The Asia Pacific Headhunter

How Twitter and Crowdsourcing Are Reshaping Recruiting - HBR

How Twitter and Crowdsourcing Are Reshaping Recruiting - Conversation Starter - HarvardBusiness.org.

It's a conversation starter alright, especially for people who desperately need to find some return on the endless hours they spend on social networking sites. I personally love Twitter, it's a lot of fun, I've learned more about people I knew before and I've met some cool people as well. But the noise factor gets pretty high, pretty quickly. It's also is a mindfulness killer. If you let it it will take your ability to concentrate and feed it to the fail whale.

That being said I'm not going to give up on Twitter as a recruiting tool. It really makes a lot of sense in that it provides an insight into people as people rather than just as candidates. For headhunters it's only natural to want to have as much unbiased insight into candidates as possible. So Twitter isn't revolutionary in that sense however, it is a new channel that you have access to in order to discover and learn about potential superstars for your business.

For candidates though it's a completely different story, probably one best left for another post...

You can follow or unfollow me on twitter here!

Working Women Discriminate On Appearance

U.S. working women see appearance as key: survey | Lifestyle | Reuters.

According to a survey conducted by PINK magazine women in senior leadership positions see appearance as key to their success at work. A more eye-opening result was that one in five female executives say they have withheld a promotion or a raise due to the way an employee dresses.

That kind of discrimination is hard to believe especially coming FROM women who face discrimination themselves when it comes to leaving work to raise families and in other areas. I think there is a fair number of woman who feel they have to show a tough persona to succeed at a high level in business, I wonder if surveys like these reflect the result of taking on that persona.

Bain & Company: "What do Asia's executives really think about the crisis?" < Publications

Bain & Company: "What do Asia's executives really think about the crisis?" < Publications.

A rather startling survey result from Bain and Company about what Asia executives think about the credit crisis. A lot of confidence in the region but some of that may be misplaced. There is a strong feeling that Asian companies will need to redevelop their models of business as the European and American consumer start an ongoing trend of buying less and saving more. Who's more capable of changing. The Asian company or the rich consumer? I'm betting on the Asian company. Consumerism is as ingrained in the American and European psyche now as breathing.

Ex-Goldman Trader, Deephaven Asia Head Bhatia Plans Hedge Fund - Bloomberg.com

Ex-Goldman Trader, Deephaven Asia Head Bhatia Plans Hedge Fund - Bloomberg.com.

As the credit crunch slowly comes to an end you'll see some really clever plays made  across the region. People like Bhatia will be at the forefront.

Recruiting Software Overview

A lot of businesses, small and large alike, are turning to applicant tracking systems to make the recruiting process a little easier, faster and more cost-effective. But have you ever thought about just how secure those recruiting software systems are?

Cytiva Software Inc., which provides on-demand talent management solutions, recently released a free white paper that explores ATS security and offers tips for vendors.

Most SaaS applicant tracking system vendors are able to provide levels of security that most organizations can't match internally, but some ATS users mistakingly believe that all vendors can offer the same amount of data security.

“Ask any applicant tracking vendor about security and you’ll get a laundry list of security measures, mostly concerning their physical data center,” Cytiva CEO Jason Moreau said. “But security is an ongoing process that involves not only your data center, but the code base of your application and the execution of ongoing policies and practices to make sure your application, your servers and your security systems remain secure in the face of an ever-evolving threat.”

Every company should be focusing on the importance of security, with more and more cases of it being compromised cropping up. Since early 2006, there have been about four to six HR data breaches per month, according to HR Privacy Solutions.

One problem is that privacy laws vary from state to state. On top of that, employers are often required to notify any affected parties, even if they only suspect that some data may have been compromised.

In example, in 2009, Aetna had to notify 65,000 job applicants that their personal data may have been accessed in a suspected security breach; in 2007, the Gap announced that a laptop containing Social Security numbers of some job applicants was stolen from the company's third-party vendor; and in 2007, Monster.com announced that 1.3 million users had personal information stolen by criminals who hacked into the Web site.

So what should you look for to make sure the software you're getting is secure. First of all, make sure the data center can offer you 24-7 secure entry, secure cabinet and cage space, round-the-clock technical staff, data-grade HVAC, advanced fire suppression system and optimized and redundant power supplies.

You also should make sure your software provider has the right hardware and software protections in place, which include everything from firewall protection to enforcing strong passwords to server monitoring.

In addition to everything else mentioned, your software provider should be able to offer you regular updates and provide new features to avoid any potential security risks.

Entry Level Job Search Partners With Social Media Website

Social networking sites have become a popular way for employers to recruit college graduates who are looking for entry level jobs.  Knowing this, one job search engine specializing in these positions and internships has partnered up with TwitterJobSearch. 

According to a recent press release, CollegeRecruiter and TwitterJobSearch have teamed up in order to build a college student and recent graduate recruitment platform on Twitter.  By Doing this, CollegeRecruiter will extend its reach into the world of social media.  TwitterJobSearch will provide companies looking to recruit Generation Y workers with a cost effective and easily managed way to get in touch with this part of the population.

 

"CollegeRecruiter.com works hard to put the jobs of our employer clients at the fingertips of college students searching for internships and recent graduates hunting for entry-level jobs and social media is an increasingly important channel," said  CollegeRecruiter.com’s founder Steven Rothberg. "Our partnership with TwitterJobSearch.com, will facilitate the efforts of our clients to reach recent graduates through social media networks."

 

CollegeRecruiter is not the only company to partner up with TwitterJobSearch.  Other organizations onboard include; TMP Worldwide, Incisive Media, Euro RSCG Riley, Barkers and Avature.  On top of this, there are over 400 job board properties involved. This will guarantee that businesses will be able to find a variety of services at different pricing levels, which will help meet the needs of all involved. 

Already companies in the process of recruiting new workers have the ability to automatically incorporate optimized placement on TwitterJobSearch into a range of other print and digital activities, both on a local and global scale.  On top of this, they will be able to take advantage of many different fully managed programs designed to aid in recruiting through social media. 

“We're tracking organizations in more than 17 countries that are already using social media sites like Twitter in their recruitment efforts;" said the co-founder of TwitterJobSearch Bill Fischer in the release. "Social media, paired with natural language search engine is the future of classified advertising and we're building out a network of top tier partners like CollegeRecruiter.com to reach the graduate market. With over 270,000 unique job opportunities being published in the last thirty days, Twitter is likely to become a bigger online recruitment resource than Monster or Craigslist by the end of this year." 

Why Google Employees Quit

It's hard to believe from the hype but some people actually quit working at Google! The Google employment brand has been a big bonus for them, the story that it's the holy grail of employers with the best perks, best salaries, and untold opportunity is one that is greeted by many as an absolute truth. But thanks to Techcrunch we have some real reviews from employees who have left, it makes interesting reading. And while Google still sounds like a good place to work the result is that it may depend a lot on WHERE you are and WHO you work for if it's going to be a good place for YOU to work. 

I happen to think it's a pretty big positive that they actually go to the trouble of asking people who left why, it's no secret that it's a pretty rare thing in most companies to conduct an exit interview (mostly because they are too scared to hear the answers). And the fact that some people were unhappy is certainly not unusual considering the massive growth they've had. It's also obvious from many of the people that the high expectations they had before joining Google were part of the reason they were uncomfortable when they finally arrived. Expectations founded in your imagination are never easy to meet in reality.

Why Google Employees Quit .

Social Networking Tips for the Laid Off

As usual Scoble cuts through the crap with his view of how to help yourself with social networking to get a job. I think he has some really good points in this article. But at the same time some of his suggestions aren't going to be practical if you've done zero social networking in the past. The key will be to use some of it and disregard the rest.

My favourite tips are:

2. Remove all LOLCats from your blog.

3. Remove all friends from your facebook and twitter accounts that will embarrass you.

4. Demonstrate you are “clued in.” This means removing ANYTHING that says you are a “social media expert” from your Twitter account. There is no such thing and even if there were there’s no job in it for you. Chris Brogan already has that job and he’s not giving it up.

He actually gets pretty animated about these LOLCat things. I guess if he hates them then there is a good chance a potential employer might hate them too. But remove friends Robert? C'mon, what kind of person doesn't have at least one friend who embarasses us now and again? I'm pretty sure I've been that friend for someone at some point.

http://scobleizer.com/2009/01/12/if-you-are-laid-off-heres-how-to-socially-network/

The Impact of a Recession on New Graduates

Today I read a short but polarising post from Matthew Yglesias (via a tweet from @jencorbett on Twitter - blog here). In response to a reader he went looking for information on the impact of a recession on the careers of new graduates. While it seems obvious that their short-term ability to find work would be seriously compromised due to less jobs and competition from experienced workers, he was also shocked to find that the long term impact was also horrific.

Indeed, the news is almost shockingly dismal. Research from Paul Oyer and Philip Oreopoulos, Till Von Wachter & Andrew Heisz suggests that the negative impact on earnings of first entering the labor force amidst a recession lasts anywhere from ten years to forever. 

Matthew goes on to explain that when he was a freshman in 1999 it was easy for people to get well-paid jobs because of the tech boom. But by 2003 that was long gone and the people who graduated then had more competition and therefore got lesser jobs and started in a less prestigious firm which can have a "life-long impact on your earnings". 

Where it really get's fun is how he ends the post:

Long story short, life is cruel and unfair, which is one of many reasons why we need economic and social justice and why talk about the infinite justice of market outcomes shouldn’t be taken too seriously.

Matthew is a great blogger, it's neat how he uses a real study to jump to his own experience and then uses that to make his final statement, which reflects his opinion not reality. Problem here is that if you're a recent grad and you believe his opinion then you are going to get yourself into a whole heap of dog dodo blaming "economic and social injustices" from keeping you from getting a good job or earning as much another person, or whatever.

The reality is that life is hard but your time of birth is not one of the social and economic injustices that society is going to fight to cure for you. To believe it's a social injustice that you're born at a certain time is so incredibly weird you're only going to mess yourself up thinking about it. So avoid reading things like this. Sure it might feel good to blame a larger entity than yourself at times, but just remember it won't make an iota of difference to changing your own situation. 

The Job - Is This The Inevitable Future of Professional Work?

The Job is a slick short with an interesting story. There is no doubt that for labor this style of hiring has been a reality for years, but how would professionals feel if they were chosen the same way?

The Job, was created by Screaming Frog Productions. Written & Directed by Jonathan Browning and acted & crewed by some of the most amazing people on the planet! The Job has played at over 100 international film festivals and has been honored with 27 awards. Please support independent films by visiting us at... 

www.ScreamingFrog.com 

www.TheJobTheShort.com 

www.JonathanBrowning.com 

www.LeslieMcManus.com