The job market is tough and it’s even tougher for fresh graduates to get suitable jobs in the current market.  Normally this leads to frustration and depression and most of the students blame it on recession and how bad their luck is.

However there are few students like David Rowe of Cambridge.  A law student who got tired of send resumes to companies and searching for jobs via job boards decided to innovate.  David Rowe’s idea was to wear a suit and hang a sandwich board around his neck to market himself hoping that someone will notice his talent and give him a job.

University graduate David Rowe walks in London. Photo: REUTERS

“David Rowe, who has built up £20,000 worth of debts since leaving university, said he had sent out hundreds of CVs and offered to work for free but could not find a job.

The 24-year-old history graduate decided he would pound the streets round the Fleet Street area past law firms and investment-banks in a suit with the sandwich board round his neck”.  Source Telegraph.co.uk

Lessons that one must learn from David’s innovative attempt

• Accept that the job market is though
• Nothing is going to happen overnight
• Stop cribbing and start doing
• Don’t just get frustrated and depressed with the lack of calls from employers; find innovative ways to approach your target market.
• Think of yourself as a product and identify your target market and find multiple ways to reach your audience
• Prepare yourself very well – you will get one shot make the most of it.
• Have patience
• Cheer for the fact that recession is about to end and very soon things will be back to normal

The moral of the story is that when things are not going the right way, it’s time to be proactive and be prepared to march forward with persistence.

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I came across a useful post which gives a list of must read presentations for a job seeker. Applicant.com has compiled a list of 7 presentations from SlideShare.

The first thing to hit during recession was hiring and recruitment and the first thing will pick up would be the same. Economy is already showing signs of recovery and that can be seen in the news that companies across the globe have started hiring or are at least positive to recruit anytime soon.  The timing of this post seems to be just perfect and I would like to share this useful piece of information with all job seekers and in as many ways as possible.  This is a must read for people seeking jobs in the current market.

1.      Effective job interviewing from both sides of the desk by Andy Lester

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2.      10 commandments of job search by applicant blog

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3.      Leveraging LinkedIn for job search Maurene Grey

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4.      Rethink your job search by CareerTiger

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5.      10 job search attitudes that will get you more interviews by Brain Massey

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6.      Job search with social media and mobile by Gabe Zichermann

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7.      Converging trends impacting your job search by Steve Drake

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The buzz across the world is that the recession is coming to an end and the worst is probably over.  You will see this sentiment being reflected amongst most of the people you talk to.  All the major news items across the globe carry headlines like “the worst is over” and testimony to this fact is a recent article by MSNBC stated that

“government said the nation’s unemployment rate unexpectedly fell in July for the first time in 15 months and that employers cut fewer jobs“

The unemployment rate has dropped in US for the first time.  The reason I am quoting the US market as this is where it all started and the recovery will start from here as well.

The important question is that are you as a person involved in recruitment learnt your lessons from the recession?  Each one of us faced several recruitment related challenges during the recession life cycle and since it hit us without any notice we had no option but to be reactive.  Most of us thought the best was to beat recession was to cut cost and there are few who took proactive actions and identified innovative ways to tackle the recession period.

I am writing this to urge everyone to look back at what has happened in the last 6 to 8 months and formulate a recruitment strategy so that you are well prepared for the hiring upswing.

Recruitment Scenario during recession

Companies

• Slow down in business lead to slow down and in certain cases freeze on recruitments
• Cost cutting led to loss of jobs for millions of people worldwide
• Delay in hiring due to uncertainty in the market.
• Restructuring of various departments to stay competitive
• Forced Mergers and acquisition led to loss of jobs
• Companies recruiting during recession wanted the best resource at the lowest salary package

Recruitment agencies

• Loss of contracts / contracts not extended – leading to fewer clients
• Lack of requirements led to job salary cuts and job cuts
• No possibility of fresh engagement
• Rising bench cost of companies in temp and contract staffing
• Agencies with higher dependence on a particular sector faced were not able to spread the risk

Proactive measures while coming out of recession

Companies

• Initiate relations with their preferred vendor and provide them with transparent hiring plans so that they can be prepared for your requirement and not your competitors
• Start early that there is ample of highly skilled resources available in the market and are vulnerable about their next move
• Communicate your hiring plan with the junior most person in the HR team as soon as possible and ask them to take corrective actions don’t wait for the economy to get back on track
• Come up with innovative pricing model to pay recruitment agency , something like an pay per performance and not a captive commitment to a particular agency
• Try using social media for attracting talent which save tons of commission being paid out to recruitment agencies.
• Re-negotiate the contractual terms with your vendors; this is the right time to negotiate to your advantage.

Recruiting agencies

• Start building relations with the client and spend quality time understanding their future hiring plans.
• Try connecting and profiling your candidate base and keep them engaged in discussion about their future move, this will help you refresh your database and have them ready for the word as per the hiring plans for your client
• It’s the right time to get into newer sectors as virtually there has been very little interaction between client and their so called preferred vendors over last 6 to 8 months so this leaves a room for you to foster a relation. Beware your competitors might be reading this as well
• Explain your recruiters about the near future and how they need to be smart and be prepared for the upswing.
• Try using social media to attract passive talent

The recruiter mindset – Psychological danger

The world has been through the recession for the most part of last year and everyone is in some manner or the other depressed and frustrated with the situation around. If you are not proactive in addressing the mindset of your people then as they dint see the recession coming they will not see the upswing coming as well.  Start talking to your team about how the economy is getting back on track and how you guys need to be prepared this will set the positive mind set and they will be better equipped to tackle the upswing.

Yes the economy is getting back on track and yes the worst is over but it’s going to be a very slow economic recovery. Companies will be cautious and adopt absolute risk free growth strategy.  The recovery from recession is going to be painful but unless we prepare well, we will not be able to capitalize when the time is right.

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According to a new ruling, the Reserve bank of India -RBI has made it mandatory for all banks issuing credit and debit cards to provide additional authentication information over and above what is visible on the card. To prevent fraud and to make online shopping safer, the RBI has made it mandatory, from 1st August onwards, for all online transactions to have increased security via registering each and every card with its respective merchant.  This means that every time you make an online transaction you will have to enter this additional password given by the merchant. This is commonly known as VBV – Verified by Visa or MSC – MasterCard SecureCode

I bank with HDFC and I can vouch that they already have certain systems like NetSafe which generates a code which can be used only one time, along with that there is virtual keyboard that enhances the security if you are using a public computer.   I am sure other major Indian private sector banks Like ICICI and Kotak would also have such systems in place.  This new ruling will add an entirely new dimension to online security  and as per the directive issued by the RBI on February 18, also mandates a system of online alerts to the cardholder for all ‘card not present’ transactions that exceed Rs 5,000. The circular adds that banks would be penalised for non-adherence to the directive under the Payment and Settlement Systems Act 2007.

How will VBV /MSC work:

Once your card is activated with the Verified by Visa / Master Secure service, your card number will be recognized whenever you make an electronic payment. After you provide your credit card details online, you will be redirected to your issuer website and then required to specify your Verified by Visa / Master Secure authentication details. Your identity will be verified, and the transaction will be completed. Based on the authentication provided by your issuer, the transaction will be processed & you will get a confirmation. View the demo of how VBV/MSC work

How can you get VBV or MSC password:

• HDFC Bank
• ICICI Bank
• Citibank
• HSBC Bank
• Standard Chartered
• Deutsche Bank
• State Bank of India
• Axis Bank
• ABN Amro

With successful implementation of this enhanced security system  people can breathe easy while swiping their credit cards at various establishments like restaurants, petrol pumps and areas like  grocery stores without any fear as credit number, expiry date and CVV number will not be enough to make fraudulent transactions online.

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On 26^th June 2009 times of India carried the headlines “Infy boss to join the government as a cabinet minister.” I am proud of Nandan Nilekani for taking a though call (quitting Infosys) and Congress government making him cabinet minister.  Such events are very rare in the Indian context as we don’t see many corporate leaders leave their ivory tower and get into a government job to help shape the future of India.  In this case the government has taken the lead and have shown their willingness to embrace the professionalism and expertise brought in by the corporate leader thereby creating an opportunity to co-exist and work towards a better tomorrow.  Successful execution of this project will mean more and more corporate leader will be able to work closely with the government and act as a change agent.

The UIC project

Unique Identification Card project will ensure that every Indian will have a unique smart card which will act as their identification proof. This is a highly ambitious Rs 150000 Cr project which will include details like Name, sex, address, marital status, photo, identification mark and finger biometrics of every Indian.   More details on unique identification project.

The national ID card project (popularly called UID project) is expected to provide an impetus to the domestic demand for IT products and solutions. A billion smart cards for a billion population means a multi-billion dollar business opportunity for domestic IT companies.  Some estimates suggest that the project will create at least 100,000 additional jobs in the country in the next three years. The government had earmarked Rs 100 crore in the interim budget to kick start the UID project. The entire ID card project is estimated to be in the range of around Rs 1.5 lakh crore, with the first phase – which will cover ultra urban, urban, and semi-urban populations – offering an Rs 6,500 crore business opportunity.

According to the plan, govt proposes to issue a unique identification number to all citizens by 2011. The Unique Identification Authority of India shall own and operate the unique identification number database and also look after its updation and maintenance on an ongoing basis. In the beginning, the UID number will be assigned based on the National Population Register or electoral rolls. Photographs and biometric data will be added to make the identification foolproof. (Source Indiatimes.com)

The Scheme was introduced in early part of 2003 but the government has been delaying it all this while and i am glad and confident that this time around the project would be complete on time. Can’t wait to get my smart card.

== Update == 27th August 2009

E-birth certificates likely with Nilekani’s help

A birth certificate at the click of a mouse? It’s quite likely. The health ministry has started brainstorming with Nandan Nilekani -
the man tasked with India’s unique identification project – to produce e-health cards and birth certificates for newborns.  Source Economic Times

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Being a co-founder at Synergy Solutions (a 40 people HR services company), I have been positively waiting to see early signs of recovery as far as recruitment industry is concerned.  The main reason being:

• General Sentiments in the market
• Economic Recession
• Almost freeze on fresh recruitments across sectors
• Companies negotiating placement fees due to cost implications
• Revenues going down and costs are still at same (haven’t fired anyone in my company)

The core team here have been trying hard to find innovative ways to provide recruitment services and try and pass cost advantage to the client at the same time try and provide value added services. I have been talking to a lot of people and also following my clients closely on each and every development and this gives me a feeling that the probably the worst is over for India Inc.  Markets are certainly going to improve and India Inc will start recruiting soon.  My take is that probably in couple of months companies will be back to their recruiting ways.

Today’s Times of India has our Prime Minister Dr.Manmohan Singh saying that if voted in he has an action plan via which he will be able to get the economy back on track in 100 days. Now this is a good election pitch to lure the voters but on the other hand I believe in what he says as markets are showing the early signs of recovery. He is a man of great respect and he having been at the helm of managing finance for India for many years this statement has a lot of value.

Personally I am certain that my clients will be back to recruit in huge numbers as I am already sensing with respect to my clients opening up their recruitments but recruiting in less numbers right now.  Having involved in strategic discussion with my clients I can foresee that they will surely start recruiting heavily (comparatively) in coming months.

In fact don’t take my word for it, get a copy of Manpower employment outlook survey here . Manpower has surveyed 72,000 employers across 33 countries and territories to measure anticipated employment trends between April and June 2009.  Detailed country and city wise report is also available.   According to the report India is going to recruit the most as compared to any country.

Early sign of recovery:

• Indian companies to hire 2,50,000 in next few months
• Indian outsourcing firms to hire more Americans
• Standard Chattered, StanChart to hire 2000 people
• IT biggies are hiring in huge numbers – Forbes
• India tops the list amongst countries that are hiring
• Hiring trends – The worst is over

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India has always been the first choice for outsourcing due it its geographical advantage, high level education, its capability to work hard and smart and lower cost of operations.  Being a co-founder of an IT services company, I am certain that the most critical question for Indian IT and BPO industry would be “Is outsourcing recession proof” I wish had the answer.  My belief is that the answer has to be yes, primarily because though it’s important to ensure there are jobs available for local people but at the same time in current economic scenario it’s important for the companies to stay competitive.  So for companies/ countries that outsource it’s a catch 20 situation and a double edge sword.  If they decide to create government policies which will ensure that local jobs stay local then the local companies tend to lose the chance of being competitive globally. These companies have huge scale of operation would really find it difficult to sustain.  As a result i feel outsourcing is recession proof and in fact i would like to think that outsourcing will see an increase as recession will force companies to cut the fat and become lean and mean to stay competitive.

My gut feel is that during economic downturn people will outsource more and the primary driver would be to cut down costs.  Increasingly we will see a change in the mental models of companies and vendors alike.   The forces that will initiate this change are:

Don’t forget to download “2009 the year of outsourcing dangerously” the Black book of outsourcing  at the end of the article.

Economic pressure on companies: The government and general public would try and create policies and procedures to try and protect local jobs. At the same time companies would want to outsource more and more to save cost.  It would be interesting to see how these companies will beat this dilemma.

Deals getting smaller: I foresee that increasingly deal will get smaller but grow in numbers as companies will try and adopt a mix between non-core and absolute non-core and also create a healthy mix between keeping jobs local and getting it outsourced.

Falling margins for vendors: The dollar rupee equation is anyways enabling companies to push vendors to lower their prices. Coupled with smaller deals and current situation vendors will be forced to reduce their margins to grab these deals.

Terms and condition: Large companies with comparatively bigger outsourcing deals will arm twist their vendors for stringent SLA and Deliverables. So vendors will have to deliver more at lower cost to get deals and stay competitive themselves.

Opportunity for smaller players:  The Indian IT services industry is largely governed by the big 5 as far as bigger deals are concerned but the new cost structures and stringent deliverables there will be an opportunity for smaller players to compete with the biggies.

In current scenario everyone is thinking to outsource or not to outsource. There are always 2 sides to a coin and similarly there are people who come from different school of thoughts. I have done some preliminary research which suggests an increase in Outsourcing deals.

Outsourcing in the news (2009)

The Good

• Hindustan times in partnership with Google have developed an election portal to offer information about the constituencies.
• Xerox will pay $100 million over six years to outsource data-center services to HCL Technologies.
• JPMorgan to up outsourcing to India by 25%
• IT majors sign new deals at a discount
• Recession-hit Japan turns to Indian IT Co’s
• India will remain a top outsourcing destination because of its tech-savvy and English-proficient urban workforce whose wages are much lower than their western counterparts says Moody’s
• Outsourcing will continue to grow in 2009: Gartner
• AstraZeneca outsources IT to India’s Infosys
• Premier Foods renews outsourcing deal

The not so good

• IT outsourcing prices will fall – Gartner
• Recession may drive re-thinking of some outsourcing deals
• India’s Outsourcing Woes

Download “2009 the year of outsourcing dangerously” the Black book of outsourcing.

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This article deals with what really is recruitment process outsourcing and why RPO is the latest buzzword amongst people involved in attracting, hiring, and retaining manpower.   In last few years I have been actively involved in the RPO space and would like to share my views via this article.

To me outsourcing of HR services is a very old concept, in early days and even today most companies outsource their sourcing of manpower to recruitment agencies and staffing & manpower consultants. Gradually it moved from sourcing to non-core processes like payroll processing, fit gap analysis, reference checks and to a certain extent on-boarding.  Smart marketers at that time labelled it as human resource outsourcing. HRO generically deals with outsourcing full or part (non-core) processes to a specialist vendor.  RPO in its basic essence is an integral part of HRO where the recruitment process (in part or full) of the organization is outsourced.

In current market scenario Recruitment process outsourcing is beginning to catch on as large companies strive to improve their bottom lines and maintain quality at the same time.

RPO definition: what is RPO?

According to Wikipedia, Recruitment Process Outsourcing (RPO) is a form of business process outsourcing (BPO) when an employer outsources or transfers all or part of the recruiting process to an external service provider.

Why RPO?

RPO just like any other outsourcing arrangement is a mindset and not just another way to reducing costs. Businesses can derive substantial benefits if RPO is adopted as a long term strategy to achieve operational excellence and high degree of cost savings.

Major reasons why my clients have chosen RPO are:

• Create operational efficiency via addressing the shortage in skills and expertise within the organization
• Achieve cost benefits by outsourcing non core functions.
• Focus organizational resources on core functions
• Reduce management and overhead cost
• 24×7 recruitment operations due to geographical advantage of India

The RPO mindset:

As explained earlier, RPO is a mindset and companies planning to adopt RPO as one of their strategic initiative should be ready for an uphill challenge right from having top management’s buy in, setting right expectation internally and to ensure transparency with the vendors.

1. Support of top management.

Outsourcing the recruitment process will have an organization wide impact hence buy-in of top management is an absolute must.  Unless the top management has full faith and is driven at strategic level RPO will not yield desired results.

2. Expectation setting

RPO will bring in a lot of changes in the way the organization functions as a result it is critical to set right expectation amongst all stake holders be it your employees, your end clients and your RPO vendor. One has to be very clear on what is expected out of the whole RPO activity.

3. Identify functions to outsource

It’s important to identify the right activities to outsource.  There are vendors who are capable enough to take care of your entire recruitment life cycle and would promise the world to you.  I would suggest start with absolute non -core activities like sourcing and then move up the value chain.

4. Measuring

Once the RPO activity is on its way it becomes important to measure the effectiveness of RPO.  Don’t start immediately talking about ROI and set metrics to measure substantial cost saving and operational efficiency.  I would suggest look at smaller and more direct parameters like Time to hire ratio, source to submission ratio, submission to interview ratio and interview to offer ratio

RPO benefits:

• Cost savings
• Reduce time to hire
• Focus on core activities (interviewing and on-boarding)
• Employee retention
• Customer satisfaction
• HR effectiveness
• Better utilization of resources
• Improve quality of hires.

I can certainly say that in my interactions most companies who have tried RPO are happy with their decision and adopting RPO has helped them to improve service, save time and money and since I look at it from Onsite and offshore perspective it also derives immediate financial benefits as well.

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Here is a photo taken using a a panaroma image capturing device called gigapan created by the carnegie mellon university and a canon g10 camera.

The photographer had to click 220 snaps from that camera to get this complete view of the Obama’s inaugural address. It took a macbook pro around 7hrs to process the complete image. The final size of the image is over 2GB.

click here to look at the image. zoom in and see, you can easily check out all the faces there.

If you are unable to open in your browser, then COPY the below given link and PASTE into your Internet Explorer address bar.
http://gigapan.org/viewGigapanFullscreen.php?auth=033ef14483ee899496648c2b4b06233c

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This story is about a man who once upon a time was selling Hotdogs by the roadside. He was illiterate, so he never read newspapers. He was hard of hearing, so he never listened to the radio. His eyes were weak, so he never watched television. But enthusiastically, he sold lots of hotdogs. He was smart enough to offer some attractive schemes to increase his sales. His sales and profit went up. He ordered more a more raw material and buns and sold more. He recruited more supporting staff to serve more customers. He started offering home deliveries. Eventually he got himself a bigger and better stove. As his business was growing, the son, who had recently graduated from college, joined his father.

Then something strange happened.

The son asked, “Dad, aren’t you aware of the great recession that is coming our way?” The father replied, “No, but tell me about it.” The son said, “The international situation is terrible. The domestic situation is even worse. We should be prepared for the coming bad times.”

The man thought that since his son had been to college, read the papers, listened to the radio and watched TV. He ought to know and his advice should not be taken lightly. So the next day onwards, the father cut down the his raw material order and buns, took down the colourful signboard, removed all the special schemes he was offering to the customers and was no longer as enthusiastic. He reduced his staff strength by giving layoffs. Very soon, fewer and fewer people bothered to stop at his Hotdog stand. And his sales started coming down rapidly and so did the profit. The father said to his son, “Son, you were right”. “We are in the middle of a recession and crisis. I am glad you warned me ahead of time.”

Moral of the Story: It’s all in your MIND! And we actually FUEL this recession much more than we think.

Dictionary Definitions:

• Recession
  In economics, the term recession describes the reduction of a country’s gross domestic product (GDP) for at least two quarters. The usual dictionary definition is “a period of reduced economic activity”, a business cycle contraction.
• Depression
  a long-term economic state characterised by unemployment and low prices and low levels of trade and investment.
• Bear market
  a market characterised by falling prices for securities.
• Credit crunch
  a state in which there is a short supply of cash to lend to businesses and consumers and interest rates are high.
• Inflation
  a general and progressive increase in price.
• Interest
  a fixed charge for borrowing money; usually a percentage of the amount borrowed.

what do you think on this ?
I would like you to share your views on the same.

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