Tag: career

Link to Huffington Post blog.

LinkedIn released its latest iteration for both iPhone and Android in April: the LinkedIn Students app, geared specifically toward soon-to-be graduates looking for jobs and internships.

The app leverages LinkedIn’s database of over 400 million professionals. “The brand new app helps you discover jobs that are a best fit for graduates with your major, companies that tend to hire from your school and the careers paths of recent alumni with similar degrees,” a LinkedIn spokesman said when unveiling the product.

I preface this critique by detailing that I use my LinkedIn a ton. But it is far from perfect. And while I would say that one opinion normally does not matter , in this case, I am the target market. So my opinion does matter.

I have been looking for a solution like this for a while. I, personally, have tried to attack this problem in the past — bringing in VCs to my school and connecting students with jobs in the area — but it is not easy.

So I have been looking for a platform to help other students join the conversation.

So here is how my test run of the LinkedIn Students app went (not the best):

You enter the app and it prompts you with “5 ideas” to get your career exploration started.

These custom ideas are populated by the information you provide LinkedIn.

Screenshot of the LinkedIn Students app.

The app gives you a chance to confirm this information before you begin your search. However, the credentials are extremely baseline: school and major. (***Does not support a double major).

From there , the app populates news, alumni (who are not really alumni, but rather classmates), and job postings (pretty generic ones).

5 ideas to find your future career? Generically?

Is that enough ?

The simple answer is no. This attempt by LinkedIn fails to help students because it is not serious enough. Finding a job is not “extra-credit.” To find the right job takes time and effort. Job postings are already available to the masses, and LinkedIn’s display of information — using “ideas”— is not customized and lacks depth.

But , I believe that LinkedIn is identifying a serious problem.

There is currently a gap between young talent and jobs. This is an opportunity for technology to merge and create new opportunities. Jobs cannot be offered “conveniently” — you need to make students work and hustle for them. But the industry can be more transparent and welcoming to students , and tech can help bring talent to opportunities.

“Talent is universal, while opportunity is not” — Niko Bonatsos.

This post was originally featured on Medium and was republished with permission from the author.

The unusually stormy and turbulent weather that shook the plane (almost to pieces as we were about to land) was enough of a sign that this trip to San Francisco would be very unique. Indeed, it turned out to be a very inspiring, exciting, and a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

We, 17 students from Olin Business School, were headed out to meet technology giants such as Facebook, Uber, Oracle, and Intel. We were hopeful that meeting alums at these firms would provide us the much-needed knowledge of what it takes to break into the world of Top Hi-Tech firms.

Olin students visited tech giants like Intel, Oracle, and Facebook during their trip to San Francisco. The trip was sponsored by the Weston Career Center.

We started off at Intel, where a couple of alums took us around the office. Then, they provided us a detailed overview of how Intel manages its complicated operations spread across various continents. Personally, hopping onto a corporate jet to reach another office while also avoiding the painful TSA checks is a big enough incentive to be at Intel.

This was followed by a candid conversation with an alum from Uber, who hit home the point about the enormous scale at which technology firms are disrupting traditional business models. What was most interesting was his perspective on how we could set ourselves apart from the competition by building up great data analysis skills, with the industry having access to mammoth amounts of data collected through analytics.

Day 2 started off with an early-morning trip to Oracle, where we were introduced to the world of Exadata, the machines that are behind almost all of the financial transactions that take globally. We were then walked through Oracle’s strategy for entry into the world of Cloud Services, and how Oracle aims to be the best of the best in cloud services.

What was most interesting was his perspective on how we could set ourselves apart from the competition by building up great data analysis skills.

We rounded off the trek with a trip to Facebook’s coveted headquarters at Menlo Park. Learning how Facebook is bringing the world closer, through machine learning and various initiatives to promote free internet, was an eye opener. We closed the proceedings with an inspiring speech from an alum on how, in spite of all the odds stacked against her, she managed to break into the world of technology by staying true to the dream and keeping at it no matter what obstacles came her way.

By the end of the trek, we completely understood the passion and the innovative culture that defines the technology industry, and we walked away with a lot of new friends. Even before getting on the plane to St Louis, I had already started planning for the next trek in the Fall of 2017. I would want to do the trip over and over again; not just to witness the world of technology transforming the world, but also to cherish the delicious fresh donuts at Fisherman’s Wharf along with a lovely walk at North Beach!

Guest blogger: Sagar Sameer, MBA ’17

With nearly 30,000 Olin alumni working around the world, chances are you will find one at a company you are interested in. The Weston Career Center hosts alumni panels throughout the year where alumni share advice on job interviews and what it’s like to work at major corporations as well as startups. In February, alumni from Amazon, Dell, eBay, and MasterCard, in addition to a guest from Square, were here.

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Professor Lamar Pierce tells the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that young people have watched their parents deal with the pressures and anxiety of job insecurity at a time when companies show little in the way of loyalty to their workers. They see no reason to believe that dynamic will ever change, so they’re looking for a diversity of income sources. “Millennials are coming into the job market with that expectation,” Pierce said.

Link to article: Piecing together a living through the Gig Economy

9/6/15