Don't sell jobs through social networks: Students

About 70 percent of students are not in favor of the companies using social networking sites like Twitter or Facebook to offer them jobs, despite the increasing importance of social networks in corporate hiring process, according to a survey.

As per the survey conducted by hiring solutions provider TMP Worldwide and Targetjobs, 70 percent of surveyed students did not want businesses to use sites like Twitter or Facebook to sell jobs to them as they believe that employers should not exploit social media for their own benefit. However, the survey revealed that 79 percent of the respondents believe social sites were key to employers engaging with them.

In the survey, it came across that students actively use social media to research companies and confirm whether employer brand messages live up to reality and almost half of students use social media sites to chat with peers about recruitment process. In addition, about 30 percent of students chat with current employees to check if their expectations of a particular employer were met, after being taken on.

Neil Harrison, Head of Planning and Research, TMP Worldwide said, "Employers have been saying for some time that they use social networking sites to 'check up' on potential candidates, but they must now be aware that the tables have turned. Today's students use these sites as trusted places to not only communicate with friends but to also investigate potential employers; so businesses simply cannot underestimate the power of social media when it comes to brand building and engaging with undergraduates."

The report, which was based on the study of penultimate and final year students, also revealed that 42 percent of students feel social media is the ideal platform to communicate employer brand and 56 percent agree social networking sites allow candidates to get feel for company's culture.

"Employers must not however, approach social media half heartedly. They must be consistent with their brand and maintain the values they promote online throughout the recruitment, selection and ongoing retention process," said Harrison.

Resume Tip: Show it to prove it

When writing resumes, it is easy to simply list our job titles, dates of employment and provide happy talk about our soft skills. Whenever I got one of these types of resumes as a hiring manager — if it ever got to me in the first place — my first thought was “prove it.”

If your resume said “works well on a team,” it was “prove it.” If your resume said “technical manager,” my thought was “prove it.” If I got too many of those kinds of statements in a resume, I casually tossed it aside and went on to the next possible candidate.

In this economy, you can’t get casually tossed aside

So how do you turn a flat statement into one that makes the hiring manager want to interview you? For that, we turn to the first rule of novel writing: you can’t tell it, you must show it.

Showing it means you have to write about actions the character (you) takes to prove what they are doing for believability. You can’t say “John was a tender person.” You have to write about when John showed tenderness to other people as part of his actions.

Are you showing it to prove it on your resume?

Why Should Your Employees Like You?

Managing employees isn’t a popularity contest, but if your workers like and respect you as a person, your company’s bottom line is likely to show it.

Nancy Mann Jackson in a post in "Entrepreneur" writes about handling employees with kid gloves and getting along better with them.

"Taking careful steps to build trust, respect and goodwill among employees doesn’t just make it more fun to go to work, it can also boost your bottom line" She says.

She offers five strategies for maintaining employee relations in a recession and bridging the boss -- employee gap:

Keep your company afloat through the recession--and ensure that employees will stick around when times get better--with some of the following strategies:

1. Nix double standards. Don’t expect employees to follow your instructions if you don’t follow the same instructions yourself. “You can’t just sit back and not have the same standard for yourself as you have for your employees,” Weatherwax says.

2. Share the work. Nothing widens the gap between employer and employee like doling out the “dirty work,” such as asking employees to do something unethical or simply to work an unreasonable number of hours. To earn employees’ respect, business owners, “should never ask an employee to do something that they would not be willing to do themselves,” Darby says.

3. Make them laugh. Humor is proven to reduce stress and take the edge off of a tense conversation. “As the boss, you can set the tempo or the mood for the business day,” Weatherwax says. “If you can have fun with your employees and joke with them, they’ll have more fun and they’ll joke with the customers too.”

4. Enforce consequences. Whether it’s rewarding good work or holding employees accountable for mistakes, enforcing consistent consequences helps workers know what to expect. “Sometimes in tough times we overlook bad behavior and don’t recognize the good work being done by high performers,” Murphy says.

5. Share your thought process. Especially during tough times when employees are worried about keeping their jobs, you can earn goodwill by being open about the choices you make, whether it’s to cut costs or cut personnel. “The more transparent a leader becomes with his decision making process, the more likely employees are to trust those decisions,” Murphy says. “Share the data, explain where you got that data, and why you decided what you did. What scares employees is the unknown, and if you’re not transparent, they’ll expect the worst.”

Nancy Mann Jackson is a freelance writer who writes frequently about small business issues.

How to Answer Difficult Interview Questions

By Jessica Stillman

Last week I carried a post by Jessica Stillman "Avoid Common Interview Pitfall". In this post she shares her readers experiences with difficult interviews, as well as their best advice for how to respond to tricky situations. She covers three types of interview questions that emerged as the most vexing for readers:

1. Questions about weaknesses or failures – these questions are framed to get you to criticize yourself or to cough up examples of past problems. Examples include the straight up “What are your greatest weaknesses?” and more round about versions such as “Tell me about an actual time when you had a disagreement with your manager” or “Describe a situation where the client was irate and how you handled it.”
   
   
2. Questions on pay and level of ambition – no one wants to sell themselves short but how high is too high?
   
   
3. Oddball questions — these are designed to shake up the interviewee and elicit unscripted answers. Examples abounded in the comments and included everything from “Describe your closet” to the slightly unbelievable but hugely imaginative “Imagine you’re in Antarctica, running naked wearing only a tie around your neck. Suddenly you see a gorilla chasing you. What do you do?’

Thankfully, readers also came through with suggestions –– some hilarious, some dubious, some spot on — for how to respond. Reader Yakimarv, for instance, offers a ballsy response to the question “Where do you hope to be in five years?” He reports: “I looked the interviewer right in the eye and said ‘working your job’ and I think that I shook the guy up ’cause he terminated the interview right there. I was later called by a regional manager and was hired.”

Meanwhile, majorstu suggests one way to frame a strength as a weakness without making the effort absurdly transparent and unconvincing. His solution: use a concrete real world example of how what constitutes a plus to some could be an issue for others. His answer:

I had a very good relationship with my first manager in a job, got performance reviews with comments like “takes charge, gets things done”. Then that manager retired and I got a new one, suddenly the atmosphere changed and my first review commented, “oversteps the bounds of his authority”. I use this response when asked about weaknesses, adding that the weakness is that I try to work through the problems and get the mission accomplished, but sometimes misjudge other people’s perceptions of my attitude.

Techrabbi, however, keeps his answer to the weaknesses question short and sweet: “to the question ‘what is your greatest weakness?’ i like to say, ‘i don’t often interview well.’”

Jessica lives in London where she works as a freelance writer with interests in green business and tech, management and marketing.

Avoid a Common Interview Pitfall

By Jessica Stillman

Even if you’ve perfected your pitch and learned to summarize your accomplishments in a compelling and concrete way, interviews are not safe ground, especially for those who are relatively new to them. Interviewers have plenty of tricks up their sleeves, not least of which is questions seemingly designed expressly to trip you up. Putting aside the loathed “what are your weakness?” question, blog Cube Rules describes another type of interview question that seems to have no correct answer, calling these “forced choice questions” and giving examples:

• “What is more important to you, the money or the job?” Great, if I say “the money,” the hiring manager doesn’t think I’m motivated to do the work. If I answer with “the job,” the manager doesn’t think I’ll be upset with a smaller salary offer.

• “Do you prefer to work alone or with others?” Swell, I can like to work by myself and be thought of as a poor team player with no collaborative abilities, or else I work so well with others I can’t get anything done by myself.

Helpfully, Cube Rules also throws the floundering interviewee a life buoy, suggesting ways out of the bind. Perhaps the simplest solution is to says yes to both answers. For example, in response to the second question above, CR suggests a possible reply: “I like working alone when I need focus and productivity to complete my work. But I like working with people to brainstorm ideas, help get better solutions to problems and help others for what they need.” And if saying yes to all options doesn’t work? Then there is an alternative:

A second way to answer the forced choice is to pick a third option that isn’t presented by the interview question. “Do you work better with a manager that gives you free reign to complete your work the way you want or do you like being micromanaged to get your work done?”

For that type of question, you ignore both options presented and offer up a third alternative to answer this question. “I like a manager that provides clear direction, is open to seeing early versions of the work so we can make sure I’m on track, and to help clear obstacles that might prevent me from getting done.”

Thanks, Cube Rules, that’s one problem sorted out. Of course interviews still have plenty of other dangers. What’s the most impossible-to-answer interview question you’ve ever been asked?

Is your CV blunder free?

Recession is in, jobs are a rarity, but applicants are plenty. In such a cut throat race the need to have an error free CV (Curriculum Vitae) is very important. Candidates today are trying to make their resumes different and impressive, so that they stand out. In the process, they end up making major blunders. A badly written resume ends up in the dustbin, completely knocking out the candidate's chance of getting a job.

A recent research done by TeamLease Services, a staffing company found that 90 percent of the randomly selected 500 CVs had 'some or the other form of error.' With piles of job applications available to HR managers, it is doubtful if erroneous CVs would be entertained.

Here are few of the top blunders made in a resume:

1. Biography: Marital Status - Yes
   
   
2. I laugh easily, but do not suffer fools gladly. I expect the same effort as others as I give myself.
   
   
3. Weakness: Fresher
   
   
4. Interests: Open to learn, make others laugh and feel happy, enjoys the nature.
   
   
5. Family details: Father - Death
   
   
6. Objective: To always spread positively within the branch and reduce the grape vine.
   
   
7. Notice Period: Minimum two (1) month.
   
   
8. Career Objective: To consistently develop by learning and sharing skills with a focus on the ultimate objective in order to achieve higher goals in conjunction with the growth of the organization and to set a name and be recognized in the industry.
   
   
9. Marital Status: Marriage
   
   
10. Profile: To prepare the whole film production plane and financing plane.
    
    
11. Contact Email: www.aradhana@rediffmail.com
    
    
12. Areas of strength: My background to date has been centered on grooming myself as a well-rounded person.
    
    
13. I am quietly forceful, original and sensitive.
    
    
14. Languages known: English (Good), Malayalam (Native), Hindi and Tamil.
    
    
15. Career Objective: Seeking a final placement in any organization to untilize the plethora of skills I have developed during my whole career.

The study revealed that many resumes are written in great haste and no attention is paid to detail. Candidates in an attempt to impress go overboard and consequently make a mockery of their bio-data. "The situation worsens when candidates make silly mistakes due to sheer oversight and sometimes overconfidence. A CV is the first piece of information about a candidate that reaches the potential recruiter. It is always advisable to have one's bio-data proof read and checked by professionals, or someone proficient in English.

So, is your CV blunder free?

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Effective Resumes That Can Get You An Interview Call - By The Immigrant Coach. A Package Comprising Of A Video And Articles That Clarify Issues Related To Format, Content And Pages Required To Grab The Attention Of The Recruiter And Evoke A Response. Click Here!

Career Enhancement

What is it that you do uniquely well? Do your core values for yourself and your family fit with what you are doing, where you are putting your energy, what you are developing, and where you are focusing/immersing yourself?

In your career, as well as in your life, to achieve full capacity and happiness, all of you must be going in the same direction. For career and personal success to achieve its fullest potential, the inside and the outside must match: strength, motivation, passion, strategies and goals must be consistent with who you are and be an extension of who you are -- not to define yourself, but to be defined by you. The application of focus and direction on your potential and goals with all of you going in the same direction allows expansion of strength and measurable results to achieve your vision.

Investing in your core values is synonymous with the pursuit of simplicity. Your decisions are your self statements, not statements about anyone else. Simplicity includes not taking things that others say personally, but recognizing that they, too, are making self statements; discerning internal versus external point of reference; owning rather than blaming your decisions and their results; creating reality rather than believing in fate. Change does not happen, you create it.

Your assumptions and beliefs drive your behavior. Coming to the end of the past is not enough: you have to have a purpose, a dream consistent with your internal ideal in order to have hope. A game plan and goal actualize hope, the confident expectation that something good can be created. You move toward what you picture in your mind. Pinpoint focus and laser precision of that picture allow the pathway of a plan and the flexibility of strategy to have a context and meaning.

What you believe to be true about yourself will become true. What you believe will work well can be changed to become that which works well. Change may involve new ways of thinking, doing, being, and growing.

If you let someone recommend a solution or strategy for you, unless you fit it to your situation and ideal, you will be getting a suit tailored to someone else. If you want to change your life, your performance, and your career, change your mind first. At times, however, you may simply look for patterns in your behavior, find out what is working, and create that more often, and that will change your mind.

Dr. David Krueger offers the following 18 caveats to career enhancement in this article published at http://www.evancarmichael.com/:

1. When your head and your gut (what you think and feel) both agree, and act accordingly, you won’t go wrong.
   
   
2. Having a definition of success and an internal ideal of “good enough” are essential for satisfaction.
   
   
3. Rich is knowing you have enough.
   
   
4. Long-term goals are necessary to keep perspective, while short-term goals are necessary to sustain enthusiasm and tolerate frustration.
   
   
5. Respect the boundaries between work and private life.
   
   
   
6. Develop your emotional and interpersonal expertise as well as your technical expertise.
   
   
   
7. Thinking, feeling, and imagining are all active forms of doing something.
   
   
   
8. A potential space between urge and action is where judgment resides.
   
   
   
9. You’ll never do anything important that will feel comfortable in the beginning.
   
   
10. Assess what reaching a goal will do.
    
    
11. Just having a choice can make choosing the same thing feel very different.
    
    
12. Growth and change are hard. The only thing harder is not growing or changing.
    
    
13. Recognize your own limits in order to achieve success.
    
    
14. Admit mistakes in order to cut losses.
    
    
15. Be willing to seek suggestions, critiques, and advice and not to take it personally.
    
    
16. Distinguish lack of information and organization from unconscious conflict.
    
    
17. Planning and strategy are essential components of a plan.
    
    
18. Examine the process that gets you to a good result. Examine the process that gets you to a bad result.

[Dr David Krueger, M.D. is an Executive Mentor Coach, and CEO of MentorPath, a coaching firm tailored to the needs of executives and professionals. Dr. Krueger is author of 15 books on success, money, wellness, and mind-body integration. ]

Choosing a career is a hard decision to make. The decision and choice you make will impact you for most of your life because it sets a course for you for decades.

How do you make such a choice?

First, realize that since you make that choice you can always make another one. In other words, you are not locked into a single career for life. You can change your mind and your direction at any time.

Whether you change your mind or stick with your original decision, you will want to advance and refresh your job and career often. It's called Career Enhancement and should be a part of any career plan and path.

Most professions require constant enhancement of skills called continuing education. Professional organizations typically advertise programs and allocate credits for enhancement courses.

If you are not in a professional organization set up your own career advancement program. It can be a simple class taken once a year or a complete program over several weeks. What ever your choice study your options and make judicious choices.

After completing a class, update your progress and resume regularly. Keep a log of your classes, instructors and where you attended them. The real value in this will unfold as you prepare for your annual review, ask for a raise or promotion or search for a new job.

It comes down to setting goals, planning a path to those goals and accomplishing them. Even if you are alone on your path you can grow in your career.

Finally, take action. Make the first step toward your career enhancement goals even if you feel uncertain. Action opens all kinds of unseen opportunities and clarifies issues once you get going forward. Set your sights high, aim for your goals and take action to move ahead towards successful career enhancement.

Gender Irrelevant in Business?

I have been in many a debate on gender issues. Some of the topics debated are "Are men better managers than women?" and "Do men find it difficult to work under female bosses?"

My initial response was that gender is irrelevant to business, but after reading an article by Kevin Hogan and watching a video interview with SellingPower publisher Gerhard Gschwandtner and former Careerbuilder.com CSO Mary Delaney discussing this issue “Men are Better at Selling than Women” I have been forced to rethink the issue.

Take a look at the video below:

Kevin Hogan in an article titled "Women Ruin Men's Ability To Think" points to a study that shows that only those men higher in testosterone are likely to fall prey to overt sexual distractions.

Men who's ring finger is as long or longer than their index finger are high in testosterone. (This is a pretty useful piece of information when you start to think about it!!)

Now, you might think that women are affected by men in much the same way.

Well, you might think that but only if you are a man.

Very few women are distracted by men.

In fact, the research shows we are about as distracting as a tree or rock.

Men about to play a financial game were shown images of sexy women or lingerie.

The Proceedings of the Royal Society B study found they were more likely to accept unfair offers than men not been exposed to the alluring images.

The suggestion is that the sexual cues distract the men's thoughts, preventing them from focusing on their task - particularly among those with high natural testosterone levels.

The University of Leuven researchers gave 176 heterosexual male student volunteers aged 18 to 28 financial games to test their fair play.

But first, half the men were shown sexual cues of some kind.

One group of 44 men were given pictures to rate; some were shown landscapes while the rest were shown attractive women.

Another group, of 37 men, were either asked to assess the quality, texture and colour of a bra or a t-shirt.

And a third group of 95 were shown either pictures of elderly women or young models.

Each group was then paired up to play a game where the men had $10, a proposer had to suggest a split, and the other man accepted or rejected the offer.

If the second man accepted the offer, the money was distributed in agreement with the offer. If he rejected it, neither partner got anything.

The game is designed as a lab model of hunting or food sharing situations.

Vulnerable?

The men's performance in the tests showed those who had been exposed to the "sexual cues" were more likely to accept an unfair offer than those who were not.

The men's testosterone levels were also tested - by comparing the length of the men's index finger compared to their ring finger.

If the ring finger is longer, it indicates a high testosterone level.

The researchers found that men in the study who had the highest levels performed worst in the test, and suggest that is because they are particularly sensitive to sexual images.

Dr Siegfried DeWitte, one of the researchers who worked on the study, said: "We like to think we are all rational beings, but our research suggests ... that people with high testosterone levels are very vulnerable to sexual cues.

"If there are no cues around, they behave normally. But if they see sexual images they become impulsive."

He added: "It's a tendency, but these people are not powerless to fight it. "Hormone levels are one thing, but we can learn to deal with it."

The researchers are conducting similar tests with women. But so far, they have failed to find a visual stimulus which will affect their behavior.

Dr George Fieldman, principal lecturer in psychology at Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College, told the BBC News website: "The fact men are distracted by sexual cues fits in to evolutionary experience. It's what they are expected to do.

"They are looking for opportunities to pass on their genes."

He said the study confirmed what had been suspected by many.

"If a man is being asked to choose between something being presented by an attractive woman and an ugly man, they might not be as dispassionate as they could be."

Your take on this?

This article was first published on TooStep.com

Five Resolutions for Your Resume

And Five Bloopers to Avoid!

Here are a few resume-related resolutions to consider and some real-life goofs -- dubbed "Resumania" by Robert Half -- from job candidates who could have benefited from resolutions of their own:

Resolution #1: I will customize my resume.

Different companies have different needs, so don't send the same version of your resume to every organization. Tailor your resume by highlighting your skills and qualifications that most closely relate to the requirements of the open position. Carefully review each prospective employer's job advertisement and mirror their language when discussing your strengths and previous experience. In short, make it easy for hiring managers to see how you will play a role in helping them accomplish their goals.

This candidate failed to do so: "OBJECTIVE: To find any type of job."

Resolution #2: I will write in a straightforward manner.

Hiring managers are drawn to professionals who communicate clearly and concisely. Write short, crisp and compelling sentences in "plain English." Applicants hurt themselves when they weigh down their resumes with trendy business phrases, technical jargon and flashy five-dollar words.

Here's an example of a candidate whose verbiage confuses instead of clarifies:

"SKILLS: Able to remedy posterity and proficiency to the desired cumulus within the work arena. Once expounding upon these various constitutional elements, affinity is achieved, and I sequester the cultivation essential for yielded efficiencies."

Resolution #3: I will eliminate unnecessary information.

Certain pieces of personal information don't belong on a resume. There is no reason to include your date of birth or marital status, for example. In fact, doing so puts potential employers in an awkward position because they are not supposed to take information like this into account when making hiring decisions. In addition, omit details about your hobbies, reasons for leaving previous positions, and non-work-related achievements that have no bearing on your career.

While these accomplishments, like the one provided below by a nostalgic job hunter, may be treasured, a prospective manager probably won't be as impressed.

"HONORS: I won an award for an essay in first grade and got my picture taken with the principal. That was a big win. My parents took me for ice cream."

Resolution #4: I will make no mention of money.

Never cite your salary requirements unless an employer specifically requests that information. Mentioning money in your resume, or cover letter, can come across as presumptuous. Wait until you've secured an interview and the employer has expressed interest in hiring you before broaching the subject.

Consider this off-putting statement:

"REQUIREMENTS: I'll need $50K to start, full medical, three weeks' vacation, stock options and, ideally, a European sedan."

Resolution #5: I will develop a proofreading procedure.

Nothing damages a job candidate's chances like a careless typo, which calls into question the person's attention to detail. Steer clear of grammatical goofs and spelling blunders by establishing a step-by-step proofreading system. In addition to running your computer's spell-check function, read your resume several times on screen and on paper. It's also wise to ask trusted friends or family members for editing suggestions.

This applicant's miscalculation may have indicated to hiring managers that they couldn't "count" on him:

"HOBBIES: My three biggest hobbies are cars, racquetball, golf and reading."

360 Degree Performance Apprasials

It was started in mid-eighties at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad by T.V.Rao and team as Top Management Styles And Organization Effectiveness Program. It was not branded as 360 Degree Appraisal. Once it was branded in the US as 360 Degree Appraisal, it caught the attention of many corporations and today a large number of companies use it in some form or the other. Experiences with it as a development tool have been good, though experience as an appraisal tool are mixed.

360 Degree Feedback is a Multi-Rater Feedback System. In this system the candidate is assessed by a number of assessors including his boss, direct reports, colleagues, internal customers and some times external customers. The assessment is made on a questionnaire specially designed to measure leadership styles, managerial qualities, impact and other behaviors considered critical for performance.

While the 360-degree concept has much to offer and many a success have been documented there are also stories of confusion and disappointment. Many of the 360-degree programs are carried out in the absence of a strategic context, and fail to focus on contributions that they can make to a firm's competitive advantage. There is little consistency to what is being done, and 360-degree feedback programs can range from any deviations from the traditional vertical form of performance appraisal to highly sophisticated feedback systems that systematically gather, analyze, and disseminate behavior data to managers, professionals, and even rank-and-file workers functioning in teams.

360 degree respondents for an employee can be his/her peers, managers (i.e. superior), subordinates, team members, customers, suppliers/ vendors - anyone who comes into contact with the employee and can provide valuable insights and information or feedback regarding the “on-the-job” performance of the employee.

The recipient is encouraged to use the feedback to improve performance and to make a greater effort to blend his or her contributions with the needs of the group. This linking of individual performance with feedback from all relevant constituencies fits well into the emerging team-based workplace. Another difference from traditional performance appraisal is that 360-degree feedback is supposed to be given anonymously. Study has demonstrated that anonymous feedback is more honest and closer to what raters actually feel about the feedback recipients. Appraisers whose identity is known to the feedback recipients give higher ratings than those who are anonymous.

360 degree appraisal has four integral components:

1. Self appraisal
   
2. Superior’s appraisal
   
3. Subordinate’s appraisal
   
4. Peer appraisal.

Self assessment is an indispensable part of 360 degree appraisals and therefore 360 degree Performance appraisal have high employee involvement and also have the strongest impact on behavior and performance. It provides a 360-degree review of the employees’ performance and is considered to be one of the most credible performance appraisal methods.

Self appraisal gives a chance to the employee to look at his/her strengths and weaknesses, his achievements, and judge his own performance. Superior’s appraisal forms the traditional part of the 360 degree appraisal where the employees’ responsibilities and actual performance is rated by the superior.

Subordinates appraisal gives a chance to judge the employee on the parameters like communication and motivating abilities, superior’s ability to delegate the work, leadership qualities etc. Also known as internal customers, the correct feedback given by peers can help to find employees’ abilities to work in a team, co-operation and sensitivity towards others.

360 degree appraisal is also a powerful developmental tool because when conducted at regular intervals (say half - yearly) it helps to keep a track of the changes others’ perceptions about the employees. A 360 degree appraisal is generally found more suitable for the managers as it helps to assess their leadership and managing styles. This technique is being effectively used across the globe for performance appraisals. Some of the Indian organizations following it are Wipro, Infosys, and Reliance Industries etc.

Benefits of 360 Degree feedback

1. Benefits To The Organization:
   
   • It provides a more objective and acceptable feedback.
   • Very effective for developing leadership and other competencies considered critical for performing various Leadership and Managerial roles effectively.
   • Serves as a team-building tool as it is more involving and participative.
   • Promotes a culture of openness.
   • Promotes total quality with emphasis on internal and external customer orientation.
   • Results in better quality of HR decisions for training and rewards.
   • Helps in identification of competency gaps and planning development interventions.
     
     It is a good supplement to normal appraisals but not a substitute to them.
     
     
2. Benefits To The Individual:
   
   • Serves as a team-building tool as it is more involving and participative.
   • Helps to ascertain if your impact on others within the organization is in the desired manner/direction.
   • Enhances self-awareness.
   • Helps discover strengths, weaknesses and blind spots.
   • Provides direction for change and development.
   • Focuses attention on actions and behaviors valued by others; thereby improving work relations.
   • Helps discover areas where you have not yet made a significant impact.
     

Many organizations adopt 360-degree feedback without clearly defining the mission and the scope of the program. Consequently, employees who receive the feedback are left to figure out for themselves how to cope with the results and tend not to develop goals and action plans following 360-degree applications. One study concluded that while such programs are popular, in many cases little more than lip service is paid to them. Furthermore, there is discouraging evidence regarding the effectiveness of feedback-intervention programs as tools in bringing about improvements in performance. A review of over 600 feedback studies found that only one-third reported improvements in performance. Another third reported negative changes in performance, while the final third reported no impact. In their haste to gain the advertised benefits of 360-degree feedback, organizations may not be sufficiently aware of the problems that often accompany its adoption. Failure to recognize the problems that often occur can lead to disillusionment, reduce the value of the exercise, and confirm the lip service that tends to be paid to 360-degree results.

Future Prospects & Recommendations

360-degree feedback is powerful because it makes it easy to gather and report credible feedback about important issues that are otherwise hard to quantify. Like any powerful tool, it needs to be used with care in order to derive all the benefits. Here are seven recommendations for avoiding problems.

1. Learn about the technology before you invest in it. 360 feedback is changing as rapidly as hardware and software systems are changing. Much is possible now that wasn't dreamed of a decade ago. Innovations in 360-degree systems such as 20/20 Insight GOLD have made feedback easier, more accessible, more affordable, more flexible and more versatile than ever. Not all 360-feedback publishers are innovating at the same pace or in the same direction. This creates a challenge for the prospective user who is learning about feedback options. However, a thorough, up-to-date review of what's available now will ensure that you get the maximum capability for the least investment.
   
   
2. Make sure that organization is prepared for 360-degree feedback. Readiness can be improved by addressing the following areas:
   
   
   • The climate of trust
   • Organizational stability
   • Feedback practices
   • Development practices
   • Awareness and acceptance of 360 feedback
   • Availability of computers
     
     
3. Use well-researched, well-constructed survey items. A 360-degree assessment is only as effective as the items that make up the survey. The best surveys are carefully constructed and locally validated. This is challenge is made easy by customizable survey platforms such as 20/20 Insight GOLD.
   
   
4. Protect confidentiality. People are willing to give honest feedback if they believe that doing so will benefit them and the people receiving it. You should establish policies and procedures that keep ratings anonymous and give supervisors only the summary data they need to help direct reports improve performance—and no more.
   
   
5. Use skilled facilitators. When people receive 360-degree feedback the first time, they often need help sorting through, accepting, understanding and making use of the information. People who have experience making this process successful should lead these meetings.
   
   
6. Follow up. Don't make the mistake of thinking that 360 feedback alone will improve performance. It can focus on priority development needs and produce strong motivation to change in many people, but individual development planning; coaching and empowerment of developmental activities are essential.
   
   
7. Separate developmental feedback from personnel and compensation decisions. 360 are best used for measuring the hard-to-quantify aspects of work, such as interpersonal skills. Reward systems are expensive, so they're best applied to reinforce desired results. It's a mistake to apply rewards to the work processes rather than work outcomes. Follow developmental feedback with developmental initiatives, not rewards.
   

On the other hand, interpersonal behaviors (e.g., leadership, team interaction, communication, sales, service, negotiation and instruction) aren't easily quantified or measured. The best way to get objective data about this aspect of performance is 360-degree feedback.

Emerging Trends in HR: RPO

A new addition in the series of BPO, KPO, and LPO is RPO i.e. Recruitment Process Outsourcing. In coming years India is going to face a talent crunch of half a million people. That increases the demand of RPOs.

What is an RPO?

RPO stands for Recruitment Process Outsourcing. It also stands for Research Process Outsourcing but here we are dealing with the former.

If there is one problem that is seen as the biggest hurdle to the growth of organisations across the world and across sectors, it is talent scarcity. As part of the HR function, recruiting is the most crucial and time consuming function of any HR department. This leads to a complete transformation in the way the recruitment function is perceived by organisations around the globe. This emanates from the simple logic that when companies across worldwide are trying to focus on their core functions and outsource all non-core functions, why shouldn’t recruitment be outsourced to the experts too? Having said that, it isn’t difficult to understand why Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) as a concept has gained such popularity in a span of a few years. Initially companies expressed reservations, since recruiting the right individual is so crucial to an organisation’s success. Companies soon realised that with talent crunch becoming a perennial problem, its time to bring in the experts. The RPO segment is today the fastest growing global segment for HRO firms. IT companies are among the early adopters of this trend. In fact, the high level of activity seen in this space leads several analysts to believe that the time for multi-million dollar deals in the global RPO space has come.

Around 70% of the main HR activities (Training, staffing needs, ensuring performance) suffer due to the constantly increasing pressure on the HR department to fill in the vacancies. Majority of organizations spend a lot of time (around 60%) in sorting resumes and finding candidates from job portals and other sources. This is where RPOs come into play. Recruitments are outsourced these days so that the organization can concentrate on its core competency areas to save time and increase productivity level. RPOs bridge gaps between demand and supply of talented people. The RPO services include searching candidates from internal database and job portals, resume screening, response handling, corporate intelligence research, database maintenance, skills testing, and analyze market trends and recruiting market, etc.

While RPO is new to India, it is already a big industry globally and some estimates suggest it is worth $30 billion. The RPO wave is catching up fast in India. As the Indian labor markets become more and more competitive, RPO is fast becoming more of a common solution. It is claimed that a greater impetus for RPO is provided by the shortage of skilled labor. Although there is abundant pool of labor (3 million/year) in India, only 10% immediately hirable - lack of language skills, lack of practical experience, lack of cultural/interpersonal fit, mobility are some of the factors because of which shortage of skilled labor is faced by organizations and RPO is utilized by some to fill this gap. The Indian labor market too has become increasingly dynamic: workers today change employers more often than in previous generations. De-regulated labor markets have also created a shift towards contract and part-time labor and shorter work tenures. These trends increase recruitment activity and encourage the use of RPO model.

RPO Models:

1. Pure sourcing: It includes providing support services to on-shore based recruiters.

2. Full cycle recruiting: It includes all the activities that come under Recruitment Process like sourcing, screening, etc for both temporary contract as well as permanent positions.

ADVANTAGES:

• Reduces process variations
  
  
• Increases sourcing timeliness and expertise
  
  
• Improves quality of resumes
  
  
• Decreases time to fill
  
  
• Gives better leverage of technology
  
  
• Improves candidate nurturance
  
  
• Improves applicant tracking
  
  
• Enables meaningful reports

CRITICAL REQUIREMENTS :

For any managed services model to work there are some critical requirements or must haves like :

1. Executive sponsorship of the project. Any business model innovation requires the executive to champion internal resistance into acceptance.
   
   
2. Clear Partnership Definition - A detailed and clear scope of work to be defined before agreeing on to the terms. The managed services agreement will have the scope of work documented & agreed upon.
   
   
3. Clarity on the role & the deliverables from the onsite resource & the same to be documented & mutually agreed upon.
   
   
4. Mutually agreed expectations to be jotted in the agreement. Prepare a project plan with defined recruitment process & get a consensus on the same.
   
   
5. Historical data to be made available so as to help prepare a project plan blocking all possible loop holes and deciding on the key deliverables.
   
   
6. Its imperative for the success of this arrangement that we have a buy in from each person involved in the project from Clients side and everyone understand that the intention is to meet the numbers and nothing else.

One of the major tenets behind RPO is that there should be the ability to create a significant candidate pool to draw on for their clients. By doing so, the RPO vendor is able to turn around job requisitions more quickly and efficiently than a single employer. At the same time true RPO players need to invest time in follow-up surveys, compiling benchmark data, gauging hiring manager and employee satisfaction post hire and determination of quality of hires. By examining data relating to employee satisfaction, retention rates, and others, RPO providers can improve the recruitment process.

Over the past few years, RPO services have been chiefly employed by IT, retail, finance and insurance and engineering sectors. The trend seems to be gaining ground not only among big organisations but also the small to mid-sized companies. Since RPO affects an organisation’s business growth and success, the organisation should have a detailed understanding of the concept and also of the expenditure for the recruitment process. This helps to identify the processes that should be outsourced, and which RPO is best suited to the unique requirement of the company. Industry studies in the USA show that within two years, 58 percent of the Fortune 2000 companies will rely on this model. This further strengthens the point that RPO is indeed the answer to the recruitment woes of organisations globally.

Advantage India

Research firm IDC forecasts staffing and recruitment spending to reach $92 billion globally by 2009 (Source: ERE media study) and RPO services stand a good chance of garnering a large portion of this spending. India, with its huge talent pool and its rich experience in the outsourcing industry, can indeed ride this wave of recruitment process outsourcing. Although the Indian domestic RPO market is still in its nascent stage, global RPO providers are seriously evaluating the option of offshoring their RPO needs to destinations such as India. RPO providers which were early-adopters of an India-based model are now reaping the rewards.

Five rules for posting your resume online

Sometimes when you apply for a job online you can feel like you're sending your resume into a black hole. Here are some tips for finding the right sites and getting results.

A few years ago I would not have hesitated to tell you to put a lot of time into visiting sites and posting your resume. After all, what did you have to lose? I’ve changed my mind. You can waste a lot of time, and even money, if you visit a lot of sites.

Today, there are literally hundreds of sites, and some are not even based in this country. With the advent of online payment services and inexpensive Web site hosting, anyone can put one of these sites together, and entice you to give them some money to post your resume. Who knows if companies even know they exist or care to search their databases?

Call me cautious at this point, because I haven’t given up on the Internet as a career resource. To keep people from sinking too much time and effort into online job searching, I have developed a few simple rules for when and where to post your resume and hunt for jobs:

Rule #1: Never pay a big fee for posting your resume on a site or for using resources on a site. The site may look great, but you don’t know what they are doing with your resume. They could also be making up job postings. Reputable sites should be getting fees from the companies that search the cache of resumes, not from you.

Rule #2: Don’t bother posting to a site that is national or international in scope if you are not willing to relocate. If you don’t want to move, then spend your time researching companies in your area and sending them resumes. Check the local papers for jobs, and make sure to check the job postings on the papers’ Web sites.

Rule #3: If the IT job postings on the site require so many diverse skills or an arcane mix of skills, then don’t bother applying for those jobs. Skip job postings that require you to give your salary requirements or current salary. It's hard to believe, but companies use the online sites to test salary ranges and job descriptions. They have no intention of hiring, but they’re trying to do some research on the cheap.

Rule #4: Post on a broad-spectrum job site only if you can quickly find at least five recent job openings that interest you. Fewer than five means the companies that need your services don’t use this particular site as a regular resource. (This rule doesn’t apply for specialized IT job sites.) Also, if you can’t read the job postings before you post your resume, then the site is of no use to you and you should skip it.

Rule #5: Look for sites that are specifically geared for what you do or want to do, such as trade associations and peer organizations. They often have job and resume posting sections. Savvy companies know to go there, rather than the general job sites, when looking for that one special person with the IT skills they need.

Let me give you an example of how to hunt jobs on the Web while keeping these rules in mind. Say you are a manager who manages teams of programmers, software testers, and so forth. Write down your top five skills and three most important perks for a new job. Write down your title, plus three or four other titles that you think someone who does what you do might have.

Since you work with software, begin your search by visiting a software trade association Web site -- such as NASSCOM (http://www.nasscom.in/). You check out the postings in the JobsNetwork section of the site. It’s easy to find the kinds of jobs you’re interested in because the section is set up for IT people who work with software. You post your resume here. You visit a couple of other trade association sites, and decide to post your resume at one or two because they have interesting job postings and more than a few are management level.

You then check out the job postings at the corporate sites of several companies in the area that you know do software development. Even if you don’t see a job posted that fits you, look for the e-mail address of the HR department and send a brief synopsis of your resume highlights in the body of the e-mail. (Don’t send an attachment because many corporate e-mail servers now discard mail with attachments because they are trying to ward off viruses.)

Finally, you browse through the online job postings at the major daily newspaper sites for your area and any area you might consider moving to, just in case you might find something. When you find something, you respond to the ad as directed. If a company name is listed in the ad, visit the company’s Web site and find the HR contact. Send a brief e-mail saying you’re interested in a job you read about in the paper and include your resume synopsis in the body of the e-mail.

Then, you pat yourself on the back because you’re using your time wisely, and you’re on you way to a new job.

3 Good Things About Social Media recruitment

Many entrepreneurs are using social networking and other Web 2.0 tools to recruit employees. On LinkedIn and Facebook you can learn about candidates in depth. In a typical resume, you might get a line on interests, on LinkedIn, you can find out who they associate with. On Facebook, you might find some groups and associations and even pictures. It gives us more dimensions than a static resume can offer.

The mushrooming of Web 2.0 technologies coupled with employers' heightened understanding of how to use these tools to find and hire attractive employees promises to radically reshape the recruiting landscape. There's never been a better way to proactively go out and find and hire people you think are a good fit for your position.

Todd Raphael in his post 3 Good Things About Hiring via Social Media highlights the advantages of social media recruitment:

• The company’s more prepared, and can conduct better interviews and be better at selection. If every interviewer, from recruiter to manager to senior management (if they’re involved), has read the candidate’s blog, viewed his/her videos, or perused their Tweets, they’re better prepared going in.
  
  
• The candidate’s more prepared. If the candidate has read about a company on Glassdoor.com, connected with current employees on LinkedIn, looked at what company employees are saying on Facebook, kept up with a company blog, and so on, they know more than they would by looking at company marketing-speak. They can decide themselves that they do or don’t fit.
  
  
• Onboarding. No more nervously asking random people, “tell me where the bathroom is again?” Life’s easier on the new employee because they know a lot of people on Day 1 — or at least recognize them from their Twitter photos.

HR as a Strategic Partner for Organizations of the Future

In today’s economic climate, smart companies agree people are their most important asset and one of their key competitive advantages. However; as rapid globalization continues to impact the region and Asia’s markets become increasingly bullish, the talent market is becoming increasingly competitive. As a result, HR issues form some of the greatest challenges CEO’s face today, most notably attracting and retaining the best talent, steadily improving people productivity and dealing with a diverse workforce in the midst of increasing globalization. Hence, HR today is expected to not only comprehend but also conceptualize; not only create but also innovate, not only implement but also sustain relevant strategies and contribute effectively to giving a corporation its winning edge.

Despite this, HR departments are on the whole still not considered a valuable strategic asset. After nearly 20 years of hopeful rhetoric about becoming “strategic partners” with a “seat at the table” where the business decisions that matter are made, the truth of the matter is most HR professionals aren't even close. The majority of HR executives remain, to all extent and purposes, neither strategic nor leaders.

So how does HR make the transition? In order to become more strategic, HR departments need to shift their focus from advising on how processes can be improved or technical program enhancements to addressing those people-related issues that truly impact the business.

There are nine key actions HR departments can undertake to make their role more strategic.

Align People with Strategy and Competency Building

In any organization, HR’s core objective is to improve business results through people, and this philosophy manifests itself in just about every aspect of the business. In order to play an integral part in the overall organizational strategy, you must lead change, create a shared need, shape a vision, inspire commitment, build enabling systems, monitor and demonstrate progress, and make all of this sustainable.

Empower Managers and Employees

In order to become a strategic partner to your organization, you must empower your employees, investing a sense of ownership in them, recognizing their ideas, and making them feel they are important to the organization. In order to do this you must transform your managers into the face of the company, enabling them to make HR decisions within a prescribed policy framework. HR should obviously be available for feedback and to help resolve issues, but without empowering employees and managers, you will remain stuck in the quagmire of process and policy.

Drive Leadership Development

HR is the primary architect of the development and succession plans of any organization. Your role is to guide and coordinate these plans by identifying critical leadership competencies, creating a context for leadership development, coaching managers to take up leadership positions and providing honest and frank feedback. You must help your organization nurture leadership talent by working in conjunction with other managers. HR must also sometimes take the lead in establishing partnerships with executive and mid-level managers to put in place the internal development systems, training, programs, projects, mentoring opportunities, and management review teams that make leadership development and planning a reality.

Synergize Diversity

Most progressive Best Employers have a corporate diversity policy that actively seeks to cross-pollinate people across cultures and business geographies, going far beyond merely transferring employees from one part of the world to another. These companies promote more women managers to management committees, accept and support work/life balance programs for both men and women, and at the very least, provide cross-functional exposure and movement. HR is the custodian of encouraging and fostering workplace diversity so you must encourage your organization to synergize diversity.

Retain Key Employees and Manage Attrition

Attrition rates are especially high in Asia Pacific, affected not only by people changing jobs but also careers. As such, HR’s role is to design a differential reward policy that rewards employees diversely to garner the right financial results. According to the 10th Annual India Salary Increase Survey, 84 percent of organizations linked salary increase to performance ratings, and an outstanding performer received twice salary the increase awarded to an average performer in 2005.

However, not all employees are on the lookout for a higher salary, so HR should create a performance culture that nurtures these employees. You should be helping employees develop skills at all levels, strengthening managerial capability, designing high-potential programs for key talent, formulating an effective pay strategy, driving a performance-based culture, identifying the leaders of tomorrow, designing an honest and timely communication program to address employees on their career prospects, and building senior leadership commitment.

Make Pay Communication More Transparent

In a recent interview, Alan Lafley, CEO of Proctor & Gamble, said one of the most valuable lessons he has learned during his tenure was the importance of keeping communication at “Sesame Street level”. Few employees in Asia actually understand the myriad components in their pay packets and, somewhat shockingly, even fewer are actually interested. HR must communicate and help employees understand the need for those components, working out the best possible structure to motivate them. Alternative forms of reward that are simple to administer and are constantly improved upon can contribute to creating a sense of belonging so strong that people would not dream of working anywhere else.

Achieve Post Merger and Acquisition Success

Since the late 1990s, M&A deals in Asia have grown considerably in sophistication and complexity, and an increasing number of companies are realizing that people-related issues such as cultural adaptability and an understanding of local HR policies and practices have a strong impact on the long-term success of many deals. Underestimating or failing to address basic HR challenges that arise during due diligence on any merger or acquisition leaves companies vulnerable to legal incompliance, exposed to potentially large hidden costs and undeclared expenditures, and at huge risk of loosing key employees.

Foster a High-Performance Culture

Performance management is at the heart of all HR processes; however it is becoming increasingly difficult for HR to successfully foster a high-performance culture. Some HR professionals become guilty of creating standardized solutions rather than encouraging exemplary employees, which does little to drive the business.

Hewitt’s Asia-Pacific Salary Increase Study, 2005 reveals that organizations are increasingly focused on measuring and managing performance, with 98 percent of participating organizations saying they have formal platforms for performance management and 94 percent linking salary increases to performance. According to the study, the use of variable pay as a strategic lever continues to be an important means of attracting and retaining talent, and 86 percent of participating organizations have a variable pay plan in place. The study also indicates that variable target payouts have increased across all levels.

Efficient and Effective Service Delivery

In order to focus on the more strategic initiatives and still ensure efficient service delivery, HR needs to redesign its supply chain and automate routine services. Standard services need to be decentralized in order to gain economy of scale. It is also imperative that HR departments make the necessary changes so that they own the decision-making mechanisms and not just the decision.

Even today, most HR departments limit themselves by focusing on best practices rather than results. They don’t connect employee and customer value propositions as they don’t feel they own the money spent on the people. Other barriers to excellent HR service delivery include a penchant for building greater complexity into program designs rather than convincing business leaders they'd be better served with a simpler, well-executed system. HR's textbook approach to employee development is another obstacle to successful delivery efforts. The reality is that HR professionals simply don’t know because they’ve spent far too much time perfecting activities that more progressive companies are outsourcing!

The Road Ahead

So assuming HR follows these key pointers, can they really act as strategic partners? In order for HR departments to be taken seriously as a strategic partner, it is essential that you make the quantum leap to actually behaving as a business and accepting accountability for business results. You must focus on creating and maximizing value and mitigating risks. HR can contribute greatly to the financial success of any company, but in order to do this you must be just as focused as any other department when it comes to achieving business goals.

Source: Hewitt Associates LLC India Knowledge Center