I have a friend who is a very good lawyer for a very good law firm. One of the well circulated thoughts on Law School is that if you don't go to a top tier university (think top 20 or 15) you won't be able to score a gig with a big bling firm.  That may be even more true given our current economic and job market situation (for more on grad schools and recession, read Penelope Trunk's thoughts). But my friend, he didn't go to a top tier law school. His school was barely in the top 50.

So how did my buddy beat the odds and pull off this prime gig? Well, the short answer is, he busted his ass. But that's a bit simplistic. The truth is there were a lot of factors, not the least of which is that he is fluent in Spanish. Many companies look for special skills to set applicants apart from the pack, and in many cases fluency in a second language can do just that.

I found an excellent post at Techcrunch today on Learn10, a web start up that teaches you a foreign language 10 words at a time.  I instantly thought this was a very cool idea.

Learn10 allows you to quickly pick up the basic vocabulary of a language by teaching you 10 words a day, wherever you are. English speakers and learners can choose to learn frequently used vocabulary of a language for free using Learn10’s content (coming from one of 22 language pairs) or opt to input their own content (subscription-based). It comes with a widget you can share on any website or blog, as well as a variety of social networks like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.

I would view this as more supplemental to your study of a foreign language than as a way to become fluent or a specialist in any language. However, it certainly doesn't hurt to learn what little bit you can ... or to use as a jumping off point to studying the language more in-depth (or, you know, to learn how to order some cervezas on Spring Break).

I'm heading to China for a few weeks this summer and have already registered an account to learn some words. Learn10 sent me an email with my 10 words and I am well on my way. The website navigation could use a little work, but the concept is certainly intriguing and, as a way to set yourself apart, certainly worth a look around.

And now, something that is always worth a look around, The Links ...

Jobacle Reviews: The Adversity Paradox, a new book subtitled: The phenomenon of building outstanding success upon the lessons learned in overcoming serious difficulty or misfortune. Jobacle Proprietor Andrew G.R. gives a solid review and discusses some lessons he learned from the book and the concept.

The Wall Street Journal Offers: Tactics for pulling off a successful job interview. More importantly, how not to blow it: "At an interview, you want to stand out for the right reasons. To do so, you'll need to leave your baggage and anxiety at the door. For starters, wait until 10 minutes before your scheduled interview time to announce yourself. Arriving any sooner 'shows that you're not respectful of the time the hiring manager put aside for you,' says Ms. Loubaton, adding that a candidate who arrived an hour early made workers uncomfortable."

The Chronicle of Higher Ed's Wired Campus Expounds: On yesterday's news of the study that says Facebook time kills grades."Other researchers were quick to question [the] findings — including Eszter Hargittai, an associate professor of communication studies at Northwestern University, in a post to the blog Crooked Timber. She warned against jumping to conclusions in survey research — the classic reminder that correlation does not imply causation. And she said that in her own study in 2007 of more than 1,000 first-year students at the University of Illinois at Chicago, she found no correlation between Facebook use and student grades."

"Mind Your Language" photo courtesy of kiwanja via Flickr Creative Commons.