Results only Work Environment

Should the bosses loosen the reins a bit??

With the world shrinking, and technology connecting every formidable corner of the world, should your boss relax and loosen the reins a little? Traditional bosses vs. modern bosses......... who is able to make it happen?

Sitting in a cubicle do you know whether your employee is working? May be if he goes out for a game of putt putt, the strategies used to play the game might trigger a strategy for work.

With gas prices soaring, employees looking for a work life balance, and the increasing stress and guilt levels .......... bosses should consider a RESULTS ONLY ENVIRONMENT. As long as the work gets done, why should the boss monitor the hallways? A "results only environment" will make the employee more responsible for his actions, and be accountable for it.

Advantages for the employee:

 Measurable performance (An advantage for the boss too!!)
 Increases and improves creativity
 Generation of new ideas
 Improves Work life balance
 Improves the overall health of the employee - reduced stress levels

Disadvantages for the employee:

Since it is a "results only environment", I guess if the employee does not produce satisfactory results HE's FIRED.

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Innovative Employer Branding - Opera Software Careers Page

Innovative advertising of the company on the careers website. This advertisement shouts diversity, intelligence, innovation, opportunity for the creative mind, technology, and so much more.

I was very attracted to this because it reaches out to the crowd. Each of the models are dressed in clothes that express themselves. The words used seem genuine, personal and reach out to the potential candidate (whichever character they can relate to). The video also informs the potential candidate what they need to hear about the company.

A great way to deliver the vision & mission of the company.

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Did you hire the right consultant? A comment on ASUG's EDGE

Well you have to be a member of ASUG to have access. I was researching ASUG's new website. They have the networking feature called EDGE. You can write reviews about a company and an individual. This helps you choose the right implementation partner company or consultant for your SAP implementation. This is a boon and a bane. Its a boon if your company or your consultant has performed very well at the client location. It is a bane if they did not. Some of the reviews that I read contain reviews not only about the technical knowledge of the consultant/s, but also about the attitude and personality of the consultant/s.

The consultant who was given a bad review is from one of the BIG 4 consulting company and a Senior consultant. The overall comment was " was very knowledgeable, however was not always very open and willing to work with us." The reviewer checked that he will not hire this consultant again.

The consultant who was given a good review is from a small SAP consulting company. The overall comment was " This was the first time I had worked with as well as and it was a good experience. I will continue our business relationship for future opportunities to work together."


Do we hire consultants just for technical requirements? Or do we hire consultants to be customer service associates while performing technical functions? Information technology belongs to the Service industry. All consultants hired must come with the right attitude, flexibility and tolerance of their customers within reasonable boundaries. After all in a service industry, the customer is always right ;). Although most part of the job requires the consultant's technical skills, the most critical part of the job is interacting with the customer.

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CNBC's Report on India by Erin Brunett .... Very Interesting

One of the First & Most Positive reporting on India's Growth. Most of the reports on India focus on the poverty in India. Although poverty is still a challenge in India, it is one of the most potential market.

Blackstone's India Manager stressed the Value of Education in India. Although India has the most number of graduates about 80% of them are not employable because of the . There is still room for improvement. Man!! talk about untapped market. http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=743340133

India causing the food crisis....No says P Chidambaram - India's Finance Minister's ....http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=743291698

Shopping in India.... All the big brand names, luxury brands to Walmart want to invest in India. http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=743333751

Hope you enjoyed these segments as much as I did............. thanks for stopping by.

Harvard Business Review - Talent Management for the 21st Century

Whether you are a corporate, independent or a contract recruiter.....you are always working for the greater good of "TALENT MANAGEMENT". One of the interesting reads for me recently has been this article..... by Peter Cappelli (http://www.wharton.upenn.edu/faculty/cappelli.html) in the HBR March 2008 Issue. Below is an overview of the article.............(Source:HBR Magazine, you can also visit http://www.hbr.org/ you need to be a member). So the gist of it is...

Operations Principle Applied to Talent Management

A supply chain perspective on talent management relies on four principles, two that address the risks in estimating demand and two that address the uncertainity of supply.

Principle 1 : Make and Buy to Manage Risk

A deep bench of talent is expensive, so companies should undershoot their estimates of what will be needed and plan to hire from outside to make up for any shortfall. Some positions may be easier to fill from outside than others, so firms should be thoughtful about where they put their precious resources in development: "Talent management is an investment, not an entitlement".

Principle 2: Adapt to the Uncertainity in Talent Demand

Uncertainity in demand is a given, and smart companies find ways to adapt to it. One approach is to break up development programs into shorter units: Rather than put management trainees through a three-year functional program, for instance, bring employees from all the functions together in an 18-month course that teaches general management skills, and then send them to their functions to specialize. Another option is to create an organization-wide talent pool that can be allocated among business units as the need arises.

Principle 3: Improve your return on Investment in Developing Employees

One way to improve the payoff is to get employees to share in the costs of development. That might mean asking them to take an additional stretch assignments on a voluntary basis. Another approach is to maintain relationships with former employees in the hope that they may return someday, bringing back your investment in their skills.

Principle 4: Preserve the Investment by Balancing Employee-Employer Interests

Arguably, the main reason good employees leave an organization is that they find better opportunities elsewhere. This makes talent development a perishable commodity. The key to preserving your investment in development efforts as long as possible is to balance the interests of employees and employer by having them share in advancement decisions.

Life without the Internet

Have you wondered what your life will be without the internet? I have had the experience in the past 4 days. My computer hard disk crashed, and I haven't the time to run between the library & home to get my work done. Feeling primitive, I picked up the phone book..... and called my local service engineer. He seemed surprised that a person actually used the phone book to find him.

With all the new internet research, finding passive candidates etc, I was wondering what will happen to this internet recruiting world if the internet had to malfunction. However, since that is nowhere close to possible............ it made me think about the many job opportunities the internet has created specifically for us recruiters.

Keep surfing!!!

Thanks for stopping by.

How many social networks?

Since the volcanic eruption of the online social networking..........i have registered on oh so many of the sites/ networks/ read a lot of blogs/ keep myself updated. Do all the good things for my internet sourcing skills. I mostly come across other recruiters/ sourcers/ small business owners who are trying to sell their stuff.

How many candidates actually register on these sites? How many have the time to do what I am paid to do? I always wonder. In my social circle..... I mean not people online, but people that I meet face to face & have real life interaction with........ like Project Managers, Developers, Analysts, Engineers etc....... they say that they dont interact as much online. The so called "passive candidates" do not register on anything, rather dont have the time.... between their work, family, gym, & other activities.....

How do we keep up with all this activity? It comes down to prioritizing your networking sources, metrics.... which resources provide you the best talent. I am signing off now.. will continue this laterz......................cheers & thanks for stopping by.

HOW TO GET A JOB THAT'S WAY BEYOND YOUR EXPERIENCE (BELIEVE AND ACHIEVE)

The jobs that are the most fun are where our learning curve is high but we can still achieve results. Usually the list of requirements for a job like this is a little beyond your experience. So how do you get one?

First of all, realize that the people who write job descriptions actually have little clue about what they really want in a candidate. That means they are easily influenced if they see a resume that grabs them. The other thing to keep in mind is that candidate requirements are usually insanely optimistic so most people applying will either be way out of the price range for the job, or not quite meeting the qualifications for the job.

In any case, you should always reach for a job way above you, but do it in a way that makes you seem like a reasonable candidate. Here are some tricks:

1. Use the informational interview as a sales pitch. - "Befriend the sourcer/ researcher/ recruiter/ manager"

If you know someone is hiring, and you know you’re not qualified, you might still be able to get an informational interview. In that meeting, first find out all you can about what that particular department or company (depending on size) needs. Then find out what really matters to the person you’re talking to.

If you can sell yourself as someone who has the right type of personality and demeanor for the type of work that needs doing, the hiring manager might believe that you can grow into the job quickly. This leap of faith becomes more realistic when the hiring manager believes that you know a lot about the job and he knows a lot about you (which you selectively reveal in the informational interview).

Tough part: Shifting the meeting to a job interview even though it wasn’t scheduled that way. Be subtle.

2. Sell yourself as a consultant. "Put your best hat on"
People want good ideas. Note, though, that a good idea is one that you can actually implement—one that you can see through from start to finish. People say that their particular industry is not like this, but in fact, every industry is ripe for a good idea sold the right way.

This is typically what consultants do. They go into a meeting selling an idea rather than selling themselves as a fit for a job description. A great example of how any industry needs good ideas is the funeral industry. There are tons of new ideas for how to bury peoples’ remains, and the industry is dependent on the quality of new ideas flowing in.

This is true of all industries, no matter how obscure. So if you come up with a good idea and sell it to the right person in the organization, you might be able to land a job implementing that idea even if you have no experience doing something like that.

Tough part: Learning how to sound like a consultant if you’ve only trained to do an interview.

3. Get people to use you as a reference. - "Work your network"
Headhunters don’t fill entry-level jobs, they fill mid-tier and top-tier positions. The headhunting business is all about sourcing, so the more you know about how headhunters source online, the more likely you are to get tapped for a job that is a little beyond your qualifications.

Eric Muller, from Prizm Consulting, says he often searches for resumes with respected corporate brands on them and then he looks for the people listed as references—and he goes after those people. So try getting your friends at your level to list you as a reference and you get a chance to be considered for a higher level position.

Tough part: Getting the right friends.

4. Blog to become an expert. "Blog about everything - but be(a)ware of what you blog"
It’s amazing to me how many bloggers in the Brazen Careerist network are people with 1-3 years of work experience who sound like someone with a lot more work experience. The reason for this is that blogging forces you to become an expert in your field a lot faster than a day-to-day office job forces expertise.

Blogging focuses on ideas and the person who is writing those ideas. You can position yourself as top in your field offline by becoming top in your field online. Your online position gives you access to people who would not consider hiring you based on your resume and experience, but would consider hiring you based on your blog and your ideas.

Tough part: Having good ideas. Really.

5. Have a realistic idea of your skill set. "Believe and Achieve"
It’s very hard to sell something you don’t believe in. So you are going to have a hard time getting a job that’s a little bit beyond you if you don’t really believe that you’re good at what you are saying you’re good at.

Also, though, it’s very hard to sell something you have blind faith in. Think about the evangelists that knock on your front door. Their arguments are not persuasive because they “just believe” they are right. If you “just believe” you can do it, you won’t be able to cut a deal.

So in order to land a job that’s beyond your experience, you need to tread that fine line between having a strong belief in your strengths and not going off the deep end to the point where you sound delusional.

Tough part: Seeing your true self and believing in the person you see. This is actually the tough part of all of life. Which explains why I like writing about career advice so much.

Source: Brazen Careerist by Penelope Trunk

Social Median from the maker of Jobster

Social Median from Jason Goldberg and friends in India.

"socialmedian is a social news service that connects people with personalized news and information. socialmedian enables you to easily keep up-to-date on the news that matters to you and to people who share your interests. "

I checked out the site today, and its cool. They are up to 900 users now, and its still very early, and Jason & co are still working on it according to http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/4/launching_social_median_alpha_invites_for_sai_readers

The news groups have been wisely created by Jason & co targeting potential users. There are newgroups for recruiters, LinkedIn users, Techies etc. The sign up is by invitation only...(although the invitation code is public info)..."SAI".

Do you search past your initial impluse??

Success in searching is searching past your initial impulse...dig and delve deeper.

There’s More To “Finding” Than We Thought
A Pew Internet & American Life Project study about search engine users indicated that the vast majority of them expressed satisfaction with their search skills. According to the study, 92% of those who use search engines say they are confident about their searching and 87% of searchers say they have successful search experiences most of the time, including some 17% of users who say they always find the information for which they are looking. Now if most Americans are using Google to find the latest information on Paris Hilton or the Academy Awards ceremony, I imagine they find what they need. But in the event they don’t immediately and easily find what they seek, some poor search behavior is likely to emerge.

In his Alertbox newsletter, Jakob Nielsen shared the results of research that indicated that while search users have better skills now than they did five years ago, when their first efforts fail most searchers are incredibly bad at finding, and that’s typically because they don’t know how to search. According to Nielsen, users face three problems:

* Inability to retarget queries to a different search strategy (i.e., revise the strategy)
* Inability to understand the search results and properly evaluate each destination site’s likely usefullness
* Inability to sort through the SERP’s polluted mass of poor results, to really address whether a site meets the user’s problem (SERP=Search Engine Results Page).

As academic librarians we assumed that end-users only had trouble with our catalogs and library databases because they were oriented to librarian-style searching (which only appeals to librarians), and that making all library databases more like search engines in order to facilitate finding (which is what everyone else wants to do) would bring about a new golden age of end-user information retrieval. I see two significant flaws in that vision. First, end-users clearly have a hard time finding information on ultra-findable Google if their first effort fails, and second, the solution to the first problem is better search skills - the type of skills that librarians use to find information. Neilsen refers to current end-user search behavior as Goggle Gullibility because:

many users are at the search engine’s mercy and mainly click the top links. Sadly, while these top links are often not what they really need, users don’t know how to do better.

And while finding processes can sometimes be simple, at other times they are, according to Louis Rosenfeld, quite circuitous, iterative and surprising. In other words, finding involves a fair amount of searching. In fact, Rosenfield’s finding formula is “browse + search + ask = find”. That’s why we need to develop search systems based on the knowledge that there “is more than meets the eye when it comes to the process of finding” and not simply on an assumption that finding is simple, intuitive and completely different from searching. Searching is an integral part of finding. Searching involves decision making, and so does finding. Searching does assume more of a plan of attack, while finding suggests a more carefree and random approach. But as Rosenfield points out, “most of the systems we design don’t really support finding.” I’ll take that to mean both web search engines and commercial library databases.

Finding, as Rosenfield puts it, “is arguably at the center of all user experiences.” I agree. Everyone wants to find, both end users and librarians. But until systems better integrate browse, search and ask functions it’s highly unlikely that finding will be the simple, mindless task we think is an end-user’s version of search. Rosenfield thinks the answer to better finding is web design based on analytics. Studying users’ behavior and understanding what they are trying to accomplish is a well traveled path to creating better user experiences. The more we know about our users’ behavior when they search our systems, the better we can do at anticipating their needs and structuring search systems that facilitate their finding. This is especially true for our complex library websites where enabling finding is a challenge. As I’ve written previously, I think what we all want is to “create,” and both searching and finding are means to that end. I prefer “search first, find, and then create.”

Posted by StevenB on March 26th, 2008 under Information Literacy, Student Issues.

SearchMe: Latest Buzz ..the Visual Search Engine

Searchme lets you see what you’re searching for. As you start typing, categories appear that relate to your query. Choose a category, and you’ll see pictures of web pages that answer your search. You can review these pages quickly to find just the information you’re looking for, before you click through.

http://www.searchme.com

Cheers!!

Welcome to my Blog

I have been fortunate to be a part of the Research/ Sourcing/ Recruiting World. You may call it what you want.... but it is a world of curious minds pursuing to find the right talent. We in the recruiting world thrive on relationship building, and thirst to turn the internet upside down to network with the best talent.

This being my first post... I would like to say thank you to my mentors... Dan Harris, Ritesh Nair, Felix Martinez, and Bo Cole who have kept me in this industry .... wanting more. I follow all the blogs closely, the ones that I have been watching for the last few years are Shally, Glen, Maureen, Ritesh, and Dan (most recently).

The purpose of this blog is to consolidate the ideas from my research, so that it will be useful to all those who read it.

Something for you to take away....if you are a new researcher/ sourcer and playing around with the internet.... try searching for & applying the "Google Cheat Sheet" operations.

Thank you for Stopping By...