India Inc is faced with difficult economic conditions and pressure of higher cost of operation is leading to lower profits coupled with delayed sale cycle is making it increasingly difficult to provide higher appraisal percentage in the year 2012.
A recent article on economic time suggested that the salary appraisal number in the year 2012 will be in tune with last year and could range between 10%-15%

Below is industry wise suggested appraisal numbers

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The original article appeared in the Business Insider

Created by: MBA Online

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Many progressive organizations today are using social media as an integral part of recruitment strategy.  The latest weapon the in the armoury of the HR department is Google+. By now most  organization have aligned social media are part of their recruitment process might have developed an integrated effort on their website, blogs, LinkedIn company profile, Facebook page, twitter and some other tools and applications like bullhorn which helps them maximize their reach.  Now the online recruitment activity is blessed with another awesome tool in the form of Google+ for business.

How to setup up Google+ page

1. Creating a Google+ Page:   http://plus.google.com/pages/create once you click on this link there will be a wizard that will help you complete the process.  The wizard lets you choose your category under which your business will be found.
2. Account Name: Choose your company account carefully. First and foremost create a Gmail account that can be shared by the entire HR team. Don’t used personal email as currently Gmail does not allow multiple users assigned to one account.
3. Creating Public profile:  The HR department and marketing department needs to take adequate care while creating public profile so as to maintain consistency across online platforms. Important thing here is to ensure you choose right tag line that helps you entice candidates
4. Sharing the page: the next step is to promote the page, the idea is to first develop an interactive page as per your online recruiting strategy and only then exercise this option. As promoting the page will share the page with all your connections and a blank or half completed page will not give good impression and will surely not achieve ultimate objective of the page being added in your prospective candidates circle.

Facts/issues/limitations about Google+ pages

• Google+ pages do not allow mentioning yourself unless you are connected.
• Pages don’t have option to extend circles
• Pages can’t  + 1 other pages and they cannot +1 any other content
• One can find a business by typing its physical his  content

• Pages can’t add people to circle unless  the page is mentioned  where as in profiles  can be added to has the
• Default primary setting is visible to all
• Google+ will automatically unfllow candidates who unfollow the page
• Best feature is that local pages have special field where candidates can search companies by location
• At this stage pages doesn’t receive notification

Finally specific pointers on how it can help in improving recruitment using Google+

• Share lot of photos on your Google+  HR page where you can show case  “ happy employees”  and showcase your “ work place”
• Use circles to categorize candidates based on stage at which the HR communication is structured.
• Encourage existing employees to share their experience on posts
• Use Google+ hangouts to organize meetings or webinars for prospective candidates
• Companies can create recruitment related games to engage prospective candidates visiting company’s Google+ page

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2. Recruitment post recession – Hiring upswing round the corner, are you prepared?

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I would like to thank Nicholas Carlson as I am sharing his article for the benefit of my readers (especially fresh graduates aspiring to do something big in life)

Two years ago, a Stanford business school student named Tristan Walker sent Foursquare cofounders Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai an email out of the blue, asking for a job.

Today, Tristan is Foursquare’s director of business development.  During his tenure, he’s built partnerships between Foursquare and huge brands such as Bravo, MTV, CNN, New York Times, NBA and Starbucks.

To celebrate the two year anniversary of the email, Tristan just published it on his personal blog, along with some notes:

The golden email ;-)

Today marks two years since i sent my very first email to Dennis and Naveen (wow i was such a nerd! ha). Naveen sent a reminder to team foursquare today and i thought i’d share it on my blog. Man, how times have changed:

Hey Dennis and Naveen,

How’s it going? Hope all is well!  My name is Tristan Walker and Im a first year student (going into my second year) at Stanford Business School (originally from New York).

I m a huge fan of what you both have built and excited about what you  guys have planned for FourSquare. It is an awesome , awesome service.

I would love to chat with you guys at some point, if you’re available, about FourSquare. This year, I’m looking to help out and work  extremely hard for a startup with guys I can learn a ton from. Dennis,  with your experience at Google and the Dodgeball product, and Naveen, with your experience at Sun and engineering in general, I know I could  learn a great deal from you both!

Before business school, I was an oil trader on Wall Street for about two years and hated it! Moved out to the Bay/Stanford to pursue my passion for entrepreneurship and the startup world. This past spring I had the opportunity to work for Twitter as an intern and learned a  ton. Solidified my commitment to working at a startup that I’m passionate about, and FourSquare is one of those startups that I believe in.

I know you guys are probably getting inundated with internship-type  requests, but thought it’d be worth a shot! I can assure you Im humble and Im hungry! Let me know if you’d be interested in chatting further.

I definitely look forward to hearing from you.

Stay awesome!

Tristan

@tristanwalker

———————————————————————-

tristan j. walker |  mba class of 2010

stanford graduate school of business

A few things to note here:

• I spelled foursquare “FourSquare”…capital F and capital S….TWICE! (so taboo these days) ha. Talk about green…and who says “stay awesome!” (hilarity!)
• I sent this email after really thinking hard about this post from Jenn Van Grove at Mashable (thx jenn!). After reading, i IMMEDIATELY started to think about the potential for merchants and brands to start interacting with customers in ways that have never been done before. I read that post in May of that year I believe and signed up that same day
• After my using foursquare every day for about two months I knew i had to work for the company. On July 16th i scoured the internets, found Dennis and Naveen’s emails (#crazytristan) and shot them an email right away. This was before they even had @foursquare.com email addresses (and well before our series A round).
• This is the first of 8 emails i sent Dennis/Naveen. They both must have thought I was crazy. On the 8th email Dennis replied

“you know what, i just may take you up on some of this, are you ever in nyc?”

-dennis

You could tell he was a bit annoyed (sorry dennis! oh well…ha) I thought on it for a little bit, and replied back (something along the lines of…):

hey dennis, yeh I was planning on being in ny tomorrow [i was in LA at the time!…and no, i definitely had zero plans to be in NYC] how about we meet up live at your offices?

-tristan

then i booked my flight that night, flew out the following morning, hung out with him and naveen for a week and one month later I was full time at good ol foursquare.

which brings me to the last point. a lot of folks ask me how Ive been able to secure some pretty cool spots at awesome companies and my answer is always the same. “be so enamored with the product that you would work for the company even if they didnt hire you….more importantly find where the needs are within the organization and be willing to do whatever it takes to help them fill the need (work for free even!)…and MOST importantly make sure that youre filling a need that the organization doesnt have the resources to fill on its own. If a company is not willing to let a hungry, passionate, smart, unpaid advocate of the product help the organization to fill that need (when it doesnt have the resources to do it itself) then you probably shouldnt be working at the company anyway. They’re just being arrogant”…Dennis and Naveen made pretty clear that their passion was with product (and theyre the best in the world at it). I knew i could help them (without much guidance and hand holding) to think through the business opportunities / potential for foursquare. And i did it for free (for 30 days at least :)). I gained their trust, which was most important.

The past two years for me have been nothing short of amazing. Dennis/Naveen didnt have to but they gave me a shot and really did change my life. I owe those guys a ton and im truly appreciative of it all. Now, back to work…. :)

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In a global and connected economy where the workplace extends beyond the boundaries of a cubicle or office building, human interaction is the key building block in the workforce of the future. Imagine  One happy employee who blogs or tweets about her experience can, in turn, inspire others to change their jobs or their companies, and one workplace at a time, the most valuable assets of future economic development will change the way we do business and by extension the world around them.

The big question is  

• Are you ready for this world?
• Do you know how to compete in it? Are you part of the conversation?

Points to be considered while integrating social media with HR initiatives

• Turn your employees into brand ambassadors, it’s very important to treat the brand internally and externally in the same way.
• Encourage transparent communication internally.  Position social media as a tool for connecting people and thereby foster exchange of cross functional interactions.
• Be judicious with social media policies. Your policy should be focused more on empowering your employees than on restricting them.
• Be involved, be a part of the conversation that is the basics of having a PR activity via social media and be ready to respond if your employment brand is not communicated in the right manner.
• Use social media to share important information, but make sure that communication is two-way and takes advantage of the capabilities of the medium.
• Use social media to hunt passive talent, that’s finding people who are not actively looking for a change but might be the perfect fit for your organization.
• Maintain an effective employee alumni network with social media. Welcome someone back to the organization who might have left to pursue an opportunity with another organization, leveraging the diversity of experience that may have led to significant growth in that individual.
• Redefine learning and development within your organization using social media to create a more collaborative learning environment.
• Cultivate collaboration across divisions and management levels within your organization by empowering employees to form groups and open discussions on social networking platforms that focus on solving specific problems or experimenting with new ideas.

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I would like to see companies provide iphone application which caters to varied interest level of internal employees, candidates/ consultants and clients.

Features that I would like to see in an iphone app by category

Candidates:

• Resumes submission
• Push notifications for jobs of their interest
• Search for jobs
• Contact details of recruiters
• Applications status
• Job referrals

Companies:

• Push requirements to the vendor
• Status on applications
• Contact details of the team working on the assignments

Internal employees:

• Access to internal recruitment system
• Quick submission of resumes to client
• Contact details of client
• Send out job alerts
• Access to candidates social networking details for quick connect

My research recruitment apps on iphone resulted into very few well designed apps.  A quick search on iTunes and Google search resulted in apps like:

• Radar Recruit – very well made application by an Australian recruitment which specializes in creative jobs in the advertising sector. Radar is primarily using this app to provide job listing by category where the candidate can search for jobs and apply or refer the job posting to someone. You can view the app screen shot here
• JobServe connect – Provides a job search engine where candidates can search for more than 50,000 jobs globally with locations services on, it has an interesting feature to find jobs near you. It also provide generic functionality like creating a search agent, emailing the job etc You can view the app screen shot here
• Korn and ferry – this is one company that is taking social media recruiting to the next level. They have developed an iphone app with a lot of real good features. You can read the features here
• Recruiterapp.com – these people have gone one step further and have developed a full blown app to manage recruitment cycle for recruitment agencies/ consultants. You can read about them here

The iphone app market is heating up and along with social media I foresee companies will have to develop innovative apps to reach candidates via mobile devices.

I would love to see a list of features that you would like in an iphone app that can facilitate the recruitment experience on a mobile device.

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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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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

.

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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“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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• 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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