Sunday, January 22, 2012

ERM-BC-COOP

When "BC" is "DR"

a/k/a "The Name Game"

 

I got an email the other day announcing "24 NEW BC/DR Openings Just Posted."

Since I will entertain offers of employment, I followed the link in the email and found the following. (The advertiser's name and contact information are removed.)

  • Business Continuity Management (BCM) Manager – Consultant– FTE/Permanent (local candidates. No relo). Candidates must have (either) previous 3rd party Big 5 consulting experience or with a technology consulting organization will be considered.

    Note there is no mnimum experiece requirement. Degree yes; experience, not necessarily. Also no certification requirement.

  • Consultant – Enterprise Resiliency – Multiple Positions!!! No Relo Assistance. Candidates must have 2+ years in business continuity, IT resiliency or risk management coupled with a Bachelor’s Degree. Candidates must have (either) previous 3rd party Big 5 consulting experience or with a technology consulting organization will be considered.

    The term "resiliency" gives this posting instantly away as an IT DR gig. Note the "2+ years" mnimum experiece requirement. Degree yes; experience, not necessarily. Also no certification requirement.

  • Senior Consultant – Enterprise Resiliency – Multiple Positions!!! No Relo Assistance. Candidates must have 5+ years in business continuity, IT resiliency or risk management coupled with a Bachelor’s Degree. Candidates must have (either) previous 3rd party Big 5 consulting experience or with a technology consulting organization will be considered.

    OK, "resiliency" tells us the job is IT DR, but at least a "senior" consultant has to have at least 5 years experience. No certification necessary.

  • Business Leader, Global Business Continuity - Strong IT Architecture Experience No relo assistance. The client is seeking a candidate who has previous experience working within a data center operations environment. Experience with highly resilient Infrastructure environments is a primary requirement for this position. Financial industry experience is highly preferred.

    We're told right at the beginning that the candidate has to have "strong IT architecture experience." This is followed by a qualification that the candidate has " previous experience working within a data center operations environment."

  • Engineer - IT Disaster Recovery No relo assistance. Experience with highly resilient Infrastructure environments across many platforms is a primary requirement for this position. Financial or high transaction based industry experience within a large enterprise environment is crucial.

    Bravo! No game playing here; the client wants a DR person.

  • Senior Disaster Recovery Specialist FTE/Permanent.- No relo. Non-local candidates encouraged to apply.

    .OK, this job also tells it like it is; the only problem is that the candidate pool is strictly local to the advertiser; better candidates who live outside the area need not apply. I hope the advertisers pool is Olympic size.

  • Head of Business Continuity Management - Bachelors degree required, Graduate degree highly preferred. Successful candidate must have proven previous experience as Senior Managing Director or Global BC Head for large enterprise.

    .True BC. The question is, since a degree is required but no experience, will this person (attempt to) manage experienced practitioners or will the successful candidate find - as frequently the case, that there are no direct reports; that the manager also is the practitioner.

  • Disaster Recovery Manager Senior – FTE/Permanent (#2412) – Minneapolis, MN. Relo assistance provided. Experience with highly resilient Infrastructure environments is a primary requirement for this position. Must have recent experience designing high availability solutions within multiple platforms within a large IT enterprise environment. Banking industry experience is highly preferred.

    Once again, the title tells it like it is; DR.

The reason the advertiser's name was omitted is because the mis-use of the term "business continuity" is all to common. Disaster recovery jobs must seem more "glamorous" than plain ol' DR.

In what I suspect was an attempt to make DR sexy, one of the Big Name organizations dreamed up "resiliency" as DR's nom du jour. The word has been around, according to Merriam-Webster Online sine 1836, but M-W fails to define it. My Webster's unabridged lists "resiliency" as a variation on the word "resilient" dating back to 1620-1630.

Given that "resilient" means to "bounce back" or recover from something, that still doesn't equate it to "business continuity" and certainly not "risk management."

I don't know if recruiters deliberately mis-categorize jobs or if the titles are supplied by clients.

I do know that a recruiter dare not suggest to a client that the requirements should be revisited; even recruiters have to have happy clients if they expect repeat business.

For all that, it is frustrating to see a DR job under a BC heading.

That's rather like advertising for a Boeing 777 captain when airplane is a DC 3; it sounds impressive, but there is a BIG difference between the tail dragger and the newest jumbo out of Everett, WA. Don't misunderstand, the "gooney bird" still the aircraft of choice for many operators and it has a proud history, but it still can't compete with a Boeing 7-series anything.

Likewise, IT DR is important - as part of an overall, enterprise business continuity plan and even in an IT-only environment, it is best served with true business continuity - avoidance and mitigation as primary points of difference.

Longer articles at https://sites.google.com/site/johnglennmbci/

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