Whilst only slightly hungover, Chris and Kelly podcast during their long weekend thanks to Cesar Chavez Day. Mellowness ensues...
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Alright, well that wraps up our "Get a Job" series. One thing we didn't really cover but is still important is all of the "normal" stuff. You still need to have a kickass resume and be able to interview well.
Here are our posts in review:
The vast majority – more than 70%, some sources estimate – of job positions are filled by word of mouth or networking. That means no resumes and no classified ads. It means: business cards. Okay, so that was sort of flawed logic, but you still need a business card. The main reason is this: college students like to party. Bars, clubs and parties are great places to meet business partners (and sexual partners), but it’s not exactly the right place to tote a briefcase full of resumes.
It may seem pretentious to have a business card as a student. It may seem even more pretentious to take advice from a film student. But, there’s a right way and a wrong way, and as long as you’re not flipping out business cards like they’re text messages, then you’re okay with us.
All you have to do is keep it simple with your design and people won’t think you’re a d-bag. Even if you have a “legitimate” start-up or some sort of small freelance business, don’t put it on your business card. The worst thing you could do is make up a company of some sort just for the sake of the business card.
;)
Here’s why: if you’re handing out cards, especially if you’re job-searching, you are handing out a piece of you, not some faux-business. You’re marketing yourself, not your current/previous ventures.
Plus, how often do you meet a solid contact and actually talk about your position as CEO of [Your Last Name] Incorporated? If you’re having a genuine conversation, hopefully never. So, why would you put this on the card? It’s not going to connect your face with the card – it’s just going to confuse people.
Personally, my cards just say my name, my URL, my phone number and my email address. That’s it. I might have been able to get away with putting “writer” under my name, but I don’t think I’d get much mileage out of that. Depending on your style, it might be a good idea to put a short “personal statement” or “unique selling proposition” sort of thing on the back or across the bottom (especially if you’re looking for a job). If you’re adding any extraneous information, it better remind the person who YOU are when they look at the card later.
When you’re in college, the right phone number is the hardest thing to deal with. Here are some of the problems:
The solution for all of those problems is a separate phone line that goes right to a voicemail box. My recommendations:
The first method that comes to mind is GrandCentral. GrandCentral gives you one main phone number under which all of your other numbers can reside. When someone calls your GrandCentral number, it forwards to your cell phone or office phone or whatever you have set up.
This is great for college students because of our tendency to travel and be irresponsible. If your dorm number changes each year or you tend to drop your cell phone in puddles frequently, you can change those numbers without changing your main "umbrella" number. There are tons of other cool things behind this service, but that’s the basic pitch. Email one of us if you’d like an invitation code to the Beta of this project, or just "reserve a number" and you can expect them to invite you about a week later.
I’ve been using Ring Central for quite a while now and I can’t complain. You get a stripped-down version of GrandCentral. It’s just a phone number that goes right to a voicemail box after a few rings. An automated-sounding voice tries to pronounce your name as a greeting and the subsequent voicemail appears as an audio file in your email inbox. The reason it’s great, again, is that I can keep this number for as long as I’d like and it’ll always reach me, even if my other numbers change or get disconnected.
For those interested in life-hackery, here are some extra student-centric bonuses of the above services. If you're just reading us for the business, skip these bullet points:
As I said, I think it’s a little strange (perhaps, unsafe, also) to give out your cell phone number willy-nilly. So, I don’t put it on my card. I give out a professional-sounding email address and a Ring Central number. If I honestly really want this person to get in touch with me, I write my cell phone number on the back of the card before I give it to them. I think it comes off as a nice gesture -- giving a business contact my "personal" number.
Printing the card should be your very last excuse for not getting one. There's one main reason: they’re cheap.
Above, we’ve resolved the phone number issue, but even if you change your number – just print new cards. Glue those old ones together into an art project, it’s only a couple bucks out the window.
I could recommend all sorts of online resources for business cards, but I’m not going to because there’s any easier way. No matter where in the world you are, OfficeMax has the best all-around option. They have a basic no-frills business card deal: 1,000 cards, less than 15 bucks, quick turnaround. Now, you have no excuse. Do it right now.
If you want to pay a little more for a stylish option, I really like MooCards. We’re getting some for the HackCollege team.
While Google SMS has been around for years now, a similar service from ChaCha has only been around for a few months. And... It's quite awesome.
If you're used to Googling for everything, then you already know how ChaCha works. Send any question via text message to CHACHA (242242), and a human (guide) will search the Internet for the answer. In a minute or two, you'll receive an answer and a link to its source.
A recent question of mine (without the link, as I didn't save the text message):
me: What's the last name of Judge Tom on Top Chef? He's rude.
ChaCha: Tom Colicchio is a judge on Top Chef.
How useful!
The service is completely free if you have unlimited or a set amount of available texting. Otherwise, you'll just be paying to send a text message and receive a text message (from your carrier).
And they're also looking for guides. The pay is $.20 for every answer.
Text your questions to: ChaCha (242242)
This post is a little bit more on the advanced level. If you're frustrated, ask us with an email or look at some lolcatz.
If you're on Twitter, Pownce, or Plaxo Pulse, you are probably already part of the most unknown social network out there: XFN.
XFN stands for the "XHTML Friends Network." XFN is a microformat and a facet of data portability. It is a simple way to spice up your standard XHTML to add some powerful functionality.
The basic concept is that everyone adds appropriate tags to links of themselves and their friends on their website. With this information, a search bot can crawl the web following these specialized links and assemble a network. XFN could kill (or at least redefine) address books as we know them.
XFN is young. Well, it's 5 years old. It's still relatively unknown. Many people doubted its importance until Google revealed that it's Social Graph API reads XFN data. The Social Graph API allows programmers to do exactly that: graph social networks. Rather than treat each user as a separate person, you can single out people.
This is important because it allows you to consolidate your online identity. Not all of us can get the jump on our preferred user name. All of us can use XFN.
Let's say one my digital business card, I want to add XFN functionality. I would take the code for all of the links on the page and add the rel="me" tag.
So a link to my twitter would become
<a href="http://twitter.com/kellysutton" rel="me">
twitter.com/kellysutton</a>
except all on one line, of course. Rinse and repeat for all links relating to yourself.
Well, right now, it's not. It might never be important for your average job, either. For tech jobs, it's one of those things that really opens a potential employer's eyes. Especially if they employer knows anything about "Web 2.0."
Most importantly, it has the potential to save work for you in the future and consolidate your online identity. With XFN, you might never have to re-enter all of your information every time you join a new social network. Just point it to one of your previous profiles, and it will crawl all of your online identities for the necessary information. There are already a few services that have the capability to do this or will be able to do this in the near future.
Hot off of a trip to San Francisco, Chris and Kelly are back with a very looooong episode.
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Life after school for an art or design major is a scary thing. You're too young to work for the man. Is it possible to make a living without waitressing? The answer for many years has been a resounding unlikely. That is--until--some people started doing a little something called coworking.
Coworking provides a place for people to go to work. Staying at home in your PJs seems like a good idea, but personal hygiene and interpersonal relationships tend to suffer. Enter coworking facilities. employees can rent space (usually a desk) for an hourly, daily, or weekly rate. Seems bizarre to have to pay to work.
That money buys you something more than just plugs and horizontally aligned pieces of wood. It is your ticket into a subculture. You can still 9-to-5 your face off, but you can also opt into movie nights, bowling nights, and bar nights. It's like you never left college.
Although it's by no means required, coworking gives freelancers a space to converse and network. In a booming coworking facility, there should be plenty of work to go around.
Coworking is not for all majors. It works best (right now) for design and computer science-type majors. There's a straight need between the two: developers need designers for products, designers need developers for work.
In the future, there may be media coworking facilities (if there aren't already). Rather than having effects and post-production boutiques around LA, you just might have independents doing it themselves. Boutiques are sometimes necessary to buy fancy equipment, but you can always rent.
The full potential of coworking is still yet to be seen.
As Julie Gomoll of LaunchPad Coworking in Austin recommended to me on Twitter, "start with Jelly." Jellies are a
casual work event where everyone's invited. It's for anyone who'd like to work alongside other creative people in a welcome environment.
Jellies are the best way to jump-start your coworking career. They are the shores of a sea of coworking; you can dip your toes in before you take the plunge. There are many happening around the world. If there isn't one in your city, make it happen. Get more info at the homepage.
The man offers to pay for your moving expense in exchange for your soul. With coworking you have to pay your own way. Thankfully we have guys like Alex Hillman and his Philadelphia-based Independents Hall coworking palace. Indy Hall's wiki provides a spot for people to list and request places to stay.
Moving back in with parents is one of the worst options. Start saving up your work-study cash and pick a place. If for some reason coworking doesn't work out (pun), you will at least be in a more interesting place than your parents' basement.
If coworking sounds right for you, check out some of these sites and articles to get a better feel for the whole thing:
And a big thanks to Julie Gomoll and Alex Hillman for giving me the scoop on coworking!
For popular positions, employers will see dozens (or hundreds if it's Google) of applications. You need to stand out. Making yourself stand out does not mean doing cartwheels around the room.
There are several steps to standing out.
Find out as much information as you can about the company and your interfaces within the company. There's always that point in an interview where someone asks, "Do you have any questions for us?" If you can come up with a question that brings them back 5 years while subtly indicating that you've done your homework, you win.
Everyone is connected to Kevin Bacon by six degrees of separation. You are probably connected to your potential employer by even fewer.
With past jobs that I've applied for, it's bizarre how connected to the companies I turn out to be. Try casting your nets (or cast some other metaphor that makes more sense in this context) with your business or educational contacts first. How? Just ask. Professors, current coworkers, etc.
It pays to show up at the job interview, dur. It also pays to show that you are part of the space the company is in. The most obvious example and the most obvious is the tech world: there are meetups all over the place all the time.
They don't have to be as big as South by Southwest or Future of Web Apps; they can be as small as Ignite! Seattle or Twiistup (LA). Show your face and start networking. Maybe even hint at your attendance during an interview. Meetup is a great place to look for local events.
Monday, March 31, 2008