We all know how big the market is for iphone applications and there are brilliant applications on iTunes which are broadly categorized into utilities, games, entertainment being the most sought after.   Apple Inc had officially released iphone SDK in March 2008 and since then the mobile development community has been busy dishing out awesome applications.  Smart organizations capitalized on the first mover advantage and developed an iphone app to promote/market their products and services.  I have been using iphone and now am on 3GS and am involved in recruitment business I am eagerly waiting for companies to develop customized iphone apps to provide/ facilitate recruitment services.

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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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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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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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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Recruitment and Recession.

Recruitment industry is going through a tough time at this moment, the numbers have dropped drastically for the biggies and I know of recruitment agencies that are battling for survival. Being a co-founder of Synergy Solutions (we provide recruitment services to companies in India and in US) the biggest challenge today is to find newer and better ways to add value to our clients. There is a need to find innovative ways to improve recruitment ROI for the client. I am writing this article to share our ideas with the world so that other companies in the recruiting and staffing business can take advantage of the same.

First things first, the base idea is not to wait and find ways to weather the storm but to take proactive measures to tide the wave.  The world is changing very quickly to combat recession and it’s about time we translate our thinking into action or else we will be late. The main reason being the companies who are hiring have recently made drastic cuts in their recruiting budget and are in the process of streamlining their side of the story.

We strongly believe that companies (clients) will demand greater accountability from recruitment agencies and focus on improving their recruitment ROI. Recruitment agencies / staffing companies who are agile in their operation and can quickly adapt to the changing environment will emerge victorious at the end of this recessionary period. 

Few areas where placement agencies should focus:

• Closely monitoring the way each industry is changing in current times and the way companies within the industries are changing their hiring strategy.
• Build stronger relationship with clients thereby working closely with your contact points in the company to get clarity on their internal hiring plans and prepare accordingly. This will also help protect your share in the pie from your competitors.
• Clients will use this recession to re-negotiating the recruitment contracts with recruitment agencies. Since numbers are falling every day recruitment agencies will be concerned about their cash flow situation and as a result will have no option but to be forced to negotiate their existing contract. New client would want to start the relation on the terms advantageous to them, that means lower rates and tougher terms.
• Look out for companies who are brave and would consider recession as the right time to recruit good quality talent at the right price. These are usually multinationals with deep pockets and would want to drive competitive advantage home. Be smart to attack these companies.
• Train your recruiters to be tactically smart and agile in their actions. During the boom there were a lot of open positions and even more candidates available so the match making activity was comparatively easy and largely govern by the good sentiments in the market. During tougher times recruiters need to be smart and get themselves deeper into the fit gap process and ensure win – win situation for the client and the candidate
• Use of technology and social media applications to hunt better profiles as compared to job boards. Sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and other social and business networking sites are fast becoming every recruiter’s trump card. Lot of head hunting can happen over these networking sites.
• If your salary component are on the higher side and you foresee that it’s going to be difficult to sustain then take adequate action now try and offer a mix of lower fixed and higher variable with an assurance that salaries will get back to normal once the market stabilizes.

It’s my gut feel that this recession will take good 6-8 months time before we see first signs of normalcy but by then I firmly believe this experience will help recruitment agencies to become further efficient in the way they add value to their client. I can go to the extent of saying that by the time we are out of this recession the recruitment landscape would have changed forever.
This is the time when we can pause for a moment and have a relook at our strategies and the way we operate our business. Once the good old days are back again only companies who have transformed themselves during this period will be the first one to see light at the end of the tunnel.

News items on current job markets are behaving across the globe

• Economic and hiring outlook, Third Quarter 2008: A McKinsey Global Survey
• Layoffs soar as India plunges deeper into recession
• The Incredible Shrinking U.S. Job Market
• UK labour market statistics
• Job market in Germany
• African job market
• Job trends in Australia
• Japan job market weakening

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Evolution is such an amazing concept, that its implications are often unfathomable from a distance. Its only with a bit of science that we realize the beauty of the logic behind this most controversial process ever described.

There was once a universe without life. And within this world was a multitude of atoms in clusters of various sizes, strewed all across eternity. Expanding into empty space these clusters did not have anyway to relate to reality, other than the most passive way of just existing. In this world came an extraordinary event. And everything changed after that singular event. No its wasn’t the Big Bang – it was a chance coming together of several atoms in a way that they could replicate their existence from the matter strewn around them. And from there came life …

Life is about organization. It is an example of how from inanimate pieces of matter a pattern of immense value can suddenly come to existence. But the story of evolution is not about the birth of life. Its about what happened after that !

As life “evolved” it got better and better at its inherent objective – to exist. So the permutations and combinations continued till there were multicellular organisms and even then it did not stop. On top of this pile of multicellular organisms evolved another layer of life – it was called consciousness. This was by far the most interesting development from the beginning of time. Conscious life is different from bacteria or other forms of life. Conscious life is a layer of abstraction (to use a technical term). But why is this layer of abstraction exciting ?

To answer that question one needs to understand the “organization” called life. Up until conscious life arrived on the planet everything existed as an experiment. Patterns of DNA competed with each other to be the most successful at continuing to exist. But once there is consciousness the rules change. Now any pattern can become the more “successful” provided it is “valuable” for the conscious life forms. The stage is set for the arrival of the “experimenters” ! Initially this must have been a hindrance to life itself – as the under developed conscious life forms may have actually selected harmful DNA patterns in their naiveté. But as the consciousness evolved so did its alignment with the process of evolution itself.

We have over time learned to select the most correct patterns that help us preserve life. An example of this is the recent world frenzy about global warming. As our science has improved so has our ability to compute future possibilities. In the multitude of outcomes that can result from our present behavior, we have learned to select those outcomes that keep us “safe” from”harm”. In other words we have selected those strategies that give us the best chance to continue existing. Finally our brain has come a full circle.

But is conscious evolution better than the passive one ? It is a question that will be answered in another few hundred years. Passive evolution has happened over eons. Time has been merciful at least on earth. We have been spared calamitous ends by sheer chance ! However conscious evolution will not require as much time. We have already seen how over the past few centuries our abilities have grown exponentially with respect to the passive evolutionary process. It is not far fetched to believe that in another hundred years or so we may be able to “simulate” evolutionary cycles and produce “jumps” in evolution itself. We may be in fact learn to make better versions of ourselves. As well as better versions of organized and “conscious” matter. My belief is that our conscious selection procedures will extend till we manage to create “artificial” intelligence. And after that we may have to just sit down and watch !

For all of you wondering about the title of this post … do you know what is the sugar for your brain ? Sugar is a source of carbohydrates and carbohydrates are the central energy source for most life. Therefore we are “programmed” to like sugar. You will rarely find an individual who hates sugar . Almost no one will turn up their nose in disgust after consuming some sugar ! That is because sugar has a hardwire to our brain. The set of events that happen after we consume sugar release pleasure chemicals like dopamine in the brain. This release can also be achieved by “doing” things like copulation and a multitude of other activities which may have (as yet) unexplained reasons for having a positive impact on our longevity. But these are the passive evolutionary “wires” in our brain. There is another set of wires which are more “active”. These are the learned behaviors. We can program ourselves to please ourselves when we do a certain activity. So for a baby a bungy-jump may be positively scary, but not for the seasoned jumper. The seasoned adventure freak has programmed himself to get a dopamine rush every time he jumps off a high perch. Some of it may be a case of passive evolution at work ( he may have got some “adventure” genes which make him like jumping so much). But most of it is learned behavior. You have only to see the smile on his face when others are cheering “bravo” around him to understand how potent our “conscious” evolution is.

So lets the ask the question to ourselves as a community – what do we want to be the “sugar for our collective brain” ? This question may actually hold the key to unlock our ability to exist as conscious beings beyond the limits specified by the physics of our world !

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