Job News Feeds, Fun Job Opening

Now that I've started to actively look for jobs, I've subscribed to keyword-based job update news feeds from Seek, MyCareer, CareerOne, and ITWire. However, since I'm still still four months away from finishing my MBA and most of these jobs have one month application deadlines, I won't be able to apply for most of them (for now, at least).

The point of subscribing to these news feeds 2-3 months in advance is, of course, to gather information about the market. That is, information about:

  • Companies: which ones are doing work that I'm interested in, what industries are these companies in, which ones are hiring, where (geographically) are they located, etc.?
  • Recruitment agencies: which ones hire people for the kind of jobs I want to do, which ones hire people for the companies I want to work for, etc.?
  • Jobs: what kinds of jobs are out there, what are the titles of the jobs I want to do, what kind of responsibilities do these positions entail, what experience and qualifications do these jobs require, how much do they pay, etc.?

Knowing all of that is crucial to thoroughly understanding the current and near-future job market. It's also important to learn about companies and industries that hire (and are hiring) people like me.

Fun Job Opening: Online Community Liaison at Lonely Planet

As I mentioned earlier, there will be some advertised jobs that I will find interesting but will not be able to apply to. From time to time, I'll post such openings to this blog and will then discuss them. By doing that, I hope to better identify the places where my interests overlap with current market opportunities. This will tell me which of my areas of interests are relevant to the Australian market, what my job prospects are in those areas, and so on.

One such opportunity was advertised on Seek today for an Online Community Liaison position at Lonely Planet:

The Online Community Liaison is responsible for defining and implementing editorial policy on Thorn Tree and Bluelist, along with playing a key role in ensuring an effective flow of communication between the community and the business.  Additionally, this position is responsible for defining and implementing ongoing policies around moderation along with performing some day-to-day moderation duties and coordinating the moderation team which currently comprises of Content Producers (each spending 1 hour per day on moderation), selected external users and any necessary casual staff/contractors.

Instigating and nurturing community contributions, providing input into the Online Community Strategy (in close liaison with the Community Site Producer and Online Publisher) and resolving issues to do with Thorntree and Bluelist online are also key responsibilities of this role. The Online Community Liaison needs to perform the functions of the job with empathy whilst at the same time maintaining objectivity and a sense of humour.

Though, in general, I am aiming to get a higher position within an organization (a management position, more on the strategy side; sort of like the two others mentioned in the second quoted paragraph above), I can so see this as a job that I would apply for. It's something that I would find incredibly interesting, there is opportunity for considerable growth within the company (both in this department and elsewhere; especially since it's a newly created position), and -- dude! -- it's, like, Lonely Planet!

Unfortunately, applications for this position close on 22 January and so I am well and truly out of the running. That said, I have now added Lonely Planet to the list of companies to watch out for (and I can't believe I forgot about in the first place!). I guess the subscribing to news feeds well in advance is already paying off.

My Immediate Career Prospects

In my third (and final) career-related post of the day, I want to say a quick word on my immediate career prospects. In theory, my career prospects are pretty good:

  • I have seven years of work experience, half of it in management, and an MBA from a highly ranked university
  • I have done lots of work on many different types of web portals (in multiple sectors) over the last few years, so this is an area that I know quite a bit about
  • I have worked in both technology and media companies and have worked for a lot of startups as well
  • The MBA has taught me a great deal -- especially in terms of core management, problem solving and analysis, business strategy, economics, marketing, managing people, e-commerce, negotiations, etc. -- and so I am a pretty well-rounded and well-qualified candidate in both technology and business

In practice, though, things are a bit different:

  • I don't have a lot of Australian work experience and this might count against me in the early, non-face-to-face stages of the job application process (till I can directly demonstrate my competence to my potential employer)
  • The MBA degree isn't highly valued in Australia except in certain industries; and media isn't necessarily one of them (in fact, in that industry, it might just count against me)
  • A lot of the jobs that I want to apply for are Sydney-based

Other things might initially be perceived by potential employers as being negative -- for example, they'll probably wonder about my English proficiency, my management and team-work skills, and my knowledge of business strategy -- but hopefully those will be quickly overcome once they talk to me and, to some extent, to my referees.

In short: for now, my prospects are uncertain. My challenge, then, is to somehow demonstrate my abilities to potential employers.

What Employers Look For

When employers look at potential employees, they judge them on three things:

  1. Can do (competence): Evidence of skills, experience, and competencies needed to perform the job. Potentially, this is my biggest hurdle in the early stages of the application process since I have limited Australian work experience, though the little that I have is quite good. However, half of my Pakistani work experience has been with American companies so it's not all bad. Note: you don't get to the interview stage till you convince employers (or recruitment agencies) that you can do the job that you have applied for.
  2. Will do (commitment, willingness): The right attitude, energy, and commitment for the job. To determine this, employers interview you. During that -- and particularly during case interviews -- they test both your can-do and will-do. That's often why there are multiple interview rounds.
  3. Fit (commitment and chemistry): The right compatibility and interpersonal chemistry with the team and your fit with the organization's culture. Once you reach the final stages -- usually, the management interview or when you get invited over for informal drinks with the team -- the employer has pretty much decided that you can and will do the job to their satisfaction. Now the task is to see if you fit well in the company...and vice versa. By the way, another reason for the multiple interviews with multiple interviewers is to determine whether you like your potential colleagues and whether they like you.

Of course it's not quite as simple as I make it sound here, but those are the basics.

As a candidate, then, I have to demonstrate all three of those -- my can-do, will-do, and fit -- to my potential employer. My resume, cover letter, and (should they Google me) this blog demonstrate my can-do; the cover letter and interview demonstrate my will-do; and the interviews demonstrate my fit. And, if all goes well, I get a job offer.

Let's see how things pan out over the next few months. As every, I'll keep you posted.

Career Choices: Figuring Out My Interests

In my previous careers blog post, I talked about how, for each company that I am researching, I am listing its (a) positives, (b) negatives, (c) deal breakers, (d) deal makers, (e) verdict, and (f) rank.

The companies that get a ‘yes’ verdict will be assigned a rank based on their positives and negatives while the companies that get a ‘no’ will, obviously, not be ranked at all. To determine the weights assigned to each positive and negative aspect, I’ll be borrowing a lesson from my Negotiations course. In that course, we talked about how each party involved in a negotiation has (a) stakeholders and (b) a list of issues, positions, and interests. To prepare for a negotiation, you need to figure all of those out for both yourself and for the other party. What is crucial, though, is for the parties to share their interests with each other. If they manage to do that (and a few other things, of course), the negotiation is usually successful.

Applying for a job is, in many ways, one big negotiation. Now I’m obviously not going to discuss all of the things I listed in the previous paragraph in this blog post. What I wanted to point out, though, was that it’ll be my own stakeholders and interests that will determine the weights I assign to each of the positives and negatives. For example, things that are important to me include:

  • A full-time job, preferably permanent though I will also be applying for suitable contract jobs (e.g. tech consulting jobs)
  • A steady salary (think of my stakeholders: I have to pay off my loans) and a good overall compensation package
  • A good job (strategy-based, good career development, etc.), working in a good team (fun, interesting people), for a good company (that has strategic value in the industry, for example) that has a great CEO (which will be the cherry on top; this this case, literally!)
  • Flexible working hours and habits; with a dress code that is as casual as possible
  • Melbourne-based (Nadia is starting her PhD at the University of Melbourne next month and so we’re going to be living in Melbourne for at least the next three years)

The key thing here is that these are my underlying interests (and that they are partly influenced by my stakeholders). These interests will then determine my positions (e.g. acceptable base salary range) and issues (e.g. start date, compensation package breakup). But, basically, it is my interests that will determine the weights I assign to each of the positives and negatives during my short-listing process (e.g. better career progression obviously weighs more than casual dress code).

I’ll write more on this topic over the coming weeks and months as I figure my own interests out in more detail. When, and if I can, I will compare my interests to the interests (and issues, positions, and stakeholders) of the company to which I have applied. I will then attempt to explain the process by which we determined and then shared each others’ interests. I hope to conclude each such posting with the lessons learnt (maybe by both parties) and, of course, the result of my job application.

To give you an example of what I mean, when I was applying for an internship in April last year, I got to the very end of the candidate selection process with a certain company. Let me highly original and call it Company X (they will all be equally originally named, I suspect). I reached that stage — at which the company was down to two candidates — about a month before my study term ended. What happened then was that Company X adjusted its priorities (it was in its early growth stages when this was most liable to happen) and realized that it needed its intern to start work immediately and not, as it had originally intended, by mid-May. Needless to say, I didn’t get the job while the other candidate, who could start next week, did. My point: all but one of our interests matched and, in the end, that became the deal-breaker. (Next time I’ll write about the internship that I did get…this one with Company Y!)

By the way, I’m not sure how feasible it will be for me to blog about all of this during my job application process. I suspect I’ll have to wait till the process is complete and the results are in either way...but let’s see how things go. I might be able to squeeze in a cryptic mention here and there.

Career Choices: Categorizing, Analysing, Short-Listing

Now that I’ve started blogging about my career — I graduate in four months so it’s kind of about time — I find that I have lots of say. Here goes.

Categorizing & Visualising Career Options

In my previous blog post on my career, I mentioned a whole list of companies that I’d like to work for and jobs that I’d like to be doing. I’ve since found a way to categorize those better. That, in turn, has helped me present my options visually as follows:

Career Choices Categories Chart

Of course, the real benefit of categorization is that it helps me organize my thoughts and job application strategies better. My only problem now is that this list of companies is very long…and it will only get longer as I continue my research.

The Process of Short-Listing

To make that list smaller, I intend to follow the standard rational decision-making process of listing pros and cons and, through that, eliminating companies that don’t fit the bill. This short-listing will start immediately but will continue throughout my research and job application process as I’ll be constantly gathering data on, and from, all of these companies.

Of course, the elimination process itself will take into account a little more than just simply pros and cons. In fact, for each company I am listing:

  • Positives: for example, it has a good training and development programme; it is doing work that I find interesting; work hours and habits are pretty flexible; and so on.
  • Negatives: for example, the work is good but not exciting enough (to me, at least); the work environment is far too formal or hierarchical for my liking; the company is great but I don’t think I’ll get along with the person who’s going to be my immediate manager; and so on.
  • Deal breakers: for example, it’s Sydney-based (while I want to stay in Melbourne); its web portal is run by an external vendor while it is managed internally by the VP Marketing (i.e. there’s no job for me there); the job being offered is below my expertise and there are minimal growth prospects; and so on.
  • Deal makers: for example, my immediate manager is leaving in three months and is looking to train a replacement (who happens to be me); I love the people and the job is exactly what I’m looking for; the dress code is jeans and a t-shirt; and so on.
  • Verdict: this will be my conclusion on my current prospects with that company and will, in most cases, be a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’. And, even though it might be a ‘no’, depending on why that ‘no’ came about, I might still keep the company in mind for networking and/or future hiring purposes. For example, I might find the perfect job in a perfect company that has just finished its round of hiring and won’t be hiring for another six months or a year. The verdict for here will be ‘no’, but I will want to keep an eye on this company in the coming years.
  • Rank: based on the positives and negatives listed — each of which is weighted differently (more on this in my next blog post) — this will be my ranking of the companies that get a ‘yes’ verdict. Eventually, I hope to come up with a short list of 5-10 top-ranking companies that I seriously want to pursue.

I’ll keep you posted on how things go.

My Career / Best Careers of 2008

The US News and World Report has just released the 2008 edition of its annual list of best careers. The 31 careers chosen by the authors include some that I myself am interested in: management consultant, trainer, system analyst, usability experience specialist, and librarian. And if you ignore librarian and mix the rest together, you sort of get the kind of job that I would like to do: a strategy consultant (part technical, part business/management) who works on websites and portals, ideally in the Web 2.0 [1] and new media spaces. And this could be in the corporate, non-profit, or education sectors.

If I haven't explained that properly, here are some examples of the kinds of jobs I would like to do (along with the kinds of companies I would like to work for):

That's a big list, huh? It'll only get bigger as I do more research. Can you tell that my primary areas of interest are web portals and intranets, Web 2.0, and mobile computing? And that, within in those areas, I would like to work in consulting (management, strategy, or technical), management, content production, and/or training -- probably in that order?

So...

So what now? Well, next I'll be doing some more industry analysis in order to learn about the trends and major players in each of those industries. Then, I'll start to explore each of those companies in more detail. I'll want to learn about the kind of work they're doing and whether I can add value to them or not, whether they're interested in hiring someone like me (i.e. with my experience and qualifications) or not, who runs them, who works there, what their work culture is like, where they are headed strategically, and so on. Then, once I've identified the ones that fit the bill, I'll try to get hired by one of them...which, of course, is much easier said than done! But more on that in a later blog post.

I graduate in May, by the way, so expect to see a lot more about my future career and my job application process on this blog over the coming months.

Of Course...

Of course, if I had the choice -- and a great deal of money to do with as I wished -- what I'd really like to do is set up a couple of recording studios (both audio and video), a performance venue for music and theatre (along with a small cafe, probably), a small cinema, an audio/video library, and a few teaching/training rooms. I would then work with adults and young adults to help them explore and implement their creative sides. Oh, and I would run this as both a non-profit and for-profit organization: either as a for-profit that does lots of non-profit work or as a non-profit that also does some for-profit work. My work there wouldn't be limited to just music, film, and theatre, though -- it would have reading, writing, and online components as well.

Hmmm...I think I've just described the Victorian Colle

ge of the Arts.

Oh well.

- - - - - - - - - -

[1] I dislike the term Web 2.0 because it's been hijacked so thoroughly by bad (or would you say good?) marketers. What started off as a business concept put forth by Tim O'Reilly -- who, by the way, explains what it really means on his blog -- is now slapped on to every Internet-based product and service whether it warrants it or not. But then, that kind of abuse is true of most buzzwords isn't it? Oh well.

Dream Internship?

Now if only I could have found an internship like this:

Company Name: I Can Has Cheezburger?
City: Seattle
State: Washington

We are looking for upbeat, smart and happy interns to help put moar cheez on the burgers — so to speak. The intern will work on our social marketing, help fulfill t-shirt sales, answer emails from totally random people, bathe Happy Cat (j/k!) and fill in where needed.

Requirements:

* Deep and wide-ranging understanding of popular culture (TV, intertubes, geek, movies, music, games, anime, news…)

* Awsumness. 0.00012 or higher on the Chuck Norris scale.

Please send your resume to:
icanhascheezburger@gmail.com

200+ Company/Industry Research Tools

Jim Stroud recently published a comprehensive list of over 200 company/industry research resources on his blog. Sometimes a list like that is much more useful than simply searching through Google.

Speaking of good resources, your first port of call for company/industry research should always be your university library. The excellent, extensive, expensive, and chosen-by-research-professionals set of resources that is maintained there is truly invaluable. And as a university student, you usually have access to all of those resources for free.