I am just now getting back to what I would laughingly call “normal” after last week’s fun and excitement.
Between the Pink Slip Party and my actual real world job, last week is basically a blur of frenzied motion at this point. Not that you care, I know…I’m just putting that out into the ether on the off chance that someone might actually feel sympathetic.
It kicked off with an on-air appearance with 96.3 WDVD’s Blaine and Allyson in the morning talking about Wednesday night, then all of the usual last minute insanity leading into our first Pink Slip Party downtown.
And of course there were jobs and blog entries posted, fun in our LinkedIn group along the way…let’s just get started…
But first, as always, we start off with our next event.
5:01 pm.
Royal Oak.
Blackfinn.
Back room.
Casual networking social event for professionals in and around the information technology industry in the metro Detroit area.
Details can be found here on our site at https://itinthed.com/event/april-2013-networking/, on our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/ITintheD, or in our Meetup group at http://meetup.itinthed.com. Details on all of our upcoming events will always hit our site first, so you’ll want to pay attention to our events page at https://itinthed.com/our-events/. Anything late-breaking or last-minute will tend to be posted on our Facebook page (again – http://www.facebook.com/ITintheD) and on our twitter feed at http://www.twitter.com/ITintheD, so you might want to “like” and “follow” us on those platforms, respectively.
A question that comes in pretty regularly is “What’s the difference between a Pink Slip Party and a casual networking event?”, and that’s been asked a lot since last week, so let’s get this out there for everyone to be on the same page.
Our casual networking events are what we’ve always done since 2001. The Pink Slip Party events were a self defense mechanism triggered when more than half the people showing up to our casual networking events were specifically job hunting instead of just looking to meet people in the industry – but to us, they’re still the same, just on a different scale. People have always found jobs at our casual networking events, just like people still show up at the Pink Slip Party events and make great connections. The difference really hits because the media tends to latch on to the cutesie “Pink Slip Party” name, and so we get attention and exposure, and attendance at those events increases by a factor of 6 to 10 over our casual networking gatherings. The casual events are just that – casual. Show up, grab a drink, and start introducing yourself to people. Find Bob, Jeff or me as a starting point if you want, and we can guide you and direct you from there.
See? Same advice and sentiment you got leading into last week’s Pink Slip Party.
There’s no registration table, no nametags, no formality at all.
But yes, there are still recruiters who show up looking to hire people. And yep, there are also still people who show up looking for jobs. There are also plenty of people who come simply because they want to build connections with people in the metro Detroit area in the industry.
So, again, that’s Thursday, April 18th at 5:01pm in the back room of the Blackfinn in Royal Oak: https://itinthed.com/event/april-2013-networking/
We look forward to seeing you there.
As far as last week’s event goes…well, if you were there, we don’t need to tell you what an over the top success it was.
But just in case you weren’t…it was an over the top success, and it sucks to be you that you missed it.
Our sponsors…and yes, we broke our “no sponsors” rule because, well, because we wanted to and it made sense to do so for this event, that’s why…could not have been any more awesome, helpful, and on board with us to make the night rock.
Arrow Strategies (www.arrowstrategies.com), Brightwing (www.gobrightwing.com), iTalent (www.italent-llc.com) and The Judge Group (www.judge.com) …sincerely, yet again, thank you. Actually, more to the point – Steve, Russ, Kim and Tiffany…thank you. As we’ve said a number of times in the past, relationships are formed with people, not companies, and it’s you that we’ve built the relationship with over the years…sometimes through changes in company, sometimes while growing at the same company, but it’s you as individuals who have come to our events, made yourselves a part of the group, and helped us build what and where we are today. So thank you.
And let’s be clear – it’s those relationships that triggered breaking our rule, not anything else. We had a lot of people suddenly become very interested in being sponsors of our events that night and over the last week, and the conversation has, by and large, been the same each time. We’re not opening the floodgates, and we’re not relaxing the rules for just anyone. If you are, or become, a core part of our group…if you’re there at our events, if you’re for the folks that show up, if you’re there helping people make connections and find jobs, then maybe we can talk about it for something in the future.
Because yes, we’re pretty sure that we’ve forever altered the dynamic of our Pink Slip Party events. Such is the law of unintended consequences – we’ve set the bar pretty high now moving forward, and now it’s incumbent upon us to make sure we can meet or get over that bar with similar events in the future. We have a lot of lessons learned that came out of last Wednesday’s event, and we’re still in “recap and triage” mode on a few things…but rest assured, as we always have, we’ll take steps to make sure that what works continues to work, and what doesn’t gets left by the wayside.
You can check out our recap of the event here: https://itinthed.com/5084/the-31313-pink-slip-party-recap/, and there’s a really cool write-up out on Detroit Unspun over at http://blog.thedetroithub.com/2013/03/19/it-in-the-d-made-job-hunting-awesome-at-st-andrews-hall/ that you should absolutely check out.
There are a bunch of photos from that night out on our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/ITintheD
If you didn’t catch the interview/chat on 96.3 WDVD, we’ve got it captured and archived for you here: https://itinthed.com/5072/dave-on-96-3-wdvd-this-morning-discussing-wednesdays-pink-slip-party/
As far as blog entries go, so that you’ve got some reading material while waiting for our next event, we’ve got a few goodies for you.
That one I mentioned up above, about relationships being with people and not companies, is Don’t Be That Guy: More Human Than Human, and you can find it at https://itinthed.com/2004/dont-be-that-guy-more-human-than-human/
You ever run into someone that gets all weird and puffed up in meetings and tries to obfuscate what’s really going on…even when they might not need to? Us too. Check out Don’t Be That Guy: The Pufferfish Effect at https://itinthed.com/56/the-pufferfish-effect/
Now that you’ve made contact with recruiters about new gigs at last week’s event, you might want to read our How Not To Suck At Interviewing for a Job series of entries. Part One is at https://itinthed.com/3078/how-not-to-suck-at-interviewing-for-a-job-part-i/, Part Two is over at https://itinthed.com/3086/how-not-to-suck-at-interviewing-for-a-job-part-ii/, and Part Three can be found at https://itinthed.com/3159/how-not-to-suck-at-interviewing-for-a-job-part-3/
You’ve probably heard Bob and I go at each other and mock each other mercilessly about me being an arrogant geek and him being a clueless sales guy…well, behind all of that good natured bantering, there’s a realization that we’re all in sales, even you, whether you know it or want to admit it or not. So read Everyone Is In Sales. Yes, Even You out at https://itinthed.com/757/dont-be-that-guy-everyone-is-in-sales-yes-even-you/, because reading, understanding, and applying what’s in there is also critical to your career path.
Now let’s take a peek inside our LinkedIn Group: http://www.linkedin.com/groups/ITintheDorg-Detroit-Networking-Events-IT-91763
– A discussion about trust: http://lnkd.in/funPBb
– An interesting new model for secondary education: http://lnkd.in/vDsQC6
– The hell is the Nain Rouge? http://lnkd.in/2T_BRg
– More Marissa Mayer / Yahoo talk: http://lnkd.in/MJ-7jg
– In case you missed the memo, Entertainment shut down: http://lnkd.in/hDeeeM
– Why startups fail: http://lnkd.in/NA6f56
…and, of course, jobs. Within the Job Discussions area (once in our group, click “jobs”, then click “job discussions” in the left-nav that loads) out at http://www.linkedin.com/groups?careerDiscussion=&gid=91763, there are quite a few right now:
Deena Wiltsie dwiltsie@gobrightwing.com
Direct Hire Lead Mobile Developer – Can be done Remote – Call me (248) 585-4750 x219
Alicia Bradley
APPLICATION / BUSINESS ANALYST / DEVELOPER (Redford, MI)
Wayne Coulman
Tooling Engineer opportunities? I have client in Detroit seeking a skilled Tooling Engineer. Please contact me if interested….
Jessica Workman
Database Engineer (Metro Detroit)
Cost Planning Engineer (Ann Arbor, MI)
Widows/Linux Network Engineer (Metro Detroit)
Jon Decker
IT Engineer in Harrison Twp, MI Position Summary: Install, configure, and support an organization’s local area network (LAN), wide area network (WAN), and Internet system or a segment of a network…
Kathryn Gillett
Micro-Strategy Developer. Immediate Hire. Contract. Detroit. Please send resume to kathya.gillett@gmail.com
Christine Soper-Neill
Web designer. We are looking for someone who is very attentive to detail, loves to learn about upcoming technologies. You will need to understand the business…
Jeff Schuster
Java Developers interested in training in IBM integration technologies.
Shiva Polavarapu
Sr Java Developer in Ann Arbor, MI
Sandra Bertoldi
Delivery Manager in Southfield, MI The Service Delivery Manager is responsible for the business development and delivery of services for one or several customers. Services may include…
KAREN LOPEZ karen.lopez@eitprofessionals.com
Technical Business Analyst karen.lopez@eitprofessionals.com ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS OF THE POSITION: 1. Work with the Product Development Team, Finance Partners…
Java/Spring/MVC, Ajax Developers Needed Spring/MVC/Webservices Developer Karen.lopez@eitprofessioanls.com Sr. Developer: 1) Java web application development, open source, 2) Spring, MVC, XML 3) Some…
SOA Architect Opportunity Karen.lopez@eitprofessionals.com Hands-on Architect with experience in architecting, designing and building medium to large scale enterprise systems with focus…
Front End and Back End Developer, Farmington Hills $85,000 ++ Apply: Karen.lopez@eitprofessionals.com Design and author new application components and/or utilities • Work with a cross-functional feature or…
Java Developer Opportunity Karenjlopez55@yahoo.com Plan, design, develop and implement Web solutions based on J2EE and related components. Hands on administration experience…
Anthony ( Tony ) Tocco
Backup and Storage but can direct you anywhere. I think we still have 130+ openings
Jim Carlson
BSM Sr Arch, 10+ yrs, full time, ITIL Cert, build BSM roadmap/strategy Mid-West, Relo avail, will trans H1-B, Job desc email jcarlson@resourcepoint.net
Jason P. Sullivan
Technical Project Manager – 3 Year Contract – Troy, MI – Fortune 15 Client (Not Auto)
Katie Newton
Technical Business Analyst *Unable to provide Visa Sponsorship at this time. JOB DESCRIPTION * The Technical Business Analyst will use analytical, technical, and organizational skills and experience to facilitate the identification, design, and…
QA Analyst * 5 years experience in Quality Assurance and functional testing. * 2 years experience with Microsoft SQL Server including writing SQL queries, MS Access, HTML and XML, and internet browsers. * Experience with testing…
Natalie Staroba
Manager of Applications and Training (Ann Arbor, MI) | One-click Apply with LinkedIn.
Please send resumes to Recruit@StoutSystems.com We are searching for a manager with expertise in industrial control communication networks (DeviceNet, EtherNet/IP, CompoNet, ControlNet) and the development of network-connect…
Web Designer/Front End Developer (Ann Arbor, MI) | One-click Apply with LinkedIn. Recruit@StoutSystems.comWe are searching for two Web developers to design and develop Web-based user interfaces for K-12th grade eLearning products. If you would like to be a part of building better…
C# .NET Developer (Troy, MI) | One-click Apply with LinkedIn. Recruit@StoutSystems.comGreat opportunity in Troy for C# .NET developers. Our client provides a full suite of insurance products that include online application and management services. These systems…
Senior Embedded Engineer – Systems (Farmington Hills, MI) | One-click Apply with LinkedIn. Recruit@StoutSystems.comWe are searching for a Senior Embedded Engineer to work with our client in the area of vehicle infotainment units. You will work as a senior engineer on extremely complex…
Web Designer/Front End Developer (Ann Arbor, MI) | One-click Apply with LinkedIn. Recruit@StoutSystems.comWe are searching for two Web developers to design and develop Web-based user interfaces for K-12th grade eLearning products. If you would like to be a part of building better…
Diane Mabry dmabry@fastswitch.com
HTML5 / Ruby Application Developer – contract to hire – Royal Oak MI
VP Technology Innovations – direct hire – Livonia MI
Systems Senior Engineer NAS – contract Dearborn Analyze, test, deploy and administer NAS storage technologies. Implement storage solution management strategies. Participate in enforcing our Storage – Center of Excellence (COE) standards. Perform 3rd level Storage…
Infrastructure Architect – Blackberry – Dearborn MI – contract
Storage Administrator – Dearborn MI – Contract
Agile Cloud Engineer – dearborn MI – contract
Testing Practitioner – Dearborn MI contract
Quality Test Specialist – Must have at least 3+ years testing experience. Key responsibilities are: – Research project documentation then enter testable requirements into TestDirector. – Work directly with application…
…and, of course, further details on all of those positions and more can be found at http://www.linkedin.com/groups?careerDiscussion=&gid=91763
I think that’s all for this time.
Catch you next month at our event!
Regards,
Bob, Dave and Jeff
itinthed.com
On the web: https://itinthed.com
On LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=91763
On Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ITintheD
On Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ITintheD
On Meetup: http://meetup.itinthed.com