Dayaway Careers

Dayaway Today

2010-02-13T05:04:00.000-08:00

Please follow Dayaway Careers on its public page, Dayaway Today--see link above. We report job listings and general growth every week day on Dayaway Today. Thanks so much. Mike Brownell. michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com

Retech Conference, Part 2

2010-02-07T08:48:00.000-08:00

Today's Focus: Retech Summary, Part 2.

Yesterday I posted a general summary of my odessey at the Exhibitor's Hall (you can find it in Archives). Today, I will provide short summaries of the conversations I had with company/association representatives. In each case, I presented myself as someone representing a group of college students looking for jobs and internships in clean energy. All the representatives took the Dayaway handout I offered (listing the registered profiles and providing background information on Dayaway) and promised to give it to their hiring representative.

Suzlon Wind Energy. I learned that Suzlon, an India based wind turbine company, is in the #2 or #3 position in the U.S., and that they have and will hire college graduates into entry-level positions. The two representatives appeared to be in their mid-twenties, business majors I would guess. They were optimistic about the long term future of wind energy, but quick to acknowledge that things are challenging now.

NEDO. The New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization is one of my favorites. This is a Japan public organization promoting clean energy R&D. They provide $2B annually to Japanese companies such as Sharp, Sanyo and Kyocera. I believe this shows that private capital markets alone are not enough for corporations who get graded by Wall Street every three months. Long term R&D investments need government support, which in turn, encourages private capital to pile on later.

Suniva. Big point learned here is that this company, a solar cell manufacturer, has an eighteen month backlog of orders. We need to watch them for job opportunities.

ThermaSource. This geothermal drilling company explained that there are similarities (and important differences) between drilling for oil and thermal energy. The take-away point is that getting a few years of experience in oil exploration (oil company or related-Schlumberger) could then lead to a geothermal career.

Ewing Bemis & Co. / Talor DeJongh. These two investment banking firms are both active in the clean energy space. They both hire MBAs. The fact that they were present at Retech is a sign of their long term commitment to clean energy given current soft equity markets.

Sterling Planet. This Georgia based consulting firm (carbon asset management) expressed a preference to hire local candidates, but would look past that preference for a strong candidate who reached out to them. This shows that in this economy it is an employers' market and students will have to sell themselves hard.

Anonymous. One representative (whose name I will supress given his candid and perhaps non-representative remark) expressed some frustration with the high salaries, especially to MBAs, that were paid 2 to 3 years ago. Now that the market has turned, he felt that candidates had to come back down to earth in their salary expectations. I'm not sure if this feeling is widespread among hiring representatives, but perhaps an extra dose of job-seeker humility is wise.

Lockheed Martin. I expressed my surprise that a major defense contractor was at the conference. I learned LM is active on a number of fronts, especially in the grid and smart-grid sector. The impressive young professional said that college job-seekers should study the utilities with an eye on whom they do business with--their consultants, software providers, PPAs (power purchasing agreements--the private solar or wind farm that sells clean electricity to a utility).

National Hydrogen Association. I learned about lots of cool hydrogen initiatives. I also promised to inform Dayaway's membership of a contest to design a hydrogen community. I will do this tomorrow.

Well, that's my summary. Go to www.retech2010.com if you want to learn more about what happened at Retech. You won't believe how much information is available to you.

Got or need a clean energy job/internship? Join or follow Dayaway.

michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com. Thanks. Mike b.

Retech Conference

2010-02-06T08:17:00.000-08:00

Today's Focus: Retech Summary. I spent Thursday walking the Exhibitor's floor at the Retech Conference in D.C. By way of background, this conference is one of the major renewable energy conferences. Today, I will pass along general observations. Tomorrow, I will summarize personal conversations I had with various renewable energy companies.

My first reflection is that the day made me remember what it like to be 22 or 26 and looking for a job. In one respect, it's awful. I presented myself to employers as someone who was supporting a group of students looking for clean energy jobs. Their reaction (through my eyes) was a combination of "oh, no, another person looking for a job," or worse, "oh, sh__, a headhunter." Everyone, however, was polite and in many cases quite interested in Dayaway and its student members. But I really felt the loneliness, rejection and emotional fatigue of what it is like to be a young professional with little or no experience looking for a job. It's easy to forget this when you are my age. Thursday took care of that. But the positive side is what matters.

I will write more about the positive side tomorrow, but a quick word on "chipping away" is the point now. Each conversation I had made the next one a little easier. For one thing, just talking with people was better than being alone. It's a little bit of the "misery loves company" thing, but it's also helpful to hear the words of encouragement and really good ideas that you get. The other great thought/feeling that came from trolling the floor and cold-calling was remembering the value of being resourceful and keeping moving. Things happen when you stay in motion. Things don't when you don't. At my age I know that's the attitude that employers want. It's more important than grades, degrees, school pedigrees and the like. It's what you do that matters. Crappy times like these bring that out in people, well some people. While I feel badly for those who struggle with that, I feel great about those who will discover it in themselves. The laws of large numbers coupled with the human condition assure me that Dayaway has a bunch of of these folks. I so look forward to getting to know and help them.

The Retech gathering seemed smaller than it was two years ago, no doubt reflecting changed economic conditions. That said, there were thousands of people attending the conference which occupied most of the Washington Conference Center thereby evidencing the size of the clean energy industry and its spectacular future. The company representatives with whom I spoke (approximately 20) said their companies were not hiring presently, but were hopeful that they would be in the future--no specific time frames given.

At least half of the companies (some large, some not) said they would hire entry-level college graduates, undergrad and graduates. Several spoke of internship programs. Even then, however, they mentioned the desire for some experience (not necessarily clean energy experience). For graduate students, this would seem less of a problem. For undergraduates, it demonstrates the importance of internships and, as well, the huge challenge of getting the first job.

Finally, I was surprised by how many non-US exhibitors were present--Japan, India, Italy, Germany, etc. At first, this depressed me because it suggests that the US is falling further behind other countries. But the more I have thought about it, this may be a very good thing. Why? Because competition is a primary motivator. As the Nike commercial stated, "Only two things motivate people: Fear and Interest." When you see the investments and market penetration being made by non-US companies in clean energy, you can't help feeling that you're getting left behind or that you could make a ton of money or perhaps both. I certainly felt fearful and interested.

Tomorrow I will report on specific conversations I had. Don't hesitate to contact me if you have specific questions about the conference.

Got or need a clean energy job/internship? Join or follow Dayaway.

michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com. Thanks. Mike b.

Quiet Next Few Days

2010-01-29T06:44:00.001-08:00

Today's Focus: Family Matters. The Dayaway site will be quiet for the next few days as my wife and I will be busy with family matters. I expect the site to return to normal operations early next week. Thanks to all the students who recently signed up. Have a great weekend.

michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com. Thanks. Mike b.

Jobs

2010-01-28T08:55:00.000-08:00

Today's Focus: 2 jobs listed today/last night; both engineering; California Energy Commission and Lawrence Berkeley.

Will spend most of day sending student invitations to NYU, Vanderbilt and Villanova.

I will attend Retech conference in DC next Thursday for the purpose of promoting the site and our students to the exhibitors. For the record, I hate "cold call" selling so it's ok--no, no, it's expected--that you feel sorry and grateful for this incredible sacrifice (I hope the intended humor is obvious here!). Also, if anyone reading this will be at Retech and would like to say hi, please let me know.

Got or need a clean energy job/internship? Join or follow Dayaway.

michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com. Thanks. Mike b.

Shifting Focus to Employers

2010-01-27T09:33:00.000-08:00

We will post at least 2 new job listings later today; perhaps more. For now, I want to share a few thoughts about signing up students going forward.

Monday and Tuesday were awesome days for sign ups, surprisingly so. This means Dayaway will now shift almost all of its time to finding the jobs and internships. We can do that because we now look credible.

Our credibility is defined by the quantity, quality and diversity of our student job/internship seekers. When you click "search job seeker" you see approximately 50 students from excellent schools across the country, graduate and undergraduate candidates, STEM/business/econ majors, men and women and all with solid grades. There are another "low profile" students who have registered but not created a profile.

While it would be tempting to expand the list even more (and now it would not be hard), we equally want to feature each student and reward each for investing in Dayaway. And we don't want to oversell. The reality is that 2010 will be a very difficult job market, and clean energy will not be an exception. Experts predict that clean energy job growth will outpace general economic growth significantly over the next 5-10 years, but right now job flow will be slow.

So, thank you to those of you who are signed up (visibily and just following). As for NYU, Vandy and Nova, we will send out a reduced number of invitations later today, and then we are done looking for students. Naturally we will accept those who come to us and I expect they collectively will increase membership by 20-40% by end of semester. This leaves us with a proportionality between seekers and expected job/internship listings.

Sorry for the long post, but if Dayaway truly is to be built for and by students then our gameplan needs to be transparent. And this also means your ideas are critical. So speak up--please. We need your views.

Got or need a clean energy job/internship? Join or follow Dayaway.

michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com. Thanks. Mike b.

Good Growth Monday

2010-01-26T07:32:00.000-08:00

Today's Focus: 2 new jobs listed today, both at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

We received an excellent response to student invitations sent yesterday; welcome new members from Boston College, Middlebury, University of Massachusetts and Northwestern University.

Will be sending additional invitations to NYU, Vanderbilt and Villanova later today.

Will contact approximately 50 additional clean energy companies by end of week (to promote students and site), and will do the same at ACORE RETECH meeting in DC late next week.

Got or need a clean energy job/internship? Join or follow Dayaway.

michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com. Thanks. Mike b.

Invitations Going Out

2010-01-25T07:43:00.000-08:00

Today's Focus: Boston College, Bowdoin, Bucknell, Colgate, Duke, Middlebury, Northwestern, NYU, Vanderbilt and Villanova. We will send 175+ invitations to students, professors and administration professionals at these schools. They have been selected based on their relation to student organizations emphasizing engineering, sustainability and energy. We've also reached to several business organizations.

Our goal is to add 20 to 50 high caliber students to our current team of approximately 70. This will give employers a list of students evidencing good quantity, quality and diversity (schools, geography, curricula, grades, undergrads/grads, job/intern seekers) while at the same time truly featuring each student and giving him/her a good chance of getting a job/internship.

Any jobs we find today will be posted this evening or first thing tomorrow.

Got or need a clean energy job/internship? Join or follow Dayaway.

michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com. Thanks. Mike b.

Weekend Summary

2010-01-23T07:15:00.000-08:00

Today's Focus: Today and tomorrow will be quiet at Dayaway. We are finalizing student invitations to: Duke, Villanova, Boston College, Colgate, Bucknell, Middlebury, Vanderbilt, Northwestern and Chicago. Focus, here, is to add more non-engineering profiles to our roster as jobs/internships being offered need this dimension.

We have several new job/internships stockpiled and will list them Monday.

We are beginning to received positive results from employer invitations sent last week and will report on them this coming week.

Still plan to attend ACORE conference in early February and promote Dayaway to companies exhibiting at conference. Please get a hold of me if you are attending and would like to say hi.

Have a great weekend.

Got or need a clean energy job/internship? Join or follow Dayaway.

michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com. Thanks. Mike b.

Jobs & Companies

2010-01-22T06:24:00.000-08:00

Today's Focus: 4 new positions listed (http://dayaway.editme.com/jobSearchForm).

Next Monday, we will send approximately 150 invitations to student organizations (emphasizing business and sustainability) to the following schools: Duke, Villanova, Bucknell, Georgetown, George Washington, Colgate, Vanderbilt, NYU, Emory, Nortwestern, Chicago and Virginia. The objective is to get more business, econ and policy majors to complement our excellent roster of engineers and science majors.

Each day this week, we are featuring several clean energy companies from our Company Directory (http://dayaway.editme.com/searchCompany). Today's companies are:

Nordex AG, wind, public, Germany (US presence), http://www.nordex-online.com/en/company-career/profile.html

SolarWorld, solar, private, OR, http://www.solarworld-usa.com/Job-Career.173.0.html,

Joule Labs, solar, private, CA, http://www.joulelabs.com/company.html,

GreenShift Corporation, biofuel, public, GA, http://greenshift.com/contact.php

Dayaway will be contacting these companies (and all the companies in our Company Directory) to inform them of the talented students registered with and following Dayaway who are interested in a clean energy job or internship.

Got or need a clean energy job/internship? Join or follow Dayaway (http://dayaway.editme.com/DayawayToday91609).

michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com. Thanks. Mike b.

Jobs - 9 New Listings

2010-01-21T16:22:00.000-08:00

Today's Focus: Well, good news and bad news.

The good news is that we listed 9 new jobs/internships. That's 22 for the week. Check them out: http://dayaway.editme.com/jobSearchForm

And best yet, some of the jobs were identified by a student who "recycled" jobs--a law student who sent us links of jobs not interesting to him but relevant to others. Thanks, Jeremy. Just imagine our searching capability if everyone did this; and it is so easy.

On the upsetting side, the site was down for most of the morning because of server problems. I truly apologize.

Got or need a clean energy job/internship? Join or follow Dayaway.

michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com. Thanks. Mike b.

Featured Companies - Enernoc, Iberdrola Renewables, NextEnergy and Schlumberger.

2010-01-19T13:07:00.000-08:00

Today's Focus: Each day this week (Jan 19-25), we will feature several clean energy companies from our Company Directory (http://dayaway.editme.com/searchCompany). Today's companies are:

Enernoc, smart grid, public, MA, http://www.enernoc.com/about/join-our-team.php

Iberdrola Renewables, wind, public, multiple locations (Spain HQ), http://www.iberdrolarenewables.us/careers.html

NextEnergy, cross-industry, private, MI, http://www.nextenergy.org/keepintouch_selectID.aspx

Schlumberger, clean coal division, public, multiple locations, http://careers.slb.com/

The 110 companies to whom we mailed letters on Friday will begin receiving the letters today. We will report results (jobs listed, feedback received, hits to site, etc.) over the weekend.

4 New Jobs listed http://dayaway.editme.com/jobSearchForm

We also will be reaching out to northeastern schools to round out our roster and hopefully get more business, economics and liberal arts majors registered. Results should occur by end of week.

Got or need a clean energy job/internship? Join or follow Dayaway.

michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com. Thanks. Mike b.

A Good Week

2010-01-16T07:19:00.000-08:00

Today's Focus: The weekend will be restful at Dayaway (after a very successful week--see yesterday's post at Dayawaycareers.com), but here's our to-do list for coming two weeks:

Finalize contact information for additional 50+ high quality company prospects; mail them by end of week,
Talk to registered members about featuring their profile (picture plus short description about them,
Recruit students from selected northeastern schools (emphasis upon business and econ),
Increase monitoring of online job postings at companies and boards,
Add approximate 25 quality companies to Company Directory,
Speak with authors of two clean energy books about writing career-related posts for Dayaway,
Generate interest amongst student base for content-building projects,
invent concrete that does not crack, grass that stops growing at 4 inches and wireless electricity--in my free time :)

Have a great weekend. Back on Monday. Mike b. michaelbrowell@dayawaycareers.com.

Got or need a clean energy job/internship? Join or follow Dayaway.

Featured Companies - CentroSolar America, Tendril, Mitsubishi Power Systems, EDF Energies Nouvelles and Ballard Power Systems

2010-01-12T07:30:00.000-08:00

Today's Focus: Each day this week, January 11-17, we will feature several clean energy companies from our Company Directory (http://dayaway.editme.com/searchCompany). Today's companies are:

CentroSolar America, public, solar, AZ, http://www.centrosolar.com/index.php?id=227&L=1

Tendril, private, smart grid, CO, http://www.tendrilinc.com/about-us/employment/

Mitsubishi Power Systems, public, cross-industry, FL, http://mpshq.iplacement.com/

EDF Energies Nouvelles, public, wind, France (US presence), http://www.edf-energies-nouvelles.com/english/index_gb.asp

Ballard Power Systems, public, hydrogen, MA, http://www.ballard.com/About_Ballard/Careers/

Got or need a clean energy job/internship? Join or follow Dayaway.

michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com. Thanks. Mike b.

Featured Companies - Verenium Corporation, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Solarfun, Itron .

2010-01-11T05:00:00.000-08:00

Today's Focus: Each day this week, January 11-17, we will feature several clean energy companies from our Company Directory (http://dayaway.editme.com/searchCompany). Today's companies are: Verenium Corporation, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Solarfun, Itron .

Got or need a clean energy job/internship? Join or follow Dayaway.

michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com. Thanks. Mike b.

A Good Week

2010-01-09T08:02:00.000-08:00

Today's Focus: This week's achievements.

Today and tomorrow will be quiet on Dayaway so I can do all the things I have neglected during the week (according to my wife!). But, the following steps were taken this week:

Double-checked mailing and email addresses for Company Directory entries.
Mastered (well, I learned more about) Word "mail merge" function to be used to print envelopes for our mailing campaign.
Prepared letter to be sent to companies (introducing Dayaway and promoting registered members and followers); will have this letter reviewed/critiqued by hiring representatives of public and private companies.
Made arrangements to speak with a professional "email expert" to get tips on how to improve Dayaway's email techniques.
Spoke with ACORE representatives about potential of participating at RETECH.
Started process to have someone(s) monitor job board pages of Company Directory companies.
Identified several "content building projects" to be undertaken, hopefully, by student organizations; really need to get going on member-generated-content.
Added 1 new registered student/day without sending any new invitations.
Will be reaching out to north eastern schools for new student registrations next week, especially looking for business, econ and liberal arts majors to complement our registered STEM members.

So, all in all, it was a good beginning to the new year. I expect to start sending letters and emails to companies next week. Clearly the economy and clean energy job market is weak, but these outreach efforts will, at a minimum, build reusable contacts and network linkage for the future. Sustainability is about investment. Dayaway is about investment.

Thanks to all for the much appreciated feedback. It's great to see our followers simply "throwing an idea on the pile." It's not hard. It really helps.

Got or need a clean energy job/internship? Join or follow Dayaway.

michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com. Thanks. Mike b.

Clean Energy Companies ; res Americas, Applied Solar, Covol, Ipower, eMeter

2010-01-08T07:15:00.000-08:00

Each day this week, we will feature several clean energy companies from our Company Directory (http://dayaway.editme.com/searchCompany). Today's companies are:

res Americas, private, wind, CO, http://www.res-americas.com/jobs.aspx

Applied Solar, private, solar, CA, http://appliedsolar.com/about/careers.php

Headwater Energy Services (a/k/a Covol), private, clean coal, UT, http://www.covol.com/

Ipower Energy Systems, private, combined heat/power, IN, http://www.ipoweres.com/contact.html

eMeter, private, smart grid, CA, http://www.emeter.com/company/careers/

Got or need a clean energy job/internship? Join or follow Dayaway.

michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com. Thanks.

Clean Energy Companies ; Syntroleum, Ecos, UTC Power, HoKu Scientific, Broadwind Energy

2010-01-07T10:00:00.000-08:00

Each day this week, we will feature several clean energy companies from our Company Directory (http://dayaway.editme.com/searchCompany). Today's companies are:

Syntroleum, public, biofuel, OK, http://syntroleum.com/Main.aspx

Ecos, private, consulting, multiple locations, http://www.ecosconsulting.com/

UTC Power, private, hydrogen fuel cell, CT, http://www.utcpower.com/

HoKu Scientific, public, solar, HI, http://www.hokucorp.com/index.php

Broadwind Energy, public, wind, IL, http://broadwindenergy.com/

Got or need a clean energy job/internship? Join or follow Dayaway.

Mike b. michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com.

Featured Companies

2010-01-06T06:25:00.000-08:00

Today's Focus: Each day this week, we will feature several clean energy companies from our Company Directory (http://dayaway.editme.com/searchCompany). Today's companies are:

Padoma Wind, private, wind, multiple locations, http://www.padoma.com/padoma.html

Camco International, private, consulting, CO, http://www.camcoglobal.com/

Pentadyne Power Corporation, private, storage, CA, http://www.pentadyne.com/site/contact/career-opportunities.html

Viridity Energy, private, smart grid, PA, http://viridityenergy.com/

On a more pedestrian note, I am making breathtaking progress learning how to transfer mailing addresses from Excel into Word which will then be used to mail our marketing pitch ("hire these great students listed on Dayaway") to the Company Directory companies. I promise not to whine about this again! January 16 still looks like the start date for the promotion campaign. Thansk. Mike b. michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com.

Featured Companies

2010-01-05T07:51:00.000-08:00

Each day this week, we will feature several clean energy companies from our Company Directory (http://dayaway.editme.com/searchCompany). They are summarized below.

BlueFire Ethanol, public, biofuel, CA, http://www.bluefireethanol.com/about/

Sterling Planet, private, carbon asset managament/consulting, GA, http://www.sterlingplanet.com/what-we-do/

Calpine, public, geothermal, CA, http://www.calpine.com/products/re_benefits.asp

Abengola Solar S.A., private, solar, Spain (US ops), http://www.abengoasolar.com/corp/web/en/abengoa_solar_us/index.html

Comverge, public, grid, NJ, http://www.comverge.com/about/index.cfm

Thanks. Mike b. michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com

Last Quiet Day

2010-01-03T08:28:00.000-08:00

Today is the last day of a restful long holiday weekend. But don't worry, the "wheels are turning" in preparation for a busy January--starting tomorrow.

The last two months have been dedicated to demand--identifying and connecting with students seeking clean energy jobs and internships. Demand is in place.

Dayaway now will focus on supply--clean energy jobs and internships. We have identified good targets. We will begin contacting them in the second or third week of January. In the meantime, I will be working with many of our members to (1) help them put the best foot forward during their search, and (2) generate creative ideas for how best to reach out to the clean energy companies. Please remember, Dayaway must be built for and by students. The best individual outcomes come from individuals working together.

New Years Eve

2009-12-31T06:36:00.000-08:00

Today's Focus: We added 3 private biofuels companies to the Company Directory: Codexis, Synthetic Genomics and Mascoma. Each of these companies has a major oil company backing it, and one, Codexis, is preparing for an IPO. These companies evidence the Dayaway strategy in two ways.

First, the companies demonstrate the value of "follow the money." Dayaway and its student members are interested not only in cool clean energy companies, but rather cool clean energy companies that are hiring. Employment and capital acquisition tend to correlate.

Second, we found these in yesterday's WSJ. One person reads a paper, sees the names of good companies and sends a link to Dayaway (by email or Delicious). These companies now will be notified of the Dayaway job/intern seekers and perhaps may list jobs with Dayaway. This is how little bits of information can grow into a job prospect.

Hope you all have a great New Years Eve. Mike b. michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com.

Quiet Week Continues

2009-12-30T07:15:00.000-08:00

The quiet week continues. I am spending most of my time working directly with our registered students on specific things they can do now to help their job search in the coming months. We also added several new members (which is pretty cool considering my direct marketing now is directed at employers vs. student groups). I also am working on identifying private equity groups focused on clean energy to find the companies they are investing in. Good progress being made.

Hope you are enjoying a restful last week of the year. Mike b. michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com

Quiet Now, But . .

2009-12-28T04:30:00.000-08:00

Today's Focus: Well, I am only partially ashamed to say that Dayaway's productivity has been very low the last few days. It's been a restful few days.

This week, too, will be quiet. But make no mistake, the wheels are turning. We will continue to reach out to our registered students by direct email, and also will be fine-tuning the site and adding companies to the Company Directory. Please check last Wednesday's post (see archives at Dayaway Today http://dayaway.editme.com/DayawayToday91609) for a complete description of where time is being spent this week and last.

Hope everyone is enjoying his/her down time. Bye for now. Mike b. michaelbrownewnell@dayawaycareers.com

Company Directory, Day 6

2009-12-20T08:39:00.000-08:00

Today's Focus: The Company Directory now lists 135 clean energy clean energy companies--all showing good potential to hire recent college graduates. I did not reach my goal of 150 by today (did add 20+ companies), but only because of the pull of "other events" (I love my family, too!).

The directory will easily reach 200 good companies by early 2010. I am especially encouraged by the growing list of private equity firms we are finding and the possible linkage to cool companies they may provide. More on that later.

Enjoy your weekend. Mike b. michaelbrownewll@dayawaycareers.com

Company Directory, Day 4

2009-12-18T06:25:00.000-08:00

Today's Focus: The Company Directory (listings of high quality clean energy companies) grew by 20 yesterday (100 total entries). I promise that by Sunday night, it will exceed 150.

It is important that your expectations be shaped properly. There are no guarantees that these companies will be hiring--full time or internship positions. 2010 will be a tough year.

But these are good companies--"high value targets," as Jack Bauer would say. Why? Because we have followed the money. Dayaway is researching where investors are investing. The theory is simply to leverage their financial due diligence. If a company is promising enough for smart investors to invest millions, then perhaps they will be employing and perhaps you should be considering. And if not, then not. We aggregate and filter.

So stay tuned. Lots more to come. And I know many of you are interested in startups. The good ones (not the farmer with a biomass still in in his barn or the solar panel guy working out of his garage) are harder to find. But Dayaway has a good strategy to find and filter them.

150 by Sunday evening. Mike B. michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com

Company Directory, Day 3

2009-12-17T06:07:00.000-08:00

Today's Focus: This is day 3 of "load the Company Directory." Yesterday added 11 companies to the directory (80 in all). Most of these companies were solar manufacturing companies (cells, wafers, complete systems) and most were public vs. private/startup companies. This will change. Our research has produced a diverse mix (across clean energy sectors, public vs. private). This breadth will become apparent by the end of the month.

The politicians believe that to make a point, you need to repeat your message over and over. Personally, that gets old to me, but I respect the reasoning. So, once again, Dayaway's first objective is to register talented students interested in clean energy jobs/internships (almost 50 to date). The second objective is to identify clean energy companies likely to hire these students (and at which students would want to work). The third objective is for Dayaway to inform the companies of the students (January activity). There, sort of a 1, 2, 3 approach.

Now, make no mistake, there are lots other activities Dayaway will undertake to build, broaden and enable this community of interest, but for now this is the focus. And the good news is it's going really, really well. Obviously 2010 will be a very tough year for jobs, perhaps even tougher for clean energy. But we need to be in this for the long run. That's an especially wise mindset when you are 20 something. Time is on your side. Be patient. Invest.

By the end of today, the Company Directory will have over a 100 entries. Based on our research so far, we should have 200 to 300 good companies listed by early January. How many jobs will they list? Who knows. But we (you, the companies and I) will have done more than most to connect high quality supply with high quality demand. And we do this by doing the little things--post your profile, refer a friend, suggest a company or idea. Lots of people doing little things in an organized way is a productive force. Keep it up. Mike B. michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com

Company Directory Construction

2009-12-16T05:29:00.000-08:00

Today's Focus: As mentioned yesterday, our normal publication routine is being suspended for next week or so while so we can add entries to the Company Directory. Over 15 new companies added yesterday, representing most all clean energy sectors (nothing in fuel cell or biofuel sectors yesterday). Will add another 10 to 20 companies today.

Student membership is solid. Almost 50 students registered (excellent profiles). Many more students unregistered but following site (hope to get many registered in coming weeks).

Good luck on exams and with travels home. Several students have offered to get involved with building the site. We really, really need this. Please get in touch if you have an idea or simply have a little time and want to help out. There are soooo many possibilities. Dayaway is designed to be built for an by students!

Promise to post update near end of day identifying Company Directory progress made today.

Mike B. michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com.

Dayaway Company Directory

2009-12-15T07:23:00.000-08:00

Today's Focus: A Good Change. Football coaches talk about "adjusting" their game plan. Military leaders talk about "conditions on the ground." I have decided to shift Dayaway's publication focus. Here's the deal.

From now until early January, I plan to spend most all my time expanding the Company Directory--which lists the clean energy companies to whom Dayaway will promote its registered students and generally encourage (request, plead, pester, bribe, etc.) to list their jobs and internships with Dayaway. Our research has produced over 200 promising looking companies and more and more are being identified every day. I am doing several things with this research.

I am filtering out (placed on back burner) companies that look really unlikely to hire you this year. Second, I am listing the qualifying companies on Company directory (probably 10 to 25 companies a day from now on). Finally, I am entering some additional information about these companies in my private files--information the company does not want shared or is not possible to put in the Company Directory (we will talk more about this off-the-site information later).

Since this is pretty time-consuming for me, I've decided to spend less time posting on the regular topics (curriculum, associations, job profiles, job boards and companies) and more time working on the Company Directory. I will try, at the end of each day, to list the new companies entered into the directory. And of course any new jobs/internships found will be listed.

That's the new plan. This is a good thing, a real good thing. I will post new companies added to the Company Directory later today. Mike b. michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com.

Sustainable Business

2009-12-14T06:04:00.000-08:00

SustainableBusiness.com. In keeping with, "keep it short, it's exam week," we're offering a short post on a very good job board, Sustainable Business. Check it out in Worth Knowing, below.

More of you are emailing me directly to discuss your specific goals regarding internships and jobs (and feedback on improving the site). I love it. I hope, and am sure, that I will hear from many more. Technology (emails, sorts, filters, RSS) is great, but personality is better. I will find the time if you do.

I also will be explaining to registered members how the new "upload resume" function works. This will make it easier to create your profile. Please remember, that many employers look (at our profiles), but don't list their jobs. They can't see you if you don't create your profile. We need to talk about Linkedin, too.

Sustainable Business (a/k/a Green Dream Jobs) not only is an excellent job board for clean energy, but the "green/sustainable" focus results in it listing jobs and internships that would be logical fall-backs to clean energy. This site provides a nice filter for entry-level and internship level of experience in addition to the standard location and keyword filter. Most importantly, it has a filter for "energy," which will eliminate most of what you don't need when combined with the other filters. There is a RSS feed, too, so you can receive notifications of new listings.

All in all, this is one of the better boards. I hope you use it. Mike B. michaelbrownell@daywaycareers.com

AzRISE

2009-12-11T06:04:00.000-08:00

Arizona Research Institute for Solar Energy (AzRISE). Because exams are the name of the game now, today's post is short although a good one (in my highly biased, self-interested view!). Read about AzRISE in Worth Knowing below, especially if you are a high performing undergraduate thinking of grad school.

Btw, membership, (high quality membership), is growing well. For this reason, I will be shifting much more of my time to researching the quality companies we will contact in early 2010 to find jobs and internships. If anyone wishes to do a little volunteer research, please let me know and I will share my searching techniques with you. The sooner we start building Dayaway together (think Wikipedia), the better everyone will be.

AzRISE

AzRISE, is described on its website as. "a global institute at the University of Arizona, creates multi-disciplinary partnerships that integrate research, economics, public policy and education. Spanning academia, industry and government, these partnerships are creating the solar energy innovations essential to securing a sustainable future." If you are an undergraduate looking at grad programs, this would be a great one to prepare you for the solar sector. The Contributing Faculty page in the About section demonstrates AzRISE's multidisciplinary focus.

The Supercourse approach is very interesting. The site describes it as, "The Supercourse concept is one developed by Dr. Joseph Simmons and Dr. Kelly Potter, both University of Arizona and AzRISE faculty, to meet the needs of educating people from diverse disciplines and a range of preparation levels in multidisciplinary fields of study. Supercourses are composed of coordinated learning modules that are vertically integrated, that are designed to be delivered by web, by classroom and by laboratory experience, and that provide a complete set of pre-requisite knowledge for students coming from varied science and engineering backgrounds. Go to the site to read more.

I promised to keep it short. That's it. Thanks again. Mike b. michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com

Company Profile - Alstom, Emcore, Iogen

2009-12-10T06:54:00.000-08:00

Continuing in the spirit of, "It's exam week...I'm slammed...Just give me something quick," here's a short post on several companies that Dayaway will promote its members to and look for jobs from. Read about them in Worth Knowing below. We promise to list at least a couple hundred companies like these (public and private) on our Company Directory by early January.

Alstom - Large, global energy/transport company headquartered in France. Best know for nuclear, but major presence in hydroelectric and wind power. Well know for high speed trains, too. Large US presence/workforce.

Emcore - Solar cell manufacturer, including concentrated solar. CA, NM, NJ and PA. Public company, Nasdaq EMKR.

Iogen - Canadian company. Iogen is a world leading biotechnology firm specializing in cellulosic ethanol - a fully renewable, advanced biofuel that can be used in today's cars. Major investors include Goldan Sachs, Petro-Canada and Royal Dutch Shell.

National Energy Technology Laboratory

2009-12-09T09:37:00.000-08:00

Today's Focus: National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL). It is very clear to me (and it is more clear to our student readers) that it is EXAM TIME--little time for jobs/interns right now. So I've decided to shorten the posts. Hopefully, this will fit into the free minute or two when you just need to break away from studies.

The Energy Lab, as it is often called, is part of DOE's national laboratory system. While much of its focus is upon oil, gas and coal, it is doing very progressive research regarding clean coal, carbon sequestration and hydrogen fuel cell research. Current headlines on the site include: "Toward a Hydrogen Economy," Smart Grid: The Future of Electricity Distribution" and Sustainable Strategies: Ensuring our Nation's Energy Future."

From a job/internship search perspective, the value of the NETL site is building your Energy IQ and potentially finding employment leads (although I am sure there are a few terrific employment opportunities). Go to the site. Click around. Learn a little. The DOE labs receive a ton of money which leads to state of the art research, references to true thought leaders, issues and companies you should know about. Thanks. Mike B.

Company Profile - Acciona

2009-12-08T05:29:00.000-08:00

Today's Focus: is upon a company regularly offering clean energy jobs, Acciona . The strategy behind these company posts is to provide: key profile metrics (size, location, industry); a brief overview of what the company does; some sense of the benefits, risks and long term prospects from working at the company; and, to get you to think of other similar companies (the best idea is the one that sparks other ideas). And, all of this done in a way to maximize RPM - results per minute; time matters. Go to daywaycareers.com/searchcompany to find more companies.

Acciona describes itself as "a 100-year-old, multi-billion-dollar global company with more than 40,000 employees. We operate on five continents in 30 countries and have pioneered renewable energy solutions for nearly 20 years. In North America, we are divided into three business divisions that allow for a specific focus: ACCIONA Infrastructures, ACCIONA Agua and ACCIONA Energy." You and Dayaway are interested in Acciona Energy.

While Acciona is active in almost all renewables globally, in North America its focus is upon wind and solar. It follows a "develop, build and operate" model. It is a major manufacturer of wind turbines (7,500 MW installed globally) and operates numerous wind farms in North America. It is extremely active in developing concentrating solar power (CSP) technology. To you, this collectively means jobs in research, manufacturing, sales/marketing, construction, operation and management; just about everything.

Home base is Spain. It's European presence is extensive and highly admired. So, your "ruthless climb to the top" (Dilbert) would include travels and most likely an expat assignment in Madrid and/or other cool European venues. Acciona has an outstanding sustainability record; it holds the top spot in its Dow Jones Sustainability sector index.

Visit the site and learn. This is one more example of the types of companies to whom Dayaway will promote its members. Be sure to watch our Company Directory in late December to see a complete listing of these companies. Thanks. Mike b. michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com

University of Colorado RASEI

2009-12-07T06:52:00.000-08:00

Today's Focus: is upon the University of Colorado Renewable and Sustainable Energy Initiative (RASEI). Dayaway provides curriculum related information (including the Course Directory at Dayawaycareers.com/courseSearch) to: help students prepare substantively for a clean energy career; to enable clean energy professors and administrators to easily see the efforts of their peers; and, to permit employers to see, and perhaps contribute to, the actions taken by colleges to shape their talent pool.

The University of Colorado Renewable and Sustainable Energy Initiative (RASEI) is an interdisciplinary joint research effort between the University of Colorado at Boulder and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Plus, it's close to world class skiing .

What's the relevance of RASEI to your 2010 job search? Answer: some undergraduates will be considering graduate work given economic conditions. RASEI has excellent graduate programs (and undergraduate programs) described as follows on it's website: "CU-Boulder's graduate energy certificate program provides a broad exposure to energy issues, with an emphasis on renewable and sustainable energy. Required coursework on energy science and technology, policy, and business; coupled with electives on energy economics, journalism, and other topics, give students the skills and knowledge to tackle society's pressing energy problems." Btw, UC Boulder is close to great skiing/snowboarding . On a more serious note, the linkage to NREL would be enormously valuable towards building relationships with some of the best and brightest minds in clean energy (with excellent business connections, too.).

We will be featuring many more university institutes dedicated to clean energy research and education. Mike B. michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com

Sunday Break

2009-12-06T06:28:00.000-08:00

Taking Sunday off (well, relatively speaking). Past week very productive. Identified student organizations (energy, engineering and environmental) in Texas, Iowa and Colorado and sent over 125 invitations. Very encouraging response. Targeting Arizona, Oregon and Washington this coming week. Our map (http://dayaway.editme.com/MapForThat) and registration list showing excellent growth. Have identified contact information for 67 public clean energy companies. Will continue this throughout December and expand to include companies receiving private equity investments. All in all, strategy and execution right on schedule for a productive and fun 2010. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. Mike b. michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com.

Energy IQ

2009-12-05T07:43:00.000-08:00

Today's Focus: Energy IQ. First, I apologize for promising to write this post yesterday. I sent over 50 invitations to the University of Colorado, Colorado College and Colorado School of Mines, and then the Chicago Bulls and Black Hawks both were on TV. The day got away.

Thursday I had a refreshing phone conversation (well, for me at least) with an MBA student from the University of Texas, a very impressive young man. He asked excellent questions about Dayaway, many of them highlighting Dayaway's aspirational and undeveloped profile. I am good with that. We're just getting started.

One question he asked was, "Do you/Dayaway know what clean energy employers are really looking for, especially regarding skills, experience and curriculum." His excellent point was that if students knew more about these requirements, they could take courses and get internships that would give employers what they want. I answered, "No, and that Dayaway aspires to provide a process, structure and place for gathering and communicating this type of information." After the call, I felt badly I had not mentioned one thing that everyone can do immediately that will make a difference -- grow your business IQ, your energy IQ.

Technical excellence and deep skills will be critical to clean energy companies. The funding going into the renewable energy institutes at our nation's universities to underwrite clean energy research demonstrates this. But the one thing that all businesses want are employees (entry and C level) who understand the business and understand the industry. This is something that you can do right now simply by being intellectually curious, resourceful and self-motivated. Do this, and get an an edge. Don't do this, and some one else will and get the job you want. So what is meant by learning the business, by expanding your clean energy IQ?

Here's a start: people, issues, terms, events, places, statistics and companies. Do you know the names of congressmen, CEO's, professors and thought leaders important to clean energy (Secretary Chu, Carol Browner, Ditlev Engel, Amory Lovins) ? Are you following major state and federal clean energy legislation--American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, renewable portfolio standards, cap and trade legislation? How about important tax, legal and financial developments--investment and production tax credits. Familiar with highly visible cellulosic biofuel research? Hybrid organic-inorganic solar research? Where is some of the best research taking place ($100M of grants in November to 8 DOE National Laboratories). What are the current and projected growth rates for wind and solar power? And what are the different ways growth is measured? How does the order backlog look for wind turbines? For solar modules? Is private equity flowing into clean energy markets? Which sectors? From which private equity firm? Do you know the competitor and partner relationships among specific firms? And what about international developments (United Nations Climate Change Conference (Copenhagen).

A student seeing an internship or job who knows something about these topics will stand out. Simple as that. The candidate will appear truly interested in clean energy, as well as a good problem solver--someone who can teach himself what he needs to know. Many companies use critical behavior interviewing techniques. Developing your energy IQ will help you on the CBI front. Finally, a prospective employer wants employees and future leaders who know how the company makes money and can help it do so. Understanding a business and industry is critical to this objective.

So this is what I wish I had said during the telephone interview. Grow your energy IQ now. Read, read, read, But read with a purpose. Take notes. Memorize. Reflect on what you read. Develop your own ideas. All of this will help you chart your path and sell yourself when you arrive. Mike b. michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com

Posting Later Today

2009-12-04T05:08:00.000-08:00

Later today, Friday, I promise to summarize another good clean energy job board. I also will share thoughts, after thoughts actually, from a very enjoyable phone conversation I had with an MBA candidate from the University of Texas. Right now I want to continue my "covert op" in the state of Colorado--40+ invitations going out to engineering, environmental and energy organizations. Mike B.

North American Clean Energy

2009-12-03T06:17:00.000-08:00

North American Clean Energy. Our posts generally focus on companies, curriculum, associations and job profiles. Occasionally, a "nonstandard" topic needs to be covered, for example a good blog or book. That's the case today: a good magazine (online/hardcopy).

Given the our student constituency, it's important to say up front, "it's free, and online." While a magazine may be a bit much for many students (hard to get good RPM - results per minute), this one is different. The articles are pretty short and focused. The scope is limited to clean energy and only clean energy. And best, all content is clearly organized by the major clean energy sectors - wind, solar, geothermal, hydro and biofuels (and then subdivided into articles, news and products). Bottom line, you can get to what interests you quickly (hum, RPM).

There is a strategic focus on products/services that, on its face, seems irrelevant to student job seekers. But remember, you, as a student, need to develop your energy IQ. The magazine's content is a great/painless way to do that. Plus, you will gather clues relevant to your job search (names of companies, thought leaders, headlines) that indirectly will enhance your search.

So, check out NA Clean Energy. Oh yes, you can subscribe online and get a digital copy of the magazine (or regularly go to the link we've provided). Thanks. Mike b. michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com

Map For That

2009-12-02T08:05:00.000-08:00

Today's Focus: Today I want to update you on a cool new map we've put on the site to show our growing student membership base. Click on the "Map For That" link just below the Forrest Gump picture and list of schools (in Dayaway Today http://dayaway.editme.com/DayawayToday120209 ). You also can click on the title to this link--give the map a second to load. After you get to the google map, you can roll-over the bubbles to see the schools where we have registrations and the names of students (well, that's coming soon). I have been carpet bombing the Midwest with emails recently, and will begin to move west and east in the next couple of weeks. My goal is to register students in the 20-30 states that have the most progressive track record so far with clean energy prior to promoting our students to employers in early 2010. I hope you look at the map regularly. It's fun and encouraging to actually see our progress. Thanks. Mike B. michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com.

University of Notre Dame, Energy Center

2009-12-01T08:06:00.000-08:00

Today's Focus is upon the University of Notre Dame Energy Center. Dayaway provides curriculum related information (including the Course Directory at Dayawaycareers.com/courseSearch) to: help students prepare substantively for a clean energy career; to enable clean energy professors and administrators to easily see the efforts of their peers; and, to permit employers to see, and perhaps contribute to, the actions taken by colleges to shape their talent pool.

The Notre Dame Energy Center (the EC) focuses upon five primary research and education areas: energy efficiency; safe nuclear waste storage; clean coal utilization; CO₂ separation, storage, sequestration and use; and solar and other renewable energy. This focus occurs with an eye on the social, political, and ethical aspects of energy policy and use. The EC website lists its clean energy curriculum as well as an impressive student advisory board.

Some of the courses offered include, "Alternative Energy Devices and Materials," and "Energy Technology and Policy." I found it very uplifting to see the large number of talented students, undergraduate and graduate, serving on the student advisory board.

Recently, the ND Energy Frontier Research Center, lead by Dr. Peter Burns, received an $18.5M grant from DOE to pursue advanced scientific energy research (see article).

It is genuinely encouraging to see and report on a high caliber department like the ND EC. We look forward to profiling others on a regular basis. Please give us your suggestions. Mb. michaelbrowell@dayawaycareers.com

Company Profile - Kyocera Solar

2009-11-30T05:49:00.000-08:00

Today's post summarizes a company regularly offering clean energy jobs, Kyocera Solar. The strategy behind these company posts is to provide: key profile metrics (size, location, industry); a brief overview of what the company does; some sense of the benefits, risks and long term prospects from working at the company; and, to get you to think of other similar companies (the best idea is the one that sparks other ideas). And, all of this done in a way to maximize RPM - results per minute; time matters. Go to daywaycareers.com/searchcompany to find more companies.

Kyocera Solar. is one of the world's largest vertically-integrated producers and suppliers of solar energy products (think full cycle research, design, manufacturing and marketing). So, whether you are a STEM, business or liberal arts major, your should consider this company.

As for profile metrics, it is very large (5000 US employees; $10B total revenue(not just solar), publicly traded, international (Japan HQ, multiple international offices, very large US presence in Arizona).

Its website states: "Kyocera Solar, Inc. is staffed by the most experienced and talented engineers, technical support, and sales personnel within the solar electric industry. The Company's expertise is based upon designing, manufacturing, and installing the most technologically advanced solar electric power systems available today. With thousands of successful installations worldwide, Kyocera continues to be the leader in the solar electric industry."

Several interesting college entry-level positions were listed on its website job board over the last few months. Dayaway will be promoting its registered members to Kyocera in early 2010.

So, think about Kyocera, and think about other companies like it. Check out Kyocera on our Company Directory. Thanks. Mike B.

Happy Thanksgiving

2009-11-26T07:38:00.000-08:00

Happy Thanksgiving to all our readers and supporters. This last week was unbelievably successful. We doubled our registrations. More importantly, I have gotten to know some of our new members personally; helping them look for specific leads and generally putting our heads together on job search topics. Any doubt that I had about the success of Dayaway (there was just a wee bit) is now absolutely gone. Dayaway not only is going to be successful (meaning good value to students and employers), but we're going to have fun and do something different, too.

We will resume our publication schedule next Monday. The next few days will be spent strengthening the website to get ready for December. Have a great Holiday weekend. Mike B.

Company Profile - Biofuel Energy Corp

2009-11-25T07:54:00.000-08:00

Today's Focus: is upon a company regularly offering clean energy jobs, Biofuel Energy Corp. The strategy behind these company posts is to provide: key profile metrics (size, location, industry); a brief overview of what the company does; some sense of the benefits, risks and long term prospects from working at the company; and, to get you to think of other similar companies (the best idea is the one that sparks other ideas). And, all of this done in a way to maximize RPM - results per minute; time matters. Go to daywaycareers.com/searchcompany to find more companies.

Biofuel Energy Corp. Sometimes a thing is important not only for what it is, but also for what it represents. That is the case here. In addition to being an important company in the biofuel industry, BEC also shows the risk and opportunity in a clean energy career.

As for our standard profile metrics, BEC is small to medium size company (approximately $400M annual revenue); publicly traded; and, in multiple locations. It's home page states, "BioFuel Energy is a publicly traded company (NASDAQ: BIOF) whose goal is to become one of the leading ethanol producers in North America." The company is headquartered in Denver, Colorado. The company, like its industry generally, is struggling financially at the moment. Less than three years ago, BEC's stock was almost 10 times its current price. As a young professional, you should study an up and down situation like this to understand what caused it, and more importantly, how will these causes behave in the future.

Biofuel offers tremendous environmental and economic promise, especially regarding the potential of cellusosic ethanol (using non-food stocks, see BEC FAQ for nice explanation). That said, proponents and critics both have a lot to say about biofuel, and therefore, it's future is far from clear. Neither I nor most of you are experts in biofuel, however we still can try to identify the major forces that will define the upside and downside of the biofuel industry and your potential career in it. Some issues likely to bear upon the future of biofuel are: advancements in cellulosic ethanol, especially regarding the cost of production; biofuel substitutes, such as fuel cell, battery and hybrid transportation, biofuel subsidies and tax credits, legislation generally, ethanol supply and demand generally, future economic conditions, and water supply concerns.

Hopefully, you will think of additional issues, research them and draw conclusions. I realize it's confusing, if not overwhelming, but I personally think it's your best option. Have a great Thanksgiving. Mike B. michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com

Association Profile - ELPC

2009-11-24T05:35:00.000-08:00

Today's Post will discuss an association, the Environmental Law and Policy Center. We feature associations and organizations to enable you, a job-seeking student, to: determine your interest in a specific industry or employer; identify hot sub-industries (e.g., thin film producers or smart grid system developers) and to prepare yourself for an interview by gathering important information, such as: current headlines, names of industry thought leaders and important policies and policy developments. And, all of this done in a way to maximize RPM - results per minute; time matters. Go to dayawaycareers.com/professionalassociations to find more clean energy associations.

Environmental Law and Policy Center (ELPC). OK, here's the situation. You've got an interview coming up. You want to sound smart and show that you know something practical about renewable energy. In all events, you don't want to get blind-sided by a question that people-in-the-know know, but you don't. If you spent a little time on ELPC's website, you could learn a lot about: renewable energy standards, net-metering, interconnection standards, tax credits (both ITC and PTC), flips, sale-and-leasebacks, top 10 states for solar and wind power production, REAP (Rural Energy for America Program), Biomass Crop Assistance Program, Biorefinery Assistance Program and tons of practical statistics. So if you're curious but a little short on time, this is a great address to click and learn with excellent results per minute.

The ELPC website states, "ELPC is the Midwest’s leading public interest environmental legal advocacy and eco-business innovation organization. . . . We are public interest environmental entrepreneurs who engage in creative business deal-making with diverse interests to put into practice our belief that environmental progress and economic development can be achieved together." This group shapes legislation and laws that foster clean energy. They do this well because they understand the business cases underpinning clean energy. Most business cases involve job creation. This is where you, a clean energy job seeker, come in! The ELPC site wil help you learn the issues, terms and facts as well as the names of people, companies and resources that will help you find your clean energy job. They also offer avenues for you to get involved in environmental initiatives that make a difference if your're interested.

My final editorial comment is that it's good to watch the different way different people solve a problem or complete a project. An artist, doctor, economist and accountant may each take a very different approach to the same problem or project. If true, you are wise to leverage different kinds of resources in your job search. ELPC uses legal resources (among other impressive assets) in furtherance of clean energy objectives. Understanding their approach will give you a valuable perspective, and perhaps a competitive advantage, in your job search. Take advantage of it.

Thanks. Mike B. michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com

Job Board - Net Impact

2009-11-23T08:00:00.001-08:00

Today's post will summarize one of the better job boards for clean energy jobs, Net Impact Career Center. While we watch and report on this board, you may want to monitor it yourself. And for the record, any job listing on Dayaway found on a job board will provide full attribution to the job board and will send you to their job board to learn about it. This is how the job boards make money and we and you must respect that process. Tell others about Net Impact; we want them to be successful. Know of a board you'd like to recommend? Tell us. Check out additional job boards in the Dayaway Careers Resources section.

Net Impact Job Board. Net Impact, the organization, is widely known, especially to young professionals. It's front page defines NI as, " A global network of leaders changing the world through business." It's people focus on corporate responsibility, social entrepreneurship, sustainability and the like. It's job board corresponds with this focus.

The job board includes clean energy jobs, but also includes other green jobs such as green building, transportation and environmental jobs. So, its a lot better than using Career Builder or Monster, but you do need to use the filters or watch it regularly and scan quickly. A real nice advantage of this board is it seems to lean towards younger professionals so you spend less time seeing and discarding jobs for "old people." Also, if your clean energy motivation is sustainability driven, you may find a non-clean energy job that feels good to you (not a bad fallback to pay the bills!).

Filters include: keyword, location, job category (mostly industry focus (environmental) but also professional (IT) and job type (full-time, intern, etc.). A great filter is provided for degree/experience (entry level, MBA). No filter is provided for clean energy or major, so, at least for us, it's best to simply check the board every day or so and look for the clean energy jobs. The board usually gets several listings a day, and we have found several very good jobs for college graduates. A very nice email feed is offered which makes daily checking pretty easy.

We monitor the board regularly and have identified a number of terrific positions, ranging from small ("I think I can") companies to very large and prominent employers (e.g. GE). There is a small membership fee to join (I think $10 for students). I think it is well worth it given the job board and all the other excellent resources and opportunities to connect with like-minded individuals. But I am biased. I am a member.

Thanks for reading. Mike B. Reactions?

Nov 22 Week Summary

2009-11-22T06:56:00.000-08:00

This was the second week of emailing students and faculty at energy, engineering and environmental clubs at US colleges and universities. Results are encouraging--tiring, and at times disappointing--but definitely encouraging. Through this week, I have sent about 100 emails to students in the following states: California, Connecticut, Indiana, Kansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Ohio, Oregon, Oklahoma, Washington and West Virginia. The schools vary from very big to very small. The profiles of individuals vary a lot by major, undergraduate vs. graduate (MS and PhD), gender and so on.

Approximately 1 out of 10 emails has lead to a registration. I can't say at this point how many of these registrations are truly serious about getting a clean energy job and will have the credentials that a clean energy employer desires (grades, coursework, etc.). It also is too early to tell which registrants will get interested in building Dayaway. Watching these two subgroups define themselves over the coming weeks will be very interesting and satisfying.

Our site is getting a lot of activity. We had 6,000 hits in October. November should exceed 12,000 hits. It's fun to type this, although it only brings to mind the saying, "lots of motion, not much movement," until we build the registration list. I am against allowing advertising on the site, but I am open to bringing visibility to some of the really cool things I see the student organizations doing. I also have had some excellent discussions about how Dayaway's job listings (sorry, future job listings) could be re-listed on local job boards. This has some really, really cool possibililties. More on that later. Finally, we published 4 quality articles on companies, curriculum, job boards and associations and listed two new jobs.

So, another good week. Priority #1 will be Forrest Gump emailing--just as he ran and ran, I will write and write. Our strategy of content produced collaboratively by our members like that of wikipedia still is an aspiration at this point. However, I am more convinced than ever that this will soon change. Bye for now. Mike B.

American Wind Energy Association

2009-11-20T06:35:00.000-08:00

Today's post will discuss an association, the American Wind Energy Association. We feature associations and organizations to enable you, a job-seeking student, to: determine your interest in a specific industry or employer; identify hot sub-industries (e.g., thin film producers or smart grid system developers) and to prepare yourself for an interview by gathering important information, such as: current headlines, names of industry thought leaders and important policies and policy developments. And, all of this done in a way to maximize RPM - results per minute; time matters. Go to dayawaycareers.com/professionalassociations to find more clean energy associations.

American Wind Energy Association (AWEA). If you are a student interested but a little new to the clean energy picture, this is one of those professional associations that everyone in the wind industry knows about. I am more pressed than usual for time today, so I will simply present AWEA to you and skip the summary. But make no mistake, this is a "must know about" organization for the reasons mentioned above. Please check it out now and then use it on a regular basis throughout your job search.

Thanks. Mike B. michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com

GE Leadership Program

2009-11-19T05:13:00.000-08:00

GE Renewable Energy Leadership Program. Normally our job profile is not a real job being offered, but rather is based upon a real job once offered, and then, embellished to make it interesting. This one is real and needs very little embellishment. Now, this job, as best I can tell, is for the long ball hitters. MBAs with an engineering undergraduate degree are preferred. We feature this job for several reasons. The elite candidates (at elite schools or elite credentials otherwise) need to be aware of opportunities like this. Second, undergraduate engineers might consider aiming for jobs like these. Finally, this job represents elements of lots of similar, albeit less glamorous, clean energy jobs that will be offered.

The following appears on the Net Impact Job Board (btw, a great job board we will report on soon.)

Summary: The Renewable Energy Leadership Program accelerates the development of renewable energy-focused talent through a structured program combining coursework, job assignments and interactive seminars. Associates complete three or four position rotations within a two-year period in GE's Renewable Energy platform, which includes Wind, Solar, Fuel Cells, and the Global Research Center. As this is a global program we are seeking candidates with unrestricted authorization to work in the United States, Germany, India, China, or Spain.

Position Description:
Associates are given the ability to design their own rotations, with input from the program leader, to lead projects and processes in a variety of functions across the Renewables Business, including Sales, Commercial Operations, Product Line Leadership, Project Management and Logistics, Manufacturing, Sourcing, Parts & Maintenance, Product Service & Warranty, and others. Associates participate in a comprehensive leadership development program, including classroom training, mentoring, six sigma, networking and exposure, and a structured performance evaluation process. Graduates are well prepared for medium to large sized leadership positions within the Renewables platform.

GE is accepting candidates for an August 2010 start date.

I hope you liked this one. Seeing a great company like GE offering a position like this is a wonderful indication of clean energy's future career opportunities. Mike B michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com

New Members

2009-11-18T06:38:00.000-08:00

New Members Today, Wednesday, I need to break away from the regular topics (companies, associations, job profiles, job boards and curriculum) in order to catch up with new members. This is a great problem to have. So, I'd like to extend a visible first-name-only (privacy first) welcome to Amy, Andrew, Bickney, Evan, Hannah, Jimmy, Megan and Megan as new student members of Dayaway. Of the 50+ email invitations I sent in the last few days, these folks threw their hat in the ring. I really look forward to learning more about them so I can support their career objectives and the various clubs and organizations they are members of. But I really, really look forward to sending hundreds and hundreds more emails to energy, engineering and environmental student organizations to convince more young professionals to join Dayaway. I fully expect to have several hundred high caliber students by December whom Dayway will then personally present to the best clean energy employers in advance of the 2010 job and internship recruiting season. Anything anyone reading this post can do to support this vision would be great appreciated. In the meantime, I am writing and writing just like Forrest Gump kept running and running.

I promise to get back our "regularly scheduled programming" tomorrow. Thanks. Mike B. michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com

Job Board - Filtering Titles

2009-11-17T05:14:00.000-08:00

Today's post will discuss how to quickly read job titles to eliminate jobs you are not qualified for. Next week, we will summarize a specific job board. In the meantime, check out our favorite job boards in the Dayaway Careers Resources section.

Filtering Titles. Finding jobs requiring no, or very little, professional work experience is the name of the game for newly-minted college graduates, especially undergraduates. Unfortuntately, relatively few boards provide reliable filters to do this. Some boards offer "experience" filters (entry level or 0 - 2 years experience), but many of these snag jobs requiring more experience than a graduate often has. Word searching is even less helpful. A job title often tells you all you need to know. Certain job title words guarantee minimum experience requirements. So, see these words; ignore the listing; save time; and, spend time on jobs available to you.

The job title words we see as code for "don't bother" are: adviser (advisor), area, chief, consultant, coordinator, director, executive, global, lead, manager, officer, partner, president, principal, regional, senior, team leader, VP. There will be exceptions when a title containing these words will not require prior experience, but we feel the odds are slim.

The words: analyst, associate, assistant, entry-level, junior, professional, representative, researcher, specialist, and team member may or may not suggest a position for a recent college graduate. Our experience is to read further for specific years or types, if any, of experience required.

As for the obvious question, "what words always indicate no experience required," we don't know of any; although "guppy" is a good bet_ But quickly ruling out out-of-scope jobs is a big first step, especially and unfortunately, in today's economy when there are so few jobs listed in the first place. As the saying goes, knowing what works begins with knowing what doesn't.

Thanks for reading. Reactions? Mike B. michaelbrownell@daywaycareers.com

Company Profile - Excel Energy

2009-11-16T05:32:00.000-08:00

Today's post summarizes a company regularly offering clean energy jobs, Excel Energy. The strategy behind these company posts is to provide: key profile metrics (size, location, industry); a brief overview of what the company does; some sense of the benefits, risks and long term prospects from working at the company; and, to get you to think of other similar companies (the best idea is the one that sparks other ideas). And, all of this done in a way to maximize RPM - results per minute; time matters. Go to daywaycareers.com/searchcompany to find more companies.

Xcel Energy is a major U.S. energy utility (electricity and natural gas) making substantial investments and progress in clean energy. True, "utility" may trigger smokestack or nuclear cooling tower images, but you also need to think smart grid technology, massive wind and solar farms, and renewable energy credit trading with this company.

As for our standard profile metrics, Xcel is very large (12k employees, $12B revenue); publicly traded; in multiple locations (North and South Dakota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Texas, New Mexico and Colorado); heavily regulated; and, comprises numerous subsidiary operating companies. So, this is not the cool young company founded by several nanotechnology professors and some rich radiologists in a limited partnership all hoping to IPO when the market rebounds. You consider Xcel because they are doing (not talking) lots of really cool things in clean energy. So, what are these things?

Excel has all the clean energy irons in the fire (wind, solar, biofuel, biomass and hydroelectric). Over 12% of its power is produced from clean energy, predominantly wind and solar. It the number 1 ranked utility regarding wind power production (8% of its power today, 20% by 2020). This power is generated from assets it owns as well from from third party contracts, thereby giving you combined "make vs buy" experience including exposure to other major private clean energy companies (think, they might hire you someday). Speaking of other clean energy players, Xcel appears to work closely with NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory), The Climate Registry and the Carbon Disclosure Project. These relationships validate Xcel's commitment to clean energy (as does its triple bottom line reporting--financial, social and environmental). and again, would expose you to the issues and people who strengthen your career profile.

Xcel is an industry leader in Smart Grid and Demand Management technology (Read about SmartGrid City). This is all about energy efficiency and the notion that the cleanest unit of electricity is the one not used. Smart Grid and Demand Management is becoming one of the fastest growing sub-industries in clean energy and energy efficiency; think excellent career opportunities if you can develop your business IQ here.

Finally, Xcel supports a properly designed federal climate policy including a cap and trade system (again, properly designed). This mindset explains its progressive clean energy behaviors in the sense it wants to position itself to be ahead of the curve; oh yeah, so do you! It also suggests that its business professionals will become experts in clean energy finance, including trading renewable energy certificates and carbon offsets--definitely a cool future career path.

So, you're not sure working for an energy utility is right for you? Maybe not. Or, maybe you should think again.

Thanks for reading. Mike B. michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com

Sunday Break

2009-11-15T06:58:00.000-08:00

Sunday, November 15, we are taking a break. Tomorrow, we will feature Xcel Energy, a utility supporting clean energy and hiring clean energy minded college graduates.

Forrest Gump

2009-11-14T07:51:00.000-08:00

Forrest Gump. This was the best week so far. We managed to stay on schedule and publish four posts on companies, curriculum, associations and job profiles and a fifth post encouraging peer produced content. We hired a third researcher, David, to help identify the student organizations and clubs on whose doors we are knocking to join Dayaway. And this is what triggers the reference to Forrest Gump.

Among the great scenes in the Forrest Gump movie is the part where Forrest starts running and just keeps running and running. This week I feel like I have started running like Forest, figuratively speaking. In my case, it is writing. I am writing and sending lots and lots of emails. Each email is an invitation to a student who is a member/officer of a college student organization focused on energy, engineering or the environment. My thinking is that some of these individuals will be interested in, or at least open to considering, a clean energy job or internship. So just as Forrest kept running and running, I intend to write and write.

This week, I sent approximately 50 emails to energy, environmental and engineering student organizations at the following schools: University of Maryland, Wellesley, Tufts, Tulane, University of Minnesota, Loyola Marymount, LSU and Kansas. The answer to your next question is that I have received no direct responses and no registrations. Am I worried? Not in the least. I am encouraged a bit by the fact that website activity is growing noticeably, suggesting that my emails are causing curiosity (and probably annoyance and suspicion). But I am more confident in the vision, that clean energy minded students and employers will like that idea that they should be able to go to one place, that they build together, and google for each other.

And so next week, just like Forrest, I will write and send even more emails. I promise to report on my efforts and results. I truly believe that students will see that by listing their profiles at Dayaway--by creating a show of force interested in clean energy careers--Dayaway will be able to promote them to clean energy employers more effectively than each student could do individually.

As always, I appreciate your input. Thanks. Mike B. michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com

Curriculum - University of Wisconsin Solar Energy Laboratory

2009-11-13T06:49:00.000-08:00

University of Wisconsin Solar Energy Laboratory (SEL). Are you presently an undergraduate engineering or material sciences senior thinking about graduate school? If so, and if you are interested in solar energy, then you should know about this program. The SEL is a graduate level program, for MS and PhD candidates. I realize I just lost half my audience, but it's best to be honest up front. This sounds like a really solid program with an impressive history. The following excerpts from the SEL website state:

"The University of Wisconsin-Madison College of Engineering's Solar Energy Lab (SEL) is the oldest of its kind in the world. It has been recognized nationally and internationally for accomplishments in practical applications for solar energy. UW-Madison's SEL was awarded the highest distinction given by the International Solar Energy Society, the Weeks award, for outstanding achievements in developing practical uses of solar energy. The goal of the laboratory is to educate students through research experiences in solar and conventional energy utilization and to remain on the competitive edge of new developments. The SEL emphasizes applications of engineering fundamentals to energy problems, and leads students to advanced degrees in mechanical and chemical engineering."

The 2010 job market will be tight for everyone. Clean energy will not be an exception. Going to grad school will be a logical option for many who are otherwise able to pursue this option. The SEL would be an outstanding place to do this so you enter a more receptive job market with an extremely valuable graduate degree. Plus, Madison would be an awesome place to study.

As always, thanks. I hope this helped. Mike B.

Job Board - Renewable Energy World

2009-11-12T06:31:00.000-08:00

Today, November 12, we will summarize one of the better job boards for clean energy jobs, Renewable Energy World. While we watch and report on this board, you may want to monitor it yourself. And for the record, any job listing on Dayaway found on a job board will provide full attribution to the job board and will send you to their job board to learn about it. This is how the job boards make money and we and you must respect that process. Tell others about Renewable Energy World; we want them to be successful. Check out additional job boards in the Dayaway Careers Resources section.

Renewable Energy World. This site is much more than a job board. Its About page states: "RenewableEnergyWorld.com was started in 1998 by a group of Renewable Energy professionals who wanted their work to relate to their passion for renewable energy." It offers excellent sections on: news, product and company listings, upcoming events (e.g., seminars) and a good job board. So, it might be a "two for" for you in that you can do a little research, expand your clean energy IQ and look for a job.

As the name makes clear, Renewable Energy World's jobs are limited to clean energy. So this simplifies filtering significantly. Filters (be sure to go to Advanced Search) include: keywords (including multiple connectors), location (country, state, city), company (size, type and name), job category (e.g., economics, engineering) and date. Filters are not provided for experience level, so, at least for us, it's best to simply check the board every day or so. The board usually gets several listings a day, and we have found several very good jobs for college graduates. An RS feed is offered which makes daily checking pretty easy, and you can save your customized searches. You also can register with the site and list your resume so that employers can find you.

This is a very nice site with a helpful job board. You should take a look. Thanks. Mike B.

P.S. If you know of a job board featuring clean energy jobs, please let us know about it.

Your Ideas

2009-11-11T08:12:00.000-08:00

Your Idea. Today, I am "going rogue" or "off-script" as was said so often last year and talking about my thought of the day. And that is, your thought of the day. Tomorrow I promise to go back to the standard topics (companies, courses, associations and job profiles) and write about a good clean energy job board.

While the drive to get students registered still is going slowly, it is real clear that the site is getting a lot of readers (hits, visits, returns and all that stuff is growing at a surprising rate--well, I have very modest expectations!). And these numbers are way beyond friends and family; I simply don't have that many! This takes me to a critical strategy point: You, the reader and the whole notion of growing content the way wikipedia does (peer production in wiki-speak). To begin with, I apologize in advance if the following remarks sound preachy. My intent is to encourage and inspire, but I am new at this--

For Dayaway to be successful--no, no, for our college graduates and clean energy companies to be successful--Dayaway needs your ideas on how to make this website better. Dayaway needs to be a place where ideas and thoughts, that share a common theme (college level clean energy recruiting), go to get together and grow by reinforcing each other. Cool things often happen when the situation is right. Dayaway believes that it's possible to create the right situation. We intend to do that by creating a place where it is easy for clean energy supporters to bring their ideas. Dayaway then intends to spend the time and money to help those ideas grow. This is how wikipedia works (well, at least in part). Lots of people make small contributions and a small number of people (editors) turn the small contributions into something big and valuable. Dayaway's dream is community built job board (ultimately a career center) instead of an encyclopedia.

So, if you have an idea on how we can better connect college students seeking clean energy jobs and internships with clean energy employers, please tell us. Examples of ideas received and sought include: "You should get in touch with the following professor;" "You should consider monitoring the ____________ job board;" "If I were you, I would be talking to college career center professionals:" "Here's the name of a student at __________. Tell her you got here name from ___________;" "You need to better explain what you mean by clean energy career;" "I really don't understand Dayaway's business model." It's these little contributions that add up, generate momentum and ultimately make things happen.

As for getting in touch, go to Contact Dayaway to find communication channels, leave a comment below or send me an email (michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com). In the meantime, I promise we will continue to generate content, apparently useful content, on our own. It's human nature to not want to be the first person at a party. I understand your hesitation. But it's also human nature to be helpful, especially if it's easy to do so." Our job is to give you a choice. As Charlie Brown said, "potential is such a heavy burden."

Thanks. Mike B.

Association Profile - AASHE

2009-11-10T05:44:00.000-08:00

Today's post will discuss an association, AASHE, Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education. We feature associations and organizations to enable you, a job-seeking student, to: determine your interest in a specific industry or employer; identify hot sub-industries (e.g., thin film producers or smart grid system developers) and to prepare yourself for an interview by gathering important information, such as: current headlines, names of industry thought leaders and important policies and policy developments. And, all of this done in a way to maximize RPM - results per minute; time matters. Go to dayawaycareers.com/professionalassociations to find more clean energy associations.

While clean energy is only a subset of sustainability and this group's focus, what's really noticeable about this organization is its emphasis upon youth, especially in its membership. AASHE promotes sustainability practices at the college and university level. It seems to do this through the notion of "locally owned, centrally supported," in the sense that actual sustainability practices are organized and implemented at the campus level. AASHE provides ideas, methodologies, best practices and other resources. This means that you could connect with other like-minded students through AASHE.

The AASHE site and organization is rich with resources that will support your job search. AASHE's support is especially valuable with respect to context relevant relevant to clean energy, for example understanding metrics used to measure greenhouse gas emissions and abatement programs (see their STARS methodology), which in turn, is highly supportive of clean energy. By joining or at least following AASHE, you will gather knowledge critical to understanding the future of clean energy. That gives you a better chance to survive the telephone screening interview!

AASHE even posts job listings in its weekly Bulletin. Many of these jobs are for entry level sustainability staff on campuses - which of course is a position that can be heavily involved in clean energy efforts. It's free to subscribe to AASHE Bulletin, so any student can take advantage of it.

Check out AASHE. It's membership is quite broad and growing rapidly. It's doing great things with young future professionals who will continue doing those great things for many years to come. That's a wonderful long term impact.

Thanks. Mike B.

Company Profile - Sharp Electronics

2009-11-09T06:06:00.000-08:00

Today's post summarizes a company regularly offering clean energy jobs, Sharp Electronics. The strategy behind these company posts is to provide: key profile metrics (size, location, industry); a brief overview of what the company does; some sense of the benefits, risks and long term prospects from working at the company; and, to get you to think of other similar companies (the best idea is the one that sparks other ideas). And, all of this done in a way to maximize RPM - results per minute; time matters.

Sharp Electronics is not a company you would think of when considering clean energy careers. It is, however, one of the largest solar cell manufacturers (think full cycle research, design, manufacturing and marketing). So, whether you are a STEM, business or liberal arts major, your should consider this company.

As for profile metrics, it is very large (employees and revenue), publicly traded, international (Japan HQ, multiple international offices, very large US presence). Solar is its primary clean energy focus although by no means its exclusive focus as made clear by the following excerpt from its website.

"At Sharp, we’re very passionate about environmental conservation. Our environmentally friendly LCD television manufacturing facility in Kameyama, Japan, features one of the world’s largest roof-mounted solar systems. Our appliances and business products are among the industry’s most energy efficient. We’ve long been a world leader in solar cell production. Furthermore, all Sharp factories are working to eliminate waste and greenhouse gases, and achieve other environmental targets in 21 key areas.

As a large, well known and financially successful company, it would be a great place to work at and to be from. Training likely would be highly structured and regularly provided. You would learn a lot from a rich talent pool (your peers, boss and boss's boss would be smart). You would learn to navigate a big corporate structure including the challenges, as a US employee, of working for a foreign owned company (they do things differently over there!). Should you leave the company, future employers would value your experience highly. Most importantly, you would learn a ton about the solar cell industry by being at a market leader.

So, think about Sharp, and think about other companies like it. Check out Sharp on our Company Directory - http://dayaway.editme.com/searchCompany. Thanks. Mike B.

Weekend Break

2009-11-07T06:16:00.000-08:00

Today and tomoorrow, Dayaway is taking a break. This was another good week. In addition to our substantive, and hopefully helpful, posts, our research team, Kristine and Clayton, identified over 200 student organizations interested in clean energy. Now, we've got names and numbers. The next couple of weeks will be telling as we will be "going personal" and inviting students to join Dayaway. Have a great weekend. Mike B.

Courses: Illinois State University

2009-11-06T05:37:00.000-08:00

This post will summarize an entire clean energy major offered by Illinois State University. Again, Dayaway provides course related information (including the Course Directory at Dayawaycareers.com/courseSearch) to: help students prepare substantively for a clean energy career; to enable clean energy professors and administrators to easily see the efforts of their peers; and, to permit employers to see, and perhaps contribute to, the actions taken by colleges to shape their talent pool.

Illinois State University, Renewable Energy Major. The following excerpts were taken for the ISU Department of Technology webpage:

The Renewable Energy undergraduate major is a broad-based program addressing the social, economic, and technical issues that graduates will encounter in the emerging field of renewable energy. Students will be able to choose between two tracks – a technology track or an economics/public policy track. The program is designed to prepare students to enter an emerging field with employment opportunities across a variety of industries including biofuels, solar, wind, regulatory and government agencies. Graduates are expected to be conversant in diverse disciplines, including technical, managerial, political, and economic issues important to renewable energy.

Upon completion of this program the student will be able to:

describe the physical laws and resources that constrain our energy systems
define the operation of RE systems in terms of basic electrical and physical principles
apply basic business, economic, and technical management principles in a variety of technical and non-technical contexts
explain and defend their positions on energy/political/social issues
to achieve the multi-disciplinary objectives outlined above, students will take a diverse set of courses. These include courses in such areas as physical sciences, mathematics, technology, economics, safety and management. Students are encouraged to complete two internships in their field of study. A required capstone course is designed to help students synthesize their learning experiences in these diverse subjects.

For undergraduate advisement plese see Cathy McKay, Phone: (309) 438-2665, Location: Williams Hall 310, Email: camckay@ilstu.edu camckay@ilstu.edu

Job Profile 3

2009-11-05T06:36:00.000-08:00

Today's post will be upon a clean energy job profile, sort of a fantasy job. Again, by " profile" we don't mean a specific job now available, although most profiles are based upon real jobs offered some time ago. The notion here is to show the different types of jobs available for students, and also to bring them to life a bit--reading job listings is pretty dry stuff!.

Wind Engineer Training Program. This job would be like combining a one year graduate program with a co-op, kind of work study program where you get paid! Generally only a large company would offer this, and that is the case here--a very large wind turbine company offered this job. This program would teach you the skills need to manage a wind farm (think 100 to 200 large turbines). The program consists of three classroom phases paired with field assignments lasting between 8 and 12 weeks. Each phase provides the trainee an opportunity to learn skills from professional training staff and then hone those skills under the careful supervision of a technical expert in the field. Candidates will travel approximately 80% during the Program. This is not a major selling point since most wind farms are in rural settings, so think staying at a Comfort Inn hopefully with cable and a good internet connection!

Beyond the technical aspects of wind service, the Program is designed to prepare Field Service Engineers for advanced positions within the company. Extensive training in management, leadership, process improvement, regulatory compliance and communications are provided. This is a selling point. You would expect that you would get your hands dirty a lot the first few years, and then move more into a management position. Management might mean assuming responsibility for numerous wind farms in a state or region, meaning among other things, you would have people working for you. You would be responsible for the operating performance (e.g., electricity produced) of your wind farms, their regulatory compliance, hiring and firing personnel, and most importantly, keeping your bosses happy so you can take their job one day!

This job requires an undergraduate degree in mechanical or industrial engineering or other science related major. A cool career strategy would be to do this type of job for several years and then go back to school to get your MBA. That would open up some really cool opportunities. Also, a large company like this will most likely have international operations and so you could end up spending some serious time abroad. So, lots of interesting ways this could play out.

Hope you enjoyed this. Love to hear comments. Thanks. Mike B.

Job Board - Clean Techies

2009-11-04T05:29:00.000-08:00

Today, November 4, we will summarize one of the better job boards for clean energy jobs, Clean Techies. While we watch and report on this board, you may want to monitor it yourself. Plus, the board offers many additional resources you should check out. Please tell others about Clean Techies; we want them to be successful.

Clean Techies Job Board. This job board is more of a boutique board in that its scope is limited to green jobs. This includes clean energy jobs, but also includes other green jobs such as green building, transportation and environmental jobs. So, it's a lot better than using Career Builder or Monster, but you do need to use the filters or watch it regularly and scan quickly.

Filters include: keyword, location, company, title (management, teacher, etc.) and job type (full-time, intern, etc.). Filters are not provided for experience level, clean energy and major. So, at least for us, it's best to simply check the board every day or so and look for the clean energy jobs. The board usually gets several listings a day, and we have found several very good jobs for college graduates. An RS feed is offered which makes daily checking pretty easy.

The site offers other resources such as green headlines, blogs and a pretty cool events calendar. This is a very nice job board.

Thanks for reading. Mike B. Reactions?

Courses - Texas Tech University

2009-11-03T05:29:00.000-08:00

Dayaway intends to write regularly about college level clean energy courses being offered. We have several reasons for doing this. The most important objective is to show students the courses they can take to better prepare for a clean energy career and to be able to demonstrate this to an employer. What you study is terrific proof of what you really are interested in, especially when it is different. We also feel a focus on courses will be helpful for professors and administrators to be able to easily see what their peers and competitors are offering, and in some cases, to connect with these folks. Overtime we even hope that employers will react to the course postings by commenting on the type of courses they value most or wish were offered so that this information can be passed back to our colleges and universities. The bottom line is that we feel a focus on courses will be a primary pillar for Dayaway by appealing to self-interest at several levels, and in so doing, sparking collaboration and peer produced content.

Texas Tech University is the first school we will feature. It offers the following undergraduate and graduate level courses in Wind Energy.

Introduction to Wind Energy - Freshman Provides a basic understanding of the wind energy industry and discusses the basic meteorology of wind, extraction of energy from wind, wind plant development, and the environmental and ecological impact of wind energy plants.

Social Impacts of Wind Energy - Sophmore Provides an in-depth look at environmental, economic, national security, health benefits, and issues of wind energy vs. traditional fuels.

Wind Energy Science and Technology - Junior An introduction to wind power meteorology, wind turbine aerodynamics and design, and wind farm grid integration and application.

Internship in Wind Energy - Senior Supervised internship in an approved wind energy industry or professional establishment. May be repeated once for credit.

Wind Modeling and Design - Senior Instruction in the process and development of wind energy projects emphasizing technical, environmental, and financial aspects of project development.

Advanced Technical Wind Energy - Graduate An in-depth multidisciplinary course for students with a physical science/engineering background wishing to pursue a technical approach to wind energy.

Advanced Managerial Wind Energy - Graduate Non-technical version studying wind turbine and wind farm architecture, wind energy conservation, aerodynamics, electrical systems, economics, regulatory issues with environmental and utility industries.

These courses listed above are a sample of TTU's Wind Energy course offering. Please go to their site, http://www.depts.ttu.edu/officialpublications/courses/WE.php#5000, for a complete listing. It is very impressive. Thanks. Mike B.

October Achievements

2009-11-02T07:17:00.000-08:00

As a new month begins, this is a good time to sum up last month's achievements and disappointments.

There were lots of positives. On a personal note, I "opened the business" every day. After being retired for seven years, this was a big step for me. I spent at least a couple of hours in futherance of Dayaway every single day in October. In so doing, I became more efficient with using all the operating elements of Dayaway (content searching, social media, posting to website and blog, etc); discovered areas for improvement; and, more importantly, truly got into a rhythm. It was very satisfying.

Dayaway joined or contributed to a half dozen prominent clean energy organizations. By so doing we will gather valuable information relevant to our strategy, and we hope to gain some legitimacy (street cred) in the eyes of students, employers and collaborators--the notion here is that people sometimes judge you by the company you keep. I gained 20+ linkedin connections, useful again, we hope, to students, employers and collaborators thinking of joining us.

A mild disappointment was the fact that our social media presence (facebook, twitter, blog, etc.) attracted very little attention. Related, we only registered 5 members in October. This confirms the already expected need to market the business selectively to groups involved in clean energy initiatives. Perhaps our biggest October achievement was to retain two grad students to research these student organizations. They produced over 50 such organizations to whom we have begun to connect with the expectation of registering the type of students we need.

Finally, we are proud of the 23 posts in October to this blog and its twin, Dayaway Today, on the website. The information is designed to be not time sensitive (not news headlines) so that it will be useful in the future. The information collectively also gives a good picture of the type of value Dayaway Careers seeks to provide. We will continue these posts going forward.

So, all in all, October was a good month. Dayaway is nowhere close to its vision of clean energy minded students and employers being able to simply google each other by using content they create on a wikipedia like site. But, we are planting great seeds and starting to grow strong roots. You don't see much growth above ground, but that growth will come.

Bye for now. Always enjoy your reactions. Mike B.

HoKu Scientific

2009-10-30T06:34:00.000-07:00

We promised to describe a cool clean energy company each week. So today we will talk about a relatively small solar and hydrogen fuel cell company, Hoku Scientific.

Hoku Scientific is a diversified clean energy technologies company with three business units: Hoku Materials, Hoku Solar and Hoku Fuel Cells. Hoku Materials plans to manufacture, market, and sell polysilicon for the solar market from its plant currently under construction in Pocatello, Idaho. Hoku Solar markets, sells and installs turnkey photovoltaic systems in Hawaii. Hoku Fuel Cells has developed proprietary fuel cell membranes and membrane electrode assemblies for stationary and automotive proton exchange membrane fuel cells.

I described HoKu as "relatively small" which goes to the point of size and how to measure it. I personally start by asking whether a company's employees are measured in dozens, hundreds or thousands and whether its revenues are measured in millions, tens or hundreds of millions or billions. Hoku's revenues get measured in millions and it appears (can't tell for sure) that it's employees are counted in dozens. The company has been publicly traded since its August 2005 IPO.

So you would join a company like this because you felt it was well positioned to grow and because it would offer more of a family atmosphere than a large company. You also would expect, or at least not be surprised by, a role that would be broader and get you exposed to things you might not see at a very large company. A company like this might offer you stock options at some point so that you make money (potentially lots of money) when its stock price increases. You would respect the risk and the opportunity lying in the fact that it's stock price currently is half of what it was in 2005. Hoku's job board suggests that it employs the full range of majors from engineering and science to business to liberal arts degrees.

It's always a good idea to study a company's management team (the "C level people" - CEO, CFO, etc.). Hoku's team has an impressive collection of experience while at the same time still being young. The founder and CEO, Dustin Shindo, previously started a successful micro-brewery and software company, and is a graduate of the University of Virginia (MBA) and University of Washington (BA, Accounting). The Chief Operating Officer, Scott Paul, previously worked in legal and business positions for a multi-national, publicly traded company, and before that, worked for a prominent west coast law firm. The diverse backgrounds of Mr. Shindo and Mr. Paul suggests that the management team might look for its young professionals to also be open to diversity of experience (i.e., being more than a typical engineer or accountant).

Please tell us what you think of this post. Thanks. Mike B

Dayaway's Principles - 4

2009-10-27T06:04:00.000-07:00

Today's post is the fourth and final installment discussing Dayaway's principles. Like the principles covered in yesterday's post, these principles support the general principle of collaboration and community.

Personal Interest--people generally do their best work when they do what really interests them. The best organizations place people in positions where they can do this. We must do this, largely by the roles we create.

Strength in Diverse Numbers--A group truly working together will get more done than individuals working independently. The diversity of experience, perspective and talent leads to richer and more efficient outcomes. So we need to actively seek and reward diversity at all levels (geographic, fields of study, age, professional backgrounds, gender, culture, etc.), and continuously look for the best combination of diverse profiles.

Influence, not change--At best, we can influence people; we can't change them. Our site should enable people to be who they are, but within that context, to be a little better.

Well, that's it for the principles. I realize this may be dry stuff to some folks, perhaps most, but these ideas are the DNA of Dayaway. The principles really will shape us going forward, for better or worse. So, in the spirit of being truly open and truly listening, I invite you to tell us what you think of the principles--what you like, dislike, don't understand or would change. Being a fan of Darwin and natural selection, I fully expect these principles to morph for the better over time. Mike B.

Dayaway's Principles - 3

2009-10-27T05:54:00.000-07:00

Today's post will discuss principles six through nine. These principles support the principle of Collaboration and Community discussed yesterday. Tomorrow's post will cover the remainder of Dayaway's twelve principles.

Wiki-democracy--The site will invite input from all users and weigh this input carefully when making decisions regarding the site's growth and operations. The site will need time and guidance to learn how to do this well, and promises that at all time its decisions and behaviors will be guided by its overall vision to enhance employment of college graduates in the clean energy field as well as its principles stated here.

Layered Participation, Turf and Bridges--we should strive to have a lot of people participating a little while a few people participate regularly to provide order and continuity. Often people want their own turf that they can claim ownership of and develop. At the same time, people benefit if they have the option to connect to others. So, we need common communication channels, appropriate standards, role definition and good organization.

Listen More--So many blogs, cable channels, advertisements. People have a lot to say. Those who can listen a bit more will stand out, be appreciated, learn something and perhaps make a difference. Our organization should work harder at listening and encouraging it.

That's it for today. Speaking of listening, I love to listen. Any reactions? Mike B.

Dayaway's Principles - 2

2009-10-26T06:07:00.000-07:00

This post is the second in a series of three setting forth Dayaway's principles; principles in the sense of the most important values and rules we will use to chart our path going forward and to deal with the complexity, ambiguity, adversity and choices that lie ahead.

Not-So-Profitable--Dayaway will not make a lot of money. Our services are free to students and employers. It's founder will finance it's costs, which therefore, must be kept low. It is not a charity (501c3), and so it will not receive, nor compete against other charities for, charitable donations. Like anyone who does a good job, Dayaway hopes employers will "tip" it for arranging a good hire. Dayaway may receive some internet advertising revenue depending upon its members' feelings on advertising. Revenues exceeding costs will be donated to clean energy related charities.

Moderating Competition--A good moderator enhances a process and it's outcome, for example a class discussion or a presidential debate. Dayaway must strive to be a good moderator. It must objectively and evenly support its three membership classes--students, employers and collaborators--recognizing the competition among these classes and between some of these members and Dayaway. In the words of an old advertisement, "we don't' make the thing, we make the thing better."

Community & Collaboration--Most users will simply use the site once in a while, perhaps once. This group, our silent majority, is very important to Dayaway and the site must be useful to them. Many users, however, will want to do more--to design, build and run the site. We must empower them to collaborate, co-create and self-organize through the principles of: wiki-democracy; layered participation, turf and bridges; listening; personal interest; diversity; and influence versus change. These principles (sort of embedded principles) will get covered in the next post.

Thanks for reading. Keeps those emails coming. Enjoy your Monday. Mike B.

Dayaway's Principles - 1

2009-10-25T06:57:00.000-07:00

When starting out on a journey, it's good to have a set of principles to help deal with with the uncertainty and questions that lie ahead. The following are some of Dayaway's principles. They likely will change. But, they should help us grow Dayaway in terms of its direction, shape, internal organization and operation. Additional principles (12 in total) will be covered in subsequent posts.

Easy--While sometimes the hard thing is the right thing, more often things are unnecessarily hard. A job search is hard on its best day. So, we need to always ask, "Is this too hard? Can we make it easier."

Employment Focus--We must stay focused on finding students jobs and finding employers students. If an activity or idea does not clearly further this objective, we don't do it, even though it may be satisfying or beneficial towards some other worthy objective.

Work Hard and Have Fun--Success and happiness demands hard work and having fun. We need to produce a setting that enables both. We should become known both for our sense of purpose and humor.

Well, there you go. Three down and nine to go. Always happy to hear your reactions. Bye for now. Hope you are enjoying your weekend. Mike B

Dayaway's "Got People"

2009-10-24T05:57:00.000-07:00

Well, "back Friday" turned into "back Saturday." I have often thought about how small business owners never get a day off; how if they did not open their store during their stated business hours, they might lose customers forever. Now I am getting a taste of this. I apologize for missing the last few days. I will do better in the future to prevent this.

The good news and progress I would like to report is that our mini-research team is now in place. I got my first taste of Craigslist and it truly is remarkable. In two days I received over thirty replies to an ad for internet researchers. Some of the replies were from India and the Philippines, while many more were from highly qualified people obviously looking for anything in a tough economy. I wished I could employ them all, but I know I must focus on one goal at a time. Right now the goal is connecting talented college students with clean energy employers. We have taken a great step forward in furtherance of this goal.

Beginning yesterday, Dayaway has retained two very capable graduate students, Kristine and Clayton, a young lawyer and an urban planner, to help me locate the specific type of student we are looking for. In case you ever wondered, there are approximately 11 million students pursuing a college education in the U.S.. Dayaway is after a pretty tiny subset of this pool. We want the students with good grades and who have a true interest in renewable energy and can prove it. Dayaway has some good ideas (we think so anyway) on how and where to find students with this profile. Clayton and Kristine, very soon, will prove how good our ideas are. I am not a hunter, but in some ways they are like the hunting dogs (no offense, Clayton and Kristine) in that their job is to locate and flush the birds out of the tall grass; to get the birds up in the air. My job is (no, no--not to shoot!) to personally contact and persuade the students to register with Dayaway so that I can then personally promote the group to clean energy employers. While this would only be the start of things Dayaway intends to do (more about our mission, vision and principles in future posts), it would be the ignition point for Dayaway--when a group of employers sees a fresh, talented group of potential employees and vice versa.

So that's it for today. Welcome Clayton and Kristine. The biggest addition to any team is when the second person joins--when the first person's output gets doubled. Tomorrow I will write a bit about Dayaway's principles. Bye for now. Mike B.

Back Friday

2009-10-21T05:53:00.000-07:00

I apologize for Dayaway being quiet for the next two days. I promise to post again on Friday. Bye till then. Mike B

Job Boards

2009-10-20T06:12:00.000-07:00

Our posts emphasize recurring topics (companies, associations, job profiles and schools/courses) collectively intended to help a student find and prepare for a clean energy job, and to do so quickly. We're adding a new topic: job boards that list renewable energy jobs together with tips on how best to search these boards. There is no shortage of job boards. Searching them can be very time consuming, especially if you are looking for a specific profile. Dayaway will do this for you by aggregating, filtering and organizing. That said, it is human nature to want to take matters into your hands, at least to give it a try now and then to see if you can do better on your own. We respect that and encourage it. We believe in sharing, collaborating and being open. So, here's our first post on where and how to do this. And for the record, any job listing on Dayaway found on a job board will provide full attribution to the job board and will send you to their job board to learn about it. This is how the job boards make money and we and you must respect that process.

Job Central, jobcentral.com, is definitely a "high value target" as Jack Bauer would say on 24. We like the board for a number of reasons. Job Central features companies who list the jobs we and you are looking for. Generally these are big companies, but not always. So if you are thoughtful, you can use this board to watch a collection of clean energy companies instead of monitoring each individually--sort of as your purchasing agent. It's current, so when the listing hits the company's board it generally hits the company's listing on Job Central. This is really cool if your companies do not have RSS notification since Job Central does (more on this below).

Filters and sorting capability are important when using big boards. Keyword filters are critical for searching clean energy jobs. We will share some of our keywords in a future post, but for now our words of wisdom are simply to be careful with connectors (PV and photovoltaic). Experiment with them. Different boards provide different results with the same connectors (and / or). Job Central has a nice industry filter (we use energy and utilities) as well as a good time filter (jobs within the last 2 days). It does not have a filter for level of experience (0 - 2 years of experience) so you need to train your eye to see the code in job titles. We ignore listings with titles including certain words such as: manager, director, VP, senior etc. Finally, the site has a nice RSS notification feature so that once you have structured your filters, it will send you an RSS feed enabling you to quickly do a cursor roll-over in your tool bar to see if there are any new listings meeting your requirements.

Well, that's it for this post. As always, please give us feedback. Thanks. Mike B.

Garrad Hassan

2009-10-19T05:48:00.000-07:00

Today's post will focus on a very interesting clean energy company, a consulting firm specifically, Garrad Hassan. I hope you enjoy the summary. Remember, our company posts only feature companies who truly are in the game -- very active in renewable energy and definitely hiring college graduates for entry level positions.

We added a new job listing over the weekend: Contract Analyst for 3Degrees. Please go to the Dayaway website for more information.

Garrad Hassan is an independent renewable energy consultancy serving the wind, marine and solar sectors worldwide. They offer a broad range of technical and engineering services, industry standard technology products and professional training courses that address the needs of stakeholders at all stages of the renewable energy project life cycle. Formed in the UK in 1984, to meet the growing demand for independent consultancy services in the wind energy sector, Garrad Hassan is widely recognised as a leading authority on the subject. They are now applying their depth of knowledge and expertise to support the development of the solar and marine markets too.

Garrad Hassan has offices across the world permitting them to understand and deliver to local markets while informing and retaining a global perspective. Garrad Hassan listed a number of jobs online over the past year and almost certainly must recruit actively at the university level (Dayaway looks forward to talking directly with them soon). Strong performing students, especially at the graduate level with a year or two of experience, should consider a renewable energy career at Garrad Hassan.

Please let us know if this was helpful. We love feedback. The comment button below permits total anonymity. Thanks. mb

Dayway Business Model - 3

2009-10-18T07:04:00.000-07:00

A common question to Dayaway is, "What additional value are you delivering to employers and students? It would seem that existing recruiting vehicles will enable clean energy employers to hire the college graduates they need without Dayaway, especially given the relatively small number of jobs being offered and the weak economy." Yesterday's post discussed Dayaway's value to students. Today's post will talk about the value Dayaway will deliver to employers.

We begin by acknowledging that all existing clean energy employment positions are being filled and will get filled without Dayaway. This is especially true now given the economy. Dayaway feels, however, that there is an important difference between hiring a candidate and hiring a special candidate. A special employee is the one who really wants a job, who is truly interested in it and who has taken additional steps to prepare for the job (coursework, internships, industry awareness). Several years ago Nike (yes, we cite scholarly authority!) ran a commercial stating: "There are two things that motivate people: interest and fear" Dayaway seeks to be the home of truly interested employees because they are truly motivated.

These employees are more driven, creative, loyal and productive. In short, they make a company more competitive and more profitable. Some companies refer to them in the context of "the talent war." Others nickname them "jet fuel." They are valuable and they are the value Dayaway aspires to deliver. But graduates genuinely interested in clean energy are hard to find.

They are hard to find because they are like the industry they hope to join--small in number, geographically dispersed and with limited personal marketing opportunities. Dayaway feels that not only do these special candidates exist but that there would be even more of them if they knew there was a better chance of being recruited. They need the ability to separate themselves from the crowd and to highlight their special interest in renewable energy. Even large companies with strong recruiting resources, and especially small and medium size clean energy companies with limited recruiting resources, will benefit from being able to go to one place, a boutique, to find talented and genuinely interested graduates to hire. Dayaway seeks to be that place.

Will the companies pay for it? We doubt it, and so we don't charge. But will they use Dayaway and benefit from its service. We think so, and if so, we think that shows value.

Now, we accept that even if the above is true, it leaves a seriously unanswered question about our business model: "what value does Dayaway deliver to its owners?" The short answer (not intended to be flip) is that students and employers will be the primary owners of Dayaway, and so, the value to them individually will be the value to them as owners. This notion will get covered in a subsequent post, but in the meantime, think wikipedia: people with answers meet people with questions because there's a place (online and organized) that's easy and free.

Thanks. Let us know what you think. We promise to get back to relevant job-search content next week.

Dayaway Business Model - 2

2009-10-17T06:49:00.000-07:00

A common question to Dayaway is, "What additional value are you delivering to employers and students? It would seem that existing recruiting vehicles will enable clean energy employers to hire the college graduates they need without Dayaway, especially given the relatively small number of jobs being offered and the weak economy." Today's post will talk about the value Dayaway will deliver to students.

We know there are students who really, really want to work for renewable energy companies. And there are even more students who would feel the same strong desire if they knew more about these opportunities. But the reality is that clean energy career opportunities are hard to see and even harder to pursue. We know this because we have spent the last year looking for them. It’s not easy.

The industry is small. Many of the companies are small and unable to recruit nationally. The clean energy divisions at big companies are often unknown to a young professional. (did you know Siemans and Sharp Electronics offer excellent clean energy opportunities?) This size disability is compounded by geographical decentralization (the companies are everywhere and it's a big country), a reduced and irregular job flow (following any one company's job listings can be hypnotic) and image ambiguity (what exactly can you do at a clean energy company). These opportunities simply get lost in the crowd.

Now make no mistake, the positions get filled. But given the problems mentioned above, we're not convinced the best graduates are getting the positions. We feel that the young professional who is most interested in and best prepared for a career should have the best chance to pursue it. This is what Dayaway seeks to do for the student - to elevate the visibility of clean energy positions, to level the recruiting playing field, so the students truly interested in and qualified for them and can get them. We want to provide better footing for interest and talent.

We feel these students, the ones who really want the job, will value that. By paying for it? No, nor will we ask for payment. They will value Dayaway by using Dayaway; by getting a job they really want and feel proud of; and by understanding that personal career growth often is magnified by a fast growing industry. Now, as for Dayaway's value to clean energy employers, we feel it is even easier to see, as it is more grounded in traditional economics. That will be the topic of tomorrow's post.

Thanks. Please give us your reaction.

Is It Awfully Quiet Here?

2009-10-15T05:48:00.000-07:00

We are deviating from our publication schedule (not discussing a school or course today) so we can spend a moment on "current events." A surprising number of people are reading the Dayaway blog and website although a surprisingly small number of them are our students and employers. So, a brief word to our readers about our lack of clients seems in order. As Jackson Browne (my inspiration for the name, Dayaway) wrote, "I may not have an answer, but I think I have a plan."

Often a person or business declares a goal, and then fails, and then says that the failure was expected and so everything is ok. People see through that. It's like shooing an arrow, drawing an arrow around the strike point and saying you hit the bulls eye.

I am a little embarrassed to say I had hoped that once Dayaway Careers became visible on the high traffic social media -- blogs, facebook, twitter, etc. -- the word would get out and students would come, especially if they could make money (the Essay Contest). Wrong. I perhaps also underestimated the challenge of getting students interested in finding a job or internship in October, months too early for many. So, what's next?

We are building an impressive list (and yes, I am easily impressed) of student organizations whose members are likely to be interested in clean energy jobs. We will begin to reach out to them in the next two weeks. This emphasizes personality over technology, and therefore, will take time. We also are beginning to reach out to like-minded social cause organizations for their support. And, we hope to retain several online researchers very soon to accelerate content generation given our inability to generate content through our membership base (not easy to achieve peer produced content without peers!).

While long term commitment is more important to Dayaway than deadlines, we do expect to register students starting in November. And student registrations are our starting point, our gas in the car. In the meantime, we will continue to post according to the publication schedule. We will publish non-perishable content that will be useful to students for the 2010 recruiting season. Continuing the posts is important also because the steady stream of posts will give future members assurance that Dayaway has a steady operating pulse as well as insight into what it is about and specifically how Dayaway can help.

So, for anyone who has been thinking, "hum, does he see the problem," the answer is, yep, I do. Time now for plan B. Tomorrow we will post a question on the Dayaway business model: "What is the value proposition - to Dayaway's clients and owners."

Thanks. Let us know what you think. Mike Brownell.

Fantasy Job Profile

2009-10-14T06:56:00.000-07:00

Today's job profile will be about an engineering position at small company focused upon battery charging and performance, principally for hybrid vehicles. So, if the big corporate setting is not your thing, then this type of job may be just right. Again, these are "fantasy" job profiles; they are not real, but rather the descriptions are based upon a real job with an emphasis upon the big picture and a little fun.

As for basic requirements, you would need a BS Electrical, Electronics , Mechanical or Engineering Technology degree and Labview programming experience. Unbelievably, you will need to be able to read and write (this concern about texting having weakened our younger generations is going too far!). You also must be able to "work with little supervision in a matrix-type environment, " or as first grade teacher said, "share your toys and don't get lost."

The specific work you would do sounds challenging and fun, including:

Organize and analyze data,
Set up and perform tests under the direction of senior engineers
Use test equipment—data recorders, data acquisition, multi-meters, oscilloscopes
Perform research on products or components
Perform rudimentary design work, electrical, software and/or mechanical
Write technical reports and/or develop product manuals and service documents

But the best part would be the company and its future. This a small private company in southern California. It was founded by some 30-something professionals who struck gold in the dot-com days and now want to build their own company that will make a lot of money by doing something good for the planet. You will have a chance to be with the company if and when it goes public (think lots of money), but you will run the risk that it gets bought by a big corporation (think less money and "there goes the neighborhood"). You likely would know most employees on a first name basis and would get exposed to issues and responsibilities that might take longer to get to in a big company. You know the future of renewable energy companies is shaped in part by the sub-industries and markets they are in. New battery technologies for Hybrid and Plug-in cars could be huge. Companies like this one could be the boat that rises with a rising tide. It definitely gives you something to think about and understand the company better.

Hope you enjoyed this. Please let us know what you think. Want to write a post like this? Get in touch. Thanks. Mike B.

Apollo Alliance

2009-10-13T05:00:00.000-07:00

Today, I would like to highlight a clean energy organization, The Apollo Alliance. Remember, organizations/associations are relevant because the right ones provide high-impact information for job searching (researching an employer or preparing for an interview). High-impact means less wasted time, less "clicking, opening and closing." This is just one way Dayaway hopes to add value.

The Apollo Alliance is another must-know clean energy association. According to its mission statement, "The Apollo Alliance is a coalition of labor, business, environmental, and community leaders working to catalyze a clean energy revolution that will put millions of Americans to work in a new generation of high-quality, green-collar jobs. Inspired by the Apollo space program, we promote investments in energy efficiency, clean power, mass transit, next-generation vehicles, and emerging technology, as well as in education and training."

If you are getting ready for an interview and you want to know about current clean energy issues, legislation, success stories and important people, then spending time on this site would be worth your while. The site has a Green Room which focuses upon fact, figures, reports, research and stories. This information is truly high-impact and relevant. The Apollo Alliance not only is limited to renewable energy (and its natural cousins like smart grid, cap and trade), but focuses heavily upon job creation. The organization's leadership comprises highly talented professionals achieving impressive results. Again, if you want to only spend time where you can get good results per minute (hum, RPM, perhaps we should reuse this one!), then bookmark the Apollo Alliance.

Please let us know if you found this post helpful and tell us of other associations we should cover. And don't forget to look at the Resources section of DayawayCareers.com to see other helpful associations. A Fantasy Job Description (an engineering postion) will be our post for tomorrow.

Mike B

Gamesa

2009-10-12T03:37:00.000-07:00

This week's featured company post will highlight Gamesa, a prominent wind energy company focused on both wind turbine manufacturing and wind farm development.

Like many of the major wind turbine manufactures, it is a non-US Company (Spanish) with extensive global operations including a major presence in the U.S. (Pennsylvania). The non-US companies recognize the potential of selling into the U.S. market and so are moving rapidly to position themselves for success in the U.S. (as well as India and China). Given the globalization of economies generally, an American should consider the benefits of working for a prominent company with a non-U.S. parent (more on this in our Fantasy Job Profiles).

It is public company (it's stock is publicly traded) with over 7,000 employees. It posted several entry-level jobs in the U.S. over the summer and may be willing to hire U.S. students into it's foreign offices. Given its size and market presence, this would be a fantastic company from which to learn learn the industry (training, supply-chain relationships, customer base, etc.) as well as to have a long, successful career. The following Gamesa press release provides further insight into Gamesa as well as access to its website. Gamesa is listed in the Dayaway Company Directory and is a company we hope to contact as soon as we have registered enough student job seekers to make our pitch.

Let us know if this summary was helpful, and if you have a company you would like us to feature. Tomorrow's post will cover The Apollo Alliance, an association doing outstanding work to promote clean energy.

Week 1

2009-10-11T07:22:00.000-07:00

Week 1's accomplishments were satisfying and, to be honest, a little humbling. I received much appreciated words of encouragement from family, friends and like-minded new supporters. Thank you. On the content generation front, we added 5 new companies, 2 registered collaborators, 1 job listing and published 2 content related posts. The numbers are modest but show forward momentum. We received good questions about our business model, some of which validate the model, others will strengthen it. We will continue to post these questions and answers. And we made excellent progress behind the scenes by identifying an outstanding number of student organizations whom we will be contacting in the coming weeks to promote Dayaway. We also have finalized several roles into which we hope to employ part-time online research assistants to speed up content generation. Hum, looks like our first job placement will by by us! So, all in all, I will give Dayaway a B- for its first week. But an "A" could be just a day away. So what's the plan for next week? Several things, with student registrations being priority 1.

To me, a vision is critical. I subscribe fully to the philosophy that if you define a compelling desired outcome to a motivated person, he or she will get there. Dayaway's initial desired outcome is to register several hundred high-caliber students by the end of 2009 so Dayaway can promote them to targeted clean energy employers for the 2010 recruiting season. Metaphorically speaking, we have a car (website and business organization), driver (motivated and resourceful :) ), time, money, map (strategy) and destination (vision). What we don't have is gas in the tank - student registrations. So our number 1 focus will be upon persuading high-caliber students to register with Dayaway. We have what we believe is a good marketing and communications plan to do this. In the coming weeks we will be able to spend more time on this plan as other formation aspects of the business draw less time. Results will tell the story. Don't hesitate to suggest any thought you have on how we can register students.

Next week's posts will feature: The Apollo Organization, a Fantasy Engineering Position, Gamesa Corporation, Texas Tech University and a Dayaway Business Model Question.

We hope you enjoyed this week's posts. Thanks for the emails. Dayaway can and will be sustained by one person's passion, but scaling it's potential benefits to students and employers depends upon collaboration. Throw something (and idea, referral or question) on the pile. You'll be surprised what it leads to. Thanks. Mike Brownell.

Reason For Dayaway - 1

2009-10-10T07:58:00.000-07:00

While the blog and website are not getting many posts, I personally am getting questions privately; really. So, occasionally, starting now, I will present and answer selected questions. This will explain, in a somewhat piecemeal way, the business model behind Dayaway. The first question is: “Why are you focusing so narrowly only on renewable energy, only on college students, and why now with the economy so slow?”

In short, I have seen this movie before. In the late 70's, I joined a computer technology company, Andersen Consulting (now Accenture). Back then, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were unknown, definitely not visionaries. Computers were for techies enclosed in restricted access areas. The industry was young. By the time I was in my early 30’s (yes, middle aged to a college junior) my company, my career and many in this field ultimately achieved wonderful results, in part because of talent and hard work, but also in part because of being in the right place at the right time; getting in early. In time, Apple and Microsoft joined the big league and paved the way for Google and Facebook.

As I look at the clean energy industry, all I can think is, "I have seen this movie before; I know how it ends." The most conservative energy experts agree that in the next 5 to 10 years we must increase renewable energy production as fast as we can and almost certainly will fall short. Demand will exceed supply. If you think this is hype, look at who is making the greatest investments: Utilities and Oil Companies, Goldman Sachs, India and China. Personally, I am unsure clean energy will completely replicate the computer industry story. But even if renewable energy only becomes a small piece of the energy industry pie (it certainly will not be less). the pie is the world’s need for energy. Even that little slice will launch a huge number of high growth, highly satisfying careers. 10 years from now, when today's young folks are saying how they got in early, I would love for some of them to mention me.

Well, perhaps this was the answer looking for a question. I hope not. I hope this post not only answers but motivates and inspires as well. A clean energy job really goes way beyond the environment and making a difference, it’s about making money, too.

Please tell us what you think of this post--comments or emails are welcome. Thanks.

Featured Association: ACORE

2009-10-09T05:09:00.000-07:00

As previously threatened, our weekly publication schedule calls for at least one article a week on an association/club/school that we feel a job-seeking student should know about. Highlighting associations will help students determine their interest in a specific industry or employer; identify hot sub-industries (e.g., thin film producers or smart grid system developers); and, prepare themselves for interviews. We promise to present only high-impact, relevant associations--just the ones where time spent on them will seriously help the job search. So, we will filter, and over time, be guided by our collaborators' input (see, this collaboration thing is important!). The first association to be featured is ACORE--see below.

For those of you experiencing serious anxiety from not knowing what tomorrow's post will cover, Saturday and Sunday's posts will answer questions I have received as well as provide a little recap of growth achievements of the first week. But now, ACORE.

We added 1 new job, Renewable Energy Certificate Trader (MBA) and 3 new companies to our Company Directory: ECOtality, Iogen and Jacobs Engineering. See more at the site.

ACORE (the American Council On Renewable Energy) is an organization of member companies and institutions that are dedicated to moving renewable energy into the mainstream of America’s economy, ensuring the success of the renewable energy industry while helping to build a sustainable and independent energy future for the nation. Anyone thinking of a career in renewable energy simply must know about this organization.

ACORE's membership includes most all of the major clean energy employers as well as a very long list of small and medium sized companies. As its site states, ACORE convenes, educates, publishes, resolves and speaks (click this link to learn more). It sponsors a number of major conferences each year attended by thousands of industry participants. Attending the conferences or getting the summaries available from the website is an excellent way for a student to learn about clean energy issues, developments and opportunities and to get the names of potential employers.

The ACORE website is loaded with fantastic information from which to do job search research about a specific sub-industry or company. ACORE is a major force in shaping clean energy policy. Their website has a job board with frequent new listings although relatively few entry-level college grad listings (not to worry, that's why we need Dayaway!). If a student chose to follow only one renewable energy organization to support a job search, ACORE would be on the short list from which to pick.

Fantasy Job Description

2009-10-08T05:42:00.000-07:00

Today’s post will feature a job description, well, a fantasy job description. I say fantasy because the job description is based upon a real job (I promise and have proof if you want to bet!), but I have added a few things here and there. I saw the Matt Damon movie, The Informant, recently. The movie begins by saying (as best I remember) that, “the characters are based upon real characters but are composites, so there.“ Same here. To me, it’s a fact that reading job descriptions is awful. And I used to write them. So, Dayaway will post a weekly fantasy job description that tries to answer a question every young adult has, “What do you do?“ To me, at 22 or 27, this meant more than understanding “key responsibilities, accountabilities and qualifications.” I wanted to know: “who do you work with, what are they like, and do you get to travel.” Also, these are entry-level jobs. They pretty much all look best in the rear view mirror and are more important for what they lead to. So, our description will talk a bit about future possibilities. The Dayaway fantasy job descriptions are, as Matt Damon would say, “composites; so there.“

Today's profile is for an entry level undergraduate accounting position at a major wind turbine manufacturer-- a large, non-U.S. company with U.S. offices. You would need an accounting or finance degree (and you thought all clean energy jobs were for engineers!). The company is a non-US company with several offices in the U.S., including Oregon, Colorado and Texas. Working as a U.S. citizen for a large company whose home base is outside the U.S. is a pretty interesting experience. At some point you learn about issues rooted in the fact that your boss's boss's boss lives six or eight time zones away and they do things differently there! This is a big step towards learning about a global economy. But back to the accounting position.

The things you would do initially include: assisting in the monthly closing; financial statement and management reporting for the business units; general ledger maintenance: journal entries, account reconciliations and analysis; and weekly preparation of the cash flow and necessary bank reconciliations. At this point the STEM majors are wondering why anyone would want to this for a living! But as a former accounting and finance major, I suggest you need to think about where a position like this takes you. This is simply a good starting point to learn a big business, and learning how to follow the money is not a bad way to begin. Overtime, a position like this may lead to a management position reporting to or perhaps becoming the Chief Financial Officer. You might also transfer at some point into a business unit of the company in a financial capacity. Or, you might get your MBA and chart a course into marketing or strategy. In all events, a job like this helps you build valuable foundational skills in a growing industry.

Because this company focuses entirely on clean energy (i.e., it is not a division of a big company doing other things), it's employees likely would be younger on average than a traditional employer. That's of course an assumption you would want to verify. The non-US dimension probably would mean you would travel eventually to a cool place in Europe. The jet lag is tiring, but seeing the world while someone else pays is a great thing. Plus, you develop international relationships; a very important thing for young professionals in global economy.

So that's it--a job description with a little editorializing. Tell us know what you think. And remember the collaboration thing. Does this spark an idea with you? Throw in on the pile--get it to us. Thanks.

Featured Company: SunEdison

2009-10-07T06:54:00.000-07:00

Dayaway Careers offers a company directory listing clean energy companies that offer entry-level positions for college graduates. We believe this "entry-level, college grad only" requirement will save our students time. We are not listing all renewable energy companies, only the ones with a track record of hiring college graduates. In some cases these companies focus only on renewable energy. In other cases, a company will have a division or subsidiary concentrating on clean energy. Each profile offers benefits and drawbacks to a graduate, and we will touch upon the pluses and minuses in our weekly job profile posts. Today, however, we will feature the following company in our directory, SunEdison.

Sun Edison, as the name implies, is a solar energy company. It produces and supplies solar power, and also offers a range of related services referred to as solar assurance and solar monitoring. This is a private company, but it is large and growing, and has a number of prominent investors including Goldman Sachs. It's clients include commercial, governmental and utility profiles. Sun Edison is headquartered in the the U.S., Maryland, but has extensive global operations. Very importantly, it hires college graduates directly out of school, and it appears to be a growing company. It is a permanent member of the Dayaway Company Directory and a company we hope to contact as soon as we have registered enough student job seekers to make our pitch. To learn more, check out their site.

New Dayaway Content: We added the following new companies to our Company Directory: Airtricity, a wind farm developer/operator headquartered in Ireland, and Alstom, a French multinational (with US presence) active in hydroelectric and wind power.

Let us know if this summary was helpful, and if you have a company you would like us to feature.

Collaboration

2009-10-06T05:17:00.000-07:00

Dayaway's first day (yesterday) was good in a surprising way. We found and posted several new renewable energy companies (will name them tomorrow); received a pat-on-the-back from a lot of folks (thanks!); and, generally strengthened our social media infrastructure (my 17 year old just rolls his eyes at some of my facebook questions). But the surprise concerns Dayaway's collaboration focus. Our first registered member was a collaborator, not a student or employer. So, I want to talk a bit about how Dayaway hopes to grow though collaboration.

The heart beat of Dayaway will be from students and employers - students registering their profiles and searching for jobs, and employers registering their jobs and searching for students. No surprises here. But this simply makes Dayaway another job board, and since it is free to everyone (that's code for we make no profit!), Dayaway cannot grow like other job boards by spending money to hire staff, advertise, etc. This inability to embrace a traditional profit-driven business models roots itself ultimately in the fact that there's not much money to be made in getting college students jobs. So, we need to do something different. Collaborate!

Collaborate means to work together. Dayaway hopes to take a little time from a lot of you and weave it into something that helps students and clean energy employers find each other better. Just a minute or two, a referral or quick suggestion is all it takes. Consider the following examples.

A college professor refers a promising chemical engineering student to Dayaway and she finds a cool hydrogen fuel-cell research job at HoKu Scientific in Hawaii. A college career center professional tells us about a former graduate working at GE Wind who in turn gets their corporate recruiter to post cool wind energy jobs at Dayaway. A Goldman Sachs financial analyst informs us of a clean energy mutual fund naming up-and-coming private renewable energy companies who are hiring. A University of Michigan MBA 2006 grad working at First Solar writes a short article about working in the solar energy field which inspires a University of Miami electrical engineer to apply at First Solar.

Collaboration will define Dayaway Careers. Dayaway's job is to spark, organize and focus the collaboration. Your job is simply to do a little something that might help. You throw it on the pile; we'll do the rest. If you are intrigued by this concept, consider reading Wikinomics by Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams. But in all events, please throw something on the pile, something you think might help students and employers in clean energy find each other better. Please collaborate.

Thanks. Please tell us what you think about this post.

The Beginning

2009-10-05T05:05:00.000-07:00

Today is Dayaway Career's first official operating date. We have nothing grand planned, and most likely the day will come and go unnoticed by those whose attention we seek. The date is important towards the objective of measurement. I love the saying, "It's not where you are that matters, it's how far you have come." That notion only has meaning if you have a starting point. Today is Dayaway's starting point.

Dayaway hopes to make it easier for job-seeking college students and clean energy employers to find each other. We feel we must measure and report our progress daily. This blog (and its identical twin on dayawaycareers.com) will report new content in the following key categories: new student members, new jobs listed and new companies and courses listed in our directories. Growth in these areas essentially is the fuel we need to ignite growth on other fronts. More on that later if you are interested. But we feel that you get what you measure and this is what we will measure.

This date also is significant as it is the date our Essay Contest begins. If you are a college student meeting certain requirements you are eligible to win a $1000 by writing a short (very short) essay. This is Dayaway's shameless attempt to attract high-caliber students to the site, which in turn gives Dayaway the credibility it needs to promote these students and itself to clean energy employers. So please check out Essay Contest at Dayaway Careers.

So on day one, I feel like Russell Crowe in A Beautiful Mind. I have this vision of a web business built for and by students resulting, over time, in tons of talented students getting in early on great jobs in the renewable energy field, and a vision as well of an industry that steepens its growth curve because it attracted young professionals who were more aware and interested and better prepared because of Dayaway. Students and employers love it because it enables them to essentially google for each other and not get 1.2 million irrelevant hits, but rather only profiles fitting their requirements. But for right now, all of this is definitely a dayaway.

Dayaway promises to follow the publication schedule previously mentioned (see September 28 post). So, tomorrow's post will feature a renewable energy job profile).

Thanks. Please let us know what you think--leave a comment below, on our facebook page (Dayaway Careers, see link on blog) or at the following email address (michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com).

Linkedin; Friends and Family

2009-10-01T10:04:00.000-07:00

When I was a kid (12), I had a paper route. Each year there was a competition amongst the carriers to sell magazine subscriptions. This was 1968 BI (Before the Internet). So, no online subscription sales; this was walk the streets, knock on doors and endure repeated rejection. So what did a young kid do. Easy. Sell subscriptions to your family and friends. I got in touch with people I hardly knew other than they were at the last family reunion. It was a start.

Now, many years later, I am doing the same thing--trolling for Linkedin connections. On the serious side for a moment, I know that when some folks first go to DayawayCareers.com, they will want some assurance that the business is legitimate. Since I am the business for the moment, this legitimacy thing lands on me personally--who am I and why should I be trusted. Linkedin seems like an easy and effective way for potential Dayaway members to gauge my legitimacy. So once again I find myself emailing family, friends and former colleagues in the hopes that my email will make it through the junk/spam filter and that they will click the link that adds me as a Linkedin Connection. I can just imagine their reaction as they read the email: " This guy needs a real job." or "He has not written to me in years and now he writes this!" or my favorite, "Mike Brownell. Hum. I remember the name, but . . ."

I suspect some folks would never do this--the self-respect and dignity thing gets in the way. But I know that I won that magazine subscription contest before and I can win it again. So in the meantime, thanks to all my newly added Linkedin connections. Mike Brownell

Content Gathering

2009-09-30T06:13:00.000-07:00

Continue to make good progress to launch Dayaway next week. On a scale of 1- 10, I have rocketed from a 2 to 3 regarding my proficiency at facebook, linkedin and this blog. It is fascinating how the term "settings" can mean so many different things depending on where it appears! And why is that that things can look so unsettled after clicking "settings." But this is good stuff, great stuff. Early in my career I remember an old guy (probably younger than I am now) saying, "If you're not growing, you're rotting." So I look upon all this off-roading as a growth experience.

New Content - Found interesting renewable energy courses and complete programs at: Washington State University, Illinois State University, Oregon Institute of Technology and Wisconsin University. Go to DayawayCareers and click on Course Directory to learn more. If you know of a course, school or company focused on renewable energy, tell us. Thanks.

2009-09-28T05:57:00.000-07:00

Publication Schedule. To discipline myself, and to be predictable to my readers, Dayaway's posts will follow a schedule the matches a specific topic to a specific day. I doubt this is original, but it is to me (humor). Publication will start October 5

Day.....................Topic
Monday...............Renewable Energy Company
Tuesday..............Job Profile
Wednesday.........Association or School
Thursday............Course
Friday.................Achievement of the week

Each daily post also will list new content added - jobs, students, companies & courses.

2009-09-25T07:06:00.000-07:00

AASHE and Purdue.

The key accomplishment since the last post was my attending an outstanding conference sponsored by the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability at Higher Education (AASHE). This group has achieved phenomenal growth in the past year at colleges and universities across the country. They have lots of irons in the fire, but in general their members promote sustainability initiatives at our nation's colleges. I am hopeful that some of their membership will be interested in clean energy careers.

I also met with Purdue University's career counseling center. As one of the finest engineering programs in the world, Purdue grads would be an excellent source of talent for Dayaway Careers. I also learned of the Purdue Energy Center and Purdue Energy Club. I hope to learn much more about each.

New Jobs, Companies, Courses content added today: Florida Power & Light, Associate Solar Site Engineer, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Research Assistant (undergraduate and graduate positions), and General Electric, Renewable Energy Leadership Program (graduate degree)

Go to Dayaway Careers to see more.

2009-09-18T05:26:00.000-07:00

Today's Focus. Today will be spent adding new content (see below) and finalizing several new communication channels--facebook, linkedin and twitter. As I do this, I keep hearing the sayings, "a lot of light but not much heat," and "his lips move, but he's not saying anything." I am making modest progress figuring out (hum, catching up with) the online communication paths, however, I am realizing what others already know: that content is king and it is a little tougher to get. That said, I remain optimistic that students and employers will find each other more easily if someone provides a free and easy way for them to connect. Time will tell.

New Jobs, Companies, Courses content added today: Siemans, wind engineer in training, and Exelon, transmssion analyst.

Worth Knowing content added today: Garrad Hassan, UK based renewable energy consultancy firm.

Go to Dayaway Careers to see more.

2009-09-17T07:01:00.000-07:00

Today's Focus. I am still fine-tuning the the essay contest rules. Dayaway's biggest start-up problem is that we need students, high caliber ones, to attract employers and we need employers to attract students; no one wants to go first. The essay contest is intended to get around this chicken and egg problem by getting the students to go first. The contest should be easy to understand and simple enough to pursue that a student would think, "Why not? What's there to lose." The essays need to be good, however, as we want to register talented students of the type employers want. The more input we get on this the better so as to make sure we have struck the right balance. The next challenge will be getting the word out. More on that tomorrow.

Please go to Dayaway Careers to learn more about this future site.