Exploring The Future of Work : Job Search

Showing posts with label Job Search. Show all posts

Mar 16, 2010

HR, Recruiting and Social Media

A friend asked me some questions on doing Recruiting through Social Media. Here's what I answered:

1. What is the web2.0 (pl explain in the simplest terms!) and which of these can be used by the Staffing team of the company?

Web2.0 is the collective name for a lot of technologies by which people can interact with other people (and organizations) on the web, publicly and in a transparent manner. It can include forums, blogs, twitter, linkedin, facebook, orkut etc.

We believe that Social technologies help people connect around some Core Dynamics - Content Generation, Conversations, Collaborating together, Community Formation and Collective Intelligence. Different functionalities enable users to connect differently

2. How widespread is the use of the web2.0 for finding top talent ? (can you give examples of companies who are doing this?) For instance, are there companies who are using Twitter to keep in touch with the campus crowd?)

The first question the recruiter needs to answer is - who is my top talent and what is he/she interested in? Primarily there are interested in the content and knowledge component of the job. Followed by organizational culture and the mechanics of the job. The recruiting firm needs to reach out to the community where top talent is likely to be present and present the above - by way of blog posts, youtube videos, pictures and discussion forums.

An example of a recruiter using Twitter is Christa Foley [@electra] of Zappos.com. She gives followers an inside look into her career at Zappos. She tweets out examples of negative recruiting interactions with potential clients, outreach she does with high school and college students, and ultimately looks for potential Zappos candidates.

A different example From HBR Blogs on how Best Buy tweeted an opening and then changed it based on feedback from the community:

Consider what happened at Best Buy when they posted a job description for a position as Senior er of Emerging Media Marketing. The qualifications included one year of active blogging experience, a preferred graduate degree, and 250+ followers on Twitter. Yes that's right: the number of followers you have on Twitter is now finding its way into a job description. This led to internal commentary, and spawned a number of blog posts and dozens of re-tweets and conversations.

What happened next is an indication of the future direction of recruiting: in listening to these conversations, Best Buy decided that the community had other ideas — and good ones — for how this job description should look, and what the qualifications should be. As a result, the job description was crowdsourced, and anyone with an interest was invited to post qualifications to the job role on Idea X, a forum for Best Buy customers and employees. The final job description spoke to the traits of the social media revolution we are all experiencing: humor, collaboration and authenticity.

3. What are the simple ways for companies to start using the web2.0 to connect with top talent?

Here's some things that EMC has done using social media
External employment branding - encourages bloggers to act as organic brand ambassadors
EMC Careers on YouTube - Twitter - Facebook - Wordpress - LinkedIn
Help Save Nick Glasgow – a social media campaign to save an employee suffering from cancer

Microsoft has Microspotting - An HR and recruitment focused community platform

-Twitter becomes a great medium to share news and information with people who choose to follow you – and making it relevant for their use. On a different note advertising using Google Adwords is a great way for reaching out to people interested.

- Making a Facebook page and Orkut community are other tools that businesses can do to engage talented candidates in conversation.

My view is that someone in the Marketing/Recruiting function needs to take a “Talent Community Manager” role to drive these initiatives – and to get others internally in the organization to get engaged with the candidate community. This community manager needs to have a mindset of open and honest collaboration and organizations must be clear about what objectives they expect from her/him and therefore what metrics to track to check his/her performance.

Social Media can be used as a channel to keeping candidates enagegd between the time they are handed the offer letters to the time they are on-boarded.

I think soon companies will collate all these efforts into a community that they will own - and which will have representation on social networks and blogs.

Feb 26, 2010

Two Personal Branding Websites

You know, there's something called Synchronicity :-) In a span of about 48 hours I got approached by two websites - Brand Yourself and FirstDialog which are web apps that are meant to help you manage your brand

The email from FirstDialog stated:

FirstDialog is a Web 2.0 online personal branding and social recruitment platform that helps professionals and jobseekers create a memorable personal brand.
With FirstDialog, professionals and jobseekers can create an interactive, web based, multimedia rich resume with quantifiable and trusted information. FirstDialog will help jobseekers elevate their resume to a whole new level with the use of interactive multimedia, secure document showcase, verified credentials, smart follow-up, skill assessment and certification, professional networking, social sharing and more.

The big issue they need to work on is building the resume. Filling out a online wizard to build a resume online is a bit of pain for me. They did tell me that they are in talks with certain business networking platforms which would enable one to import an already ready profile from somewhere else. Hope that comes across soon.

One then connects with people like on Linkedin. However unlike Linkedin FD is focused on social recruitment - and lists jobs via indeed.com (which is US centric so far) on your dashboard.

This is how one's profile looks on FirstDialog

The Dashboard shows you jobs posted via your network (which you invite)

All in all it's an interesting website - however let's see if people are upto joining yet another networking website. If you want to give it a spin here's a code to check out the Alpha version - GG11FD

Brand-Yourself takes a different turn on personal branding. Knowing that Google, Twitter, Linkedin and other social networks can build your online brand, it makes it easy to build a website, take you through building a Linkedin site, Twitter id, and steps to make it visible and public.

The most interesting thing for me was organizing the Google results (see below) to say which is about you and which is not about you. It made me discover some old forgotten links like my Amazon reviews :)

For people who don't have a website - Brand-Yourself also enables you to open a site (using wordpress!) like this one. There is also step by step explanation on how to use free PR newswire sites to build your brand.

I loved BY's take on personal branding

Feb 20, 2010

Interested to work with @2020Social ?

If you're interested in a cutting edge career advising clients on how to leverage social technologies and communities for business growth, then we at 2020 Social (website, blog, Facebook page, Twitter) are looking for Consultants and Interns.

Here's more about the openings

Consultant (1): Location- Ideally Mumbai, but also Delhi or Bangalore

Role: Develop the digital marketing strategy and define the business case for social applications and community platforms for consumer and media clients. Establish thought leadership in the domain of how Indian consumers engage with web, mobile and social technologies through blog posts, white papers and conference talks. Set up the Mumbai office for 2020 Social and establish and grow client relationships. Over a one year horizon, manage a team of 5-6 Associate Consultants and Analysts.

Skills: Consumer marketing, digital marketing, business consulting, business development.

Background: MBA from IIM or equivalent with 4-6 years of experience.

Reporting to: Gaurav

Consultant (1): Location: Ideally Delhi or Bangalore, but also Mumbai

Role: Define the functional requirements for social applications and community platforms for clients. Work with internal account managers/ project managers and external design firms/ development firms to ensure that projects are delivered in cost and on time. Simultaneously, find opportunities to productize these social applications and community platforms as proprietary white label solutions that can be re-used across multiple clients. Over a one year horizon, manage a team of 5-6 Associate Consultants, Analysts and Designers.

Skills: User experience design, product management, project management, familiarity with Drupal and Facebook/ LinkedIn/ Twitter/ OpenSocial APIs.

Background: IIT/ NID or equivalent with 6-8 years of experience.

Reporting to: Gaurav

To apply go to this site.

Jan 6, 2010

The Salary Negotiation

Ajay met Gautam for a cup of coffee during his visit to Delhi for the holidays. He had read Gautam's blog for the two years he had been in his MBA. He had mailed Gautam once to get some thoughts on a HR project and over the next one year they had started been in virtual touch first by email to Linkedin to Facebook.

Gautam asked "So Ajay, how is this job you're doing at Bangalore?"

Ajay replied "It's great. For someone like me just out of B-school a start-up gives great opportunities to learn - and actually come up with and implement my own ideas. I am the only Management guy in HR and I report directly to the Director of Ops. It's great!"

"Good to hear that" Gautam grinned, picking up his Americano as if to say a silent 'cheers!'

"However, Gautam, I have this dilemma - I appeared for this interview with a huge FMCG firm - and its a great role in the Corporate office looking after Performance Management for employees in the whole of the Northern Zone"

"Why would you look forward to a job change now?" Gautam asked "You just joined this IT firm from campus barely 10 months ago - and you seem to be doing well there"

Ajay said "Last year when we graduated, hardly any of the big recruiters came to campus, and the salaries we got were really low. This year the companies are visiting my campus again- and my juniors are poised to get higher salaries than me. So I don't want to miss out. This FMCG firm is also in Gurgaon and my parents are in NCR ...so it makes sense for me.."

"Hmmm... so what's the issue"

"Well I have been in three interviews and I think they really like the work I have done" Ajay said "However, they are just offering me a role at 7 lakhs and money for relocation"

Gautam asked "So what are you planning to ask them?"

"Well Gautam, my salary just increased in my firm to 7.5 lakhs, and the tax saving components are much better, so that's what I told them. And I told them I would be getting ESOPs too in the near future"

"So what did they say?"

"The person I would be reporting to didn't sound very enthusiastic - however his boss seems very keen that I should join - so am hopeful that it would work out"

They then talked about other things - and departed wishing each other a Happy New Year.

The day after next Gautam got a call from Ajay "Yes, I finally got the final offer, after negotiating - and calling the GM in HR a couple of times - up to 8 lakhs and a joining bonus of 50 thousand. They reduced my relocation amount to actuals - but I think I got myself a pretty decent deal. They said since I would be staying with my parents in Delhi I would be saving a lot - but I told them that I would be staying in Gurgaon close to the office to keep the commute to a minimum"

"So will you do that?" Gautam asked

"Yeah - absolutely"

Nov 3, 2009

RiseSmart CEO Sanjay Sathe on the new direction

I've already interviewed Sanjay Sathe once last year, and that was at a time when RiseSmart was trying to establish its own JobConcierge service for senior management.

RiseSmart is now trying to establish an outplacement service too.

When it recently got $ 4.6 million in VC funding it seemed like a good time to catch up with Sanjay again and to understand what is in the future for RiseSmart.

Here are Sanjay's answers to some questions I sent to him via email:

1. What is RiseSmart planning to do with the latest VC funding?

At this point we’ve proven the business model of our outplacement solution, RiseSmart Transition Concierge, and it’s time to grow market share. So we’re going to expand our sales team while continuing to invest in operations and client service.

It’s really been remarkable that we’ve been able to walk into Fortune 500 companies and win their outplacement business away from longtime, and in some cases deeply entrenched, incumbents. We’ve done it time and again. This reinforces our belief in our vision — that our way of doing outplacement will become the dominant model in the future. If we use the investment from Norwest Venture Partners and Storm Ventures wisely, we’ll be well on our way to making this vision a reality.

2. How is the new strategic direction being received by existing clients?

Nothing has changed for existing clients of our consumer service, RiseSmart Job Concierge. What’s changed is our marketing strategy. When we launched, we planned to build a B2C offering to compete with TheLadders — and we believe our service is a better value than TheLadders. But TheLadders is spending millions of dollars on Super Bowl ads, and the consumer market in general is crowded, so the investment required to cut through the clutter and build a brand is high.

With RiseSmart Transition Concierge, on the other hand, we are dealing with a smaller universe of prospective clients and the noise level is a lot lower. Corporate clients are hearing the facts and connecting with our message. As a result, we’re bringing thousands of jobseekers into our system much more cost-effectively than by trying to reach them individually through a broad-based ad campaign. And because satisfaction levels have been very high among users, we can count on reaching new B2C customers through word of mouth.

3. What are the biggest challenges that a firm like RiseSmart faces?

Any upstart company faces challenges in going up against the big players and old guard. Outplacement is a $3 plus billion industry, so the entrenched players have a lot to protect; they have been enjoying very nice margins for a long time. Now, we are threatening to permanently reduce the cost structure of the industry, and they don’t like it. We expect them to throw the kitchen sink at us from a sales and marketing perspective as we continue to win away their clients. But we enjoy a good challenge.

4. What other players in the industry are you watching very closely - and with respect :-) ?

We watch the traditional players like Right Management and Lee Hecht Harrison closely — and we do respect them for all they’ve accomplished. They built this industry. We’re just ready to take the baton and move things forward. We expect our competitors to adapt and to begin offering services similar to ours — but we’re confident they won’t be able to do it as well, and certainly not at our price point.

5. What should job seekers do to land jobs of their choice?

The most important thing is to use your time wisely. You had a routine in your job that filled your days — and now that is gone, like a rug pulled out from under you. How do you fill all those hours?

What you shouldn’t do is sit in front of your computer searching different job boards for hours at a time. It’s a time filler that can make you feel productive, but it’s not a good use of your time. This is particularly true because job boards are notoriously inefficient — how many times have you searched for “executive” jobs and wound up reading job descriptions for executive assistants, for example?

That’s why our Job Concierge service — which is not only our B2C offering but also the core of Transition Concierge — is so valuable. We do the online searching for you so you can focus on tasks that are more important, like leveraging social networks, sharpening your resume, crafting custom cover letters, and networking at industry and professional events. This is the smarter route to finding a new job.

Sep 7, 2009

Jobs at Gautamghosh.net

This is a small announcement - if you're looking for talent - or are a job seeker, I'll be posting openings (for free) on behalf of companies that are hiring at

http://gautamghosh.net/category/jobs

If you'd like to stay updated on the latest jobs there you can sign up via email here.

Aug 21, 2009

Using social tools with an Agenda

Often these days I come across articles that say "Here's how you use Facebook for Recruiting" or "17 ways of effective job hunting using twitter"

The problem is, if you merely use the tools with an agenda to recruit/job hunt or whatever, then you're headed for disappointment.

That's because these tools are social in nature. And whether you are a marketer, PR person (see post on PR hires must be social media savvy), Recruiter or job seeker, using them badly will not just turn off the very people whose attention you strive to seek, but might also backfire on you.

Remember, as Chris Brogan keeps saying on these sites "it's all about them, not you"

So if you want to use the tools for social recruiting, or job hunting, here are some basics:

On twitter, focus on conversations when you are starting out. If you are interested in a job in the paint industry - connect with other folks from the paint industry (using the @ sign), tweet interesting links about paints and grow a community that you can help. Give help without expecting any. That's the way it works.
Blog about your passion. In this case- paints. Hunt for other painting blogs, link to them. Grow a community again. That's always the way to go about it.
I really don't advocate using Facebook to hunt for jobs, but some people might. Use facebook notes to pull your blog posts - and that way you can get your non-blogging, non-tweeting folks to read your thoughts. Here's how you post your blog posts to Facebook.

Notice that I didn't ever say "approach x person for a job". That won't work in these environments.

You have to sow and invest time and energy, before you reap. That's why when you read articles of examples of people who got a job "using social media" it's usually not true

They were on social media to connect, share and network. Recruiting just happened by the way.

May 11, 2009

Yellojobs no longer active?

Cheezhead reports that Yellojobs (previous coverage here and here ) has now shut down office in India.

According to WebNewsWire.com, the site has not been updated for some time and the staff left after several months of not receiving a paycheck.

The company is a joint venture between Yello Pte Ltd, a Singapore-based online advertising company, and Contract Recruitment Ltd, a London recruitment company claiming a strong presence in India.

Yellojobs.com fell to 13,92,031 in last week of Alexa rankings from an average of 94,134 in the last three months.

Last August YelloJobs’ American division dissolved after Jim Newfrock, CEO, their VP of Business Development, Brad Wells, and COO Alex Conway left the company due to a clash of opinions.

Well the slowdown is going to have similar effect on many of the smaller job sites.

I wonder who's next?

According to WebNewsWire

Recruiters are reporting that there are more aggressive mailers from job portals such as monsterindia.com for taking their services. Monster India has come up with a special package at over 33% off regular pricing.

The leading recruitment company, Naukri.com had its profit after tax growing at just 0.75% as compared to FY 07-08 (QoQ) in its financial results announced today. With the leading player feeling the heat, others are not far behind.

Smaller players are also not safe from the current slowdown. A vendor has informed that Careernet (www.careernet.co.in) has been evading calls for payments due in the last financial year. Like Yellojobs.com, Careernet's website fell in Alexa Rankings to 12,86,622 this week from an average of 5,00,000 for several months.

Apr 21, 2009

Want me to help in your job search?

I get a lot of emails, with vague subject lines - and all the recipients on bcc. These usually have a resume attached - and state along the lines of:

"I am xxx post graduate/graduate from yyy institution - I would be very obliged if I can get a job in your esteemed organization

Well here are some of the pointers that I'd like to give folks who are doing this:

If you are taking my email id off this blog and mailing me as part of a mass mailer campaign without any personalisation - without establishing any personal connect - whether you are a PR guy or a job hunter - I will delete your mail.
Not all HR consultants are executive search consultants/recruiters. I am part of a OD and Training consulting firm. Other HR consultants focus on compensation and related areas. Some HR consultants are Recruiters. Do your homework before you shoot off a mail.
The body of the email is the electronic version of your cover letter. Don't just state facts - show how you'll impact the performance of the place you are applying to. If I don't see that I am not going to forward your resume to friends of mine who might be looking out for people. Because every time I send a mail out to them I impact my own credibility. To take that decision your value has to be clear to me.

Apr 8, 2009

Using Linkedin Status Updates

I've started noticing an increasingly innovative trend to catch on through Linkedin.com's feature - status updates...

See how some recruiters are looking for people - thereby bypassing the paid "jobs" feature of Linkedin.com

Signs of the recession?

Obviously this is useful only when people have sufficiently large networks - and a lot of recruiters ensure that their networks are large by showing off they are open networks by keeping an acronym LION next to their name - LION standing for LinkedIn Open Networkers - and also keeping their email ids visible to people to connect on their own.

Nice service for job-seekers - though I don't know how Linkedin views these - as they're obviously cutting Linkedin's ability to make money.