Last weekend, my family and I were in The Dalles, Oregon ("home of the world famous cherry festival") for a religious, "welcome to the world" ceremony for our daughter Maya, and our nephews Ribis and Jovan. The event drew a church leader from as far as Mexico City and family/friends from as far as Minnesota and Southern California. We expected a small ceremony, but there was a choir and at least 3-guitars going the entire time. It was lively. The prayers were in Spanish. The songs were in Spanish. And, when Edith and I thanked everyone for coming, we did it in Spanish.   While I'm not advocating any religious denomination, I will say that attending Spanish mass or service (your preference) further reinvigorated my Spanish language. Moreover, these religious ceremonies are an excellent opportunity to engage with others and create a dialogue. It's an opportunity to empower those who are less fortunate. Growing up my role models were in the Burlington Catholic church. It seemed they … [Read more...]

I couldn't sleep. Woke up at 3:30 am to write this. Spoke to several candidates yesterday, and all week about their job prospects, one in particular was so passionate about the work, but he felt he lacked the technical expertise. Truth be told: the organization will teach you the ropes (the specifics), but bring your strong work ethic, values and passion for going above and beyond. Here's some thoughts. The Big If If you have extensive experience in the subject matter such as working with college students, ie recruitment, retention and advising, then apply for the position. This includes extracurricular activities, etc. This goes for everything else, ie healthcare policy, education management, sales & marketing etc. Majority skill sets are trainable. Some need you to hit the ground running, and others will train you up to get there. The interviewing committee and the boss will ultimately decide if they want you or not. Don't preempt that decision.  The One Page Cover … [Read more...]

In the Beginning When I was going through Mount Vernon High School and looking for a job, my family and friends argued "well, David, it's who you know that will get you hooked up in a job." When I worked at Sakuma Farms in Burlington, Washington, it was my mom that got me in the door. When the managers found out that I spoke fluent English, and had a knack for technology the shift supervisor put me outside on the truck scale where the vehicles are weighed in and tagged for in-processing. The place in general was the funnest job. We walked in pretty clean, and walked out at the end of the day as if we had just gone through a strawberry food fight (Disclaimer: we didn't have food fights). Working outside on the truck scale was a joy. I met a ton of farmers, like Mike & Jean's Berry Farm, who brought their strawberries in for in-processing. It was a phenomenal, communal (we shared food during lunch), and down-to-earth job. Every day the taquera would come by. At the time, I … [Read more...]

The fact is knowing a second language (in this case Spanish) will greatly improve your job application, and a lot of other things. Let's look at the facts: Spanish is spoken by over 500+ million people on the planet; it is the most spoken language on this continent and in the U.S., the largest and fastest-growing language, next to English; following suit from Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and a few other social networking tools, Mashable social media guide introduced a Spanish version to welcome this powerful group of users. Probably, the next most spoken is Spanglish: a hybrid mix of both Spanish and English used interchangeably and at the same time (we'll discuss at a later time). Having said all this, I want to talk about leveraging your language expertise. Granted you don't need to know Spanish to work on code, construction, kitchen, or even installing cable lines, but you may need to know some Spanish if your workers are or if you are traveling to Argentina to help a client with … [Read more...]

Joining a board, whether elected, appointed or self-appointed can be a phenomenal experience and opportunity to share your knowledge. After all what good is to to have that wisdom and foresight if you don't ever apply it, especially when it can be applied to an organization that could really benefit from it. So let's discuss the various methods of joining a board: 1. elected: in this arena you will be elected by other individuals (i.e. school board); 2. appointed: in this field someone, be it a politician or the board itself, will appoint you to the board; and, 3. self-appointed: here you take the initiative and fill out the requirements to be considered. This method by the way takes initiative, courage and speaks highly of yourself. In addition there are both official boards and advisory boards.  You're probably asking yourself, what can I contribute? The answer is quite simple: your insight and passion. How are boards set up? There are public, private or non-profit boards … [Read more...]

In an effort to enhance your visit, the experience and make it more user friendly (I heard the voices), welcome to the next phase in BilingualHire. While I'm working my tail off with Lindsay Bell and Allison Schmid of Darkwater Studios, LLC to get the site where it needs to be, we hope it will better serve your needs. We were down temporarily and to be frank, it's the graphic designers that pull all the weight, and while I can't take the credit for the look and feel (that goes to Edith), I'm certain you'll be pleased with the new layout, etc. So what's new you ask? Glad we're on the same sheet. First and foremost, who we are and the work we've done front and center; our capabilities and expertise, history, job, blog, etc will be links in the header or thereabouts. Additionally, the site is now equipped with Disqus, a powerful comment system that will easily enhance discussions on this website (in addition to email, we read those too), so let's begin a conversation. I'm excited about … [Read more...]