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Thursday, January 20, 2011

What Would You Do To Get a Job?

I just read Steve Schimmel’s story of going from handing out resumes on the street to becoming the 13th employee of Google. His story brings up so many questions about what it takes to forge a great career. Was it luck that propelled Schimmel to meet the right people? Or was it Schimmel’s persistence and creativity that propelled him to success?

Even from his humble beginnings, Schimmel graduated Magna Cum Laude and Dean’s List from university in Business. Armed with his degree, Schimmel set out to get his first job. After searching for over a year in San Francisco and not getting anything he started to get desperate.

One day he noticed a panhandler, and a person with a giant placard that said “REPENT” looked him straight in the eye. Something clicked. The next day he put on his best thrift store suit and took the 5am bus to the financial district in San Francisco. While wearing a sandwich board asking for help with his job search, he handed out resumes on the street. This was one of the most humbling moments of his life. He says his faith in people was renewed that day and, amazingly, this lead to him getting a job as an associate equity analyst.

Schimmel eventually left that job to run his own business but ran out of money. He found himself back on the job market. He started by calling CEO’s of the companies that were advertising jobs. He eventually connected with one CEO who was so impressed with his drive, that he referred him to a little startup called Netscape. When Netscape was purchased by AOL in 1999, Schimmel and many other employees moved on.

He took a job with a little search engine company that had just been founded by two Computer Science Ph.D. candidates at Stanford. Schimmel joined them as lucky employee 13. At the time they only had a few thousand searches performed each day, mostly by academics, and no revenues. But, as you already guessed, this little company grew into Google, the world leader in search technology which now brings in billions in revenue each quarter. Steve negotiated Google’s first 100k deal and their first 1M deal. He was on the original design team for Adwords.

In his own words, people gave him a “shot” and he was able to evolve from poor kid to successful businessman to retired by 32 years old.

Schimmel talks about doing things you can be proud of. I love the motto that he and his friends live by, “Don’t be evil.” He says, “It is a philosophy of doing what’s right and letting the money follow.”

One of the lessons that I learned from Schimmel’s story is that you must be persistent, creative and willing to take risks in your job search.

My personal motto is “what goes around comes around”. I believe that if you help others, you will be helped by either the people you help, people they know or internally by the satisfaction that you receive from helping somebody else.

Have you ever used an unconventional method to land a job? What is your personal motto? Share a story about how you made yourself standout?

Related Articles:

Steve Story - Googler 13

10 Job Networking Strategies to Consider if You're a Newcomer

The Hidden Job Market: How Tim Got In

Tim Collins

President and Owner, Stafflink Solutions

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Our Top 10 Most Visited Blogs in 2010

Happy 2011!

I thought it might be fun to look back at 2010 and find out which articles attacted the most visitors. I was a bit surprized to see the article that came out on top. But then I remembered that the articles published later in the year didn't have as much time to collect clicks.

Here's the list of top ten most visited articles on our blog in 2010:

Thanks so much for reading our articles!

Laura Upcott
Stafflink Solutions Ltd.

http://stafflink.ca/
http://ww.lauraupcott.com/
laurau@stafflink.ca
http://www.twitter.com/lauraupcott
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/lauraupcott

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

7 Segment Changers and Predictions for Tech in 2011

Hold onto your hats (or should I say wallets) because we’re in for some big changes in 2011. Here are seven up and coming technologies that recently caught my eye:

Mobile Wallets

Smartphones are going to begin a whole new market segment called Mobile Wallets. Will our cellphone become our new credit card? Recently Google bought mobile payment startup Zetawire. The NFC chip, which will allow for mobile payments, will start to be put into all mobile phones during 2011. The newest Nexus phones come with the NFC chip. According to TechCrunch, Apple was recently looking at purchasing BOKU, another mobile payments startup. But I believe the real revenues will come in 2012 in the Mobile Wallet world.

Square

http://www.squareup.com/ – The NFC chip is big, but I think that the most exciting development on the horizon for smartphone commerce is Square.

This product was created by Twitter co- founder Jack Dorsey. I believe that Square will revolutionize the way credit card payments are made. Square is a plastic attachment for cell phones (only iPhone and Android so far) that creates a sophisticated POS (point of sale) for all businesses.

Square will allow anyone to accept credit card payments without contracts or monthly fees. According to Square, this small device is free with a 15 cent/transaction fee. Here’s a video on how Square works - http://techcrunch.com/2009/12/01/jack-dorsey-square/.

Paypal Bump

Money will be transferred between phones by bumping two phones together. Here’s an entertaining video (good British humour behind a great app) that shows this Paypal Bump and the iPhone application in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9RNJ2yywuk

Quora

Quora – http://www.quora.com/ - is hot in Silicon Valley and I believe that 2011 will be the year it will make it big outside the “Valley.” The executive team that heads things up on the technology side all come from Facebook. They know more than a thing or two about social networking. Quora gives you the ability to follow topics and questions as well as people. It defines your profile by interests, not just by people you know. While Twitter and Facebook are also trying to create this interest graph, Quora is designed from the ground up for interest graphs. Check it out to be ahead of the social curve. Here’s a 60 second social media profile on Quora - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Fa0klZu68U

IPO Comeback

During the last two years we haven’t seen many successful IPO’s. This will begin to change in 2011. Recently Telsa stock has been skyrocketing. Kayak and Skype have announced that they are going public. Companies such as LinkedIn, Zygna and Groupon have intentions to go public. Everybody is speculating whether Facebook will go public. They raised 500M on a 50B valuation so Facebook may be able to wait a while before they go public. Recently there has been a lot of money on the sidelines in the technology realm. Many technology companies are profitable before going public unlike the more reckless investment model that characterized the “dotcom bubble.”

Battle for TV

The way we watch TV will continue to change in 2011. Apple has launched AppleTV that streams movies amongst other things. But competitors such as Google and start-ups Boxee, Hulu and Roku are going to throw a few punches in the battle for your TV viewing. This battle will create a giant market for apps that could rival the billion dollar smartphone app market.

Tablet Market

In 2010 we saw the arrival of the iPad that has created a new technology segment called the tablet market. The iPad is awesome. I'm sure Apple has an even more awesome iPad 2 in store for us. Can Apple's competitors come up with a credible product to compete with the iPad in 2011? Will the new version of the iPad leave the competitors in the dust? One thing is for sure, we will see many new competitors in the tablet market from Google, Dell, Samsung, and RIM to name a few.

It is going to be a very exciting year! By the end of 2011, I believe that Square, Mobile Wallets, Quora, IPO’s and the battle for TV are going to change the way we think about our technology and business.

What are your predictions for 2011? Which technologies and companies are you watching?

Related Articles:
Steve, Mark and Jim: Who Made 2010's Nice List?
Welcome to Toronto Silicon Valley North
Top 10 IT Skills in Demand 2010

Tim Collins

Friday, December 17, 2010

Steve, Mark and Jim: Who Made 2010’s Nice List

The holiday season is upon us and 2010 is wrapping up. As we look back on the year, it is evident that 2010 was a big year for technology. So who were the top contenders this year? Who managed to make techies “Nice List?”

Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, took the tablet market by storm, introducing the ever so powerful iPad in January 2010 and landing it on everyone’s 2010 wish list. In just four months, the iPad achieved $ 1 billion in sales. Couple that with the iPhone 4 release, generating $ 3.25 billion in sales between April and June and I think it’s safe to say Jobs belongs on the list.
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, reached 500 million active users on Facebook at the same time “The Social Network”, a story based on Zuckerberg’s success, took the box office by storm. In one month, users collectively spend over 700 billion minutes on Facebook, making the 2010 social networking market at the tips of Zuckerberg’s fingers.
Jim Balsillie, co-CEO of RIM, introduced the ever so powerful Playbook in the later half 2010, setting its release for early 2011. Consumers are oozing with anticipation for an iPad rival and developers are working hard to create competing applications, kicking 2011 off with Playbook fever.
Andrew Mason, CEO of Groupon, an increasingly popular coupon/discount site, has generated immense success in a very limited amount of time. Groupon has added approximately 30 cities a month in 35 countries, accumulating over 40 million subscribers. In addition, Mason just turned down a $6 billion dollar offer from Google making him one of the most courageous business men of 2010.
Kunal Gupta, CEO of Polar Mobile, has become one of Toronto’s newest hometown heroes. His company has created a partnership with Microsoft to launch 500 applications for the Windows Phone 7 operating system through to 2011. Over 7 million people in more than 100 countries are using applications powered by Polar Mobile’s SMART platform, making Polar a leader in the industry.
Dennis Crowley, co-founder of Foursquare, a mobile service that encourages people to explore the cities in which they live, is somebody to watch out for in 2011. In 2005, Crowley had his first mobile social service acquired by Google. His new venture, Foursquare, has a team of 16 employees but has over 760,000 users checking in – making them a small but mighty force.

How can 2011 compete with a year where the iPad and Playbook became common words in our everyday conversations and Mark Zuckerberg became a global icon? Where do we go from here? Who else do you think belongs on 2010’s “Nice List?”? Better yet, who will make 2011’s “Nice List”? Let us know your thoughts! We here at Stafflink, hope you made the “nice list” this year and wish everyone a safe and happy holiday season.

Related Articles:
Welcome to Toronto, Silicon Valley North
Top 10 IT Skills in Demand in 2010
The Job Market Longtail

Written by: Michelle De Rubeis, Technical Recruiter, StaffLink Solutions Ltd.
Website: http://www.stafflink.ca/
Email: michelle@stafflink.ca
Twitter: Twitter.com/stafflink1
LinkedIn: Linkedin.com/in/mmderubeis

Friday, December 3, 2010

Ho Ho TO!

Happy Holidays! StaffLink is proud to be a sponsor of HoHoTO, a Toronto fundraising event for the Daily Food Bank. HoHoTO is about getting together to decrease poverty and hunger amongst the citizens of Toronto. Not to get all glum and earnest on you but HoHoTO is about helping feed people:

In Toronto, people just like you made more than a million visits to food banks last year.
Food bank use is growing – up 15% nationally in 2010 over 2009.
More than 34% of the people relying on food banks in the GTA are children
The median monthly household income in Toronto is only $1,000.

Hunger in the GTA is caused by a lack of money not a lack of food. And that’s why HoHoTO was created — to help the Daily Bread Food Bank with desperately needed funds.

The first HoHoTO event was created two years ago through Twitter where it was conceived, organized and sold out within nine days. HoHoTO has recognized by Queen Raina of Jordan and Twitter co-founder Biz Stone in this 48 second video:

To purchase tickets or make a donation go to http://www.hohoto.ca/. Tickets will sell out quickly!

Enjoy the holidays! I'll be smiling and enjoying time with family. I wish you and your families a restful and joyous holiday season.

Tim Collins