What a Microsoft rescue worker saw in Haiti

 

While many people have jobs at Microsoft that aim to avoid disasters, Gisli Olafsson's job is getting through them.

As a full-time disaster management specialist for the software maker, Olafsson works with the United Nations and other agencies to prepare before devastation hits and also to coordinate efforts once it does. Olafsson has been sent across the globe to deal with the aftermath of earthquakes and hurricanes, offering help in rebuilding the infrastructure that nature has wiped away.

But, that's only part of the reason Olafsson so often finds himself on the scene of natural calamities. A native of Iceland, Olafsson also volunteers as part of that country's national search and rescue team.

What a Microsoft rescue worker saw in Haiti | Beyond Binary - CNET News

Resume Wording Matters

It’s no secret that there are a lot of people out of work these days. What you may not have known is that the national unemployment rate has a direct effect on everyone looking for a job.

Companies are inundated with resumes, many from people who aren’t necessarily qualified for—or even interested in—the position for which they’re applying. This has been not only my personal experience, but I’ve also heard similar reports from many of my peers regarding the sheer volume of resumes landing in our inboxes.

So how do you highlight the right skills on your resume to stand out, especially given the current quantity of resumes recruiters are sifting through?

In addition to making sure you meet the minimum requirements for the position you’re applying for, take the time to consider how your resume is worded in the context of what we’ve asked for in a successful candidate. You may have the experience we’re looking for, but if your phraseology is different from our requirements, we may overlook that skill when reviewing your resume. An example might be that we’ve asked for:

• A minimum of three years’ experience developing client-server enterprise software

Say that your resume lists the technologies used for client-server enterprise software, and you have more than three years’ experience… but, if a recruiter isn’t familiar with those technologies and doesn’t see “client-server” and/or “enterprise software” – your resume could be passed over along with the glut of other under-qualified resumes.
In these competitive times, it is essential to have concise wording in your resume that is specific to the job opening.

Happy hunting!

-Ryan

also posted on Jobsblog.com

HIRING: Microsoft Dynamics CRM – Software Development Engineer - 257793

Please apply on our career site. 

Microsoft CRM (Customer Relations Management) is a business application designed to accelerate sales, service, and marketing. The CRM team is leading the way in transitioning Microsoft's server business from the enterprise to the internet by enabling both offerings on a single code base while growing at a rapid pace. CRM Online is a premium paid service ($44 / user / month).
The CRM Online team is part of the broader CRM team, responsible for incremental releases to the web. We deliver the infrastructure that enables the product to be sold on the web and to scale to thousands of tenants and millions of users.
We've recently shipped the third revision of the online service (CRM Online R3) and are now working on R4. Through the service's lifetime so far we've seen over a 10 fold increase in customers. Now, we're looking for a developer to help lead the way to enable the next 10 fold increase by improving product scale and gradually moving us towards lights-out operation of the software.
This position requires strong architecture and design skills with a special knack for incremental development, as we ship on relatively short release cycles (~6 months). The CRM Online code base is nearly all C# with small pockets of C++. The ideal candidate is familiar with developing data center quality software and fluent in WCF, ASP.Net, and SQL. Leadership potential is also desired, though not required.
Position Requirements:
5+ years of software development experience including participation in multiple product releases
2+ years experience in web services and/or middle tier development
Extensive software design, development and debugging skills
Experience with managed and unmanaged languages
Outstanding problem solving skills including a keen ability to break large problems down into small pieces
Online service or enterprise server experience
Passion for technology, software engineering, quality and customer
Bachelors degree in Computer Science or equivalent
If you meet these requirements and are interested in contributing to the company's shift to software as a service, come join the CRM Online team!

Job Details - Microsoft Careers

Microsoft's Ads Making an Impact on Value Perceptions

 

Microsoft's Laptop Hunters ads are making an impact on the perception of Windows computers vs. Apple computers in terms of value, according to BrandIndex.
That's been the key point in Microsoft's ads, that there are more choices and lower prices among Windows PCs. The data from BrandIndex shows that Apple's value score among the key 18 - 34 segment dropping since late winter to about 12.4 today. Meanwhile, Microsoft has risen from near zero in early February to a value-perception score of 46.2 (click the above image to enlarge).
Ted Marzilli, global managing director for BrandIndex at consumer polling service YouGov said:

"Apple had a pretty big advantage, historically, when we look at our data. Apple did a great job of putting Microsoft on the defensive. It made them look old, stodgy, complicated to use and unhip. But Microsoft has started to hit back, and younger folks are more cost- or value-focused.
"It would be very unusual for Microsoft's score to be increasing this much and Apple's to be decreasing without some sort of event driving that, like a major campaign that's particularly successful."

Is it all about the recession? AdAge says no, because the numbers didn't really start to move in Microsoft's favor until well after the recession had become a dismal everyday issue.
It's hard to believe isn't it? Microsoft with a successful advertising campaign after all those failures (particulary the Bill Gates / Jerry Seinfeld fiasco). OK, when are they going to blow it?

Tech-Ex: Microsoft's Ads Making an Impact on Value Perceptions

Tips for Landing an IT Job in the Recession

 

Today’s job market is more challenging than any that most IT professionals have ever faced. One consequence is that strategies to locate employment that may have proved successful in previous economic cycles may not be as effective today. Here are some tips to help you land a high-tech job in the current recession:

Throw out your old resume

When launching a job hunt, your first step is usually to dust off your old resume and update it with your most recent accomplishments. But that strategy may not be effective in today’s job market. For one thing, it may have been many years since you last searched for employment. If that’s the case, the document could be so outdated that it simply makes more sense to start from scratch.

Perhaps more important, today’s employers seek attributes that you may not have focused on in earlier drafts of your resume. For example, companies that are hiring are looking for individuals who can help the organization save money or improve efficiencies. They want evidence that you’ve contributed to another firm’s bottom line. As a result, you must note any quantifiable achievements, such as reducing call times by 10 percent when you worked the help desk.

In addition, many hiring managers seek “multitalented” professionals, those individuals who can wear more than one hat. These IT practitioners can often fill multiple roles especially when teams are lean. Although you want to keep your resume targeted to each opportunity, you may decide to highlight a slightly broader segment of your work experience than you would have in the past.

Don’t try to hide employment gaps

In previous hiring environments, a break in your work history could have been seen as a black mark on your record. But with so many individuals out of work, employers understand that you may be looking for a job because of factors beyond your control.

If you have an employment gap, you don’t need to go to great lengths to disguise it. For example, some individuals rework their resume using a functional style to downplay any periods of unemployment. But this format — in which you list your skills at the top of the document and shorten or omit entirely your work history — could work against you by making it seem like you have something to hide.

Instead, use your cover letter and any face time with the hiring manager to explain how you’ve remained professionally engaged while searching for a new position. Enrolling in a training course, for example, can help indicate that you have kept your skills sharp and that you remain up-to-date with changes in the IT industry.

Also highlight any volunteer work you’ve done. Listing these types of assignments on your resume — as well as part-time or temporary engagements — will show hiring managers you’d be able to hit the ground running if hired.

Expand your horizons

In today’s employment market, a narrow focus could ruin your chances of landing a new position. Instead of setting your sites on a specific job or company, consider what types of employers seek your qualifications and in which industries and even areas of the country there are a shortage of professionals with your skill set.

For example, the healthcare field continues to expand, and initiatives such as the transition to electronic medical records mean that IT professionals will be needed by organizations in this sector for the foreseeable future.

The key to pursuing work outside your traditional sphere is to highlight your transferable skills in your application materials. Transferable skills are those abilities you possess that could be applied to any number of jobs, such as communication, leadership and critical thinking.

Consider how these qualifications might translate in a different role or industry. For example, if you’ve enjoyed leading projects, you might apply for a position as a project manager, even if you’ve never held that title.

Network, network, network

The best way to find a job is through word of mouth, and this is especially true in a market like today’s, where opportunities are few and far between. A referral from a friend can make all the difference when a hiring manager is determining whom to call in for an interview.

Because of this, it’s crucial you continue to invest in networking activities. After all, the more people you know, the more likely you are to have a contact who can assist you in your job search.

Becoming involved in an industry association is a great way to meet others in the IT field. But don’t limit your outreach efforts to other “techies.” Professionals in other industries may be able to help you get an “in” with companies that are hiring through new channels.

Attend networking events that are open to workers from various fields or even “pink slip parties,” where out-of-work professionals can share leads and information. You can also meet a broad range of people by leveraging online communities such as LinkedIn and Facebook.

One word of caution, however: Don’t be overzealous when asking for help. You need to establish rapport with someone before requesting his or her assistance in your job search. A good rule of thumb is to do the other person a favor before seeking help from him or her.

In addition, many professionals today are suffering from “referral fatigue.” That is, they have been approached by so many people asking for a job lead or referral that they simply can’t accommodate every request. Be selective in who you approach for help and be aware that someone may not always be able to lend a hand.

Tips for Landing an IT Job in the Recession

Microsoft buys Vancouver gaming startup BigPark

 

BigPark Inc., a two-year-old Vancouver online video game company, will be bought by U.S. computer software giant Microsoft, the American company announced Thursday.

Microsoft, in a statement, said the Canadian video game maker will be integrated with Microsoft Game Studios, based in Redmond, Wash., “where the team will continue development on an exclusive Xbox 360 game.”

Financial details of the purchase were not disclosed.

In an interview, BigPark CEO Hanno Lemke said the company will retain all of its 50 employees, and continue to work out of Vancouver under the BigPark name.

“Our goal is to continue on in our current growth plan, which sees us growing over the next number of years,” Lemke said. “We are hiring, but we really want to remain a boutique developer . . . . The plan is to be disciplined and measured in our growth.”

Lemke co-founded BigPark in June 2007 with Wil Mozell, Erik Kiss and Don Mattrick, the former president of Electronic Arts Worldwide who left to become senior vice-president of Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business.

BigPark has been working with Microsoft for the past year on a new title, details of which will be announced next month at the E3 trade show in Los Angeles.

“We are delighted by the opportunity to welcome the BigPark team,” Microsoft Game Studios general manager Phil Spencer said in a statement.

Microsoft buys Vancouver gaming startup BigPark

All You Need to Know to Tweet on Twitter

Since many recruiters are now “Tweeting” – Here’s a good read on how to get started using Twitter.

OPRAH WINFREY granted pop superstardom in April not to another fraudulent memoirist, but to Twitter, the online social network that has lured both Hollywood celebrities and basement amateurs away from their blogs.

TweetDeck, a Twitter app, breaks out multiple columns for different kinds of tweets and different groups of friends.

 

Spreadtweet is a desktop Twitter app that mimics an Excel spreadsheet. The spreadsheet's rows are actually tweets.

To the Internet hipsters who discovered Twitter in 2006, Oprah’s inaugural tweet — FEELING REALLY 21st CENTURY, she typed — was the end of the era, the shark jump. But that’s like saying the Beatles were over after they appeared on “The Ed Sullivan Show.”

Twittermania has only begun. In the days after Oprah’s show, Twitter’s traffic growth is accelerating. The ratings service HitWise now ranks twitter.com as America’s No. 38 Web site. It’s about to rocket past CNN and Wells Fargo.

Because it’s kept simple, most users figure out Twitter quickly. If you began tweeting the day of Oprah’s show, it’s a safe bet you already know how to DM a private message to a friend, and how to R.T. a joke worth retweeting. You search for #swineflu every few hours, and know it’s called a hashtag. You’ve learned how to follow Demi Moore and block online marketers.

Assuming you’ve got these basics down, there are many less obvious tips and tweaks to get more from tweeting. They all can be Googled, but the online version of this article has the links.

Advanced Search

Twitter has some powerful search options, but good luck trying to find them. If you use the search box built into Twitter’s Web interface, it won’t tell you there’s also an advanced search tool, and special characters — “operators” in search jargon — that you can use to search for, say, “Bush OR Cheney since:2009-01-20.”

To find the Advanced Search, scroll to the bottom of any page at twitter.com and look for the link “Search” hiding there. Click it and you’ll be taken to search.twitter.com. Click the Advanced Search link. I suggest bookmarking the Advanced page on your browser. There’s another link there that lists all search operators, like “within:10mi.”

Twitter via S.M.S.

Twitter’s architects deliberately limited tweets to 140 characters, so that they could be sent and received as short message service text messages (S.M.S. allows 160 characters, but the Twitter people left room for user names.) Many newcomers are unaware they can operate Twitter by texting. Login at twitter.com and click Settings, then go to Devices and add your phone.

At first, you’ll get nothing. That’s because, by default, updates from the users you follow aren’t texted to your phone, so you don’t run up a bill. Instead, the interface at twitter.com adds buttons next to each user you follow, so you can turn updates on or off.

You can tweet from your phone by texting a message to 40404. You can also text commands to Twitter, like “help” or more important, “off.”

Twitter/Facebook Integration

Are you a Facebook user who also tweets? Wish you could type only one status update, and have it appear in your profile on both social networks? Go to twitter.com/widgets/facebook and click the button at the bottom of the page that says “Install Twitter in Facebook.” You’ll then have to click through a few pages of configuration.

You can use the connection in either direction. I suggest updating Twitter and letting it pass the tweet along to Facebook. It takes fewer steps, and you’ll be kept within the 140-character limit.

Favorites

Another hidden feature: If you like a tweet and want to preserve it for eternity, mouse over it. A star-shaped icon appears at the right of the text. Click that. Then, you can click the Favorites link on your home page to see all the tweets whose stars you’ve clicked, no matter how long ago you saved them. You can also go to other users’ pages and browse through their Favorites.

Sharing Photos

You can’t send photos through Twitter, but you can send the URL for a photo hosted on a Web site. TwitPic plugs the gap with a Web site that both holds your photos and creates URLs for them. You login to twitpic.com with your Twitter username and password, then upload a photo from your computer. You and other users can then share the picture by going to the TwitPic page for your photo and tweeting from there. TwitPic forwards them to Twitter with the correct photo URL automatically appended.

Desktop Twitter Apps

If you’re still using a browser window open to twitter.com to tweet from your computer, try using a desktop (or laptop) client instead, to make sending and reading tweets more like using AOL Instant Messenger.

On Windows machines, Digsby is an application that displays Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and all of your e-mail accounts in a long, tall window that looks like a buffed-up A.I.M..

Mac users can try Twitterrific, which has been praised for a visual aesthetic that resembles Apple’s slick Aperture photo editor.

Both these applications tuck Twitter into the side of your display. If you’d rather it cover your screen, try TweetDeck, a free program that runs on both PCs and Macs. Instead of one column of tweets, TweetDeck breaks out multiple columns for different kinds of tweets and different groups of friends. It has plenty of extra features, too, like photo uploads to TwitPic, a Facebook tie-in and a ticker of stock market tweets.

Phone Apps

Like desktop apps, Twitter clients for smartphones are also proliferating faster than reviewers can track them. And again, there’s no obvious Best in Show. I suggest TwitterBerry for BlackBerry, Tweetie for iPhones, and Twidroid for G1 Android phones. Why? Because these three make it easy to post photos from your phone’s camera to TwitPic without thinking about it.

Another Phone Use

TweetCall is a recently introduced voice-recognition system that takes calls to 1-877-TWEETCALL from your phone, converts your spoken words to text, then tweets the result through your account.

TweetCall correctly parsed “How was the amuse-bouche at French Laundry?” But it still misses words and can’t parse my friends’ user names. The company claims that in a few weeks, the system will have many more Twitter-centric features including support for user names and hashtags.

Sneaking Office Tweets

Spreadtweet is a cheeky desktop app that mimics a boring Excel spreadsheet. Coworkers who don’t look too closely won’t realize your spreadsheet’s rows are actually tweets. I use it at home because it packs a lot of tweets into a small space, with no distracting visuals.

OutTwit is a more serious application that adds Twitter support into Microsoft Outlook. You can send and read tweets from inside Outlook, and then archive, group and search them as if they were e-mail messages.

Save Time for Tweeting

TweetBeep.com does what the I.T. guys call alerts. Once programmed, it will search Twitter once an hour and shoot you an e-mail if it finds, say, the name of your company or the latest batch of #swineflu tweets. TweetBeep saves you from spending your day hovering over the Advanced Search page.

Then again, who am I kidding? One of Twitter’s primary attractions is that it gives obsessive webheads something to reload that updates faster than Google News. All these power tools make using Twitter more flexible and more fun. But they aren’t going to send any of us scurrying back to work any sooner.

All You Need to Know to Tweet on Twitter - NYTimes.com

Seattle: City of the Year

When Fast Company named Seattle its 2009 City of the Year -- based on the city's creativity, the editors said -- surely, I thought, the weather and the winters must have had something to do with it. Our winters are dark: At 47 degrees latitude, the winter solstice brings sundown at 4:21 p.m. and sunrise at 7:54 a.m. Our winters are gray: While we get only 38 inches of rain per year -- less than New York or Boston, Houston or Atlanta -- we average 154 days of precipitation. Our winters are long: Cloudy season begins in October and lasts into June; we boast an average of 226 cloudy days a year.

But consider the bounty those long, dark, damp winters have provided the world. There's Starbucks, Microsoft, Amazon and its Kindling, Boeing jets, Frango mints, Pearl Jam, Costco, Jones Soda, Jimi Hendrix, salmon jerky. That's an impressive list for a city of just 600,000 people tucked in a remote corner of America, wedged tightly between two mountain ranges, and pushed up against the cold, deep Puget Sound.

Now, in our nation's economic winter, Seattle's multifaceted economy and forward-thinking business climate have given the city a little extra insulation; the jobless rate in January was 6.8%, more than a percentage point better than the national average. This is the kind of city that will thrive and lead us into recovery.

So I set out to explore why, exactly, so many creative, influential minds -- both native and transplanted, from Quincy Jones to Bill and Melinda Gates, Cameron Crowe to Sir Mix-a-Lot -- who have contributed so much to the world, love this city and call it home.

I grew up in Seattle. My father was a Jewish kid from Brooklyn; my mother, a Tlingit Indian-Irish hybrid from Alaska. They met when they were stationed on the same U.S. Army base in Germany, then settled here to be near my mom's extended family and because my architect dad thought it would be good for his career. (He did some work on the Space Needle.) When I was 18, I moved to New York, where I lived for 18 years. I came back, family in tow, on September 9, 2001. All I can say about my defection is that I left for the proverbial greener pastures. I returned when I realized there is no place greener than the Emerald City.

"Fundamentally," says Richard Tait, who founded the game maker Cranium here and now heads a brand consultancy called Boom Boom Brands, "this is a frontier city," a place of "pioneering spirit" and "big ideas." Certainly, Seattle has been a center for technological innovation since its early days. In the 1850s, just after the arrival of the area's first white settlers, some clever loggers realized that the best way to get their timber downhill to the bay was to slide it. Thus was born Skid Road -- now known as Yesler Way, after the man who owned Seattle's first lumber mill. A few decades later, William Boeing moved here from Detroit, established the Boeing Airplane Co., and grew his passion into a global giant. In 1975, two Seattleites wrote the first BASIC programming language for a computer. Their names were Paul Allen and Bill Gates, and their little outfit was called Microsoft.

Since Microsoft put down roots here in 1979 -- Allen and Gates started the firm in New Mexico, but had the good sense to move home -- Seattle has become a nexus of computerized creativity, with myriad startups and VC firms funded by some of the 10,000-plus millionaires minted here over the past three decades. "The weather lends itself completely to the lifestyle of a programmer," says John Cordell, one of the original architects of Microsoft's Internet Explorer. He compares the intricate craftsmanship of a top programmer with that of a master clocksmith: "You go into a hole and work 80 hours a week for eight months, then come out of the hole and take a break to recharge your batteries. Seattle has eight months of bad weather and four months of absolutely beautiful weather. It's the perfect place for software engineers."

Seattleites' creativity goes beyond the computer. This is home to some of the world's top medical brain trusts: the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Institute, the University of Washington Medical Center, and the Bastyr University Research Institute, a global pioneer in science-based natural medicine. Seattle, the rare city that boosted its municipal arts budget as the economy stalled in 2008, radiates cultural inspiration. There's the Intiman Theatre, directed by the genius Bartlett Sher, and the art-glass scene, led by Dale Chihuly. This is the birthplace of grunge and Sub Pop Records. And for three of the past five years, we have been ranked America's most literate city, based on criteria including education level and the number of bookstores. (We placed a dismal second in the other two.) We are home to a plethora of fine writers, from National Book Award winners Timothy Egan and Sherman Alexie to best sellers such as Tom Robbins and ... Garth Stein.

Click link below to read whole story.

Seattle: City of the Year Fast Company

Add some pow to your resume

My mom recently asked me to review her resume, and so did some of her friends (one of the joys of being a recruiter). These are all very accomplished healthcare executives, but their resumes lacked the pow that I find in resumes of candidates I usually choose to move forward with. It wasn’t because they weren’t stellar professionals, but because they didn’t present their skills in the most advantageous way.

For most of us, when we sit down to work on our resumes, we think to ourselves, “What do I do in this position?” While this is relevant information, you can share it in a way that has that extra “umph” recruiters want to see. When you’re looking for what to put on your resume, instead of thinking about what your job entails, think of what you’ve accomplished. I’m not saying leave out the day-to-day tasks of your job, but what speaks louder is what you accomplished.

In other words, you want to call out what you “Made, Saved and Achieved” (MSA):

• Made the company (money, sales, etc.)
• Saved the company (money, time, etc.)
• Achieved personally (awards, recognition, etc.)

Here are some examples:

What you did	What you did with pow
Developed a test automation framework	Developed a test automation framework reducing company/team testing time from 3 days to 12 hours
Managed and optimized online advertising campaigns	Optimized a poorly performing ad campaign resulting in a decrease of cost per action by 50 percent
Streamlined development process	Enabled our development team to ship our product one month early by streamlining our development process

Enabled our development team to ship our product one month early by streamlining our development process

MSA also plays well in interviews. In this competitive market, employers want people who are able to produce results.

Don’t be shy – wow ‘em with some pow!

-Ryan

P.S. - Shout out to Sue Danbom, a national trainer at Volt for teaching me all about MSA!

Add some pow to your resume : Microsoft JobsBlog

Twitter Yourself a Job

 

Looking for a new job, Alexa Scordato didn't email or call her contacts about possible openings. Instead, she messaged them via the social-networking Web site Twitter.com.

Her brief message: "Hey there! Looking for a Social Media job up in Boston. Are you guys doing any entry level hires?"

Within a week, she had an interview. Within two weeks, she had a job.

The site, which lets users publish supershort updates of what they're doing, is a virtual meeting ground where a range of communities -- from moms to media professionals -- come to converse informally.

It's been criticized as a site for sharing mundane details about everyday activities. But people like 22-year-old Ms. Scordato, who used Twitter to privately message some people she'd met at a conference, show the site can be more than that.

"I would guess that if I had just sent them a long email with my résumé, I might not have gotten a response as fast as I did," says Ms. Scordato, who was hired by Mzinga, a Boston-area company that helps businesses use social technology.

The Basics

Users, known as Twitterers, post short updates that appear in their online profiles. They can choose to follow each other's updates, called tweets, and respond either publicly through posts or privately via direct message. All entries must be 140 characters or less.

Twitter doesn't release user numbers, but most public estimates put the user base at around four million to five million, with about 30% or more being very new or limited users.

To get started, build a profile that shows your interests and start Twittering. Because you have no more than 140 characters to describe yourself in your bio, use key words that reveal your goals. Make more information accessible by linking to your Web site, blog or profile on a professional networking site like LinkedIn.

Amy Ziari, a 24-year-old looking for a public-relations job in San Francisco, links to her blog on her Twitter profile and lists her Twitter alias on her résumé to show recruiters she is "not a faceless résumé -- there's somebody behind it."

You'll find major companies and recruiters on the site, and should follow the big names in your industry.

Most users get emails alerting them about new followers, and may choose to follow you as well if your biography and tweets get their attention.

Initiate conversations with other users by responding to their tweets. You can share updates you find useful by reposting them on your profile.

Stay Focused

Never twitter about anything you wouldn't want your boss or mother to see, and tell your friends to keep their tweets to you appropriate.

Be careful about publicizing your job hunt on Twitter if you don't want your boss reading about it. But if you're unemployed, sending an occasional tweet that explains the kind of job you're looking for could yield responses from recruiters. You can also seek jobs being promoted on the site by searching for phrases like "job opening."

Twittering about your personal life is fine, to an extent -- it's something most Twitterers do. But keep it to a minimum.

"I would rather see someone who posts good-quality information than what they had for lunch," said Lindsay Olson, who uses Twitter to recruit for Paradigm Staffing, a staffing agency that focuses on public relations and marketing.

Twitter Yourself a Job - WSJ.com