Exciting new features!

Comments section
I've just recently installed haloscan, which allows people browsing the website to leave comments. Please feel free to post a comment. Quoting from Hoi's blog "Write something, anything - in here, nothing is boring, everything is interesting."


Get a job! New careers feature planned
I am planning to introduce a new section/link into my website in the near future about careers. Careers is a topic I am passionate about and I like talking to people about it. This brainwave came to me about a two years ago when I was surfing the www.seek.com website, where they interview people that work in various industries about their jobs, what they do on a typical day, and they like/dislike about their jobs etc.... I found it highly interesting and graduate career informatoin is something that I am constantly reading up about. Sometimes you can find me at the careers office chatting to Marijke, the UTS careers counsellor about random things, or reading a catologue about how much pshychometric testing packages cost, fixing up a friend's resume, in conversation with a fellow student about their job prospects, or reading the Sydney Morning Herald's careers section.

I love hearing what people do because I believe to some extent, work defines who we are. When we meet someone, one of the first questions that we ask is " what do you do?". eg you want to find out if they go to uni, where they work, what their job description is and so on. In our lives, a large part of it involves working. We probably spend more time at the office or wherever you work than at home. The people that you socialise with on a day to day basis reguarly will be your work colleagues. Your at work 9 to 5 and you see your colleagues more than your own family members. I remember hearing a conference where the CEO of deloitte said "I don't believe there is such thing as work/life balance, but rather life balance". Work is an integral part of our lives. However, you don't want to get too obsessed with work though!

So what are my plans for this section? I was planning to concentrate mainly on graduate careers and to have interviews with various people. These would comprise of friends and associates. I want to sit down with them for 1/2 an hour to an hour and ask them questions about their work eg what they do, who they work with, industry news, how they got their jobs, a typical day, and where they see their career headed. It won't be anything formal.

I think I have a pretty extensive network of people around me who would provide some excellent interview material. All interviewees could use their real name or a code name and I could change the company name or use something generic if that is what they requested.

I'm planning to interview people that I know that work in the following fields:

- Accounting firms: big 4 (eg. PWC) , mid tier and small accounting firms. Focusing on tax/audit/insolvency service lines.

- Banks: bulge bracket investment banks(eg. goldman sachs, deustche bank), retail banks (eg. Commonwealth), and finance companies.

- Law firms: Mega law firms (eg. Mallesons), mid tier (eg. gadens), small, non-profit.

- Academia: mainly in the fields of Business and Law.

- Commerce Industry: consumer goods (eg. Proctor and Gamble), market research (eg. Roy Morgan).

- Engineering: R&D, mining, quality control, design.

- Government sector: regulatory agency (eg. ASIC), goverment deparment (eg Dept of finance), ATO.

- Entreprenuers: My favourite. Guys that have gone out and done their own thing.

- Consulting: Strategy consultants (eg. BCG), IT operations (eg. Accenture), boutiques (eg Port Jackson partners).

Obviously this will take some time, and I will post them up as I complete each one. It will be something that I will do over my lifetime.

In addtion, besides interviewing people that work at these places, I want to interview people that went for interviews for these places. This should give other people an idea as to what to expect. Also, I will post up conversatoins with job seekers to see the state of the job market and the latest interview techniques used. Furthermore, I will post articles that I plan to write on stuff like psychometric testing, assessment centres, generation Y, employer branding, what I think about certain industries, employment agencies.

My aim: To be the pre-eminent careers website on the planet! Well maybe not that far, but this careers feature is something that i have been thinking about for a long long time. I think I can do a better job than Seek.com by focusing soley on graduate careers, so I've got my little niche on the web.