Ask MetaFilter posts tagged with corporate

What is the most common aptitude/job suitabilty test, or battery of tests, given to upper-level executives in Canada?

OlivesAndTurkishCoffee — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 21:21:23 -0800

What is the most common aptitude/job suitabilty test, or battery of tests, given to upper-level executives in Canada? I don't know any upper-level executives that I can ask, but I have heard numerous times that for many senior positions at Fortune 500-type companies new candidates are put through tests to ensure they are right for the job.
Does anyone have any experience with this in Canada? If so, what companies administer the tests? Has anyone found any to be particularly helpful (either as a genuine measure of employability or as a means to self-understanding)?
I have looked into aptitude testing in general, and have gathered info about Myers-Briggs/ Johnson O'Connor/MBII, but I was wondering if there are others I have overlooked.
I am only interested in tests I can take here in Canada, and only the ones used seriously by employers.

FDIC and Corporate accounts

readery — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 05:24:57 -0800

How do corporations deal with the FDIC insurance guidelines? Do corporations with large payrolls keep a payroll account at a different bank? Are businesses holding large amounts of cash moving accounts around now, looking for good stable banks? How are escrow accounts dealt with?

Come to Campus Now and Receive this Handsome Tote Bag!

Andy's Gross Wart — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 15:10:41 -0800

I have volunteered to help my university procure gifts for speakers and alumni who come to campus to recruit students. What are some good commemorative gifts you have received? The recipients of these gifts will range from billionaire CEOs to middle managers. Due to budgetary constraints, I am imagining gifts under $25. However, I would like to find gifts that are useful and appreciated, so t-shirts and ceramic mugs are not what I had in mind. I was thinking of products along the lines of mini-Leatherman, LL Bean tote bags, or travel mugs.

What are some good gifts you have received and enjoyed that fit this criteria?

How to get corporate sponsors?

Perihelion — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 12:02:10 -0800

In a nutshell: I'm an artist who got trapped in a day job and I no longer have enough available time to create new work. I'd like to raise money from corporate sponsors to help fund a 10 month period where I would paint some new work and then have it exhibited at my local museum. I am not interested in applying for grants because I already know it would be a waste of time for the type art I do. I guess what I need is guidance, tips, or at least a success story to give me some encouragement. Thanks.

How to complain like a polite human.

1f2frfbf — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:03:59 -0800

How do I complain to a corporation without coming off as a prude? Full explanation: I bought my brother-in-law a gift certificate to Timbuk2 for Christmas so he could get a new computer bag, when it arrived it contained a tag like this one. I personally would not have had an issue with this, but he is using the bag in a professional environment and was embarrassed enough by the language to cut the tag out of the bag. I'm embarrassed about the situation myself, since I initially gave him the gift and had no idea they would include a tag like this. I would like to express my displeasure to Timbuk2, but how can I do this and actually get results without being treated as a random nutcase?

Fun, easy and cheap ways for contestants to "buzz in" to answer quiz questions?

VeniceGlass — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 06:28:51 -0800

Our corporate outing next week is going to include a few trivia questions, and we need a good way for people to answer. There will be 10 teams and a captain on each team. Money's a little tight, so those cool electronic buzzers are out. I'd prefer not to suffer the chaos of shouting out answers and figuring who is quickest. So I'd like a method that's fun and accurate. Any ideas?

Joining the corporate blog crowd

O9scar — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 10:28:57 -0800

I work for a small company. The idea of having a blog (outward-facing, not internal) has come up a couple of times. I'd like to a) find some good examples of existing company blogs as a model, b) figure out issues of upkeep/best practices/etc. The company I work for is small - about a dozen employees, plus a few contractors. A few people said they're willing to write for it, but to me the biggest fear is it dying after only a few posts - so how do I make sure we at least have one weekly post, if not more?

Other people have concerns about giving away trade secrets. I don't want to complicate posting to the blog, but do we need to have someone OK things before they get posted? Do we need blog guidelines/ a blog czar? If so, I have a feeling it'll probably be me.

The main objective for the blog as I understand it is to have a non-press release way of putting news/updates/insights out there. And also to establish our expertise in our area of work (rich media/online product demos). You can mefimail me if you're dying to know the exact company in question.

Running to stand still - resource management in IT

ajp — Fri, 02 May 2008 07:57:46 -0800

Scheduling and work-request software for an IT team. Imagine a team of 6 programmers, within a large organisation. The organisation raises a variety of work-types for the programmers:

Project tasks
Project bugs
Work-requests (up to 10 days' work)
Bugs within live software
Other support tasks

These work-types are raised in a variety of ways:

Bug report within tracking software
Project bug within separate tracking software
Tasks in project plans
Change requests (any change to a test or production system)
Email
Phone call
In person

Already this is messy. It seems to be almost ungovernable for anyone trying to manage resource. Certain procedural changes need to be enforced (i.e. "don't phone direct, raise a bug with the Help Desk") but one major problem is keeping the workload of the programmers up-to-date, so people can request programming resource.

MS Project is too heavy for this. Each programmer may get through one to five or so tasks per day. A spreadsheet is okay, but cumbersome, and requires one person to keep it up to date. (Unless someone has a nifty template to share).

Ideally, software that could help this situation would:

(a) Present a graphical illustration of the available resource -- i.e. a list of who is working on what. Preferably with red/amber/green colours and that sort of stuff.
(b) Have a web-based GUI.
(c) Allow people with relevant permissions to request resource (although not named individuals) and provide details on work required.
(d) Provide some simple workflow, allowing certain individuals to accept or reject work requests.
(d) Do nothing else -- email, forums, calendars, blah blah blah, totally not needed. Maybe it could generate fancy reports, that might be nice.

I'm sure something like this exists, but I haven't found it yet.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Looking for non-sellouts.

Roach — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 14:38:46 -0800

Looking for examples of people who didn't take the money. There was a post a while back the talked about Ben & Jerry's and Tom's of Maine both selling out to major conglomerates.

I am interested in hearing examples of people/companies/artists who didn't take the money. Especially if they were persistently offered the opportunity.

What fun summer event in Chicago can we have with all this money?

sargento29 — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:19:04 -0800

A group of us at our company have volunteered to organize our summer event. Our office is in Chicago, and in the past we have done several things such as going to a cooking class together, sporting events, bars, bowling, cruise, etc. So now we want to do something even more fun and outrageous if possible! Any good ideas for a corporate event in Chicago? Here are some more details:
- The group is about 60 people
- We have about 6K at our disposal
- It is a summer event
- Youngish, professional group
- Need to stay in the downtown area
- Out of this world ideas are acceptable
- Volunteering is an option

All suggestions welcome!

Fortune 500 Company Strucutres

ashepp — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 11:54:45 -0800

Is there an online resource that describes the different business functions of Fortune 500 companies ? e.g. Sales, Marketing, Legal, It, etc ? I'm trying to write a paper on how large organizations structure themselves and was wondering if there's any official resource for this information. I've found SIC Codes and NAICS Codes but these seem to describe the company industry segments not organization.

Appreciate any help!

How do we bring daily news to staff without computers?

Milkman Dan — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 14:06:16 -0800

Our organization uses the Intranet to keep staff informed. 40% of our employees don't use computers in their daily job. How do we bring the Intranet to them? Our organization relies on a custom-built Intranet to communicate all our important announcements, and provide key tools and documents. Admin staff are covered, but maintenance staff, kitchen workers and retail clerks (comprising 40% of the organization) have no computers, and thus no access to the Intranet. However, they need to be kept in the loop.

What’s the best way to do this? Freestanding computer kiosks? Adapt the week’s news to a looping powerpoint presentation, broadcast on wall-mounted TVs? We’re a non-profit – what’s going to be the most affordable way to do this?

Clean, upbeat, non-love songs

nicholm — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 09:18:57 -0800

I'm looking for clean, upbeat songs that are NOT about love. I just need one business-appropriate one to edit a "Candids" video of business people at a sales meeting to. The client is super picky and wants pop music with exactly the right lyrics and a "high-energy" tempo. They liked the lyrics to "Oh Yeah" by Macy Gray but didn't think it was upbeat enough. Any ideas?

how to become a genius application developer overnight!

logic vs love — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 15:34:58 -0800

Second-Day-on-the-Job Panic: How can I get my mostly-self-taught, LAMP-loving self to be more confident and capable with developing corporate/enterprise applications? So I have a shiny new job doing--theoretically--the same stuff I've been doing on my own for years. But instead of friendly words like "php" and "mysql", people are throwing around strange, foreign words (WebLogic! SQL Server! IAS! LDAP! Oracle!) and I'm feeling somewhat overwhelmed and lost (and making things seem much harder to myself than I'm sure they actually are!). Any advice/books/websites/anything that will help get me up to speed so I don't feel like the little kid sitting at the grown-ups' table?

Haunted by a Crooked Boss

Anonymous — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 15:31:12 -0800

It's probably too late to do anything about a crooked boss, but I'd still like the Hive Mind's opinion... (long story inside) I no longer work for said boss, but some of his business practices sort of stick in my craw and also make me wonder if I can be culpable years after the fact.

I worked for a small steel brokerage - Boss (owner), two salesmen, and me, who did all the clerical work as well as the payroll, and accounting (month-end reports, etc). As time went on, I noticed a definite distinction between the male employees and me. For example, I was the only employee who had the cost of her Blue Cross deducted from her paycheck. After I accepted the job, it turns out that one of my very unsavory responsibilites was to save the ink cartridges from our computer printers and the toner cartridges from the copier and then go back to Staples or OfficeMax and claim that they'd been empty when we'd opened the package. (I'm not making this up.) At the time, I couldn't really afford the cost of a lawyer to look into the situation, and I needed the insurance coverage, so I didn't squack.

When I hired in, I was told that after three years I'd be enrolled in the company's pension plan. After I'd been there three and a half years with no further info about the Plan, I asked Boss. His response was "I've decided not to add any more people to the plan." This, too, seemed illegal to me but his brother-in-law was an attorney, and I couldn't really afford to persue the issue.

While I worked there, I noticed that he avoided paying bills whenever possible. For example, when LTV Steel was on the verge of declaring bankruptcy, he bought thousands of tons of steel from them, which he re-sold. When the bills from LTV eventually came due, he instructed me to create fake debit memos from a variety of non-existant companies stating that the LTV steel was defective. He went so far as to have me put lint and such from a vacuum cleaner bag onto the copying machine glass so that the Xerox copies of said debit memos looked like they'd been in our files for many months. (I kept Xerox copies of his handwritten notes directing me to make such memos look more authentic, etc, just in case some time down the road LTV's lawyers came after me.)

Another "tactic" of his was to have five or six different registered business names, using mail drops as the mailing addresses. Each of those businesses had a phone number that ended up in our office, though, and I was actually instructed to used a different tone of voice and different name depending upon which line I answered. He also used these various "companies" to give credit references to one another. So, for example, if he was trying to buy steel from a new supplier, he'd give ABC and XYZ steel as credit references, both of which were part of his telephone bank. (His father is a CPA and handled the books for the company and apparently approved of all this deception.)

Anyway, I'm sure it's too late to hit him up for any personal compensation that I was entitled to during my years of employment (such as why did I have to pay for my health insurance and no one else did?), but every now and then I feel a twinge of guilt about all the deception I was involved in and I wonder if there's some way that I can turn him in? To whom, I don't know. And I'm also curious as to whether or not I'd be liable in years to come if one of his many schemes that I assisted with (and there are many, many that I was involved in that I haven't mentioned) are brought to light?

But what does it DO?

cabingirl — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 12:29:48 -0800

Corporate trainers, I need your help. I need to train some colleagues on the capabilities of an software package to prepare them for designing some upgraded features. However, they are not users of the software, so my standard new-user training is not going to cut it. Do you have any tips on how to do this kind of training/education? Any suggestions of training books or websites that can help? In my job, I am a business analyst in support of an internally-developed software package. We use this software for a very specialized type of data entry and it has a steep learning curve as a result. My new project is to develop some new features to handle upcoming EU regulatory changes. Therefore, my European colleagues are heavily involved in the design of these new features, but progress is hampered by the fact that they don't really understand how the current software works. Management is asking me to put together some training so that the European members can gain a better understanding of the package, but I'm lost on how to accomplish it. They don't need the new user step-by-step training, but they need more than the 2-hour overview that I usually give to executives. I'm looking for some way to structure the training so that it's informative and explains what the software can do without getting into the nitty-gritty of "now click OK to close the window".

Did the Company ask me to do something illegal?

MichaelKnight — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 19:19:14 -0800

Did the Company ask me to do something illegal? Either way, how can I say no? I work for a large Company. The Company has a new software division which is attempting to create a certain type of software that they can then sell to us, the branches, and possibly outside businesses.

However, this new division writes shitty software and our branch revolted and was allowed (by the higher ups, since the shitty software division was taking so long even get the us) to go with a third party vendor for this much needed piece of software. It's a piece of software that any business in our industry needs. This third party vendor's software, while not perfect, is pretty good and has been around for several years, works well and allows us to many things we were previously incapable of doing.

This piece of software, lets call it DocuPub, from the third party vendor, is a type of software the Company's new division is attempting to create from scratch. They are not doing a good job of doing this, though they keep promising the higher ups that they can create this software and when they do, incredible, wonderful things will happen and they'll change the world. Management has mostly bought it, but there appear to be limits to management's patience as this software constantly misses deadlines for completion and is hated by the other properties that have been forced to use it.

Last week, while on vacation, I checked my work email and found I had gotten an email from a programmer at the Compnay's software division, cc'ed to his boss, asking me to describe how DocuPub works, it's workflow and could I describe the process and better yet, send along screen shots of the process. I am not a programmer, but do understand most of the concepts of how DocuPub works and have helped set it up for our branch.

It's obvious to me that the shitty software division is attempting to learn how to write a competitor to DocuPub by "borrowing" from DocuPub. This bothers me and sounds illegal. Is it? If not, how do I handle this request, as I do not wish to help the shitty software division steal ideas and concepts from a reputable business? What's the correct, corporate way of saying no, while not appearing to say no and appearing to help? Everyone at the corporate office knows I'm the most knowledgeable with DocuPub. I am prepared, if pushed, to flat out say no and point out that the shitty software division writes shitty software and they should be able to think of these things themselves.

How can I get money to finance my move?

notjustfoxybrown — Mon, 29 Oct 2007 18:09:33 -0800

Are there any companies that still pay to relocate employees? I'm trying to make like a sheep and get the flock out of Phoenix. I have some savings but I'd rather not use all of it for my move. Every move I've ever made across state lines, with the exception of my most recent one, was financed by a company. It seems to me that these days, no one is interested in offering that. Many of the listings that I see (I'm looking in major cities only) specifically say "no relo." Why have these MFs become so cheap!

My head's about to explode...

Zé Pequeno — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 17:20:43 -0800

Can someone please point me in the right direction to find practice test papers for Financial Accounting? (Balance Sheets, Income Statements, Statements of Returns on Equity, Cash Flow Statements, Depreciation, Ratios, etc. etc.) Assorted business schools worries inside. Coming from a liberal arts academic background, I'm starting to really feel the pressure from my recently-started international business masters and get the impression I need to study ten times as hard as my classmates, most of whom have studied the subject at undergraduate level. At the moment, I'm fretting over Financial Accounting. Please help me to understand this subject!

Extra points for whoever can help me with Corporate Finance...

I was never strong at mathematics in school. Though I'm pretty good at mental arithmetic, I found the subject boring and didn't pay attention in class. Now I'm faced with the daunting task of getting to grips with Corporate Finance and have some decent books to help me, all of which cheerfully claim that the author needs no prior knowledge of Finance, just a knowledge of algebra! At the risk of appearing extremely dumb... I can't remember any algebra! What do I need to learn in order to understand the nimiety of equations by which I'm beginning to feel very overwhelmed?

The Perfect PA

xanthippe — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 05:00:26 -0800

I'm going to be an executive personal assistant - for a very high executive. What surprises await me, and how can I perform perfectly? I've never worked in a remotely corporate environment before, and this is without a doubt the best job opportunity I'll ever get given my lack of such experience and my desire to embark on a challenging career. It's a great opportunity for me to learn and to open the door to bigger and better things.

I'd like to astonish everyone with my motivation, talent, and capability but I'm worried that I'll make stupid mistakes due to my general ignorance of the environment I'll be working in and the tasks I'll be given - I've never even worked in an office before. My question is thus a someone vague one: please tell me anything and everything that will help me excel and make the most of this opportunity. What challenges will I be faced with? How can I get oriented as quickly as possible so I can be on top of everything all the time? How should I talk, act, and dress? I trust myself to adapt quickly, but please help me by telling me all the things that should be obvious but I've never been exposed to.

Website for the masses!

sirliberal — Tue, 14 Aug 2007 08:05:32 -0800

Non-Profit Website: How to allow non-techies to edit! Problem: I work for a small (150 ppl) non-profit as a netadmin and we want a webpage (zomg 2007 right?). My specific issue is I want a platform that will allow:

Adding content/deleting content/adding PDF's/adding images

Without requiring input from me. The bureaucracy of our organization means that this will make life MUCH easier for me. As a result I prototyped the site in Plone, which worked out great except Plone is a flaming turd of a product.

I really like Plone's in-template editing, drag and drop content ordering, staging (ie, bits can exist on the site ONLY when logged in). I need something that will run on Dreamhost (which is pretty much anything PHP/Perl/etc).

I have looked at: (ask://cms)

WordPress
Expression Engine (I'd love to have their main site tempate)
TextPattern (Perfect Implementation)
SilverStripe

This seems like a rather trivial adventure, except all of these products seem geared directly towards running a blog, with side static pages, as where Plone was a content manager with a blog addon.

Is CMS a synonym for Blogging these days? My users are fairly inept, and I do major styling (ie, they can handle textarea with buttons for formatting). I would love something where they can easily add sections. Let's use the Library site linked above as 'implentation' which uses features that aren't available to the public.

* Major sections, subsections shown on the right in content area
* Each major section has a 'landing page' that is styled differnetly
* User's can concievably add a new content area and it is automatically added to the navigation system.

One specific gripe with MT is that it seems to be all static pages, and I see a benefit to having dynamically built pages so I can add in php code later to do things on the fly (database lookups in page?).

I don't need any blogging functionality at all, which is the biggest stumbling block here. Everything I look at is primarily driven off this 'articles' idea, whereas I simply want 'pages'. I want to have a way to specify the display order in the navigation. All things Plone did, but I cant find something more lightweight (preferably in PHP) that can do the same.

I am on the edge of just writing my own custom app in PHP/Smarty, but it seems silly to do that when SOMETHING must automate this all for me. There are great examples of sites running off these platforms.

Corporate Voicemail on the Cheap.

mikespez — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 10:34:43 -0800

What's the cheapest/easiest/best way to implement a corporate voicemail system for a small organization? I'm part of a college student-run philanthropy, and currently, our office phone line has a regular password-protected voicemail system connected to it. This proves insufficient, because there are more then 20 people who receive voice messages on that line.

What's the best, low-cost way to implement a voicemail system where each person has their own mailbox (i.e., someone calls, can "press 1 for marketing, press 2 for press" or can simply just enter an extension to be directly connected to someone's voicemail-box).

I'd prefer a hardware solution, rather than a software package or online service —but I'll consider all options. Cost is sort of an issue, being as we are a nonprofit, but used E-bay equipment may be a solution.

Thanks!

If Capitalism is a circus, I want front row seats.

nomisxid — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 18:02:53 -0800

I live in Seattle, and want to invest a small amount, simply based on best stockholder's meetings. I can invest in 6 companies a month, more are possible, but the fee structure changes. I'd like to just rotate through different companies each month, till I've built up a portfolio of free lunches and entertainment. There's an online service that lets you invest a set dollar amount each month, for a set fee, spreading the investments across up to 6 different stocks each month. I have regular retirement investments elsewhere, the goal here is to have a wide portfolio of local companies, with fun, or at least intriguing, stockholders' meetings. Free food is nice, free product is cool too, but I'm also interested in companies most likely to have raucous meetings, where I can see the fur fly.

Corporate Do-Gooder!

thinkpiece — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 07:13:29 -0800

How can I help my fellow employees get the most out of their benefits program via efficient, lively, multi-platform communications? I'm in a terrific new Communications job in the very progressive HR department of a global business information company. My initial mandate is to improve Benefits communications which are currently complex, and myriad.

I have a wide-open opportunity to shape how a large employee population accesses healthcare and financial planning information -- and acts on it to get the most they can from their benefits program -- from a company that really wants to do the right thing.

I'm interested in any and all ideas, from program gripes or praise to content to delivery, that would keep your eyes from glazing over everytime you heard from HR about Benefits! Creativity, technology and simplicity (or at least, pitch-ability for budget allocation) will be extremely appreciated.

Hostile aquisitions and stock prices -- what happens?

stavrosthewonderchicken — Tue, 29 May 2007 19:34:51 -0800

What tends to happen to a large, international company's stock price post-hostile acquisition in the case of the acquired company? Before the fact, their stock price tends to rise, as the acquisition target pumps up its stock price to make the acquisition more difficult and expensive for the predator.

What about afterwards? Is it possible to generalize?