Tech:NYC Digest: January 24

Tech:NYC Digest: January 24

January 24, 2022 • Estimated Reading Time: 9 minutes

Monday, January 24, 2022

Happy Monday, and a big welcome to Jason Myles Clark, who’s wrapping up his first day as Tech:NYC’s new executive director! In today’s digest, new(er) state quarantine and isolation guidelines recommended, Gov. Hochul signs absentee voting bill, and résumé tips for the future of work.

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By the numbers: 

  • New positive cases statewide: 12,259

    • New positive cases, NYC: 5,032

  • NYC Positivity Rate: 8.0 percent (-0.6 percent)

  • NYC Hospitalizations: 4,651 (-60)

  • Statewide Vaccine Progress: 

    • Percentage of all New Yorkers with least one dose: 87.0 percent

    • Percentage of all New Yorkers who are fully vaccinated: 73.6 percent

Today’s latest: 

  • Total new COVID-19 hospitalizations in New York dropped below 10,000 on Sunday for the first time in three weeks, as numbers continued to improve quickly in almost every region of the state. (NBC New York)

  • The state Dept. of Health (again) released updated guidelines on quarantine and isolation. You can see those here.

    • And here’s a helpful chart on measures you should take based on your exposure, symptoms, and vaccination status.

  • Gov. Hochul signed legislation to allow voting by absentee ballot due to the COVID-19 pandemic through 2022, continuing a law first put in place in July 2020. (State of Politics)

  • Two closely watched surveys of current business conditions from the New York Fed — the Empire State Manufacturing Index and the Business Leaders Survey — showed that while the Omicron wave hurt business conditions in the beginning of the year, it hasn’t had the same negative impact on business leaders’ longer-term optimism. (Axios)

In other reading:

  • An Interactive Guide to Charting an Omicron Infection (New York Times)

  • The shifting definition of ‘fully vaccinated’ (Axios)

  • COVID’s Turbo-Mutation Is Killing This Vax Dream, So What’s Next? (Daily Beast)

  • Here’s the MTA’s Guide to Stuffing Your Dog into a Backpack Properly (Curbed)

Despite almost everything about jobs being turned upside down because of the pandemic, one element has remained remarkably unchanged: the tried-and-true résumé. (New York Times)

The traditional, single-page résumé remains the primary tool for evaluating new candidates:

  • In Monster’s recent 2022 “Future of Work” report, recruiters in the US ranked résumé search — the ability to look through uploaded résumés on sites such as Monster or Indeed — as the most effective tool for finding candidates.

  • For employers, a résumé was second only to an in-person interview in determining whether a candidate was a good fit.

But while the basics are the same, the reviewers might not be:

  • Automated databases and applicant tracking systems are increasingly used to do a first round of evaluations, so be sure your résumé uses strong keywords and is easily read by both humans and technology.

  • Work-from-anywhere norms may also mean candidates and the recruiting firms or talent teams tasked with reviewing them are doing so from different locations.

“The traditional résumé is in the process of being disrupted, but I don’t think it’s necessarily clear yet what the outcome will be,” said Kathryn Minshew, founder and CEO of career advice website The Muse. “This is a classic situation of, most people want something different, but no new method has come along to take over.”

  • However, a growing number of recruiters primarily consider a candidate’s LinkedIn profile instead, so it's good to keep both up-to-date.

That new method may not be much farther off, however: with the rise of virtual interviews, video and social media résumés may be what’s next in HR.

In other reading: 

  • How to conduct a ‘stay interview,’ and why you should (Fast Company)

  • Landing a remote job is getting more competitive — here’s how to stand out (CNBC)

  • How 'Dan from HR' became TikTok’s favorite career coach (Protocol)

  • Caden, a New York City-based zero-party data platform, raised $3.4 million in pre-seed funding. Investors included Yahoo! Co-founder Jerry Yang, former Citigroup CTO Don Callahan, Starwood Capital, and other angel investors. (TechCrunch)

  • Casana, a New York-based maker of health-monitoring toilets, raised $30 million in Series B funding. Morningside led the round and was joined by Matrix Partners, General Catalyst, and Outsiders Fund. (Axios)

  • Impala, a New York City-based startup building digital infrastructure to maximize nonprofits' impact, raised $1.05 million in pre-seed funding. Zack Rinat (Founder and former Chairman/CEO of Model N) led the round and was joined by Oren Ze'ev, VC Koa Labs, Amnon Landan and Adam Berman. (Calcalis Tech)

  • January 25: Virtual: Data Driven NYC: Crypto Incentives, with Numerai founder and CEO Richard Craib and Neo4j founder and CEO Emil Eifrem. Hosted by FirstMark. Register here.

  • January 25: Virtual: The Future of Community, with Flybridge Capital and Community Fund VC general partner Jesse Middleton. Register here.

  • January 26: Virtual: Tech Regulation is Coming. How Does Big Tech Respond?, with Microsoft chief privacy officer Julie Brill, TechNet president and CEO Linda Moore, Consumer Reports director of privacy and technology policy Justin Brookman, and others. Hosted by Protocol. Register here. 

  • January 27: Virtual: NYC Civic Tech Hack Night, with Intro.nyc creator Jehiah Czebotar, testingsites.nyc and testlinglines.nyc creators Ellie Frymire and Chris Barna, WeGovNYC organizer Devin Balkind, and blockparty.studio creator Sarah Sachs. Hosted by BetaNYC. Register here.

  • February 1: Virtual: Hospitality in the Digital Age, with Olo founder and CEO Noah Glass. Hosted by Savills. Register here.

  • February 2: Virtual: Reality+ from the Matrix to the Metaverse, with author and NYU Center for Mind, Brain, and Consciousness director David Chalmers. Hosted by NYC Media Lab. Register here.

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