Dayaway Today

Please follow Dayaway Careers on its public page, Dayaway Today--see link above. We report job listings and general growth every week day on Dayaway Today. Thanks so much. Mike Brownell. michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com Read More......

Retech Conference, Part 2

Today's Focus: Retech Summary, Part 2.

Yesterday I posted a general summary of my odessey at the Exhibitor's Hall (you can find it in Archives). Today, I will provide short summaries of the conversations I had with company/association representatives. In each case, I presented myself as someone representing a group of college students looking for jobs and internships in clean energy. All the representatives took the Dayaway handout I offered (listing the registered profiles and providing background information on Dayaway) and promised to give it to their hiring representative.

Suzlon Wind Energy. I learned that Suzlon, an India based wind turbine company, is in the #2 or #3 position in the U.S., and that they have and will hire college graduates into entry-level positions. The two representatives appeared to be in their mid-twenties, business majors I would guess. They were optimistic about the long term future of wind energy, but quick to acknowledge that things are challenging now.

NEDO. The New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization is one of my favorites. This is a Japan public organization promoting clean energy R&D. They provide $2B annually to Japanese companies such as Sharp, Sanyo and Kyocera. I believe this shows that private capital markets alone are not enough for corporations who get graded by Wall Street every three months. Long term R&D investments need government support, which in turn, encourages private capital to pile on later.

Suniva. Big point learned here is that this company, a solar cell manufacturer, has an eighteen month backlog of orders. We need to watch them for job opportunities.

ThermaSource. This geothermal drilling company explained that there are similarities (and important differences) between drilling for oil and thermal energy. The take-away point is that getting a few years of experience in oil exploration (oil company or related-Schlumberger) could then lead to a geothermal career.

Ewing Bemis & Co. / Talor DeJongh. These two investment banking firms are both active in the clean energy space. They both hire MBAs. The fact that they were present at Retech is a sign of their long term commitment to clean energy given current soft equity markets.

Sterling Planet. This Georgia based consulting firm (carbon asset management) expressed a preference to hire local candidates, but would look past that preference for a strong candidate who reached out to them. This shows that in this economy it is an employers' market and students will have to sell themselves hard.

Anonymous. One representative (whose name I will supress given his candid and perhaps non-representative remark) expressed some frustration with the high salaries, especially to MBAs, that were paid 2 to 3 years ago. Now that the market has turned, he felt that candidates had to come back down to earth in their salary expectations. I'm not sure if this feeling is widespread among hiring representatives, but perhaps an extra dose of job-seeker humility is wise.

Lockheed Martin. I expressed my surprise that a major defense contractor was at the conference. I learned LM is active on a number of fronts, especially in the grid and smart-grid sector. The impressive young professional said that college job-seekers should study the utilities with an eye on whom they do business with--their consultants, software providers, PPAs (power purchasing agreements--the private solar or wind farm that sells clean electricity to a utility).

National Hydrogen Association. I learned about lots of cool hydrogen initiatives. I also promised to inform Dayaway's membership of a contest to design a hydrogen community. I will do this tomorrow.

Well, that's my summary. Go to www.retech2010.com if you want to learn more about what happened at Retech. You won't believe how much information is available to you.

Got or need a clean energy job/internship? Join or follow Dayaway.

michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com. Thanks. Mike b.

Read More......

Retech Conference

Today's Focus: Retech Summary. I spent Thursday walking the Exhibitor's floor at the Retech Conference in D.C. By way of background, this conference is one of the major renewable energy conferences. Today, I will pass along general observations. Tomorrow, I will summarize personal conversations I had with various renewable energy companies.

My first reflection is that the day made me remember what it like to be 22 or 26 and looking for a job. In one respect, it's awful. I presented myself to employers as someone who was supporting a group of students looking for clean energy jobs. Their reaction (through my eyes) was a combination of "oh, no, another person looking for a job," or worse, "oh, sh__, a headhunter." Everyone, however, was polite and in many cases quite interested in Dayaway and its student members. But I really felt the loneliness, rejection and emotional fatigue of what it is like to be a young professional with little or no experience looking for a job. It's easy to forget this when you are my age. Thursday took care of that. But the positive side is what matters.

I will write more about the positive side tomorrow, but a quick word on "chipping away" is the point now. Each conversation I had made the next one a little easier. For one thing, just talking with people was better than being alone. It's a little bit of the "misery loves company" thing, but it's also helpful to hear the words of encouragement and really good ideas that you get. The other great thought/feeling that came from trolling the floor and cold-calling was remembering the value of being resourceful and keeping moving. Things happen when you stay in motion. Things don't when you don't. At my age I know that's the attitude that employers want. It's more important than grades, degrees, school pedigrees and the like. It's what you do that matters. Crappy times like these bring that out in people, well some people. While I feel badly for those who struggle with that, I feel great about those who will discover it in themselves. The laws of large numbers coupled with the human condition assure me that Dayaway has a bunch of of these folks. I so look forward to getting to know and help them.

The Retech gathering seemed smaller than it was two years ago, no doubt reflecting changed economic conditions. That said, there were thousands of people attending the conference which occupied most of the Washington Conference Center thereby evidencing the size of the clean energy industry and its spectacular future. The company representatives with whom I spoke (approximately 20) said their companies were not hiring presently, but were hopeful that they would be in the future--no specific time frames given.

At least half of the companies (some large, some not) said they would hire entry-level college graduates, undergrad and graduates. Several spoke of internship programs. Even then, however, they mentioned the desire for some experience (not necessarily clean energy experience). For graduate students, this would seem less of a problem. For undergraduates, it demonstrates the importance of internships and, as well, the huge challenge of getting the first job.

Finally, I was surprised by how many non-US exhibitors were present--Japan, India, Italy, Germany, etc. At first, this depressed me because it suggests that the US is falling further behind other countries. But the more I have thought about it, this may be a very good thing. Why? Because competition is a primary motivator. As the Nike commercial stated, "Only two things motivate people: Fear and Interest." When you see the investments and market penetration being made by non-US companies in clean energy, you can't help feeling that you're getting left behind or that you could make a ton of money or perhaps both. I certainly felt fearful and interested.

Tomorrow I will report on specific conversations I had. Don't hesitate to contact me if you have specific questions about the conference.

Got or need a clean energy job/internship? Join or follow Dayaway.

michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com. Thanks. Mike b.

Read More......

Quiet Next Few Days

Today's Focus: Family Matters. The Dayaway site will be quiet for the next few days as my wife and I will be busy with family matters. I expect the site to return to normal operations early next week. Thanks to all the students who recently signed up. Have a great weekend.

michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com. Thanks. Mike b.

Read More......

Jobs

Today's Focus: 2 jobs listed today/last night; both engineering; California Energy Commission and Lawrence Berkeley.

Will spend most of day sending student invitations to NYU, Vanderbilt and Villanova.

I will attend Retech conference in DC next Thursday for the purpose of promoting the site and our students to the exhibitors. For the record, I hate "cold call" selling so it's ok--no, no, it's expected--that you feel sorry and grateful for this incredible sacrifice (I hope the intended humor is obvious here!). Also, if anyone reading this will be at Retech and would like to say hi, please let me know.

Got or need a clean energy job/internship? Join or follow Dayaway.

michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com. Thanks. Mike b.

Read More......

Shifting Focus to Employers

We will post at least 2 new job listings later today; perhaps more. For now, I want to share a few thoughts about signing up students going forward.

Monday and Tuesday were awesome days for sign ups, surprisingly so. This means Dayaway will now shift almost all of its time to finding the jobs and internships. We can do that because we now look credible.

Our credibility is defined by the quantity, quality and diversity of our student job/internship seekers. When you click "search job seeker" you see approximately 50 students from excellent schools across the country, graduate and undergraduate candidates, STEM/business/econ majors, men and women and all with solid grades. There are another "low profile" students who have registered but not created a profile.

While it would be tempting to expand the list even more (and now it would not be hard), we equally want to feature each student and reward each for investing in Dayaway. And we don't want to oversell. The reality is that 2010 will be a very difficult job market, and clean energy will not be an exception. Experts predict that clean energy job growth will outpace general economic growth significantly over the next 5-10 years, but right now job flow will be slow.

So, thank you to those of you who are signed up (visibily and just following). As for NYU, Vandy and Nova, we will send out a reduced number of invitations later today, and then we are done looking for students. Naturally we will accept those who come to us and I expect they collectively will increase membership by 20-40% by end of semester. This leaves us with a proportionality between seekers and expected job/internship listings.

Sorry for the long post, but if Dayaway truly is to be built for and by students then our gameplan needs to be transparent. And this also means your ideas are critical. So speak up--please. We need your views.

Got or need a clean energy job/internship? Join or follow Dayaway.

michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com. Thanks. Mike b.

Read More......

Good Growth Monday

Today's Focus: 2 new jobs listed today, both at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

We received an excellent response to student invitations sent yesterday; welcome new members from Boston College, Middlebury, University of Massachusetts and Northwestern University.

Will be sending additional invitations to NYU, Vanderbilt and Villanova later today.

Will contact approximately 50 additional clean energy companies by end of week (to promote students and site), and will do the same at ACORE RETECH meeting in DC late next week.

Got or need a clean energy job/internship? Join or follow Dayaway.

michaelbrownell@dayawaycareers.com. Thanks. Mike b.

Read More......