Archive for the ‘Industry Insights’ Category

Where to find Tech Jobs? Check out Atlanta!

“The City in a Forest”

Home to Delta Airlines, Coca-Cola, Home Depot and United Parcel Service (UPS), Atlanta Georgia was recently rated 2nd amongst the top “Tech-Friendly” cities in the U.S. according to PC Magazine. Atlanta doesn’t just host the busiest airport in the U.S.; the city also is home to great universities and a lot of capital to invest in tech start-ups.

PC Magazine looked in to how much the residents of Atlanta tweet daily to help determine their rank amongst the competition. Atlanta comes in 2nd with most tweets per day. Atlanta’s tweets account for 1.5% of all tweets sent out amongst big cities. This might not seem like a large percentage, but if you look at the population of the city, Atlanta comes in with a very high tweet-to-population ratio. Another big win for Atlanta is the city’s 3G/4G download speeds. Atlanta comes in 2nd in this category as well. With over $205 million in investments, 37 startups and high tech rankings, it’s obvious why Atlanta is so highly rated for tech folks.

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SXSW Interactive is kicking off again this week in Austin. This annual gathering of some of the brightest and most innovative minds in technology got us thinking about our very own incubator in St. Louis, T-REx.

You may think Silicon Valley when you think of a hotbed of tech start-ups, but the Railway Exchange Building in downtown St. Louis is home to an incubator churning out innovative ideas right here in the Midwest.  Not only is St. Louis home to premier universities and technical talent, but the low cost of living and the inexpensive office space make it an ideal place to start a business.

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On Tuesday, Mark Zuckerberg announced Graph Search, the newest pillar feature to be added to Facebook.

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When I saw the headline of an article titled Aspirin vs. Vitamin, I have to say I had no clue that the words to follow would be “Which Jobseeker Are You?” At first I couldn’t quite figure out how aspirin could be related to job seeking, but after reading the full article, I realized the analogy not only totally made sense but I wanted to share this interesting concept.

The basic concept of the article (for those of you that don’t like to read!) is that jobseekers generally, and often unknowingly, put themselves in the category of being either an aspirin or a vitamin when looking for jobs.  Hiring managers are really looking and needing to hire an aspirin- someone to take away their pain. But most jobseekers are selling themselves as vitamins- something that is incredibly important to health and that will help keep future pain away but does not bring much immediate relief.

So your goal as a jobseeker is to identify the cause of pain for that manager and sell yourself as the cure—the aspirin to stop the pain!  While vitamins are nice and beneficial to long-term health, they may not be necessary to fix something now.  Genius analogy.

So how do you find the pain and determine if you are the cure? It all comes down to doing your homework. You should always be prepared for interviews but keep the aspirin concept in mind to help you focus your research and be as prepared as ever.

No one wants pain. But when a company has it, make it your job as a candidate to figure out how to be the cure!

By Guest Blogger: Danielle Landewe

There have been many articles posted recently on the Keys to Success.  What do you do in the first hour of work?  What was your birth order?   Are you a morning person or night owl?  Do you make a good first impression – you only have 5 seconds!

Whew!  With so much advice, I decided to see how my routine, lifestyle and arbitrary rank in siblinghood measures up.  Let’s start where I have the least amount of control – birth order.  I am a firstborn.  According to Jobs Monster, I am reliable, strive to achieve and conscientious. I agree, that is definitely me! And with my good grades and varsity basketball career, clearly I am destined for greatness!  Hold on, before I quit my current job in search of a more appropriate title, like CEO of the Universe, let’s check out the other studies.

Morning person or Night Owl – Night owl, for sure.  I like the night life and I like to watch TV alone when the kids and husband are sound asleep and there are no interruptions.  Strike one.

7 Seconds to a First Impression- This one is in the bank.  Winning smile, firm hand shake, strong introduction.  Nailed that one.

First hour of work- I think this may be trouble.  The first tip is don’t check email – seriously?  How can it be avoided?  I know there is something really important in there, and an hour without my email (for someone that has to know what is in each wrapped box before it is open) just can’t be done.   The next tip is to be grateful.  Does being grateful that I read my email to set my worried mind at ease count? I don’t care, I am counting it.  Next on the tip list- Do the Big Stuff First. I have to give this one some thought, but I think I tackle the hard issues first. I am certainly not a procrastinator…or am I?   I will answer that question tomorrow, or maybe the next day…

Bottom line is this: Read a lot, sort through the good advice, laugh at the silly advice, and know enough to weed out the bad advice.  Self-reflection should be done to ensure you are on the right path. But don’t get too caught up in the constant advice of the “professionals”, that could be a full time job in itself!

Labor Day symbolizes many things: the end of summer, back to school, football season and no longer the ability to “officially” wear white. Technically though, the true meaning behind Labor Day is to “pay tribute to the contributions and achievements of American workers”- according to Wikipedia. So in honor of celebrating all of our hard-working contributions, we’ve compiled some inspiring and fun quotes from famous Laborers.  Happy Labor Day!

“Chose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” – Confucius

“Whatever your life’s work is, do it well. A man should do his job so well that the living, the dead, and the unborn could do it no better.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

“If you’re trying to achieve, there will be roadblocks. I’ve had them; everybody has had them. But obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.” – Michael Jordan

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” – Thomas A. Edison

“The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary.” – Vince Lombardi

“There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.” – Colin Powell

“You’ve achieved success in your field when you don’t know whether what you’re doing is work or play.” – Warren Beatty

“Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing.” -Theodore Roosevelt

”I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.” –Thomas Jefferson

“The big secret in life is that there is no big secret. Whatever your goal, you can get there if you’re willing to work” - Oprah Winfrey

After 17 days of non-stop sporting action, the Olympics are officially over. The closing ceremonies are complete, the flag was passed on and the torch extinguished until summer Olympic action picks back up in Rio 2016. And we all probably have a lot more free time! The sporting action certainly lived up to all the excitement, but it was the non-sporting extras such as social media, apps, tools and news that also caught the attention of spectators and participants during the games. In addition to  lessons on social media etiquette, by observing the athletes and circumstances of the games the world can learn other rules and lessons to live by.  Here are a select few:

1. Practice may not always make perfect, but it’s still necessary.  It’s very rare that someone or something can be perfect and success takes a lot of hard work. Most of the athletes devoted their lives to make it to the Olympics. Too often, many think that we shouldn’t have to work that hard to be successful, but the reality is that few things in life come easily. As all athletes demonstrated, if you want something badly enough, then you must be willing to do the hard work to get there.

2. Motivation, inspiration and drive are critical for success.  Athletic skill is clearly an important component for excelling at competition, but most athletes in the games exhibited more than just physical excellence.  Their significant achievements can also be credited to continuous motivation, drive and faith in themselves.  They live by the mantras: never settle for just good, always strive to be great and push yourself beyond limits.  For South African sprinter Oscar Pistorius, a dramatic feat had already been accomplished by simply him competing in the games as a double amputee.   And USA track athlete  Manteo Mitchell ran the entire 4×400 relay on broken leg.  These incredible obstacles did not stop them from their ultimate dream and their sheer will drove them to success.

3. Teamwork is critical to success. Surround yourself with colleagues, friends and family who will help and support you. In team sports, athletes obviously work together to win, but it is also important to acknowledge examples of non-traditional team events.  Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympic athlete ever, thanked his relay team for helping him to win all those medals.  Without them as a supporting cast, he wouldn’t have won as many medals as he did.  Another common sight seen was of the families and coaching staff supporting and cheering the athletes along as if they were themselves competing. This support was critical in contributing to the athlete’s success. No one can truly do it alone.

4. Learn from your mistakes. At the end of practice or their performances, the athletes recapped their mistakes to see what they did wrong and learn how they can be better next time. The USA women’s soccer team lost the World Cup to Japan last year, but when facing them in the Olympics a short time later beat them to win the gold.  Surely they reviewed and watched and analyzed their past matchup to ensure a better performance for the future.   Same is in life where we need to observe ourselves, ask for feedback and measure our actions so we can strive to be more effective in the future.

The Olympics were certainly action packed with all the athletic events we awaited and anticipated. These last two weeks also reminded us that Olympic athletes should be admired not only for their athletic skill, but also for the behaviors and examples they set for us to follow and live by.
What was your favorite Olympic moment or lesson learned?  What will you remember most about these London games?

The Olympics are halfway over and alongside the extravagant opening ceremonies and record-breaking results, another hot topic continuously being talked about among athletes, viewers and media is social media and the pivotal role it has played so far during these games.

With over 15 million people currently following the Olympics via social media, this is by far the most social Olympics yet. It appears however, that this social behavior is taking the gold medal on the gossip podium—and unfortunately it’s not all positive.

Let’s take a quick look at the social media good, bad and ugly of these Social Olympics thus far:

The Good:

1. With the Olympics across the pond and in a different time zone, social media has allowed us to follow our favorite commentators and athletes while making it easy to get a personal look and experience the games from their “eyes.”

2. Improvements, developments and enhancements to social platforms are already resulting from the exposure:

a.  Starcount is a new website that shows currently who the most talked-about and trending athletes are on social media.

b. The International Olympic Committee has teamed up with Facebook to create the Olympic Athletes’ Hub, a website dedicated to keeping fans updated on current happenings in London.

The Bad & Ugly

1. While the personal touch of social media is great for some fans, for others it’s ruining the games by leaking the results in real-time, long BEFORE the broadcasts air on TV.
2. Earlier this week, GPS and communication tools were failing during the road races which was possibly caused by too much social and online activity.  Spectators were directed to Tweet only in cases of emergency to avoid any further interferences and outages.
3. Overall security was potentially threatened due to pictures of badges, including entry barcode Tweeted by some athletes.
4. Due to threatening comments and posts made on Twitter towards a British diver, one fan has already been arrested.
5. Two athletes (a Greek triple-jumper and Swiss soccer player) were expelled from their teams and unable to compete in the games due to racist tweets.

Social media has given the world a backstage pass to the Olympic Games, but it has also provided fans and athletes with a variety of new ways to get into trouble.   Hopefully, all the delinquents have learned from their mistakes and the rest of the social world has learned from them as well.  As professionals we need to remember that social media is publicly published content- just as other traditional forms of communication are and should be treated with the same care and professionalism, regardless of the context and situation.

We should all learn from these experiences, focus on the advantages and benefits of social media and be thankful to be part of the connected social society that we live in today.

What’s your opinion of how social media is shaping the Olympics? How do you think social media will change based on experiences from these games?

“Why?” It’s one of those questions that to anyone who has spent time around young children has probably heard one too many times. As adults, we tend to get impatient and annoyed by this simple question, but kids may actually be on to something! Kids ask why because they are generally not satisfied with the first answer—and this isn’t always a bad thing! “Why?” is an important question that in some circumstances probably isn’t asked enough.

Asking “why”—especially in the workplace—can be extremely helpful in getting to the root of the question or true problem and figuring out a real solution rather than just a temporary quick fix or “band-aid.”  In other words, in our busy lives, it can be easier to just answer hastily to a request or question, but by asking why a few times first BEFORE giving your answer, you might find out valuable information regarding the root or cause of the original question.

In his recent book, The Lean Startup, author Eric Ries references the concept and example of the “Five Whys.” His thought is that at the root of every seemingly technical problem is a human problem and asking Five Whys provides an opportunity to discover what that human problem might be.

It may not help or apply in every situation, but try asking why and see what happens! Everyone is busy and moves so quickly during the day, so it initially may take a little extra time, but acquiring more information and getting to the root of the question can help save time and improve the quality of your work in the long-run.  So the next time someone asks you a question, channel your inner 3 year old, ask “Why” a couple times and wait for the answers!

Sounds like a good salary to me

Facebook’s billion dollar acquisition of Instagram has been big news recently. And with Facebook’s looming IPO, that is rumored to be monstrous, it doesn’t look like Facebook is slowing down anytime soon. Acquisitions and IPO’s can sound like a bunch of financial mumbo jumbo, however they are not only for the multi-billionaire innovators. The qualities needed for job hunting are the same qualities needed for a successful IPO or acquisition . Putting yourself back on the job market is like your own personal IPO. You put yourself on the market in hopes of finding a firm to invest in your skills, value, and experiences.

While you may not make $1 billion in one fell swoop like the lucky creators of Instagram, it is still important to know your value and put yourself out there at the right time. According to some, Groupon went public too early and now is facing the consequences. How can you make sure your personal IPO will go smoothly?

• Like Groupon maybe should have done, wait until you are ready to get out there. This could mean finishing up at your old job, finishing a new degree or certificate, or making sure all your other ducks are in a line.
• Brush up on the basics, check out our blog posts about networking, resume tips, interviewing, and how to stand out.
• Know your value! A company that is a good fit will recognize your value as well.
• Make sure your value will continue to grow in your new role. Facebook bought Instagram in order to create more value in the future, make sure you can keep evolving as well.

A smart firm will recognize your worth and do what they can to bring you on-board. So get out there, it’s time for your public debut!