Not sure which career to choose? Sometimes numbers can help. Now you can play around with this fun and interactive infographic from Rasmussen College that uses data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor and their  Occupational Employment Statistics (salary data) and Occupational Outlook Handbook (career information and outlook) released in April, 2013.

Want to know which companies are hiring for these careers? Scroll down or click here…

Here’s a screenshot of the infographic:

Click on the image to jump to the infographic.

In terms of earning potential, doctors and medical professionals are still at the top – but if you filter the data with the category of Computer and Mathematical Occupations you get to see some pretty fun stuff:

Computer and Mathematical Occupations

Computer and Information Research Scientists 

Median Salary $101,080
Projected expected growth by 2020 for this occupation:  18.7%

Workers in this field conduct research on fundamental computer and information science as theorists, designers, or inventors. They find solutions to computer hardware and software issues, and work with management, vendors, and technicians to determine computing needs.

Software Developers, Systems Software 

Median Salary: $96,600
Projected expected growth by 2020 for this occupation: 32.4%

Software developers are the creative minds behind computer programs. They develop many different applications and underlying systems control networks. They also modify existing software to correct errors and adapt new hardware to improve performance.

Software Developers, Applications

Median Salary: $89,280
Projected expected growth by 2020 for this occupation: 27.6%

Working with the latest technology software, developers develop, create, and modify general computer applications, software, or specialized utility programs. They design or customize software for client use with the aim of optimizing operational efficiency.

Which Companies Are Hiring For These Careers?

Here are some of the companies on Readyforce that are looking to connect with students interested in these types of  careers.

Click on their logo to connect with them today or click HERE to explore the full list!

The post Need Help Choosing A Career? Data to the Rescue appeared first on Readyforce Blog.

Axcient, which was named one of the 10 best places to work in the SF Bay area, is hiring smart college grads and interns for their engineering teams.  But please note: brains alone won’t land you a job.  While things may be moving quickly over at their Mountain View headquarters as the company shifts from startup to growth (the company raised another $20 million in Series D funding last January),  their primary focus when sourcing new talent is still finding people that will be a good fit for their company’s culture.

So what does the ideal candidate look like? And what (if they’re hired) can they expect to work on?

Engineering candidates applying to Axcient should be focused on team first, be result orientated and demonstrate a passion for coding.  Also? They like to have fun.  There are the occasional silly string wars and scooter races that pop up – and applicants should be cool with that.  One more thing, you should probably enjoy food.  The Axcient team boasts their own ‘master chefs’ who will host an impressive backyard barbeque once the weather permits, which being in California is almost always.  Back to the candidate’s profile… A strict technical background is not required but the ability to demonstrate both perseverance and passion with respect to coding challenges are.  Bottom line: are you a fun-coding-challenge loving person?  Good.

Once hired, Axcient’s interns and new hires join an engineering team that works on either web development, UI/UX, networking or core storage.  Most recently, the company released a complete redesign of their user experience to great reviews.  Looking ahead, the teams will be focused on virtualization, strong cloud computing, SaaS model, and big data issues.  New hires can expect to jump right in (with the backup and guidance of their onsite mentors) and contribute in a big way to Axcient’s product.  At this cloud computing company there are no legacy systems and everything is written from scratch.  Every contribution whether written by intern or senior developer will end up by used by the consumer.  A key fact that will continue to draw talent to this growing company.

So are you a change the world kind of person? Someone that is still interested in personal growth and collaboration?  Connect with Axcient on Readyforce today!

Check out this fun video from their office’s Halloween shenanigans.  The “Office Space” tribute with their CEO Justin Moore is definitely my favorite part!

The post Company Spotlight: Axcient appeared first on Readyforce Blog.

 

Commencement @umich My view twitter.com/dickc/status/3…

— dick costolo (@dickc) May 4, 2013

 

It’s quickly gaining popularity and will likely become one of the most viral commencement speeches joining Steve Jobs’s 2005 speech at Stanford and Conan O’Brien ‘s 2011 Dartmouth speech.

So that begs the question… Who will give the next great speech?  There are a lot of heavy hitters lined up across college campuses in the next few weeks.  Here’s a quick summary of who’s speaking and where.

The Geeks

Drew Houston, co-founder and CEO of Dropbox will deliver the commencement address at MIT’s 2013 ceremony.

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak will be headlining University of California, Berkeley’s address on May, 18, 2013.  Nate Silver, the world’s most famous statistician will speak at Ripon College in Wisconson and  Drew Houston, co-founder and CEO of Dropbox will take the stage at MIT’s ceremony on June 7, 2013.

The Comics

Stephen Colbert, Comedy Central’s own Dan Rather will be hosting speaking at University of Virginia’s ceremony on May 18, 2013. And technically, you could put Dick Costolo in this category as well, although he probably belongs with the geeks.

The Politicians

POTUS (aka President Barack Obama) will speak at not one, but three commencements this season.   He spoke at Ohio State on May 5th and will speak at Morehouse and the US Naval Academy in the coming weeks.  On the other hand, Vice President Joe Biden will only speak at one, the University of Pennsylvania’s podium on May 13th.

President Bill Clinton will also be on the circuit and will speak at Howard University’s commencement ceremonies on May 11, 2013.

The Mayors

The next two could have been lumped in under politicians but it’s more fun to give them their own category. It will be the battle of the mayors with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg speaking at Stanford on June 6th and Newark Mayor Corey Booker at Yale on May 19th.

The Spiritual

And in two of this season’s best ‘gets’, Tulane will be hosting his Holiness the Dalai Lama on May 18th and Harvard scored Oprah Winfrey as it’s keynote on May 30th.

If you missed Dick Costolo’s speech, here it is in its entirety.  He has set the bar pretty high for the 2013 commencement speech class. Here’s hoping there are some more good ones:

The post Who Will Win ‘Best Commencement Speech of 2013′? appeared first on Readyforce Blog.

Thank you to everyone that participated in the April Quixey Challenge! 

It was the 1st national Quixey Challenge and had the highest number of challenge participants to date!

Here are some results for all those that are curious about the challenge results…

5 Challenges – Fix a bug in 1 minute. Win $100.
325 registered for a challenge
14 solved a bug in under 60 seconds (4%)

Challenge # 1
Coding Language: C
Participants: 100
# that solved in under 60 seconds: 6
Fastest time: 39 seconds

Challenge # 2
Coding Language: CoffeeScript
Participants: 27
# that solved in under 60 seconds: 0
Fastest time: N/A

Challenge # 3
Coding Language: Python 3
Participants: 77
# that solved in under 60 seconds: 0
Fastest time: N/A

Challenge # 4
Coding Language: Python 3
Participants: 56
# that solved in under 60 seconds: 1
Fastest time: 59 seconds

Challenge # 5
Coding Language: Java
Participants: 65
# that solved in under 60 seconds: 7
Fastest time: 13 seconds

Congratulations to all the winners and thanks for playing! 

Stay tuned for details on the next coding challenge! 

The post Quixey Challenge Results Are In! appeared first on Readyforce Blog.

When we hosted Startup Life’13 with Zach Brock from Square and Paul Osman from SoundCloud about what life is really like interviewing and working at a startup, there were a couple of questions from our student viewers that we couldn’t get to.  Lucky for us, both Zach and Paul spent some time answering  those questions offline.  Here’s a little more Q&A from both of them – if there’s still something on your mind that you’d like to have them answer, just leave a comment below.  (Also,  if you missed the conversation, don’t worry you can view the whole thing here. )

Q: I’m not much of a graphics programmer. Is that a problem for my project portfolio, or is showing a strong engineering aspect in my programs good enough?

Zach: Not a problem – cool libraries, Project Euler solutions or open source contributions are great examples of your abilities.

Paul: More important than a project portfolio is having a strong presence on sites like Github. It’s okay if you don’t focus on front end technologies — there are still tons of projects or libraries you can contribute to (or create). Github is a great place for prospective employers to see your activity on these. 

Click the photo to jump to the webcast of Startup Life ’13 with Square and SoundCloud

Q: Are there online resources that provide industry-level code examples in the different languages that startups and big companies use?

Zach: Yes, check out open source projects that companies have released. You can find a list of all of Square’s open source projects at: square.github.com

Paul:  A good exercise is to take a look at the source code for open source projects you find interesting. The ones with the most active communities should have pretty good code. Another thing worth doing is to track projects and take a look at pull requests or patches that are submitted. Often community members will discuss changes and you can see some of the smells that often tip experienced developers off to bad code.

Q: Is it better to pursue a startup first or a long established company first? How does each option affect career paths?

Paul: I think it’s entirely up to you! It also very much depends on the company. There are established companies out there that you could learn a lot from (Google, Facebook come to mind). The one thing a startup will almost definitely offer differently is the ability to learn a lot of different things quickly (you’ll get to wear more hats typically).

Zach: I would recommend beginning your career at a startup. In my opinion, startups give you more opportunities to learn and grow early on in your career, as long as you’re self-directed and self-motivated. If you need more structure to thrive personally, you may want to start out at a bigger company.

Q: Is there a sample listing of programming questions/problems that an engineer candidate for Square may be expected to know during the coding part of the interview?

Paul: I’ll let Zach answer that :)

Zach: Not currently. In our interview process we focus on working through problems rather than the traditional Q&A interview format. Candidates spend the day pair programming with several Square engineers, writing in the language of their choice. The goal is to give each candidate a chance to work and collaborate with engineers from several different teams so they have a better sense of the people they might be working with one day. With these interviews, our goal isn’t to stump people but to see how they solve realistic problems.

Q: As a marketing student, how can I better prepare myself for a tech company? What types of skills would a non-technical student need to know in order to interact with different sectors of an organization?

Paul: I’d recommend being as familiar with the industry as possible. Read tech blogs, pay attention to marketing stuff thats happening in the tech industry, etc. Of course, being at least programming literate would also be a huge asset too, but not strictly necessary.

Zach: Have a friend who’s a programmer? Sit down with them for a few hours, observe, and ask questions. You’ll start to find patterns in their code and understand how programming languages result in actions. Also, get involved in the tech community – read tech blogs and reddit, stay up-to-date on the latest apps, and meet with people who work at startups.

Q: What about business students? What are you looking for when interviewing non-engineering students for internship/full-time positions?

Zach: We often say that we’re looking for T-shaped people – people who have breadth as well as depth. The ideal candidate is strong across a number of areas, but at the same time has an area of expertise so they can have a big impact.

We often ask many of the same questions to both our business and engineering candidates: Are you capable of working in a fast-paced environment? Are you flexible? Do you understand and believe in our mission? Can you think of creative, simple solutions to complex problems?

Q: I don’t have much extra time for side-projects. Should I spend a few months trying to shore up my side project portfolio before bothering to apply at startups?

Paul: The only thing I’ll say here is that students who have extra-curricular work to show definitely do stand out. 

Zach: Side projects are the best way to prepare both for the interview process and working at a startup. Any side project, no matter how small, is valuable. The experience of turning an idea into something real is the best education a software engineer can get. Remember that your project doesn’t have to be world changing to help you grow as an engineer.

Q: How can a college student refine and demonstrate the soft skills needed for success in an evangelist role?

Q: Any ideas on retaining startup culture as a company scales?

Paul:  I have tons — probably enough for a whole other series of blog posts :-) 

Zach: Maintain transparency, encourage collaboration, and stay sharply focused on your mission.

Q: How does attempting to start and work on a personal startup over the summer rather than, say, an internship look on a portfolio when you are hiring?

Zach: The question you should ask yourself is: where will I learn more? If you will learn more from the trial-and-error that comes with tackling your own project, go for your startup. If you’ll learn more by surrounding yourself with people who have a lot of great experience, an internship might be better for you.

Try not to think too much about what a company is looking for. The truth is that you can learn a lot from both experiences, and at Square we hire students from all kinds of backgrounds. Spend time on things you’re passionate about.

Paul: Depends on how successful you are working on your personal startup :) Honestly though, if you can get an MVP shipped as a new grad, that’ll definitely help you stand out.

Q: What’s the benefit and risk of moving from a large, established company to a startup?

Zach: At a startup you can make decisions quickly. You’ll often find fewer layers of management, an open workspace, and more transparency. Startups are inherently collaborative, which is a great way to learn really quickly from the people around you.

On the other hand at a startup you’re probably going to have a lot more individual responsibility and opportunities to fail. Personally I love having the freedom to make a big impact, but I think some people find it overwhelming.

Paul: The only risk I can think of is stability, and this largely depends on the kind of start-up you want to move to. If you’re looking at an extremely early stage start-up, there is of course the risk that they won’t last longer than your planned tenure there. These days there are plenty of viable start-ups that have long runways, so you can easily spend a few years working at one without worry. The benefits are too many to list :)

Q: What is the best way to create a network with professionals in the Silicon Valley area to help with opportunity searching if you are not located on the West Coast?

Zach: Here are a few ideas:

• Contribute to open source projects. Showing is much more powerful than telling.
• Alumni networks: Many career centers offer access to online alumni databases. This is a great way to identify alums in Silicon Valley and beyond working for companies of interest. The best way for a company to grow is through referrals. You can help your chances by identifying a “champion” who can advocate for your candidacy and pass your resume directly to recruiters. 
• Attend conferences: But don’t just go to listen, be an active participant by introducing yourself to attendees, following up with speakers, etc.

Paul: This depends on where you live. While the Valley is still a huge centre for technology companies, most major cities have pretty decent tech scenes nowadays. If you’re in a city with meetups, technology groups, etc, then I’d recommend getting involved in those as a first step. It’s also worth noting that open source knows no city boundaries, so wherever you are, you can get involved in online technology communities which can help a lot.

Q: You have recommended doing side projects a number of times. Where can one get ideas about side projects?

Paul: I think the best side projects come out of things that bug you personally. If there’s an app that you wish existed, go ahead and build it. It’s also worth mentioning that not all side projects have to be fully functioning user facing products. Often times you’ll end up using open source tools or libraries in your day-to-day work. If you encounter bugs in any of these, go ahead and fix them. 

Zach: Engineers in particular have the ability to solve the problems and pain points they run across in everyday life. Any time you find something annoying or frustrating there’s probably an opportunity to make it better through software. For example, my roommates and I were frustrated at the manual task of settling up bills at the end of each month, so we wrote an app to help make it easier: www.billcrush.com.

Want to have another StartupLife conversation?

Tell us in the comments who you’d like to hear from.

To connect with Paul from SoundCloud click here.

To get connect with Zach from Square click here.

To read more from Square’s blog click here. 

The post Startup Life’13 Follow Up: Square and SoundCloud Answer Your Questions appeared first on Readyforce Blog.

Manifest’s Agility Bootcamp is a fast-paced, six-week paid program led and taught by some of the industry’s leading software craftsmen. Led by the venerable Christopher Judd, CTO & Partner at Manifest Solutions, the class is broken into six, one-week iterations. Each iteration includes a retrospective, iteration planning, and user story tasking sessions. Each day includes training in critical development concepts, techniques, tools and frameworks, version control, continuous integration, client side and server side performance and design patterns. The hands-on development focuses on paired programming and ATDD/TDD on a real web based application. There is a large emphasis on developing clean and maintainable code. Lastly, those who are able to endure and complete the bootcamp will be looking at a significant raise in pay as you integrate your career skills into the consultant workspace. The key to success in the program (again, if you’re accepted) says CEO Nancy Matijasich, is to stay self-aware. Those that are the most successful “are team players that stay positive and are always looking for ways to raise the team around them.”

Minding the gap between knowledge and experience to create the Next Generation of Developers writing great code and propelling young developers up their career path toward craftsmanship. That’s Manifest’s mission.

You can connect with Manifest Solutions on Readyforce by visiting their profile here.

The post Manifest Solutions: Minding the Technical Skills Gap appeared first on Readyforce Blog.

Have you ever had an idea for an invention? Perhaps a magical bed-making device. Or a robotic dog pooper-scooper? Maybe you thought it was too crazy? Maybe you didn’t know where to even begin? How do you go from a far-fetched idea in your head to a product that sold in retail stores?

Quirky is here to help – they are on a mission to make inventions accessible.  Quirky is a social invention platform where community members submit ideas, vote and collaborate on ideas, and help bring Quirky inventions to life. They bring multiple consumer products to market each week by enabling a fluid conversation between a global community and Quirky’s expert product design staff.  Revenue is shared directly with the people who helped make successful decisions.

Every week, the Quirky team reviews ideas and votes for their top picks. A weekly panel of rotating team members fosters a collaborative and democratic team culture. Over pizza and beer or a more refined catered dinner, the Quirky team is encouraged to participate and socialize in these weekly evals. Quirky’s team are passionate, talented and know how to ‘get shit done’ . They work in a fast and dynamic environment, but will never lose sight of their single yet ambitious vision: to make invention accessible.

Quirky has two workshops in the office where you’ll see the team designing, developing a prototype, testing, designing, taking photographs, and much more. This is not your typical New York City startup.

The post Quirky – Making Inventions Accessible appeared first on Readyforce Blog.

Hey company admins and recruiters! Did you know that you can add your team members to your Readyforce company profile? If you have a few different hiring mangers, recruiters, or any other team members that are involved with your recruiting process, you should definitely add them to your company profile.

Within the Team section of your company profile, add your team members:

Company admins have the ability to edit your company profile – add job postings, upload pictures and videos… You can add as many team members as you’d like. If you want them to receive intro requests that students have made to your company, make sure to check the box.

Your team members will receive an email inviting them to join Readyforce. We definitely encourage everyone to complete their personal profiles. (Pictures please! Having a photo really helps students engage with you and your company.)

Email Settings

You can also control your email settings. When students send Intro Requests to your company, how often would you like to receive an email? 

Thoughts (both good and bad)? Suggestions? Let me know. I’m all ears.

The post Adding Team Members to Your Company Profile appeared first on Readyforce Blog.

It has been a couple of months since the last Quixey challenge gave coders the opportunity to find and solve a bug in 60 seconds to win $100 but good news… the Quixey Challenge is back!

Readyforce and Quixey have teamed up to give coders from around the country a shot at bug solving glory.

We wanted to bring the Quixey challenge back in a big way, so today we are happy to announce that the 1st nationwide Quixey Challenge will be happening Sunday, April 28th!
The nitty gritty details are below.

There is a limited number of spots open so sign up today to reserve your spot!

SIGN UP HERE

When: Sunday, April 28th

The challenges will take place at 12 noon, 3pm, 5pm, 6pm and 9pm (all times pacific)

The Quixey Challenge is a 100% free coding challenge and takes less than 10 minutes to participate in.  Find and solve a bug in under 60 seconds and win $100. It’s that simple.

There will be a total of 5 challenges throughout Sunday with a limit of 100 participants per challenge.  To sign up and reserve your spot you must register here: ….it takes less than 15 seconds.

You can only participate in 1 challenge per day but feel free to register for whichever time is best for your schedule.  The challenge is limited to 100 participants and registration is on a first come, first serve basis so please register ASAP.

After registering, there is a practice area for you to get used to the format of the challenge and sharpen your skills.

The challenges will all vary but will be in one of the following programming languages:

• Python 3
• Javascript
• Java
• C
• Coffeescript

Take a look at the screenshot below for an example of what a challenge looks like:

Remember: 100 spots per challenge, available on a first come first served basis.

REGISTER HERE

The post Readyforce and Quixey Team Up To Host Nationwide Coding Challenge appeared first on Readyforce Blog.

Understand the Product

Let’s face it, it’s all about the product. You want to impress a startup during your interview?  Be sure you understand their product and their value proposition. Use their product.  Is it not available to the public yet? Ask to demo it and offer to provide feedback.  Pure gold? Finding a bug or suggesting a valuable improvement to their user experience.  Show your stuff in a live setting – they will appreciate you digging in and your being able to speak their product’s language. This is singlehandedly the most important piece of research you can do. Speak their product’s language.

Personnel Recon 

This is really important – who are you interviewing WITH?  Write their names down.  Now look at the company’s About Us page and figure out who works with or for who.  Write those names down too. Next, what can you find out about them?  If it’s on the internet and they have an opinion on something you are entitled to know about it.

How to do it?

Twitter:

• Go to Twitter and check out the recruiter’s profile description.  Often people will include a link to the personal blogs or their personal webpage there.  
• Be sure to read their twitter feeds to see what’s been on their mind and read any links they’ve deemed retweetable. 
• BONUS: Check who they are following on Twitter, there may be additional people from the company in their followers.

Quora:

• Look to see if they’ve contributed to Quora and what topics they are following.
• Check for mentions of the company on Quora by others.

LinkedIn:

• Scope the recruiter out on LinkedIn.
• Check for any common connections on LinkedIn. You never know how you might be connected.  If you get farther along in the interview process a personal note from a mutual acquaintance could make all the difference. Also, if they’ve recently joined the company it can help you paint a picture of their background and you can ask what attracted them to the company.
• Who else works for the company?  Which names are in the department that you would be working with? Write all those names down.

Remember, it’s not stalking it’s research*. 

*Side note on that: you can totally search for them on Facebook and see if they have a public profile there. I just highly recommend that you don’t bring up how delicious their Aunt Milly’s barbecue looked last weekend because that’s just awkward. 

Blog Search  

OK, this one may seem obvious, read the company’s blog.  That is of course, if they have one up and running.  But when companies are in startup mode and are ‘heads down’ and focused on getting the product going and they may not be spending much time on documenting their efforts or latest feature releases on a company blog. (Remember, the product is THE most important thing.)  Don’t fear, you can still sneak a peak behind the curtain.  Look to see if any of their employees are commenting on other blogs. 

How to do it? 

• Do a Google search, but not just a regular Google search.  Use the Google Blog Search function.  Search for the company’s name and also use the names from your personnel recon above.  Most often you will see non-mainstream mentions of the people and the company and you will sometimes get comments left by them on other companies’ blogs.  

Check the Obvious: Read the Company Profile and Website

If you are reading this post then you are already aware that companies that are looking to hire college students maintain profiles on Readyforce.  But don’t overlook the obvious… companies will often update the photos, videos and links to their company profile to attract your attention. Be sure to take the time to read what they’ve posted there including their brief summary. It’s often not the same old stodgy description you’ll find elsewhere because they are trying to talk to you, the college student.

The post Preparing For The Interview: How To Research A Startup appeared first on Readyforce Blog.