Hi there, before you read this post, please consider sharing it to help my friends finding the job of their life!

1. We all know finding the right job can be though, especially when you have ambitions.
2. We all know finding the right employee can be just as hard, especially if you seek skilled people and great personality.

I offered to a few of my friends to do a little social experiment on my blog and see:
- If we can connect them to the right employer
- How the nice people from the web would help them spread the word
- How fast it goes (they’ve been looking for a couple months…)

So here we go, please meet my friends’ resumes, most are from the same school than me so you can be sure they have great skills…

Hugo Closier
“Deeply passionate about music, entertainment, textile and new technologies, I am currently looking for an 8-month internship, starting in June, in any company which would enable me to combine my skills and passions, and develop them. I am motivated by team-working, commercial relationships, project management and also creative tasks. If you are looking for a conscientious, creative and inquisitive intern, this may be me!”

Looking for: 8-month internship, starting in June
Link: http://www.doyoubuzz.com/hugo-closier

Loup FoussereauFoussereau
“As a 3rd year student in Iteem, a graduate school of business and engineering with teaching ensured by Centrale Lille and Skema Business school, I am looking for an 8-month internship as an assistant manager in marketing starting in June 2012. I am pro-active, responsible, and very motivated. I am passionate about sport and president of a student skiing association in my school. I would like to show you my enthusiasm through my CV and a motivation letter so please feel free to contact me.”

Looking for: 8-month internship, starting in June
Link: loup.foussereau@centraliens-lille.org

Krystel Bendahan
“I am a newly graduate on Production Engineering. It is a 5year program similar to Industrial Engineering but with a special focus on Business Administration and Management. I have also had international experience in both the academic and working fields (I have lived in US, Finland, Venezuela; worked in Singapore Venezuela; and attended conferences/seminars in France, Poland, Panama, Finland, USA and Venezuela).”

Additionally, I have been responsible for PR and Events Logistics for different student organisations I have been part of since 2005, having developed strong leadership and other soft skills.

Looking for: a full-time job abroad
Link: Krystel Bendahan – Resume

Comme tout le monde j’ai essayé de comprendre les dessous de l’offre de FREE, comment peut-elle exister? Comment on-t-il fait? Avons-nous vraiment été des pigeons? Et l’impact que cette offre peut avoir sur ses concurrents.

Update: 1. Cet article a ses limites et a pour objectif de voir le problème sous un autre angle pour initier une reflexion plus construite. 2. Les commentaires font parties de la discussion. 3. Triste de lire certains commentaires haineux, ce n’est pourtant qu’une simple reflexion abstraite pour faire travailler l’esprit.

Update 2: Avant de lire cet article, regardez cette vidéo: http://www.ouest-france.fr/actu/actualite-video_-Face-a-Free-Orange-denonce-une-logique-purement-consumeriste-interview-exclusive-a-ecouter-_6346-2032554-fils-tous_filDMA.Htm

En conclusion, je pense que l’engouement face à cette offre est la preuve d’un pays en crise et d’une population appauvrie et que la supporter c’est rentrer d’un cycle qui ne ferra qu’empirer la situation. Explications:

Comment des sociétés endettés peuvent réduire leur prix dans un marché saturé?

Dire que Orange, SFR et Bouygues se sont foutus de nous c’est dire qu’ils n’ont fait que remplir les caisses depuis 10 ans or à ce que je sache Orange a lancé en 2006 un plan de redressement appelé “NExT” qui vise la réduction des coûts salariaux d’environ 10% preuve d’une société en manque de cash: 22 000 salariés sont virés. On pourra ressortir l’argument classique des cadres surpayés mais les cadres de FREE sont tout aussi bien payés et ces sommes restent insignifiantes comparées aux pertes totales.

Orange, SFR et Bouygues n’étaient donc pas en mesure de baisser leur prix. D’autant plus que la téléphonie mobile n’est pas un marché en croissance en nombre d’utilisateurs.

Quelle est la solution de FREE?

Vous me direz, comment FREE peut offrir de tels prix? En employant moins, outsourceant plus et en réduisant la qualité du service d’accompagnement.

Orange a quand même 1200 magasins en France, j’imagine qu’ils emploient en moyenne 8 personnes chacun soit un total de 10 000 emplois (~30 millions/an en coût salariaux fois deux pour les coûts de gestion). FREE c’est zéro emploi magasin et autant d’argent de sauvé.

France Télécom c’est 160 000 emplois dans le monde dont ~60% en France (soit 96 000), FREE? 5000. Je pense qu’il faut relativiser sur la mauvaise volonté de ces fournisseurs géants et comprendre que leurs anciennetés et leurs tailles augmentent le coût de leurs services.

Le Français ou les Français?

Le point clé du raisonnement est-peut être de se rendre compte que tout cet argent revient indirectement aux français. FREE ne fait qu’employer moins et tuer le marché du service de qualité.

Sur le plan international il est bon de noter que France Télécom est la 105º entreprise mondiale et que sa présence internationale rend non seulement la France plus puissante mais permet également de payer des français à partir d’exportation de services à l’étranger alors que c’est la tendance inverse dans toutes les autres industries. Chiffres clés: CA de 3,3 milliards en Afrique seule et 60 millions de clients à l’étranger. FREE? Zéro.

FREE avec sa stratégie ultra-cheap basée sur de l’outsoucing et possible grâce à sa jeunesse ne fait que profiter de l’obsession des français à payer moins suite à une crise surmédiatisée et d’un lavage de cerveaux par Xavier Niel.

Si toutes nos industries se déplacent vers le marché low-cost, on réduit les emplois dans notre pays, réduit la qualité moyenne des services, renforce les pays spécialisés en low-cost et appauvrissons la France.

Autrement dit: “Bonjour les Tinois”

PS: Je suis conscient que cet article a de nombreuses limites. D’autres pistes de réflexions sont à étudier comme les bénéfices économiques que génèrent une population surconnectée à coûts réduits mais on attendra les campagnes présidentielles pour ça En attendant je reste chez Orange.

Un peu de lecture:

• Le Plan NExT chez Orange
• Les conditions générales de FREE ne sont pas si belles
• Free: un bel exemple de différence entre valeur réelle et valeur perçue

1. Dig in LinkedIn.com with “site:linkedin.com Internship”

Using the unknown “site:yoursite.com” function on Google can be a very powerful tool. Most of the search forms will show you limited (or not accurate) results if you don’t have the PRO Version. So enjoy Google’s algorithms and search for what you need. It could be simply “Internship”, “Internship Sydney”, or look for the sector you are targeting such as “Logistics Vancouver”.

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2. Leverage the Twitter Search with Hootsuite

There are a lot of discussions on Twitter about internships and jobs. Search for “Internship AND NYC” for example. Best practice is to read the tweets 15min in the morning and 15min before you go to bed. That way to don’t waste your time. I’m sure you will find lots of opportunities. I personally recommend Hootsuite as it’s the best twitter client for that.

TIP: Use Hootsuite Mobile and find your internship from wherever you are.

3. Use Google Insights to understand your competition

Click here to see the results. Here we learn that January/February is when students decide to look for an internship, probably for the summer from looking at the stats. We also learn that Google is still where people want to work the most and Kenyans are intensively looking for internships (or maybe one guy is obsessed and searches it 10 000 times per day, who knows?).

4. Use Google Realtime to look in the past

Use Google Realtime to look in the past and find lonely tweets that didn’t get any responses. Let’s say you were on vacation when all the HR people decided to tweet about their internships, or if you’re kind of last minute (should never happen) and you need to check what everyone was offering 2 months ago. No problem. Maybe someone gave up looking for an intern: you have a chance here.

TIP: Looking at the charts, you will also understand what are the periods of the day/month/year when people tweet the most about your field. Interesting isn’t?

5. Find Groups and People To Talk To on LinkedIn.com

LinkedIn Groups can be very powerful, a lot of them are very active and most of the time the discussion thread will be sent to the members mailbox.

1. Join Groups 2. Start a Discussion 3. Interact with people.

One more thing… Help the HR People and Be easy to find

Try to make HR people’s life easier. Create a single web page with all your contact information and refer to it everywhere you go. I personally use about.me/alextoul and find it pretty awesome.

CONCLUSION: I hope you find this useful. Please add your ideas/reactions in the comments and share this article with the people who might be looking for an internship in the future.

PS: I think we can say thanks to the people behind Google, Twitter, Linkedin and Hootsuite for making our lifes much easier.

It’s incredible how much amazing advice we can get on Youtube. This world really becomes amazing. I compiled the best advice from 3 extraordinary people. Please take some time to watch theses videos and share them with your friends.
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Steve Jobs’ – Stanford Graduation Speech – 2005

• “You’ve got to find what you love, keep looking, don’t settle”
  This is a common advice but unfortunately it tends to be forgotten…
  Creativity, Energy, Perseverance come with passion. Here Steve Jobs also insists on the importance to take the right time to find your passion.
• “Knowing that we’re all going to die it’s the best way to avoid the trap of thinking you’ve something to lose”
  Japan’s earthquake reminded me that. Everyone can die tomorrow, all fears disappear when we’re facing death. And yet most people don’t success because they’re scared of something (Risking? Leading? Looking Stupid?)
• “Don’t be trapped by dogma which is living with the results of other people’s thinking”
  We have this great quality to learn faster and better than any races. But because of that we let ourselves being influenced by outside thinking. His message here is “you can’t be happy if you don’t follow your heart”.
• “Stay Foolish, Stay Hungry”
  I love this one. The world knowledge is unlimited and constantly moving forward. Modesty is the most powerful tool to keep learning. I meet so many people who act like they know everything. Silly.

J.K. Rowling – Harvard Graduation Speech – 2008

• “There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction”
  You might not be happy to read this one if you have kids. Sorry. Our world’s rules are changing so fast, especially in the last 10 years with the the arrival of internet, that you can’t keep up. Building your life based on your own vision is so much more motivating. See the third advice above.
• “You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity”
  Here she is talking about the benefits of failure and how poverty can help us focusing on the essentials such as family and personal happiness.
• “Choosing to live in narrow spaces leads to a form of mental agoraphobia”
  If you’ve watched Shutter Island or travelled a lot you know what she’s talking about. Most of us are stuck in their own world, don’t the reality of things and can really suffered from that both socially or professionally. That’s why she’s talking about “The important of Imagination” and how learning from situation you never been through in real but just imagined can be incredibly helpful.
• “It’s not how long is it, it’s how good it is”
  Q.E.D.

Marissa Mayer – Illinois Institute of Technology – Graduation Speech – 2009

• “Surround yourself with the smartest people you know”
  It’s even more true since Twitter and Facebook. Now you can know what the smartest people on earth are saying. Look at Robert Scoble’s lists for example here. I find this amazing. But Marissa here also meant to physically surround yourself with the smartest people you know and sometimes it can mean scarifying a lot… Like money.. At the beginning at least..  
• “Do something you’re not ready to do”
  This is hard. Have you ever talked in front of 500 people? Accepted a project you have no idea how to manage? Good. Pushing his own boundaries seems to be the only way to really learn and grow.

Conclusion

Finding your passion, surrounding yourself with the smartest people you know, standing up, learning from The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination are some of the most valuable advice I’ve ever had. Though it’s very easy to forget them. I thought writing them down would help you, me and maybe your friends never to forget them. If you have more great advice & videos, write them in the comments. And Please share this article with your peers for a better world.

Other great inspiring graduation speeches:

• President Barack Obama at Michigan Commencement “Are people being nice?” – Watch
• Jeff Bezos delivers graduation speech at Princeton University “You’re your choices” – Watch

Now the goal is to increase the quality and quantity of your twitter followers. I found this task to be VERY time consuming considering that I don’t blog or don’t give speeches often, etc. So if you’re like me and not a ROCK STAR but still want to enjoy a growing audience. Here’s a few tips.

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1. Set Up 3 Newspapers Paper.li

Paper.li is a wonderful way that let you create a daily report based on the tweets of a portion of your followers or someone else’s followers. For example it can be based on one of your list or simply all your followers. Everyday you twitter account will tweet automatically this report and mention your followers.

You’re done. This will not only help you to get more people to know about you since they are mentioned in your tweets but also help you to catch up with filtered news more easily. The Paper.li newspaper is, indeed, very well designed.

2. Create self-updated lists with @formulists

Formulists is a great way to stay in touch with your followers using lists. When you add someone in a list it does two great things:

1. The person notices you and might say thanks and follow you back
2. You can filter your timeline

So now the goal is to list a maximum of relevant people in your lists to expand your network. Which is exactly what Formulists does. I would suggest your create at least 3 formulists:

• One from the “Filter Who You Follow” category.
• One from the “Expand Your Network” category: I really like the “People Like Somebody” list.
• One from the “Manage Your Followers” category.

Now the settings:

• Make sure to select “Exclude people I already follow from list” when you can
• Set up the “Maximum Size List” to 500 (which is the limit)
• Change the list description to something more friendly than “List generated by @formulists”

That’s it. Let the magic happens.

Now you have a nice way to grow your twitter followers spending absolutely 0s a day. Well don’t forget to be interesting, have a nice avatar, background, tweet often and ask questions. But this is the basics.

Let me know if you know others tricks in the comments! Good luck.

education

1. Change the rewarding system to celebrate failure. Not only failure is key to accelerate the learning curve but it’s usually the first fear that stop students from becoming an entrepreneur. At school, failing is not perceived as an accelerator and slows down entrepreneurship.

2. Experiment to change the world instead of virtual project. I spent hours of courses trying to build stuff that have already been done. Not fun. Today technology can connect any problem to anyone who is willing to solve it. If teachers were pushing students to “try to change the world” during their courses, students would understand how motivational and amazing it is to be an entrepreneur.

3. Create a culture of “we”. At school, we don’t live or even learn how to build a great culture. Ranking students individually create selfish personalities. Schools keep promoting how much you can make with their diploma while the most important is how much your team or maybe your users can benefit from your work. Entrepreneurs have been raised to be altruistic.

4. Rethink the Business Model. Technology are moving about 10x faster than 10 years ago and it’s not likely to slow down. We can no longer let people who haven’t be facing to the “real world” for the past 5 years. School administration could offer projects and/or money to researchers, engineers and entrepreneurs to tell their story about “How they fail or succeed?”. Knowledge has become real-time as well so teachers should go part-time and executives should go back to school.

But first of all, changes come from people. Students need to stand up and say loudly how bored they are at schools. Lots of them would become entrepreneurs if the system was celebrating innovation.

Our children will need a way better education system to face the very challenging world we’re heading to. We need to start to change it now.

The best way to predict the future is to create it. Peter F. Drucker

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Ted: “We built our school like Fast-Food.”

“Taking Internet To The Next Level” est une conférence que j’ai donnée le 13 décembre dans les locaux de l’Iteem (une des rares écoles d’entrepreneur/ingénieur en France).

L’objectif de cette conférence était de démontrer que l’internet est en croissance exponentielle, que cela crée une montage de nouvelles opportunités et que le “web entrepreneur” n’a jamais eu autant d’avenir grâce à la magie du cloud computing.

“Je pense que les ingénieurs français sont très compétents mais que leur manque d’optimisme les empêchent de détecter les opportunités qu’offrent le web.”

Vous trouverez ci-dessous ma présentation qui résume les leçons que j’ai retenues des multiples conférences américaines auxquelles j’ai pu assister ainsi que de la création de ma start-up à Vancouver.

Si vous avez des retours, remarques ou questions, n’hésitez pas à commenter ci-dessous.