On a sunny Saturday in Bangalore, India, a group of engineers and mathematicians, all in their 20's, sit hunched over computers, frantically writing code. Sounds like a ton of fun, right?
It's the Google India Code Jam, a contest to find the most brilliant computer coder in South and Southeast Asia. The fastest programmer wins $7,000 and a chance at a coveted job at one of Google's research and development centers.
14,000 students registered from all over the region and 50 were selected for the finals in Bangalore. The finalists are given the task of creating and testing software for unique web searches and of getting from point A to point B in a city with a minimum number of turns.
The final challenge is to program a war-based board game, a task so complex that only the winner, Ardian Poernomo, a student from Singapore, is able to complete it.
"It's a dog-eat-dog world," says Robert Hughes, president of TopCoder Inc, the testing company that runs the Code Jams. "Wherever the best talent is, Google wants them."
Check out info about the Code Jam and even try a sample problem!
http://www.topcoder.com/pl/?&module=Static&d1=gicj05&d2=overview
Friday, July 6, 2007
Videogame Generation: Top Score wins....a JOB
Virtual Surgery: This Won't Hurt a Bit
Ever dream of a career in medicine? Now you can live the dream... on your Nintendo.
Trauma Center: Under the Knife is a hospital simulation game in which you are a young upstart doctor who must prove his mettle at a high tech hospital. From simple surgeries like sewing up a motorcyclist’s arm, to more advanced tumor removal, Trauma Center offers wannabe doctors a wide array of surgical applications.
In this high-tech occupational simulation, if you don't follow the procedures fast enough, you lose the patient. You must quickly follow a set of steps involving selecting the right tool in the right order and then using it. For the first couple of surgeries, your nurse will guide you through, but after that, you are mostly on your own. You are timed during every operation and graded afterward.
About the gory graphics... if you can't stand the heat stay out of the (virtual) OR.
For screen-shots and videos from the game, check out: http://ds.ign.com/objects/695/695152.html
Thursday, July 5, 2007
Joining The Trojan Army
The Slovak army has launched an advertising campaign on condom packaging in a bid to boost recruitment levels. The packaging features a picture of a muscular soldier and the words "Show Yourself " appears on 27,000 packs of condoms to be distributed at recruitment centers across Slovakia, a defense ministry spokesman said. He said the army was inspired a similar campaign in the neighboring Czech Republic last year.In a war for talent, the Slovak Army is battling the private sector for candidates. They are tapping young Slovak soldiers to distribute the condoms at outdoor swimming pools .
Of course, the strategy could backfire-- recruitment rates may actually drop if the campaign inspires recruits make love, not war.
Big Pharma's Pep Rally
In a crowded field of 90,000 drug representatives, former cheerleaders are applying their skills to detail doctors, and top pharmaceutical companies are competing on campus to recruit from the nation's ranks of cheerleaders.
The trend of hiring cheerleaders as sales reps has recruiters tapping cheering coaches for recommendations of potential candidates and has even led to the formation of an employment firm, Spirited Sales Leaders, in Memphis, which maintains a database of thousands of former and current cheerleaders.
Pharmaceutical sales leaders say it's not just the women’s visual appeal that earns them a spot on the Rep Squad. Their skills in delivering exaggerated motions, smiles and enthusiasm help them get people to do what they want.
In the ever-increasing competition of getting face-time with physicians...these reps say BRING IT ON!Please visit The New York Times for the full article.
Business Week: On the Job Gaming
The military has used video games as a training tool since the 1980s and now the practice is catching on with companies, too, ranging from Cold Stone to Cisco to Canon. Corporate trainers are betting that games’ interactivity and fun will hook young, media-savvy employees and help them grasp and retain sales, technical, and management skills.
The market for corporate training games is small but growing fast. Industry leaders estimate that such games make up 15% of the “serious” or nonentertainment market, which also includes educational and medical training products. Five-year estimates show the market for serious games more than doubling, to $100 million, with trainers accounting for nearly a third of that.
Companies like video games because they are cost effective. Instead of paying for someone to fly to a central training campus you can just put them in front of a computer. Plus, employees often play the games at home on their own time.
Games are especially well-suited to training technicians. In one used by Canon, repairmen must drag and drop parts into the right spot on a copier. Workers who played the game showed a 5% to 8% improvement in their training scores compared with older training techniques such as manuals.Please see the current Business Week for the full story.
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Personality Tests as Hiring Tools
More and more companies are beginning to use personality tests in the hiring process. Personality tests go beyond traditional recruitment screens to examine a candidate's ability to fit with a team or corporate culture psychologically. If you are looking for a candidate with good administrative skills, who fits into a highly competitive team environment, personality screening may be the answer.
Companies are using psychometric assessments, personality profiling, and intelligence tests to hire staff, coach employees and create teams. When used well, the tests, which are relatively inexpensive - about $300 per candidate, including consultancy fees - can cut costs and improve performance.
First Harbor Group LLC, a Houston financial advisory firm uses DiSC, a behavioral model, as a stress management tool. DiSC helps people understand why they do what they do, by measuring the interaction of four behavioral factors: dominance, influence, steadiness, and conscientiousness. Using this information, DiSC can be used to describe a person's general approach, including his or her motivations, dislikes, strengths and weaknesses, and some of the basic assumptions the person makes about others. It can also predict how a person will react to a specific set of circumstances.
Another popular test being used is the Kolbe Test. Unlike IQ tests, which tell you what you can do, and personality tests, which tell you what you want to do, Kolbe tells you what you will or won't do by measuring natural instincts.
Studies show that personality tests are far more reliable predictors of performance than interviews and resumes, but they can be controversial. Using tests not specifically designed for hiring can lead to lawsuits. The US Court of Appeals in Chicago recently ruled that a personality test used to fill management positions at Rent-A-Center Inc., qualifies as a medical exam. The Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits requiring medical examinations prior to making a job offer. In addition, the court ruled that the test, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, was inappropriate for this purpose as it is used to diagnose mental illness.
Tests also should not have a disparate impact on a protected class of people, such as certain racial or ethnic groups. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's general rule is that protected classes must pass an assessment at a rate that is at least four-fifths the pass rate of unprotected classes. For example, if eight of 10 Caucasians pass a test compared with just five out of ten African-Americans, then employers can be sued under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlaws discrimination in employment in any business on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin.
Please visit The Wall Journal for the full story.
Monday, July 2, 2007
Wall St. Journal: M.B.A. Recruiters Turn to Games
Wall St. Journal Career Journal reports that M.B.A. Recruiters are using games in a variety of ways to differentiate themselves with top MBA talent:
Getting a good job often requires a bit of gamesmanship. But for some M.B.A.students, landing a new position is all about playing games. As the battle for top talent intensifies, the games help companies stand out in the crowded campus-recruiting field and spot promising candidates. Through the business-simulation games, they can see students in action, demonstrating creativity, tactical thinking, teamwork and persuasion skills.
L'Oréal, Booz Allen Hamilton, Procter & Gamble, and other companies are encouraging more students to play strategy competitions that just might lead to a job offer.
Some are using videogames and digital business simulations to engage next generation prospects. Others rely on live events to attract candidates. The games, which are typically played at least partly online, change from year to year.
-- Procter & Gamble's Just-in-Case competition, for instance, has focused on its Olay and Swiffer brands and challenged players to identify the next company P&G should acquire.
"Students see these games as more fun and engaging than the usual company information sessions and receptions," says Steve Pollock, president of WetFeet Inc., a recruiting consulting firm in San Francisco.
The games enable companies to reach out to many more campuses than recruiters could ever visit. For example, L'Oréal's e-Strat Challenge marketing game attracted almost 40,000 students from 1,000 schools in 125 countries this year.
In e-Strat, student teams run a virtual cosmetics company and must make dozens of decisions as they manage new brands, Web sites, distribution channels, advertising budgets, and research and development. In the end, finalists travel to L'Oréal's Paris headquarters to defend their business plans before a panel of judges. In addition to a possible job offer, winners receive a trip to the destination of their choice.While companies insist that performing well in their games isn't a prerequisite for employment, students certainly could spoil their chances if they bomb out. Some students and school officials are concerned that the games require too much time and might interfere with class assignments. "But if you're really serious about working for a company," Mr. Pollock says, "there's a feeling that you'd better participate."-- In Merrill Lynch's business simulation videogame, college students participate in virtual client engagements that let them experience what it is like to work in investment banking at Merrill Lynch before meeting with the firm. Merrill recruiting execs want applicants to have an understanding of how the investment banking business works. --Booz Allen's CEO Challenge invites prospects to an event. The consulting firm stages the three-day competition about six times each year, picking just 30 M.B.A. students to play. During the CEO Challenge, student teams slip into the executive roles at an electronics company and react to news that a competitor is rolling out a hot new portable music device six months ahead of schedule.
"It's not a recruiting event per se, but people from the CEO Challenge usually do very well in job interviews," says Daniel Oriesek, head of Booz Allen's European campus recruiting. He estimates the firm hires about 10% of the players.
As more recruiters get into gaming, it will become less distinctive. But for now, companies believe their contests enhance their reputations.
IBM: Willing to Teach - Filling the Breach
Most participants are likely to be in their early-to-mid 50s, when many retire from IBM and are interested in launching a second career. They'll take a pay cut to teach, although an IBM pension and other retirement savings will help ease the financial burden for some participants.
100 IBM employees, mostly from New York and North Carolina, will take part in the program.
If it works well, "our intention is to expand," says Stanley Litow, Vice-President for IBM Corporate Community Relations. That could mean hundreds of teachers from IBM's 160,000 U.S. workers.
IBM can't plug the shortage of 250,000 math and science teachers by itself but education officials, such as Joel Klein, Chancellor of New York City Public Schools, are ready to welcome these teachers with “open arms”.