Everyone knows the best place to foster relationships with the poor is on the church’s annual week-long mission trip or within the specified hours we’re doing “volunteer” work in the community. Or, reluctantly, when we can’t quite zip through a red light in time to avoid the sign-holding stranger who wants a bite to eat. Where we don’t always encounter the poor is at work.

Except that we do.

Though our temptation is to designate relating to people who are poor as being something special we do outside of our job, Jesus had a whole other plan.

Who’s to say the Samaritan who aided a bloody mugging victim wasn’t on his way to Starbucks to discuss a possible business merger? And how do we know the one Jesus praises for visiting prisoners wasn’t a manager at the Burger King where the prisoner was employed? There’s simply no good reason to assume we shouldn’t be engaging with the poor—materially and otherwise—where we work. It may take a little creativity, but it’s worth the effort.

Working as a barista, bartender or waiter?

Know the names of the customers you serve. Though you won’t be able to know each one, identify a few regulars and be open to new ways to know and care for them. It might be as simple as remembering what they’ve shared with you and following up the next time you see them.

Does your coffee shop or restaurant get rid of food at the end of the day? See if you can donate leftovers to a local shelter or a homeless person you pass on your commute.

Working in health care?

If you work in health care, your work is holy. You, quite literally, are God’s hands and feet in the lives of the ones God loves. As you care for the poor, be open to discover how Jesus wants to use you in their lives—and vice versa. Expect these routine encounters to be the place where Jesus is at work.

Working as a creative (artist, performer, writer, speaker)?

Author Henri Nouwen spent a season of his life among people with disabilities as a member of a L’Arche community. When he traveled to lecture, he’d bring one of these friends along. As you develop friendships with those who are poor, find creative ways for them to share your platform. Rather than telling a story about them, find a unique way for them to tell their own story. You can also donate your time to providing creative assets for organizations or groups that could benefit from this expression.

Working in IT?

You’ve got mad computer skills, so don’t be afraid to use them. Consider contacting a congregation or nonprofit with whom you have some connection—your housekeeper’s church? local teen outreach?—and offering to share your skills. If they don’t have a site online, they need your help! Offer to mentor a teen or adult who can continue to update the site.

Working in social services?

If you work in social services, you’ve hit the jackpot. No doubt a world in need files past your door, rides in your car and calls your phone every day. Counselor Michelle K. tells clients: “You are God’s beloved. You are made in the image of God and God wants good things for you.” The announcement has brought clients to tears. Find creative ways to communicate this truth.

Working a desk job?

Though a desk, an office door or a cubicle might naturally separate you from groups who are demographically different than you, keep your eyes peeled. Who vacuums the office you use? Who cleans the bathrooms? Who fills the vending machines? Seize opportunities to know these forgotten coworkers, as well as ways your business could benefit those beyond your office doors.

Working as a student?

There are a lot of people who work to make your experience possible, and many you might overlook are worth knowing. Who’s cooking in the cafeteria? Who’s cleaning the classrooms? Use the flexibility your schedule allows to know and learn the stories of these important and often unrecognized people.

Working as a pastor?

Though many of our churches are fairly ethnically and socioeconomically homogenous, partner with a sister congregation across demographic lines of income, race or—truly revolutionary—even denomination. Invite their men to join your congregation’s men’s group, or ask if your women can participate in their annual women’s retreat. The goal? Authentic friendship and, eventually, shared mission.

Working as a youth pastor?

Too often, parents and the church keep young people from encountering a world in need in the name of “protecting” them. Challenge young people to identify and discover one new friend at school whose economic circumstances are less privileged than their own. Better yet, make them curious by modeling it with a friend of your own.

Working at home?

Whether you build websites or build earrings to sell on Etsy, you’ve got a tricky challenge. Basically, you’re going to have to leave your home or invite the outside world in. Is there an elderly person in your neighborhood who’s home during the day? Could you make yourself available to pick up the kid of the single mother from daycare when she’s in a bind? Ask God to show you these opportunities. (Looking for other ways to make an impact in your neighborhood? Here are some tips for making a difference in the suburbs.)

Working in education?

From curriculum to field work, let your students encounter a world that’s bigger than the one they inhabit by exposing them to news, stories, history and encounters with those who are materially poor. Think on ways to challenge your students to know and engage with those who are under-resourced.

———————————————————————————————————-

How do you impact those around you while at work? Tell us your story in the comment section below!

It is almost summer time, which means you can turn your career brain off and relax for three months, right? Nope. Summer is a great time to network because we have more free time,  we meet new people and experience new places, and generally we are much more relaxed.

Use the next few months off of school to make lasting relationships and establish professional connections that can help you in the coming school year.

Here are a few simple tips to help out with networking:

1)     Know who you don’t know. Is there a specific person or type of person you need to meet?  Maybe an industry expert who works in the field you hope to?  Or a creative partner to assist your business mindset?

2)     Do your homework. Find opportunities to meet with people. This can be an event specific to networking, a guest speaker at school, or a church function. Do a little background research and see if anyone you want to meet is speaking at a local event.

3)     Know yourself and your audience.  Now that you know where you are going and who you want to meet, figure out what you want to say. Don’t practice too much though or it will sound forced. Be sure to know who you are talking to as it should dictate how you handle the conversation. Everyone responds differently.

4)     Don’t be too shy to ask. To be successful you have to be willing to ask for help. Everyone starts in the same place and the ones who make are the ones who got a helping hand.  Asking for someone’s advice about a topic they know well is a great way to get a conversation started.  When they respond with specific advice for your situation they become engaged in your success.

5)     Do what you say you will do.  Follow up with your new connections! Simply meeting new people will not progress your career. You have to hold up on your end of the deal. Don’t wait; follow-up promptly.  Be persistent while also being respectful of your new connection’s time.

Networking can be scary at first, but it only gets easier. Take full advantage of the summer and make as many new connections as possible.

Content taken from Inc.com

To date our most popular blog, by a longshot, is our post on Tattoo-Friendly Employers. We take this to mean that Biola students are greatly interested in finding companies that are okay with tattoos, piercings, etc.

We would like to expand our information on this topic and to do so we are asking for your help.

Do you have a work-related tattoo story? A company that is cool with them? Some companies that aren’t? Did you lose a job because of a tattoo or do have to cover it up at work? We want to hear your experiences so far in the work-world as someone with tattoos. How did you break the stereotype and land the job you wanted?

For a long time Christianity and tattoos were at odds. In an age when that is changing, how do we as Christians represent Christ in the professional world without sacrificing our right to express ourselves through tattoos, fashion, piercings, and hair dye?

Send all of your stories, thoughts, and comments to me at alex.k.sparks@biola.edu or reply in a comment below.

Yesterday, I had an unanticipated interview with a marketing company about a potential summer internship. I knew I had a meeting, but was unclear whether or not I was going to be officially interviewed. Some things went really well and others could have gone a lot smoother. Being better prepared would have only made it easier for me.

Take a lesson from my experience and follow these tips on preparing for interviews.

1. Be flexible
As I mentioned, I wasn’t sure what I was getting myself into yesterday. I didn’t know if I would walk into a board meeting of suits or a loft of bean bag chairs and Xbox 360s. It was somewhere in between. Be prepared for anything. Different companies operate in different ways, you never know what you will find. A rule of thumb that I should have considered is that in this kind of situation, you are always being interviewed. Even if you are just hanging out and playing Wii with a new company, you are being observed. Employers take note of how you interact with the group, how you handle yourself in competition, and how you treat authority.

2. Always have a resume ready.
This was one of my biggest mistakes. I didn’t have a resume printed out and ready to go. Up until the last minute I was emailing my resume to myself, restocking paper, and finally getting it printed. I was almost late and I was flustered. Although, I didn’t end up needing it, you never know when someone will ask for a resume. If possible, buy a binder and keep a few copies of your resume in your backpack or car. This way you won’t have to bend-over-backwards to get one printed before your interview.

3. Dress well.
This was another big mistake of mine. I knew I had the meeting in the afternoon, but my lazy college brain told me I needed 15 more minutes of sleep, so I woke up late for class and threw on a sweatshirt. After class I had to rush back to my dorm and change into something more appropriate for an interview. This only added to the stress from the lack of resume. If you have an interview, no matter what time in the day, when you wake up get ready. You never know what will come up during the day and it is best to be prepared.

4. Do your research.
Always know the company you are interviewing with and come prepared with specific questions. This lets you fill any awkward lulls with a question. This keeps them doing the talking and makes you look genuinely interested in the company. In my case, I was interviewing with a company that focuses in marketing for TV and film. I want to go into film production and currently work in a field of marketing, so I was able to ask questions geared towards these areas. I tried to find out just how involved they were in the film industry by asking questions about the new movies they had signed onto produce. I knew they had started producing films, because I did my research beforehand.

5. Be willing to wait.
Whenever you are interviewing for a position sometimes it is required you wait. Often this means you are waiting on them, but sometimes you have to be willing to ask for more time to think a job through. This was my situation yesterday. The interview went really well, but I have prior commitments that may interfere and I am still weighing my options for this summer, so I had to ask for more time. It is a part of the process and an employer will respect your honesty. Take a couple days from the interview, weigh your options, and then let them know. This of course doesn’t apply if you’re certain when you get there. If you know, you know. Take the job.

When you’re in the market for a new job or internship it is important to always be prepared. You don’t want to lose an opportunity because you didn’t print out a resume or forgot to prepare questions.

PS – Relax. Interviews will go a thousand times smoother if you take a deep breath and chill out. Be yourself, have fun, and stay humble. Now go get a job!

1. SoundCloud
For creating a simple, democratic sound-sharing platform embraced by everyone from 50 Cent and Madonna to urban nomads looking to capture an interesting neighborhood sound. More than 10 million users have jumped on SoundCloud’s mission to “unmute the web,” two million of which came in the last two months. In May, it released its API to appbuilders with SoundCloud Labs, where more than 10,000 apps are currently in development. And $50 million from a Kleiner Perkins-led funding round? Well that sounds pretty sweet, too. Read More

2. Spotify
For taking the cake in the battle of the all-you-can-eat on-demand music streaming services (against competitors such as MOG and Rdio). Since its July U.S. launch, Spotify has become Facebook’s default music partner and gained 3 million paying subscribers worldwide, 20% of its active user base. Most surprising? More than half of those paying for the service are under 30.

3. Pandora
For channeling its claim over Internet radio into a $235 million IPO that blew estimates out of the water. A month after the June offering, the service broke its addiction to Flash, launching a beautifully fresh-but-familiar HTML5 redesign. Listener stats continue to rise, even in the wake of Spotify Radio–Pandora saw 13% to 25% listening increases across the top ten U.S. radio markets in the last quarter of 2011.

4. Björk
For creating the world’s first app album. Björk tapped interactive design guru Scott Snibbe to create the phantasmagoric iPad app for Biophilia, her first full-length album in four years, immediately positing it as a new-media model for fellow recording artists.

5. XL Recordings
For being one of the last remaining independent labels to  produce breakout mainstream artists. Adele, M.I.A., and Beck are all on  XL’s enviable current roster, but the label only signs one artist and  releases a half-dozen records a year to maintain its high quality  production. Keeping things small has paid off in big ways, like with  Adele’s album, 21, which has sold more than 17 million copies  since its release last January. In a throwback to the vintage days of  A&R, XL’s handpicked talents speak–and sing–for themselves.

6. Mason Jar Music
For pioneering a new concert model. The Brooklyn-based collective of musicians, artists, and filmmakers eschews large, commercial spaces for nontraditional venues that foster organic collaboration. In October, they partnered with indie darling Feist to stage a 25-piece band for a secret debut of her Metals album at a tiny Harlem crypt. And a recent video for their new Grooveshark series, “Mason Jar Music Presents…,” documents a performance by The Wood Brothers at an abandoned Brooklyn schoolhouse.

7. Ticketmaster
For (finally) putting fans first. The $8 billion company is taking on years of dissatisfied clients and falling sales by revamping the online ticket-buying site to be a destination where fans actually want to be. This year, it’s integrated Facebook with its interactive seat map so friends can buy tickets near each other; partnered with America-approved brands such as Walmart and Groupon on ticket deals; and built an analytics division that lets it mine data about the 26 million monthly visitors to parent company LiveNation’s sites. And the efforts are showing promise: Post-purchase customer satisfaction is at its highest since 2006.

8. Bandcamp
For beating piracy at its own game. Artists on the music distribution platform–once the strict stock of small indie bands–pop up in piraters’ searches for illegal downloads. In turn, fans led to Bandcamp are paying for songs they had no intention of purchasing. Artists on the site have clocked $12.6 million in song and merch sales (of which Bandcamp takes 15%) since the service started up in 2008, and $1 million of that was from December 2011 alone, indicating that paying for digital music is far from dead.

9. The Echo Nest
For launching Echoprint, a completely open-source music identification program that brings the technology of closed systems like Shazam to the masses. Echoprint currently has a catalog of 13 million songs that is designed to grow in tandem with its community. For example, its data license stipulates that you must contribute any new “fingerprints” you discover back to the Echoprint developer community.

10. Turntable.fm
For turning music sharing into a novel social experience. Turntable.fm’s 110,000 active users–about 30,000 of whom are logging 10 to 20 hours a month–can DJ their favorite songs to each other in virtual “rooms,” either from their personal libraries or from the service’s own catalog, supplied by copyright heavyweights ASCAP and BMI. Since its debut last January, the service has inspired several copycats, notably Facebook’s “Listen With” feature which launched this January. In the age of made-for-you personal playlists from the likes of Pandora, Turntable.fm is a breath of fresh air.

Etiquette is a bit of a dying habit. With the growth of the internet and social networks it is easy to forget what is appropriate and what is not. For new employees entering the work world for the first time it can be an even bigger challenge.

Below are a few tips on how to stay polite in the workplace:

1. Send Thank You Notes

Writing a thank you note after a meeting or interview is the simplest way to set yourself apart from competition. It only takes a couple of minutes and a few cents in stamps, but it works wonders on your reputation. It immediately establishes you as considerate, responsible, and dedicated. More importantly it shows that you are truly interested in the job or contact.

2. Know Everyone’s Name

This takes time and practice, but knowing all of your coworker’s names is one of the first steps to proper business etiquette. This doesn’t just mean memorizing the top tier’s names and favorite colors, or knowing those employees limited to your specific office. Meet the janitor, the guy down the hall, and the lady at the front desk. Everyone inside a business plays an important role in its success. Remember this. If you take the time to really get to know everyone it boosts morale and encourages collaboration. Not to mention that if everyone likes you it will only help to advance your career.

3. The “Elevator Rule”

At school, we might call this the “classroom rule” or the “dorm room rule.” You don’t start talking about a test or a professor until you get out of the classroom and you don’t tell your buddy how your DTR went until you get into the dorm room. It is basic courtesy and it helps prevent any embarrassing eavesdropping. In the business world, you don’t want to talk about how your meeting or interview went until you are out of the elevator and on your way out of the building. The longer you wait the better. Getting the butterflies out isn’t worth potentially damaging your reputation.

4. Put Your Phone Away

It is tempting to rely on the endless updates of your iPhone to fill the brief voids in your busy day. If we are multitasking we feel like we are getting more done, but it just isn’t true. We are distracted and ultimately getting less done in two different tasks. In fact, we’ve already talked about this. If you are in a meeting, put your phone away. Focus on the people you are meeting with. Facebook and Draw Something can wait, the meeting won’t. If you are zoned in and attentive you will stand out and accomplish more.

5. Don’t Judge, Don’t Criticize

It is really easy to poke holes in the way other people do things. Especially, when that other person is a superior or direct competitor. Everyone thinks they have the best way of doing things. But this doesn’t give you the authority to critique and nitpick your coworkers methods. If it doesn’t affect you then don’t worry about it. You are only responsible for your own work and actions. It is not your job to be the workflow police for everyone in the office.

Etiquette is simple. It is positive and encouraging.

If your actions are bringing other people down you are not practicing proper etiquette. Even difficult situations can be handled properly. In the digital age it is a lot easier to get ourselves in trouble. It is so easy to let 140-characters and a quick temper get the better of us. Slow down and think before you tweet.

At the end of the day, did you handle yourself in a manner that lifted others up? This is more than proper etiquette, it is a fulfilling life and it extends far beyond the business world. It is who we are called to be in every aspect of our lives.

Content taken from Eliza Browning’s article on INC.

This year’s Top Ten Finance Companies is compiled from a list by Fast Company.

1. Square
For creating a new kind of mobile, social, and local retailer and streamlining point-of-sale payments. When Square launched in October 2010, it was a mere dongle that plugged into iPhones, enabling anyone–especially small businesses–to accept credit card payments. No more. Square has since set out to transform the entire payments process, launching an iPad app designed to replace the cash register and point of sale credit card equipment and processing and its Card Case app brings the future of the digital wallet to smartphones today without having to wait for a tap-and-pay system of embedded chips and readers. Read More

2. Starbucks
For showing what a struggling powerhouse can do to revitalize its reputation and strengthen its relationship with customers through its own payment system. Starbucks introduced a sophisticated mobile app and payment system that lets patrons load cash onto their mobile phones, which then display a barcode baristas can scan at the register. It did so well in trials last year that Starbucks took it national, and it saw 26 million transactions and more than $100 million in funds loaded onto the app. Starbucks continues to innovate on the beverage front as well, from its new Blonde roast coffee to a new line of healthy juices. Read More

3. Kickstarter
For becoming the default platform for artists, designers, graphic novelists, and filmmakers to fund their passion projects. The online crowd funding platform now sees more than $2 million pledged every week, and there are more than 1.3 million unique financial backers of projects ranging from iPhone accessories to graphic novels (if Kickstarter was considered a publisher, it would be the third-largest in the graphic novel business) to acclaimed Sundance films such as Room 237, Tim Kirk’s exploration of the meaning of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. If you funded that film, you could have received a handwritten thank-you from Kirk, something you’re not going to get anywhere else. More than 17,000 projects have been successfully funded since Kickstarter’s launch. “It’s such a simple, pure idea,” says James Swirsley of the Kickstarter-backed documentary Indie Game. “You have an idea, you want to make it happen, and you just put it out there.” Read More

4. PayPal
For leading the charge on digital money–again. The veteran payment platform boasts 100 million active users; $3.5 billion worth of mobile transactions in 2011; a robust suite of fun, useful smartphone apps; and PayPal Access, a new Facebook Connect-like feature that aims to streamline the entire e-pay process across the Internet. It’s also working on a cloud-based alternative to NFC chips and partnering with physical retailers such as Home Depot to let you use your PayPal account to check out in its stores. Read More

5. Y Combinator
For building a new kind of funding organization that’s completely reinvented the startup game. The startup accelerator attracts the cream of new tech ideas and works to turn them into companies through intense mentoring and a growing, powerful network of alums devoted to supporting each other. Airbnb and Dropbox are but two of its breakout stars. “I remember thinking that first summer, if we funded all these startups, they’d essentially operate like a distributed peer-to-peer replacement for a corporation,” says cofounder Paul Graham. “The employees had most of the upside and weren’t constrained at all. I’ve never said that publicly. Partly because it seemed like it might be a valuable secret, and partly because it’s kind of overreaching to say we were trying to invent a replacement for the traditional corporation.” Read More

6. SecondMarket
For maintaining the largest market for private-company shares. Facebook is the most obvious beneficiary of a private company leveraging the liquidity that SecondMarket can offer a company before it goes public. The market has benefited greatly from Facebook’s involvement–30% of its revenue came from trading in its shares–but the market is working with a couple hundred private companies to manage private stock sales. SecondMarket, which managed $558 million in transactions last year, is hoping to expand beyond startups: Trendy food companies such as In-N-Out Burger and Dogfish Head Brewery are among the non-tech private ventures that SecondMarket investors are most interested in trading.

7. American Express
For iterating like a startup. Last March, AmEx announced Serve, a PayPal-like mobile platform that lets users send and store money, without funneling it through banks. More recently, it launched a new deals platform that automatically credits users’ statements (as opposed to making store clerks take coupons) and offers in-depth analytics to retailers.

8. Dwolla
For creating a payments network that’s completely independent of credit and debit cards. Meaning you can walk into a store, see something you like, and, using its app, buy it by instantly transferring cash from your bank account to that store. It’s a highly disruptive idea, and a hell of a thing to pull off in a payments world controlled by credit-card companies. And yet, Dwolla’s starting to make it happen. The startup has already cut down money transfer wait times; partnered with 7,500 retailers; and linked its API to Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. It’s now processing more than $1 million a week in transactions from 80,000 users and recently closed another $5 million funding round to fuel its growth.

9. Simple
For launching a bank that doesn’t suck. By shunning fees and physical branches, releasing a super-sleek mobile app, and focusing on customer service, Simple–whose platform went live in beta late last year–has completely reimagined (and improved) the banking experience for the web generation.

10. StockTwits
For building out its stock-picking social network. It added discovery services to find people to follow on the network, and it continues to build out enterprise tools that lets companies communicate information directly to its investing audience.

College is expensive. There is no way around it. Between classes, housing, books, and food the cost starts to stack up pretty quickly. The average student in the United States graduates with about $25,000 worth of debt. That is a pretty good chunk of change for anyone, but can be especially daunting to a prospective student or recent grad. A lot of times it sounds easier to skip the college process in favor of working your way up the totem pole. But the reality is the path to the “American Dream” has changed a lot in recent years and statistics show that you don’t always get to climb as high as you’d like to.

Not going to college can be just as expensive. This is true on an individual level as well as a national level. People without a Bachelor’s degree make 40% less than those with one. If you don’t graduate from High School, statistically you will make 80% less than someone with a 4-year college degree. How does this in turn affect the country’s financial situation? A 2012 study estimated that American youth, between the ages of 15-24, who are not engaged in employment or an education program cost $37,450 a piece, or $4.75 trillion for the 6.7 million American youth in this position. These numbers may sound a bit extreme, but there is no denying that without education American youth will earn less money in their lifetimes. When people earn less money, they spend less money, and the economy naturally suffers.

Other statistics dealing with the issue:

• A 2009 McKinsey report estimated that if Americans could raise their education performance to the level of Korea, they could improve the US economy by more than $2 trillion.
• A study from the Hamilton Project found that $100,000 spent on college at age 18 would yield a higher lifetime return than an equal investment in corporate bonds, U.S. government debt, or hot company stocks.
• Statistics show that the highest-income countries have the highest rates of enrollment in secondary school and the smallest share of informal employment that is vulnerable to an economic downturn.

America’s educational system is not perfect. It is often overpriced and there is heavy importance placed on obtaining  degree rather than mastering a subject. Junior College and Vocational schools deserve a mention as well, because they both raise potential earnings in the same way a standard university does. Despite its flaws, education is important. It equips our youth to be the leaders of tomorrow and benefits all of us on a personal and national level. Education generates a higher cash flow for individuals and pumps money into the nation’s economy.

Information taken from The Atlantic.

Last Thursday the Center for Career Development hosted their annual Career Expo along the Fluor Fountain walkway. Every spring representatives from businesses, schools, and non-profits connect with students on our campus. This year’s Expo was a huge success with over 50 organizations talking with job seekers about internships and work opportunities.

Lots of great connections were made. Half the battle of landing a new job is getting a face-to-face with someone who has a job to give. The Career Expo helps expedite that process by bringing the employers to Biola students/alumni.

The event was a lot of fun. There was food, candy, jobs, and resumes galore. Hopefully everyone who attended was able to make a solid connection. We can’t wait to see the success of students who were able to arrange meetings.

Enjoy some pictures from the event and let us know what you want to see next year!