InDay: What do Mathletes and Athletes have in common?

What do Alex Trebek, Bob Barker, and Pat Sajak have in common? Besides being dashingly charming and sophisticated, this trio had the privilege of hosting world renowned television game shows.

Last Friday, during our monthly InDay [1], I played host to the inaugural academic decathlon at LinkedIn with folks competing to answer questions on everything from Math to Logical Reasoning. Teams of 6-9 people participated, comprised of colleges on the west coast -- USC, Stanford, and Berkeley -- to the east coast, with schools such as MIT, Harvard, and Duke. This was an all out academic brawl. The tension in the air was thick.

While everyone in the room huddled around their team’s table ready to hit the buzzer, I was standing up at the front stage, thinking about where I was just over a year ago.It was a scorching hot June day in Los Angeles when I was sitting at USC’s commencement, listening to Arnold Schwarzenegger share his knowledge with the graduating class. Between the movie references from Kindergarten Cop and Terminator, my mind wandered off into a daydream, dreading the meek prospects of entering the workforce.

When I moved back home to northern California, I immediately made a LinkedIn profile, and started to search through companies that I wanted to work for. I scoured through each company in the valley, looking for employees who went to USC. Once I found alumni who worked at LinkedIn, I reached out to them directly, and asked if they could help out a fellow recent grad. George Martines answered my message within a few hours, and offered to meet with me to talk about my career prospects. A few conversations, a rigorous interview process, and two weeks later, I started working with George and my sales career at LinkedIn has been a dream ride since.

During the final rounds of the academic decathlon, I realized how fortunate I was to be working for an organization like LinkedIn; an organization that not only cultivates a global mission to promote opportunity for everyone, but also, a mission to constantly invest and reinvest in their own employees. With events like this during our monthly inDay sessions, it gives employees the opportunity to take a breath, relax, and in this case, compete for their school’s pride. And for me, it was another excuse to wear as much USC gear and vie for the most spirited employee at LinkedIn.

Check out pictures from our last Inday here

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In addition to the spirited academic decathlon, in Mountain View, employees participated in a beer tasting with Devil’s Canyon Brewery who provided us with an array of six beers and our University Recruiting Team, led by Tey Scott, led colleagues from schools like UC Berkeley and Harvey Mudd to come up with best ways  to continue to recruit the best talent to LinkedIn.

Last but not least, IT (led by Mike Jennings and Amy Bowers, hosted a party of the year complete with Alice [in] Wonderland theme. We were even so lucky to be graced by the Queen of Hearts (Michelle Laffen) and the Mad Hatter (Michael Newton) rounding off another informational and fun filled inDay at LinkedIn. Pics here.
Across the globe, our team in Chicago pitched in to help Washington Park School prepare for the children returning to school.  The team in NYC asked a local graduate school adviser to come to the office and speak to them about furthering their education.  And our European team hosted the first [in]trepenuer Day, a day for all to collect their thoughts and pitch their ideas for new products, new ways to do business at LinkedIn and all things entrepreneurial. Watch for that blog post coming soon!