Sep
27
2010
It’s been shared around the world because of its simple, yet honest message to graduating high school students. But how many of you have read the speech allegedly given by Bill Gates to a group of graduating high schoolers and seen the correlation to your present situation? Whether you are a job-seeker, a working stiff, a recruiting or sourcing professional, a college student or recent graduate, or an entrepreneur – these are some GOLDEN rules for approaching life in general:
Rule 1: Life is not fair — get used to it!
Rule 2: The world won’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.
Rule 3: You will NOT make $60,000 a year right out of high school. You won’t be a vice-president with a car phone until you earn both.
Rule 4: If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss.
Rule 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping — they called it opportunity.
Rule 6: If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes, learn from them.
Rule 7: Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you think you are. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parent’s generation, try delousing the closet in your own room.
Rule 8: Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life HAS NOT. In some schools they have abolished failing grades and they’ll give you as MANY TIMES as you want to get the right answer. This doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.
Rule 9: Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you FIND YOURSELF. Do that on your own time.
Rule 10: Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop and go to jobs.
Rule 11: Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.
Basic rules of life, my friends. I especially love Rules 1 and 8. Life’s not fair and you don’t get a trophy for simply participating. There are still aspects of life that demand results in exchange for recognition.
Do your best and strive for excellence in all that you pursue.
Sep
22
2010
(reposted with permission from FordyceLetter.com)
The Washington Post recently ran an article discussing the cautious attitude with which businesses are still approaching hiring, even though profits appear to be on the upswing. According to the article, “Corporate profits are soaring. Companies are sitting on billions of dollars of cash. And still, they’ve yet to amp up hiring or make major investments — the missing ingredients for a strong economic recovery.”
Instead, it appears that companies are busy making up for the fixed assets they had to scrimp on last year and investing in things like new furniture, equipment, and so forth.
ABC News ran a similar story at the beginning of August. The Jobs Report that came out in July also showed a slow-down in hiring: in the private sector, employers produced just 71,000 new jobs in a country where 14.6 million people are looking for work. What’s going on? According to Wall Street Journal reporter Jon Hilsenrath, what’s happening here can be boiled down to one word: uncertainty.
I believe that what is going on can be explained by simply taking a look at how the human body handles stressful situations. Continue reading “Hiring, the Economy, and the Human Body” »
Sep
20
2010
Last week, I attended the Social Recruiting Summit in Seattle, WA. This is the first time that SRS has been to Seattle, and also the first time a lot of attendees have been to this part of the country. I already posted up a synopsis of the content of the conference over on SourceCon.com, but I wanted to share my personal experiences from the conference here.
This is the second ERE conference I’ve attended since joining the ERE Media Inc. team back in June. Conferences are a different experience when you work for the company that is producing them! I have job duties I am responsible for and I have to make sure I get some good points from the presentations to do coherent write-ups from the sessions afterward. I still have much to learn from Todd Raphael and John Hollon, my fellow Editors at ERE. Todd is the Editor-in-Chief of ERE.net and John is the Vice President for Editorial at TLNT.com and both of them have extensive editing backgrounds. I’m the new kid on the block so I am learning lessons from them, step by step. (c’mon, you know I had to throw in a NKOTB reference there!)
Continue reading “#SocialRecruiting Summit Seattle: My Personal Experience” »
Sep
08
2010
Only four days remain before recruiters, sourcers, and HR types alike will be gathering in Seattle for the Social Recruiting Summit on September 13th, hosted at the Microsoft campus in Redmond, WA. This event is right in my backyard (OK, not “literally” in my backyard… but I only live 90 miles north of Seattle!) and I am super excited for many of you to come and see how beautiful it is out here!
Since I really want to have the chance to meet all of you, I am going to be doing two things at this conference:
- I will be getting you checked in the day of the event. Since we’re getting things kicked off early in the morning, perhaps someone will bring me a venti Pumpkin Spice Latte?
(Starbucks just brought it back for the fall on 8/26 – hallelujah!)
- I’m happy to provide shuttle service from the airport to the hotel when you arrive on Sunday!
Continue reading “#SocialRecruiting Summit Seattle: Do you need a lift from the airport?” »
Sep
07
2010
I am now going into month #3 of working at ERE Media, Inc. as the Editor for The Fordyce Letter as well as SourceCon. This career move was a sharp right turn from the road I was previously on, but I’m finding that there are still a ton of similarities.
As an Internet researcher/soucer for eight years, some of my job functions included:
- Generating leads
- Industry/competitor research
- Assisting with employment branding initiatives
- Writing/blogging/sharing thoughts and ideas with candidates as well as colleagues
- Doing cross-department outreach for sourcing projects (getting marketing, PR, tech, etc. involved)
- Training recruiters and other sourcers on search tools and methods
One afternoon at the Fordyce Forum, just days after I officially joined ERE, I had a chance to sit down with David Manaster, my new boss, and Todd Raphael and Kate Bruener, two of my new co-workers, to discuss some of the things I would be responsible for in my new role. Some of the things we discussed included:
- Generating leads (finding authors for both websites by phone calls as well as internet search)
- Industry/competitor research (keeping up on the latest news and trends regarding recruiting and sourcing)
- Assisting with branding initiatives (using various on- and offline tools to reach target audiences and spread the word about our offerings)
- Writing/blogging/editing author articles (duh.)
- Getting other ERE employees involved in our efforts (all of our publications are truly team efforts – we help each other out all the time)
- Finding presenters for the Fordyce Forum and SourceCon to help bring relevant information on recruiting and sourcing topics to conference attendees (while I’m not doing the training, I’m tasked with finding the people who will)
So, I guess my job function hasn’t really changed all that much. Except that we’ve added in doing some phone work to find writers. And admittedly, I enjoy having conversations with people on the phone now. I know… I never thought I would admit to that either!
I’m not getting soft as a researcher. I’m just putting my skills to use in different ways and I am finding that I really love it!