The Asia Pacific Headhunter

Working While In Pain

Being in constant pain is something a LOT of people deal with everyday. And dealing with it successfully is something I'm personally interested in learning more about. To make a long story short I have an injury that has kept me in almost constant pain for 6 months now. I won't go into what exactly right now but while researching and trying to learn more about my problem and dealing with it I found myself looking into how pro athletes deal with the pain they have.

It seems there is a tonne of different things they do. Many take the painkiller route, and others don't take any painkillers at all. In some cases it's extreme. I've posted below a video of a hit Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Anquan Boldin took in a game last year. Quite frankly it's sickening, as it was described after the game many players had never heard a hit so loud on the playing field. Boldin was left unconscious with blood pouring out of his mouth and nose. He had a fractured face that required 8 plates be inserted and his jaw wired. The amazing thing is he returned to the playing field 2 weeks later and during his time off he refused to take painkillers!

Now obviously this is a tough guy to say the very least! And I really wonder how on earth he did it? Athletes push themselves though pain all the time but scientists know there is a big difference between what is known as exertional pain vs. acute pain (there is an interesting article in the NY Times about that if you follow the link). So what is Anquan Boldin's secret? Who knows, of course maybe there isn't a secret at all, he just has a really high threshold for pain.

Either way I don't mind admitting I've found it tough myself. I've tried hard to eliminate painkillers and I've had some good success. But I've also used them to help get over nasty humps. I've also tried to take a break from activities that exacerbate the problem. But the reality I've discovered is that constant pain means dealing with it while continuing to get on with life, not just taking time off when it's there.

So I'm currently working on a plan and system that'll work for me to get through it and back to the level of work I was at previously. It's working out pretty well as I've returned to most tasks at least around the home. Work requires a whole new mindset and I'm not sure how that'll look just yet but I'm very confident it will work out. It's actually pretty fun to be thinking of how to do it. If anyone else has any suggestions at all as always I'm interested in hearing them. You can drop them in the comments or feel free to catch me on twitter. I'll also be updating the blog with the ideas and activities that work for me.

Forget Career Success What About Some Career Happiness!

I've spoken to a lot of people about success in their career, but more often I speak to people who are straight up unhappy. They haven't lost interest in being successful in their career but they know they aren't happy where they are right now, or happy doing what they are doing. These are smart people so if you quiz them on career success they'll answer intelligently about what they want to do and where they'll be when they succeed. Unfortunately, they rarely get that success because the real problem is that they aren't having any joy in their journey.

What's more important career success or career happiness? I've decided it's the latter and so I've started advising my candidates and clients that they need to spend some of their time really investigating where they find the joy and happiness in their career. For some of them focusing on this area has helped them engage with jobs they thought they were sick of!

So, how do you focus on finding more joy at work? Sometimes a problem defined is half way to solving that problem, so you need to investigate yourself in order to find job happiness. Asking the following questions might be a nice way to start exploring your thoughts:

1. What are the jobs/projects you've done in the past that you've felt the most engaged in?
2. When do you feel most happy at work?
3. Why do you think you felt engaged when doing those job/projects you identified?
4. Why do you think you felt most happy in the times you did?
5. What are the obstacles to me doing more work like that?
6. What are the opportunities to doing more work like that?

Good luck with finding that happiness at work, it'll make a huge difference to your life.

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/