Edward J. Strafaci ~ Academic Blog

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2016-04-08/artist-ahn-kyuchul-on-brilliant-ideas

Job Hunting in the Digital Age Like many recent college graduates, Ben Kim felt he was casting his résumé into an abyss when he clicked “apply online” for the hundredth or so time. “The most common response was nothing,” he said. That may be because, before capturing an employer’s eye, job hunters in the digital age often have to get past a round of robots scanning their résumé for keywords. Although the business of hiring is still largely a manual process, employers are experimenting with increasingly sophisticated technology. Some companies are setting loose automated recruiters that crawl the web for the perfect hire, based on an algorithm. Others are asking job candidates to answer their first round of interview questions via video — perhaps not a huge ask for members of the YouTube generation. Use Keywords Many recruiters use tracking systems to sift through virtual piles of résumés searching for specific qualifications — say, software developers fluent in a progr...

We all get upset every now and then and lose hope, think that things will never get better and we probably won’t have the life we’ve always been dreaming about. But that’s not true. Let’s not live in the prison of being sad and depressed because of momentous stuff, other people, daily problems or outer factors. Positivity can be kept throughout the whole year and once you get used to this attitude towards life, you’ll become much more contented with who you are and the way things turn out. You’ll be smiling more, will focus on the good stuff in your life and that will make you considerably more satisfied and peaceful. Here are some things to keep in mind that will remind you of how good life actually is: 1. Everything you don’t like about yourself and your life can be changed. 2. Happiness is right here, in the present moment. 3. You deserve to be happy. 4. Your actions inspire people. 5. With every hardship you encounter, you become stronger. 6. Your mistakes are...

Rob Austin and his wife, Natalia, have a 10-month-old son, healthy incomes and plenty of cash in the bank for a down payment on a house. But they are happily renting a townhouse in Pasadena, Calif., with no plans to buy for now, given the frothy prices in their area. “As long as there is such a disconnect, where a couple like my wife and me have to put down a gargantuan down payment and still have a large monthly payment to get into a decent, and not necessarily nice, house, that is a game we don’t wish to play,” said Mr. Austin, a 39-year-old business manager at a biotechnology company. “When home price-to-income levels come back to a more normal level, when that happens, then we will be the first to jump in. If that never happens, that is O.K.” More American households are renting, across all income levels and generations, for different reasons. But when homeownership is the centerpiece of the American dream, most of us have internalized certain ideals: Buying a home builds e...

As in other professions and organized institutions the day of reckoning has come for career politicians. The new medium of global communication via smartphone has allowed people to share ideas, frustrations and free thought. No longer is anyone tethered to network news or the “news cycle. The mainstream media has zero credibility and is basically finished. Popular culture manifested in series like “House of Cards”, and the like, only educate the basic citizen on the great conflicts of interest in the Fourth Estate. Call it the “Netflix Revolution”. This has manifested itself in free thought, not the least of which is that politics has created an unfair ruling class. As with the Roman Empire, political stature and influence has allowed certain of the middle class to rise to positions of wealth and power at the expense of a struggling middle class. Trump has cleverly defined and seized this message and it resonates. Former Presidents have become fabulously wealthy without ev...

After Microsoft developed Excel to the 2010 version, it offered more surprises than ever. In order to deal with tons of big data, you can’t ignore the important role Excel plays in daily work. However, both for beginners and advanced users, there are still many useful tips and tricks that are inevitably overlooked. Here are 20 useful Excel spreadsheet secrets you may not know. Please note that all these functions are based on Microsoft Excel 2010. 1. One Click to Select All You might know how to select all by using the Ctrl + A shortcut, but few know that with only one click of the corner button, as shown in the screenshot below, all data will be selected in seconds. 2. Open Excel Files in Bulk Rather than open files one by one when you have multiple files you need to handle, there is a handy way to open them all with one click. Select the files you would like to open then press the Enter key on the keyboard, all files will open simultaneously. 3. Shift Between Differen...