MobileWirelessJobs.com

By Carl Schumacher

I have often run into situations that this statement is true. The act of interviewing like dating can make candidates as well as interviewers act in irrational and even down right crazy ways. Candidates lose perspective and take everything way too personally and interviewers totally lose site of what is common courtesy and sometimes even common sense.

Here are some real life examples:

A candidate was interviewing for a development job. She was living on one side of the Country and the job was on the other side of the Country. After two very good phone screens, the recruiter working with the candidate followed up with the company to see if they were ready to fly her out for a face to face. Instead to the recruiter's surprise, the hiring manager said he had already left the candidate a message that they wanted to make her an offer.

Now you would expect her to think what great news! "They love me so much after two phone screens they want to make me an offer!"

Well think again...

Now compare this to dating, you have been on two dates and suddenly you get a phone call from budding romantic partner saying they love you & they want to move in.
How do you think most people would react?

Nine out of Ten would be a bit freaked out by this. "Will he ask to marry me in a weak?" "Hell I have never even been to where he lives it could be a rat hole?" "Is he a serial killer?"

And sure enough the candidate freaked out as well saying she was "feeling pressured" asking "is there something wrong with this job". The recruiter thinking fast worked it out for her to go for a face to face so she could see the area & also the office. But by that time the damage was done. The candidate suddenly got sick, and could not be reached because of a sore throat and could not talk on the phone. Two days later she texted the recruiter she had taken another job.

Lesson learned: Doing things in the right order does matter in interviewing, dating and disarming a bomb. Cutting the blue wire before red can be very dangerous.

Now on the flip side to this often candidates move to fast and talk themselves right out of a job before they even know it is right for them.

For example: A candidate submits their resume through a recruiter for a sales job. They receive an initial phone screen from human resources. During the call the HR person tells them to their dismay the position requires you to be in the office every day & that the commissions for this job is expected to be 30K less than was represented to them.

Unfortunately it is not that unusual to have HR & the hiring manager have different ideas as to what the job requires or even pays. That is why recruiters are so determined to speak with the hiring manager to take a job order.

Well now back to the example. The candidate in a very upset tone calls the recruiter who set them up for the interview and say's that even if they want another interview that he is not interested now as he was lied to about that position was a virtual office & commissions were uncapped.

So after a long conversation the recruiter calms the candidate down enough & assures them that the job is in a virtual office & the pay is uncapped because that's what the hiring manager said. So a second interview occurs & the candidate actually gets job.

Lesson Learned: Interviewing & relationships are a work in progress. A job description often evolves as candidates are interviewed & priorities change. Also the truths you have on the first date as you are trying to impress the person in front may be quite a bit different 3 weeks later after you have had two or three dates.

Now besides the dating comparison, both these examples show why having a recruiter is an important component in many hiring processes. Would A-Rod or Payton Manning think of negotiating their own contracts, of course not!

Unfortunately not every company can afford using recruiters or have a strong internal recruiting staff and actually do a good job of hiring on their. But still there is nothing like having a Jerry Maguire to navigate you through the "match.com" mine field called interviewing.

I know I had you at Hello...

Posted by Carl Schumacher at 1:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | |

Last week I attended the Billboard Mobile Entertainment Live! 2009 event. At the event I was fortune enough to interview David Gwozdz, CEO of Mojiva and mOcean Mobile. Here is my conversation with David Gwozdz, CEO of Mojiva and mOcean Mobile.

This interview is available as an MP3 download.

- Carl

Posted by WirelessRecruiter at 11:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | |

Last week I attended the Billboard Mobile Entertainment Live! 2009 event. At the event I was fortune enough to interview a couple of managers of the Mobile Marketing Association. Here is my conversation with John Manganilla, Manager - Industry Initiatives, and Bill Craig, North America Membership Manager.

This interview is available as an MP3 download.

-Carl

Posted by WirelessRecruiter at 11:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | |

Last week I attended the Billboard Mobile Entertainment Live! 2009 event. At the event, I was fortune enough to interview executives of one of the co-sponsors of the event, Logic Wireless. Here is my conversation with Miran Maric, Vice Chairman & Chief Operating Officer, and Craig Dorshkind, Director of Marketing, at Logic Wireless.

This interview is available as an MP3 download.

- Carl

Posted by WirelessRecruiter at 11:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | |

MobileWirelessJobs interviews Michael Jaschke, CEO of Elanti Systems, at 4G World 2009. This interview is available as an MP3 download.

Last week at 4G World Conference 2009 at McCormick place in Chicago, I was lucky enough to have the CEO of Elanti Systems take a few minutes for me to ask him a few quiestions. Here is a live recording of our conversation. -Carl

Click here to download the MP3.

Size: 7.6 MB. Total runtime: 16:01

Posted by WirelessRecruiter at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | |

MobileWirelessJobs interviews John von Tetzchner, CEO of Opera Software, at 4G World 2009. This interview is available as an MP3 download.

Last week at 4G Wireless World Conference 2009 at McCormick place in Chicago, I was fortunate enough to spend some time interviewing the CEO of Opera Software Jon S. von Tetzchner. Here is a live recording of our conversation. -Carl

Click here to download the MP3.

Size: 6.8 MB. Total runtime: 14:13

Posted by WirelessRecruiter at 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | |

Carl Schumacher Editor and Chief Blogger at MobileWirelessJobs.com Interviews Manish Gupta the Vice President of Global Marketing at Kabira Technologies at 4G World 2009.

Carl: Manish, congratulations on your move to Kabira Technologies. How have your first few months at Kabira been?

Manish: Thank you Carl (Kabira) is a great place to be. You know you look from the outside when you join a company and then you find out the details once you join a company. It's been refreshing to note that Kabira is actually doing much better than I had anticipated and expected looking from the outside. I have a great opportunity to put Kabira in the limelight being that it has great assets. We are seeing significant customer traction, the solution value proposition is hitting home with big operators in the US and of course globally, and I look forward to making a huge impact for the company.

Carl: I see that although you've only been at Kabira for a short time, you already are speaking here at 4G World and your company is also presenting at a Solutions Theater session. How did you get this effort off and running in such a short time?

Manish: So the industry is not new to me, certainly the core technologies that Kabira brings to the table is something I've had to pick up the last couple of months I have been here. I understand the challenges of the customers, the operators. I understand where the gaps are and I have a appreciation for how Kabira can bring value to the customers. So packaging the need with that supply we have on technology and solutions is my job and I feel comfortable that we have defined something that is already getting good reactions, so I am going to share that value proposition with everyone here.

Carl: I understand that Kabira Technologies is an infrastructure software company. Can you tell me how this stacks up against the huge mobile wireless potential market growth? What does Kabira have to gain during this mobile growth trend and how excited are you about Kabira's opportunities?

Manish: There are dynamics around the mobile infrastructure. Whether you talk about the radio interface billing systems, operating support systems, core networks, devices, applications. Really across the board there are significant changes that are happening. These changes are both opportunities and challenges for the operators. What Kabira offers is a way to monetize the opportunity around mobile data. When the user numbers are increasing the traffic per user is increasing. and the type of services that the user is doing is just exploding in all dimensions. What Kabira can do is help the operators increase it's Arpu, it can help the operator penetrate segments it has has not been able to in the past. The way we do that is by providing intelligence to the operating support system infrastructure that the carriers have. We sit between the network layer and the back office systems. We extract the information from the Network layer match it to the information that exists on profiles and policies in the back office and hence we can do things such as value based charging, traffic redirection and so on. So I feel very very excited that the opportunities in the market place are just beginning in mobile data. Kabira seems to have hit that at the right time, with the right solution. And we have several proof points with large customers such as AT&T in the US and Rubicon the number 2 operator in Russia, France Telecom with Orange in 25 countries. We have adequate proof points that we can go and support other customers that our not our customers today.

Carl: As you know MobileWirelessJobs.com is a site focused on employment in the wireless field. I wanted to direct a few questions towards that. What advice would you give to people with regard to finding a position with a company with the potential and excitement that Kabira has?

Manish: There are a few things that are the basics, domain knowledge and experience understanding. But really the most important thing that we look for in employees is the cultural fit. It's the passion and the desire to make something big. I think those are the fundamentals that are necessary in an individual as we consider them for new roles.

Carl: How do feel the 4G World Conference and the presentations of the various technologies being presented will impact hiring in the near future?

Manish: You know I think it will shed opportunities that perhaps the companies have not seen before. As they see those opportunities they will find a way to participate in those growth curves and opportunities the market brings to them. And that hopefully will enable them to put together growth strategies on head count and organizations that will open up new opportunities.

Carl: So what roles will Kabira be hiring for in the next 6 Months to a year?

Manish: We are stream-lining the organization with additional very specific roles. Currently we are looking to add a Director of Product Marketing with a focus on positioning, messaging, a very outbound personality that understands this space and can bring that level of thought process to the marketing organization. We expect to add some product management rolls in the future and as always we are constantly adding some folks in sales as well as on the development side.

Carl: What has been some of the more difficult type of hires you have experienced in the marketplace trying to bring people to your company? What are the road blocks you might find in hiring people?

Manish: I have only been here a couple of months now some it has been a limited experience. We are focused on one that I have been spending my time on which has been the Director of Product Marketing. And really the challenge is just filtering the right folks. Certainly considering the market place there is an abundance of personalities and people. To find the fit, as I mentioned before, the cultural fit is the most important thing for us. That where we spend most of our time as we do the assessment of our candidates.

Carl: I know that from my background you go from a year or so ago where there are not enough candidates to fill the positions, to a year later when there are too many candidates to fill the positions. It seem like it is one or the other, that either you have not enough candidates or such an abundance that you do not have the infrastructure built in to your company to do the hiring because there are so many to interview.

Manish: Right, right right.

Carl: It is a good problem to have, but it does not make it any easier.

Manish: Right

Carl: Over the past year there have been so many lay-offs and so many down-sizing's, how do you feel that has impacted companies within your realm, and where do think the time frame will be when things are starting to move forward in the direction that we were in?

Manish: I think we are already feeling that turn happen in the right direction. My sense is the marketplace, have used up the channel and the inventories that they had and our now looking to rebuild. Similarly on the design and expansion side I think the general sense is that it is starting to move in the right direction. So I would say in the next 6 months there is a little bit, but certainly in the next year you will probably see a significant material change in that perspective.

Carl: Excellent, It seems to be similar to what I am hearing from others and is a good barometer of how things are.

Carl: In closing, if you have to give what is the most important quality that separates your company, that differentiates you from your competitors, what would that be?

Manish: Clearly I would put the people as number one, we have some phenomenal people whether you think about technology, you think about development, you think about marketing and presales we have some great people. Number two is innovation and technology. Kabira has some fundamental technology that is just...there is no comparison to it. The competition plays in the similar space as we do, certainly there are many players. But the foundation underneath the solutions that exist at Kabira which is the in memory processing, very high scale, very low latency, very high availability, that is a unique proposition that underlies every thing that we do and that is something that will enable us to stay ahead of the competition.

Carl: Sound like you have very exciting things going on.

Manish: absolutely!

Posted by WirelessRecruiter at 12:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | |

I attended 4G World 2009 conference at McCormick place in Chicago last week and was fortunate enough to interview several executives. There was a lot of excitement and optimism and not only did we hear the buzz on all the new products and services, we got some great perspective on what positions companies are hiring for and what type of skills will be needed in 2010 and beyond.
Hope you enjoy the interviews, let us know what you think.
- Carl

Posted by WirelessRecruiter at 10:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | |

I attended 4G World 2009 conference at McCormick place in Chicago last week and was fortunate enough to interview several executives. There was a lot of excitement and optimism and not only did we hear the buzz on all the new products and services, we got some great perspective on what positions companies are hiring for and what type of skills will be needed in 2010 and beyond.
Hope you enjoy the interviews, let us know what you think.
- Carl

Posted by WirelessRecruiter at 10:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | |

I attended 4G World 2009 conference at McCormick place in Chicago last week and was fortunate enough to interview several executives. There was a lot of excitement and optimism and not only did we hear the buzz on all the new products and services, we got some great perspective on what positions companies are hiring for and what type of skills will be needed in 2010 and beyond.
Hope you enjoy the interviews, let us know what you think.
- Carl

Posted by WirelessRecruiter at 9:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | |

I attended 4G World 2009 conference at McCormick place in Chicago last week and was fortunate enough to interview several executives. There was a lot of excitement and optimism and not only did we hear the buzz on all the new products and services, we got some great perspective on what positions companies are hiring for and what type of skills will be needed in 2010 and beyond.

Hope you enjoy the interviews, let us know what you think.
-Carl

Posted by WirelessRecruiter at 9:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | |

Here is a Blog Post from one of our readers Steve Eddington.

Steve Eddington is President of Electronic Search, Inc. http://www.electronicsearch.com/ Wireless, Mobile and Telecomm Staffing Specialists. He has 25+ years experience in the Recruitment, Staffing/ Employment Industry as an Executive and hands-on Wireless Industry Recruitment Guru.

I have had the opportunity to observe and be directly involved in hundreds of hiring decisions through the years.

I have had several conversations with candidates recently and some interesting facts have begun to surface.

One friend said..."I had 13 interviews to eventually get hired."

Another said... "it is a 30 employee company and I have now had 6 interviews...; and I am still going."

I found myself laughing and then started thinking...

If a person needs to meet 20% of the staff at a firm to be "accepted," what if the company had 5000 employees? How would that work?

Maybe like this...?

(Imagine the green smoke and eerie violin music of a dream)

"Yes, Mr. Jones, you will be meeting 1000 of your potential colleagues before we extend you an offer. With some luck, the interviewing process should be completed in 2 years. After the interviewing process is completed, we will require 6 months to evaluate the responses from the 1000 people and give you an answer promptly thereafter. Be advised that we will not discount the fact that more interviews may be necessary to fully evaluate your credentials. As a convenience, we have set up a web site for the purposes of keeping the information organized and accessible. Certain confidential parts of this site will, of course, not be viewable by you, the applicant, but you will be able to monitor how many of the interviewers have responded positively or negatively. Be further advised that the number of positive responses versus negative responses will not necessarily be the deciding factor in our decision. We appreciate your interest in us and wish you the best."

End of imaginary, dream-like, simulated altered-reality pictogram.

I am not saying that my perverted, cartoon-like vision of the ultimate nightmare will ever really HAPPEN, it is just another example of how the "interviewing and selection" process has evolved over the last year or two.

I am also NOT taking a cheap shot at employers who feel that "multiple" interviews are necessary to really evaluate someone. Sometimes it is necessary.

This is humor.

Factually influenced fiction.

In the old days, I would have a sales person come in at least twice to see if they owned more than one suit. Lots of times, they didn't.

If you find yourself in the endless interview loop, it is never inappropriate to ask how long the process is and what to expect from each interview. The employer should be able to tell you how, and WHY, they do it... or better yet, ask the headhunter.

Posted by WirelessRecruiter at 4:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | |

Mass Deployment Issues For WiMAX
By Dekel Cohen and Oren Barkai / ECI Telecom | August 06, 2009

As WiMAX reaches maturity, operators all over the world are moving field trials into actual deployment, and eventually to full operational availability. In Asia, the Indian government has spearheaded the effort to provide broadband connectivity to rural areas. Several Asian governments are sure to follow in the next few months. The emphasis is now shifting from “wireless-related issues” into “network-related issues.” Since WiMAX technology is, by definition, wireless, how come mass deployment changes the focus from the “inherent” issues of wireless technologies?

The answer is that, once mass deployment kicks in, providing competitive services overrules technological issues. Mass deployment of 802,16d and 802.16e WiMAX networks presents several challenging issues. These issues are particularly relevant to mass deployment, as they did not appear at the proof-of-concept stage.

Let’s look at some of these issues, and how WiMAX addresses them.

Case #1: Backhaul Architecture

The WiMAX standard “assumes” that a backhaul network (ASN – Access Services Network) exists. However, once the base stations are deployed according to RF planning practices, the question of how to connect them to each other emerges.

This is no trivial question as it raises issues of scalability, QoS problems and increased capex.

Deploying a tree topology, which is the cellular 3G best practice, may result in the inability to scale up. This inability is due to the fact that the “Moore’s Law” version of bandwidth (bandwidth will rise to provide more subscribers and more Internet traffic) might push this architecture to a point where nodes will require constant upgrades in connectivity.

One may argue that cellular companies face the same problem, but that is not quite true. In traditional cellular networks, bandwidth is allocated according to usage statistics. A WiMAX base station will just drop the bandwidth (hence the quality-of-experience) to all users once a new user signs in. Another aspect is, of course, the inability to protect the traffic as each node is connected via single connection.

A ring topology addresses the issue of protection, but its scalability might be even worse than that in a tree topology, because the ring is now required to carry several base stations, and upgrades require the full ring’s bandwidth.

This brings us to the problem of over-provisioning vs. QoS mechanisms. This problem dates to the beginning of the decade, and has an inherent effect on capex as well as network architecture. Over-provisioning means you build your network on Day 1 with more than the required resources, while QoS mechanisms require longer network design and better understanding of network management.

Case #2: ASN Technology

Nowadays, there are two basic options for the ASN – Layer 2 or Layer 3.

A Layer 2 network centralizes the routing, making the network more robust, more manageable but less flexible. This means that the network has difficulties “solving” congestions, therefore requiring the operator to be more skilled and more hands-on.

A Layer 3 network is highly flexible and, in small scale, operates quite well and can be easily managed. However, once a Layer 3 network passes a certain number of nodes, network effects such as “Avalanche” (the nodes routing tables are being changed domain after domain due to node failure) and “Flip Flop” (the routing tables change in several domains to collide and then change again several times.) These effects can make the operators’ day-to-day operations very complicated.

Case #3: Subscriber Management

WiMAX technology essentially manages CPE traffic. This is not enough for any operator who strives to be more than a “dumb pipe.” Without clearly understanding traffic patterns and applications (voice, video, HTTP and others,) the provider will face customer dissatisfaction since their application may not receive the proper bandwidth.

With the natural evolution to next-generation networks, WiMAX networks, as any other network, require increased intelligence to cope with the challenging demands imposed by advanced services. Let’s imagine a case where a large number of subscribers wish to download high-bandwidth video at the same time. Today’s network will be most certainly bottlenecked and other subscribers will not be able to enjoy even their “fast Internet” services. Eventually, this inability to provide reliable services will lead to higher churn rates, equivalent to the rates noticed in the 90’s when cellular operators struggled with the “handover effects” (subscribers moving from cell to cell) of loaded sites.

IP networks are currently at the learning curve stage of this problem, using a variety of methods such as DPI (deep packet inspection), smarter network nodes and so on, to minimize the adverse effects to the network and to day-to-day services.

Moving To Maturity

WiMAX networks are now “crossing the chasm” to mass market deployment. To become a massively deployed communications technology, WiMAX networks have to undergo the painful stage of network integration.

Most of the challenges associated with mass deployment can be resolved. That will require operators to rely on vendors’ expertise and experience in this field, and to move at their own pace towards migration. WiMAX networks are currently on their way to becoming a legitimate wireless broadband solution globally.

Dekel Cohen is the WiMAX and Wireless Product Manager and Oren Barkai is the Solutions Team Leader for the integrated solutions line of business at ECI Telecom.

Posted by WirelessRecruiter at 10:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | |

Here is a post from one of our MobileWirelessJobs subscribers, Richard Ballard. Richard is a Marketing and Sales Executive for a web-service technologies , IP-video and wireless applications company. He is currently the Chief Operations Officer for GROUPBUILD a Venture fund for web-service providers.

Top 10 things you can do to encourage Immediate Resume Rejection (IRR)

These days, nearly all candidates are being rejected right off the bat. They are rejected because their resume gives the inundated hiring manager sees an excuse to put it into the No or Maybe (=no) pile.

10. No failures. Your resume looks unreal, how did you learn without setbacks?
9. No stories. Challenge, Action, Result. If you don't know what this means, you should not write your own resume.
8. Too generic. If you have been on the market for a while, it is human nature to broaden your target market by looking more suitable for more jobs.
7. Boring. You have taken the personality out of your resume because you lack the confidence to be bold.
6. No metrics. You forgot to mention how much your project saved the company, or how much you sold.
5. Buried Goodies. You put the important stuff on page 2, when the first half of page 1 is where it is at.
4. Bad spelling and formatting. Does this actually need explaining?
3. Bureaucrat. Your tenures are so long and stagnant that you obviously prefer jobs that ought to be done by a vending machine.
2. No vision. Your resume makes you look like you bounce around without looking where you are going.
1. Dead Gaps. Show a contiguous history. If you are currently unemployed, work part-time, for free, for anyone in your industry, even entrepreneurs. Always look busy, never beaten.

Posted by Carl Schumacher at 3:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | |

Here is a blog post from Carl Schumacher - Wireless Executive Recruiter - Electronic Search.

OK, so you have been laid-off, downsized, riffed, let go, fired or maybe you even quit. Before you rush to put your resume on Monster, Careerbuilder, Hotjobs, Dice or Florida Alligator Wrestler Jobs, or all of the above, take a minute and ask yourself a question:

What job do I really want to do? Well, Bill Gates isn’t handing over controlling interest of Microsoft and Bono hasn’t mentioned he is looking for a replacement at U2, so those choices may be gone, but there are certainly others.

Leaving your job is a very destabilizing situation, and depending on if you have money put away or are given some kind of a severance, can even be a threat to your survival. But no matter what the case is, it is a time of transition that is for sure. Now during a time of transition, why not do a little reflection. Dig down deep and see what you really want to do.

Here is what I suggest, write down 20 jobs or careers you would like to do. If you write down the King of France or a Cage Fighter as your choices, the process may take a bit longer, so stick with jobs in the realm of possibility. But that does not mean you cannot think out of the box and get creative. If you have been looking to start that website business selling antiques your Grandmother left you, write that down as one of the choices.

Now after you have written your 20 possibilities, it is time to look at their feasibility. Here is an example: you have worked at a company for 15 years and have done a lot of product management, product marketing and marketing in general and in the course of your work you have helped negotiate several contracts and played a key role in bringing in business for your company. Now, you have never really been a sales person or really even a Business Development person, but you have great customer facing skills and also have been the key subject matter expert in a number of sales. A natural progression for you would be Business Development Manager or an Account Manager. Actually, I see this type of job progression all the time.

Ok, so you have decided that you really want to go for a job as a Business Development Manager. Great! But, what about the fact that your resume has no real Biz Dev. experience? Unfortunately, in this current economy there is not a lot of people hired based on what they might be able to do at a job. Maybe “gleaning” your resume to the biz dev. role will be enough. A professional resume writer, career coach or counselor can do wonders on a resume if the person really does have the experience but his resume just needs shaping to be focused properly.

But, sometimes this just can not be done. Then it is time to do something to bridge the gap. Perhaps a sales training course? Or, maybe you need to take a job in sales or business development that is a little lower pay and responsibility than what you are used to. That way, you can work there for a few years and when it is time to really go for that dream job, you not only have the desire and skills to do it, you also have the quantifiable experience.

But why not plaster your resume across every job and resumeblaster service on the planet, and then do your reflection? As they say, isn’t job hunting “a game of numbers”? Yes, most definitely it is! But, here is something that can happen. You right away slap together a resume that is nicely done, but very general and immediately you start getting calls and even interviews. Awesome! Unfortunately though, after 3 months of you turning down jobs you didn’t like, and companies turning you down because you were not a right fit for the job, you’re worn out and depressed because of how bad the job market is. But, did you really know what job you wanted in the first place? Trying to drive to Las Vegas without a map or real plan on how to get there, you will end up in Idaho.

So, to sum this all up: In life there are times when a moment of reflection is in order, a baby is born, someone dies, the Cubs win the World Series, or you need to find a new job. Take that time to reflect and reevaluate. Who knows? Maybe those clothes you never threw out from the 80’s could be used for your new cage fighting job. The sky’s the limit!

Posted by Carl Schumacher at 10:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | |

Here is a post from one our subscribers Mike Levine.

Mike Levine is an avid follower of music tech trends. From his background studying music technology at NYU, to his years working as Director of Mobile Production at a mobile media content company, his biggest fear has always been to wake up being the last to know about something. As such, he now feels compelled to write about everything in the music tech job market.

He currently works at the 92Y in social networking, editing and event promotions, and is planning on taking his Phd in music media from NYU starting next spring.

So where are the future jobs in mobile music content?

I'm seeing through my crystal ball... the next great wave of music delivery! Gone are the old days when we'd go to our favorite blog, or Piratebay, or Napster, or even download mp3's at all, in order to find out what's hot.

Maybe that was good enough for your grandma, but nowadays all you need is your iPhone to find something new. There's a new trend emerging of downloadable album applications, where an artist will release their music as an app ahead of its physical release, or substitute its app for a physical release altogether.

These album apps include both new and old media content bundled together; such as news feeds, virtual ticket kiosks and exclusive artist photos and video.

But the most exciting part about all this is fan interactivity. The age of twittering makes dead the 'passive listener'. So, with NIN's new album app for instance, you can interact with other fans, and post comments while checking out new songs, all for free. It will also geo-locate you so you can find out how close or far Trent Reznor is from you at that very moment. All this is being developed by the forward-looking Silicon Valley startup Sudjam.(http://www.sudjam.com/)

For more info, there's a great article here from the April issue of Wired:
http://www.wired.com/underwire/2009/04/trent-reznor-wa/

Likewise, Snow Patrol plan on releasing an app that promotes their new record, with lots of interactivity and links to their profiles on both last.fm and Facebook.

Other early entrants to this field include P!nk and Fallout Boy. Even Death Cab for Cutie have their song, "The Sound of Settling', as a track featured on the popular free app version of Tap Tap Revenge.

Although the jury's still out on the success of this latest tech-music integration; with Snow Patrol moving 30,000 of their apps within the first week of its release, it's safe to say we're going to see more releases like this in the months to come.

It's exciting to think about how the record producer's role could potentially be married to the developer's role in putting together a quality album. I'm sure this will be translating to new opportunities in the tech job market in folds.

Posted by Carl Schumacher at 12:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | |

Here is a Blog Post from one of our readers Steve Eddington.

Steve Eddington is President of Electronic Search, Inc. http://www.electronicsearch.com/ Wireless, Mobile and Telecomm Staffing Specialists. He has 25+ years experience in the Recruitment, Staffing/ Employment Industry as an Executive and hands-on Wireless Industry Recruitment Guru.

I have had the opportunity to observe and be directly involved in hundreds of hiring decisions through the years.

As the saying goes, I have seen (almost) everything.

As the headhunter, we have the distinct pleasure of being the guys in the middle. This allows us to speak with the employer and the candidate and get the perspective of everyone involved. Because of this, we sometimes find ourselves in the line of fire from 2 different directions.

The candidate perspective in the current market is generally “who do I have to kill to get the job” and the employer side is usually, “we see no reason to hire you at this time since you are one of 1000 guys who wants our job and we’re in no hurry cause the job can get filled whenever we see fit with whomever we want.”

Oops, have I inadvertently taken sides in the article?

No, no, no, not really. What I really want to talk about is assumptions and how they change when the market changes.

People will always assume things, but the kind of assumptions people make vary depending on what the current job climate happens to be at the time.

Nowadays, there are more desperate candidates on the market, so the employer tends to be a bit wary, and assumes that the candidate will say anything to break through the hiring barricade.

Ever hear these?

“He stayed for only one year in his last job so he will leave us in one year also. We want someone who will stay, so this guy is out.”

Or. “Yes, we see the references, but we want his REAL references. We want to know about the guys who hate him.”

He WAS laid off from his last 2 jobs (telecom guy, of course). It wasn’t his fault that Motorola and Nortel both laid him off, but the employer thinks that it is because he decided poorly when he joined a company that was going to have a layoff in 12 months. He should have known better, and because he did things that involved bad judgement, he will probably be a bad executive or a bad sales guy or a bad engineer. The other 800,000 guys who got laid off are all similarly flawed. It only stands to reason, right?

Personally, I think the 800,000 guys just all got hold of some bad sushi and went temporarily insane when they happily joined a “Telecom Giant.”

Whatever.

Usually, the way I see it, these days, the candidate just wants to work somewhere where he can contribute and get a fair wage and maybe have some upward mobility. Maybe he doesn’t want to rule the world, he just doesn’t want to get knocked down because someone in another country made a decision to dump the product he sells.
Sometimes he assumes that his age or his nationality or the size of his feet is the reason he was not selected and also assumes that the job market is impossible and he DOES have a secret bad reference that continually sabotages his search in the bottom of the ninth inning.

All assumptions.

The employer, many times, assumes that the candidate will stay only until he finds something better to do, or until the market returns to normal, or joined-up only to get health coverage.

The candidate assumes that the company has no loyalty, doesn’t really care about his life and will cut him as soon as they find a lower paid guy to do his job somewhere offshore.

In a confusing world, assumptions abound. I have never seen this set of circumstances make so many, so goofy, for so long.

What is the answer? There is no single answer but I am certain of one thing.

Everyone has to seek out the truth and present themselves honestly and not assume. If someone has made a decision based on an untruth, they need to be corrected. When in doubt…find out.

Posted by Carl Schumacher at 4:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | |

Here is a Blog post from one of our readers Chris Coughlin.

Chris Coughlin is a Senior Manager of Product Development and Innovation at Brightstar, a wireless phone distribution company that is the largest Hispanic owned company in the U.S. He has over 10 years experience selling wireless and wire line products for carriers and channel business developers.

Job Hunting in the Wireless Industry in Today’s Economy

Today’s economy is obliviously hard for everyone who’s unemployed or looking to get out of a position that they hate. Wireless is one of those industries, like printing, for example, where everyone knows everyone and you need to distinguish yourself to get the interview or hang your hat on your network and your reputation.

What people in the industry want to know is how are you going to make an impact that will have a direct effect in the next 90 days. Do you have experience in a solution that can be used at another company or transfer from one industry to the other? For example, Logistics management: Do you know a warehouse solution that can save your new company millions? If you’re a salesperson how are your contacts going to bring in new sales to the company you’re interviewing with?

You’re not expected to come in with the next iPod but you do need to make a bold statement of the impact you are going to make. It will set you apart and it will drive interest in sitting down with you. Next you need to put together a business plan on how that’s going to happen. Don’t worry about this being right on if you don’t fully understand the company or industry; instead worry more about having a plan with actionable items that your interviewer can key on. This one act alone, the business plan, can immediately separate you from the heard in the interview process.

I interviewed with a Silicon Valley start up at the end of 2004 and I really didn’t know that much about them but after a couple hours of research coupled with my experience I was able to put together a business plan. During the interview I said I had thrown together some ideas on how I would tackle this position and it immediately took me from being a good talker to a legitimate candidate. 90% of what I had written was on target but some of the key competitors to this company were not. That wasn’t important to the interviewer as it was that I could strategically think about what needed to be done and in a set timeframe.

Let’s talk a little about the industry itself and start with what’s hot right now: The game changers in the industry are accelerometers, QWERTY keyboard phones, application stores and LTE (Long Term Evolution). The companies that are going to grow or be positioned to act quickly when the economy turns around are going to be involved in these areas.

There are two categories to look at:

The popular ones with rock star status: Apple, RIM (BlackBerry), Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent, LG, Samsung and Palm.

The beneficiaries of the rock star’s growth: The carriers, application developers like Gameloft, EA, Intel, Novatel, Sierra Wireless and emerging Chinese OEM’s going directly to market, like Asus and MSI.

If you’re in the industry or have industry experience here’s the best steps you can take for a shot with a company:
• Join LinkedIn or if you’re already a member, use your network to check find out if there are people hiring
• Subscribe to the news sources of the industry: Fierce Wireless, Wireless Week, and CNet news
• Check out the leading blogs: Engadget Mobile, Boy Genius Report, and Mobile Tech Today
• Sign up for Google alerts on the companies you are targeting. Search for a company, like Palm, on Google, then click on news and on the left-hand side click on ‘News alerts’. This is the best way to get daily or as it happens news on a company
• Research your target companies: Their web site, news feeds, and Hoovers.
• Subscribe to sites like MobileWirelessJobs.com if you are an engineer.

If you don’t have industry experience then clearly define in a sentence or two how your experience will make an impact at the new company. Become familiar with wireless terms at http://www.wirelessadvisor.com/resources/glossary and get yourself a copy of Newton’s Telecom Dictionary. Secondly, follow the advice above about the industry itself so you’ll know what’s happening now.

When I interview someone I want to get to know a little about them as a person so I can get a good guy check of who they are and then I want to know how much they know about my company and the impact they can make in the position they are applying for. Simple and to the point; in 30 minutes I should have a good idea if this is a person I want to work with and if they are going to help me.

Happy hunting!

Posted by Carl Schumacher at 3:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | |

Here are ten simple rules to writing an effective resume. Violation of these rules can cause pain, heartache, cramps, irregularity and even worse...

You won't get interviewed for the job you want!

1. Style & Font are least important: If I help someone “tweak” their resume and the style is OK, I try not to change it. (Style meaning what kind of bullet points they use or whether they block things off with lines, etc.)

2. Length is even less important: Too many people worry whether their resume is 1 page, or 2 pages etc. A resume is as long as it needs to be to get the point across.

3. Simple is best: If something is confusing or redundant, change it.

4. Be consistent: Having dates as 3/09 in one place and March 2009 in another or using seven different fonts is not what you want.

5. This is not an art project: The color purple should never appear on a resume unless you are Barney the Dinosaur and even that is questionable. Please, no pictures unless you are looking for a job in the Philippines; for some reason, every resume I have ever seen from there has the candidate’s picture on it.

6. Your resume is a marketing tool: It is meant to represent you at your best. It should be accurate but does not have to include every detail of your life...especially if it makes you look weird or stupid.

7. It should read like a book: Title at the top, (name, address, email, phone, etc.), syllabus underneath (accomplishments or skills), chapters below (Job history, education etc.). Chapters are read in chronological order and make sense.

8. The Summary and Accomplishments are critical to getting someone to read your resume: They need to be strong and engaging. If you can get a WOW! out of someone’s mouth when they read your accomplishments, you have done your job. The Summary and Accomplishments should change depending on the job you are applying for.

9. Spell check and have others proofread your resume to make sure it makes sense: Having several typo’s on your resume makes you look like a dork.

10. Rules are just guidelines: If, by not following some of these rules, or for that matter, anyone else’s rules for writing a resume, makes it better, then don’t follow them. Heck, after all, it is your resume.

Posted by Carl Schumacher at 7:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | |

Hello MobileWirelessJobs readers. I would like to introduce myself to you. My name is Carl Schumacher and I have recently been entrusted with the job of being the “Keeper of the Blog” for this website. Now you say how was I given this glorious title and huge responsibility? I am glad you asked!

For the last nine years, I have been recruiting primarily in the Telecommunications and Wireless Content space. I currently work at Electronic Search www.electronicsearch.com a 30+ year old boutique staffing firm, focused on Wireless, Mobile, Telecomm and Public Safety Staffing & Recruiting. My title is Executive Recruiter, Wireless & Digital Content, and in my nine year tenure, I have placed individuals at the C level, VP, Director, Manager, Account Exec & Engineer level for a host of companies.

Companies include: Nokia, Motorola, AT&T, Sony BMG Digital, CBS Wireless, Handmark, Novarra,
Gameloft, Superscape, Navteq, 7 Layers and a bevy of other smaller, not as recognizable named companies. So like you, I live, eat & breathe wireless.

Besides this, I also selectively do career coaching, job seminars and write my own blog already at www.wirelessexecutiverecruiter.com “Tips and Irreverent Viewpoints of a Wireless Executive Recruiter”. So, when Rob Salerno the “Chief Dude” (a position senior to “keeper of the Blog”) at MobileWirelessJobs connected with me, we “Linkedin” and my heart was all a “Twitter” to join the team.

OK so enough about ME. What's in it for YOU!

What we will be presenting in this blog is content written for the person looking for a job in Mobile & Wireless, hiring for a job in Mobile & Wireless, and the general state of the Mobile & Wireless job market. As the “Keeper of the Blog”, my opinions and perspective will of course be included, but even I can get tired of hearing my self talk (just kidding, that will never happen). So, you the reader are invited to present your content to this Blog. Be it an article, a video, a picture or a cartoon, all content is welcome! Just send it to me at carl@mobilewirelessjobs.com

Now there are a few ground rules:

1. The material needs to be original content: Do not send me your favorite Dilbert cartoon throwing a cell phone at his boss, or an article you plucked out of the New York Times. We don't need copyright problems & also what will make this blog worth experiencing is the uniqueness of the content presented...
2. Leave comments on the blog postings: What makes a blog a blog is the two way discussion that occurs. Otherwise, it is just an article. Comments will be monitored for spam and inappropriateness, but most likely will be posted, whether it is positive, negative or whatever you care to say.
3. The material needs to be relevant to the topic: We can appreciate if you have a rant about the fat content in fast food burgers, but this is not the arena for it.

Well, I am excited to get started. So, like the first drunk at a Karaoke Bar, I will kick it off with the first blog: “Ten Simple Rules to Writing an Effective Resume “. So, send me your posts! If you have questions, feel free to email me with them as well.

Posted by Carl Schumacher at 7:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | |