Five Pretty Cool Things You Can Do With Your Tallo Profile

March 25, 2019

We’ve been in this business for awhile, so we’ve learned a thing or two about what students need. Sometimes there are simple things that can fly under the radar. As we’ve grown and evolved, so too have our app and digital platform. Each day, we are working to make the Tallo experience as useful as it can be.

Here are just a few of the things that make Tallo…well, Tallo!

Geographic Preferences

It’s a big world out there. Perhaps you’re ready to jet off and start your own adventure somewhere new. Or maybe you want to stay close to home. Either way, you can set your geographic preferences so colleges and organizations know whether you’d be interested in packing your bags or staying put.

Digital Badges

Let’s be real. Even if it’s just logging 5,000 steps on their Fitbit, everyone loves showing off their accomplishments! Showcase your unique credentials and qualifications with our digital badges. Achievement unlocked.

Profile Exporting

You’ve worked hard filling out your profile, so share it everywhere you can. However, it may not be the best idea to pull up Tallo on your phone when an interviewer asks for your resume. But you know what is a great idea? Export your profile into PDF format, print it out (or email it) and be prepared for those face-to-face situations!

Next Steps

The future can be uncertain, and that can make life’s big transitions a little nerve-wracking. That’s what our Next Step feature is all about. Whether you’re headed to a four-year college, two-year college, the military, or the workforce, selecting your next step icon will help schools, businesses, and organizations find you! And you can always change your mind later, so take a few deep breaths and relax.

Videos

Resumes are important, but can a piece of paper really tell the whole story about YOU? We didn’t think so. Our video feature gives you the ability to truly stand out amongst the crowd. Can you dance? Sing? Play the guitar? Handle a miter saw like a pro? Flip that camera into landscape mode and start recording!

Welcome to Tallo!

February 1, 2019

You’ve probably noticed by now. Things look a little…different.

Okay, so maybe things look a lot different. Where did STEM Premier go?

No worries, we haven’t gone anywhere. We’ve just changed our name to Tallo! As we’ve grown to help hundreds of thousands of young people showcase their talents, we’ve realized that those talents extend far beyond the STEM fields. So we thought a change was in order. We’re here for everybody, no matter what their passions are.

Tallo represents who we are and where we’re going. The world needs all sorts of people, whether they excel in the lab, on the stage, or under the engine compartment. Everyone is welcome on Tallo!

Why the name “Tallo”? Think “talent” + “locator.” We like to keep things simple and on point. And as a little nod to our history, “tallo” just happens to be the Spanish word for “stem.”

Our name might be different, but our mission is the same: to give young people a way to showcase themselves to the educational and professional organizations who are looking for them. Finding the right path can be overwhelming. We’re here to make it easier.

Already have an account with us? Fantastic. Your login information is the same, and your profile is just how you left it. So you can pick up right where you left off.

New around here? Pleased to make your acquaintance. Jump right in and start showing yourself off to the world! Whether you’re a student, a school, or an organization, start creating your Tallo profile by clicking HERE.

Then go ahead and strap in, suit up, hunker down, or whatever it is that gets you in the zone. Maybe it’s listening to some dubstep or country or rap. Maybe it’s interpretive dance. We don’t judge.

In other words, you just do you. Tallo will help you figure out the rest.

The Greatest First-Generation: A Closer Look at Tallo’s First-Gen Students

December 19, 2018

Two months ago, we introduced you to Tallo’s First-Generation student population; students whose parents do not possess a college degree. When we first began delving into the data on our first-gen students, we were floored by what we found. It turns out that they are some of the most highly-engaged users on our platform; they display higher levels of profile completion and digital badge ownership. That fact has inspired us to strengthen our commitment to these oft-forgotten students. We hope that excites and inspires you as well.

But who exactly are these students? Well, there’s nearly 30,000 of them on Tallo, which means they comprise about 10% of our total student user population. They hail from across the U.S., from coast to coast. They span a diverse range of ethnic, geographic, and socioeconomic backgrounds. They are a big part of America’s future workforce, and they’re ready to make their impact in a multitude of career fields.

Do they have what it takes? Absolutely. 2,000 of them are National Honor Society members. Thousands more are engaged with HOSA – Future Health Professionals, Project Lead The Way, and other organizations.

Here’s a few more stats on our first-gen population:

Top States

South Carolina
California
Texas
Florida
Georgia

Top Career Interests

Registered Nurses
Surgeons
Mechanical Engineers
Pediatricians
Biological Scientists
Nursing, Psychiatric, and Home Health Aides
Computer Programmers
Aerospace Engineers
Biomedical Engineers
Electrical Engineers

Top College Interests

Clemson University
University of South Carolina
Stanford University
Coastal Carolina University
UCLA

Highest Organizational Engagement

National Honor Society
HOSA – Future Health Professionals
Project Lead The Way
Future Business Leaders of America
National Technical Honor Society

Does your college, company, or organization want to learn more about and connect with this special group of upcoming talent? Join us today.

Tallo Top 100 Spotlight: Richard Coca

October 23, 2018

We were proud to recently unveil the 2018 Tallo Top 100 students.

Hailing from all across the nation, the students of the Top 100 represent a wide variety of talent, skills, and backgrounds. We wanted to get to know these students better and showcase the personalities behind the Tallo platform!

Our previous spotlight was Neha Chava from Northville, Michigan. Next up in the limelight is Richard Coca from California!

Richard currently attends Reseda Senior High in San Fernando Valley while also dual-enrolled at Los Angeles Mission College. The AP Scholar is highly involved with HOSA where his team was named as one of the state’s Top 10 for biomedical debate. But certainly his most “thrilling” accomplishment was winning first place in the Magic Mountain Roller Coaster Proposal Competition in which competitors design a roller coaster from scratch!

Read more about Richard below in his own words.

Richard Coca

San Fernando Valley, CA

Reseda Senior High School

Something you wouldn’t know about me is…Something you wouldn’t know about me is that I’m very Twitter savy. Follow me on Twitter @richcocacola

For fun, I like to…get out of the house, especially to travel and visit new places.

If I could meet anyone in the world, past or present, I would want to meet…Dr. Marc Tessier-Lavigne. He seems like a down-to-earth guy and his previous research interests me.

The best teacher I’ve ever had was…Dr. Wendy Wooten. She was the one who gave me so opportunities in science and allowed me to get my foot in the door to research.

The last app I downloaded on my phone was…Attendify. I had to download it for CAL HOSA’s State Leadership Conference. HOSA is a great club for future health professionals because of the networking opportunities, workshops, and events.

After high school, my next step is…to go to Stanford University. I’m nervous but even more excited. #FearTheTree #GoCardinals

In ten years, I see myself...doing some type of scientific research. As to what kind, I’m not sure but I do know that I want it to have real world applications.

My greatest dream is…being part of the generation that solves cancer, or even Alzheimer’s, or any other disease. The future is limitless and I am really excited that I’ll get to be a part of a change that hopefully benefits the world.

My favorite thing about Tallo is…its easy to use platform and how simple it is to highlight all of your accomplishments.

We hope for the best for you Richard! We’re proud to have you be a Tallo user and part of the 2018 Tallo Top 100!

“War for Talent” Spurs Businesses to Extend Talent Pipelines into High Schools

August 6, 2018

Seven years ago, IBM realized that their talent pipeline strategy needed an overhaul. Like a poorly managed pension fund, the output it was generating would eventually be outstripped by an ever-increasing need for specific skills and knowledge; their system was no longer a long-term solution. It needed a fix before it all came crashing down.

“There’s a war for talent across all our competitors,” said IBM Foundation President Jennifer Ryan Crozier, “We know we’re going to need a lot of different pathways to bring talent in.”

So in 2011, IBM became the first “P-Tech” business, partnering with a Brooklyn high school and the City University of New York. The intended outcome? To produce qualified candidates for the types of jobs which IBM knows will face critical talent shortages in the future.

P-Tech is a six-year academic and vocational tech program which allows students in grades 9 through 14 to simultaneously earn a high school diploma and an industry-recognized associate degree while also gaining relevant work experience in emerging fields.

Since 2011, more than 400 additional organizations such as Motorola, Verizon, and Dow Chemical have joined IBM in this exponentially-expanding experiment with over 80 high schools across the country. The companies offer input on the curriculum, bring students on site, pair them with employee mentors, and offer paid internships.

These organizations know they are on the cutting edge of talent pipeline management. The investments they are making today have placed them on the inside track, and are putting them in prime position to attract the skilled workers which these programs aim to produce in the years to come. In most cases, it’s the first professional contact these students ever experience.

“This is about preparing the next generation of the workforce,” Crozier says. “It’s not a short-term fix for roles we have open today,” she said.

Of course, not every organization has the vast resources of Verizon, Dow, or Big Blue to develop such robust recruiting programs.

That is where Tallo levels the playing ground.

By utilizing the Tallo platform, companies and organizations can tap into a digital environment of hundreds of thousands of high school students across the country. You can connect and build relationships with these students – the same way that IBM does – without investing millions of dollars to do it.

Connecting America’s Rural Students with Higher Education

February 19, 2018

As debate intensifies over the future of higher education in the U.S., much of the focus has centered around the issue of racial and ethnic diversity. However, there is substantial constituency of America’s K-12 students who are going largely ignored: students from the country’s rural areas.

A recent NPR piece – based on findings from The Hechinger Report – highlights this glaring issue. It is highlighted by an alarming statistic. Despite the fact that rural students graduate from high school at a greater rate than the national average, they attend college at lower rates than their urban and suburban peers.

There have been many causes attributed to this phenomenon. Mining, farming, and manufacturing jobs which used to be a hallmark of rural economies have either moved away, become automated, or shut down entirely. The result is that there are simply less opportunities in the communities these students grow up in. Paradoxically, instead of seeking out opportunities in larger cities, most rural students find themselves as products of their environment and lose hope that opportunity awaits them. Like all good sons and daughters, they also want to stay close to home.

Acknowledging this issue “is critical to our future, not just for employment but for civil discourse and kids feeling like they can contribute and achieve and not feeling lost and ignored,” says Jeff Hawkins, executive director of the Kentucky Valley Educational Cooperative, a nonprofit group which encourages students in Kentucky’s coal-mining southeast corner to go to college.

Tallo understands this challenge, and is one of our foremost priorities towards achieving educational equality in the U.S. for all students.

Tallo provides that crucial “missing link” for colleges to recruit in rural areas. Oftentimes, college recruiters are pressured to maximize their scarce time and resources. As as result, they typically visit more highly-populated areas where they can interact with the highest number of students. Rural students become “landlocked” and isolated from these opportunities. Some of America’s brightest students are going unnoticed.

Using our platform, colleges and universities can eliminate geographic boundaries and engage these rural students in an online ecosystem. Not only does this save educational institutions time and money, but it meets these young digital natives where they are: on their mobile devices which have become ubiquitous regardless of where they reside.