Nathan Parcells, Author at Job and Internship Advice, Companies to Work for and More | WayUp Blog

Mythbusters, Mentos, and Diet Coke: Coming Your Way!

It’s an understatement to say that we love the Mythbusters-their experiments, including the Archimedes Death Ray, Catching a Bullet in Your Teeth, and the 22,000 foot fall, have simultaneously delighted us… and tempted us to try many dangerous things.

In fact, our love of Mythbusters has grown to an obsession: We have decided to create Mythbusters experiments of our own! In our experiments, we’ll discuss, bust, and confirm myths about common, really cool, and amazing internships. We’ve included internships in consulting, marketing, fashion magazines, journalism, politics, and many more arenas!

We can’t wait to answer everything you’ve wanted to know about those fields, give you insider information, and bust old wives’ tales heard on the street. Easy to read blog posts combined with mad science? Our favorite combination!

Our excitement about these upcoming posts can’t be contained, which is why we invite you to the Intern Match Mentos and Coke Battle. We intend on battling, just like the Mythbusters, with crazy Mentos and Coke rockets!

While we do so, we welcome you to tell us about your Mythbuster experiences via all types of media: Twitter, this blog, Facebook, videos, pictures, presentations and facts. We want to hear how you bust internship myths, take names, and even make Mentos and Coke rockets!

Stay tuned for videos of our battle, our Mythbusters posts, and news about our experiments! Are you ready for this?

Proving that you are worth your salt.

Are You Worth Your Salt?

The saying “worth your salt” has been used since Roman times when soldiers were given a certain amount of money to buy salt. Sometimes, they were actually paid in salt, a rare commodity when away from the sea, especially valuable as a necessity for the body’s physical survival. The word “salary” is derived from the Latin for salt. So to be “worth your salt” means to be worth what someone is actually paying you.

There are several ways of proving your worth even when the salt is not much by way of monetary remuneration.

The Big Mamma Salt that interns should be striving for includes proving that you are worth hiring after the internship is over, as well as securing great references for any other job you might wish to pursue. Other big payoffs can be a great grade that improves your GPA or fulfills a requirement that cannot be achieved any other way. It is important to keep these goals in mind. It will make your work a lot easier when things get tough.

Employers universally say how important it is that interns perform their tasks cheerfully, no matter how simplistic, or distasteful those tasks are. Your colleagues have all paid their dues and will have little sympathy with the idea of you not paying yours. In addition, performing your tasks with a smile on your face makes the work environment a whole lot more pleasant. Nobody likes sulking, complaining, or sighing in and around the workplace. Bring in some donuts, (everyone will love you), and perform that menial work as efficiently and pleasantly as possible.

Keep in mind that you are not ruler of the universe. In a recent, well researched, published study in the British journal Self and Identity, author Jean Twenge says that current college students are more self-centered, than past generations. Her data shows that they also feel more superior about themselves than their elders did when they were young. She also sees a growing disconnect between self-perception and reality. Thinking and acting as if you are just so grand can have serious negative consequences when on the job. No one likes someone who thinks they are better than every one else. Acting as if you are capable of performing functions that you are not able to can also have serious consequences for the company.

Being bored on the job can be a real drag, but you may be able to parlay that into some big bonus points for yourself. Think of ways to increase your daily contribution. Volunteer to assume increasingly more responsibilities, and be prepared with a few suggestions on how to do that if they don’t have any ideas, themselves. Ask to shadow your boss or someone else for rotating parts of the day. You can learn a great deal about how jobs really work on a daily basis that way. Volunteer for a team project, ask if you can write a guest post for their blog or help with their twitter campaign. There are many ways of increasing your involvement that will show you are interested and ready to learn.

Take the initiative in preparing for the internship. Don’t sit back and wait for someone else to tell you which tools will be needed for the task at hand. If you will need to be using a certain computer program, learn it. Professors who are specialists in that field might be able to direct you. If you need to familiarize yourself with certain technical terms or industry related buzz words, go to a library or start a search in Wikipedia. Be proactive. Research the industry you are going to be interning in. Research the company you will be interning at. Research the field of expertise your internship will be related to. Learn everything you can in advance, and then get in there and impress them.

Former Interns Cite Job-Specific Tools as Unmet Need

This post was written by Alex Lassiter a recent graduate from the University of North Carolina and current member of the InternMatch student advisory board. The board is an independent group of seven current students and recent graduates that meets once a month to discuss key issues and challenges for students looking to transition into the professional world. The board has unique insight into the tools and resources that students need to be successful in the career process.

While college students everywhere are frantically preparing their resumes, cover letters and elevator pitches to attain theidealinternship, how many of them are preparing to succeed in the internship itself? Schools and career services are doing everything in their power to push students in front of potential employers, so that they can lock in internships—but there is a difference between preparing to get a job, and preparing students to succeed in a job. This was the topic of the most recent InternMatch Advisory Board meeting. How many students feel that their schools prepared them for the skills necessary to succeed in their internship? Alternatively, does this responsibility lie within the bounds of another party?

Our panelists cited multiple skills they wished they had during the course of their internships; however, most noted job-specific tools as largest disconnect between college and internships. Skills in job-specific software like Microsoft Excel and TweetDeck topped the former intern wish-list. But who is responsible for teaching these skills, and if they were available, would students take advantage of them prior to starting their internship? The answer to the latter is likely dependent on the student; however, to encourage students to take advantage of intern-prep, some universities offer job-specific ‘boot camp’ classes to students who are interning in a specific field.

One example of this is UNC-Chapel Hill, who offers a class for future investment banking interns. The curriculum targets banking specific software like Bloomberg, and CapitalIQ, which enables students to learn the practical skills needed to succeed during their summers. Still, with many career departments facing strained resources, the majority of universities can only afford to focus on preparing students to get the internship. So, who can provide students with these extra services? This is where the board feels that InternMatch can help. InternMatch could give prospective interns crash courses in job-specific tools, thus enabling students to better succeed during their internships.

The implementation of such a plan would require more planning and testing to determine if students would take advantage of the proposed service.

Please respond with your thoughts on the topics mentioned above, or any other topic we discuss. We welcome all comments and questions, and would love to hear from you.

Win a Mentorship Lunch with Robert Scoble

Do you ever wonder how rapidly changing technology will impact the world in the next 2, 5 or 50 years? Curious who are the most innovative new startup companies and learning how they came to see the light of day? Interested in building online communities and seeing how one grows a Twitter following to over 180,000 tweeps? Ever wonder what it would be like to interview tech leaders like Mark Zuckerburg?

Today InternMatch is launching a life changing opportunity to meet with renowned video blogger and technology evangelist Robert Scoble. You will get to swap roles with the man who is known for bringing his flip camera everywhere, and you will be given the chance to interview him about how he got his roots in the tech world.

Robert’s Storied Career:

Robert has been spending his time and energy helping spread excitement for innovative tech companies and entrepreneurs for nearly a decade. He started developing a following in 2003, working for Microsoft, and pioneering new blog tactics for the tech juggernaut — offering the public unique insight into the work and vision of the company. Robert left Microsoft in 2006 and began working full-time filming and broadcasting breaking stories on tech companies. First at PodTech on the Scoble Show and later at Fast Company on ScobleizerTV, Robert became famous for taking his camera to interviews and meetings with entrepreneurs across the world. Robert has now filmed hundreds of tech companies and founders from Mark Zuckerburg at Facebook to Biz Stone and Evan Williams, founders of Twitter.

How to Win the Competition:

Aside from blogging and filming, Robert is known for being incredibly active on new forums for open communication. He has over 180,000 twitter followers and is known as one of the most prolific Tweeters on the web. He also has embraced new Q and A site Quora to share deep responses to technology questions that are asked on the site.

To win this competition you will have to engage on Quora and share your opinions on technology trends. Three questions have been posted by Robert and the person with the most upvotes for each question will be a finalist as well as 2 individuals selected as having great overall repsonses, regardless of vote count:

Finally Tweet Your Answer: Check out my answer on why I want to interview Robert Scoble [link to answer] @scobleizer @internmatch #killthecoverletter

The competition will run through July 15th — so there is plenty of time to be creative in your answers and to find ways to get the community to support and upvote your answer.

The finalists will get a chance to interview and be selected to have a paid for one one one lunch with Robert where they can interview him about the future of tech.

Interns feel lack of ‘soft skill’ preparation

This post was written by Kristin Hillmann a recent graduate from the University of Washington and current member of the InternMatch Student Advisory Board. The student advisory board is an independent group of seven current students and recent graduates that meets once a month to discuss key issues and challenges for students looking to transition into the professional world. The board has unique insight into the tools and resources that students need to be successful in the internship and job search process.

A college internship is an unparalled learning experience. While performing an internship, an intern can gain exposure to a variety of very useful “hard” skills including industry specific software, reports, projects and formatting as well as “soft” skills related to that industry and work environment. While often not included in the internship job description, some of the “soft” skills an intern may become more knowledgeable about through their experience are: professional email protocol and usage, the art of networking, navigating office politics, deciphering expectations, taking constructive criticism/feedback, emotions in the workplace, how to ask questions, and many other aspects of interpersonal communication in an office environment. With four different and unique generations currently working together in the workplace, there are also many different work and communication styles to consider that greatly affect the selection of “soft” skills listed above.

As the InternMatch Advisory Board considered university education and what tools and classes universities could offer to better prepare students for internships and life after college, we came to a united conclusion that hindsight is 20/20. After completing an internship, as with most things in life, it is very easy to look back and analyze what you wish you had known before you started. That being said, the Advisory Board considered a variety of tools and resources that would provide students with useful skills prior to starting an internship experience. But after examining the complex life of a student and all that it entails, we weren’t sure we ourselves would have taken that extra class or attended a Sunday seminar on a topic or skill we didn’t even necessarily know was something we would need. But maybe these preparatory resources aren’t necessary or worthwhile? Could it be that the discomfort experienced from having no previous knowledge of, or exposure to, some of the “soft” skills encountered in an internship, and working through the process of navigating the uncomfortable situations that arise, in fact help to build an individual’s “soft” skills? Would educating students before they begin an internship remove this process and take away from the overall learning experience? Certainly more discussion is needed around this contemplative topic. Until then, to all the soon to be interns out there, don’t stress! Keep an open mind and embrace the experience. It is supposed to challenge you. The process itself is priceless.

Connect with Kristin Hillmann on twitter @khillmann!

Maya Ghosn 2011 Student Ambassador: Being an Intern at Demo Days

Maya Ghosn is a Sophomore at Stanford and was an InternMatch Student Ambassador during the Spring 2011 semester. She represented InternMatch at 500 Startups Demo Days as InternMatch pitched to a crowd of investors and press.

On April 7^th, I went to my first-ever Demo Day. I’ll be honest with you—I had absolutely no idea what to expect, but it turned out to be one of the most fun and rewarding days of my entire internship. It took place at the 500 Startups office in Mountain View.

Demo Day basically consisted of 22 startups from the 500 Startups incubator giving a 5-minute overview of their start-up to potential investors and press in the audience. Given that each start-up had so little time to give their pitch, you can imagine that they got very creative. Visual.ly used an amazing and breath-taking introductory video to capture the audience, while the Punch’d Co-founder tagged his start-up as a “hyper-local deals platform… in your pants” (See image 1), and Speakergram used the 500 Startups founder Dave McClure to send a powerful message. (See image 2)

After the pitches were over, everyone moved to another room to give investors and the press a chance to speak to the start-ups one-on-one. Each table consisted of a laptop, at least one member of that start-up, and a freebie (always a must!). With the start-ups excited to share their progress and talk more about what they do to investors and the press, the energy in the room was trulyunbelievable.

Wearing my InternMatch t-shirt and standing at the InternMatch table with a fellow intern from CalPoly, I nervously dreaded speaking to investors. The responsibility of representing InternMatch and making a lasting and correct impression on investors was honestly pretty tantalizing. But the second I started talking to investors, I immediately relaxed and appropriated my role as a representative of the start-up. As someone who had been working with InternMatch for a couple of months, I started to feel very attached to it, and really feel like part of the team, so I inevitably found myself working very hard to ensure that all of InternMatch’s resources and tools were communicated and clear to investors

Driving back from Demo Days that night was the first time that I realized just how amazing and enthralling the start-up world was, and just how lucky I was to be able to be part of it through my involvement with InternMatch.

15 Unreal Job Apps — Dave McClure Shadow Finalists

We have narrowed our finalists for the Dave McClure Shadow position to 15 all-star candidates. They come from over 5 different countries, 14 different universities, and all share an exceptional interest in entrepreneurship, technology, and pushing ideas to the next level.

On May 1st they were tasked with the challenge of telling Dave why they should be his shadow and to use interesting social media channels to convey the message.

While the competition got heated responding to Dave’s Quora post, the applications themselves are mind-blowing. Enjoy some of the most creative job applications I have ever seen (ps if you are looking to hire someone for your startup, this is a pretty good place to start).

Mimi Newton:

Mimi is finishing her first year as an MBA at the University of Chicago. She hustled to get Mark Suster’s opinion on whether this shadow position could truly launch her career better than an MBA. Now she wagers that if gets the position and this is truly the case that she will drop out and go and do a startup. See her Startup Analytics for Vampires slideshow to see how her ability to listen, learn and take action has contributed to numerous startups already.

Mimi’s Application

Stefano Bernardi:

Hailing form Rome, Stefano has helped galvanize the Italian startup community as an active blogger, writer for TC Europe, hacker and startup founder, and is now an analyst for a leading Italian VC firm. In his application he presents a re-worked Startup Metrics for Pirates slideshow, a shadowing Dave term sheet, and a blog post that sums it all up. His post on Quora got over 150 up votes and sits atop the responses.

Stefano’s Application

Ronald Angsiy:

Is a student at Indiana University who wants to create a college startup network that encourages top students to forgo bigger companies and explore tech startups. Using Final cut pro, Wordle, Adobe Premiere, Camtasia, Animoto, Prezi, Powerpoint, and more he made this powerful video that leaves a strong impression.

Ronald’s Application

Johnson Nakano:

A current junior at Cal Poly Johnson has a hunger for learning and entrepreneurship. He designed a simple, clear and down right beautiful presentation and has already started a few companies including MyCollegeLoop.com in his free time.

Johnson’s Application

Austin Bowlin:

Better known for his twitter alias, Startup Paparazzi created more buzz/controversy than anyone else in this campaign. Getting RTs from Robert Scoble, Dave Schappell and more is an impressive feat for a student. After being called a spam bot by some and a G by others he did what any good entrepreneur would do — pivoted and summed up what he learned in an awesome blog post.

Austin’s Application

Jennifer Turliuk:

Is an active Canadian entrepreneur. She is the Founder and President of the Young Entrepreneurs Club in Canada, ran Canada’s largest business competition, was featured in the NYT, and spends her free time as a DJ and extreme sports enthusiast.

Jennifer’s Application

Corey Hoffstein

Corey is a passionate hacker. After getting a CS degree from Cornell, Corey got a masters at CMU’s Tepper School of Business and built Newfound Research which develops new financial models using CS algorithms. His blog post is simple and witty, and he demonstrated his leadership skills by bringing the 15 finalists into an email group that is already churning out new ideas and possibly new companies.

Corey’s Application

Greg Mathews:

Serial entrepreneur and student at San Jose State majoring in software engineering. Greg was an intern at Intel before helping create and develop content for Hacker Dojo, and more recently starting Testt.me a site to help SJSU students improve their studying. Snagging Davemccluresshadow.com definitely gets a big +1. Greg made a cool website and has a stand out hacker profile.

Greg’s Application

Andrew Swiler:

Is a former lawyer who converted to a blogger and entrepreneur after realizing he had chosen the wrong career path. In Barcelona he worked with Brote International helping startups find capital and launch. Recently he moved to San Francisco with an interest in the edu tech space. His blog posts include predictions for the next big startup out of Spain!

Andrew’s Application

Crystal Cyan:

Crystal has written some great blog posts, but mainly she is doing BIG things on Quora! Crystal is an Amherst student who has done more things on campus than seems possible. She works as a designer and marketing specialists for multiple non-profits on campus, she hosted a highly successful social entrepreneurship summit and this summer she is interning for Wednesdays a hot startup in the 500 startups accelerator. Ambitious, creative, and an upbeat personality.

Crystal’s Application

Krishna Nandigam:

Krishna graduated from the University of Michigan and is now attending the Wharton School of Business. She created this website and wrote this snarky post to apply.

Krishna’s Application

Stephen McInnis:

Stephen just graduated from High School and is headed for Purdue, with a life goal of becoming an F-18 pilot. His cover letter for the initial application may have been the best we saw — crisp, witty, and demonstrated knowledge about Dave and his portfolio companies. His recent twitter and www.davesshadow.com application do the same.

Stephen’s Application

Daniel Marienthal

Is a digital media student in Stockholm. He has a lot in common with Ferris Bueller and wants to use technology make the world more fun. He won a HS film festival in 2008, developed the “Luke Soundwalker” iPhone app in 2010 and brings creativity and talent to all the projects he works on.

Daniel’s Application

Luke Richter:

Luke Richter is a senior at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo majoring in Business, Marketing and Entrepreneurship. He is the president and founder of the Cal Poly entrepreneurship club, and won the CalPoly Venture competition with his company SC Lights. His application combines design, crisp content writing and strong personality.

Luke’s Application

Jason Martin:

Made an awesome blog post, tied to a QR Coupon and Facebook app that turns his shadow application into a buzz machine. Jason is graduating with a degree in entrepreneurship from the University of North Dakota this spring and is currently working on a new web startup called The Sky District.

Jason’s Application

Chris Yin:

A serial entrepreneur who turned his house into a profitable coffee shop at age 15 and who made a successful tutoring and note sharing company in college. He has since started Pathway Ventures in San Diego and designed a slick video/blog for his app.

Chris’s Application

“The Perks Were Too Good” Insights From A Google Product Manager

Ever wonder why someone would leave Google, despite the company having one of the strongest employment brands in the world?

Maneesh Arora decided to leave after spending close to a decade as a product manager at the tech juggernaut, working on interesting projects like Google Health, Google Maps and more. After Google he spent 7 months at Zynga before pursuing his true interest of being an investor and tech entrepreneur in Silicon Valley.

Maneesh offers insights into why Google was one of the best jobs he has ever had, and why this also made it one of the hardest places to leave and ultimately challenged him from following is true career interests. His advice? Take risks early, optimize for working on challenging projects and with people smarter than you, and don’t chase titles.

Maneesh spoke for an hour on Stanford’s campus as part of our FYF series. FYF brings current and former executives from companies including HP, Amazon, Google, Zynga, and more to speak on campuses. To View Part 1 Featuring Dave Schappell click here. To view Part 2 Featuring Mike Su click here.

Watch the 6 minute highlight video or the full video below.
Highlights

The Full Presentation:

The Applicants (Killing the Cover Letter)

Last week InternMatch posted opportunities for 30 internships at top Silicon Valley startups, all in Dave McClures portfolio. We are posting the applicants’ work here as it comes in.

Feel free to reach out to these candidates — we will put up a big #GotHIRED hashtag next to their name once they’ve been taken off the market, so don’t hesitate, or it may be too late:

5/7/2011 – Raymond Sin just graduated from Berkeley, with an interest in Real Estate and entrepreneurship. He has great experience in marketing, social media, and building relationships.

5/3/2011 Jonathan Lau (#GotHIRED) — Looking for a social media expert, who can write killer content and hustle to launch campaigns? Jon is UC San Diego Student majoring in Anthropology and with an incredible sense for marketing, pr and social media. For his application he is writing a series of 3 blogs on why he would be a great fit for your startup company. He is talented and gets what its like to work in a fast-paced, hectic startup environment. Contact Jon via linkedin here!

Blog 1: http://bit.ly/mnRmA2

Blog 2: http://bit.ly/jwaeI8

Blog 3: http://bit.ly/jzsXS4

4/23/2011 Simon Stolz (simon@simonstolz.de) designed a beautiful Facebook page that makes an ordinary cover letter seem laughable. This is an incredible piece of work — get a glimpse of Simon’s design, creativity, and marketing savvy here and move fast to hire him before someone else does.

4/17/2011 Isaac Elias (@brainscraps) has been working has been obsessed with entrepreneurship for a while now. How did he promote his application? During Startup Weekend San Jose, as he was pitching his company (see time 11:30), he got a hoarde of tweeps to tweet for him. Brilliant use of Twitter to get endorsements + the business he made is cool as well — Two Cents is customer surveys that don’t suck! Tweet at him to setup an interview @brainscraps.

4/17/2011 DJ Samson is an entrepreneur out of NY Institute of Technology looking for a great startup to prove his salt this summer. Check out his about.me page to learn more.

4/14/2011 Sumedh Jigjinni (#GotHIRED) — Designer, marketer, hustler, and a sense of humor? Sumedh is the ultimate startup intern, check out the site he made instead of a cover letter, which has been making waves on twitter!

4/13/2011 Bri Anne Ramsey (brianneramsey@mail.utexas.edu) — Bri made this ad, enough said!

4/13/2011 Blair Lockhart (blockh3@tigers.lsu.edu) — Blair Lockhart is an active blogger, designer, and photographer who also loves coffee. View her blog here.

4/12/2011 Jerry Roback (@robackjerry) — Jerry is a tech whiz, marketer, and futurist. He put together this awesome website for an application.

4/11/2011 Sohail Prasad’s Application (#GotHIRED) — Sohail says, “Technology is my passion, entrepreneurship is my game.” He was named TCU’s Youth Entrepreneur of the year in 2010.

4/11/2011 Crystal Cyan’s Application (@crystalcy) (#GotHIRED) — Crystal is a tri-lingual social entrepreneur and co-founder of the Social Startup Summit. She is a designer, blogger, and entrepreneur.

4/11/2011 Collin West’s Application (@collinrwest) (#GotHIRED) — Collin is studying entrepreneurship and innovation at the Kellogg School of Business. See his blog here and his about.me profile here.

More Creative Apps Coming Soon…

Dave Schappell — “It took me from 1990 to 1998 to actually pursue a job I wanted to be in.”

This is the first of InternMatch’s Find Your Focus speaker series. Find Your Focus is looking to be the TEDx of student career advice. We bring executives from top companies around the country including Amazon, HP, Google, Zynga and more to share their unique career insights.

Dave Schappell is a former Amazon product manager, professional poker player, micro-finance industry leader, and current CEO of TeachStreet.com, one of Seattle’s most successful startup companies. In his presentation, Dave covers everything from the cost-benefits of surfing and smoking pot at the beach, to why he left Amazon even as the company was growing into an e-commerce titan.

Dave covers the tough topics, offering honest insight into why it is so hard to find and pursue a career you love. We hope you enjoy Dave’s career insights and feel free to share your feedback about the presentation and what you would like to hear more of in the future:

An Intro to Dave Schappell:

Dave Schappell Career Advice