There are so many little things about a prospective employee that can tell you, as the entrepreneur or hiring manager, whether or not the candidate is capable of being a reliable, long term, team player. For example, if I'm hiring a person, I'm going to look at how many schools this person went to and whether or not s/he graduated. I'm going to look at his/her smoking habits. I'm going to look at how long this person remained at his or her last few jobs. If I'm hiring manager for a company like Google, which receives thousands of resumes daily, I'll quickly eliminate people who didn't get a college degree, who smoke on a daily basis, and who weren't able to keep a job for more than two years because each show a lack of commitment and/or a preference for short term over long term goals. There are so many brilliant people who don’t have college degrees, but it takes much longer to screen these people for commitment. I don't think companies like Google care about what you learned in college so much as they care about your desire to stay with a company for more than a few months. They want employees who are able to work on projects that they aren't necessarily in love with.

Many people critique Google for looking at college transcripts, but I'm going to defend them on this for several reasons:

1) High GPAs show the ability to do everything (besides business/computer science), and this is often a good measure for what happens in the workplace. This isn't to say that dropouts are unable to prosper at a company like Google, but it's an easier way to weed out the definite slackers.

2) A transcript allows Google to see what kind of courses you took. Did you only take computer science classes? Did you stick with your Jazz Ensemble for all four years, or did you join in and out depending on the semester? Are there any independent studies? All of these gives clues as to who the person is and what their commitment to their studies are. Maybe you took a class in philosophy which you had absolutely no interest in whatsoever, but were you able to get at least a B?

3) I hate to say it, but looking at college transcripts is an easy way to weed people out. If you're running an amazing company, you'll get thousands upon thousands of transcripts, and you can't possibly take everyone. By weeding out college dropouts and those with poor grades, it's much easier to focus on those who are likely to succeed in a large company.

As Seth Godin often says on his blog that resumes give a reason for companies to reject you, which is exactly why Google asks for them in the first place. It makes the hiring process much better for them! For those of you who don't have a college degree or resume, find people to hire you based on something you did. Through keeping this blog, I've received many recruitment emails from technology companies. Although I'm yet to receive my college diploma, I'd feel reluctant to hire someone without a college diploma unless s/he has solid work experience to compensate. Even a college diploma is no longer enough to hire somebody. I'll take this even further to say, if I receive an offer to work for a company without an interview and review of my past experiences, I would feel reluctant to join because it shows something about how smart my colleagues in this company may be.

The moral of this story: If you think rationally about it, Google has a reason to recruit people in the way that they do. Fewer people leave the company not just because they offer amazing job benefits, but because they attract people who are more likely to stick it out and see the good in whatever they're working on. Most of the people I know at Yahoo are high school or college dropouts, and most of them are seriously contemplating leaving their job. While Yahoo is yet to better their job benefits, hiring committed people from the onset is often a significant part of the battle.

Jessica Mah is a 17 year old entrepreneur, blogger, and sophomore at early college, Bard College at Simon's Rock.

She loves chatting with fellow students, readers, and entrepreneurs, so don't hesitate to email her or message her on AIM! Feel free to subscribe to her blog or stalk her twitter.

There are soo many consultants out there - for business development, marketing, website design, website development, PR, etc… Over the past year or so, many of my friends/readers suggested that I do some consulting, but I've decided to stay away from that for several reasons. Here are my thoughts on the good and bad of the consulting world:

Consultants have it made!

Firstly, consultants have pretty awesome jobs and pretty thick pocketbooks. These consultants can choose their projects, work whenever they want and wherever they want, given that they meet any deadlines. They usually get paid more for short term projects than people will the same skills, working fulltime. Because of this short term commitment, they usually have the right to charge more.

Entrepreneurs are not consultants. Sounds like a pretty good life, but being a consultant just isn't an option for the true entrepreneur. The true entrepreneur has several options: create his or her own company from scratch or start a consulting company. (McKinsey and Company, for example.) In order to satisfy a real entrepreneur's needs, s/he needs to be running an actual company.

Consultants = Bad for Companies

Personally, I don't like the idea of consultants. Matter of fact, I hate it. If I was so desperate for advice, I would call up some business friends, ask my parents, or even recruit the help of my customers! (matter of fact, when my last company hit cash flow crisis, we sold out to a wealthy customer of ours!)

According to good old Wikipedia, McKinsey and Company is known to have charged its business clients upwards of $10,000 per day for a consulting team. Even $300 for a single day sounds like a lot! Critics often argue that consulting companies do not completely understand the company or the vision of the founders, compromising long term strategy for short term gains. The values of the founders may not be aligned with the consultant: for example, I personally believe that your team is the most important asset that you have, and investing into long term strategy is of the utmost importance. However, the consultant may suggest the company cut some costs that will compromise both of the above. How would my employees feel if we cut their health care as the result of these random consultants? They'd be pissed!

Real-life examples: Zappos.com and Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

1) Zappos.com is one of the few companies I truly admire because everything they do is for the long haul. According to an old news.ycombinator.com article, they tried hiring consultants but found that it made much more sense to just hire people within the company to do everything from marketing to web development to shipping management and logistics. For example, many shoe companies would outsource customer support to India, but Zappos has all customer support representatives within the company because the goals of true employees are much more likely to align with the values of the company and its founders.

2) In another example, my dad is a supervisor in the radiological engineering department at Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital. The hospital is best known for being among the top cancer hospitals in the world, but why? Because the people working there are amazing. My dad's priority is in fixing any x-ray machine on the property without having to bring in an outside consultant for two reasons: 1) Outside consultants would cost the hospital $300/hour - money that should be used towards helping cancer patients, and 2) Outside consultants don't care as much about the hospital's goals. The consultant wants to make the most money possible, and taking a longer time to fix a machine means a thicker pay check. My dad, however, wants the machines fixed ASAP so that doctors and patients could actually use them. It's an inconvenient truth, but insiders are much more likely to work towards their employers' goals and priorities.

The bottom line:

As an entrepreneur, being a consultant is not on my agenda. However, I could possibly see myself starting my own McKinsey and Company. (or not!) - this isn't to say that I wouldn't work at a consulting company or do consulting for a very brief period, but being a consultant is not something I see on my long-term agenda.

As an entrepreneur who ran a botched company, I would not hire consultants unless I absolutely had to. My support team of four was completely internal and they did a way better job than any outsourced person could or would do. If I ever needed to find consultants, I would call up some of my seasoned-entrepreneur-friends and recruit their advice. If I wanted something like graphics or website design advice, I'd recruit the help of my customers. The short story is, as a company, I'd stay away from consultants if any alternatives exist.

Jessica Mah is a 17 year old entrepreneur, blogger, and sophomore at early collegeBard College at Simon's Rock.

She loves chatting with fellow students, readers, and entrepreneurs, so don't hesitate to email her or message her on AIM! Feel free to subscribe to her blog or stalk her twitter.

As you might have already read, BlogNation really got dicked over today when the US editor Oliver Starr posted a public letter of resignation on the front page of the blog he was resigning from. It talked about how the CEO of BlogNation, Sam Sethi, wasn't paying his people anything.

The validity of his claims are irrelevant. He's gone, the world now thinks that Sam Sethi is a terrible CEO and shady person to do business with. What's Sam Sethi to do?

1) First off, Mr. CEO needs to take a stand. He needs to openly discuss the situation at hand and either make a full blown apology that discusses in detail why he hasn't paid, or deny it in its entirety and possibly provide proof that he did in fact pay and that Oliver Starr is just trying to screw him over. Either way, Mr. CEO needs to say something to the world, or else people will take his silence as a guilty confession.

2) Mr. CEO needs to make sure the other editors are happy. Discuss openly with the other editors what happened and how to assure that such a thing won't happen again. If they too start posting open letters of resignation, BlogNation might as well just pull the plug.

3) Or the best of the solutions... PAY YOUR EMPLOYEES AS YOU PROMISED!!!

On another note, after TechCrunch posted Oliver Starr's letter, an editor from BlogNation China posted a comment:

Ladies and gentlemen –

1. We express our concern about Oliver deciding to air his own concerns on blognation.

2. Readers may wish to note that reports about blognation on TechCrunch may contain bias. It most certainly is not the “neutral point of view” that we expect from the Wikipedia.

3. As part of the blognation team we are experiencing difficultings in launching and in being with a new startup. Our determination to establish the brand and to aim for victory after victory, however, remains unchanged and will remain unchanged.

4. Quite a bit of content on blognation (and blognation China at that) are unique, as we have good roots in our community. We grow with the community.

5. Please rest assured that blognation (and in particular blognation China) will continue to provide you with news every day of the week like we have been doing for the past two months.

I do realize that some of you have different opinions. We will respect each other’s opinions knowing that responsible freedom of speech is a good thing.

Your support is appreciated.

Best regards,
David Feng
Editor, blognation China
http://cn.blognation.com

I'm sure you've already found some flaws in the above comment. This David Feng is giving the absolute lamest excuses for Mr. CEO's problems. TechCrunch readers are definitely biased, but the post itself didn't have so much. Just cause you're a startup doesn't excuse you from paying employees you've promised to pay. If they were under an equity agreement or barter, that's different.

Unfortunately for Oliver, I'm not sure if there's much legal recourse for him. He didn't sign a contract with his employee which leaves him utterly screwed. I'm sure he'll learn for next time. as for Mr. CEO, best of luck.

Jessica Mah is a 17 year old entrepreneur, blogger, and sophomore in college. She's currently the founder of a startup, managing editor at Startupism.com, and Jessicamah.com. In her free time, she enjoys the prospect of being an underage angel investor.

Valleywag posted this earlier today. Video is on the top of news.ycombinator.com as of Tuesday evening. Sure, this video may make them look stupid, but it's a really great way to garner attention and to *possibly* attract new employees.

Is bad press good press? Well, their bad press hasn't even been that bad. I'm only seeing good come out of this. Comments, anyone?

Jessica Mah is a 17 year old entrepreneur, blogger, and sophomore in college. She's currently the founder of a startup, managing editor at Startupism.com, SimonsRockers.com, and Jessicamah.com.

Sure, it sounds like you're doing your family member a favor. Your grandson Johnny needs a summer job, so you let him run the family store. Your only real benefit is trust. You supposedly know this person well, but it doesn't mean that he or she will be good at the job.

For example... let's talk about restaurants. I went to a Thai restaurant for lunch and a Chinese restaurant for dinner. I'm a regular at both restaurants and can safely say that the staff members are all family related. And in both restaurants, I've had bad experiences with nasty or dumb waiters/waitresses. At the Thai restaurant, there's this one waitress who just so happens to be the daughter of the owner. She's slow, she has a snotty attitude, and comes off as if she hates her job. The other employees there (who are also family members) maintain a happy attitude, but this one waitress stands out like a sore thumb. I've even read reviews on the internet that talk about this one waitress at this Thai restaurant!

Now for the other Chinese restaurant... Two evenings ago, I had a Chinese guy who was a decent waiter. Tonight, I had a Chinese guy who couldn't speak English, couldn't really understand English, and also came off as a guy who really hated his job. I think we asked him to repeat our order three times and he still didn't get it right.

There are always two sides of the story. One might say that this poor Chinese guy needs a job. The entrepreneur/investor will say, "what was the restaurant thinking for hiring this guy who can't even do his job?" It all comes down to priorities. If you want to be a better business owner, hire the people who know what they're doing. Family and friend connections don't matter if the person can't even speak English. But again, if this guy's your cousin or something, I can understand hiring him for kindness sake.

Jessica Mah is a 17 year old entrepreneur, blogger, and sophomore in college. She's currently the founder of a startup, managing editor at Startupism.com, SimonsRockers.com, and Jessicamah.com.

Most of you have probably seen me link to my new blog, Startupism, in the past few blog posts. I'm proud to say that it's finally up and running to full capacity and has about 1,000 visits in only a week online! Not too shabby for a fresh blog.

I decided that from now on, JessicaMah.com will dedicate itself to providing MY opinions on various topics and Startupism will be much more informative and include a wide collaboration of writers and editors. So you ask, what is Startupism and why does Jessica need to manage more than one blog?

Startupism was first thought of by Christian Perry - he and his roomates don't have active blogs but wanted to share one, so they started talking about it and needed someone to get it off the ground and manage it, so I happily took that role. The purpose has shifted: It's now a blog with tens of startup founders and people on the forefront of the web 2.0 world, sharing their many opinions and perspectives. Most of these active community members and business execs have little time to blog, so Startupism allows them to make a submission as often as they'd like. No self-promoting posts allowed, of course.

Here are some cool blog posts we've made in recent days:

- Startups in Silicon Valley Causing a STIRR

- LuckyOliver Party at Ace Auto

- Through the looking glass

- Facebook users' Collective Buying Power

- Ideas come a dime a dozen!

- Bootstrapping in SF: Housing and Transportation

Of course, there's plenty more to come! If you're interested in writing for startupism, just send me an email at jessica@startupism.com and we'll chat more!

Jessica Mah is a 17 year old entrepreneur, blogger, and sophomore in college. She's currently the founder of a startup, managing editor at Startupism.com and Jessicamah.com. Oh, she forgot to mention that she's currently a HAPPY Apple Iphone Owner and UNHAPPY AT&T subscriber!