December 27, 2007

Customize your year-end goals
Posted by Diane Danielson at 8:46 AM

From the Shifting Careers blog at the NYTimes - an end of the year exercise for making sure your goals for 2008 fit your actual needs and not a cookie-cutter formula.

Research shows that people who write out specific goals tend to be more successful in accomplishing things, whatever the nature of their objectives. But goals sometimes have a straight-from-central-casting quality: lose weight, exercise more, save more money, etc. They’re nice goals, but are they really the most important ones for you?

Click here to find out how to make your goals personal to your needs.

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December 19, 2007

Some good economic news for the holidays
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 5:05 PM

Just recently a local economic report gave us some not so good news about job creation in Massachusetts and New England.

Now comes this word that maybe we've got something good going on here after all:

Massachusetts ranks as one of the most economically competitive states in the nation, buoyed by innovation, entrepreneurship, and an educated and skilled workforce, a new study concludes.

The study, released today by the Beacon Hill Institute, a think tank at Suffolk University, ranks Massachusetts second only to Utah in the attributes that create and sustain high levels of income for residents. It follows another study, by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, a Washington think tank, that measures states' abilities to compete in a dynamic, innovation-driven global economy and ranks Massachusetts first.

Read the full article from today's Globe.

You can also check out this graphic that compares the three studies' findings and Massachusetts' rank in each.

Give us your thoughts on what it's like to find a job and live and work in the Commonwealth.

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December 17, 2007

Ego-googling is a must for business people
Posted by Diane Danielson at 12:05 AM

The PEW Internet and American Life project released a new report about whether people google themselves this week. 

In a report Sunday, the Pew Internet and American Life Project said 47 percent of U.S. adult Internet users have looked for information about themselves through Google or another search engine.

That is more than twice the 22 percent of users who did in 2002, but Pew senior research specialist Mary Madden was surprised the growth wasn't higher.

"Yes it's doubled, but it's still the case that there's a big chunk of Internet users who have never done this simple act of plugging their name with search engines," she said. "Certainly awareness has increased, but I don't know it's necessarily kept pace with the amount of content we post about ourselves or what others post about us."

About 60 percent of Internet users said they aren't worried about the extent of information about themselves online, despite increasing concern over how that data can be used.

Americans under 50 and those with more education and income were more likely to self-Google — in some cases because their jobs demand a certain online persona.

Read the full story at the Associated Press.

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December 14, 2007

The mother of all commutes
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 9:31 AM

Your esteemed Job Blog editor was not immune from yesterday evening's commuter woes. I had an absolutely hellacious commute - the mother of all commutes, by a long shot. What usually takes me 1 hour took 6 1/2, as follows:

-- 1:30 pm - head to Globe parking lot to get a jump (ha!) on the traffic
-- 2:00 pm - exit Globe parking lot - there were 30 cars ahead of me, each waiting to get onto Morrissey Blvd.
-- 2:30 pm - make the U-turn at light in front of UMass Boston entrance
-- 3:30 pm - 2 hours after leaving, make it to the traffic circle by Moakley Park. It's about 1/2-mile from the Globe entrance.
-- 4:00 pm - reach the Mass Pike west - for some reason, I zip around the circle onto 93 north, slow but moving, and onto the pike ramp. Normally I am here in no more than 10 minutes from the Globe.
-- 5:00 pm - reach Allston/Brighton tolls
-- 6:30 pm - after stopping once just short of Sheraton Newton underpass to unstick frozen wipers - they were not moving at all - reach Weston tolls. This normally takes 45 min. from the Globe.
-- 7:15 pm - after exiting Pike, attempt U-turn by Leo Martin golf course as we are standing still trying to get over to route 16. Get stuck temporarily, rock my way out, then hold breath as I take steep short cut up into Wellesley Hills. Make it OK - no traffic, ploughed.
-- 7:30 pm - now on route 9 west, at a complete standstill. Not moving at all for 1/2-hour. As we finally move, pass spin-outs and flatbed trucks on side with marooned cars on back.
-- 8:00 pm - after snaking up Weston Road, past Wellesley College on 135, and onto Bacon Street, finally make it home.

Things I could have done in this time, instead of calling home five times and listening to three CDs and every radio station on the planet (at one point I picked up a George Washington-SUNY Binghamton basketball game):
-- Under normal conditions, done 5 more hours of work, plus drive home
-- Take the SATs - twice (not that l'd want to, but since my son is a high school senior, it occurred to me)
-- Drive to Burlington, VT to visit my daughter in college - and drive back
-- Drive to Rochester, NY to visit my parents

Instead I went 20 miles and burned roughly 1/4-tank of gas. I pity those poor souls who did not start out with a decent amount of gas, ran out while idling, and were stranded.

Also plenty of time for visions of the apocalypse, Armageddon, global climate change, and many many other thoughts about the ridiculously thin fabric of civilizaton that can be shredded in an instant. And this right in the heart of a major metropolis in the United States.

Read others' horror stories.

Now, as I sit typing these words in the comfort of my home office and look out on a glistening white scene, hearing only the trill of a wren that sits puffed up in a snowbound holly bush, I am amazed and reminded once again: nature rules.

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December 11, 2007

The best places to start: internships
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 9:53 AM

Take it from me: over the past 10-15 years, internships for college students have really taken off as a key piece of career preparation.

Why take it from me? Not just because I'm editor of the Job Blog, but because I have a 21-yr. old daughter who is a senior in college and is facing the (gulp) real world - soon. Over the past several summers, she and her classmates have learned, first-hand, the value of internships, some receiving the coveted offer of a full-time, post-graduation job at the end of the summer.

Now Business Week magazine has come out with an article and study focused on the increasingly important role of internships, both for students and employers:

Getting an internship used to mean a 10-week exercise in photocopying, sorting mail, filing, and fetching sandwiches. If you were lucky, there might be a company-wide picnic thrown in. Forget that image. The college internship has become nothing less than a high-stakes tryout to land the perfect first job. Think of it as the job interview that lasts all summer long.

You can also check out Business Week's list of the 50 Best Internships, their first ever such list. Handy sorting tools make it easy to find what you seek. (For the visually inclined, you can view the list as a slide show, too.) Noticeably absent, however: any Boston or Massachusetts firms. OK, Boston employers - who's going to step up?

For those new to the subject, check out our Student Center piece, "All about internships."

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December 6, 2007

Create your own personal brand - online
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 3:43 PM

These days, if you're not online you're not anywhere, right? I'm talking about you, your name, your persona, your virtual presence. Think MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn.

Ever Google yourself to see what comes up? Come on, admit it (and yes, Google is now a commonly accepted verb). If by some chance you haven't, maybe you better - your potential employers will.

So why not take an even more proactive step toward managing your online brand and create your own website, blog, or podcast? As newly emerging personal branding guru Dan Schawbel tells us, the tools to do so have become much more user-friendly and accessible by the non-technically inclined among us:

Years ago, hiring technical programmers to develop websites was required. Businesses were forced to outsource to graphic designers, website consultants and few saw the power in personal branding. People that couldn’t afford these services lost the opportunity to showcase their personal brand online or even a new e-commerce website. The words “JavaScript”, “HTML”, “Pearl”, “C++” and Personal Branding Tools “Visual Basic” confused the majority and came naturally to the minority.

Today, thanks to technological advancements in web software, platforms and overall development, not only can everyone have their own website in seconds, but they can have a voice. Podcasting has emerged as a great way to demonstrate your talents or create buzz. For all of you that don’t have a website, a podcast or a clue on how to step into this new world of freedom, expression and opportunity, here is the equipment you’ll need:

Check out the full blog post and Schawbel's Personal Branding Blog, an exemplar of his own approach (ie, he practices what he preaches).

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December 4, 2007

Aspiring MySpace rockers: keep the day job
Posted by Douglas Eisenhart at 2:00 PM

Aspiring musicians with notions of fame and fortune will take heart at today's announcement that website MySpace.com has launched a new program that allows them to charge for their recordings:

MySpace, the social networking site where people create home pages and embellish them as they would a dormitory room, plans today to start selling songs and trying to position itself as a destination for hearing and buying new music.

In a program called Transmissions, MySpace is inviting musicians to choose a studio venue and select the songs they want to perform. MySpace will show and sell videos of the performance.
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For years MySpace, now owned by the News Corp., has served as a promotional platform for artists and labels, primarily through the MySpace Music portion of the website. Now the company wants to provide a sales component. Unlike Apple Computer's iTunes music store, which charges a flat rate of 99 cents a song, MySpace will let distributors set their prices.

Hmmm. The model holds appeal, although having to record in one of MySpace's designated studios (their space, I guess you could call it) is not necessarily ideal. Presumably you, the musician, pay for the recording time? Unclear. But it's an interesting twist on the early days of rock and roll when you and your buddies would hang around the studio back door hoping for an audition and a shot at cutting a 45.

Hmmm. Depending on cost, If this works and provides not just exposure but an opportunity to generate a revenue stream, it could be worth it. It might be big - huge, the democratization of the recording studio and a whole new mode of distribution. It's a nice marriage of MySpace's give-it-a-spin platform and iTunes' pay-per-song model. Maybe also a good place to get noticed by labels (if you even need one anymore).

But for now, the Job Blog advises the following strategy: check it out, give it a whirl, but just in case you and your bandmates don't make it to the top of the Transmissions charts, keep the day job.

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