Who You Calling A Jesse?

In our team meeting on Friday we were throwing around some initial feedback we heard on a number of things and the following analogy was discussed:

Deciding to live in VeloCity is like joining a varsity team. You have to commit to being an entrepreneur; balance the demands of academics with developing your skills and learn to place entrepreneurship on the same level as academics.

This makes a lot of sense to me. If you are on a varsity sports teams there are set practice times, expectations on training, and expectations on how you perform in your academics. Sometimes the team needs will conflict with academic or personal needs but all members of the team figure out a way to balance it all.

As a student and an entrepreneur it doesn’t seem to be a whole lot different from being on a team. If you don’t put in the time in practice and developing your skills you aren’t going to perform. So what would the core skills be? At VeloCity I see the opportunity to work on the following three skills:

• networking and communicating your ideas (and/or pitching)
• taking risks and managing risks
• ability to prioritize tasks and doing what it takes to complete them (Waterloo students are exceptionally good at this, generally speaking)

Working on these skills is not something you can do just when you have time. You must to have the passion and the drive to create opportunities and take advantage of the opportunities that are created at VeloCity for you.

No surprise the analogy came from Sean Van Koughnett (the guy who made VeloCity happen) who spent many years committed to varsity Basketball at Waterloo… and from what I hear he was pretty good ;)

It is that time of year again and a number of students have been asking for advice on which job offer they should rank. Their motivations for accepting a job (or ranking it in UW terms) are diverse but there are two general things I think employers might not think of. It could cost them hiring the student that they think will fit the best in the role they have available.

1. Students aren’t totally motivated by money but don’t offer pay below the average wage for their program. With the number of programs out there to help you pay for a student, what does 1 or 2K more for a term really cost you? If you really can’t pay any more then focus on the next point…
2. Sell the value they are bringing to your organization. For coders the allure of their code being used by their peers is huge. For others it is similar—they want to do things that other people will find valuable in the time they are working for you.

I haven’t spoken to one student that took a job simply because of the pay but I have spoken to many that have not ranked a job because they felt they would not bring value to a group or project or learn something from the person they would report to. I am certain they appreciate each and every employer that comes to interview them and offer them an opportunity but at the same time they faced with pressure from family, friends, and mid-terms… and I wouldn’t call it a gen Y thing because the same motivators existed 10 years ago that exist today… It is simply a confident, intelligent, and capable student thing. I think anyway.

Btw, this is no way official advice from my employer. It is simply advice based on my experience. It might not work for everyone.