Getting in touch with Bay Area startups

Today Julia (our Marketing Director) and myself had an appointment with one of the managers of the Plug & Play Tech Center in Sunnyvale. That organization is an amazing incubator for Bay Area start ups, where new ideas and aspirations meet with venture capital, strategic partners, and like minded people. The Center has beeing in business for 4 years now and almost all that time some of their start ups utilized our graduates either as employees or as interns.

The reason for out visit today was to strengthen the ties with the innovative, 300 companies big community. We want to be active participants of the Center's numerous events. Why? Because we want to offer more career choices to our graduates. I also hope to bring some expertise from the Center to our classroom in the form of offering more classes and by inviting Silicon Valley's best as guest speakers.

We are considering joining the Resourse Partners program offered by Plug & Play Tech Center. It will allow us to develop strong relationships with the participating start ups and VCs. Our students would get many different opportunities to participate in the events as a part of the School team.

I am really excited about all the coming opportunities. Lets look at my schedule closely!!!

Visiting a career fair in San Jose today

There was a relatively small career fair today in the Double Tree Hotel, which is very close to the San Jose airport. I found there a big room with about 20 exhibitors. The picture on the left was taken with a cell phone, but it gives you an idea of the event.

Three exhibitors are training institutions teaching online marketing, biotechnology, and culinary. 5-6 desks represented network marketing companies, which is not exactly the traditional type of employment, but rather self-employment. I asked all of them if they represent MLM industry and neither one answered positively. The folks are ashamed to be in Network Marketing, but they are not ashamed recruiting others into that line of business.

The ugliest in that group was the company called Primerica (Eve Meyer team) . When asked they do not disclose which positions they have. No wander - they have no single position in the traditional sense. Instead they ask you for your resume stating that based on resume the appropriate manager, one out of six present, will talk to you. It was a lie.

The next person, who was not able to answer any single question and used written presentation to talk about the business opportunity he recruits people for. I have never seen anything that miserable, that much discrediting the Network Marketing industry. Stay away from the crooks.

Besides MLM companies there were 3 or 4 investment/life insurance companies recruiting sales agents. These people at least looked and talked in a very professional manner. There was nothing sleazy about them.

Regular format of full-time employment was represented by literally 3 companies:

- one in medical technology field

- another happened to be Lexus dealership

- and one more company was a manufacturer of some metal parts

We will move to the new campus on October 1, 2010

Yes, we are moving to the new location. Today I signed the lease agreement. With heat we have today I feel like a blessing coming to us from the heaven.

Look at the picture on the left - that is the new place. The Los Altos Office Plaza has 4 buildings, which share very large parking lot - no more parking troubles, ladies and gentlemen.

The new office will have its own dedicated air conditioning unit and much higher ceilings. Also, we are going to be on the first floor now, not second, which, I hope, will add to the nicer temperature regime.

I'll be going to the construction place (the entire space will be remodeled/reconstructed for our needs), taking pictures, and sharing them with you. I actually started to envision new office and classroom furniture, computers, nice 100 sq.ft. kitchen, professional grade vinyl floors in the classrooms. It looks so nice.

By the way, in the new office we will move to the 100% wireless Internet connections, including the student computers. My next concern if we are going to have any downturn time to move and put together all the necessary communications. Lets start working on that.

The Epoch Times published an article on Portnov Computer School

Today we were answering lots of calls generated by an article published in "The Epoch Times" (Chinese newspaper). I am not even able to tell you what it says since I cannot read Chinese. The reporter promised to send me the translation in English but I do not have one yet.

I think the article is kind of appealing to readers - we've got tens of calls today. 3-4 people even stopped by to talk.

Before the collapse of the Internet bubble, in 1999-2000 the school had about one third Chinese students, one more third - Indians, and the remaining third - Russians. Somehow the end of the Internet boom impacted dramatically the focus of the Chinese community in what is a good enough choice for a career change minded person. Definitely it was nos IT field, which is being outsourced overseas. So far outsourcing does not influence our job market much - the demand is pretty good.

I really hope we can bring back Chinese students, show them the perspective, the attractiveness of the Software Testing career.

Software QA class on Wednesday August 18

We will be starting the new class in two days. Summer is normally slower in enrollment compare to the rest of the year - many families are going on vacation. Enrollment starts picking up in the second half of August.

In 2010 overall enrollment is going to be 50% up compare to 2009 and 2008 - I can see that already. The job market keeps growing and lots of career minded individuals are ready for the move. We are also coming with lots of improvements, new classes, more spacious classrooms, projects and classes offered on weekends, online courses, redesigned Portnov Computer School (http://www.portnov.com/) web site.

Today our premises were inspected by the organization (visa sponsor), which specializes in Trainee and Intern programs for graduates of overseas colleges and universities. They can come to upgrade their skills for as long as 12 or 18 months (depends on the program). They can even earn money within that period of time. That is another dimension in which we are planning to expend our services.

In that 9 minutes video Zig Ziglar, one of my favorite motivational speakers, talks about people with negative thinking. He calls that type of thinking "Stinking Thinking".

Running the Portnov Computer School, instructing graduates on how to get a job, I a am dealing with Stinking Thinking alot. It really kills every effort from inside, it drains people's energy out, it pushes other individuals away from that Stinking Thinking person.

Another important thing Ziz is talking about in that video - gratitude as a solution to the Stinking Thinking problem. Enjoy the video as we did today in the Job Search class.

Software QA Job Market in SF Bay Area

I was teaching our regular 4-hours Job Search session at night. As a part of the class I show students the demand and supply situation on the local job market. Exact same search done on Craigslist (for resumes - supply) and on Dice (positions - demand).

Since October of 2009 the demand grew up 240%. At the same time number of resume declined 35%. So, overall demand/suply ratio more than trippled (about 370%) in 10 month.

Despite that many people we talk to, mostly prospective students, are thinking tha the job market is still bad. They apply high overall unemployment rate of about 10% to all the industries. Indeed, different segments of the job market are experiencing different, sometimes opposite, trends.

Lets network for jobs and careers

Internet technologies brought human networking to the dramatically higher level just in front of our eyes. In our Job Search class we have the dedicated 4-hours session on how to network for job safety and career advancement.

For the purpose of the School blog I have to mention that the school itself is an amazing professional networking resource. Start with creating your LinkedIn account.

Then invite fellow Portnov School classmates. Join the Portnov Computer School group on LinkedIn with hundreds of former graduates willing to support you. Get connected to myself and Sofia, which gives you access to tens of thousands Software testing professionals in Bay Area, in US, and Worldwide.

It came to me at midnight

The experimental job search class, where we talk a lot about motivation, surprised me with how responsive our students are to the motivational speakers. At the same time most of them never heard about Earl Nightingale or John Maxwell.

In todays world practically all the great speakers are represented on Youtube. So, we will start our classes with 6-10 minutes of a great motivational video. I have to make a collection, and that task really excites me.

Commiting to the blog

I did not place a post for a week. Not because there is nothing to share, but because I have too many things circulating in my mind, one pushing another away in their competition for being posted.

I see 4 subscribers for that blog now and it is very touching - there are ladies and gentlemen out there expecting some useful and exciting things coming to their life from that blog. Here is my commitment to you guys - at least one post a day will be written. Sun or snow, spring or fall - I will be with you. I will be thinking of you, I will be writing for you, recording videos sometimes (I like making videos).

Please, share your thoughts, ask your questions, leave your comments - the better I understand what ignites you, what makes your day - the more you will get from that blog. And also, I would really appreciate spreading the word about very existance of the blog.

Overcoming the fear of entering the job market

It is amazing how many reasons people find to do not look for a job. They paid tuition. They completed internship with a local company. We have the resume in place and each and every step is outlined. We even insist that first week of the job search the person was doing that from our office, so we can setup the process and fix all the problems right away.

And then I hear the reasons:

• Job market is not good
• To get hired one would need 5 years of experience
• I do not feel confidentI need someone to place me
• And many-many more of same kind

No matter how hot the market is – there will be folks like that. Recession or boom – they are withdrawing from any action to be taken.

A month ago former graduate visited our office. 4 years ago we placed her as an intern with a good company. Internship naturally converted into permanent position. But now the company moves out of state and she needs another job. The girl was crying in our office. She says “unless you place me again I never going to get a job”.

If people with 4 years of experience feel that much unsecure what can we expect from fresh graduates?