Sallyportal: Madly Blogging Reed

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"Career Services"


Reed Switchboard Selected from 400 Applicants for $20K Slice of PIE

Reed Switchboard, the networking site created to share Reed love, has been given a boost by Wieden & Kennedy as part of the ad firm’s Portland Incubator Experiment (PIE). Switchboard is the networking brainchild of Mara Zepeda ’02 and Sean Lerner ’10.  They created the website so current Reedies and alumni could share their work experiences, offer assistance, post jobs, and give community members a leg up in a post-recession and increasingly competitive job market.

PIE had an ultra-competitive selection process, with only seven tech start-ups picked out of over 400 applicants. Switchboard, a Reedie endeavor, manned by Reedies, and beta tested on Reedies, was one of the lucky seven. Each startup receives $20,000 in seed money, office space at Wieden & Kennedy, and three months of hands on mentorship from past PIE winners and other successful technological ventures.

Mara and Sean are hoping to use the money and expertise they gain through PIE to open up Switchboard to other college communities, offering the same basic format that connects Reedies with Reedies, but instead connecting Clarkies with Clarkies, and so on.

Welcome to the Working Week(end)

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The campus pulsed with energy Feb 3-5 as scores of alumni traveled across the country to participate in Reed's first ever Working Weekend, a giant career-focused event that featured speakers, panels, and synergy designed to help students and newer alumni get a jump-start on internships, contacts, and careers.

Alumni organized, led, and participated in a day of panels in ten different subject areas on Saturday. One panel was Non-Profits: Changing Lives, where alumni doled out expert guidance and advice on working in the non-profit sector. The panel was lead by Jan Liss '74, Emily Corso '10, Sarah Costello '95, Nell Edgington '95, Craig Mosbaek '83, and Jeremy Stone '99. Together the panel debated and discussed a range of issues, such as the merit of having a law or an MBA degree in the non-profit sector, and how to make yourself the most viable candidate for a coveted job or internship.