Facebook's Resume Feature - Should LinkedIn be worried? My take

Yesterday it was all over the tech websites, Facebook is reportedly testing a new resume feature called "work histories" that can help users share them privately.

Here are my thoughts about how this can play out:

1. Facebook is making an enterprise play. First with Workplace , the collaboration feature and then with  Facebook Jobs the job advertising feature. However, they haven't really done a great job marketing the jobs feature. If you see currently the number of jobs advertised in India is very low. As I write this is what is shown - 27 jobs in India (plus all of them seem to be with Facebook, not even sure it is used by other employers)
   
2. Facebook's big revenue features come from display advertising, sponsored posts for consumers. LinkedIn has that market cornered when it comes to employers - with their company pages and posts targeted to different kind of talent segments. So cracking this market is going to be tough for Facebook unless it invests in feet on the street to take on LinkedIn's Account Management, Sales and Customer Service. Facebook pages had talked about introducing a jobs/careers tab for adding to their business pages beginning with US and Canada, however I am not sure if this is in the priority for Facebook sales teams to pitch it to their customers
3. The big opportunity, Mobile recruitment. Where Facebook has a big edge over LinkedIn in the developing markets is the users who are solely on the platform as well as being actively engaged - the users for whom the internet is first mobile screen. These would be the blue collar workers which are not a strong point of LinkedIn. However to reach them Facebook would have to give the screen real estate to the product to make jobs a clear feature which might mean compromising on things like its news feed.
4. Microsoft and LinkedIn. Microsoft's acquisition of LinkedIn and its data getting integrated into Outlook and Office 365 is a moat that Facebook may find it difficult to cross.   
5. Facebook's perception problem. The biggest problem for Facebook is its perception of being a "social network" that is for friends and family. Whatever Facebook does in the jobs and careers space would run into that huge perception issue. At least in the white collar workforce, hence IMHO, the best bet for Facebook would be to concentrate on the blue collar workforce and focus on a "apply with Facebook" button with job sites to make the application process friction-less. The question is will they focus on it - at the cost of hurting their other revenue streams like digital advertising? And will they be able to convince the recruiting ecosystem like job sites and staffing agencies and make the products that they see value in? Time will tell, but very unlikely in my view. I hope I am proved wrong because LinkedIn can really do with some competition in this space.

On Personal Branding

Dan Schwabel guest posts on Penelope's blog with his reasons on why Generation Y is the personal branding generation (familiarity with gadgets and online personas, knowledge that jobs are not for life)

Dan has released his first book Me 2.0 and it's currently number 356 on Amazon.

Oh, another thing. He's 25.

Reputation was earlier a field with high-entry barriers. You had to slog over a long number of years to get to be known by a sufficient number of people to be recognized as an 'expert'.

You still have to slog today - but the reach of the social technologies has amplified to a huge extent and crunched the time and entry barrier.

However, be careful... these tools can be double edged swords - and handled stupidly can amplify things you would rather hide.

And yes, not all in the generation would be savvy marketers...however when compared to the previous generations, and the context they find themselves in - Gen Y would be savvier on the whole than Gen X.

The question to ask is - is the same true for Gen Y in India? Maybe for the miniscule group that has access to these tools, maybe yes... what of the rest?

P.S. Dan's got a 52 page free PDF download to Blogging Your Brand here.

Hillary rubbishes Chelsea's work

Ok, this is interesting :-)

Senator Clinton's daughter, Chelsea, works for New York-based hedge fund Avenue Capital Group and previously held a post with international management consulting group, McKinsey and Company.

"We ... have to reward work more," US broadcaster ABC quoted her as saying. "By that I mean I have people in New York working on Wall Street as investment managers, as hedge fund executives.

"Under the tax code, they can pay a lower percentage of their income in taxes on $50 million, than a teacher, or a nurse, or a truck driver in Parma pays on $50,000. That's very discouraging to people.

"You just feel like, 'Wait a minute, I'm working as hard as I can,' " she said.

It's not the first time the former first lady has railed against her daughter's profession. In 2006 she told an audience that young people thought "work is a four-letter word".

OK, now I know why young upwardly mobile professionals are not voting for Hillary. I wonder what Barack Obama thinks about knowledge workers

Work, Sex and the Urban Gen X and Gen Y Indian

Recently after we replaced our defunct DVD player, we've been catching up on quite a few movies that we missed.

In this post, however, I'd like to talk about two movies in particular. Delhii Heights starring Jimmy Shergill and Neha Dhupia, and Mumbai Salsa starring stand up comedian Vir Das along with a bunch of relative unknown actors.

The movies give us a bunch of insights into the urban Generations X and Y in the Indian metros.

• Note that both of the movies have the name of the cities in them. Pointing out that the stories are of the urban Indian as opposed to being for a pan-Indian audience.
• Delhii Heights is about life in a high rise apartment complex where DINKs like corporate executives Jimmy and Neha live, while Mumbai Salsa is the name of the discotheque and bar where Mumbai's hotshots gather, the increasing prevalence of The Third Place being brought out in the movie.
• The family, usually such an integral part of the Indian movie, plays no role in both the movies. There is no "Ma" or "Pitaji" to take the attention away from the main roles.
• While the female leads in both the movies are driven career women, and the male leads look like they will support them. However when push comes to shove, it is still expected by supposedly enlightened men that the woman will sacrifice their career (check video embedded below). However, both movies end in happly ever after tidings.
• The rocking dudes and dudettes are the ones with corporate careers. Advertising and Marketing seems to be the one that movie makers seem to identify most with. Vir Das even earns a Rs. 30 lakh salary in an advertising firm! His girlfriend seems to be a HR person, but it's never stated. However, Mumbai Salsa also shows characters pursuing 'alternative careers' like a tattoo artist, salsa dance teacher and gym instructor.
• While in Mumbai Salsa sex is the starting point that lead to long term relationships, Delhii Heights shows how couples even after knowing each other for 5-6 years may not actually 'really' know each other.
  

What Gen Y or Millennial employees want

From an email I received:

In a just-released guide, What Millennial Workers Want: How to Attract and Retain Gen Y Employees, Robert Half International and Yahoo! HotJobs examine the professional priorities of the most senior members of Generation Y — those who have already started a career or will soon start one. More than 1,000 adults ages 21 to 28 were polled for the project.

“The research depicts a pragmatic, future-oriented generation that holds many of the same values as its predecessors,” said Reesa Staten, senior vice president and director of workplace research for Robert Half International. “Yet, certain distinctive qualities, such as a desire for very frequent feedback from their managers, are unique to this generation. Generation Y expects a lot of its leaders. Making sure supervisors of Gen Y professionals have supportive management styles can go a long way in attracting and retaining these workers, who will play a greater role in organizations as more baby boomers retire.”


Big expectations of company leaders
Survey respondents rated working with a boss they respect and can learn from as the most important aspect of their work environment, ahead of having a nice office space, a short commute or working for a socially responsible company. Those surveyed also indicated that they expect more “face time” from their supervisors than a weekly status meeting. The majority of Gen Yers (60 percent) want to hear from their managers at least once a day.

Redefining a successful future
Most survey respondents appeared optimistic about the future, but this isn’t a group whose idealism overshadows practical concerns, according to the study. When evaluating job opportunities, for example, the research shows that salary, benefits and room for professional growth are top concerns for this group. While 46 percent of Gen Yers consider their career prospects better than previous generations, many respondents feel they also will have to save more money for retirement and study harder than generations past. In fact, nearly three out of four (73 percent) Gen Yers surveyed said they will likely go back to school to obtain another academic degree or certification.

A corner office or impressive job title doesn’t equal success for Gen Y, the survey results suggest. In fact, respondents ranked “a more prestigious job title” last among seven factors that would prompt them to leave their current positions. Opportunities for professional growth and advancement rated a greater career priority, the research shows.

Keeping their options open
Like most employees, Gen Yers crave challenge on the job. The top factors that would tempt Gen Yers to look for greener pastures are added pay and benefits, opportunities for advancement, and more interesting work. Even firms that provide some of these incentives may not be able to keep Gen Y staff members for the long term. Four out of 10 respondents said they plan to stay at their job up to two years; only one in five foresees staying at his/her current job six years or longer.

“Millennials never stop marketing themselves,” said Tom Musbach, managing editor, Yahoo! HotJobs. “This means companies must constantly be in recruiting mode with current employees.”

Inherently, it's always a great idea to be in a "recruiting" mode to retain employees. However the irony is that recruiting and HR generalist positions are becoming too divorced in businesses to have any real conversation about the expectations and promises given to employees, whether of Gen X or Y !

I wonder if a survey like this was conducted in India what would it say?

Brazen Careerist Penelope Trunk lives up to my prediction

Well what did I tell ya ?

I got a press release today (normally I dutifully delete all such PR stuff) but since this was about Penelope I had to blog it :-)

Ninth House, Inc., the leadership solutions company, and nationally syndicated career columnist and Yahoo! Finance career expert, Penelope Trunk, have teamed up to offer the industry advice about employee recruitment and retention as it relates to an up-and-coming Generation Y.

Well, here's wishing Penelope best of luck in her consulting avatar ! More power to people like her !

Indian youth - No cause to fret

I guess every generation thinks that the one following it is careless and indisciplined. See how the boomers react to Gen X and how Gen X reacts to Gen Y or the Millenials as they are called.

The generation who were students in India in the 1970s often say that today's generation is no longer looking for anything else apart from their own personal self-gratification. Not so, says this HT journalist in this article:

The majority of the youth is neither hedonistic nor irresponsible. Barring the two per cent who dominate Page 3, many actually aspire to be changemakers, and are disturbed by the growing inequities.

Take the recent four-part series titled India GenNext aired on a news channel. The survey of youthful aspirations and solutions for India, at arguably some of India’s top B-schools — IIM (Ahmedabad) ISB (Hyderabad), FMS ( Delhi) and XLRI (Jamshedpur) — was heartening. Cutting across regions and income-groups, the key issues disturbing India’s brightest were poverty, illiteracy and health. In an impassioned group discussion, they highlighted the urgent need for inclusive growth. In fact, they coined a new term — Personal Social Responsibility — rather than the jaded Corporate Social Responsibility. Many rued the fact that corporate India’s top-down approach wasn’t working, as it left many out in the cold. The anchor of the series, herself a B-school grad, was stunned by the response. Their first reaction was: “These are issues we would love to talk about. We are sick of giving bites on reservation and the highest placements in our college. Nobody ever asks us these questions.” Sadly, the media seldom asks the right questions.

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