When I Grow Up, I Want to Be a Recruiter!

by Staff | General IT

The Pros and Cons of Recruiting While growing up to be a recruiter may not be a dream for most children, they might want to reconsider. Recruiting can be rewarding—both mentally and financially. While it doesn’t come without its challenges, it is an often-overlooked career path. Along with one of our longest-tenured recruiters, Steve Kerr, who has over 14 years of experience as a recruiter here at A&A Search and Staffing, we compiled the pros and cons of joining an industry that puts your success in your hands. Pros Teamwork: The feeling of camaraderie and working toward a unified goal is very strong when you are in a good recruiting agency. You feel supported and have great coworkers who understand your job and can offer valuable advice and insight. This is especially helpful for new hires and those just entering the industry. Many sales positions leave you as a loner on the road, figuring things out as you go. But with recruiting, you have a team to offer insight and best practices from day one. Hard work is rewarded: With many jobs, no matter how hard you work or put in extra time or effort, your paycheck will still be the same week after week—even as the company’s bottom line rises. With recruiting, when you work harder, place more candidates, and get more clients, you see the reward for your efforts. You are in control of your own success. Making a difference to your clients and candidates: Recruiting can be financially rewarding, but surprisingly, one of the other top reasons people continue in this industry is the relationships and...

Top 10 IT Blogs

by Staff | General IT

It’s hard to keep up with the latest information technology trends, news, and issues. These blogs offer a range of interesting and thoughtful resources to make sure you know what is influencing and shaping your industry: ITWorld.com: ITworld offers tech decision makers, industry leaders, and other IT influencers a unique environment for gathering and sharing information that will help them do their jobs. This resource has you covered with everything from a short list of key products in a specific product category and advice on how to approach a technical challenge to a quick primer on an emerging technology. Mashable.com/tech: Mashable has the latest news and trends in tech as well as a wide range of other areas. While it may not be the most hard-hitting, it is a great resource for how tech impacts—and is impacted by—daily culture and entertainment. Who doesn’t want to know why Kylie Jenner tanked Snapchat’s value? ZDNetcom: ZDNet brings together the reach of global and the depth of local, delivering 24/7 news coverage and analysis on the trends and tech. Whatever your role in IT, ZDNet provides support, from investigating options to optimizing a solution. This blog is a great resource for professionals seeking to research technology-related issues and solve business technology problems. Blog.Codinghorror.com: Coding Horror is written by Jeff Atwood, an experienced software developer with a particular interest in the human side of software development. He researches things he finds interesting—this is a great resource for real software issues and applications. Wired.com/category/threatlevel/: Wired Threat Level is a well-known blog focused on tech and gear. Wired covers privacy, crime, and security online, digging into...

Top IT Conferences

by Staff | General IT, IT Financial, News & Events

In our hectic online world, we often forget the value of face-to-face meetings and events. Being active in the IT industry and attending key conferences can bring many benefits and networking opportunities. We have compiled our list of the best IT conferences to put on your calendar. These conferences will keep you up to date on the latest industry trends and provide a wonderful opportunity for networking. Top IT Conferences Grace Hopper | Oct. 4–6 in Orlando, FL Co-founded by Dr. Anita Borg and Dr. Telle Whitney in 1994 and inspired by the legacy of Admiral Grace Murray Hopper, Anita Borg Institute’s Grace Hopper Celebration (GHC) of Women in Computing brings the research and career interests of women in computing to the forefront. GHC is the world’s largest technical conference for women in computing. The conference was named one of the 50 best conferences to attend by The Daily Muse. Each year, women technologists and the best minds in computing convene to highlight the contributions to the field by women. The Anita Borg Institute co-presents GHC with the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM).   AGENDA 18, What’s Next in Digital | March 19–21, 2018 in Miami, FL AGENDA is a business leadership conference focused on driving your business forward in changing times. Unlike any other conference, AGENDA is immersive, interactive, and focused on giving you and your colleagues the practical tools to lead change in your organization. Today, it’s all about digital and new technologies that are disrupting companies, industries, and the world. AGENDA is attended by an array of business and technology leaders—including C-level, VPs, and directors (from marketing, operations, finance,...

5 Tech Industries to Watch

by Staff | General IT

Many of these technologies are already buzzing, but some of them—due to recent breakthroughs or more players in the game—seem to be reaching a crescendo. Here, we outline what we see as the top technologies to watch and why:   Internet of Things (IoT): We are seeing IoT have an explosive growth in home technology—everything from your fridge to your thermostat. Not only is the technology being added to these devices, it is having an impact in a meaningful way.One reason for such growth is the number of players and marketplaces that are entering the market. This allows for more widespread adoption of this technology, and the next step will be integrated technology—and that is when IoT will take its next great leap forward.   Augmented Reality (AR): The lesser-known brother to Virtual Reality (VR), AR is a technology that superimposes a computer-generated image on a user’s view of the real world, thus providing a composite view. It is not all immersive like VR; instead, it lies above or incorporates with the real world (think Pokémon GO!).Instead of kids chasing Pokémon, imagine the business implications. One business, Apple, is imagining in a big way. They have started down an ambitious road to bring AR to everyone—an effort Tim Cook, Apple Inc.’s chief executive, and his team see as the best way for the company to lead the next generation of AR devices.1   Digital Assistant: The most “famous” digital assistants in the market today are Siri, Amazon Echo, and Cortana. The base idea is to make it easier for us to interact and work with technology. While it is...

Top Three Posts of 2015 – Recapping the Year for A&A Search

by admin | General IT

A&A Search offers highlights of the most read articles on their website from 2015. The articles represent significant developments and trends for 2015 and the issues faced by the business, finance, and information technology in 2015. How Will Technology Change Banking in 2015? In January, A&A Search reported on technology developments and a highly competitive retail banking sector. While retail banks seem unsure whether to close less crucial branch locations and focus on the mobile consumer, treasury professionals are demanding big data applications with mobile architecture and cloud technology. A survey revealed that 50 percent of treasury respondents would switch banks if doing so provided access to superior technology. Many still rely on Microsoft Excel and in-house software for financial analysis and predictions. With respect to the retail industry, the article predicted more prevalent touchscreen technology and smart, high-tech ATMS better suited to the customer experience. Fees for online banking channels and services were expected to expand for 2016. Bank staffing is predicted to change toward a universal model, whereby staff can manage a multitude of clients and services using new technology tools and central databases. Tips on Professionally Leaving Your Job | Quitting in a Positive Way Our March article reflects the extent of employee mobility. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that, on average, a worker changes jobs every four years. This article offered advice to employees as to how to resign in a way that maintains important contacts and exploits rather than diminishes achievements. Suggestions included helping your employer to find a replacement and training the new candidate before you leave. Ensuring that all your work...

By 2018, Three Quarters of the World’s Data Traffic Will Use the Cloud

by | General IT

A study from September 2013 by TheInfoPro, a service of 451 Research, predicted explosive growth for cloud technology. The data was from the first six months of 2013. The results predicted that the cloud market would grow at a rate of 36 percent compound annual growth rate and reach a market size of $19.5 billion by 2016. By the spring of 2014, however, Forrester Research was reporting that the market will reach over $190 billion by 2020. Cisco’s report supports the reports of unprecedented growth in its Fourth Annual Global Cloud Index. The Index predicts that global data center traffic will triple from 2013 to 2018. Traffic will increase from approximately 3.1 zettabytes per year in 2013 to over eight zettabytes in 2018. A zettabyte is a trillion gigabytes. A&A Search provides some highlights concerning cloud computing and its development: Cisco explains that eight zettabytes of data center traffic is equivalent to streaming all 500,000 movies and three million television shows ever made in ultra-high definition 250,000 times. Almost 40 percent of companies surveyed have a separate cloud computing budget in addition to their organizational IT budget, indicating changes in accounting and budgeting practices. To put the value of cloud technology into perspective, a typical enterprise cloud computing mean budget is over $8 million. The top cloud computing projects for organizations currently include internal private cloud projects at 35 percent and cloud assessment and strategy planning at 33 percent. Assessment and strategy have seen the greatest increase in activity as firms try to become more agile in terms of IT. Not surprisingly, security is the greatest problem with respect...