Job Interview: Why Only 3 Questions Really Matter

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Even for the most fearless amongst us, job interviews can be nerve wracking. In order to give us the best chance of success we tend to prepare for many of the difficult questions we anticipate, questions like:

• Why should we hire you?
• What can you do for us that other candidates can’t?
• What are your key strengths and weaknesses?

Of course, you can never predict how an interview will go and what questions you will get. You might get an interviewer who fires one tough question at you after the other, or one that turns the interview into a more comfortable, natural two-way conversation. Preparing, therefore is difficult. In most cases we practice the answers to a long list of possible questions. The problem is that this can leave you over-prepared and as a consequence your pre-conceived answers can come across a bit robotic.
From my experience, there are really only 3 questions you have to prepare for and you can link most of the interview questions back to these three. Preparing for these three questions also means you can answer most questions more naturally, simply by referring mentally back to your preparations for these three questions.
Basically, any interviewer wants to establish 3 key things:

• Have you got the skills, expertise and experience to perform the job?
• Are you enthusiastic and interested in the job and the company?
• Will you fit into the team, culture and company?

However, during the job interview, the interviewer might use many different questions and angles to get to the answers. If the interviewer doesn’t get what he or she wants from one question, they might ask them in different ways. Or they might probe from different angles to test for consistency in your answers.
Here is what’s behind these 3 questions:
1. Have you got the skills, expertise and experience to perform the job?
Think about the key skills you might need for the job you have applied for and assess your own level of expertise and experience in that context. It makes sense to identify the more specific or technical skills that your potential employer might expect as well as some more generic skills such as being a good communicator, having good IT skills, being a team player, etc. Once you have prepared for this question it will help you answer many different interview questions without getting sidetracked into talking about things that are not relevant. Remember that you want to demonstrate that you are aware of the key skills, expertise and experience required to do the job and that you have what it takes to perform it. Always go back to the key skills, expertise and experience when answering questions like:

• Tell me about yourself?
• What are your greatest strengths / weaknesses?
• What can you do for us that other candidates can’t?
• Why do you think you are right for this job?
• What do you think the main challenges will be?
• Etc.

2. Are you enthusiastic and interested in the job and the company?
Any potential employer wants to know that you are interested in the company and excited about the prospect of working there. You therefore want to demonstrate that you have researched the company, understand its strategy, current performance, structure, market position and products and that you can’t wait to join them. For most, you will have done your homework before you even applied for the job, but if you haven’t then check out the ‘about us’ section on their website and search for the latest strategy documents, annual reports, key statistics as well as the company history. Show that you know them and demonstrate your enthusiasm for the job and company. Here you might also want to think about your ambitions and how they fit into the company you have applied for. You can then use the insights for answering questions such as:

• What do you know about our company?
• What do you think our company is aiming to achieve?
• What do you know about our products and services?
• Why do you want to work for this company?
• Why do you think this job is right for you?
• What motivates you?
• Etc.

3. Will you fit into the team, culture and company?
This final key question is about your personality and your style and how you as a person fit into the team and culture of the company. Companies have different cultures, which translate into different ways of behaving and working. It is important to make sure you fit in and don’t feel like a fish out of water. In fact, it is important for the company as well as for you. Again, hopefully you will have done some research prior to applying for the job. Sometimes, it can be tricky to find detailed knowledge about the company culture, in which case you simply talk about your assumptions and why you feel you fit in. One relatively new website that offers a glance inside companies is Glassdoor. The site is still in it’s infancy but provides a growing amount of data and information about what it is like to work for different companies. You want to map the culture of the company or the team you are planning to join and compare this to your personality traits, style and behaviors. Again, once you have done this you can use it to answer questions such as:

• How would you describe your work style?
• How would you describe yourself?
• How would your colleagues describe you?
• What makes you fit into our company?
• What makes you a good team member?
• If you were an animal, what animal would you be?
• Etc.

I hope this is useful? Please let me know your thoughts and share any comments you might have on the topic.

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Author: Bernard Marr

Health, Wealth, and Wisdom? Be Serious!

As my newly published review article, “Can We Say What Diet is Best for Health?” makes the media rounds, some questions arise more commonly than others- and some are just more interesting than others. One that stands out in both categories is: what’s the problem? Why, if we really do (and yes, we really do!) have knowledge of the basic theme of eating that could do so much to promote health- adding years to life, and life to years- don’t we embrace it and put it to that excellent use for ourselves and those we love?
There are a number of answers, and different ones received particular emphasis in different interviews. But several of the most important start along distinct trajectories only to wind up at exactly the same place: money.
One such trajectory has to do with those entities - Big Food, Big Publishing, Big Pharma, Madison Avenue, Big Weight Loss industry- that profit enormously from the status quo. Many in this space would be well within the bounds of reason, if not propriety, to wish fervently for our dietary pseudo-confusion and related health travails to last forever. Maybe they do- but I won’t presume to say. I will say: it’s much about the money being made.
But it’s about our hard-earned, carefully tended money as well, and that’s the more interesting part of the story. Because if most of us in our culture treated our money and wealth in any manner vaguely comparable to how we treat our health we would be, in a word, morons. Or, at best, suckers. That’s the problem, right there. Fix this, and a world of opportunity would open up before us.
What’s the case?
Over nearly 25 years of patient care, I have seen -- far too many times, painful to recall -- people reach retirement age with nicely gilded nest eggs, and disastrously scrambled health. I have never met anyone seriously willing to trade their capacity to get out of bed for a large bundle of cash. I have known many people who would gladly give up large fortunes for the chance to get out of bed one more time, or get out of a wheelchair or be free of weekly dialysis.
But now we enter the Twilight Zone, where what's real and important, and how we behave, part company. We value money (i.e., wealth) before we have it, while we have it and if ever we had it. We want it if we can't get it. It's a crime when someone takes it from us. We fight to keep it.
Health is more important, but most of us -- and our society at large -- value it only after it's lost.
Consider that one of the more significant trends in health promotion is providing some financial incentive for people to get healthy. This strategy is populating more and more programs in both real space and cyberspace, and is incorporated into many worksite wellness initiatives.
I have no real problem with it -- whatever gets us to the prize is okay with me. But it is... bizarre. We have to be paid to care about getting healthy.
Consider if it were the other way around. You could do a job, and you would get money for doing the job, but then you demanded an "incentive." Money is not an incentive? No! We insist on being provided "health" to incentivize us to work for the sake of wealth. Unless you, my employer, can guarantee that working for you will help make me healthy, you can take this job and paycheck and...
Ludicrous, right? It doesn't even sound rational to insist on getting paid in health to accept benefits in wealth. And yet, we all accept that it's perfectly rational to require payment in wealth to accept benefits in health. We all accept it, that is, until health is gone, we realize what really mattered all along, and we say: What the %#^$ was I thinking? Too late.
I have a real problem with this, not because I want to be in charge of anyone else's life, but because I know that people want to be in charge of their own lives. Once health is gone, so is control. Your life is governed by medications, procedures, doctor visits and emergencies. You are the very opposite of in charge.
Our society makes it quite clear that responsible adults take care of their money. They don't spend it as they earn it -- they put some into savings. They anticipate the needs of their children, and their own needs in retirement. Wealth -- or at least solvency -- is cultivated. If you neglect to take care of your budget and your savings, you are, in the judgment of our culture, irresponsible.
But our culture renders no such guidance for those who routinely neglect their health. Those who don't have time today to eat well, but will have time tomorrow for cardiac bypass. Those who don't have time today to exercise, but will have time tomorrow to visit the endocrinologist. Those who get, and apply, mutually exclusive recommendations dosed almost daily by daytime television. Prevailing neglect of health costs us dearly, individually and collectively, and it costs us both health and wealth. Being sick is very expensive -- in every currency that matters: time, effort, opportunity cost, legacy and yes, dollars.
What if health were more like wealth?

• If health were like wealth, we would value it while gaining it -- not just after we'd lost it.
• If health were like wealth, we would make getting to it a priority.
• If health were like wealth, we would invest in it to secure a better future.
• If health were like wealth, we would work hard to make sure we could pass it on to our children.
• If health were like wealth, we would accept that it may take extra time and effort today, but that's worth it because of the return on that investment tomorrow.
• If health were like wealth, society would respect those who are experts at it- and not substitute the guidance from those who are not.
• If health were like wealth, young people would aspire to it.
• If health were like wealth, we would be serious about it.

But health is not like wealth. We venerate wealth, and all too often, denigrate health. People are routinely willing to lose weight fast on some cockamamie diet to look good for a special event. It's not healthy, but what the heck? Well, it would be like cashing out your 401(k) to show up at the special event in a flashy car you can't really afford. It would feel good for a day, and bad for the rest of your life. We know this, and responsible people don't treat wealth this way. But we mortgage health to the point of foreclosure as a matter of routine.
Health is not like wealth. It is vastly MORE important. Just ask anyone who has one but not the other.
We are raised to aspire to wealth, while health is often left to languish in that space where stuff just happens. Wealth is its own prize; we need an incentive in another currency to recognize health as such. We watch sitcoms to laugh at get-rich-quick gullibility, then apply that very delusion ourselves to promises of get-thin-quick, get-healthy-quick, or stay-young-forever. We look to genuine experts for advice in almost any field, and certainly when it comes to managing our money- but if some Hollywood celebrity tells the world “I lost weight by eating only pencil erasers while being thrashed about the elbows with wilted artichoke leaves”- we get in line and reach for our credit cards.
To the extent we own wisdom or at least common sense, we are encouraged at every turn to apply them to our careers, and our bank accounts. But they lapse into a coma with every weight loss infomercial.
The result is an endless appetite for an unending parade of “my diet can beat your diet” contestants, rather than a sensible devotion to applying the fundamentals of healthful eating. It’s exactly analogous to frittering away all of our money on a comparable parade of get-rich-quick schemes, while ignoring the readily available, reliable information about sound investing. Or, if you prefer: it’s shopping for fiddles while Rome burns.
Wise is wonderful, but probably sets the bar too high. We could be both healthy and wealthy- or at least exercise comparable control over both- if we were just comparably sensible about both. We don’t even need to be wise to be healthy- we just need to be serious about it, rather than silly. What’s the problem? When it comes to eating well and being healthy, we are not serious people. Silly prevails.

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Author:David L.Katz MD

Now Run Background Checks Through The Resumator

Peanut butter and jelly, Han Solo and Chewie, Brad and Angelina… Greatness comes in twos and we’re incredibly excited to offer background checks with GoodHire, a complete FCRA-compliant employment screening service for SMBs!

Pro plan users can now run background checks without having to leave The Resumator app (note: The Resumator does not run the checks, that’s where GoodHire comes in). This means:

• No wasting time looking for FCRA-compliant background check services
• No more worrying about applicant backgrounds
• Being able to confidently hire with protection from a negligent hiring lawsuit

Oh, and you can try the first one for free!

To run a background check, pro plan users can go to the “Background Check” tab of an applicant’s profile. Once there, users will be able to request new background checks and find previously-ordered reports. All of this can be found organized in the same place as hiring information, resumes, notes and team feedback.

Interested in accessing this feature but not a pro plan user?  You can sign up over the phone or from the same “Background Check” tab.

(Faster Background Checks With The Resumator + Goodhire)
We’re extremely proud to announce our partnership with Goodhire, a complete FCRA compliant employment screening service for small-to-medium-size businesses. Our partnership means that Pro plan users of The Resumator can now order background checks through Goodhire, right from inside The Resumator dashboard. Just take a look…

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Hiring Advice & News From Around The Web

The week gets busier and busier, doesn’t it? So we decided to make things a little easier on you. Instead of searching for interesting hiring advice all over the web, you can find the good stuff here. Enjoy this list of our favorite articles.

Advice and How-Tos 7 Questions and Answers About Recruiting With Social Media

Everyone is incorporating social media into their recruiting practices, but every recruiter has had that moment — the moment when you feel like the kid in class, raising your hand to ask a question that you feel like everyone knows the answer to already.

This should help: 

Where is everyone getting all of their images?

Ninety percent of information transmitted to the brain is visual, and visuals are processed 60,000 times faster in the brain than text. That is exactly why on Facebook, videos are shared 12 times more than links and text posts combined, and photos are liked 2x more than text updates. Images are plentiful online, but using most of them without rights or credits can get you into trouble (plus that’s just not cool). Here are a few ways to get tons-o-images:

• Create a Haiku Deck and use the images produced.
• Photopin is a great, free site with a wide variety of pictures. Don’t forget to include the credits!
• ECards are another free and popular way to generate fun images.
• BigStock isn’t free, but their picture quality is pretty awesome and they have packages at different costs.
• Take your own pictures of the office, or ask employees to share pictures on a hashtag so they are all searchable.

When is the most effective time of day for me to be posting?

When in doubt, Google it! Media Bistro has pulled together optimal posting time for each given social network. Here are the best times to post, but you can also check out worst times and helpful tidbits.

• Facebook: Weekdays 6-8 a.m. and 2-5 p.m.
• Twitter: Weekends 1-3 p.m.
• Google+: 9-11 a.m.
• LinkedIn: 7-8:30 a.m. and 5-6 p.m.
• Pinterest: Saturday 2-4 p.m. and 8-11 p.m.
• Blog posts: Mon, Fri, Sat 11 a.m.

How in Sam Hell is everyone posting so frequently? I have a life …

Those “best times to post” slots were all over the map, right? It seems impossible to keep up with, and without the right tools, it is. Try out something like Sprout Social, HootSuite, or any number of social publishing tools out there. These allow you to fill up a queue of posts all at once and schedule their publishing times. Bam! You can knock out your posts for the week in one sitting.

How frequently should I be posting?

Amy Porterfield,social media strategist and co-author of Facebook Marketing All-In-One for Dummies, advises posting on all of your social networks two to five times a day. Because of those staggered “best times to post,” “One post a day simply isn’t enough because most of your fans won’t see it due to timing,” she says. This shouldn’t be considered the minimum; this is the standard. Over-posting is annoying to your audience and can get you unfollowed or unliked 

instantly..

What networks should I be a part of?

The answer here is, all of them. Obviously that is not possible, so the three standard in recruitment marketing according to a Staff.com infographic are:

• LinkedIn is the No. 1 site for social recruiting, with 93 percent of companies using it in their recruiting efforts in 2012.
• Facebook comes in second with 66 percent
• Twitter is a close third at 54 percent
• Google+ for good measure …

How do I get more likes and followers?

The answer: Like and Follow. It is a very give-and-take relationship in the social world. Everyone is trying to grow their network, and get clicks and retweets. They want the same thing you do, so when you engage, they will too. Several morehelpful follower-grabbing tips for Twitter come from social media expert Luke Chitwood:

• Create valuable content.
• Comment on relevant news/tweets.
• Create countdowns.
• Offer exclusive content.
• Participate in the dialogue.

How do you get people to share your stuff?

Once you’ve gone through the content checklist: interesting, relevant, timely, informative, and engaging, you still have to give your audience a reason to share your content. A call to action is always helpful. Simply asking people to retweet, comment, or share can actually increase the likelihood that they will do so. Science of Social Media data reveals that that tweets including either “Please ReTweet” or “Please RT” are more likely to get retweeted than tweets without those phrases. In fact, “Please ReTweet” gets a 51 percent likelihood of getting retweeted.

Social recruiting is here to stay, so recruiters should ask questions, and try out new things in the social media world. Again, when in doubt, Google it. “I’ll figure it out later” will only ensure that your untimely efforts will get lost in the shuffle. Do you have any social tips or tricks to share? We would love to hear them below.

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Source:ERE.net

Google Launches The Cloud Price War ReadWrite Predicted In December

Google slashes what it's charging companies for cloud computing, storage and database tools by up to 85%. You read it here first.

Google slashed prices for its cloud-computing services, revving up competition with rival Amazon Web Services and setting the stage for a more general price war in the cloud.

See also: Cloud Wars In 2014: Amazon Versus Google And Other Follies

At the company's Google Cloud Platform conference in San Francisco, the company announced a 68% price cut for its cloud storage service and a 32% cut for Google Compute Engine, which runs major computing jobs for customers on virtual machines. The cost of using Google's BigQuery system, which performs Big Data analysis, has likewise dropped by 85%.

Amazon snatched an early lead in the race to provide true on-demand compute power for business customers, leaving competitors such as Microsoft and Google to play a serious game of catch-up. Google has so far been much further behind, and now appears to be taking a tack familiar to underdogs everywhere—cut prices faster and farther than anyone else.

Google has made its cloud development tools more accessible and flexible than ever, said Urs Hölzle, senior vice president of technical infrastructure. Hölzle noted that cloud prices haven't dropped as quickly as Moore's Law, and said Google's aggressive moves are intended to bring the cost of cloud computing in line with the declining cost of computing hardware.

Google intends its Cloud Platform to serve as an online repository of tools that companies need for powering their business. So far, Amazon has reigned over this market, attracting big corporate customers across a swathe of industries. These are the kinds of companies with tens of thousands of employees that need access to a wide array of business applications.

Google is at a decided disadvantage in this particular area. It seems to be trying to make up for it by courting developers instead of IT managers or CIOs.

Changing How Companies Buy Software

One of Google's tactics for competing with the likes of Amazon and even the Microsoft Azure cloud system involves extending its consumer-friendly image to encompass its ecosystem of supposedly easy-to-use and easy-to-scale tools. Those words don’t always go together in the development world, but it's a theme Hölzle, a Googler since 1999, struck throughout his presentation.

“Google Cloud Platform is now available for everyone to use and to deploy apps to every device,” Hölzle said. “We’re investing heavily in it. It’s early days, but we see a clear path for making developers more productive.”

In addition to its price cuts, Google announced new features such as sustained use discounts for customers whose need for computing services doesn't vary wildly. Companies that use more or less the same amount of compute power over the course of a month will see lower prices compared to those that experience usage spikes.

Google also announced what it is calling managed virtual machines. These are designed to offer more flexibility for developers who want to use other tools besides those Google already offers—specifically, though not exclusively, open source tools. Developers have been clamoring for support for various Linux-based operating systems and even Windows Server applications, said Greg DeMichille, the director of product management for Google Cloud Platform.

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How to Find a Fulfilling Career""""""

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One of the things I’m most thankful for as I wake each morning is having a job that I love. Not only that, it’s incredibly rewarding to be surrounded by people who also love what they do. Virgin is a company that prides itself on a happy, motivated workforce.

Sadly there are a lot of people who are not fortunate enough to have a job which they are passionate about. This was all too apparent when I recently watched a short film on career fulfilment made by my son Sam’s production company Sundog Pictures. There were a few lines that really struck home, in particular one person explaining how a change of career had made them feel:

In my old job I felt like I was plodding every step of the way, but now it feels like I’m gliding through life.”

We would all like to have a fulfilling career, but what steps do you need to take to make it happen? One of the major stumbling blocks for most people is fear, quite understandably. You might have found yourself in a well-paid and highly respected position; even if you’re unhappy in the role, leaving it behind can be a daunting task.

When most people think about taking a risk they associate it with negative connotations, when really they should view it as a positive opportunity. Believe in yourself and back yourself to come out on top. Whether that means studying a course to enable a change of direction, taking up an entry level position on a career ladder you want to be a part of, or starting your own business – you’ll never know if you don’t give it a try.

It can be easy to find reasons not to do something. However you might be surprised by how much help is at hand if you put yourself out there and commit to a project. It doesn’t have to be a case of struggling along by yourself. When we started Virgin Atlantic it was a rather uncertain time, but thankfully I found myself a mentor in Sir Freddie Laker – the Laker Airways founder – who was able to offer some expert advice and plenty of reassurance.

Looking inside the Virgin Group there are countless examples of how members of staff have progressed within the organisation to find their dream role. This year I was lucky enough to meet Danielle Stokes, who works for Virgin Australia and has a remarkable story of career progression. Now a young pilot Danielle used to be cabin crew for the airline, and previous to that she worked in a café to save money for pilot training. The moral of this story? Never give up on your dreams! A fulfilling career is waiting for those brave enough to find it.

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 Author : RICHARD  BRANSON

5 Smart Things to Do AFTER You Leave a Job

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Chances are, you are going to have multiple jobs in your lifetime. Recent studies suggest that young people today will have 16 jobs by the time they are 37. (Yes. That is bonkers.) You gave that job your time, your energy, your ideas. That wasn't just a current paycheck, hopefully it was also an investment for the future. All those former employers are valuable to you--as a reference, as source of deal flow, etc. How do you make the most of a past employer?

Lets assume you left on good terms. My favorite scene in all the Harry Potter movies is when Fred and George set off huge amounts of fireworks and magic in the exam hall. Its their farewell to Hogwarts School. It was their grandiose way of saying, "Peace. Out." It makes for a wonderful movie scene and fantasy...but not a great model for leaving a job. Hopefully, you gave ample notice, completed all your work (and more), and distributed kind handwritten notes to key colleagues to say thanks. That leaving moment is important. But, even if you messed up your exit, these 5 things can help you maximize that old relationship.

Two years ago, a terrific employee of ours left for a new job in another city. He literally moved two states away. Other employees have left and faded into history, gone and forgotten. And yet, when this guy called saying that his job in Boston was being eliminated, I quickly sprung into action to help him figure out what's next. Why? Because he is the model former employee. Here are some of the things he does:

1. Send nice notes. When something good happens here, he sends a nice personal note to congratulate that person. He doesn't over do it. He isn't a creepy stalker. But a couple of times a year, we hear something kind from him. It lets us know that he is still thinking of us and still cares about our success.

2. Tweet and like. When we post news, we know he will retweet and like it. Those social actions are simple, free, and cheap...and it matters. When he does this, it feels like he is still part of our team.

3. Send beer. Yep. That happened. We were under a lot of stress about a particularly big launch. And then 6 cases of beer arrived. (Good beer.) Yes, free beer is a terrific way to maintain friendships.

4. Send introductions. Over the last two years, he has sent us a handful of good leads. Former employees know your business, your pain points and strengths. Former employees are a good source of deal flow, ideas, and new talent. (A woman who worked here two years ago on our tech team left to be a CTO at a startup. Two weeks ago she introduced us to a terrific engineer...and accepted the job yesterday.)

5. Visit. We see him a couple times a year. He will be in New York and will pop in to say hello or invite me for a coffee. That is how I knew he was waitlisted at a business school where I happen to know a board member...and so I could make that call.

The moral of the story? You invested a lot of time, energy, and passion into a workplace. That investment doesn't end the day you leave. Your relationship to that company is forever--you are part of their history and that company is part of your work history. So, don't turn your back on it completely.

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 Author : NANCY  LUBLIN

Why the Tech Industry is (Still) Failing Women

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That women are underrepresented in the startup community is hardly news. Just eight percent of startup founders are women, according to EZebis, a site that supports women in tech. This is despite the fact that women-led private tech companies have been shown to achieve a 35-percent-higher return on investment. After all these years, the face of tech startups is still a young guy with fashionable stubble and thick black glasses.

I’d like to think my company HootSuite is anything but a stodgy old boys club. As a social media company, the heart of our business is building relationships. Our employees are by and large young, progressive and open-minded. We have a yoga studio at our headquarters and get fresh, local fruit delivered daily. On any given day, around a dozen dogs roam the halls of our pet-friendly office.

But the numbers don’t lie. Out of every 10 people interviewed for a tech position at our office, 9 are men. We have approximately 50 engineers and developers on our team, and fewer than 20 of them are women. (By contrast, the gender breakdown is closer to 50-50 for other departments.) Figuring out why this is and what can be done about it is a question that keeps me up nights.

Why? You can point to the scarcity of female role models in tech, though thankfully high-profile leaders like Yahoo!’s Marissa Mayer and Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg are slowly changing that. Or you can blame it on the obstacles to building a culture of entrepreneurialism among women: According to a recent Global Entrepreneurship Monitor report, more than half of women doubt their abilities to start a business, while men report having a much more robust professional network for advice and inspiration.

But it’s hard to get around a simple reality: Computer science, the backbone of any tech startup, is still a male-dominated field. Women comprise fewer than 30 percent of U.S. computer science and engineering programs at the undergraduate and graduate levels,according to the National Science Foundation. Coding, in particular—caricatured as marathon, ramen-fueled computer programming sessions in movies like The Social Network—has traditionally been seen as a guys’ thing. But does it have to be?

Girl Dev is a pilot program started from our offices at HootSuite. Once a week for three hours, groups of women interested in improving their computer coding skills meet in our cafeteria after work. The focus is on teaching not just the basics of HTML and CSS but more advanced topics including Javascript, PHP and app development in a supportive and non-competitive environment.

We also host monthly meetups of Ladies Learning Code, a Toronto-based initiative that has introduced more than 4,000 women and girls to programming and technical skills since 2011. One Saturday a month in our office, 14 mentors and roughly 40 attendees spend 8 hours working together. Importantly, it’s not all code. Mentors introduce themselves, share their personal stories and offer insight on ways to thrive as a woman in a male-dominated industry.

Creating supportive environments like these to learn computer science skills is a start. But truly narrowing the gender gap in the startup community—like the solution to so many challenges—comes down in large part to how we educate children. Providing better computer science education in public schools to kids, and encouraging girls to participate, is the only way to rewrite stereotypes about tech and really break open the old boys club.

To that end, Ladies Learning Code recently introduced Girls Learning Code, camps and workshops aimed specifically at 8- to 13- and 13- to 17-year-old girls. With a focus on teamwork, creativity and technology, the program aims to help girls see tech as a medium for self-expression and a means of changing the world, notes Emma Nemtin, marketing director for tech company Hubba and one of the organization’s mentors: “By giving the girls a great learning experience, putting them in a room with dozens of other girls who also think technology is cool, giving them access to mentors and role models, and then showing them examples of what it can mean to work in tech, we’re doing everything we can to ensure that these girls grow up knowing that they have a choice . . . .”

Did you like this post? To read my weekly insights on social media, leadership, and tech trends, just click the 'follow' button at the top of this page.

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Local News""Globe, Smart announce postpaid plans for Samsung Galaxy S5

The Samsung Galaxy S5 is set to debut in the Philippines on April 11, and right on cue, both Globe Telecom and Smart Communications have announced their respective postpaid plans for the Korean company's flagship phone. The good news: Neither carrier is charging a lot more for the better-specc'd sequel that now includes a built-in heart-rate monitor and fingerprint scanner. The Samsung Galaxy S5 is free under Smart's Unli Surf Plan 999 with P800 monthly payout for 24 months and Unli Surf Plan 2000 with no monthly cash out. Subscriptions from Globe are slightly more expensive compared to last year's subscriptions, but allow for more flexibility. The telco's postpaid packages also include free access to Facebook until April 25. Interestingly, you can get the Galaxy S5 from either carrier for P1,799 a month. Globe's postpaid plan includes 25 minutes of calls, 500 text messages to all networks, and 5GB of 3G/LTE data, and Smart's offer includes 9 minutes of calls, 99 SMS, and unlimited 3G/LTE data.

Globe Galaxy S5 PLANS

Smart Galaxy S5 PLANS

Samsung launches flagship Galaxy S5 smartphone

Samsung unveiled its new flagship Galaxy S5 smartphone armed with a fingerprint scanner and a built-in heart rate sensor to defend its place as the world's industr…

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Microsoft gets behind wireless charging

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Microsoft has announced that it's officially supporting the Wireless Power Consortium's QI standard for topping up the batteries of mobile devices without cables.

The oldest and most established of the three competing standards that all want to be the de facto way of liberating consumer electronics devices from wall sockets, the Wireless Power Consortium(WPC) already counts 200 companies among its members.

It's a list that includes Qualcomm, LG, HTC, Samsung, Sony, Motorola, IKEA and, of course Nokia. The Finnish phonemaker has been a long-term supporter of the technology and has been offering the QI standard wireless recharging system as an option on its handsets for a number of years.

As such, it seems like a good idea, now the handset maker is a part of Microsoft, that Microsoft should continue to support the same standard, rather than aligning with another standard and having to redesign products in the development pipeline from scratch.

The announcement also means the future Microsoft Surface tablets and maybe even games consoles could be offered with wireless charging as an option.

There is no question of the benefits that wireless charging technology can offer consumers, who are becoming more and more reliant on smartphones and tablets for conducting every aspect of their daily lives. In an ideal world, every time a phone or tablet were placed on a table, it would automatically start recharging, meaning that battery life anxiety would be a thing of the past.

However, the reality is that there are three competing organizations that all want to be the universal standard and while they continue to butt heads, everyone loses out.

In February, the Alliance for Wireless Power (A4WP) and the Power Matter Alliance (PMA) announced a sort of truce and agreed to work together towards a unified standard.

Of the agreement, Kamil Grajski, President, Alliance for Wireless Power, said: "This announcement delivers a compelling message for the industry to commit and deliver wireless charging devices now. Between the organizations, A4WP and PMA membership consists of the key players necessary to drive industry consolidation and establish a commercially viable globally interoperable wireless charging ecosystem."

But even with that accord in place, the new unified group is still in direct competition with the WPC, which Microsoft has just thrown its weight behind.

Industry experts and research firms still believe that the technology has the potential to be huge. According to IHS Technology, only 25 million wireless charging units, be they transmitters or receivers, were shipped in 2013 but that figure is expected to jump to 1.7 billion units by 2023.

It means that, for the next 10 years at least, serious smartphone power users will still have to make sure that their charging cables are packed in their bags at the start of the day.

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New iPhone likely out in September: Nikkei

Apple is to release its newest iPhone in September, with higher resolution and bigger screens, a report said Friday, its latest salvo in the smartphone wars where it has lost global market share to rivals such as Samsung.

The new handset, expected to be called the iPhone 6, is to come in two versions with a 4.7- or 5.5-inch screen, both bigger than the current four-inch panel, the respected Nikkei business daily said, without citing sources.

US-based Apple is ordering its higher-resolution liquid crystal display screens from Japanese electronics giant Sharp, Japan Display and South Korea's LG Display, it added.

Apple released the iPhone 5 in September 2012 and newer versions in the series last year.

A Japan-based spokesman for the California tech giant could not be immediately reached for comment on the Nikkei report, which was widely picked up by a string of technology news websites.

The Nikkei story comes after Taiwan's Commercial Times said this month that Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. had started producing chips for the next iPhone.

That news fed rumours that Apple is reducing its reliance for parts on South Korean giant Samsung, its main competitor in the mobile phone market and a bitter rival with which it is contesting several copyright court battles globally.

Samsung in February unveiled its new flagship Galaxy S5 smartphone armed with a fingerprint scanner and a built-in heart rate sensor, as it tries to cement its leadership of the multibillion-dollar market.

However, the South Korean giant voiced annoyance after domestic telecoms operators released its latest smartphone ahead of schedule in order to dodge sales restrictions imposed by regulators. The world's biggest mobile phone maker had planned a worldwide debut of the Galaxy S5 on April 11.

Samsung made about 30 percent of all smartphones sold globally last year, nearly twice the share of Apple.

- Fierce competition, profit concerns -

A survey by International Data Corporation (IDC) last month said Google's Android system -- used by Samsung among others -- extended its gains over Apple's iPhone in the last quarter of 2013, and Windows Phone grabbed the number three market position.

But other challengers are moving up the ranks with Taiwan's HTC Corp. having launched an update of its HTC One smartphone while Sony has seen strong sales of its Xperia offering.

Global shipments of smartphones last year topped a billion for the first time, up 38.4 percent from the 725.3 million shipped in 2012.

Apple, however, had the lowest year-on-year increase of all major smartphone makers even though its 5S and 5C models were available in more countries, according to IDC.

While record iPhone and iPad sales pushed Apple's fourth-quarter revenue to a new high investors have been concerned over weaker profits in fierce mobile gadget markets.

The California-based tech giant reported net income of $13.1 billion on revenue of $57.6 billion in the quarter that ended December 28, helped by selling 51 million iPhones.

The profit was the same as Apple reported in the same quarter a year earlier when its revenue was $54.5 billion.

The firm is leaning on the potentially huge Chinese market as its looks to power future growth.

In January, that goal got a boost as China Mobile, the country's biggest wireless provider, started selling the iPhone to millions of customers nationwide, ending a six-year wait in a crucial market.

China Mobile has a 760 million-strong customer base and its plans to roll out the world's largest 4G (fourth generation) network have both companies forecasting a fruitful union.

A Sharp spokeswoman declined to comment on the Nikkei report Friday, as the company's Tokyo-listed shares rose 1.63 percent, outpacing a 0.50 percent increase in the broader market.

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