HR's 100 most influential leaders

Human Resources magazine recently published a list of HR's 100 most influential leaders. Check this link for the Top 50

For the remaining 50 click here

PF and PPF - Informative link

Link to an article that describes the difference between PF and PPF. Worth a read.

Indian techies never had it better! - A rediff link

Check this article on the current trend in indian IT. Click here">

The Indian Talent War - Article

Read this link on Rediff on the Indian Talent WarClick here

Banglore techies earn the highest in India

Banaglore techies rake in the moolahs, a survey shows Bangalorians the highest pain techies in the country. Check this Link. I don't know though how long this trend will continue....

Manpower survey shows worldwide "talent shortage"

"Across North America and Asia, the top three talent shortages are identical - sales representatives rank number one, followed by engineers and technicians," - Manpower's CEO and Chairman Jeffrey Joerres said in a statement.Read this Yahoo news item

The Indian Aviators

The Indian skies it seems are getting clogged.
Most carriers do an hour of taxing before landing at the Delhi and the Mumbai airports.

Praful Patel, the Indian Civil Avialtion Minister was recently quizzed by Prabhu Chawala ( Associate Editor – India/TV today) on Seedhi Baat. I never found ministerial speeches inspirational; however Mr. Patel seems to know what he is doing, a visionary, currently fighting and trying to give the Indian welcome ports a makeover.

Just in case you aren’t aware:
1) India was the largest buyer of Aircrafts in 2005
2) 5 more Airlines are entering the Indian skies in 2006
3) Aviation Industry will be one of the largest employers in the country.

With the privatization of two major terminals - Delhi and Mumbai, acquisition of Sahara by Jet, Indian Airlines calling itself “Indian” the best days of Indian Aviators are round the corner.

Pune, # 3 among Top 6 emerging cities for Business hubs

Check this Forbes.com Slides

Wal-Marting in India

To have a Wal-Mart experience in India will be exciting. Known for its ruthless business initiatives and for changing the retail landscape in USA, Europe, China by selling for less, Wal-Mart is now eyeing India and currently making rounds of the PMO trying to persuade the government to allow them to open their retail stores, India currently do not allow FDI in the merchandise segment and Wal-Mart hopes to change this rule.If they fail,Wal-Mart will have to marry one of the Indian companies to enter India.I am pretty excited about Wal-Marting in India, Look forward for a retail makeover. I do wonder though, where will the goods then be imported from?

GM's Outsourcing Deal

Indian firms have been sharing a chunk of the pie for quite sometime, the most recent case has been of Wipro, eating a $300 million piece of GM's 5 year $7.5 billion mega outsourcing contract awarded to EDS, HP, IBM and Wipro.

The day isn't far when pureplay indian companies will play with billion dollar contracts.

Check this
Link.

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.