Archive for May, 2008

Archives for Relocations

I don’t consider myself a nomadic professional, but I have lived, worked and/or studied in Cairo, Berlin, Bangkok, and Seoul – where I am now. In a matter of weeks I will move to Singapore, where I am exploring my next career opportunity.

Professionally, my background is in high technology having been mentored in Silicon Valley by some amazingly talented individuals. One mentor asked me at a major trade show, what made me passionate professionally when I wake up in the morning? Without hesitation, I replied, “Handling the market entry responsibilities for Asia-Pacific for a Valley-based tech firm.” It was the right answer – he essentially hired me on-the-spot.

I realize that living and working in Asia isn’t for everyone. From my experiences, perspective and vantage point here are some comparisons and contrasts between living and working in S. Korea and the US.

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Archives for Career Advice

Worried about what to give a college graduate who has everything but a job? Have you considered pummeling them with career guides?

Just a hunch, but I think they would prefer your money.

Still, I generally take the passive road and give them a book store gift certificate and let them choose a nifty career guide if they want one.  

I started my career before I graduated from college and, in a downturn (pre-dot.com days) I grabbed the first newspaper job with a steady paycheck. No one I knew had read a career guide or met with a career counselor, but on the other hand if they did they were undoubtedly ahead of the game. In retrospect, I was playing it just a bit too cool.

These days we are all about involving specialists because, among other reasons, the world seems way more competitive. In the context of a lukewarm job market for graduates, I would suggest doing what it takes to find an edge.

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Archives for Perfect Job

One of Silicon Valley’s cleverest blogs, Valleywag, features a special report called Tech’s 10 Worst Entry-Level Jobs.  How bad are the jobs? Not that bad, really, and at about $50,000 – $80,000 a year they pay way above the national average for 2008 college grads.

“Soon America’s most bright-eyed graduates will enter the workforce and make their workaday homes in cubes at Google, MySpace, or Amazon.com. And they will suffer not just the indignity of having to work for a living, but also the dispiriting realization that a job at a cool company isn’t always that hot.”

The reader comments made this series come alive. My favorite concerns what’s missing from the job description for the exec assistant to Mashable CEO Pete Cashmore. Meanwhile, an $80,000 a year support engineer job at Amazon.com also made the list. One wag reader commented that, for that salary, “I could afford anti-depressants.”

Archives for Job Boards

A site called Job Profiles recently published a list of 100 specialty job boards apparently to help recruiters hunt for qualified job seekers in a dozen different fields.

True, that doesn’t cause my pulse to race either.

Yet, for job seekers, specialty boards may be an essential place to promote your resume. Think about it: you’re a bigger fish in a much smaller pond.

Personally, I also think you should participate in the Monster, HotJobs and Career Builder sites too. Because, after all, why not? These are passive approaches and the odds strongly suggest that you will need to take other steps as well to get hired.

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Archives for Research

You can’t fault popularity contests – they’re so democratic. But are they a useful way to help job seekers find a job?

Universum, a Swedish research firm, fields an annual study of MBA students on behalf of Fortune that ranks the 25 most popular potential employers. The MBA graduates who participated were asked to list their top five potential employers.

The exercise yielded no surprises: These are all blue chip companies known for high growth, excellent management and intellectual property. You can’t blame anyone for wanting to work at Google or GE or even No. 25, Coca-Cola. Of course, if you like large corporations, there are more than 1,700 billion dollar-size firms to choose from in the U.S. alone.

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Archives for Employment

Today’s papers tout that April’s job losses aren’t quite as bad as feared. One possible exception to that would be if you’re the one affected.

U.S. employers cut only 20,000 jobs in April – some economists had predicted four times that number. That gap’s not surprising considering all the announced corporate layoffs, particularly in the automotive and financial sectors, but some of these won’t go into effect immediately.

April marked the fourth consecutive monthly decline, according to the NY Times. The unemployment rate dropped from 5.1% to 5%, not a big drop, but given that under 5% is a proxy for healthy national employment, these numbers matter in an election year.

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Archives for Social Media

If I belonged to a football team, a fraternity, or an office of 20-somethings, I’d use Twitter to “tweetup” with my friends. It’s not the place to find a job – is it?

Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, an Internet entrepreneur based in Amsterdam, recently posted a job listing on Twitter that caught my eye:

Wanted: CTO type for new secret project. PHP, MySQL, CakePHP knowledge important. Money + shares.

“People always know people and telling it to 450 people makes sure that the word gets out,” explains Boris, who has openings for three ventures at the moment and lots of evangelists among his connections. “And – don’t tell – [Twitter] is a cheap way of finding people too.”

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