell yourself if you don’t have a degree in IT but are competing against peers who have one?

1. Don’t make a big deal out of it

Don’t make your lack of degree the focus of your interview. If asked about it, explain your reasons but don’t launch into a big defensive speech. We would advise not even bringing that up at all – really, why bother? By highlighting that you bring attention to it when the interviewer may have not intended to speak about it at all.  You discussing this might be perceived as a reflection of how you view yourself and that you are worried about your performance due to the lack of a degree. But that is rarely the worry – we know we can perform, we know we have the skills, which is why we applied. Our worries tend to centre around the future employer regarding us as somehow deficient. So let them ask the question if that worries them, but otherwise, spend your time focusing on the rest of the points outlined below.

At the same time – don’t be afraid of this question. Don’t assume that just because you’re asked about why you didn’t go to university, they don’t like you or think you’re not good enough for the job. Assume the best – it could be simple curiosity on their behalf!

2. Be confident

In addition to not making your lack of degree a big deal – be confident about yourself and your career to date. You have nothing to be embarrassed about – you have achieved great things by now and this is your chance to stand confidently and show the interviewer that you are comfortable exactly as you are and that your achievements are down to your hard work and dedication.

3. Realise the advantages of not having a degree

Your success is down solely to your own efforts! You had to compete against people with degrees and you have succeeded. You success is self-made and that is something you can take pride in, you have had to find creative ways to position and sell yourself to employers in the past and you have succeeded. This shows a high level of problem-solving ability as you had to find ways to break into your sector without the degree green-card.

4. Success and results

An interview is a time to highlight your greatest professional successes and the positive results you achieved in your previous roles. It is not a time to play down your successes – ‘I did well but that was a long time ago’ nor is it a time to sing songs of praises to yourself – ‘I am the best wherever I go!’. Be moderate but honest. Speak about the facts of your achievements and you will avoid looking arrogant. Highlight the strengths you have, benchmark yourself against your peers who have gone down the academic route (without saying, “I am better than people with degrees”) and demonstrate how you have achieved the same level of experience or higher.

5. Don’t berate education

Focus on yourself, not the people who have degrees. There is nothing wrong with having a degree just as there is nothing wrong with not having one. But don’t spend the precious interview time talking about people with degrees – avoid looking down on people with degrees or implying that they haven’t worked as hard as you. Degrees take effort, time and commitment and involve a lot of hard work, and you also risk offending your interviewers if they have gone to university. Avoiding this line of reasoning will allow you to be comfortable in your own skin and professional choices, rather than risking coming across as insecure and needing to put others down in efforts to elevate yourself.

If you don’t currently work in IT but would like to move into this sector but don’t have the right experience or academic background – don’t worry. There are plenty of jobs in IT that don’t require technical skills and tech-based degrees. 

6. Analyse the job spec

Many people don’t pay enough attention to the job specs of the adverts they respond to, and as a result, their applications suffer. Have a baseline CV that you use as the skeleton for your applications, but tailor it depending on the job! Even if you’re applying for two roles that seem exactly the same on the surface – say, a Java Developer – you will be surprised by the subtle differences in requirements that companies and organisations may have. They might look for certain personal characteristics or a specific use of Java skills. Don’t miss these as they are your chance to shine. Your goal should be to match the job spec so well that they forget to even ask whether you have a degree or not.

Don’t make things up, though – you will be caught out sooner or later and that is not a career risk you want to take. But there are ways to present your achievements and experience in a way that aligns with the role you are applying for, and taking the time to study the spec and tailor your CV to it is an effort worth expending.

7. Demonstrate an interest in learning

You might not have gone to university but you should be able to demonstrate an interest in learning and developing your skills. This can range from free online courses to paid qualifications, or even taking part in online communities such as PHP Community Groups and other forums that enable an exchange of knowledge and add to your learning. By demonstrating that you are keen to learn, grow and develop, you give your potential future employers confidence that you will work hard and do your best.

Is this advice only for people without IT degrees? No! Most of these points are applicable to professionals with and without degrees, as well as those of you only starting out in your careers.

A change is as good as rest – how many CIOs and IT managers would agree? They really are at the forefront of the rapidly evolving technology that’s at the heart of nearly every business and organisation

With IT such a crucial, but evolving, part of the business, it makes no sense to plug away, doing what’s always been done and hoping for the best. CIOs that do that will come unstuck very quickly – and they understand that.

On top of CIO dilemmas around whether to opt for public or private cloud, software defined storage or hardware, they’re also managing infrastructure for an increasingly flexible workforce – one that can work any time of day or night, from anywhere and on any device.

The swift pace of technological change is not rest-like for the ones implementing it. In fact, it’s most likely pretty stressful.

But here’s the bottom line: even if it’s not as good as a rest, change is inevitable. And whether businesses are trying to keep up with changing consumer behaviour, competition or even a diversifying workforce, the right IT infrastructure, and the right strategy supporting it, are vital.

There’s simply no use trying to shoe horn new technologies into what’s already there. It’s time for a rethink: and that’s exactly what CIOs and IT managers are starting to do.

Back to school

Hardworking, high performing IT infrastructures are not achieved by implementing a single product or technology. Success is about having the right frame of mind: a CIO has to be ready to innovate, develop and implement change.

Remaining wedded to the old way of doing things hasn’t cut it for a while. But with so many new products promising to be the next big thing, how are CIOs staying on top of technological developments and identifying what’s hot, and what’s not?

It’s becoming more difficult: would you know whether OpenStack or Docker was right for your needs? Or whether you should consider NVMe this year? It almost goes without saying how important those decisions are.

Selecting the wrong storage solution for example, could slow down your business at best. At worst, it could cause outages and lost data.

CIO education and training is so important: both to understand the technologies that are available to them and to get to grips with the demands of their infrastructure.

It’s not possible to make an informed choice without a good understanding of the technology that’s out there. And even then – knowing a product has high performance levels isn’t enough – will it perform well with a customer’s existing technology? And is the right fit for the job it’s required to do?

For example, a storage solution designed for business critical data will be a very expensive choice for archived data that’s only kept for compliance.

Going back to the classroom can fill some people with dread – but education is key. And not just intermittent training: being talked at for a few hours, a couple of times a year. This has to be a commitment to continual learning: finding a trusted expert who’s happy to share their thoughts, going to key industry events, and spending time getting to know what the organisation’s infrastructure really needs.

A commitment to education makes sense for the organisation: there’ll be fewer issues if the right technology is implemented. But it also makes sense for the CIO, who will be in a much better position to advise decision-makers in the business, and share expertise and knowledge with the IT team.

Shaking the IT industry

The industry – from vendors to the channel – has to change its mind set too. Making wild claims about how technology performs in the lab can be confusing and misleading.

Vendors will need to be more transparent when it comes to explaining what their solutions can realistically achieve and what type of environment they’re best suited to.

This approach will benefit all involved: the customer, who will have the information they need to make the right choice, and the vendor, who will build well-earned trust, which is very valuable in today’s fickle market.

And the channel, already expert in so many solutions, will also feel the pressure to get a more detailed understanding of breakthrough technologies. Many customers rely on resellers, for example, to offer advice based on the best fit for their requirements and their budget.

They expect their reseller to really understand what’s on offer. Customers already select their resellers based on knowledge and insight, but that’s going to become even more crucial.

The whole of the channel will have to prove its worth, and it’ll do that through educating itself and its customers, and by building stronger relationships with vendors.

The fourth utility

There was once a time when the IT infrastructure was a couple of desktops and a printer. Now it’s become a utility: as important, if not more so, that water, gas and electricity.

But it’s not the same: power and water supplies don’t change from one quarter to the next. The demands on them rarely increase without warning.

With IT such a crucial, but evolving, part of the business, it makes no sense to plug away, doing what’s always been done and hoping for the best. CIOs that do that will come unstuck very quickly – and they understand that.

That’s why education is already becoming so important, and will continue to be vital over the coming years.

Source: Information Age

(*note to colleagues – we need a snappier tag-line!):

Sub-game: Hidden throughout this article are various placeholders, #1 to #9; can you identify the correct RE term for what is being alluded to or answer the question in each case? 

Objectives

• To capture as many different requirements (known as Rekx) as possible
• To combine multiple similar Rekx into fewer, stronger and more robust versions

Step 1: Build your collection #1

An analyst could just sit back and wait for the Rekx to arrive, or stick to familiar routes and routines. But that way will only gather up a few, potentially weak specimens, the process is likely to take a lot longer and the analyst’s ability to capture Rekx will not improve. Taking on board the gamification approach, it is better to be a Rekx hunter! (Note: do we have a levelling system we could use to help with this activity? #2). The hunter approach might involve the following:

• Actively seek out the Rekx. Wander the hallways, the open office landscapes and the dark caverns of the IT department looking for them. Some will be obvious while others will only give subtle clues as to their presence and might require a closer investigation to reveal and capture; these Rekx are often overlooked and can be extremely valuable #3.
• Seek out hotspots where Rekx hunters and Rekx owners alike can congregate and share information (note: let’s call them RekxSpots). Not only can the assembled meeting be facilitated to develop a shared outlook; but the ability to capture and improve Rekx quality will also increase across the group. #4
• The more interactive and engaging the RekxSpots, then the more productive they will be; increasing engagement with Rekx owners. Hints: typically a mix of the above techniques will be most effective. Never get too focussed on one particular kind of Rekx or on only capturing the new ones; you never know when a new Rekx may wander by or valuable detail is contained in a similar Rekx from a different source.

Step 2: Improving Your Collection #5 

By following the above advice the Rekx collection will soon swell, often to breaking point. It is worthwhile occasionally taking stock and analysing the collection so far.

• You will quickly identify a number of very similar Rekx in your collection of varying levels of robustness. Don’t simply discard the lesser ones; there’s often something in them that can be incorporated into the best ones to make them even better.
• These can be combined to create Super Rekx. There are likely to be fewer of these in your collection but will be of great help when organising the collection. #6
• Look for significant gaps in the collection or the need to bolster existing Rekx through further exploration and gathering.’

Step 3: The Boss Fight stage – the final test #7
You may get to the point when you feel your collection, or a subset of it is ready for the ultimate test. At this stage you should throw your Rekx into an arena where they can be measured against challenging tests. (Note: we could call this RekxGate). How well they perform will depend on how comprehensive a collection you have built as well as how robust they are following the analysis and refinement process. We all seek validation in our day-to-day lives, and gamification should include this important step.

General hints and tips

• Participation: It's typically better to work collaboratively within teams. As well as being more productive, the more eyes you have at work the more thorough the end result. It can also be more enjoyable, especially when it comes to a gamified activity.
• Results improve through both application of better practice and through experience gained from practice. Always look for ways you can improve in the future.

Conclusion 

The underlying framework (#8) for this set of activities, the cataloguing and managing your collection of Rekx needs a cool name; how about Rekx Gathering. Makes it sound too easy? How about Rekx Cataloguing. Too boring? 

Rekx Engineering that has a nice ring to it. Anyone improved on that tagline yet?

Gotta catch ‘em all? Catchy… but have we checked this out with Legal because it sounds familiar…

Anyway, I think there’s an inherent flaw in that tagline in the context of Rekx Engineering (#9); what do you think? Could this sort of Rekx gamification catch on?

Answers to the sub-game at the bottom of this page.

Answers
#1 Elicitation; #2 The Business Analysis career path and associated certifications; #3 Tacit Requirements; #4 Workshops and focus groups; #5 Analysis; #6 High level or Epic requirements for traceability etc.; #7 Validation; #8 The RE framework; #9 You’ll never catch them all (beware analysis paralysis), but have you caught enough?

This post is an extract from Certes' Business Analysis publication.To receive more up-to-date, relevant information affecting the Business Analysis and Business Change community direct to your desktop, sign up to Analysts Anonymous. Registration is free.

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Where services depend on shared resources it can be very difficult to effectively manage the services especially if resources are working together on-premise and cloud.

Effective service management is difficult where services are reliant on shared resources, and is even more challenging when some of the resources are on-site and some of the resources are in on cloud servers. This can have an effect on:

• Controlling remote devices
• Maintaining visibility into virtualised resources
• Achieving demanding SLA’s for critical business applications

Technologies that are already in place in a company may not get replaced when other technologies or service become available for example a company may implement cloud based services but continue to provide infrastructure services and host applications on-site. Due to this, IT managers are facing challenges from both the legacy and new technologies. A single tool may be needed that can enable IT managers to provided management across all of the platforms and this can be costly.

Factors Driving Change

New technologies are pushing change for companies while improving productivity. The biggest technologies currently driving change are:

• Cloud Computing
• Mobility
• Big Data

Management Impact

The implementations of cloud, mobility, and big data for IT companies are that IT managers must now manage these new technologies in conjunction with their legacy infrastructure and applications. The ever evolving nature of IT requires new tools to allow synergy between legacy and new technologies. However this increases the difficulty to manage.

What are the main hindrances stopping the adoption of authentication strategies, and will passwords be around for much longer?

Single-factor, password-based authentication – and even many traditional two-factor approaches – are no longer enough to secure today’s increasingly digital world.

These techniques, including username, passwords and security question credentials do not sufficiently protect organisations and the critical data they hold, as seen in the spate of recent breaches such as Yahoo!

According to the 2016 Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report, 63% of the attacks it studied leveraged weak, default or stolen credentials at some point in the attack.

This indicates that, in order to combat the rising tide of credential abuse, organisations must implement stronger forms of authentication.

Despite this, users and organisations are still slow in adopting stronger security measures.

Some organisations have a tough time finding ways to increase security without creating a lot of resistance from either employees or customers.

Especially as most employees don’t always think about security as their priority, while customers just want to access their accounts as quickly as possible.

Most employees hate additional authentication steps or hoops to jump through.

Nobody likes:

• Having to adhere to a strong password policy – logging in, logging in again, waiting for access, changing passwords every 90 days, complex passwords that are difficult to remember.
• Using antiquated two-factor authentication with cumbersome hardware tokens: adding a PIN code at every log-in, carrying around a hardware token, not to mention the expense to the organisation of replacing tokens and the support/maintenance drain on IT staff.
• Waiting on hold with Help Desk instead of immediately being able to help ourselves with tools like self-service password reset and account unlocking.

Individuals can make it easier on themselves by adapting and selecting access capabilities to fit their needs, removing barriers to adoption.

In October, SecureAuth conducted a survey on IT decision makers in the US and found that 69% of respondents say their organisation is likely to do away with passwords within the next five years.

This is good news. A growing movement of individuals and businesses opting for an authentication overhaul means there is a real understanding of the limitations of existing protocols and a concerted drive to limit the potential for future network breaches.

It’s in everyone’s best interest to make it more difficult for attackers to cause further damage to our economy.

Yet, these advocates often face multiple challenges from their company’s executives.

Top reasons hindering authentication strategy improvements cited by respondents to SecureAuth’s survey include:

1. Disruption to users’ daily routine.
2. Lack of resources to support maintenance.
3. Steep employee learning curve.
4. Fear the improvements wouldn’t work.

However, multi-factor authentication need not be disruptive, a simple user experience can be maintained.

User-friendly adaptive access technologies such as device recognition, threat services (leveraging information from a network of 11 million advanced threat sensors to determine blacklisted IP addresses), and geo-location look-up.

When used in layers, such techniques can strengthen any organisation’s security posture.

This enables users to stay both secure and productive with minimal disruption to their daily routines.

It’s time for companies to adapt and move away from the simple password.

To future-proof, organisations must look to invest in such adaptive authentication that contextualises the above elements for accurate user identification.

Importantly these techniques all happen behind the scenes, increasing security at the same time as not getting in the way of the end user experience.

Eliminating passwords removes any reliance on them and means that compromised credentials are no longer a risk.

Strong security during authentication no longer has to be at the expense of the end user, workers and organisations can now have both. It doesn’t have to be a compromise.

Source: InformationAge?

• Permanent vacancies down 1% year-on-year
• Contract vacancies fall 9%
• Contractor vacancies in finance drop by 23%   
• Average salaries dip by 1.3%

Permanent vacancies dip
Professional recruitment firms reported that overall vacancy numbers for permanent roles dipped by 1% in February 2017, while demand for contractors decreased by 9% year-on-year, according to new survey data from the Association of Professional Staffing Companies (APSCo).

APSCo’s data, which focuses on professional recruitment, reveals notable variations between the trade association’s core sector groups in terms of hiring activity. While permanent vacancies across both finance and engineering, for example, have increased marginally (both by 1%), permanent placements within IT slipped by 7%.      

Contractor vacancies fall in the financial services sector 
Vacancies for professional contractors decreased by 9% across the board year-on-year, with much of this activity attributed to a notable fall in the number of roles within financial services.

Despite the fact that permanent vacancies increased by 1% year-on-year in this sector, demand for contractors dropped by almost a quarter (23%) during the same period as investment banks in London finally begin to execute plans to uproot jobs from the City. Demand for IT contractors has also decreased by 16%. This is despite the fact that a recent report from Tech Nation found that the British technology sector is growing faster than the UK economy, growing by 30% in just five years.

Average salaries down
APSCo’s figures also reveal that median salaries across all professional sectors dipped by 1.3% year-on-year. This figure is characterised by notable fluctuations in terms of sector, with IT, for example, recording an uplift of 1.3% while in banking average salaries were down 3.6% year-on-year.

Ann Swain, Chief Executive of APSCo comments:

“Amid the huge amount of uncertainty the UK is facing as the Prime Minister prepares to trigger Article 50, demand for talent remains incredibly strong. Despite predictions that the Brexit vote would decimate the jobs market, the fact that permanent vacancy numbers remain largely unchanged since early 2016 – a time when forecasts overwhelmingly predicted that the UK would remain inside Europe post-referendum – is testament to the sheer strength and robustness of the UK economy.”

“While contractor placements actually increased by 3% in February, a decrease in contractor vacancies suggests that employers are now prioritising long-term workforce plans, rather than short term gap-plugging, as we enter the new financial year. This is most evident within financial services, where it is apparent that the recent frenzy of temporary hiring, which created a temporary boom in demand for contractors, has now subsided to be replaced with more stable hiring activity until employers have a firmer idea of their plans post-Brexit.”

Click to download

Source: Apsco.org