Real World Survival Kit (Mon Nov 24, lecture 23)

Homework due for today

• Reflection and Peer Assessment:

  You have been working as a member of a small team. I would like you to reflect on that experience in writing. Here are some questions to ponder:

  How effective were you as a team member? Did you enjoy it? Sometimes people on a team take on different roles by virtue simply of their personality and talents. What role did you take on?

  Often in teams conflicts arise despite everyone’s best intentions. Did any conflict arise in your team? Were you part of the problem or part of the solution? What did you learn about yourself during those difficult times?

  Overall what do you see as the importance of being an effective team member? What skills or talents do you bring to the table? Do you think it is something that one can learn to do better?

  Assess yourself and each of your teammates on contribution to team organization, leadership, followthrough, deliverables. Give a grade and explain your assessment.

  Deliverable: Write up your reflection and peer assessment as a post

Topics

Networking

• Everyone join LinkedIn right now while I wait
• Everyone connect to me, at least

• The personal network you start building now is more powerful than anything else I say

• Pito’s patented networking technique
  • When you meet someone interesting, make effort to make a connection.
  • Get contact info.
  • Use spreadsheet (people, names, email, date of last convo, interest)
  • personal details as well - not just contact info, why and how you met them
  • Contact every 6 months.
  • Remind the person where they know you from.
  • Objective of conversation - have a purpose
  • Give them something of interest to them.
  • Assume that you have something interesting to say.
• Linkedin
  • easier to get in touch with people in specific areas (Connect with friends of friends)
  • Put updated information on Linkedin, which has ability to export a resume like PDF

Resumes

• Who looks at Resumes
• How do they do it
• When does a resume turn into an interview

• Who does the next interview?

• Resume content
  • No need for permanent address
  • Leadership and Activities is good, but try and have a special qualifications section, put that at very top! Why is that special?
  • competitive advantage/ What makes you special? (professionally)
  • How will you benefit the Company?
  • Put details about activities/accomplishments, not just a title
  • add more detail about more important sections of resume
  • Have dates
  • People read resumes in “two seconds”; think of yourself as a product.
  • Put skills etc. in priority order (what you know best goes first)
  • make sure skills good and important
  • One page resume rule
  • Older things generally less important
  • Personalize resume based on job/job type (within reason)
  • It is an ongoing process
  • Education section not necessary espec. high school
  • Color is OK!
  • make sure black and white version of your colored resume looks just as good
  • Show, don’t tell. Don’t try and spend a whole page writing out your personality. You won’t have any room for other things and it will be dificult to read
  • Career Objective
    • First sentence of resume state what you want from the job (Written in the frame of the reader)
    • Should be in cover letter as well
    • Make it consistent and relatively specific
• Portfolio
  • Showcases particular pieces of work you are proud of. Pictures, schematics, essays, videos, etc.
  • Have a project that you released into the “real” world
  • Something you had a major role in (can say it is your work)

Interviews / Phone screens

• Phone screens
  • Preparing
  • Doing well or not well during a screen
  • Skill Based
  • They might pick out parts of resume, more description and detail about what you did
  • Know background of the company
  • Gave a question or two ready about the company
  • Try to be positive about the company, even if you have doubts, at least until you get a job offer
  • Make sure they are relevant
  • Know everything on your resume; review older projects
• Interviews
  • How to dress and behave
  • How to play up your strengths
    • when you have little to no technical experience in an internship you’re interested in.
  • How to sell yourself
    • What if you’re not confident in my past experiences.
    • When finding yourself out of your depth skill set wise, how can you emphasize your other strong qualities for a position?
• Classic Interview Gambits
  • Difficult questions
  • What salary do you want?
  • When can you start?
• Followups
  • Best way to follow up after a career fair or after a meeting: Follow up email
  • When to call to ask status
  • Short thank you - sneak in something about wanting to talk more
  • Send a link or potentially more information that came up in your conversation
  • If you don’t have the interviewer’s contact info, email it to the contact you have and ask them to forward it
  • Feel free to followup on your followup
  • After two emails, don’t continue
  • Don’t expect a response from just a resume or even a phone screen. There should be one from an interview

Jobs

• Jobs
  • Companies: Big and small
  • Whats a lifestyle business?
  • Geographic considerations
  • Becoming a contractor or consultant
  • What does a consultant really do?
  • Taxes and benefits
• Internships etc.
  • Some companies do internships
  • Some try to do internship to hire
• Types of Companies
  • Large company
    • fewer interactions outside of department (less personal)
    • more formality takes longer to get things done
    • Laden with process/politics/paperwork etc.
    • Offers a ton of projects; Variety of passions/projects, more opportunities
    • can get laid off out of nowhere - less connection between you and your job security
    • Less scrutiny on each individual employee
    • Structure
  • Small companies
    • Get involved in a lot of projects very easily = more impact
    • No process, take initiative to get things done (fix your own problems)
    • very focused; Lives & breathes the one project - not good if you want to experience more than one type of thing
    • Earlier in your life, it is easier to take risk
    • No room/limited room for mistakes (Spotlight)
    • Easy access to higher-ups
    • Company depends more on you
    • A whole buncha fun, all of the time
    • Conversely, a whole buncha work, all of the time
    • “How funded are you guys?” or CrunchBase (http://www.crunchbase.com/)
  • Differences
    • Differences: more beaurocracy and processes in large companies, whereas small companies demand more self-reliance and are more focused
    • Don’t assume that any job will be secure/last forever
    • Can be a financial issue but also means that you aren’t stuck in a job for life
    • find out about the runway for startups
    • May be easier to get a job if willing to move to an area with fewer people with your skill set
• What’s a “Lifestyle Business”
  • Doesn’t grow (not designed to grow exponentially)
  • Gives a decent, liveable salary–supports the lifestyle its employees want to maintain
  • The lack of prospective growth can hurt the attitude of employees (cause lack of motivation)
• Contractor vs. Consultant
  • Mostly the same, self employed and not working directly as an employee; more of how you want to position yourself
  • Implication of contractor - do a lot of work quickly for the compnay
  • Consultant- more of an advising position
  • Consultant would work with the company, contractor for it.
• Taxes and Benefits
  • Some companies withhold taxes automatically
  • 401K- deposits are not taxed
  • Some companies match a portion of salary
  • 5% match - they will match up to 5% of your income
• Stock purchase plan
  • vesting - you can buy stock but you cannot get it unless you work at the company for x amount of time
  • Significance of each benefit depends on person