Top Five Things to Keep Your Kids Busy on Long Trips

OK, so we have a couple of long trips coming up (driving to Yosemite and flying to Florida) and the number of things we're bringing to "keep the kids occupied while we travel" is bordering on excessive and somewhat silly. So what do you do when you have a bunch of things that you like a lot after trying lots of other things out? A Top Five list, of course! Without further ado, the top five things to keep your kids busy on long trips:

5. Pillow (requires early morning or late night departure)
Alright, a bit of a cheat, this one!  But this can lead to many hours of kids busy dreaming and snoring, and is a sure-fire way of making sure they're not in the back trying to rip each others' heads off.

 

4. Kids magazines
My boys love their reading material, and nothing is more tantalizing than the latest Sports Illustrated Kids or National Geographic Kids. Too bad magazines are going the way of the dinosaur, which they could read about in Paleontology Monthly Kids...

3. Different snack than usual
It's amazing how much a small change can matter. My kids love Goldfish crackers. I mean really, what kid doesn't? But after a while they get old. Now pack the kids into the car, and bust out the Goldfish Grahams (fish-shaped graham crackers) and pow! Suddenly, it's the most novel thing in the world. Serisously, it's like shooting Goldfish in a barrel...

 

2. New book series
I have a nine-year-old who can't get enough to read. But he's gone through all the Wimpy Kid series, the Captain Underpants series, etc. But get a few copies of anything by Rick Riordan or even go retro with Goosebumps, and suddenly you have a kid who begs for the drive to last longer just so he can finish this one chapter! (Note: this doesn't work so well with your three-year-olds.)

 

1. Nintendo DS / iPad / iPod Touch / iPhone / Android
How did kids survive any kind of drive, long or short, without a Nintendo DS to bury their nose into? Well, I did, and you did, but kids are soft these days. I'm sure there's an app to improve that...

 

5 Surefire Ways to Turn Off Candidates Applying For a Job

I spent 7 years at Google during a massive hiring boom where I did close to 400 interviews (phone and in-person), and I'm not even a recruiter! Along the way, I picked up a few tips here and there that I try and apply when interviewing candidates for StumbleUpon. So for those of you who are trying to interview, or for those who want to commiserate with bad experiences of your own, I present the five surefire ways to turn off candidates applying for a job:

1. Make sure your job listing including roman numerals and job ID #'s to show just how much of a cog the person will be.

Nothing turns off an enthusiastic and enterprising candidate than seeing their position boiled down to something that fit neatly into a bureaucrat's forms. For example: Senior Web Developer IV Job #322032-B(2)

2. List one job, but interview the person for a completely different job.

Nothing is more disheartening to an excited candidate who comes in to apply for a position, and have the interviewer go through their questions about a different role entirely. To a candidate applying for a Product Manager position, for example, nothing will kill their enthusiasm more than asking them why they are interested in being a project manager, how long they've wanted to be a project manager, etc.

3. Regardless of whether the person is a fit or not, wait weeks to respond, or worse yet, never respond.

Every day you wait in giving back a response to a candidate is a day that they stew and wonder and start to have negative thoughts about the company, which inevitably they share to their friends and colleagues. And what company trying hard to recruit the best and brightest wants that?

4. Act like you are doing them a favor by interviewing them.

A job application is about finding a mutual fit between person and company, not just about the company finding the right person to fill the role. Falling into this trap can cause the interviewer to start to take a superior role in the interaction, leading to a poorer experience for the applicant, but also for the interviewer who won't get honest and frank answers from the applicant.

5. Low-balling offers or trying to squeeze everything out of a salary or package negotiation.

For the company, the last few dollars left on the table will mean very little. To the candidate, relatively speaking, they mean a great deal. Don't try to squeeze every last dime out of a salary or package negotiation. It turns the candidate off, and leaves them wondering what else they will have to fight tooth and nail for.

Interviewing candidates can be a tricky affair, but lots of obvious pitfalls can be avoided simply by applying some common sense and long-term thinking to your interview process!