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Graduate recruiting tip #2: Understand your market — Generation Y

July 17, 2008

Written by Susanna Cesar Morton 

There has been a lot written in blogsphere recently about Generation Y. I especially liked the recent one on Times Online: Generation Y’s unique challenge — Today’s mollycoddled graduates expect a lot and employers must learn to cater to their needs. The headline says it all! Like it or not, much of the graduate market is made up of this generation, which includes those born between circa 1976 and 1994.

Also known as the Millennials, this generation is shaped by the leaders, events, and trends of its time. By far the most significant influence on this generation is the Internet. Generation Y was the first to grow up with the World Wide Web, and is used to being constantly bombarded with messages and multi-tasking.

The popularity of social networking sites like MySpace, instant messaging, and texting may explain why this generation is known for being peer-oriented and expects instant gratification. A 2008 survey by UK recruitment consultancy FreshMinds Talent, in partnership with Management Today, suggested that Millennials are generally more ambitious, brand conscious and tend to move jobs more often than ever before.

The survey of over 1,000 people, entitled Work 2.0, also revealed several misconceptions about Millennials, including that they are as loyal as their predecessors and believe that their job says something about them as individuals. The bottom line is that Generation Y is a different kettle of fish. Many of their skills will complement your more experienced employees. Once you understand your target market, make sure your hiring managers are up-to-date with the graduate hiring market. Hiring managers aren’t necessarily recruiters.

Their “fond” memories of being recruited on campus can be dated and no longer relevant. Educate your hiring managers on the current state of the graduate market. Send out articles and research throughout the year. In advertising, it takes at least three exposures to make a message stick.

Keep educating, your message will eventually get through. What are your thoughts on recruiting Generation Y? Leave a comment on this blog, we’d love to hear.


Article courtesy of the Recruiting Blogswap, a content exchange service sponsored by CollegeRecruiter.com, a leading site for college students looking for internships and recent graduates searching for entry level jobs and other career opportunities. 

Written by bradley · Filed Under Employer Updates, Engineering Commentary |  

How to Measure Job-Search Success

June 24, 2008

By: Kevin Donlin, President of Guaranteed Resumes and the creator of GetHiredNow.

Yesterday, I was reading the book, “Make Success Measurable,” by Douglas K. Smith, and it reminded me of a management mantra they have at FedEx (and other innovative companies): You can’t improve what you don’t measure.

Which got me thinking about job hunting …

Here’s the thought: What parts of your job search do you measure?

If you’re thinking, “Huh?” or “I don’t measure anything,” you are like a dieter who doesn’t own a scale — how can you know if you’re succeeding?

The answer lies in questions. Specifically, if you ask the right questions, you’ll get the right answers needed to measure — and improve — your job search.

So, to get you started, here are three questions to ask yourself at the end of each day … Read more

Written by bradley · Filed Under Engineering Commentary, Featured Article |  

Guy Kawasaki’s Top Ten Lies of [Software] Engineers

June 5, 2008

I stumbled across this old blog post from Guy Kawasaki…

1. “We’re about to go into beta testing.” This is a meaningless statement because it doesn’t matter when you go into beta testing–what matters is when you come out of beta testing. (The only hard and fast deadline for coming out of modern-day beta testing is “before you run out of money.”)

In the good old days, “alpha” used to mean “all features are implemented though not necessarily working properly.” “Beta” used to mean “there are no more repeatable bugs.” Nowadays beta means “we’ve gone as long as possible past the shipping date that we promised our investors.”

2. “I don’t know anything thing about marketing…” This is a lie of false modesty. The engineer is thinking, in totality, “I don’t know a thing about marketing, but how hard could it be compared to what I’m doing? I should run marketing and engineering. I just hope that the marketing the MBAs come up with is worthy of my code.” However, don’t worry too much about this lie because it self-corrects as the engineer misses deadline after deadline and comes to realize that he has bigger issues.

3. “I’ll comment the code, so that the next person can understand what I did.” This is a lie of good intentions. Really, the engineer did intend to comment the code but as the schedule slipped, priorities changed. The question put to management became: “Do you want me to comment the code or finish it sooner?” Guess what the answer was. Luckily, the lack of comments usually doesn’t matter because the code is so crappy that a total rewrite is necessary in a year.

4. “Our architecture is scalable.” This is the lie that I enjoy hearing the most. Typically, an engineer who has never shipped a product says this after creating a prototype in Visual BASIC. The whole conversation goes like this: “Google’s architecture isn’t as scalable as mine. They can support 25 million simultaneous searches. We will be able to easily handle a billion.”

Luckily, in most cases, the adoption of the product is slower than the CEO’s “conservative” forecast, so scalability never becomes an issue. Yeah, those clowns at Google, Yahoo, Oracle, Microsoft, Apple, and AOL don’t know anything about scaling compared to the engineer…

5. “The code supports all the industry standards.” This is almost a truth but for a short omission: “This code supports all the industry standardsthat I agree with.” The engineer has made a personal decision to ignore standards she doesn’t like–for example, those promulgated by Microsoft. It’s no big deal–customers will never know…

 

Read the rest of his post HERE

Written by bradley · Filed Under Engineering Commentary, Featured Article |  

5 Secrets to Fitting into the Workplace

June 5, 2008

- Article by Marcia Robinson and courtesy of BullsEyeResumes College Blog.

So you have executed a successful job search and landed a new job and you are anxious to get started building your new career in a new company. Once you get over your new employee fears and get oriented to your new space, you will find it takes more than smiles and kind words to fit in.

Here are few things to keep in mind as you make the transition.

Don’t whine. At least not to the people you work with at the office. Talk about any job challenges or work related issues with friends, family or trusted colleagues in other companies, and not with your new coworkers. Avoid complaining about too much work, too many assignments or too long hours at the office. The fact is, no one really cares how much you have to do since everyone else has their own work, their own assignments, and their own long hours to deal with. Avoid becoming too cozy with the established resident whiners in your new company as well.

Make your manager aware of what you are doing and ask for feedback. A colleague once talked to me about a new energetic recruit who showed a lot of initiative on the job. Although this new worker meant really well, as my colleague put it, “She was running a great race, but she was in the wrong stadium completely.” Make sure the work you are doing is relevant and critical to the department’s mission. Additionally, make sure your work is being noticed. It will take a while for you to get into your groove in your new office, and making sure you are not working contrary to the flow is good. Watch also that you are not inheriting assignments from those who want to hand off their jobs.

Show enthusiasm and energy for the job, business or industry you are in now. If you just got hired by the largest plumbing fixture manufacturing supply company, you need to get excited about plumbing fixture manufacturing supplies business. People who enjoy the domains they work in are interested in learning more and will ultimately tend to do better on the job. If you are not prepared to have meaningful conversations about your job or the industry within which your company operates, you will not be happy.

Stay on time. If you have a problem being punctual, work really hard to correct that behavior. Be in the office on time, if not early, be back from lunch on time and do not pack up twenty minutes before your shift or day is supposed to end. Arrive on time for meetings and work harder on your own time if you have to. Of course today’s workforce is more about productivity than time spent in the office, but it is still a good idea for to show others you respect their time. Once you understand the protocols and the routines of the office, schedules can change.

Limit talk about what you did in your old job, company or worse in a class. This one is pretty hard to do, but it is something you will master eventually. It is been my experience that people sometimes don’t want to hear new ideas if they came from your old job, old company or worse from a class. Of course your prior knowledge will show in your work, but limit talking about where your skills come from. Feel free to credit publications, the media or a conference, but not your old job, company or class for new ideas.

Of course none of these tips are cast in cement. In addition to the requisite due diligence to do your new job well, you just need to heed some of these other workplace protocols that could expedite or slow your assimilation in the new environment.

Article by Marcia Robinson and courtesy of BullsEyeResumes College Blog. Robinson coaches, trains, and writes on career, workplace, and education issues for students and career professionals.

Article via Recruiting Blogswap, a service sponsored by CollegeRecruiter.com, a leading site for college students looking for internships.

Written by bradley · Filed Under Engineering Commentary, Featured Article |  

Need Help With Your Resume?

April 4, 2008

Your resume is often the first place you make an impression on a potential employer, so why settle for a mediocre CV? As an engineer, it is important that you present your skills and abilities effectively.

ResumeEdge provides resume and cover letter writing services and it is a great way to improve the quality of your resume to help you land that next job.

ResumeEdge is the number one resume editing and writing services company on the net. We offer a wide range of services for students, entry-level job seekers, professionals, executives, and those transferring to the private sector from the military. We also offer special services for government employees. Customers can choose the offering that best meets their need whether they require a complete resume written by one of our 200+ certified professional editors, a resume touch up, or cover letter advice.

If you’ve been applying for a lot of engineering jobs and haven’t been contacted after sending in your resume, you may want to contact ResumeEdge and have your resume’s edge sharpened by skilled industry professionals!

Click Here to take your resume to the next level!

Written by bradley · Filed Under Engineering Commentary |  

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