blogs.vault.com/ Tue, 11 June 2013 15:57:00 Tue, 11 June 2013 15:57:00 /blog/job-search/do-the-prism-leaks-spell-trouble-for-the-consulting-industry/#detailed_comment If you're in the business of providing services that require your employees to hold security clearances, there are two things that you definitely don't want to happen: for a leak to come from one of your contractors; and for the leaker to come forward and draw attention to themselves and your company. Imagine, then, how Booz Allen Hamilton executives must have felt no more than ten seconds into the Guardian's video interview with Ed Snowden , the man behind the PRISM revelations that have been making headlines over the past week or so. For the record, here are the opening remarks from the interview: "My name is Ed Snowden. I'm 29 years old. I work for Booz Allen Hamilton." Ouch. The truth about Snowden and his allegations is still emerging (and may never be fully known), while reactions to what he has done have literally run the gamut from "hero" to "traitor." Whatever the rights and wrongs of the situation, Snowden's actions have shone a spotlight onto the intelligence community and, by extension, the world of the government contractors who service it. While Snowden was an employee of Booz Allen, he had been so for less than three months at the time of the leaks (he has since been fired by the firm for breaching its code of conduct and ethics). Given the short tenure of his employment, the incident raises several questions, first about the reliability of Snowden's information—there have been suggestions that such a new employee couldn't possibly have had access to all the data Snowden claims to have seen—and about the manner in which such information is handled by contractors. It is this latter question that has most relevance for those within the industry, together with an accompanying issue: namely, whether this incident is likely to spell trouble for government contractors further down the line. On the surface, the question of ramifications for contractors—and Booz Allen in particular—seems like a no-brainer. After all, if you hired a contractor to fix your plumbing and they responded by publishing the diary they found under your sink, you'd not only fire the contractor, but probably hit them with a lawsuit, in addition to bad-mouthing him/her to all your friends and acquaintances. But the situation here is not that simple. Sure, Booz Allen might find that its reputation has been dented somewhat, but it remains one of a very select group of firms that has the capabilities to do this kind of work at all. On an industry level, meanwhile, the work certainly isn't going to go anywhere in the near future—the entire system was built and is currently maintained by contractors; upending that would mean the government would have to find an entirely new way of operating (it would also open it up to having to hire thousands of employees, with all the attendant healthcare costs, retirement benefits and the like that the sequester is currently in the process of reducing). Meanwhile, any changes that do go through—like tougher oversight or increased levels of security clearance—likely mean that government contractors would see either an increase in the amount of work they need to do, or a decrease in the number of appropriately credentialed employees—a fact that would simply drive rates up. (A quick anecdote on how insulated contractors are: we distributed the survey for Vault's upcoming 2014 consulting rankings to participating firms in February this year—right around the time that the budget sequester was kicking in. On the question of "firm outlook," government contractors rated their firm more highly than consultants in any other practice area—meaning those contractors predicted a bright outlook and steady flow of work ahead, at a time when almost every department they served was trying to figure out how to cut its budget. The likely reason: several of the consultants pointed out that, in order to figure out the impact of the cuts, departments were enlisting consulting firms to do the analysis and, in some cases, outsourcing operations to them.)  Bottom line, then: short of the government responding to the substance of the PRISM revelations by ending the practices—email and phone meta-data collection, which critics claim violate the Constitution—the outlook for the section of the consulting industry that makes its living from government contracts is likely to remain unchanged. Read More: Check out Booz Allen's profile on Vault Follow me on Twitter: @vaultconsult /blog/job-search/do-the-prism-leaks-spell-trouble-for-the-consulting-industry/ /blog/job-search/do-the-prism-leaks-spell-trouble-for-the-consulting-industry/ Tue, 11 June 2013 15:57:00 /blog/job-search/can-a-mooc-boost-your-career-this-one-can/#detailed_comment When it comes to career advice, here at Vault we've always been of the belief that the best people to dispense it are those that have lived it. Thus: when we release our rankings of law, finance, accounting and consulting firms, all of the opinions in the firm profiles belong to verified, practicing employees of those firms—something that we spend a lot of time and energy to get.   In that spirit, earlier this year I decided to try out one of the tools that we've recommended here for career advancement—MOOCs, or Massive Open Online Courses. For those who are unfamiliar, MOOCs are courses commonly offered for free by a variety of sources (sometimes for-profit companies, sometimes universities, sometimes a collaboration between the two). Often serving as introductions to key concepts, some use the courses as an easy way to get a feel for a new subject area before deciding to make a full commitment to a program; other enjoy learning a broad range of subjects on their own time.   Focusing on skills My own question coming into a MOOC program was whether one could, by itself, prepare someone to take a step forward in their career—is it possible that one semester-long course could lead to a change of direction, or give someone the edge they need to get ahead in a current role or in the hiring market? For that reason, I focused on attempting to acquire a skill set that is both in ever-increasing demand in the wider economy, but also of specific interest to me in my career in the online world: computer programming.  As someone who is both old enough to remember the world before the internet and young enough to have the bulk of my career ahead of me (that's code for mid-30's, folks), having the ability to at least understand what programmers do seemed like a fairly solid goal at the outset. And who knows—if it turned out that I was any good at it, maybe I could envision a switch from providing the content that populates websites to being the guy who writes the code for them instead.   Choosing a course   My first step was to select an appropriate course. While there are a number of introductions to programming out there, and a variety of languages to choose from, I opted for the course on offer from EdX— MIT's Introduction to Computer Science and Programming . There were a number of reasons I chose that course: first, the course covers not only a language—Python—but uses it to introduce key computational concepts that are applicable across a variety of languages. Additionally, I will admit to being swayed not only by the prestige of the institution, but also by the certificate on offer to those of us who completed the course.   Getting started   One of the things I liked most about the course was that, while it was offered for free, at no point did it feel like any aspect of it had been neglected or put together as an afterthought. Video lectures were presented by full MIT professors, the school provided a textbook specially written for the course (it was available for purchase, but a free online copy was also made available to students), and there always seemed to be plenty of MIT grad students or adjuncts hanging around in the course's forums to help students who needed it. What I had not expected from the course was the amount of time it took to complete. As someone who has plenty of time to kill on public transit every day, I had planned to take care of the bulk of the work during my ten hours spent commuting every week. As it turned out, that figure represented only around half of the amount I time I put in on a typical week. Indeed, with a variety of assignments to hand in each week, the course regularly kept me up well past my usual bedtime, and ate into a good chunk of my weekends on occasion too. However, that same pace of work ensured that my interest never flagged—there was too much to learn and figure out to get bored, while the student discussion forums proved an invaluable source of both solace and advice when the going got really tough.   What I learned Looking back over the course, I'm amazed at how much I've learned about programming and computational thinking in just 15 weeks. In that time, I've gone from not knowing anything about programming—apologies to my high school IT teacher if you're reading this!—to feeling confident that I could use Python to tackle some fairly complex problems.  As an example, while the opening weeks of the course had students writing programs that effectively mimicked things you can do quite easily in Excel—calculate compound interest rates and the like—by the later stages we were being asked to write code capable of modeling fluctuations in disease populations, while taking a number of different factors into account.   A new career?   For as much as I've learned on the course, there's no way that I'd be equipped at this point to do any kind of work as a developer or programmer. That's not to say that it would be true of everyone—the knowledge and ability displayed by some of my fellow students (and there were thousands of us, from all over the world) in the discussion forums clearly surpassed my own, and leads me to believe that many of them would indeed be equipped to take jobs straight out of the course. But the knowledge I have taken from the course has already helped me to understand the solution to an issue that we had been dealing with here at Vault.* That alone has almost made the time and effort worthwhile, not to mention that I now have a new interest that—while I may never pursue it as a full career—at least leaves me better equipped for further study, and to better understand the environment in which I make my living. In conclusion, while I can't speak for all the MOOC courses out there, I can whole-heartedly recommend this specific one for anyone who would like to know more about a skill that readwrite this week called "the core skill of the 21 st century." As for those other courses—I'm currently eyeing up my options for courses that start after I've had a suitable (and well-earned) break!   * It came down to computational complexity—in MIT-speak, we reduced the 'Big O ' complexity of an operation from O(2 N ) to O(N). /blog/job-search/can-a-mooc-boost-your-career-this-one-can/ /blog/job-search/can-a-mooc-boost-your-career-this-one-can/ Tue, 04 June 2013 11:39:00 Rachel Marx Boufford /blog/job-search/register-now-for-the-vaultmcca-legal-diversity-career-fair/#detailed_comment Registration is now open for the eighth annual Legal Diversity Career Fair, sponsored by Vault and the Minority Corporate Counsel Association (MCCA). The Fair, which will be held on Friday, August 2nd, 2013, in Washington, DC, is an opportunity for law students and attorneys from underrepresented groups to meet and network with recruiters from law firms and government agencies that are firmly committed to increasing diversity in the legal profession. While all 2L, 3L and lateral candidates are welcome to attend, this event is specifically designed for minority, female, LGBT candidates and candidates with disabilities who have not yet committed to an employer or who are looking for new permanent opportunities. In addition to the recruiting fair, candidates will have the opportunity to attend a diversity awards breakfast and luncheon. Some employers will also be conducting on-site interviews. This is a fantastic opportunity to meet and network with some of the top legal employers. Click here  to sign up! CONNECT WITH VAULT LAW ON TWITTER! @VaultLaw /blog/job-search/register-now-for-the-vaultmcca-legal-diversity-career-fair/ /blog/job-search/register-now-for-the-vaultmcca-legal-diversity-career-fair/ Thu, 30 May 2013 09:38:00 Cathy Vandewater /blog/job-search/does-an-ivy-education-get-you-better-job-prospects/#detailed_comment "To get to Yale, you effectively must pass through a fifteen year funnel. No company can match that kind of screening rigor, so why not leverage it?" That is the key argument in a Yale student's Hacker News rebuttal to Thomas Friedman's New York Times piece entitled " How to Get a Job ." (Hint: it's NOT an Ivy league diploma, according to him). But, as important as "skill match" and problem solving abilities are in today's job market, does resourcefulness and inventive solution-finding really trump a big name education? In traditional fields (Law, Banking, Accounting, and Consulting), the answer is absolutely not. And though the gap is closing in information technology and creative fields, it does still exist—in a pretty big way. In Friedman's essay, he quotes an education expert as saying the “The market is broken on both sides,” and that “many applicants don’t have the skills that employers are seeking, and don’t know how to get them. But employers also ... have unrealistic expectations.” They’re all “looking for purple unicorns: the perfect match. They don’t want to train you, and they expect you to be overqualified.” This is certainly true—companies don't want to take risks on new employees who don't have demonstrated skills. In fact, many companies don't want to hire young people at all. But this argument doesn't really support a turn against name brand education. Especially since new grads simply won't have any experience to tout at job interviews. How can a new grad show a track record of success with no work history, unless they point to a challenging and high-achieving academic run? Problem solving abilities are irrefutably important to getting hired, but they need to be demonstrated. And though, as Sharef, the education expert notes, “skills you need in the workplace today are not being taught by colleges," that doesn't really affect the perception of those skills for an interviewer. And when it comes to perception, few words elicit an emotional response quite like the names "Yale" or "Harvard." Those names say "successful" and "effective." And they said it loudly . As Yalies on Hacker News note, we're all out of college as "blank slates." The playing field is level—unless you've been tipping it in your favor via education. No recent grad has that perfect 2-years of experience at a similar company to the one hiring, plus proficiencies in all the appropriate software programs. But alumni of Ivy schools do get the benefit of the doubt when it comes to seeming like they can learn quickly. Proficiency in adapting to challenging situations; ability to stay motivated; competitive spirit; these are "skills" that a name brand education project for you. Especially if you have no other way of proving you have them. Alma Mater is still shorthand for achievement. The job market may be changing, but this is one tenet that's staying the same. At least for now. As a Times.com commenter notes, "I find it quite amusing that Mr. Friedman tries to minimize the importance of an Ivy League education in the same paragraph in which he finds it important to mention that the "education expert" he is quoting is a "Harvard education expert." What do you think? Is too much importance placed on college name? Is an Ivy alma mater an unfair advantage? Tell us in the comments! --Cathy Vandewater, Vault.com Read More: Dear Class of 2013 3 Things Millennials Know About Success That You Don't 27 Interview Questions That Weed Out the Weak on Wall Street /blog/job-search/does-an-ivy-education-get-you-better-job-prospects/ /blog/job-search/does-an-ivy-education-get-you-better-job-prospects/ Wed, 29 May 2013 17:02:00 /blog/job-search/dear-class-of-2013/#detailed_comment Dear Class of 2013, I know what you’re thinking. ‘Why didn’t I just drop out of high school, create a simple blog service, then sell the darn thing to a company down on its luck for a you-know-what’s-cool one billion dollars?’   No, seriously. College is much more than a path to gainful unemployment. It’s about connecting with your peers. It’s about sitting in your dorm room, alone, eating Doritos, Facebooking, tweeting Kierkegaard and Louis CK quotes, choosing between the Early Bird and Nashville filters when posting the latest Instagram shot of your unruly toenail hair.   College is also about friendship. It’s about friends, friends for life, friends you can call on no matter how bad things may get.   For example, say in fifteen years you need a couple extra hundred thousand dollars. You’ll be glad that you’re able to text your lab partner, the girl who set the curve on the Organic Chemistry final and who’s now a biomedical engineer working on a cure for cancer. Who else will be able to fill you in on the leading cancer drug’s latest test results before the results go public?   Or say in twenty-five years, when your triplet daughters are all accepted to the same private college in New Hampshire. You’ll be super psyched you remember the guy’s name who sat next to you in Econ 319, the guy who went on to land a seat on the board of a major Wall Street bank, and who can provide you with some potentially valuable information about said bank’s latest earnings before said earnings are released.   If anything, I want you to walk away from this speech knowing that I didn’t jam any fortune cookie wisdom down your throats. I’m not going to stand up here and tell you to Be Bold or Lean In or Sit Down or Find something that you love and then do that thing even if it kills you, or your neighbors and their pets.   Nor am I going to dispense any advice from my so-called experience in the business world. I’m not here to tell you: Do things better than the next guy. Create lasting products. Improve workplace culture and conditions. No, what I’d tell you, if I were to offer you any advice, is: Do things the same but undercut on price. Manufacture products that need to be replaced with the “next generation” every six months. And when all else fails, outsource to the Indian Subcontinent.   The point I’m making is you don’t have to improve efficiency, you just have to shelter taxes in offshore accounts. And I’m not talking about illegal shelters but legal shelters. I’d never dream of encouraging you to break any laws. I believe deeply that laws are in place not be broken, but to be bent and dodged and found loopholes in.   Which brings me to this.  If, or should I say when, you find yourself at the tippy top of a multibillion-dollar global financial services behemoth, and some of your detractors are thirsty for your blood, not to mention your stock options, I urge you to do three things: 1) Smirk while standing your ground. 2) Fight for your right to oversee white-collar crimes that go unpunished from both the CEO as well as chairman positions. And 3) Never, no matter how bad things get and how many jobs are lost or people’s pensions are decimated, allow something as ridiculous as government regulation or an oversight board to get in the way of earning a dishonest living.   I hope you don’t think I’ve been preaching. I really do feel honored to be here to speak with all of you fine, intelligent, young, hopeful, inebriated, bored, restless, debt-ridden, unemployed young people.   I’m also quite envious. You all look to be in fabulous shape. I don’t see a single one of you who look like they’ve experienced lower back pain. But I assure, my friends, it’s coming. T hey say there are only two things in life for certain but let me tell you, they’re lying—there's three. It’s actually a fact that sixty-five percent of you will at some point, in the not-so-distant future, drop to the ground while drinking an iced venti latte and experience a pain only more excruciating than giving birth, epidural-free, to a twelve-pound human being. Which, incidentally, is why I wholeheartedly endorse careers than can be pursued in standing or lying positions.   Finally, since I see that the chancellor is getting antsy—she’s checked her email four times and updated her LinkedIn profile picture twice since I took my place behind the podium, not that I’m counting, or going to accept her invitation to connect—let me leave you with this:   Wherever the trailer hitch of life might drag you, never forget that this great country of ours is nothing if not the land of the free, home of the brave, and womb of the Prodigal Son.   And so, if you’ve been caught sending unfiltered photographs of your sculpted torso to constituents two decades your junior in hopes of “connecting” with them, remember that we, the good American people, on either side of the aisle, will one-hundred percent forgive you.   However, you have to be out of your mind if you think we’d vote for you.   In any case, Godspeed, good luck, and safe tweeting. Speaking of which, if you're into that sort of thing, you can follow me @vaultfinance .   Read More: Five of the best 2013 commencement speeches (so far) (WashPost) The Best Commencement Speeches of 2013 (The Atlantic) Before Tumblr, Founder Made Mom Proud. He Quit School. (NYT) The Return of Anthony Weiner (NYT) /blog/job-search/dear-class-of-2013/ /blog/job-search/dear-class-of-2013/ Wed, 22 May 2013 16:44:00 Rachel Marx Boufford /blog/job-search/essential-advice-for-law-students-and-laterals/#detailed_comment Next month, Vault will release its annual Top 100 Law Firm rankings. Nearly 17,000 associates from across the country participated in our survey this year, rating their own firms on quality of life issues and rating other firms on their overall prestige as well as regional and practice area strengths. In addition to our usual questions about culture, associate/partner relations, training, pro bono and more, we asked associates for their advice to candidates evaluating their firm as a potential employer. While some of this wisdom was firm-specific, we also gleaned some valuable tips that apply more generally to law students and laterals undertaking the job search. Below are some of our favorites. It’s all about the people: “All things equal, I think that the single most important and determinative factor when choosing a law firm should be how you connect with those you will be working with—the people. That is probably what differentiates firms the most. From 30,000 feet we are all very similar. It is the individuals that make up and ultimately determine the personality and culture of a practice group within a firm and the firm itself as a whole. That needs to be a good (almost perfect) fit for you.” “Aside from basic compensation considerations, law students should choose firms based almost solely on who they'll be working for. It's the only thing that really determines your happiness once you start practicing.” “Focus on the type of people you would like to work for—as distinct from people you would like to get drinks with—and who will take a real interest in your personal development.” Focus on your target office and practice group: “Be aware that billable expectations, work/life balance, and workload all depend heavily on the office and practice group. These are not firm-wide characteristics.” “I would advise to not think about a large law firm as having a particular culture across the entire firm. Instead, each office and practice group has its own personality, and that should be more important than the ‘culture’ that the firm projects as its firm-wide culture.” “Experience will be highly group-dependent. Speak to associates from the specific group you are considering joining.” Make sure you’ll get the work you want: “I did not realize the implications of being placed into a specialty group right when you start practicing. I think there are advantages and disadvantages to being a more general practitioner that I wish I knew before working at my firm.” “Make sure if you are set on a practice area that the firm you're joining is willing and able to place you there.” “I made my decision based on the quality of work I was going to get to do and the people. It doesn't matter much if it is a $100 million case or a $10 million case, but it does matter what you are doing on that case and who you are working with.” The economics matter: “One thing I wasn't sophisticated enough to know to think about when evaluating firms is to consider a firm's client base. With the world economy as shaky as it has been, you'll want a firm that can weather economic storms by not having to rely on one or a few types of clients.” “Management of the firm is most important. Don't go to a firm that is deeply in debt. Debt-free firms should be looked upon most favorably.” Other important considerations: “Look to paternity/maternity benefits and pro bono hours caps to see if the firm genuinely puts its money where its mouth is or is just doing the minimum to appear family and pro bono-friendly, even if you don't think you want kids or are not interested in pro bono.” “Think about what you want to achieve at your first job. Do you want to learn the most about X and get headed down the road of being an expert there? Just get litigation experience? Just get paid? Try to think long-term about your career early on and fit in your first job into that map as well as you possibly can.” “When looking at compensation, look beyond the first two years.” And once you’re there… “Ask any and all questions as a summer associate; everything is fair game and perhaps most transparent during that time.” “At any firm, you have to set your own personal boundaries.” “Be a self starter and specialize, or you won't like it no matter where you go.” /blog/job-search/essential-advice-for-law-students-and-laterals/ /blog/job-search/essential-advice-for-law-students-and-laterals/ Wed, 22 May 2013 10:43:00 /blog/job-search/is-the-future-of-education-here/#detailed_comment It's felt for a while like we're on the verge of a major step forward in how education is designed and delivered to students—and it seems like the MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) may well be the future we've been waiting for.   More specifically, Georgia Institute of Technology has partnered with Udacity, an online education platform, and AT&T to deliver a masters in computer science that will be available online for just $7,000—less than a fifth of the cost of taking the course on campus. And the best part, for students, is that the degree "would be entirely comparable to the existing master's degree in computer science from Georgia Tech," according to Inside Higher Ed . The school expects to be able to scale the program to as many as 10,000 students in just three years.* Current enrolment on the campus-only program is just 300.   Even more intriguing is AT&T's involvement. The firm is underwriting the program financially, with the stated aim of helping to prepare students for careers in STEM-related fields. The company also appears to be testing out the technology as a means of providing low-cost advanced training for its employees—as part of the deal, "the first year will feature a small test run of several hundred paying students drawn mostly from the military and the corporate world, particularly AT&T."   If the experiment pays off, then, we could be looking at a brave new world where a) companies start to offer advanced degrees to employees b) said employees don't need to take a year off of work to pursue those degrees and c) the cost of advanced degrees for everyone else—and hence the levels of student debt—falls rapidly. Seems like a win-win-win situation, right?   While the development takes on a few of the key problems that have been holding MOOCs back—accreditation for the programs, figuring out the balance of work to be done by the institution and the provider (in this case Udacity), and providing tangible, valuable qualifications for students—perhaps the most important part of this equation is the school's willingness to put its own prestige and relevance at stake.   One of the commonly cited barriers to the growth of MOOCs is that colleges don't want to jeopardize the cachet of the campus experience. This is hardly surprising: providing on-campus education is clearly a lucrative business. (Of course, there are legitimate, non-financial, education-related reasons too—being able to treat students as individuals is just one of them—but much of the protest coming from within colleges bears more than a passing resemblance to the attempts at protectionism seen in other industries that have found themselves disrupted by technological advancement).   This development seems to have taken most of these factors into account. Indeed, financially, Georgia Tech seems to have a great deal to gain here, too: assuming its current 300 masters students all pay the out-of-state rate of $40,000, the school presumably takes in around $1.2 million per year for that course. If it meets its plan of enrolling 10,000 students in the next three years, meanwhile, it stands to generate some $7 million in course fees—almost double the on-campus revenue while adding just a handful of staff (Udacity will handle much of the routine student interaction, and presumably also take a percentage of the revenues).   While we've touched on the potential for jump-starting your career with MOOCs before, this development takes the concept to a whole other level. Indeed Georgia Tech's dean of computing, Zvi Galil, told Inside Higher Ed that, in launching the course "I thought we could be leaders in this revolution by taking it to the next level, by doing the revolutionary step."   While it's difficult to see this kind of treatment being applied to the undergraduate experience (see this piece for some of the reasons), at least in the short term, it seems very likely that the future of professional education is going to have a lot more MOOC in it—and that it could arrive faster than we ever thought possible.   *The Georgia Tech course is more "MOC" than "MOOC"—with capped enrolment and requirements for admission, it may well be Massive and Online, but can't technically be described as "Open". /blog/job-search/is-the-future-of-education-here/ /blog/job-search/is-the-future-of-education-here/ Mon, 20 May 2013 13:26:00 Cathy Vandewater /blog/job-search/star-jones-simple-seven-tips-for-success/#detailed_comment What do you think is holding your career back? That's the question Star Jones, spokeswoman for National Association of Professional Women, asks her audience at the organization's "Spark: Ignite Your Network" National Networking Conference. "Tell the person next to you," she says, and then, moments later, instructs everyone to also whisper it into their hands. With that, she has everyone "throw it." "When you pay attention to something, that's the direction you're going," she says. "Throw it away. It's gone. You don't have room for it." Instead, Jones says, we should spend our mental energies envisioning what we want: from our jobs, personal lives, networks, even just our day. Not that's keeping us from them. Instead, she advocates for zeroing in on seven "I's" for success. 1. Investigate It's a classic interview question for a reason: where you want to be in 5 or 10 years says a lot about your values, as well as your thought patterns for you career path. So "investigate": where do you want to be, eventually? What do you need to get there? Get specific, Jones advises: "A mentor? More education?" Put it in no uncertain terms what could help move you along your path. 2. Initiate Now that you know what you'll need in your toolbox, how do you go about getting it? It could be interpersonal, like changing your social circle, or as Jones notes, breaking up with your significant other. Or maybe you need to move to a new area, where there are more opportunities for your field. Whatever it is, identify your next steps and take them. 3. Insight There is a time for reflecting on what's held you back, and that's before you take new actions. If you failed the last time you tried something new, why do you think that was? Did you focus on the wrong things? Hold back? Choose bad allies? It's important to really learn from and process your missteps if you hope to do better. 4. Intuition         As Jones says, "Trust the hunch." If something feels right, but you're not sure why, go with it. Alternatively, if you get the emotional "red flashes" (that too many of us tend to ignore when things look good on paper), trust those instincts too. 5. Intention Just as Jones's exercise at the conference illustrated, concentrating on the negative doesn't really advance your progress towards anything positive. Instead, she says, "Focus on the result you want." You may have to end up making sacrifices (less time with your family as you get a master's degree), but if your eye is on the prize (a better job with more flexible hours down the road), you can't go too wrong. 6. Inspiration Still focusing on the positive, think about the things that "give you joy," suggests Jones. While trying to work out a direction to move it, it can be too easy to try to shape a path around avoiding the things you're afraid of, or find unpleasant. But you won't find true success or career satisfaction that way. 7. Innovation Sometimes you don't know what you want. In that case, Jones suggest throwing any kind of experience up against a wall and seeing what sticks. "Go someplace. Take a risk. Bust out. Do something." --Cathy Vandewater, Vault.com Read More: Less Is More: 7 Advantages of Tweeting for a Job Why Good People Can't Find Jobs -- What You're Up Against The National Association of Professional Women /blog/job-search/star-jones-simple-seven-tips-for-success/ /blog/job-search/star-jones-simple-seven-tips-for-success/ Tue, 30 April 2013 16:12:00 /blog/job-search/why-good-people-cant-find-jobs-what-youre-up-against/#detailed_comment There's a serious disconnect between companies and potential employees in the United States—one that may be holding our entire economy back. And, contrary to the conventional wisdom, it's a problem that has been caused—and can only be cured by—companies. So says Peter Cappelli in his 2012 book Why Good People Can't Get Jobs.   In Cappelli's view of the state of the modern employment landscape, there are several issues preventing companies from finding the talent they need—and none of them are related to the conventional cries from businesses and the media about a lack of talent in the pool, or the failure of the American education system to turn out people with appropriate skills.  Instead, Cappelli—the George W. Taylor professor of management at The Wharton School and director of Wharton's Center for Human Resources—points the finger of blame at two major, and interrelated, factors: the process that companies are using to identify potential hires, and their refusal to offer training or onboarding time for new employees.   A Broken Hiring System What's wrong with the hiring system? According to Cappelli, a lot: the book paints a picture of understaffed HR departments struggling to identify the qualified candidates amidst a tsunami of applications—with the killer wave itself the product of the broken system. As Cappelli explains, the rise of automated hiring software (you know: those pre-set forms and questionnaires you have to fill out before you attach your resume and send it off into the void) has made it easier for companies to weed out qualified applicants than ever before—all they need is a sophisticated piece of code that can parse application materials for the right keywords. Once it identifies those, the appropriate candidates can be called in for interview. While that sounds great in theory, the reality is proving to be a little different: in a bid to cast as wide a net as possible—often out of an abundance of caution over the potential for falling foul of discriminatory hiring laws—vague language in the requirements sections of ads, coupled with the high unemployment rate, is leading to an enormous number of applications. To deal with that problem, firms are then filtering the responses using specific requirements that rule out most—and in some cases all—of the applications. And, because of the same fears over discriminatory practices, firms are unwilling to go back through the data and reassess candidates who almost made it. The result: firms either get the perfect hire, or none at all.   What Companies Can Do If Cappelli's name sounds familiar, the chances are that you've probably already read the following quote from the concluding section of Why Good People Can't Get Jobs —it's been making the rounds for a while, and is how I first came to hear about his book:  "The United States is at the moment the only country in the world where the notion that employers are simply the consumers of skills is seriously considered."   Traditionally, the route into the workforce for those who didn’t have experience was to convince a hiring manager that they were worth taking a risk on, and then spend some time on the job learning the skills that would be required to do it effectively. In many cases, this was formalized as an apprenticeship. However, in many industries, on the job training is something of a relic, with companies increasingly fearful of investing time and money to train employees who can then be poached by competitors. That has led to a spiral where employees—and candidates—are increasingly having to use their own time and money to acquire the skills that they think employers might want. That situation is not ideal for anyone—not the workers who end up out of pocket just to try and get a shot at getting hired, or the companies, who can't direct the training and ensure its quality or relevance. Small wonder, then, that Cappelli concludes his book with the observation that:  "The time has finally come for employers to develop a more realistic sense of what their own interests are with respect to workforce issues and what best serves both their interests and the well-being of society as a whole."   What Can Job Seekers Do? That's all well and good, and there are signs that some employers are starting to take that kind of advice to heart. But what of the job seeker? Do you have to sit around and wait for companies to realize that they hold the keys to their own success? Given the odds—the unemployment rate, the application systems that seem to have been designed to exclude as many candidates as possible, rather than to find candidates who are capable but may need additional time or training to get up to speed—it would be easy to conclude that, yes, until things change, the search for a job is an exercise in futility. However, where there are problems, there are usually workarounds. Whether that's mirroring some—but not all—of the language in a job ad to maximize your application's chances of making it through the automated stage, or bypassing it altogether by researching the firm and making direct contact with those responsible either for hiring or supervising the role you'd like to fill. As time-consuming as those activities might be, they're a sight more effective than throwing yet another copy of your resume into the void. And until such time as more firms start taking Cappelli's advice and change the system, trying to work around it just might be the best thing you can do. Read More: Why Good People Can't Get Jobs  (Amazon) /blog/job-search/why-good-people-cant-find-jobs-what-youre-up-against/ /blog/job-search/why-good-people-cant-find-jobs-what-youre-up-against/ Mon, 29 April 2013 14:46:00 Cathy Vandewater /blog/job-search/less-is-more-6-advantages-of-tweeting-for-a-job/#detailed_comment Twitter is becoming the new job board—or so says the Wall Street Journal. The sprawling site, with its disjointed snippets of conversation, endless links and retweets, and tangled webs of followers can be tough to navigate. But master the waters, and you'll have world of opportunity on your hands. Here's why: 1. Links are clickable Online resume? 6-second Vine video? LinkedIn profile? Work samples? Infographic? It's so easy to link to your stuff on Twitter, where employer mouses will be at the ready. And you can even track traffic with tools like bit.ly to see how effective your tweets are at getting clicks. 2. You're talking to people, not at them Through retweets and questions, you can start a dialogue—and build rapport—with your targets at a company, be it hiring managers or employees of interest. That goes a lot further than a me, me, me cover letter—and gives you the chance to adjust your tone and message as you go. 3. Your elevator pitch will always be flawless Maybe you trip over your words in person, but a ready-to-go 140-character resume in your profile will be at the ready for anyone who clicks over from your tweets. Just be sure to have a nice photo of you as part of your profile too--blank fields and a default image can take away from your message. 4. You get multiple chances to make an impression Since tweets are so short, it's very unlikely that an interested hiring manager would read just one… which means they'll scroll through your history, finding links you liked, conversations you had, questions you asked. The result is a better, clearer picture of who you are: your interests, sense of humor, level of professionalism. That means you get a better chance to impress on multiple levels, and the hiring manager has a means of making a great fit. 5. You don't have to go looking It's no secret that employers are more fond of poaching than they are taking a shot on the unemployed. Having a digital trail is an easy way to be seen even if you're not committed to trying too hard. 6. It's an all access pass to the big boys Tweeting is sort of like barreling into the CEO's office—just much more socially acceptable. By using Twitter to ask a question, retweet, or start a conversation, you're engaging someone you could never otherwise get on the phone or to answer an email. 7. You can learn company culture Following your target company and employees isn't just about staying on their radar—it's also a great way to get a peek into day-to-day life. You'll get a feel for formality levels, senses of humor, that the breaking news is at the company—all invaluable information to use from the first online conversation to your in-person interview. --Cathy Vandewater, Vault.com Read More: The New Résumé: It's 140 Characters 4 Tips for Beating the Curse of Long Term Unemployment Career Advice from the Most Highlighted Books of All Time /blog/job-search/less-is-more-6-advantages-of-tweeting-for-a-job/ /blog/job-search/less-is-more-6-advantages-of-tweeting-for-a-job/ Wed, 17 April 2013 13:46:00