Captone Summer Intern Conference - Day 1 Recap

Today marked the beginning of our Capstone Summer Intern Conference. McGladrey hosts these conferences every summer (and for the first time last winter) at The Q Center in St. Charles, IL, which is about 1 ½ hours west of Chicago. The Q Center is a former college that was transformed into a corporate training and conference facility. Being as far as it is from Chicago (and just about anything else) is a good thing as it allows it’s visitors to focus on the facility and the event at hand. It really is a great facility too, with nice accommodations, all you can eat dining and snack stations, a full gym, a clubhouse with a game room and bar, and outdoor facilities as well. Essentially, they make you feel very comfortable here, and ready to connect and learn.

The interns begin to arrive in the early afternoon, but the conference doesn’t officially begin until 5PM. The conference faculty members, dressed in their alma mater’s shirts, welcomed our interns, help them get situated, and direct them to the amphitheater for the start of the event. At 5PM, the conference begins with an inspirational video, a warm welcome, and an introduction to the first speaker, John Blumberg, who sets the stage for the conference by explaining the Kolbe Index. The concept behind Kolbe is that we all have innate instincts and strengths which help define how we are most effective working individually and as a part of teams, which ultimately the interns will use to learn how to interact more effectively with each other.

Dinner is next. Q Center dining really is a great experience. It’s all you can eat, with several stations serving a wide variety of cuisines (I had sushi tonight). The conference has only been going on now for a couple of hours, and it’s great to see our interns from all over the country start to mingle and get to know each other better.

After dinner, we reconvene for our next activity, where everyone creates Who Am I? poster boards using a variety of materials to describe themselves. As John Blumberg said during his presentation, everyone is creative, and it certainly showed with the work the interns did on their poster boards. To finish off the evening, the interns broke out into project teams, where the teams got to know each other better using their poster boards. Their faculty engagement leader explained the projects that they were been assigned to work on for the conference (more on that tomorrow). At 10PM, it’s time to wrap up. It’s been a long day for everyone, and it’s an early day tomorrow. Some head to their rooms, some keep the networking going for a little longer. I know that I’ll be up early for a quick workout and breakfast before the conference continues. Be sure to check back tomorrow for a recap of Tuesday’s activities.

Click below for a slideshow of some pictures from Day 1.

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Note: BTW, this is the 100th post on this blog! A big milestone to match up with a big event!

Coming Next Week: Capstone Intern Conference!

This coming Monday I'll be travelling to St. Charles, IL, the site of our Capstone Summer Intern Conference. I've been to The Q Center before, but this will be my first Capstone Conference, and I'm really excited to finally be a part of it. 120 Interns and 20+ faculty and speakers will be descending upon this event Monday as well for three days of learning, networking, collaboration, and fun.

So check back next week for daily recaps of Capstone so that you may experience this event for yourself. Each Capstone Conference is unique in it's own way, but to get a flavor of what will be happening next week, take a look below at a slideshow of last summer's Capstone event. See you next week from St. Charles!

Ask BJ - Options for Submitting Your Resume

This question has come up a few times lately from candidates that are submitting resumes to positions on our Career Site:

"Why are there two different options to submit a resume? One that is an upload option and one that is a cut and paste option?"

We offer different ways to submit a resume so we can best accommodate the needs of different situations. We have a 'browse' and 'upload' function so somebody may submit a version of their resume directly from their computer. But, we realize that at times, somebody may be using a shared or work computer and may be unable to access a saved copy of their resume. In these situations, the copy and paste feature becomes handy. The copy and paste feature also works well for a candidate that may be experiencing technical problems while trying to upload.

Podcast: New Summer Intern Phil Li

Summer Interns are starting at McGladrey offices around the country this month. Listen to Phil Li as he describes what he is looking forward to as he starts his internship with McGladrey, why he chose McGladrey as a firm he wanted to do his internship, his expectations about next week's Intern Conference, what his goals for the internship are, and what he hopes to gain out of the exposure he will get working with our clients.

Click here to listen to the Podcast

Fore!

June 10th was a pretty fun day for me. Why? Because I got my hands on the new Tiger Woods 2010 video game and got to sit down to play arguably one of my favorite games that seems to improve itself year over year. Yes, I love video games and no, you're never too old to play!

But here's the really cool part: the game features two of Team McGladrey's golfers. Natalie Gulbis and Chris DiMarco are both in the game complete with McGladrey logos on their clothes (thanks to IGN.com for the screenshot).

The screenshot above certainly won't do it justice, but when you see it in HD the "McGladrey" on Natalie's hat is clear as day.

I think it is pretty cool to have the company I work for represented in a video game as popular as the Tiger Woods franchise (yes, that's probably pretty nerdy of me to say, but hey, video games are a multi-billion dollar industry so I'm glad McGladrey is a part of it). McGladrey also sponsors the McGladrey Team Championship every year and is the official accounting firm for the PGA of America. I guess you could say McGladrey is all over this golf thing!

The US Open starts this week and Team McGladrey will be represented "in real life" on the Bethpage Black course by Zach Johnson. He's got a challenge in front of him because the Bethpage Black course is one of the most difficult courses in America.

Since I'll never be 1/10th as good as those guys I'll stick to playing against them via a video game. I wonder...if I beat them if I could be a "virtual" member of Team McGladrey? Probably not, but I might have to propose that idea!

Influencing Your Personal and Professional Brand

Last Friday, I attended BlogPotomac, an 'unconference' in Falls Church, VA attended mostly by PR and Marketing professionals, and which featured a number of expert speakers on the topic of social media, including Shel Holtz and Shashi Bellamokonda among several others. One of the agenda items was a panel discussion regarding Personal Branding. The panel members, Aaron (his post on personal branding) and Amber presented the case that too strong of a personal brand can be counter-productive, and that ultimately you do not define your brand, consumers and community members do.

Although I agreed with Aaron and Amber regarding being confident (not cocky) when it comes to how you present yourself, and in the fact that a personal brand should not overshadow the brand of an institution you represent, I had to disagree with them when it came to the concept of defining your online personal and professional brand.

I believe that you actually have a tremendous amount of influence over your online brand. One way to think about your 'brand' is to Google your name. If you have a LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace or Twitter profile, or maybe your own blog, you will typically find those profiles showing very high on the first page of the search results. Yes, consumers and community members can help to define your brand, but you have a tremendous amount of control over how people find and learn about you online.

Recruiters are increasingly using search engines to find new talent or to learn more about the talent they have found. By ensuring that your LinkedIn profile is up-to-date and complete, that your Facebook profile is relevant and professional with the appropriate privacy controls applied, by using other social networking tools like Twitter, Plaxo, etc., and even having a Google Profile, you can have a tremendous amount of influence over how your 'brand' is presented online for potential employers to see.

Don't just take my word for it though. Dan Schawbel's Personal Branding Blog is an excellent resource to help you understand how to make social networking and media sites work for you when it comes to influencing your brand and enhancing your job search efforts. A post last week titled Be Your Own Brand Manager addresses this particular issue head on.

Ultimately though, I had to agree with Aaron and Amber that creating your own social networking profiles isn't enough. You need to back these profiles up with substance too. The substance of your reputation, your performance, and your knowledge in particular. So use LinkedIn to solicit recommendations, and to ask & answer questions. Use Twitter to comment and direct traffic to relevant blogs and articles. Write a blog where you can demonstrate your expertise and opinions on a particular subject. Using these sites and tools is a great way to enhance your reputation and others opinions about you. Social media is a contact sport. It's a means to an end. Ultimately, if done well, it can help you define your online 'brand' and enhance your career.

New McGladrey L.A. Office Opened June 8

McGladrey has had a strong presence in Southern California for many years now, with offices in Pasadena, Irvine, and San Diego. But not until this have we had a significant presence in downtown Los Angeles. The new downtown LA office opened Monday, June 3 on the 41st Floor at 515 South Flower Street.

This new location should make our presence in Southern California stronger than ever. Plus a centrally located office in the financial district should be even more appealing for those who have the opportunity to work there. The some of our current openings at the new LA Office include:

Audit Manager
Tax Manager or Director

If neither of these positions appeal to you, but you are interested in that particular location (or other locations), be sure to check out our Career Search. You can also create a Job Agent to be notified as soon as a new, relevant position is posted.

Interested in learning more about the location of our other offices? Be sure to check out our Google Locations Map to learn more about our 100+ other locations across the country.

June Poll: Top 3 Things You Consider When In A Job Search

Time for a new poll! This months question is "When searching for a new job, what are the top 3 things you consider?" We have asked our new hires this question over the past couple of years, and the results from last year to this year changed a bit. I'm curious to see what your thoughts are on this, as I am assuming that the things that are most motivating job seekers have changed even further considering the current recession.

We had a decent response to last month's poll, I hope we can do better this time. In fact I hope to make this a monthly feature here on Success starts here. So, what motivates you the most when considering new job opportunities? Let us know in the poll on the top right corner of this page.

McGladrey Receives Award For Coach-On-Call Program

Have you ever had a coach that has made a difference in your life? I have. A great coach can inspire, educate and motivate people to improve their skills, their attitude, their relationship with others and their outlook on life. McGladrey is very, very fortunate to have their very own great coach, Coach Karen.

Coach Karen is available to all McGladrey employees through the company's Coach-on-Call program. McGladrey's Talent Management Director, Teresa Hopke, launched McGladrey’s Coach-on-Call program to help employees take responsibility for their own WorkLife success. “I continually heard from employees that they were grateful for the WorkLife programs we offered at McGladrey, but they didn’t know how to pull all the pieces together,” says Hopke. “Coach-on Call helps employees assess their personal and professional situation, understand available options, and create ‘how-to’ strategies to successfully navigate their work and/or life challenges.”

The program has been so successful that McGladrey will receive today The Alliance for Work-Life Progress' Work-Life Innovative Excellence Award at the WorldatWork Total Rewards 2009 Conference & Exhibition in Seattle. In the video below, Coach Karen and Teresa Hopke explain further how the program works and how it has come to help numerous McGladrey employees.

The May Survey Results Are In

At the beginning of this month, I posted a poll here asking you what tools/resources (multiple if applicable) you found to be most helpful to you in your job search. Although this wasn't necessarily the most scientific poll, I was hoping to get a glance into what job seekers were finding to be useful to their job search efforts. I'd like to thank those of you who did respond (21 of you in all), as the results of this survey defied conventional wisdom. How so?

• The major job boards (Monster, CareerBuilder, HotJobs) were most helpful according the this survey (42%). I don't doubt that the major job boards were the most helpful in finding job listings, I'm curious if the sentiment is the same for what happened after a resume was submitted via major job board? Conventional wisdom says that most people are very dissatisfied with the process after they apply for a position online.
• Social media was next (38%). Perhaps not surprising considering that this poll was hosted on a blog, and that traffic to the poll was partially generated by Twitter. Regardless, I'm happy to see this, but curious exactly how the respondents found this social media to be helpful.
• Employee referrals were fourth in the poll (28%), which was particularly surprising considering that most employers and job seekers will tell you that employee referrals are the most effective way to match job seekers and jobs. That's certainly the case here at McGladrey.
• Employment agencies/Headhunters came in fifth at 14%, possibly a sign of the times in that employers are a little more hesitant to pay search fees? Or could it be another reason?
• Finally, I found it surprising that search engines (Google, Yahoo, Live/Bing.com) came in last at 9%. There has been alot communicated in the recruitment community of late as to how more and more job seekers are using search engines to search for jobs these days. Maybe the numbers are still not as prevalent as are led to believe?

Thanks again for those of you who responded to this survey. I would like to encourage you comment and provide some more detail here regarding why you selected the tools/resources that you did. If you didn't respond to the survey, but still have some comments that you would like to share, I would encourage you to share those thoughts with us as well.

Keep your eyes and ears open for a new survey later this week!