Top 10 blunders Job Seekers make : Observations and Remedy

As a gatekeeper to a technology company, I have spent number of years browsing thousands of unsolicited and solicited "résumé's" - the most important sales pitch we make.However, what bothers me is the laxness and mediocrity job seekers take refuge on using their résumé.

Here are few of my observations
1) 80% of résumé's come with a blank email Or without cover letters.
2) 90% job seekers have only a generic "one size fits all" resume'.
3) 50% or more do not use basic word tools such as "spell check" "formatting" etc.
4) 70% never even follow up.
5) 70% will not remember they had applied.
6) 90% of the résumé's come in standard templates with unwanted information.
7) 50% or more will come with weird email addresses such as coolbird@yahoo.com.
8) 20% of job seekers tailors their profile to the open position.
9) 50% will do homework on the company.
10)80% does not take this "life altering" event seriously.

Having a good profile is not enough, you should be able to attract the attention of recruiters and hiring managers and get the "call".

Remember, you will not get a SECOND chance to make the FIRST impression.So,next time you are in between jobs, make an effort to write a professional document that is a snap shot of who you are, what you have accomplished and contributions you can make in the company . When writin your resume', you may want to try using a creative format, a format that reflects your personality and yet keeps the professional image of the document intact. Below are few heads that you may want to use.
1) Summary of qualifications
2) Area of expertise
3) Career progression
4) Accomplishments and highlights
5) Education

REMEMBER, your résumé is the first ever document the Company will look at,so take your time to craft and create it. Once you are done, show it to couple people who you think can critique and help make it better.
When applying for a position, understand the requirement, write a cover note responding how you match up and where you fall short. Honesty works. Use your network to spread the word of your availability, ask friends and colleagues to introduce you to hiring managers of companies that interest you. There's a saying
" Luck is your preparedness to grab a passing opportunity", all your efforts will go waste if you fail at the right time, so BE PREPARED.
Wear a smile, think and do good, be positive, have a great attitude and most important, be grounded. Finally, follow up and never forget to send a thank you note to your interviewer.

Best wishes for your new assignment.

Culture

While reading an article on HR, came across this definition of Culture by Schein " Culture is the way people solve problems". Just loved it! its crisp, clear and defines it beautifully in 6 words.

 

 

Intuition in recruiting

Recruiting is intuitive, although its a specialised skill, what differentiates the great from the good,in my opinion is the intuitiveness of the recruiter. You may not get the butterflies but you will get the next hire.

No Room for complainers in this German company

Forwarding this link referred by a good friend, somewhat bizzare but a real case of how a company stays away from whiners by enforcing it within via contract. Check this
Link

The Three Boxes -

Think of everything you do in your organisation and put it into three boxes: Managing the present (Box 1), selectively abandoning the past (Box 2) and creating the future (Box 3),that's what Professor Vijay Govindarajan quotes from his book on strategy titled "Ten Rules For Strategic Innovators - From Idea To Execution", during a recent release in India. If you haven't heard of VG, check this News article

Why foreigners love to work in India

With the increase in outsourcing work to India, suddenly the country finds itself a destination for a few foreign workers, who've decided to make India their temporary home. Read this rediff article

Work/life or Both

A personal observation: Employees with a good & happy family life are not only productive and effective at work but also very balanced in their thoughts.Most organisations fail to encompass the family concept in creating employee policies because they use work/life concepts only as an advertisement to attract talent. Unless organisations live these concepts and employees take benefit of it, not only it will lead to burnout but also attrition. Work/life concepts such as job sharing, telecommuting, flex schedules, alternate work arrangements are superb tools to bind talent to orgnanisations by giving them the flexibility to balance their work and life.

Are you the chauffeur of your "car"eer

For majority of Indian software techies, a lure of  an overseas assignment is enough to create sleepless nights. The brightest of the techies in the block will give a second thought to a sales pitch that has overseas written in bold. There's nuthing wrong, Overseas assignments are a great opportunity for personal and professional development if used to leverage empoyability.However I have observed that a majority places "overseas assignment " as career objective  and once attained, complacency,location addiction, charishma of being in a foreign land puts their "real" career objectives in their back seat which I think is suicidal.The last thing you want is your Toyota/Honda in control of your career.

 

 

Pay, Stronger than Caffeine

I asked a couple friends and relatives on what made them choose where they are and what will tempt them to the next job, below are some of the responses, the answers were subjective as I hadn't provided any list to choose from.I have fine tuned and categorized them for convenience.  

 More facts on the demography
* Sample Size                          : 10
* Place of residence               : Overseas ( Asian Indian working either in USA/UK)
* Age range                            : 25-35 barring one, 40+
* Industry representation        : All IT barring one, Banking(Govt.)
* Job seek status                    : Passive ( none of them are actively searching )


On factors that led them to the current employer, brand, location, overseas assignment, growth potential, stability and pay drew equal response. Variety of other reasons were given by the group which you can see below  

 

Organization          ( Brand )-  

Global Reach        (Mobility)
Future                    (Career path)
Location               (Relocation ) 
Job                       (Responsibilities)
Job                       (Environment)
Work                     (Freedom)
Overseas               (American dream)
Unemployed         (Debt)
Perception            (Treatment)
Development        (Growth )
Manager               (Relationship)
Stability                 (Organization)
Pay                       (Compensation )
Commute            (Travel )
Team                    (People)


On factors that will tempt them to look at a prospective opportunity, an overwhelming majority chose Pay  followed by growth potential and newer & challenging work. Here are the other factors

Job                     (Innovation)
Job                    (New & challenging)
Development    (Growth ) 
Pay                    (Compensation )
Work/Life           (Flexible)
Stability              (Organization)
Brand                 (Organization)
Position              (Hierarchy)
Job                     (Enrichment)
Balance              (Money/stability)
Geography          (Location)

Quick Inference:
Its a no brainer -  Pay  still leads the pack   and has the ability to wake passive seekers,  followed closely by opportunity for growth and development.

"Make hay when the sun shines"

If this is the mantra techies follow in India, i think its high time for India Inc to take this up at a national level and address present and future consumers on how it will impact future business and jobs.

As companies face tougher road ahead on talent scouting, not only future clients shying away from India but even Indian companies taking refuge in countries such as Philipines, Thailand, Bangladesh ...

This Sun will not shine longer if the industry doesn't find a long term solution to Salary inflation.

Why we hate HR? Link with my comments

This article raised many eyebrows within the HR fraternity, the SHRM HR Magazine editorial featured a note on this article this month.To my utter curiosity, i read the article today, honestly I couldn't agree more. It did bring in my defenses but its a well researched and written piece on where HR is.

This article is a hard pinch on the HR community, it questions the "intellect" ability of HR pro's and raises a question on why the brightest in the campus stays away from specialising in HR and then digs on why HR is still not the management blue eyed boy.

The author was all praise for Libby Sartain, chief people officer at Yahoo.He believes leaders like Sartain are leading the HR pack by not just having a "seat at the strategic table" but by actually help build the table.

As rightly quoted , as more and more companies start to outfarm administrative and non strategic HR pieces to specialised vendors,unless we roll our sleeves and change our HR paradigm, we are at risk of facing redundancy.

Link to the article -
Why we hate HR?

Rajnish

Attrition: Is there a way to contain it?

The Indian IT companies are facing a huge task of attracting and retaining talent as the demand to fill position has skyrocketed with increased offshoring. With India still very much in the radar for offshore work, homegrown Indian firms and MNC's are setting up center to tap Indian talent pool. The fallout : employee turnover.

Major IT houses are facing a daunting task of retaining talent against MNC's entering the Indian market offering higher salaries. Companies are forced to relook and rethink their retention strategies. Question is, how do you retain your existing talent pool from becoming prey to other companies. Is there any formula or is there a way.

Differentiating the cause of attrition usually help derive at strategies which in turn will help combat attrition, however how seriously and prompty we act on it, makes us a winner or loser.

India has only 0.6% jobs from US firms - Article link

Click here to read a recent article on the % of jobs India has got from US firms.

India's Top IT companies - A rediff link

Click here to check India's Top IT Companies.

Will you hire yourself?

A good question to ask yourself is "will I hire myself" ? introspective and assist in self diagnosis and evaluation, this question is a good internal measuring tool to check how worthy we think of ourselves.

India's top 10 IT employers

A link on India's top IT employers,Interesting Read click here

Dearth of HR Talent

An intersting article with Mckinsey Online on Dearth of HR Talent
Click Here

HR trends - Link to a article

Read this post today online, By the Infosys Team of Hema Ravichandar, Somnath Baishya and Mamata Sahu,
Click here

My take: Talent engagement is the only way to survive and sustain, Organisation will need to have a talent paradigm, every individual in the organisation should have a talent mindset, its the right people that makes great organisation. HR should be the facilitator in creating a cultural shift and ensuring that the organisation imbibe this mindset.
Like the team pointed out, other factors incidental to employment such as compensation needs to be in line with expeactation yet creative to bind people and excite them to achieve more.

In all an excellent article, talks about HR's strategic contribution.

India's lagging Financial System

Read this post at Mckinsey online , Interesting insights on a comparision of two emering economies, China and India. Current state with a futuristic look at the financial health of the country. Good read and pointers. Click here

Is India Losing its competitive advantage in offshore outsourcing

Is India losing its edge in the outsourcing game? My take is No, however it shows early signs of a burnout.

India may give away couple deals to emerging markets such as China, Philippines,Russia etc, however India is way ahead in this industry and getting business out of India will be very tough.

Couple warning signs:

1) Attrition: India is currently facing one of the worst employee attrition, the high demand propelled by increased offshoring of work has taken the worst HR nightmare out of the box. No Shows, walk outs have become HR's reason for insomnia. High attrition will force companies to revise employee retention activities which will drive up employment cost in turn impacting price competitiveness which has been a major offshore calling card. Indian companies are now looking at cities such as Jaipur, Chandigarh, Calcutta,Chennai to tap local talents and to remain competitive to the clients.

2)Salary Inflation: With increased competition and multinational corporation waging a talent war, companies are looking at abnormal salary raises to employees to bind them to their companies. Money matter, that's what the new mantra is, commitment and loyalty is out of the window, Indian employees have found their new friend in waiting after a three year hiatus. Companies will have to look at yearly increases by 20 - 40% and will find it hard to provide same value add to Client without adding some of it to their project cost.

3) A weak dollar : May 2002 , a dollar fetched Rs.49, today a Dollar will get us Rs.43.5, with the trillions of deficit, the Dollar is not a favored currency at this time and may fall further which will directly impact offshore project pricing.

4) Political volatility & questionable infrastructure: India has always been viewed by the western world as unstable and volatile. Nuclear neighbors, a corrupt political and bureaucratic system, weak infrastructure ( road, electricity etc)are couple notable reasons why our own homegrown companies have disaster recovery centers at places lile Mauritius, or development facilities at Philippines and china.

5) Job burnout: The high demand industry is pushing the limits on people,no one talks of work-life anymore, extended working hours, late nights, night shifts have taken a toll on employee health and family. Result, an under productive employee - outcome a dent on quality.

Will India remain victorious, time will tell, India is the china of Software, its not only impossible but a long shot to outrun China from the manufacturing top spot, out placing India from the IT top spot is unthinkable at this time.
Stellar leaders, quality service at a fraction price, a untirin workforce,competent talent pool and consistency in successful delivery of world class services 24/7, India leads the pack by years.