Recruitment post recession – Hiring upswing round the corner, are you prepared?
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
Do you have a social media policy for your organization
I am a firm believer of using social media to aid organizational productivity and I always advocate and encourage use of various social media applications like blogs, networking sites, wiki’s within my organization. Past couple of months I have been analyzing time spent by my employees on these social networking sites and measuring its effectiveness against increase in productivity or against generating / facilitating business. The analysis was based on social media and its direct impact on productivity. Though the over results are positive but there were some areas of concerns that I would like to highlight in this article. My analysis pointed out that in certain cases there was a high percentage of unproductive time spent on these sites which lead to loss in productivity. I am not sure if there should be a clear cut policy that restricts the usage of social media sites or should one adopt an evolutionary process by making the employees realize the good and bad of it and treat it accordingly. My analysis was I have conducted
Areas of concern:
- Excessive time spent networking sites: leads to loss of focus and loss of time. These activities include chatting with friends, updating social profiles of sites like Facebook , MySpace and other such sites and not really focusing on work realted interactions.
- High usage of bandwidth: people upload pictures, presentations, videos purely for purpose to add fun element in their social media adventure which leads to high usage of bandwidth and time.
- Public image of the company: people will have to be very careful about what they say about your company, the projects that they work on and the team that they are involved in as this can really damage your reputation. This is the most important as the internet world consists of your potential clients and employees
- Viral effect: once someone gets a message/ pictures they keep involving the rest of the employees and the viral keeps on viraling leading to again loss of time
twitcam and camtweet to offer live video streaming on twitter
twitcam – developed by Livestream and camtweet – developed by Justin.TV are utilities where anyone using their twitter login details can start streaming live to its followers, create live chat rooms and archive each streaming event. 
This is not a ground breaking technological neither it’s an innovative concept. To me it’s smart thinking and right timing on part of both companies to take advantage of their expertise and applying to the critical mass of twitter. There is virtually no difference between twitcam and camtweet.
Twitter is certainly one of the most successful social media concepts to hit the web recently and is growing exponentially. The more I hear about twitter’s success the more I am made to believe that micro blogging platforms will soon take over from the current main stream communication avenues like emails and blogs. There are a lot of smart people out there who have jumped on the early innovators band wagon and developed some really cool applications around twitter and hopefully with that would have developed a business model around it as well. The idea of developing applications and concepts around twitter is to target real time conversations and thereby making highly effective marketing campaigns.
There are many applications/utilities built around twitter and are doing reasonably well. The reason twitcam and camtweet needs a special mention is because I feel they surely are a game changer. Services like these are likely to take tweeting to a whole new level both at personal as well as corporate marketing and relationship building exercise.
How to install IntenseDebate on wordpress 2.7.1
IntenseDebate – super charge your commenting system
I installed IntenseDebate to offer highly interactive commenting system to the readers of GigaThoughts. As always it 
started with a lot of research, which led to final two competitors to choose from – IntenseDebate and Disqus. After testing both commenting system on local machine for a week, I finally chose IntenseDebate primarily because it’s an Automatic company and for those who are not aware they are the same guys behind wordpress and more so IntenseDebate offers all the features that are offered by Disqus. I have been using it since a week on the live site and I am really thrilled with interactivity it can offer to the readers. I would recommend using IntenseDebate to everyone who wishes to offer a better user experience to their readers.
Errors, issues, problems and fixes while installing IntenseDebate on Wordpress 2.7.1
Like a lot of people who tried installing IntenseDebate I was faced with several issues and it wasn’t a smooth installation process. But persistence and the urge to offer better usability to the readers i was able to find solutions of each one and hence I wish to share my experience so that other people can benefit from it and I am sure it can help ease their installation issues.
Error 1: “Login failed. Please check your credentials and try again” Login Failure while accessing ID via wordpress admin once the plugin is activated. This is the first error which most people would face and it blocks the further installation and synching process.
Solution 1:
- First try and reset the plugin by downloading the cleared.php and do the following:
Please use these instructions:
1. Uninstall and remove the IntenseDebate plugin
2. Install, activate the clearID.php plugin
3. Uninstall it.
4. Install the latest version of the plugin and activate it. - Step 2 is to change your username and password on the ID website and try installing the plugin again and try again. Make sure your password does not contain any special character like #$% as that will not work
- Step 3 is to check missing Blog Title, while accepting the username and password ID check if the blog has a valid blog title if not it will reject the request. So if you don’t have a title you need to have one but this will lead to the text appearing above your logo in the header. You need to reduce the font size in the theme CSS to 0 so for the application the title will still be there but it not be visible on your site.
RBI makes it mandatory for banks to provide additional authentication for online shopping
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.
Nandan Nilekani and Congress initiate unique identification card project
On 26th 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
Beware and Prepare for floods in Mumbai – June and July 09
Beware and Prepare for floods in Mumbai – June and July 09
I would like to use this platform to spread the message so that more and more people in Mumbai can be aware about 
the weather and rain forecast this season (June-July 2009) and be prepared to tackle the floods in a better way. I request the you to help me spread this message further in your own networks, who knows you could save a life.
The city of Mumbai was flooded on 26th July 2005. There was major flooding across the city leading to tremendous loss of property most importantly more than 1000 lives. Flooding lead to a huge chaos as the civic authorities were not prepared for this kind of a disaster and there was very little that one could have done, especially when you are in a reactive mode. The memory of floods in Mumbai haunts every mumbaikar and every year one hopes that it doesn’t flood this time around.
This time around we are smarter with experience and with available warnings in advance we should be able to take necessary precaution. Our very own BMC has done lot of good work to make sure that they are well equipped to tackle such unfortunate events. I would like to urge the citizens of Mumbai to play their own role in reducing the effect this time around by being well informed and being prepared.
Information to keep in mind:
Floods in Mumbai are attributable to simultaneous occurrence of rainfall and high tides. If, the rainfall is in excess of 200 mm in a day (24 hrs), floods can occur anytime irrespective of tides. However, if there is moderate rainfall but the tide is in excess of 4.50 meters at the same time, the city of Mumbai is sure to get flooded. Accordingly, heavy floods are anticipated on the following days in Mumbai, if there is excessive rainfall at the time of high tides.
| Date | Day | Tide (Meters) | Time |
| 24/6/09 | Wednesday | 4.95 | 13:41 |
| 25/6/09 | Thursday | 4.97 | 14:24 |
| 23/7/09 | Thursday | 5.01 | 13:23 |
| 24/7/09 | Friday | 5.05 | 14:03 |
| 25/7/09 | Saturday | 4.94 | 14:43 |
.
The BMC wants the state government to declare a holiday on 24 July 2009, since the tide level will be the highest since the last century. Mumbaites are, therefore, requested to cooperate with the administration by restricting their movements and certainly not to take their vehicles out on the roads these days. There are speculations about very high waves on 22 July 2009 as well. Public should, therefore, keep away from the beaches that day. Also, please advise your friends and relatives outside Mumbai not to plan a trip to Mumbai around these days.
Please click here for official and live forecast
Microsoft Bing – search and decision engine
This week has been excellent for social media enthusiasts. The second big news in of the week is the pre-launch of 
Microsoft Bing, its redefined version of search. The search engine will be launch officially on June 3rd. I have been using it for a week and as heavily as i use Google search and I must say Bing is refreshing and it really takes a step further in terms of competitive search market. I really liked the way they have positioned Bing as a decision engine and not as a search engine. Microsoft has positioned Bing as an engine that will help its users take a well informed decision once the search has been made. The sneak preview suggests that Bing delivers the decision making experience.
I especially liked the way in which Bing is designed in terms of its layout, site architecture and structure. Microsoft has been trying hard to offer an integrated option for msn search, msn portal and Windows life (profiling / social networking) and it can be said that they have been fairly successful to a certain extent. Via Bing, Microsoft has made it clear that they are going to fight the search battle head on and have its share of the pie too.
Bing adopts a new approach by enhancing the user experience level via intuitive tools. Initially that will help users making a purchase decision, planning a trip, researching a health condition and finding a local business (Source: Microsoft website)
Important features:
- Guided Search: The most important thing is guided search, most users are good at first level search and while refining search they are lost for words or techniques or just of appropriate keyword. Bing really scores in this area. The best match features is also very useful in avoiding smart SEO players with poor content.
- Image search: The image search and display is excellent and especially when it shows just like windows explorer is the icing on the cake. Images can be sorted by Size, Layout, Colour, Style and People.
- Video Search: video search results are very well structured and just by hovering on a particular video it starts playing right in the search so you can preview and move on. Same way video search can be further refined by Length, Screen Size, Resolution and Source.
- News and Maps: heaps better as compared to Windows Live search.
- xRank: Microsoft has developed their own ranking system. xRank will show a detailed report on why that particular keyword has been ranked high or low. The ranking largely depend on the links that are being viewed the most for that particular keyword/key phrase.
I would say it’s very nice to have another option to search besides Google. Services like these will push each and every player in the search space and eventually users like us will derive huge benefits. As stated by Steve Ballmer “There is no way to change the whole game in one step.” But search “deserves a good feature war.” And Bing will be rolling out new features as it goes forward.
If bing is able to really guide users to make better decision and there by save a lot of search time and improve accuracy then it will surely put pressure on Google.
Download the complete Microsoft Bing feature list here
Digital Sky Technologies invests $200M in Facebook
Facebook has announced that Digital Sky Technologies (DST), one of the leading internet investment groups globally with significant stakes in Eastern European and Russian internet businesses, has made a $200 million investment in Facebook in exchange for preferred stock, representing a 1.96 percent equity stake at a $10 billion valuation.
In addition, DST has indicated that it is planning to offer to purchase at least $100 million of Facebook common stock from existing common stockholders that would facilitate liquidity for current and former employees’ vested shares in the company.
About Facebook
Founded in February 2004, Facebook’s mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected. Anyone can sign up for Facebook and interact with the people they know in a trusted environment. Facebook is a privately held company and is headquartered in Palo Alto, Calif.
About Digital Sky Technologies
DST was founded in 2005 and is the largest internet investor in the Russian-speaking and Eastern European markets and one of the leading investment groups globally to exclusively focus on internet and internet-related companies. DST is a privately held holding company backed by leading Russian and Western financial institutions. DST has offices in Moscow and London. For more information please visit http://www.dst-global.com.
Here is what some of the industry analysts say about this investment, “Facebook hasn’t yet learned to earn money, and there are delusions in the market about growth potential for these social networks. Digital Sky became a victim of such a delusion.”
My Question is Will Facebook and its other rivals Twitter, MySpace etc will be able to match the profits of their Internet predecessors?
Google Wave – web based real time communication platform
During the Google I/O keynote, Google utilized the opportunity to launch its new communication platform called Google Wave. We all know that Google likes to surprise the world by developing application that changes the rules of the game. This time around they have raised the bar further by launching Google Wave as an open source application. Earlier anyone outside of Google never knew what they are up to or what’s next, but this time around they have launched as open source and the lucky few who got to attend the Google I/O Keynote will all get Google Wave accounts to play with and give feedback. You can view the detailed video where Google’s VP of engineering, Vic Gundotra shared the vision behind Google Wave and where the immense possibility with HTML 5 standards to do all those cool stuff within your browser.
The way I look at it – Google Wave will provide single and integrated interface for Email, Chat, Social Media, collaborative communication, knowledge management, sharing of information and various productivity tools. It will enable Real Time communication right from your browser. Real time communication is the next big thing to happen on the internet and Google wants to take early lead by having an army of open source developers helping them build wonderful gadgets, widgets, extensions using Google Wave API.
If Wave gets acceptance level that Gmail has today then I am sure that it will change the Social media communication landscape forever.
What all can I do with Google Wave using its single interface:
- Emails – They prefer to call it a wave as according to Google Email is dead
- IM – In a new Wave and also within an email conversation
- Micro blogging
- RSS reader
- Documents sharing and collaborative editing
- Project Management, Task allocation, and measurement (extent not knows as yet)
- Google Maps
- Games
- Post articles on my blog , receive blog comments and reply blog comments
- Social and Business networking
- Information aggregator
- Let me not forget – Search
- And much more as going forward individuals will find newer better ways to use Wave to communicate across applications.
