Hasta La Gadget!

It may be too early in the 2016 election cycle to expect polls to predict the next U.S. president with any accuracy, but it’s not too early to use them to raise money.

That’s what groups like EMILY’s List are counting on. On Wednesday, the political action committee, which works to get pro-choice female Democrats elected to office, sent an email out to supporters with the subject line, “Polls: Scott Walker Has Momentum.”

A graphic embedded in the email reads: “Potential GOP presidential hopeful Scott Walker proudly signed anti-choice legislation into law in Wisconsin. He is also gaining momentum in the polls” (emphasis theirs). A chart follows, which uses numbers obtained from HuffPost Pollster’s 2016 GOP primary poll chart, that shows Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s support rising 5 points against his Republican rivals nationwide since January.

The email pleads for donations to oppose Walker’s campaign: “Donate before tomorrow’s deadline to stop his momentum and keep his anti-woman policies out of the White House.”

Is Walker’s “momentum” in the polls even worthy of attention at the moment?

Political scientists often make the case that horse-race polls this early in the campaign don’t mean much and should be approached with skepticism. The Huffington Post’s data scientist Natalie Jackson points out that it will likely be at least a year before a real frontrunner will begin to emerge. In the meantime, the true frontrunner is “undecided.”

Walker has gained support since January, when he launched an exploratory committee for a presidential campaign. A look at the entire 2016 GOP primary, however, reveals a crowded field in which the candidates are only separated by single digits. Poll numbers for all the candidates will likely fluctuate throughout the year, and any “momentum” will ebb and flow.

But polling, at whatever stage of the campaign, has proved a very effective peg on which to hang fundraising efforts. The Wall Street Journal cited a study by Harvard and UC Berkeley that found people are more likely to open fundraising emails — and to donate money — when the emails say a candidate is in trouble and trailing narrowly in the polls.

In the 2014 election cycle, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee sent out a slew of doomsday emails to supporters in its effort to raise money. According to the National Journal, emails with headlines that threatened impending disaster — such as “DOOMED” and “STAGGERING setback” — worked well for the DCCC. According to the Washington Post, the DCCC outraised the National Republican Congressional Committee by $33 million. A good portion of that — $50 million of the entire pool of about $206 million — was raised in small online donations.

Slate’s John Dickerson explained the drawback of such emails:

Perhaps it’s effective, but there’s a larger point to be made about political fundraising emails: They are a bouillon cube of all that is awful about American politics — the grasping for money, the neediness, the phony plays on your emotion, the baiting, and reduction of anything complex into its most incendiary form.

As poll numbers continue to meander and as the competition to raise more and more money heats up in the next few months, expect more poll-panicked emails in your inbox.

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It’s the one question every job hunter wants answered:

How do I make myself stand out from all the other applicants?

How can I outsmart everyone else?

The answer lies in being able to present a profile of yourself as a candidate who ‘checks all of the boxes’ off your prospective employer’s candidate wish list. So, where do you find this wish list? It’s right in the job description. Your ability to expertly decode it — or solve the mystery — will allow you to put yourself at the top of that employer’s list. Let’s unpack how to access your inner Colombo.

TIP No. 1: Critically assess the job description.

Apply critical-thinking skills to uncover overarching themes about the skills the employer is seeking in a candidate. This step is a key part of your sleuthing activity. You want to breakdown the description along the key skill areas listed, and then figure out how you can exceed expectations along those areas. The best way to do that is to look at the background and experience of people who already hold the job, and draw parallels from your own experience and skills base to theirs. This can be done through creative use of LinkedIn. Hone in on the themes where you fall short and think creatively about the ways you have come closest to using those underutilized skills. Your job is not to disqualify yourself out of a position. Your job is to come up with all the ways that you’ve already come closest to the role you’re seeking — let someone else ding you; don’t do it for them!

TIP No. 2: Use online resources to investigate the position and company.

LinkedIn is a great resource from which to do a deep dive on employees of target companies. You’ll want to find the profile of someone doing the same job you’re applying to, in the same office to which you’re applying. LinkedIn even helps your search along with the “People Also Viewed” link. It pulls together other profiles which are closely-matched to the one you’re currently viewing. Click here to learn how to strategically “deep dive” into essential details using LinkedIn. Outside of LinkedIn, you should research for company YouTube videos to hear and see a company’s leaders speak. These dynamic materials will help you evaluate a company’s culture. You’ll hear jargon. You will get a better sense of how a firm’s employees behave and carry themselves. You will stand apart if you leverage these insights in the way you present yourself and your ideas.

TIP No. 3: Benchmark yourself against current employees.

The WBM will allow you to take the information you’ve gotten from the targeted LinkedIn profiles, pull out the key experiences and skill sets, and help you to find connections in your own background. It will also show you where there might be holes in your experience and your target company’s model candidate profile, and will give you the tools to figure out a way to creatively fill those holes. You want to know your competition and the competition of your target company; WBM will help you to access that knowledge.

Completing the WBM will leave you with a strong sense of what you bring to the table as a candidate. Some of the data you’ll emerge with includes:

• Incorporating the five key job requirements within your marketing materials.
• Crafting interview-ready stories that address each point.
• Peppering relevant examples from your matrix into your elevator pitch
• Use your unique value-added capabilities to your advantage. Name your core strengths. Put an emphasis on the skills that make you unusual yet relevant to the job.

TIP No. 4: Apply the intelligence you’ve gathered.

The last step involves pulling together all the information you’ve garnered from your sleuthing and applying it to become the top candidate. It’s both a preparatory and a performance step as it involves you (a) preparing a story for each skill set you want to demonstrate by using the S.T.A.R. Method to answer interview questions; and (b) successfully executing your message during the interview.

Preparation — Use the S.T.A.R. (Situation, Task, Action, and Results) method. It’s a template used to filter out the uninspired responses that some interviewees would otherwise offer up to prospective employers. Using S.T.A.R. stops you from falling into the generic answer trap. It forces you to share a specific example that illustrates your leadership qualities or problem-solving skills.

Execution — The interview is your opportunity to bring your resume to life and leave your interviewer with zero doubt you’re the one that they want. The best way to ensure that you’re making the best possible impression with your presentation is to coach yourself towards success. You want to find someone who can ask you any hard questions, and help you rehearse the ‘look and sound’ of you at your best. Additionally, you know those last five minutes during any interview when the interviewer asks you, “what questions do you have for me?” you have to use that opportunity to ask killer questions. Nine out of 10 interviewees fill that opportunity to stand out with mundane questions that do not further their candidacy. The ultimate way to beat the competition is by asking refined, thoughtful, substantive and smart questions. Your job is to close the deal, and posing thoughtful questions to your interviewer will propel you light years beyond competing candidates.

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Taco Bell will be giving away free biscuit tacos next Tuesday, May 5, according to an announcement the company made Wednesday on Periscope. Biscuit tacos, an item on the chain’s new breakfast menu, are biscuits molded into taco shapes, filled with eggs, cheese and your choice of sausage or bacon.

Because everyone knows that nothing tastes better that free biscuits, make sure you’re in line between 7 a.m. and 11 a.m. to claim your breakfast prize (limit one per person).

Even though this deal falls on Cinco de Mayo, Taco Bell says the company is celebrating its own holiday instead: National Breakfast Defector Day. Taco Bell’s new “defectors” ad campaign aims to “empower people to change their morning routine” and skip its so-called “breakfast wars” competitor, McDonald’s.

Regardless of how you feel about the supposed feud between Taco Bell and McDonald’s, become a “defector” for the morning of Cinco de Mayo and claim your free biscuit. Think of it as a pregame gnosh before the delicious Cinco de Mayo drinks that will come later in the day.

— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

It has been almost two years since publicly-held student loan debt reached the $1 trillion mark. According to The Institute for College Access & Success (TICAS), seven in 10 undergraduates had taken loans to fund their education, averaging over $28,0400 per student. Senator Elizabeth Warren has been outspoken on the matter, noting students are oftentimes burdened not only with the nominal value of debt, but also annual interest rates reaching 10 percent and beyond. However, others are seeing value in keeping the debt, paying only the minimum payments.

One of the hottest young actors in Hollywood today, Miles Teller, is just fine with keeping his debt. He and others like him are weighing the value of paying down these debts with gains that can be made from investments. Market rates are at all time lows and student loans can be refinanced to as low as 2%. Such competitive interest rates makes investing a favorable choice. With the Dow Industrial average up over 100% (and climbing) since the 2008 recession, some financially savvy debt holders are beating interest rates with investments in stocks. The so-called low interest rate rationale works as long as investors can find vehicles that return more than the modest rate on their loans.

Teller isn’t alone in his decision to forgo paying back his college loans. In a recent article on CNNMoney, recent grad Mohammad Majd was able to earn exactly as much as his student loan balance by investing in stocks. Even when he reached the level at which he could pay off his loans, he chose to keep investing. This ultimately put him ahead compared to if he had just paid off his loans all at once.

The low interest rate rationale is a strategy worth considering for those who are saddled with debt, earning an entry-level salary, and trying to determine how best to spend each dollar. A basic understanding of the time-value of money is helpful since it goes against standard student loan repayment practices. Still, investments can be risky and inflation should also be taken into account when making financial decisions. However, as long as investors are disciplined in where money is put to work and they ensure that each dollar that would have gone to their loans is put into an interest-bearing vehicle, they can remove some of the stress that comes with with student loans.

To learn how you can lower your interest rate and make the most of your student loans, visit Credible.

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A city’s children are hurting — and Baltimore Orioles outfielder Adam Jones believes this is the perfect moment for the city’s leadership to give them as much support as possible.

During a postgame media address on Wednesday, Jones said Baltimore’s youth don’t need to be antagonized — they need to be shown compassion for their outrage.

“I say to the youth, your frustration is warranted. It’s understandable — understood. The actions, I don’t think are acceptable,” he said. “But if you come from where they come from, you understand … This is their cry. Obviously, this isn’t a cry that is acceptable, but this is their cry and therefore, we have to understand it.”

Baltimore’s black residents already had a tense relationship with the police department, and Freddie Gray’s death appears to have been the last straw.

Charm City’s maladies — such as poverty and police violence — are grounded in decades of segregation and discrimination, as pointed out by Jamelle Bouie for Slate:

Baltimore has had a generation of politicians, white and black, who can renovate tourist areas and implement new police techniques, but who can’t provide relief and opportunity to its most impoverished residents — but it is important context. Even at their absolute best, the city’s leaders have to contend with the cumulative impact of past disadvantage.

Baltimore’s youth have “seen the pain in their parents eyes, the pain in their grandparents eyes over decades,” Jones said. “This is their way of speaking on behalf of their parents and on behalf of their grandparents.”

Danielle Williams, a local resident involved in the protests and who caught her own wave of Internet fame by torching an MSNBC anchor for the media’s failure to focus on Baltimore before the violence, made a similar point to The Huffington Post.

“What’s sad is that our children have seen us fighting for so many years now that they have participated in the fight because they realize at this point that we’re still not winning,” she said.

“When they see their parents, their peers, their family members being targeted by police officers day in and day out, they’re gonna react,” she added.

Perhaps that is why Baltimore Orioles manager Buck Showalter, who addressed the media in a separate press conference on Wednesday night, voiced his disapproval of people commenting on issues they can’t understand.

“I’ve never been black, OK?” he said. “So I don’t know, I can’t put myself there. I’ve never faced the challenges that they face. So I understand the emotion, but I can’t … It’s a pet-peeve of mine when somebody says, ‘Why don’t they do this? Why doesn’t somebody do that?’ You have never been black, OK? So just slow down a little bit.”

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