There is a career fair happening at PWTC KL at the time I’m writing this blog post. It reminds me when I was still unemployed, really missed those good old days while doing job hunting. Anyway, my job hunting experience is rather different than any one else. I never attended any proper interview, one day I set an appointment to meet this person in charge of the company, the next thing I knew, I was offered the job. So far, I never rejected any job offering and I’m not looking for a new one at the moment.

After a week of learning all there is from the SOA/ADF Oracle training, I found this job advertised by a big multi-national company that matches what I have learned so far. Before I write about it more, I wanted to share with you some screenshots of what I’ve learned from the Oracle training I attended, here you go:

What you see above is a screenshot of Oracle Jdeveloper tool in designing a work flow of a credit card process. At first, following the step by step instruction in the tutorial was easy. Not until the end part when you have to test to see if the work flow application you’ve just created could run or not. It was sort of a relief when it run successfully. But when you see an error message appears, there is where you start to scratch your head opening up every little components which you’ve thought was so simple and realized it has become so complex. It’s like doing math problems during school but with some visuals added to it. For those people who loves the challenge, this is an ideal job for you. I can’t really say it is for me although I do like it once in a while.

This is a view of Oracle Enterprise Manager. It’s a heavyweight application which I believe involves BEA Weblogic application server. My laptop couldn’t take that application therefore I had to connect to the instructor’s laptop to view. If you are familiar with online dashboard, PHPmyadmin or others, you’ll get the hang of it. All of these activities I’ve shown to you requires a lot of ‘experiencing’. It’s not something you could just read and digest. So if you are lazy ‘doing’ but love to just ‘read’, this is not something for you. I love experimenting (up to a level where I don’t see too much disappointing error messages) so this might be a suitable task for me.

Alright, enough about my ranting, here is the job description of a Oracle BEA Weblogic Portal Consultants:

Job Description

Systems Integration Consulting professionals are responsible for delivering large-scale, complex programs that marry processes with technology to help our clients achieve high performance.

Oracle Weblogic professionals design, implement and deploy Oracle Weblogic Portal and Oracle Weblogic Integration solutions to achieve defined business goals. They maintain skills in Oracle Weblogic Portal and WLI solution architecture, design, configuration, development, integration, testing and deployment; and Oracle Weblogic Portal and WLI technical architecture.

Key responsibilities may include:

• Supervising functional and technical design activities
• Creating functional requirements as an input to application design
• Developing and testing detailed functional designs for business solution components and prototypes
• Supervising application build, test, and deploy activities
• Planning and executing data conversion activities (e.g., test data)
• Driving test planning and execution

Qualifications

Well versed with Oracle Weblogic Portal skills.

1. Portlets, Page Flow, Web Flows
2. Weblogic Portal Configuration, Administration and Performance Tuning
3. Weblogic Portal Clustering Design and Implementation
4. Web Services Integration
5. Portal Content repositories
6. Content integration and management
7. Access Management Integration or Single Sign-On
8. Rules-based personalization
9. RIA technologies such as AJAX / Adobe Flex

Well versed with Oracle Weblogic Integration skills.

1. WLI Clustering Design and Implementation
2. WLI Configuration, Administration and Performance Tuning
3. Human Workflow Design and Implementation
4. Process Integration Design and Implementation
5. Synchronous (e.g. SOAP, Web Services, EJB, RMI, CORBA) Integration Architecture, Design and Implementation
6. Asynchronous (e.g. JMS, MQ) Integration Architecture, Design and Implementation
7. Batch Integration Architecture, Design and Implementation
8. Canonical Data Model and Data Transformation including XML, XSD, XPath and XQuery
9. Service Orientated Architecture
10. Oracle Database Integration (JDBC, SQL)

Other Related Skill Requirements

• Knowledge and experience in implementation of Oracle WebLogic Server based solution
• Knowledge and experience in implementation of Java Open Source Framework (e.g. Spring)
• Knowledge and experience in full application development and implementation lifecycle
• Recognized Degree from good universities

Experience Preferred

1. Manager: 8 years and above of relevant experience including Project Management and Solution Architect roles
2. Consultant: 4 years and above of relevant experience including Team Management and Web Architect roles

Professional Skill Requirements

• Proven success in contributing to a team-oriented environment
• Proven ability to work creatively and analytically in a problem-solving environment
• Desire to work in an information systems environment
• Excellent leadership, communication (written and oral) and interpersonal skills

Phew!! That’s just too much to handle for me. I can’t imagine myself learning all those skills just to become an Oracle BEA Weblogic Portal Consultants. I know that this job can offer triple or more the salary I’m earning right now. However, I am missing a lot of requirement in becoming one for instance, a degree. So I guess my only option at the moment is to work closely with my company to maybe provide services for this role. Although my boss would not probably give me triple salary earning, at least I can still make use of what I have learned so far.

By the way, the product line my company is selling can be used with BEA Weblogic server. I think I’ll try and find some time to fiddle around with that one first. Hope you get an insight of what my job is at the moment.

Have a nice day everyone.

Since doing sales job is not one of my strongholds, I’ve always been interested to become a systems analyst. It may sound geeky but it is something that I like to look upon. Nevertheless, since I don’t have a diploma or degree in IT or Computer Science, I’d better stick with becoming at least an engineer role such as a web engineer role.

I just wanted to share with you some notes that I’ve gathered on what a job of a systems analysts is all about:

What are the responsibilities of the systems analysts?

Here are some of the responsibilities that System Analysts are expected to deliver:

• Provide creative source of ideas, solution to address problems to the existing implementations.
• Perform internal testing and debugging.
• Produce project progress reports, including project details, schedule, milestones and resource allocation.
• Ensure projects are implemented and completed successfully within schedule.
• Conduct technical feasibility studies, evaluate user requirements and recommends solutions and resolve issues.
• Prepare functional and technical specification and provide production support.
• Design, analyse and code programs for system development according to user specifications.
• Support user testing and be responsive to user queries, request for assistance.
• Participate in the full software development lifecycle (SDLC) including requirements study, analysis, design, coding, testing, documentation, implementation and user training.

What are the types of knowledge and skills possess by the systems analyst?

Knowledge and skill needed to be possessed:

• Up-to-date with the latest IT in specific areas of their scope
• A keen determination in problem solving
• Excellent communication skills with various level of management level

How are these knowledge and skills acquired by the systems analyst?

Knowledge and skills is normally acquired:

• During on-going job, tasks and projects
• Daily routine of work and communication internally and externally
• Internal training by senior personnel and top management
• Own effort of obtaining the latest information

Are the knowledge and skills possessed by the systems analyst adequate for him to perform his responsibility effectively?

Knowledge and skills are hard to be determined whether it is adequate or not. It is all depend on the individual performing their responsibility and the motivation and drive that they have.

If you are a job seeker, hope this information would be a good guide for you.

This entry is 6 months behind what I was supposed to blog. Anyway, I just need to get it off my draft page and publish it on my blog. I don’t know why I am so lazy to blog these days but I’ll give it my best to clear off all of my pending writings. Here it goes.

CIDB or the Construction Industry Development Board requires any personnel who is or will be working in any consctruction site to have a green card. This is to ensure every personnel is covered, sort of like an insurance or license to be in any construction site. My company has a major project in one construction site installing network cables and IT equipment. Although I only went there like one or two time only, I still need to be covered. So last January 2009, my HR department sent me to get my own green card just in case if I were needed to be sent to any construction site I supposed.

The class was done on a Saturday. This is where the place is located:

The Akademi Binaan Malaysia

The place is next to the LRT Star Station Chan Sow Lin station. So if you don’t want to drive there, just take the LRT. If you drive there, the parking is free. No sweat.

The Green Card Program

My class speaker

The speaker was fun to listen to. I wasn’t bored throughout his entire presentation. He was interactive with all of his audiences although I am guessing half of the class didn’t really understand his Malay languange (only 5 or 6 people in the class were Malaysian, the rest are all Indians, Viatnamese, Nepal or Indonesian). I really like what he is presenting. The most interesting part is when he includes his past experiences being a safety inspector.

CIDB Guideline Mini Booklet

This book was given complimentary of CIDB. It’s a nice booklet, less text and more illustration. During the end of the class, I received the construction helmet which is now being displayed on top of my closet collecting dusts. BTW, it is an offence leaving your construction helmet in your car.

That’s all for today. Will write again soon.

As soon as I stepped into my office last Monday morning, my boss showed up inside my working area and asked for me to arrange to hurry up and get my passport prepared for the trip to Washington. I never had a Malaysian Passport before so I had to apply for one. I tried to applied for my passport last year at Putrajaya Immigration office but they don’t accept application over there. My brother applied for it last 2 years and it was done in a day so I guess this time it would be the same.

I borrowed RM300 (I’m still broke though) and I was on my way to the nearest Immigration Department of Malaysia which is located in Plaza Metro, Kajang. The parking there is just RM1 and I parked my car just outside of the entrance of the office (4th floor). That’s not so bad right? Here’s a photo of the place:

Pejabat Imigresen Kajang

After I bought the application form (RM1), I photocopied my Identity Card and attached my photographs along with my filled application form. The clerk at the counter checked my documents and found out that I didn’t include my birth certificate. I remembered reading that for MyKad holders, that is not necessary so I argued with her. Unfortunately, I found out that I’m not a MyKad holder. I’m just a regular IC holder since I was the early batch back then that has been changed into a new version of the IC.

I had to drive back home to get my original birth certificate, make a photocopy of it and then decided to try the Immigration Department in Kuala Lumpur instead. The office is located at Pusat Bandar Damansara, only 15 minutes drive from where I live.

Jabatan Imigresen Wilayah Persekutuan KL

The only thing I had to bare is the parking fees which is RM2.20 for the first hour and RM1.50 for the next subsequent hour. The place is definitely bigger than the one in Kajang and there’s larger crowd over there.

Instead of writing about my experience, this time I’ll just draw a diagram about it:

How I Got My Passport Process Flow

Application Form and Supporting Documents

Immigration Processing Counter

The whole process took me less than 4 hours and I was back at my office by 3pm. The parking fee that I had to pay was RM6.70 and now I have my first passport ever.

My Passport

My next step would now is to apply for the US Visa. I am now ready to fly anywhere in the world.