Living and working in MD

Women in the US have made tremendous socio-economic strides in recent  decades, but this progress has been unequal. In a Center for American Progress report, Maryland ranks No. 1 in the United States for the state of its women.

In the report, titled "The State of Women in America", all 50 states were assessed on factors contributing to women's economic security, leadership opportunities, and health. Maryland's overall grade of "A" was a product of its No. 1 rank in both economic security and leadership.

This article posted by WAMU outlines precisely what this means for the region and the country...

Robots and Resumes II

Two Junes ago I posted an article outlining ways to get around "robots", the ATS that your online application may pass through before getting into the hands of a human being. These programs strip out the formatting and compare your resume text to that of the original job posting and then give a generic score to applications that best fit the outlined criteria.

Trolling Pinterest today, I found an infographic that best illustrates the process:

http://mashable.com/2011/12/26/non-traditional-resume-infographic/

Farewell Summer Assistant

Let's talk a bit about one of the benefits of completing an internship.

At the end of the spring semester this year, I pushed to have either an intern or a summer assistant who hailed from an outside university. My reasoning was that I wanted to open up the opportunity to a larger pool of talented students. I got my wish and was able to hire a summer assistant from my alma mater; a young woman with more graphic design skill than a freshman or sophomore (which is all we seem to get in my office). I lucked out.

My assistant just worked her last day this week and will hopefully move on to bigger and better things.

In addition to a modest hourly rate, she got a chance to work scripting, recording and editing instructional tutorials using Camtasia; something previously outside of her skills set. The project added expertise in software that is fast-becoming an industry standard tool. She also got to put her personal style on the finished materials. The project was a complete success, and she enjoyed the work, too.

"...thank you so much for mentoring me for what felt like another semester. You taught me so much in such a short time and I wish I could have stayed around for longer..."

Well, she's got a great career ahead of her!