August 01, 2024

These are the skills you need to get hired in tech

While soft skills are important, communicating them to a prospective employer can present a conundrum. Tina Wang, division vice president of human resources at ADP, said there are a few ways for job seekers to bring attention to their behavioral skills. It goes beyond just listing “strong work ethic” or “problem solving” on a resume, “though it’s good to add it there too,” she said.?Job seekers can incorporate behavior skills in a track record of job experiences. ... An interview with a prospective employer is also a good time to introduce behavioral skills, but time is limited and job-seekers won’t likely be able to share all their demonstrated skills and experience.?“Preparation will go a long way, so think through your talking points and what is important to share,” Wang said. “Think about a few applicable, real work experiences where you demonstrated these skills and sketch out how and when to bring them during the interview process.”?References can also be an excellent way to highlight behavioral skills. Intangibles such as a strong work ethic or attention to detail might be something former managers, team members or peers identify.?

Ideal authentication solution boils down to using best tools to stop attacks

Given the shifting nature of work, with more employees working remotely, the variety of gaps in protection is manifold. Clunky authentication experiences mean users are often asked to sign in multiple times a day for different applications and accounts. “Users get extremely frustrated when this occurs, and they end up having resistance to adopting these authentication methods,” Anderson says. To improve the situation, organizations need to manage authentication scenarios in onboarding, session tokens to remember login – and the reality of username and password authentication still being used extensively throughout the security landscape, leaving vulnerabilities to fraud. “Passkeys are good for users because they simplify and streamline the actual authentication ceremony itself, where the user is actively involved,” Miller says. “It doesn’t necessarily decrease the number of times they have to authenticate but it does make it simpler and less taxing.” “They also have knock-on benefits of reducing the amount of information that leaks in the case of a database leak that can be used by an attacker. It shrinks the blast radius of account compromise.”

Should Today’s Developers Be More or Less Specialized?

“The need for specialists is not going to change. If anything, I expect it to increase,” says Hillion. “We still have a number of clients who rely on full-stack developers. I would say the general trend is towards businesses needing more specialized developers who have the right combination of technical skillsets and sector knowledge to deliver what is needed into the complex tech stack. There is significant demand for developers who specialize in particular industry sectors.” ... “Without basic knowledge, pursuing any specific development area is challenging,” says Ivanov. “That’s why starting by mastering basic technologies that someone is most proficient in, which helps them learn new things faster,” says Ivanov in an email interview. “However, core technologies should not be the end goal. It is also essential to stay up to date with technology trends and always continue using new technology.” Tasks that go beyond standard or general requirements need the involvement of specialists who have knowledge and experience in specific areas. For example, a project that requires complex algorithms or specific technologies will require a specialist with a deep understanding of them.

Between sustainability and risk: why CIOs are considering small language models

“In LLMs, the bulk of the data work is done statistically and then IT trains the model on specific topics to correct errors, giving it targeted quality data,” he says. “SLMs cost much less and require less data, but, precisely for this reason, the statistical calculation is less effective and, therefore, very high-quality data is needed, with substantial work by data scientists. Otherwise, with generic data, the model risks producing many errors.” Furthermore, SLMs are so promising and interesting for companies that even big tech offers and advertises them, like Google’s Gemma and Microsoft’s Phi-3. For this reason, according to Esposito, governance remains fundamental, within a model that should remain a closed system. “An SLM is easier to manage and becomes an important asset for the company in order to extract added value from AI,” he says. “Otherwise, with large models and open systems, you have to agree to share strategic company information with Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI. This is why I prefer to work with a system integrator that can develop customizations and provide a closed system, for internal use.?

Why geographical diversity is critical to build effective and safe AI tools

Geographical diversity is critical as organizations look to develop AI tools that can be adopted worldwide, according to Andrea Phua, senior director of the national AI group and director of the digital economy office at Singapore's Ministry of Digital Development and Information (MDDI). ... "The use of Gen AI has brought a new dimension to cyber threats. As AI becomes more accessible and sophisticated, threat actors will also become better at exploiting it," said CSA's chief executive and Commissioner of Cybersecurity David Koh. "As it is, AI already poses a formidable challenge for governments around the world [and] cybersecurity professionals would know that we are merely scratching the surface of gen AI's potential, both for legitimate applications and malicious uses," Koh said. He pointed to reports of AI-generated content, including deepfakes in video clips and memes, that have been used to sow discord and influence the outcome of national elections. At the same time, there are new opportunities for AI to be tapped to enhance cyber resilience and defense, he said.?

Cloud Migration Regrets: Should You Repatriate?

With increasing pressure to cut costs, many CTOs and CIOs are considering repatriating cloud workloads back on premises. As hard as it may seem, it’s important to think beyond just the cost. You must understand workload requirements to make sound decisions for each application. ... A lot of organizations have forgotten how much IT operations have changed since moving to the cloud. Cloud transformation meant revamping ITOps based on the chosen mix of Infrastructure-, Platform- or Software-as-a-Service (IaaS, PaaS or SaaS) services. Bringing applications back on premises strips away those service layers, and Ops teams may no longer be able or willing to accept the administrative and maintenance burden again. One final consideration before moving workloads off the cloud is security. I think security is one of the many advantages of cloud infrastructure. When businesses first started moving to the cloud, security was one of the biggest concerns. It turns out that cloud providers are better at security than you are. They can’t fix security holes in your software or other operator error scenarios, but a cloud infrastructure provides greater isolation if a breach does occur.?

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