Talent Agents ?

Bruce All at the Marketing Catalyst blogs about The New Talent Agents of Corporate America:

"Imagine, in corporate America, having a personal agent on the street making connections, searching opportunities... looking for the next 'star' gig. My first thought is, 'it's about time!'

Her thoughts on the matter -- Too many of the corporate stars are so busy being corporate stars that they have no time to capitalize on what they do best. Why shouldn't they have an agent to promote their talent and enable even greater success? In the end everyone wins. The best person doing exactly what will produce the largest results. And then there is executive coaching."

We are still a long way off in India from this reality. Mostly because unlike sport stars where individual talent is supreme, business performance is very context specific. Many "superstars" of the corporate world discovered it when they tried to join dotcoms during the last boom. They were superstars thanks to the processes and contexts of larger organizations. Performance is a function of skills, talent, managerial effectiveness and organizational processes.

How will such a Talent Agent ensure that the absence of the last two factors will not impact the overall performance of this "superstar" in their next gig?

On slackers in the workplace

Astha at Evolving Ideas: Stop the Cannibalism! talks about the phenomenon of tolerating the slackers and asks "what behavior are we rewarding? What behaviors are getting penalized? What priorities do my actions convey to my team?"

I'd like to step back and ask another question.

Why are some people slackers?

Obviously, either because they lack the skills to do the job (and are scared to admit it) or because they have the skills but are disengaged.

Or as we in HR choose to put it - is it a will or a skill issue?

A skill issue is relatively easier to diagnose and correct.
However, a will issue takes the patience of the manager and often such a decision is postponed resulting in the culture of tolerance that Astha speaks about.

Often managers have themselves to blame for the will issue. The roots can be as basic as mismatch of expectations at the time of recruitment. Or even inadequate goal planning or unclear performance management.

How clear is your managerial conversation with your team members?

Are people agreeing because it the culture of the society or the organization to do so?

Some people might need more monitoring because they are new to their jobs. Others might resent such monitoring. Do you know who these sets of people are? [Read Situational Leadership for more details]

best practices for Gen Y

Steven has a great post on
Nine Best Practices for Recruiting Gen Y

Here are some of my thoughts...

1. This is a generation that has very less boundaries between private and public information. They share information faster than any other generation. Is the corporate world ready to engage with that reality. Or would they rather try to change their thinking, which is going to be a futile effort, IMHO.

2. In India, this generation at least is not wary about following its dreams, and often treat the seldom beaten path (like Sidin, Prash and Samit) . How would a "job" need to be 're-sculpted' to suit their diverse talents?

And remember, Gen Y is only a precursor to the true digital natives. How are you planning for them?

Soldiers to Kill MilBlogs

Wired News: Under Fire, Soldiers Kill Blogs:

"The recent U.S. pressure on milbloggers, reported by Wired contributing editor Noah Schachtman in his Defense Tech blog, highlights the security risks of blogging by active duty military personel -- including those in Iraq with access to e-mail and the internet.

But it also signals a growing culture clash between military traditions of censorship and the expectations of young soldiers weaned on open digital culture, according to current and former military personnel."

The corporate world is modelled on the military one. Don't believe me? Look at the language of strategy and marketing. So corporate edicts to rein blogs could be sign that the culture of a firm is stuck in the 1950s, while an openness to embrace conversations means finally letting go of the mental models of the past.

The question is, would corporations, notorious for playing safe, have the courage to move in that direction?

Reliance to open first stores

India's Reliance to open first stores this wk in retail foray - Forbes.com:

"HYDERABAD, India (AFX) - Reliance Industries said it will open a series of stores here this week in a pilot project as part of its efforts to set up a nationwide chain of retail stores on the lines of Wal-Mart of the US.

The 11 'neighbourhood' stores, to be called Reliance Fresh, will sell groceries and other goods from Friday as a pilot project to 'understand customer needs,' Reliance said. "

Kishore Biyani of the Future Group (which is the brand under which Pantaloons operates) better watch out. Reliance has taken a team of heavyweights like Rajeev Karwal, Bijou Kurien as CEOs of Reliance Retail. What is going to be Biyani's response? Will the Starbucks tie-up be enough? He's hired unusual talent like Rupa Purushottam (co-author of the famous BRIC report of Goldman Sachs) as Chief Economist whereas Sanjeev Gupta ex-Coke CEO has joined him as CEO Indivision.

SAPPHIRE HR Weekly - News from the HR world

Hi...I get this newsletter in my inbox from my B School and I thought you might want to go through it too :-))

SAPPHIRE Weekly

News from the HR World XLRI Jamshedpur 30th October, 2006 School of Business & Human Resources

NEWS India Work Force Management Corporate India’s talent search According to a 2005 McKinsey study, only 25 per cent of our engineering graduates, 15 per cent of finance and accounting professionals and 10 per cent of professionals with any kind of degrees, in India, are suitable for working in multinational companies. In the next two years, India needs to find around 500 to 750 CEOs and another 10,000 functional leaders. If that is the demand over the next two years for business leaders, one can imagine the humongous demand at middle and lower levels. K Sudarshan, managing partner at EMA Partners, an international CEO search firm, (who also provided the above estimates), says: "There is a huge gap between demand and supply for chief financial officers (CFOs) and human resources professionals—both leaders and professionals down the line." At the entry level, Sudarshan feels that shop-floor engineers are a real problem as many of them are moving to finance and management. "And today, with spouses working, many engineers are not ready to move to remote locations." Considering that India, according to an HR industry estimate published in October 2006, will have 47 million surplus employable people by 2020, professionals agree that it is time for some HR value addition. To find out more click on the title. Churn better, not more - The skill lies in managing CEO attrition The demands of quarterly performance from a CEO are key today—and not just in India. From 2000, when one out of every five CEOs of the 200 largest US companies left or lost their jobs, the trend had grown worse—peaking in 2004 and 2005, with performance a major reason. But a reversal has been seen in 2006, ascribed by leading HR experts to stringent regulations, greater board oversight and higher calibre talent. In India, on the other hand, given the dynamics of business growth, CEO attrition is bound to get worse. In the past five years, 66% of India Inc has changed CEOs (86% in MNCs and 57% in Indian business houses). And the situation is particularly worrisome in sectors that are maturing, such as financial services, ITeS and BPOs. To find out more click on the title. Infosys presses panic button on talent, Wipro says take it easy Information technology heavy-weights Infosys and Wipro seem to have contrasting takes on the question of a crunch in human resources in Indian IT industry. With the IT sector set to see a recruitment overdrive in the coming years, to maintain growth rates, the supply of talent has emerged as a key question mark over the industry. As many as 10 lakh people are likely to be hired over the next two to three years in the IT sector. “The limiting factor for India’s growth will be availability of trained people. It is the biggest challenge for the sector as IT companies increasingly battle for talent pool in the country,’’ says Infosys human resources head T.V. Mohandas Pai. “While the number of engineering colleges in the country have increased in the last six years from 523 to 1,352, the quality of students is a cause of concern,” says Pai. Wipro chairman Azim Premji, however, says, “There is adequate talent available in the country and no need for panic’’. Both Infosys and Wipro have incidentally begun their own schemes for creating talent supplies. Infosys has started a programme called Campus Connect at over 100 engineering colleges in the country under which teachers are trained to teach the latest technologies in use in the industry. Wipro has started the Wipro Academy of Software Excellence (WASE) programme, in collaboration with the Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS-Pilani), to hire BSc graduates and train them in software engineering over a four-year period. To find out more click on the title. Compensation What's your worth? A booming industry has led pharma companies to hunt for and retain professionals through lucrative compensation packages. Suresh Tiwari, Vice-President, Human Resource, Eli Lilly India advises that the most appropriate way to do the compensation benchmarking in the pharmaceutical industry is to have CTC or TCC (cost-to-company or total cost-to-company). This ensures an apple-to-apple comparison between the company and the market. Mohinish Sinha, Associate Director and Head HR Practice, PricewaterhouseCoopers believes that due to the tremendous growth in the pharma sector and limited industry ready workforce, there has been significant increase in compensation in the pharma industry. Chakraverti points out that the average increase in salary in the pharma sector over the past three to four years has been in the range of 12–15 percent per annum, across all levels. In fact, at certain levels it is better than other sectors As per PwC, the average increase in manufacturing has been between 20–25 percent and in R&D between 30–35 percent in the last two years. Marketing compensation has also increased between 15–20 percent. Most pharma companies have a benefits-heavy structure where cash component is low but other benefits like car and housing is paid for senior and middle management levels. Companies do take care of the internal equities while deciding the compensation of new recruits. "In fact, many pharma companies have recently done salary normalisation in an effort to maintain internal parity," discloses Sinha. To find out more click on the title. Recruitment Expats keen to work in Indian banking sector The Indian banking sector is becoming a hot destination for expats. Headhunters say expats from South East Asian countries are now keen to work for Indian financial services companies, specially banks. They prefer to work in the investment banking, retail and corporate banking, corporate affairs, global markets and microfinance space. Today, the salary drawn by a executive and middle level officer in India is comparable to that offered in Singapore," said Nita Law, regional head HR, India and South Asia, Standard Chartered Bank. Raj Katra, senior vice president and human resource head, ABN Amro Bank says, "Salaries in India are increasingly aligning to those in developed markets while the cost of living is significantly lower, giving the expat greater bang for his buck, speaking literally. An India stint is perceived as a huge professional growth opportunity, given India’s rising stature as a key global player and a huge market, making India a hot professional destination. Expats spend anywhere between two to five years in India." To find out more click on the title. India facing acute shortage of CEOs The shortage is creating some high value targets for headhunters—IAS officers and other bureaucrats, who are joining private sector jobs after resigning from the services or on retirement, experts say. "If you look around, so many companies in India are struggling to find top managers, and, at the highest level, CEOs ... any fast growing company is grappling with the issue of finding good business managers," said Gaurav Lahiri, Head of Operations at the Indian arm of Hay Group, an international management consultancy. The swift growth of India's economy has driven down the age of the average Indian CEO. It was 55 once; it is the 40s or even late 30s now. "There are two reasons for the shortage—one, most companies have not taken leadership development very seriously, and two, the way we Indians have been groomed, it is in the Indian DNA that scholastic achievement is more important. It makes us very individual centric," Lahiri said. A Hay Group study on Indian CEOs conducted over the last three years showed stark differences between Western and Indian CEOs. While Indian corporate executives are extremely intelligent and have deep entrepreneurial skills, the study said, they were found lacking in spotting and grooming talent, and interpersonal skills. To find out more click on the title. Nasscom to launch test for BPO jobs in Nov The Nasscom Assessment of Competence (NAC) - a capability assessment programme for potential employees in the BPO industry, is all set for a nationwide rollout from November this year. The NAC is aimed at addressing the talent shortage faced by the industry, he (Kiran Karnik) said. "The aim is to create a continuous pipeline of talent by 'transforming' the workforce into an 'employable' workforce". According to NASSCOM, only 25% of technical graduates and 10-15% of college students are suitable for employment in the IT and BPO industry. It is estimated that by 2010, India could have a manpower shortfall of 5,00,000 people by 2010. Of this, the BPO gap would be around 3.5 lakh. To find out more click on the title. International Talent Salary survey: war for talent One of the most obvious concerns for our sector is the war for talent that continues to dominate boardroom discussion in the UK. According to the survey an alarming 69% of respondents believe newly qualified accounting and finance graduates are not equipped with the necessary skills required to start work. The most common skill insufficiencies lie in the candidate’s limited knowledge of the company’s industry (26%) and lack of communication skills (22%). Survey overwhelmingly shows that finance professionals nominate career development as the number one factor in determining job satisfaction. When asked about what makes a satisfying work environment, 36% of accountants chose career development opportunities, ahead of the relationship with their boss (28%), salary (19%) and benefits package (11%). To find out more click the title. Work Force Management How to turn your HR program into a center for increased revenue Do you know whether your human resources program is cost-effective? If not, but if you make needed strategic innovations, your HR program will help serve as a catalyst for profits. The Harris Interactive study of 2,800 employees was underwritten by a coalition called the American Business Collaboration (ABC). It includes Abbott, Deloitte & Touche USA LLP, Exxon Mobil Corporation, IBM Corporation, Johnson & Johnson, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, and Texas Instruments. There are fundamental differences between men and women. Men want good salaries followed by balance between their work and personal lives. Women want to learn and grow on the job. Secondarily, both genders want good benefits. Salaried men want flexible work schedules and salaried women are more interested in a better balance in their careers and personal lives. Hourly paid men want job security and their female counterparts want benefits. Here’s why employees quit their employers: the data shows 49 percent of men and women look for companies offering good salaries. In fact, 25 percent of such employees are actively job hunting. Another 20 percent admit they could be enticed to leave for enhanced job security. To find out more click on title. Today's workplace climate exposes slackers You're laboring away at work. The paperwork keeps piling up and the boss is asking for more. Then you happen to glance over at a fellow employee - an employee who is lounging around, talking on the phone to friends and generally doing nothing productive. These co-workers, otherwise known as "slackers," may seem like nothing more than a minor annoyance. But studies conducted by Leadership IQ, a Washington, D.C.-based leadership training and research firm, reveal these underperformers can be damaging to a company. "We surveyed about 70,000 employees," said Mark Murphy, Leadership IQ's president and CEO. "We really wanted to understand how people felt about working with low performers. Eighty-seven percent said it made them want to change jobs." Pete Tzavalas, client relationship manager for Capital H Group, a business consulting company in Long Beach, said managers are often reluctant to address the problem of slackers in the workplace. "They don't want to deal with the confrontation, so they give annual performance reviews that say the employee `meets expectations,"' he said. To find out more click on title. Compensation IT salaries expected to rise significantly in 2007 Information technology professionals in the United States can expect starting salaries in 2007 to increase an average of 2.7 percent over 2006, according to a report released Tuesday. The Robert Half Technology 2007 Salary Guide says software developers will see the greatest starting salary gains of any job classification in 2007, with base compensation expected to rise 5.1 percent, to between $60,250 and $94,750 annually. Other key findings from salary guide are: Project managers will earn average starting salaries of between $72,750 and $106,250 annually, an increase of 4.1 percent over 2006. Quality assurance analysts can expect base compensation of between $52,250 and $74,500, a gain of 4.1 percent. Applications architects will see starting salaries rise 4 percent, to between $80,000 and $112,750. Base compensation for network security administrators will increase 3.7 percent, with starting salaries of between $69,750 and $98,500. Average starting salaries for IT auditors will rise 3.1 percent, to between $69,250 and $97,000. To find out more click on title. Regards, Shatdal Shrivastava Team SAPPHIRE PS: Pls send in your feedback at sapphire@xlri.ac.in

Employment Branding in India

The second in a series of articles for Recruiting.com that I am writing.

By the way. here are some stories focussed around recruitment, from across the world. Do vote for them if you find them interesting ;-)

Will be visiting Delhi shortly for a blogging workshop around next Thursday-Saturday. Give me a call at 98665-11236 if you'd like to meet up around Friday evening or Saturday morning.

People loss may not equal to knowledge loss

Contrary to common wisdom, companies can benefit from the loss of an employee, claims Wharton management professor Lori Rosenkopf in Knowledge@Wharton. In a recent study Rosenkopf analyzed how outward mobility impacted U.S. semi-conductor firms based on patent citations. Her research revealed that many firms enjoyed a reverse flow of knowledge when a technical expert left to join another company. More specifically, firms that lost an expert to a competitor were 8% more likely to cite that firm in new patents. When the expert moved regions, the effect of outward mobility became stronger, with the old firm proving 22% more likely to cite the new employer.

Why? According to Rosenkopf, informal exchanges among tech professionals via email, blogs, conferences etc. transcend their workplaces. In other words, experts still talk to friends and ex-colleagues even after they leave a job. These social networks generate a flow of ideas and information, she explains. Based on a view of experts as social capital rather than skill silos, Rosenkopf argues that the firm losing a professional stands to gain access to his/her new employer’s knowledge. Losing an expert also encourages firms to monitor their competitors more closely for innovation opportunities. Although her research does not suggest that attrition is positive overall, firms should try to stay friendly with ex-employees, Rosenkopf concludes.

[Source : Egon Zehnder Knowledge]


That is some interesting research, and the focus therefore should be of building team and personal bonds between co-workers. Should the organization however, intervene in such a personal sphere? At the most it should provide a culture that fosters open communication and provides for spaces where inter-personal relationships bloom. That would mean performance systems that reward knowledge sharing and team achievement. A promotion process that takes into account the "how" of achievement and not just the "what". The organizational culture should also be non-paternalistic and very adult and mature (in a 'transactional analysis' way)

Of course, provision of usage of tools like blogs and email should not be viewed in a 'big brotherly' manner :-)

Emotional and Social Intelligence

One of the frequent answers that I give to people when they ask me "What did they never teach you in an MBA that you wish they had?" is "Emotional Intelligence"

The reason is that the complexity of knowledge has ensured that no one knows everything they need to, in order to get a job done. There is always the need to interact and work with others to get it done. While B Schools let you experience that reality by ensuring people work in groups, I still feel that teaching Emotional Intelligence as a theory is much needed. That is why this news gladdened my heart !

This fall, Columbia Business School launched a new program for full-time MBA students designed to increase their so-called "social intelligence," or ability to successfully maintain interpersonal relationships. The new Program on Social Intelligence (PSI) is integrated into the curriculum, student clubs and other extracurricular activities, the career search, and even study groups.

The program also features a series of speakers, which recently included an appearance by Daniel Goleman, author of Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships

Innovation Surveys

Wipro and Knowledge@Wharton are gathering data about the way companies manage product and process innovation. You can participate by filling out the survey here.

There's another survey on Innovation Management being conducted by knowledge@Wharton and UGS, a provider of product lifecycle management software and services. You can fill out that survey here.

Knowing Knowledge

George Siemens' new book Knowing Knowledge will be out soon but you can download it in three pdf files .

I loved his thoughts on community. Somewhere he gave words to what I have always felt to be true.

When we try to create communities online, we take the same approach—come to our community. The community should come to the user. The true value in the conversations is the connections formed between individuals.
Essentially, a community is a connection-forming space.
Most individuals have created a scattered identity and presence. I have pieces of my thoughts scattered across numerous articles, website, podcasts, and presentations. I do not really want to join a community. I want the connection values of communities to be available to me in my own online space and presence.
Today, communities are about end-user control. We still achieve centralized aims (dialogue about learning and technology), but we do so through decentralized means.
We like to make decisions on “what is known”—what is the skillset required when knowledge moves too fast? We make decisions by sensing, not by knowing in advance.
Complexity corrodes clear paths…we now hold things in suspended states until more is revealed.

Kay leaves SimplyHired to join Linkedin

I was hanging around the MyLinkedInPowerForum when a mail from Linkedin's Co-Founder Konstantin Guericke caught my eye. Until yesterday, Konstantin was the public face of Linkedin on this egroup of Linkedin enthusiasts (and occasionally, critics). He had announced that from now on the person who would take over the responsibility for playing that role would be Kay Luo.

The name struck me because until a few weeks ago Kay was sending me emails about SimplyHired's new features like "one click" resume posting and featured jobs advertising. Yes, she was until recently the Director of Marketing there.

Shows how deeply entwined something like Business Networking is to job hunting, that the Linkedin founders have understood that recruiters and job hunters are probably the most paying customers they have, and have therefore brought in Kay who knows that market and the users and advertisers very well.

Search for Indianapolis jobs at JobCentral.

DIY Change

SystemicHR has an interesting ongoing series on "Sleepless nights in HR". I loved the bit he posted, quoting Andy Parsley on part 6- Managing Change:

Business journals are also brim full with articles about change. Ignore these too because they typically start from the Machiavellian premise that “people hate change”.

This is nonsense of course. People LOVE change – in fact they can hardly get enough of it.

Through the 1990s the UK DIY retail multiples experienced growth of over 185 per cent and in 2004 the sector was estimated to be enjoying a turnover of just over £7.3 billion. People hate change? And when the paint brushes and electric drills are put away for the night, these same people are tuning-in to makeover shows and gardening programmes.

People hate change? No, if people are involved in change (Do It YOURSELF) and their input to the process is valued they will readily engage with it.

Checkout accounting jobs, UK at AccountantCareers.co.uk.

Shared spaces

Astha didn't ask me about my opinion, but here it is anyway :-)

I think there is a distinction between a support role and a "line" role that still exists. The 'purpose' of support roles is to be of service, hence in certain organizations where I have worked a business would stake claim to their 'own' HR person, Finance person, IT support person etc.

How one views oneself goes a long way in how one reacts to this. Some support people are too aligned to their professional and functional identities for them to see themselves as "business people" (I myself am guilty of this fact !) Others become identified first as business people and then as functional people.

This according to some, like Wayne Brockbank is the way to go forward (Can't find the link, but in one interview he said he was exasperated with one of his HR students who didn't want to experience other parts of the business!). You can see evidence of IT services firms trying to build domain competence as a win for this strategy.

So, is there a best way to go about it? Well, if your goal is to "be at the table" , it is important to drop functional blinkers and see things as a general management perspective. There will be discomfort at letting go of your trusted and used skills, and terror at stepping out into the unknown details of other functions. But who said learning was easy?

Anu's thoughts on Astha's post are here.

PayScale's India related Charts

I had earlier blogged about PayScale here, so it was a surprise to get a mail from someone at PayScale saying that I could their content for this blog.

It covers Indian salary data too (though in USD). So check these charts by designation as well as by location !

Median Salary by Job - All People in All Surveys (India)

Compare your salary: Get a free Salary Report

Median Salary by City - All People in All Surveys (India)

Compare your salary: Get a free Salary Report

Interesting to see Hyderabad and Delhi tied at number two behind Bangalore. Again, specific to IT.

Median Salary by Years Experience - All People in All Surveys (India)

Compare your salary: Get a free Salary Report

Interesting to note that 10-19 years experience earn substantially more than 20 years and above. Guess that is because it focusses more on the IT industry.

Job Fair rants

Rajesh Segu posts a comic about it and it generates some bitter comments by people who have been treated shoddily at job fairs.

How do you use job fairs? Is it merely to build your brand?

A recruiter friend who selects at job fairs also shared that the people who turn up seem much more unprofessional than people who come to an office for the interview.

Does it have to do with the location and ambience and the fact that people spend hours in the sun and dust waiting for an interview?

Way to go, Ratan

I'm a big fan of the Tatas, having seen what they have done with a city like Jamshedpur up close for two years. So this news had me celebrating. For my readers not from India, let's just say that the Tata group is the most respected business conglomerate and also one of the oldest business houses of the country.

This news more than the Mittal Arcelor deal is being seen as a sign of India Inc. coming of age in the global stage. Mittal Steel for all the Indian name is still incorporated out of India.

Interestingly it will be the Tata's 21st global acquisition, and it also is corporate India's biggest global take over bid till date.

So for the group which has interests in steel, information technology, tea, motors and hotels, it seems as if there are more interesting times ahead !

Jobster and Superstar Tags

Jobster announced that it had made a major change to how your profile could be presented on their site.

In case you didn't know, you could add tags to your page/profile on jobster (kinda like how you add tags to pictures on flickr and to your blogs on technorati and your URLs on Del.icio.us).

The problem with tags when you want to be found, is that it can get very easy to game the system.

The same can be said to be true for resumes on job boards. A savvy job-hunter can be smart enough to pack enough nice keywords on his/her resume to keep it popping up in front of recruiters.

The solution is deceptively simple. Limit the number of tags that can be search to a very limited number and ask people to describe themselves in those limited tags. Check out my "superstar tags" on my profile here.

My only question is, what is the possibility that people are looking not for prospective employees but also consultants on Jobster :-) ?

Indibloggies 2006

Indibloggies 2006 is round the corner and is looking for sponsors. I was a jury member in the 2005 edition (and an award winner in the 2004 edition) and I believe that corporate sponsorship and attention will immensely benefit the awards as well as the Indian blogosphere.

If any organization believes in the power of social media, this is the time to put your money where your mouth is :-)

Hiring in India

What MNCs do wrong.

My first article on the new Recruiting.com

Reading for HR people

These days a recurring email, IM or phone conversation that I have with youngsters who are beginning their HR careers is the answer to their question "What can I read to be a better HR professional?"

Well there is a lot of things you could read that would add to your conceptual knowledge, but HR skills are applied skills. The things that matter most for a beginner is process compliance and empathy with employees (even though a lot of times these can be contradictory).

However when pushed against the wall by them, I finally give in and tell them that Organizational Behavior is absolutely imperative to be studied, if one does not have a formal education in MBA/HR.

OB is the foundation of Human Resources, and one needs to understand how individuals, teams and organizations behave to be an effective HR person.

Charles Handy, Noel Tichy in India

The National HRD Network Conference in Delhi from 1st -3rd November seems to be one which is going to be a real firecracker !

Among the speakers for the conference are Charles Handy, Noel Tichy, Allan Schweyer, Aquil Busrai, S Varadarajan, Bimal Rath etc.

Are you going to be there?

Checkout Las Vegas jobs at NV Job Search.com.

Why do people change jobs?

The conventional answer was that they had lousy bosses, but in India the top reason seems to be because they felt they weren’t receiving enough training in new skills.

I Banking - which career is right for you?

Prof Mohanty of XLRI points to this Goldman Sachs site that could help you decide what kind of a role in the investment banking industry is useful for you. Also take a look at the other links Prof Mohanty has provided

Social Research in HR

In the recent management fest at IMT Nagpur I was moderating a panel discussion on the topic "Blurring of functional silos". A point I made was that new careers are going to emerge in the intersection points of two functions (about which I have earlier blogged too).

After the talk one of the students came up to me and asked if HR and Market Research had anything in common.

My first response was that employee satisfaction surveys need the skills of market research. However Market Research gets only the explicit part of expectations and feedback out in the open. The qualitative aspect, that organizations are using anthropologists to 'observe' their customers happens on a day to day in organizations internally. The HR manager or HR generalist's main role is to see what employees, groups are feeling and not expressing.

What could be needed for HR professional could well be a knowledge of anthropology.

Talentosphere's new community

The Canadian Headhunter was first acquired by Recruiting.com (which was itself acquired by Jobster), after which CH got in touch with his id and started the RecruitingAnimal blog. Now the wildebeestes of the Talentosphere have banded together to form RecruitingBloggers.

(The CanadianHeadhunter is a very special blog for me, cause I think they were the first bloggers to ever link to me ...back in Feb 2004 here!)

Best of Luck, MK and others at RecruitingBloggers.com !

Desipundit shuts down

The link blog to the 'best of the Indian blogosphere', Desipundit announced that it is shutting down. Two of the contributors, Neha and Ash explain why.

If lack of time for the contributors is the main reason I think there is a way that it could be changed.

A model which is more like digg.com. Where everyone could be contributors and the present contributors could become hawk-eyed editors looking out for spam? Yes, I thought the idea of Recruiting.com could be moulded for DP

If not, then could someone else buy DP. I'm thinking some of the big media houses like NDTV, web18 or others.

Of course, this would change the basic nature of DP, but something's better than nothing !

Want to work in India?

Achyut Menon has a good post for Non-Resident Indians (and others) who might be looking to relocate back to India. As he says:

Most of the people who return today-are doing so –for professional reasons. A stint in India (or in China) –is certainly a MUST for the global professional today. In fact, there is a school of thought..that perhaps not moving to India now..may not be a smart idea after all!!

Visiting IMT Nagpur for Milestone 35

Will be visiting IMT Nagpur for their management fest Milestone 35's HR sessions on Tuesday, 17th October.

If any of you are in Nagpur then give me a call at +91-98665-11236.

Naukri ties-up with Careerbuilder

Indian jobsite Naukri.com announced a tie-up with CareerBuilder.com

Careerbuilder's India effort has obviously failed and Naukri has't moved internationally so far. So the tie-up seems a good way to help employers and job seekers cross borders. When people and work move easily across the oceans it seems strange that job-boards and job search engines are demarcated nationally.

Jail to Job

Campus Recruitment at Tihar Jail

A recruitment drive in underway at the Tihar prison, Delhi.

Kaushal Choudhary, charged with a murder and currently free on bail, was interviewed and recruited by DRS Logistics, a Hyderabad-based transport company, during his term in Tihar Jail.

The job of a field officer for a monthly salary of Rs 4,000 is like a dream for the 26-year-old, who spent nearly five years behind bars.

Besides Choudhary, Sanjaya Kumar Dingra, an accused in a murder case who was acquitted by a court recently, has joined the transport company as a painter with a pay of over Rs 3,000 a month.

The company has offered to recruit 50 prisoners a year for posts like supervisor, computer operator, driver, helper, cleaner, painter and officer, sources in Tihar Jail told PTI.

The jail authorities recommended the duo for the jobs on the basis of their conduct inside the prison.

I just hope the sanctity of the process remains and jail authorities don't give false recommendations in exchange for bribes ! [Hat-tip: Achyut Menon]

NDTV launches a job board

Is it following the Times Groups' lead? ContentSutra informs that NDTV has launched NDTVjobs, its own job board with collaboration with Yellojobs.com . It's even linked from the main NDTV page and therefore might get some decent traffic. As they explain:

It’s a mirror image of the site Yello runs/developed in Thailand for MSN Careers. Yello has sites with both the Yello brand, as well as co-branded portals. Who’ll be running the show here?
I don’t know how this fits in with the NDTV mission, but if you look at what’s happened over the past couple of months, the gameplan for media houses seems to be to use the power of their distribution network to plug.

I checked out the Career Blogs section. Why is it plural? It's only a single blog with 4-5 categories. Primarily linkblogging with no original content. No India focussed content too, as links are to websites like Businessweek or CareerBuilder. No author names. No permalinks. You must be logged in to leave a comment (pray, why?). Verdict: Avoidable.

The Resource Blog for employers is also similarly lame.

The BootCamp section is merely as listing of Management Development Programmes by various B Schools of the country. Maybe my expectation of a job board that also helps build your skills will remain unfulfilled as of now !

So here's two thumbs down for this attempt by NDTV.

To get promoted get to know what you will be doing

Apart from working on part 1, part 2 and part 3, one has to get ready to be promoted to the next level. So the final part in this series is:

4. Get to know what the next level demands

If the organization has a written job description of what the next level entails, can you demonstrate that level of performance in your current role?

You can also volunteer to do your leader's relatively simpler operational tasks that will help you in

• learning what the role is

• free up his/her time to concentrate on doing more productive things

If demonstrated well, these skills will show your Manager that you can do aspects of his/her role well and you will be better off in your chances of getting promoted than others who have only concentrated on doing their current job role.

How much has not happened

Dave Pollard is impatient that the breathless hype of blogs has not resulted in significant change. Patience Dave, you know that organizational changes take at least 3 years to complete, industry change would be longer ( a decade?) and social changes much more longer.

To quote what Dave is saying:

• The business world has not embraced weblogs, and has not significantly changed its 'information behaviours' as a result of the availability of blogging content and tools.
• The news media have not significantly changed their business models or means of operating or communicating as a result of weblogs -- tens of millions of supposed new 'competitors'.
• The education process has not significantly changed as a result of the availability of a great deal of new, free, context-rich information on weblogs.
• People have not become acknowledged as 'subject matter experts' as a result of the information they publish on their weblogs -- people aren't getting job offers, awards or recognition in the (other) media because of their blogs.
• The publishing industry is churning out more 'hard copy' books and magazines than ever before, and it has not significantly changed its business model.
• De facto networks of trust and reputation have not significantly changed because of weblogs -- ask the vast majority of people who they trust, who they ask for advice, and where they look for advice, and you won't hear bloggers and blogs mentioned.
• The reason a lot of people go online is social -- to connect with other people rather than to get information. And when they do look online for content rather than connection, what they're looking for(music, health information and porn) is not a significant component of what's on weblogs.

Business as social change

The founder of Grameen Bank, Mohammed Yunus did it.

Won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Here's to one of the rare examples of cutting edge thought that originated in our poverty stricken neighbour. Innovations for bottom of the pyramid will not originate with the incumbents but with smaller and indigenous entrepreneurs (posted earlier about Grameen Bank in this context here).

As Tom Peters says in his blog post:

I stumbled across Yunus & Grameen about 5 years ago. I went bananas! The story, of course, is amazing. Moreover, it dovetails with all of my Primary Biases:

Small can be beautiful & powerful!
People first!
Trust!
Women rule!!!!!!!!
Giant forests from tiny seedlings!
Self reliance!
Community based!
Self/Small group management!
Banish the bureaucrats!
Keep it simple, stupid!
Hands on!

Two types of values

Bruce Lewin explores the link between Financial Values and Cultural Values of a firm.

One reason for the dichotomy could be that financial values are rooted in the competitiveness of an individual firm and its strategy, whereas the cultural values are "nice to say" in most cases, and need to confirm to current business fads by having words like innovation, empowerment, work-life balance in them.

What do you think?

Bill Vick's books on Linkedin

Bill's first book, written with Des Walsh, titled LinkedIn For Recruiting, has moved into the best seller category and continues to generate buzz and comments from Recruiters.

His second book, LinkedIn For Job Hunters, is on target for release in late November. Information, along with a free mini-course on using LinkedIn is available for download .

I have tremendous respect for Bill and Des' enthusiasm for linkedin and they are users that ay service and product should be dying to have, because they are not just consumers, but co-creators of the overall service offering.

In my small way, I'm also looking at offering workshops for organizations on how to use networks like Linkedin. If you are interested, give me a call :-)

How to get promoted - solve problems

Part 3 of the series ( part 1: Be a star, 2: Take Initiative )

3. Solve Problems Creatively

Not everybody can get the chance to lead official or informal events, so solving problems is an excellent way to get noticed by your managers. If you have spent some time in organizations you will know how people crib and complain about small things!

Resolve not be one of them.

Instead, solve the most pressing issues that might be bothering your boss. Then let him or her know that you have done so. There was this lady in an IT services organization who always knew the better and more economical way to get the job done. When the organization was going through a slowdown in the early 2000s her expertise was very valuable to reduce overheads and probably helped in saving someone’s job!

For Web 2.0 enthusiasts

Got an email from uber networker Christian Mayaud which I thought you might like, although a VC tells Jason Goldberg that Web 2.0 is over (!) a view echoed by Rob the Businesspundit:

All Things Web 2.0 - The Open Directory

Although still in beta, it already contains the most comprehensive, categorized, and up-to-date listings of all things Web 2.0 --

• 2200+ Web 2.0 Applications sorted into ...
• 130+ Categories with ...
• User Ratings & Reviews and
• New Applications Listed Daily

All Things Web 2.0 - The Open Directory began as a very popular post on my blog Sacred Cow Dung (also home to my now "infamous" "Cheater's Guide to LinkedIn" Post )

While useful as a starting point to explore the world of Web 2.0, such a list is impossible for any one person to keep current over time. However, converting the static blog list into an open, community maintained, directory seemed to be a "Web 2.0 No-Brainer" --

(Think: Wiki with a bit more structure)

How to manage A players

Many A players outperform others in search of recognition, which often signals irrationally low self-esteem, writes Steven Berglas in the Harvard Business Review. (Steven Berglas: “How to keep A players productive” in Harvard Business Review (September 2006). Article can be purchased online.)

Super-achievers are typically very smart, insecure and highly competitive.

He identifies the following strategies for dealing with stars:

• Set boundaries: A players will tend to overextend tasks, so avoid vague requests and cap performance expectations very clearly
• Let them win sometimes: make concessions to stars over minor points and they will support your strategy
• Make praise personal: stars have problems internalizing positive feedback, so they need regular and highly personalized praise to boost their self-esteem
• Make them team play: encourage A players to cooperate with others to achieve goals
• Turn stars into coaches: this acknowledges their superiority and helps them to foster better relations with subordinates
• Set fresh challenges: A players are hard to overload and will respond well to growth opportunities.

Although A players may not be easy to manage, research shows that they generate 80% of a firm’s profits, notes the author. By handling such players effectively, leaders can dramatically increase their value to the company, he concludes.

What do you think? Do you think the value of A players is overrated? Should they be getting any concession denied to the other players? The bit about insecurity is interesting. I have heard that at least of the biggest strategic management consulting firm try to gauge a candidate's "insecurity" before making an offer.

India ascends in Business Competitiveness

From HBS Working Knowledge:

The United States and Germany remain atop the latest Business Competitiveness Index, with China continuing to slip in the rankings while India ascends, according to a report released from Harvard Business School's Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness.

China, which has retreated in the rankings since 2002, fell nine spots to 64, according to the ISC. "This year's decline was driven especially by higher levels of corruption, weaker assessment of buyer sophistication, and concerns about labor relations," the study found. Also contributing were weak property rights, poor board governance, and low quality of management education. "Overall it is clear that euphoria about China is moderating as the realities of its competitiveness become more apparent," the report concludes.

India moved up four rankings to 27, aided by improvements in its business environment and increasing levels of company sophistication.

Joel on blogger relations

Joel says that companies should be taking notice that BR, or blog relations, is outpacing the influence of PR. He then proceeds to name me !

Does your company or PR agency know Jim Stroud, Gautam Ghosh, Dave Mendoza and the rest? Do you? If not, you should. They’ll make you famous.

Well I do know of three business reporters in India who've contacted me for stories :-) But yes, I do get pitches on email from Web 2.0 companies. But I am not a journalist. Far from it :-) However, Desicritics where I occasionally blog, is now being indexed by Google News !

Guess what my teenage ambition was...? Destiny has some strange ways to make old wishes come true :D

Update: Related article Buttering up the Blogosphere from BusinessWeek (subscription required)

How to get promoted - second point

You have got great communication skills and you have also heard about the great talent shortage in India and therefore you’re fairly certain that the next few years will see you get a promotion every year to make it to the top management of an organization in about a decade, right?

As I blogged earlier, not so easy. So here is the second part in the series:

2. Show initiative

Focusing and meeting your goals is what is expected out of you, but to be really considered for promotion you have to a lot more.

One of the things you can do is to look or opportunities to display managerial or leadership skills. How can one do so? Simple, take initiative when any opportunity presents itself to organize, direct, plan or bring together people to reach certain goals. OK, it’s not so simple. How can you get such opportunities? Thankfully, life in organizations presents lots of opportunities. What you need is the ability to spot these opportunities.

These could range from organizing a simple office picnic or party, to putting together a presentation for visiting clients. Showing initiative and asking for roles that help you showcase your leadership skills is a valuable way you can get senior leadership to be aware of your case for promotion. Of course, you have to execute what you have taken on your plate, flawlessly as well.

Part 1: Be a star where you are