From Harvard Business Review, April 17, 2009...
Managers often say they admire versatility in an employee. After all, a versatile person can switch seamlessly from one type of task to another, putting nary a crease in the fabric of daily work life. In practice, though, I find that versatility comes under suspicion, at least initially.
During my years working full-time, I often served on groups that were tasked with hiring. Inevitably, the resumes that showed the greatest concentration of directly relevant experience would rise to the top. Folks in the hiring group gave lip service to the breadth that was evident on some resumes, but in the end it was the safe-bet candidates who were selected for a first round of interviews. More than once, I heard people justify hesitation about an apparently versatile candidate with the warning "Jack of all trades, master of none."
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Friday, April 17, 2009
MentorWorks Launching in Austin
From Austin Startup, April 17, 2009...
Austin entrepreneur Mark Roberts has recently launched a new website called MentorWorks, which is designed to be a marketplace to match up talented mentors with those seeking expertise. eBay is a great marketplace for all sorts of things, as is craigslist, but none of them really provide the essential elements needed to bring together the people who need each other.
Read more...
Austin entrepreneur Mark Roberts has recently launched a new website called MentorWorks, which is designed to be a marketplace to match up talented mentors with those seeking expertise. eBay is a great marketplace for all sorts of things, as is craigslist, but none of them really provide the essential elements needed to bring together the people who need each other.
Read more...
Lone Star Entrepreneurial Summit
From Austin Startup, April 17, 2009...
Surely, the University of Texas has plenty of classes on entrepreneurship, you might be thinking. Well, yes and no. At the post-graduate level there is an MBA concentration in entrepreneurship, and I believe the business honors program also has an entrepreneurship focus. But that’s it. That doesn’t leave a whole lot of options for students in engineering, computer science, or even the life sciences.
Consequently, we’ve had a huge outflowing of talent that accept jobs at the tech giants like Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo after graduating from UT. Mostly because they’ve not been exposed to, and integrated into, the entrepreneurial and startup ecosystem in Austin. Texas Ventures is really working hard to bridge that gap between the university and the startup business community. One output of that effort is the upcoming Texas Entrepreneurial Summit.
The summit takes place over the course of three evenings here in Austin, from April 22-24th, 2009. They are planning for over 1,000 people to attend who are interested in entrepreneurship in Austin.
Read more...
Surely, the University of Texas has plenty of classes on entrepreneurship, you might be thinking. Well, yes and no. At the post-graduate level there is an MBA concentration in entrepreneurship, and I believe the business honors program also has an entrepreneurship focus. But that’s it. That doesn’t leave a whole lot of options for students in engineering, computer science, or even the life sciences.
Consequently, we’ve had a huge outflowing of talent that accept jobs at the tech giants like Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo after graduating from UT. Mostly because they’ve not been exposed to, and integrated into, the entrepreneurial and startup ecosystem in Austin. Texas Ventures is really working hard to bridge that gap between the university and the startup business community. One output of that effort is the upcoming Texas Entrepreneurial Summit.
The summit takes place over the course of three evenings here in Austin, from April 22-24th, 2009. They are planning for over 1,000 people to attend who are interested in entrepreneurship in Austin.
Read more...
Does ‘Dominant’ Equal ‘Competent?’
From DICE, April 17, 2009...
Want to look competent? Get in touch with your dominant side. In a recent study, University of California, Berkley researchers found those who act more dominantly are perceived as more competent, even when they aren’t.
Organizational behavior and industrial relations Associate Professor Cameron Anderson and doctoral candidate Gavin Kilduff tested their “great pretender” theory on 17 four-student teams. They gave each team 45 minutes to design a mock non-profit environmental organization or a for-profit Web site. The winning team would receive a $400 prize. More importantly, the experiment required each participant to rate his or her colleagues’ level of influence on the group, and each participant’s level of competence.
The results: Team members with the most dominant personalities were rated the highest for such qualities as general intelligence, dependability, and self-discipline. Less outspoken workers were perceived as having less desirable traits, giving them high scores for being conventional and uncreative.
Read more...
Want to look competent? Get in touch with your dominant side. In a recent study, University of California, Berkley researchers found those who act more dominantly are perceived as more competent, even when they aren’t.
Organizational behavior and industrial relations Associate Professor Cameron Anderson and doctoral candidate Gavin Kilduff tested their “great pretender” theory on 17 four-student teams. They gave each team 45 minutes to design a mock non-profit environmental organization or a for-profit Web site. The winning team would receive a $400 prize. More importantly, the experiment required each participant to rate his or her colleagues’ level of influence on the group, and each participant’s level of competence.
The results: Team members with the most dominant personalities were rated the highest for such qualities as general intelligence, dependability, and self-discipline. Less outspoken workers were perceived as having less desirable traits, giving them high scores for being conventional and uncreative.
Read more...
Use Twitter for Job Hunting…Maybe
From DICE, April 17, 2009...
It’s a big day for Twitter: Oprah has arrived! So get ready for even more Twitter hype.
While this social networking phenomenon hasn’t cured cancer yet, a flurry of articles, hype, and cable news personalities has it solving just about every other malady that plagues mankind. I’m not sure I buy into all this noise just yet, but I’m willing to listen. At Forbes, for example, Tara Weiss can fill you in on how to use Twitter to find a job. The article does include a few inspiring success stories, such as this one.
[Kyle Flaherty] left his marketing position in Boston last spring determined to find an in-house public relations job. He tweeted (Twitter lingo for posting a message) about his decision and included a link to his professional blog, where he described the kind of work he was looking for. Within days his tweet was retweeted. That is, an acquaintance forwarded it–to his current boss.
Sounds so simple.
The real advice here is simply to use Twitter as yet another way to put yourself in front of people who make hiring decisions. The way you do that is to find them by doing various searches on your industry and even recruiting firms that work in your field and then follow their “tweets.” Respond eloquently when appropriate, and slowly build up your online identity by posting your own intelligent tweets about your industry and hope people start following you.
The good news is that all this is rather effortless so it won’t be a major time sink for people already wrapped up in other social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn.
Read more...
It’s a big day for Twitter: Oprah has arrived! So get ready for even more Twitter hype.
While this social networking phenomenon hasn’t cured cancer yet, a flurry of articles, hype, and cable news personalities has it solving just about every other malady that plagues mankind. I’m not sure I buy into all this noise just yet, but I’m willing to listen. At Forbes, for example, Tara Weiss can fill you in on how to use Twitter to find a job. The article does include a few inspiring success stories, such as this one.
[Kyle Flaherty] left his marketing position in Boston last spring determined to find an in-house public relations job. He tweeted (Twitter lingo for posting a message) about his decision and included a link to his professional blog, where he described the kind of work he was looking for. Within days his tweet was retweeted. That is, an acquaintance forwarded it–to his current boss.
Sounds so simple.
The real advice here is simply to use Twitter as yet another way to put yourself in front of people who make hiring decisions. The way you do that is to find them by doing various searches on your industry and even recruiting firms that work in your field and then follow their “tweets.” Respond eloquently when appropriate, and slowly build up your online identity by posting your own intelligent tweets about your industry and hope people start following you.
The good news is that all this is rather effortless so it won’t be a major time sink for people already wrapped up in other social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn.
Read more...
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Don’t Bargain Basement Yourself
From DICE, April 16, 2009...
In today’s job market, you might be tempted to offer to work for free or at a reduced salary during a trial period to prove yourself to an employer. Don’t do it, says consultant Edward Navis of Full Spectrum HR in Little Falls, N.J. You’ll simply devalue yourself and set the company up for a pay discrimination suit, he says.
“From a marketing perspective, people look at free things as having no value,” Navis says. “And even if they say yes to reduced pay, they may not see you as worth more at the end of the trial period.”
Read more...
In today’s job market, you might be tempted to offer to work for free or at a reduced salary during a trial period to prove yourself to an employer. Don’t do it, says consultant Edward Navis of Full Spectrum HR in Little Falls, N.J. You’ll simply devalue yourself and set the company up for a pay discrimination suit, he says.
“From a marketing perspective, people look at free things as having no value,” Navis says. “And even if they say yes to reduced pay, they may not see you as worth more at the end of the trial period.”
Read more...
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
How To Stand Out At A Job Fair
From Forbes, April 15, 2009...
When Monster.com held a career fair in Manhattan in March, 3,700 job-seekers packed the place. A recent job fair held by General Dynamics Information Technology in Fairfax, Va., attracted 1,000. And Targeted Job Fairs, a company that holds fairs across North America, reports that traffic to its events is up by 64% in the first quarter of this year over a year before.
With so many people crowding job fairs, are they even worth attending?
"Absolutely," says Eric Winegardner, vice president of client adoption at Monster.com, which is sponsoring more than 100 job fairs across the country. "It cuts out the Internet way of recruiting and brings people together face to face."
Read more...
When Monster.com held a career fair in Manhattan in March, 3,700 job-seekers packed the place. A recent job fair held by General Dynamics Information Technology in Fairfax, Va., attracted 1,000. And Targeted Job Fairs, a company that holds fairs across North America, reports that traffic to its events is up by 64% in the first quarter of this year over a year before.
With so many people crowding job fairs, are they even worth attending?
"Absolutely," says Eric Winegardner, vice president of client adoption at Monster.com, which is sponsoring more than 100 job fairs across the country. "It cuts out the Internet way of recruiting and brings people together face to face."
Read more...
Get More Value Out Of Certifications
From DICE, April 15, 2009...
Take test. Pass test. Move on. That’s how things usually work, but in the world of IT certifications, making the grade is just one step in what is an ongoing process that will occupy you throughout your career. Linda Musthaler of Network World has laid out some good advice for IT experts who wants to make the most of their certifications, squeezing extra value out of them beyond simply getting the credential. For example:
Use your certification as leverage with your employer.
Read more...
Take test. Pass test. Move on. That’s how things usually work, but in the world of IT certifications, making the grade is just one step in what is an ongoing process that will occupy you throughout your career. Linda Musthaler of Network World has laid out some good advice for IT experts who wants to make the most of their certifications, squeezing extra value out of them beyond simply getting the credential. For example:
Use your certification as leverage with your employer.
Read more...
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
How to Hire—and Get Hired—in a Recession
From Business Week, April 14, 2009...
Unemployment in the U.S. is going to race past 10% in the coming months and probably peak at 11% or 12%, according to the smart folks with whom I'm privileged enough to spend some time. There's an outside chance (call it 20%) that we might have a "disastrous event" that causes it to hit 15% to 20%. Sounds impossible, I know, but there are many regions in the U.S. already in the mid-teens.
. . .
If you're looking for a job, you want to send out as many signals as possible that show that not only are you not afraid of hard work, but you're actually turned on by it. You must understand that, right now, there are too many candidates fighting for each position. The leverage that led to bidding wars between employers two to three years ago is gone—just like the bidding wars over houses are over.
Read more...
Unemployment in the U.S. is going to race past 10% in the coming months and probably peak at 11% or 12%, according to the smart folks with whom I'm privileged enough to spend some time. There's an outside chance (call it 20%) that we might have a "disastrous event" that causes it to hit 15% to 20%. Sounds impossible, I know, but there are many regions in the U.S. already in the mid-teens.
. . .
If you're looking for a job, you want to send out as many signals as possible that show that not only are you not afraid of hard work, but you're actually turned on by it. You must understand that, right now, there are too many candidates fighting for each position. The leverage that led to bidding wars between employers two to three years ago is gone—just like the bidding wars over houses are over.
Read more...
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