New Service to FIRST participants and sponsors

[Rich Kressly]

Friends,

Cybersonics Technology Team 103 is proud to announce the launching of http://www.beyondfirst.org for public use. BeyondFIRST was designed to complete the vision of FIRST Robotics by creating a digital community that connects FIRST participants to futures in engineering, science, and technology.

BeyondFIRST is a FREE service to all job seekers and employers who have participated in FIRST Robotics and/or know the impact that the program is having worldwide. Whether it is a high school internship, college internship, or a full-blown career position, connecting FIRST job seekers to opportunities for everyone’s benefit is what BeyondFIRST is all about.

Special thanks go out to the BeyondFIRST student development team of Erik Langenborg, Andy Fleischman, Corey Koenig, and Robert Thacker-Dey for their dedication to the project and also to Palisades School District Technology Systems Administrator Gary Adams for providing mentorship and timely network solutions.

We hope BeyondFIRST proves to be a valuable tool in the process that leads to a changed culture in which futures in engineering, science, and technology are held in the highest regard.

Enthusiastically,
Team 103 Advisors Dave Beck, Cathy Beck, Rich Kressly
& The BeyondFIRST Development Team

[Jeremy Roberts]

Great Job!! I was actually speak with Michael Robbins about this exact thing and he forward me your page yesterday. I think this will be a great service to the FIRST community. Do you know if FIRST will back this officially? This way I think many more companies will be interested in getting on board as opposed to it being a team based site/effort. I know for example that some of the companies in Georgia would rather us have our own "Job Seekers" page if the service you are providing remains team based.

Just my thoughts. Once again great job.

[BandChick]

very cool i think this is fantastic, and i sincerely hope this helps, not only me, but everyone else in the FIRST community. keep up the good work

[Rich Kressly]

It's good to know people/teams find this service valuable.

As to the question of "official backing" from FIRST, I'm not sure how to answer that. I do know that other team-based sites/initiatives (and multiple team efforts too) such as BuzzU, RCU, OCCRA, Indiana FIRST, ChiefDelphi, FSN, and FIRST College Connect (just to name a few) have all provided needed services to many in the FIRST community and FIRST has certainly encouraged those efforts in a multitude of ways. We have received similar encouragement about beyondFIRST and hope as many students and sponsors take advantage of the service as possible.

Please encourage your students, teammates, and anyone with FIRST experience pursuing a career or job change to enter resume information on our secure server. Employers/sponsors are showing interest as well and will continue to do so as the field of applicants becomes larger. We look forward to serving the needs of as many as possible in the coming days, weeks, and years.

Please let us know how beyondFIRST is working for you and your team and how we can better serve you in the future!

[Erin Rapacki]

This is fantastic! Great idea guys (mad at myself for not coming up with this first ) FIRSTers will put up their resumes, not just gotta get companies to advertise internships and positions on it. Shweet!

[Jeremy Roberts]

Originally Posted by Rich Kressly

It's good to know people/teams find this service valuable.

As to the question of "official backing" from FIRST, I'm not sure how to answer that. I do know that other team-based sites/initiatives (and multiple team efforts too) such as BuzzU, RCU, OCCRA, Indiana FIRST, ChiefDelphi, FSN, and FIRST College Connect (just to name a few) have all provided needed services to many in the FIRST community and FIRST has certainly encouraged those efforts in a multitude of ways. We have received similar encouragement about beyondFIRST and hope as many students and sponsors take advantage of the service as possible.

Please encourage your students, teammates, and anyone with FIRST experience pursuing a career or job change to enter resume information on our secure server. Employers/sponsors are showing interest as well and will continue to do so as the field of applicants becomes larger. We look forward to serving the needs of as many as possible in the coming days, weeks, and years.

Please let us know how beyondFIRST is working for you and your team and how we can better serve you in the future!

We will work on the companies here in GA to add to your efforts.

<edit>
Question: Are you adding a feature to allow for resume's to be uploaded as opposed to entering all the information in a form? I think this would encourage more people to use this. Entering all that information is very tedious when most people already have resumes in Word or PDF format.
</edit>

[Anne Shade]

This is a great idea. Thanks to Team 103 for taking the time to put this together. I just finished entering in my information and I have a few comments to make.

1. As Jeremy said above, it would be great if the option to upload a resume was available. That would make it much easier.

2. For many of us, the number of spots to put past team affiliations is not enough. I'm also not sure if just saying college student really explains what we college students do for our teams. It may help to label this as current team affiliations and past ones as well.

3. Maybe displaying GPA should also be a choice.

4. For the type of job seeking, there should probably be a distinction between entry level job seekers and those looking for a career change.

5. When entering in employers, more spaces would be beneficial. There should also be an option for current employer since it won't let me just not enter an end date.

6. There should be an area to add skills including computer programs, CAD software packages, languages, etc.

7. An area for extra curricular activities would be good as well. This would have fields for the "club" name as well as years of involvment, offices held, and maybe a short description.

8. An area for awards should also be added for personal awards.

9. Last but not least, since the goal is for this to be for FIRST site, I would like to see a section of the resume builder to be about the FIRST experience of that person. Each of us has different experiences as well as different responsibilities on the team. It would be good to see what experience that person has had and what their individual responsibilites are on their team and in FIRST in general. Maybe even an area for team awards that they have contributed to (those received while they were on the team).

I hope these suggestions will help improve the site. I dont mean to sound critical of this great idea, I would like to see it succeed as I am trying to find myself a job for after I graduate in May .

[Rich Kressly]

Originally Posted by skyman9000

We will work on the companies here in GA to add to your efforts.

<edit>
Question: Are you adding a feature to allow for resume's to be uploaded as opposed to entering all the information in a form? I think this would encourage more people to use this. Entering all that information is very tedious when most people already have resumes in Word or PDF format.
</edit>

For now the ability to upload resumes is not available for two reasons -
1. Uniformity. We decided that it is more employer friendly to view the same info in the same order for everyone quickly without having to manage multiple file types and it creates uniform information that is easily searched by employers in the database.
2. We are doing our best to provide a connection to employers and realize we will not meet all candidate and employer needs. However, our goal is to provide a digital community that connects students/participants to employers and once that connection is made it is very easy for participants and employers to share any additional information/files with eachother.

[Rich Kressly]

Originally Posted by Anne Bergeron

This is a great idea. Thanks to Team 103 for taking the time to put this together. I just finished entering in my information and I have a few comments to make.

1. As Jeremy said above, it would be great if the option to upload a resume was available. That would make it much easier.

2. For many of us, the number of spots to put past team affiliations is not enough. I'm also not sure if just saying college student really explains what we college students do for our teams. It may help to label this as current team affiliations and past ones as well.

3. Maybe displaying GPA should also be a choice.

4. For the type of job seeking, there should probably be a distinction between entry level job seekers and those looking for a career change.

5. When entering in employers, more spaces would be beneficial. There should also be an option for current employer since it won't let me just not enter an end date.

6. There should be an area to add skills including computer programs, CAD software packages, languages, etc.

7. An area for extra curricular activities would be good as well. This would have fields for the "club" name as well as years of involvment, offices held, and maybe a short description.

8. An area for awards should also be added for personal awards.

9. Last but not least, since the goal is for this to be for FIRST site, I would like to see a section of the resume builder to be about the FIRST experience of that person. Each of us has different experiences as well as different responsibilities on the team. It would be good to see what experience that person has had and what their individual responsibilites are on their team and in FIRST in general. Maybe even an area for team awards that they have contributed to (those received while they were on the team).

I hope these suggestions will help improve the site. I dont mean to sound critical of this great idea, I would like to see it succeed as I am trying to find myself a job for after I graduate in May .

Anne-
wow - great feedback and thanks!
We anticipated growing/changing needs from feedback and will process your info.
For now - awards, explanations, additional info can all be entered into the final text box which will handle a great deal of text of any kind.

[epsilon]

As to uploading resumes, there is an option. You can upload you .pdf, .doc or whatever to some webspace (we are unable to provide it). Then register on beyondfirst.org and dont fill in the unrequired fields (colleges, jobs, referances, ect.). This should make the process relativly fast. At the very end of the resume posting pages, there is a text field for additional info. Simply insert the hyperlink to where your resume is posted in the info. You could simply post the link in plain text (ie "http://www.host.com/myresume.pdf") or if you use html it will appear as a hyperlink. (ie "<a href="http://www.host.com/myresume.pdf" target="_blank">Download my resume</a>")

[Anne Shade]

Originally Posted by Rich Kressly

Anne-
wow - great feedback and thanks!
We anticipated growing/changing needs from feedback and will process your info.
For now - awards, explanations, additional info can all be entered into the final text box which will handle a great deal of text of any kind.

I have added my information in the final text box but the formatting looks horrible with it that way since everything runs together.

[Rich Kressly]

Originally Posted by Anne Bergeron

I have added my information in the final text box but the formatting looks horrible with it that way since everything runs together.

That box will run together. If you want nicer formatting, please refer to epsilon's instructions above.

[Rich Kressly]

The BeyondFIRST site is down for technical upgrades. It will be available at some point over the weekend. We will post here when it is back online. We apologize for the inconvenience.

[epsilon]

beyondFIRST is back online, after some technical difficulties. Feel free to get you resumes online.

[Rich Kressly]

So far, in the early stages, FIRST participants from KS, PA, NJ, IL, CT, GA, and NY have posted their resumes on BeyondFIRST. Keep going, we are well on our way to attracting more and more employers to the site!