A Visit from Michele Armstrong

Last class we had another guest speaker. This time it was Michele Armstrong.

Michele works for Vulcan Inc, a company owned by Paul Allen. Her job is to find and hire people to work there. It was very interesting to here her discuss the process Vulcan goes through because it is a very exclusive company, so getting a job there is harder than the average job interview.

One thing she talked about that was particularly interesting was her suggestion to market yourself on social networks. I thought Facebook was more just a means to check and make sure your potential employee isn't a nutjob. Michele however suggested a few strategies to finding and getting a job.

-She said to market yourself on Facebook. By that I mean that we should treat Facebook like a resume, and make sure it reflects us in a professional way.
-She said to follow the companies you want to work for on Twitter. Apparently companies are increasingly posting job listings on Twitter. You can also find out more about the culture at the company by seeing it's "tweets."
-She said it is essential to have a LinkedIn account. I didn't really know what LinkedIn is, but I definitely made an account after she suggested it. It is quite the interesting professinal tool.
-She had a similar point to her Facebook point about myspace as well.

Another suggestion she gave was to make sure we check craigslist.org for job listings. Even at Vulcan, a decently prestigious company, they use craigslist.org. It is a cheap, effective way for a company to market itself, and if a company like Vulcan is doing it I guarantee plenty of software companies are doing it. Apparently a corporate membership to sites like Monster.com costs Vulcan 20k a year. That is crazy expensive.

Anyway it was a very insightful look into how high level hiring is done. I got some good tips and some good insight that should help me when I start looking for a job after graduation.

-Caleb Benningfield