By: Nicole Hitch

When I asked what readers may be interested in reading, the questions of what new technologies are currently being implemented locally within the Twin Cities came up. So in response, I put together a survey and I will share in a two part blog (Due to the amount of information.) the results of that survey. I hope this helps those of you in the technical community help keep your finger on the pulse of what types of technologies others locally are using. If you haven’t and would like to still take the survey, please don’t hesitate to, I would love to hear your feedback and will gladly share any new findings in another blog post. Click here to take the survey. Also, a huge thanks to all who participated in the survey!

Part 1 will include the industries represented and what new technologies are currently being implemented in local companies. Part 2 will look a year and five years down the road at what new technologies are expected to be added. Enjoy!

Of those that completed the survey, the following industries were represented:

Advertising, Branding & Marketing
Aerospace and Defense
Business services, software, predictive analytics
E-Commerce
Education
Engineering
Financial Services, Banking, Insurance, Investments & Mortgages
Health Care
Information Technology
Medical Device

What types of new technologies are your company currently implementing?

Here is a list of the responses sorted by industry.

Advertising, Branding & Marketing – CSS, Flash, PHP, .Net
Aerospace and Defense – High Speed Computing Clusters
Business services, software & predictive analytics - VMWare, Microsoft .Net 3.5, IBM Websphere
E-Commerce - ATG, VMWare, Hibiscus, Websphere, .Net
Education - .Net Frame Work 4.0, Load Test, VMWare, 10G Infrastructure Encryption Technologies
Engineering - Virtualization, Service-oriented architectures, message-oriented architectures, user-centered designs, autonomous tracking
Financial Services, Banking, Insurance,Investments & Mortgages – InRule, ATG, Windows Workflow, .Net 3.5, VS2010, SQL 2008, VM Servers, TFS2010, BizTalk, and Hibiscus.
Health Care - .Net 4.0, transporting of HIPPA data
Information Technology – Oracle Middleware solutions, SharePoint 2010, Office 2010, Netbook/Redfly devices for mobile integration, HTML5, Data Center Design, Server Virtualization, Desktop Virtualization, Storage Virtualization, iSCSI/FCoE Storage Networks, MS Server 2008 R2, MS Exchange 2010, MS SQL 2008, VMware vSphere 4.0, VMware View, Citrix XenApp, Citrix XenDesktop, Citrix XenServer, Brocade Fibre Channel and Ethernet Network Equipment, 10 GbE Networks, 40 GbE Networks, 100 GbE Networks, 8GB Fibre Channel
Medical Device – Microsoft Office Communicator Server 2007 R2/2010, Microsoft Exchange 2010, Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010

I hope you have enjoyed Part 1 of this survey information and look for part 2 next week.  As always if you have any questions or comments, please don’t hesitate to leave one below.

Dear Reader,

As you read the title, you may be thinking, “I thought Blue Wave Professionals does IT and Engineering placements/staffing,” and yes, you are right we do.  However, from time to time, we run across great sales people looking for new opportunities and thought that this blog from Career Alley might be helpful to those folks as well. I hope you enjoy this post and find it helpful.

Sincerely,

Nicole Hitch
President
Blue Wave Professionals

Author Byline: CareerAlley

Author Website: http://Careeralley.com

“A sale is not something you pursue, it’s what happens to you while you are immersed in serving your customer.” – Anonymous

You know the old saying, a good salesperson can sell anything. I’m sure there is some truth to it, but to be a successful salesperson takes a certain personality and skill-set that (in my opinion) can’t be easily taught. It is one of the few careers where you know fairly quickly how you are doing (and if you are not doing well you will not last long). It is also one of the few careers where there are (generally) plenty of jobs (more than most) but they are the most difficult to find. “Where” you may ask are these jobs that are so difficult to find – read on.

Retail:

• Home Depot – Home Depot is know as the Do It Yourself store. They have an established business model. Their careers page is clean and crisp. There are links at the top left hand side of the page for 5 different functional areas of employment, plus one for new store openings (where they will obviously need help). Below this on the left hand side is a search function, followed by a number of additional links to related information. Click the job search box and you will have a number of choices. Of course, you are looking for Sales Associates, but there are also click boxes for Store Managers, Customer Service and Supply Chain. Also, at the bottom of the page they have a link for their career fair calendar. Unfortunately, you must register on the site and check each job type individually.

• Nordstom – What? Hardware is not your thing? What about the soft side, upscale department stores. They have a great careers page. Center page there are three choices: Store openings (they will need salespeople), Career paths (look for sales) and create a profile (sales!). Create your search using the key words “Retail Sales”. There were over 1,000 Retail Sales opportunities when I checked the site.

Other Sales:

• Google – No, you did not read this wrong. Google has an amazing number of sales jobs. Rather than go through their main careers page, the link to the left leads directly to their sales jobs. Center page is the long list of jobs, left hand side are links to Life at Google, locations, student jobs and more. The right hand side of the page has related links.

Resources and Leads:

• Sales, Advertising, & Marketing – This is a listing of leads and resources that will keep you busy for a very long time. Riley Guide’s list of Sales related jobs is an amazing collection of job search sites, executive recruiters, trade shows and the list goes on.

• Salesjobs.com – This is the “World’s largest Sales Employment Site” according their tag line. And, according to the stats on their main page, there are over 200,000 job opportunities on their site. The main page has tabs at the top, but Candidates seems to be the only one that would be of interest. Below this (middle of the page) is a quick search box (using industry and area code). Bottom left hand side is the candidates section where you can upload your resume, login or get advice. Clicking the Candidates tab at the top leads to a page with dedicated resources such as Search, post resume, advice, sales links and more.

• National Association of Sales Professionals – This is an example of a professional organization (this one focusing on sales). In addition to other services, this association also has a career center (one of the tabs at the top of the page). Click on career center and the left hand side of the page is dedicated to Job Seekers where you can post a resume, View jobs, create personal alerts and more. When I clicked on the view jobs link, there were over 2,900 opportunities.

Good luck in your search.

Article courtesy of the Recruiting Blogswap, a content exchange service sponsored by CollegeRecruiter.com, a leading site for college students looking for internships and recent graduates searching for entry level jobs and other career opportunities.