Blogreview: John Chow dot com

I stumbled upon John's blog while searching for related blogs on SEO. Am glad I found his blog for the simple reason that I consider him a successful blogger, a legend and just reading his blog does encourage me to shed any inhibitions that chain me and gives me the courage to dream.

John Chow dot Com is blog that helps you make money online. It’s a great read and he’ll link to you if you review his blog.

Just to give you an idea as to how successful his blog is try observing the number of comments that he gets for his posts. Its mind boggling, its even humbling.

His blog is all about making money online and he is one of the best in the business. But more importantly he is generous, resourceful and industrious and I say that because he is not afraid to share his knowledge and his success receipe to his readers. That’s the hallmark of a great man!

:: JobWatch | AT&T to add 120 jobs here this year

Source: TODAY, Friday, March 23, 2007 by Ashraf Safdar

United States telco giant AT&T plans to expand its Singapore capabilities, adding 120 managerial and technical jobs over the next year. Singapore will also become the main service and support hub for the region, offering multilingual, round-the-clock help.

:: Internet sourcing techniques

Internet recruiting is slowly but surely catching on in this part of the world. Time is not far off when we will have to increasingly employ internet search for finding resumes, but of course this is besides the traditional method of sourcing.

I’ve been doing a bit of research on the net and managed to compile some of the most commonly used techniques for internet recruiting and am glad to share this with you.

Before we try and understand the techniques for internet recruiting let us first understand what are the search engines mostly used by experience recruiters.

Some recommended search engines on the Web:

• http://www.Google.com
• http://www.live.com
• http://www.Yahoo.com
• http://www.MetaCrawler.com
• http://www.Atlavista.com
• http://www.Dogpile.com

The search strings for each of these search engines will vary and therefore to maximize your search please do read the tutorials in advance from the respective search engines site.

What techniques to use and when and under what circumstances to use will depend on how well you master each techniques. To achieve optimum success one must also have a fairly good idea about the recruitment industry, the specific job requirement, the key words within the requirement and also differentiate the "mandatory skills" from "good to have skills."

Some of the most common internet search techniques are as given below.

X-RAYING:
A method of looking inside a specific web site to find what's there. Using this technique, recruiters can find documents and web pages that aren't directly accessible via links on the main public home page. When you 'x-ray' a website, you effectively get to examine every document that resides there so long as they are not behind firewalls or password protected.
Example: To find any “software engineer” - could be a document/file or a word/phrase within a document that resides within the website Oracle.com.
In Altavista search - host:oracle.com AND software engineer
In Google search - site:www.oracle.com AND software engineer

FLIPPING:
Flipping is an effective method used to find the relationships between web pages based on how they are hyperlinked together. This search is especially useful for finding people who have links to the company or have worked for a specific company.
Example: To find any “software engineer” – could be a document/file or word/phrase that links back to Oracle.com.
In Altavista search - link:oracle.com AND software engineer
In Google search - link:www.oracle.com AND software engineer

PEELING BACK:
As the name suggest Peeling back is the process of “retracing the path” of the url especially when one gets an Error 404 (File not found). This process is engage so as to locate the information elsewhere on the site or locate the specific “root” folder where one can find similar or additional data specific or related to the search.
Example: By peeling back or keying backspace starting from the point where the url ends we can then access the people link from the ce.uta.edu homepage and find the names of all the faculty members.
url: http://www-ce.uta.edu/people/faculty/hoyos/research.html

HARVESTING OR MINING:
Harvesting involves reviewing a document, such as a resume or home page, and finding key words, links, references and locations that assist with subsequent searches.

SEARCH STRINGS USING BOOLEAN KEYS:
By constructing complex search strings and conducting the search in major search engines one can hone in on the exact information/resources with great accuracy.

Some of the commonly used key words for a search string are given as below.
Common resume Words: Resume, Homepage, CV, Vitae, Bio, Qualifications, Objective, Experience, Education, References, "Work History", "Technical skills", "Project duration"
Common words to avoid: Submit, Opening, Recruiter, Send, Benefits, Requirements, Opportunity, Apply, Job, Jobs, Careers, Eoe, Reply, "my client".

Example on how to construct a complex search strings:
Requirement: A project manager with PMI certification or a 6 Sigma black belt having atleast 5 years of project management within an Investment bank in the areas of Equities connectivity or trading software development. Must have good technical skills in J2EE, EJB, Websphere, XML and DB2.

Search strings credit to – Glenn Gutmacher of Advanced Online Recruiting Techniques

Google:
(intitle:~cv OR inurl:~cv OR intitle:resume OR inurl:resume) "project manager" Java "investment bank" ("equities connectivity" OR trading software) -inurl:~efinancial*
Search result: 87 pages

Yahoo:
(intitle:cv OR inurl:cv OR intitle:resume OR inurl:resume) “project manager” Java "investment bank" "equities connectivity" OR trading software -eoe -opening -post -preferred -reply -send –submit
Search result: 1,740 pages

Live Search:
(intitle:cv inurl:cv intitle:resume inurl:resume) prefer:resume “project manager” Java "investment bank" "equities connectivity" trading software -job -jobs –careers
Search result: 10,038 pages

The search results from the above three searches gives us different amount of results and the task of sieving through the hundreds of pages sounds rather a dauting task. However, the strings above could still be further refined so as to achieve a much more specific results. For example by including SCJP or Sun certification or SDLC, etc I believe one can derived at a much more accurate results.

Caveat:
If you, by applying the techniques as discussed above expects resumes to pop out every time you hit the search button you might end up disappointed and even frustrated. The internet is a storehouse of information and is just an augment to a recruiting process vis-a-vis bigger and better hunting ground and not a complete substitute.

*** Happy hunting folks!***

:: 15 Things You Can Do To Protect the Environment

Well, this is rather a deviation from what I've normally been posting but I thought this post does deserve an exception to the norm. The subject on environment has always been very close and dear to my heart and the cause for cleaner environment will be what I would always like to pursue, support and advocate. Let us all join hands and make this place a better place to live in..this and the generations to come!

Here's a reprint of the public campaign issue by the Singapore Environment Council (SEC).

The Environment is by far one of the issues most of us take for granted. It's somwhat invisible, intangible and the vastness of it somehow puts people off as to where to start or how their little efforts can do any good. What most of us forget that by being Green/environmentally aware ourselves is only the beginning; we often overlook the need to influence and affect people around us to be aware and lead environmentally mindful lifestyles. We are not asking everyone to become a vegetarian, go around hugging trees or protest against hunting endangered species, the list below is a good start which we think everyone can do...

15 Things You Can Do To Protect the Environment
1. Reduce your driving (walk, bike, ride, take public transport, carpool).Choose a more fuel efficient car.

2. Don't leave your TV, computers, DVD/VCD players on standby; it uses more electricity than the little red LED light!

3. Choose more energy-efficient appliances, especially major ones like refrigerators, aircons and water heaters.

4. Recycle everything you can; newspapers, cans, glass bottles and jars, motor oil, scrap metal, etc.

5. Don't use electrical appliances for things you can easily do by hand, such as opening cans. 6. Plug off your Handphone charger when charging is completed.

7. Re-use bread bags and the bags you bring your produce home in.

8. Store food in re-usable containers, instead of plastic wrap or aluminum foil.

9. Take unwanted, re-usable items to a charitable organization or thrift shop.

10. Don't leave water running needlessly. Save some of your washing machine water. Gargle your mouth with a cup of water instead.

11. Set your aircon temperature to 24-26C instead of below 23C.

12. Turn off the lights, TV, or other electrical appliances when you are out.
13. Fill a 1.5/2L drink plastic bottle and leave it inside the WC; this will save you that same amount every time you flush the toilet.

14. Do not use the water heater on a hot afternoon! Use cold water in the washer whenever possible.

15. Print or copy on both sides of the paper. (pls use the other side of this paper!)

Pls contact Joe Lim at joe@sec.org.sg if you want them to come over to your school/org for a Free green talk; For more info on how you can save money on water and electricity at home, do visit -
http://www.everydaysuperhero.com.sg/
http://www.sec.org.sg

And if you would like to support SEC please click on this image

:: Boom in Singapore IT market – more jobs and higher pay checks!

As per the survey conducted by Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) - a rebound in the IT market in the later half of the year is expected. This is in line with the survey conducted by Manpower - which conducted a polled recently and found that over 55% of the employers said they would step up hiring in the April-June months.

The Manpower report also found that of all the 27 countries covered in the survey the Net Employment Outlook for Singapore at 53% has the brightest job prospects for the next three months, even outshining India which is at 31%.

Singapore’s economy is set to grow at 5.4 percent this year an increase from the 5.2 percent predicted in the last survey in December.

A certain feeling of positive outlook for a bullish market is felt all around for the year 2007. This ripple effect of the current good economy outlook is being felt especially in the job market.

A new and positive trend is being felt and echoed by most search firms here that 2007 will be a good year for IT boom. As more and more MNCs set up their operation here or augment their staff strength, especially amongst the investment banks, the market definitely is looking good for those who are in banking and finance sector.

According to Roger Olofsson, associate director Robert Walters as quoted in The Straits Times, IT workers can comprise up to 30 percent of the entire staff of a large MNC investment bank.

This is because of the fact that most investment banks in Singapore have segmented a large chunk of their resources to providing support to the existing applications and users and traders spread across the globe. Most of these activities used to be operated out of their office in New York or London or even Zurich.

Robert Walters also reported sharp increases in salaries in Singapore’s tech industry. These increases range from about $10,000 a year for a business solutions architect to about $100,000 a year for a chief information officer, compared to figures in 2003.

The last 2 year has seen a sharp rise in the number of IT workers coming to Singapore to join one of the investment banks here. This influx is also felt very severely in the areas of real estate. Especially in areas like Simei, Tanah Merah, Tampines and even Bedok the rental has grown to 10-30% for both HDB flats and condominiums. These areas are being preferred by many IT workers due to the fact that Changi Business Park (CBP) is situated near Singapore Expo which is at a close proximity to the above addresses.

In fact landlords these days insist on not only increasing the rental but letting out the flat to only those who are willing to sign a lease agreement for a minimum of 2 years. Fast forwarding to 2007, the scene is much worst with the real estate boom which is almost comparable to the economy boom of the early 90’s with expats willing to shell out 4k for a condominium accommodation.

Singapore is truly experiencing what to me is the beginning of good time and for most search firms here the pie is getting bigger and everyone is expected to have a share of the pie; the size and the amount of the pie largely depends on how well you position your organization in identifying and capitalizing on your core strength.

:: IT Resourcer/Recruiter opening!

Are you comfortable doing the following:

• Source for IT candidates on the net, if need be make headhunting calls
• Validate resumes that are received through job post or email responses.
• Compile long and short list of candidates
• Forward the shortlist to the consultants
  

Do you have most of the stuff as below?

• Very good with internet search
• Excellent in identifying good resumes and knowing what it is worth
• Knows how to exploit the various tools of jobsites such as monster.com and jobs.db
• Understands Boolean search strings
• Recruitment experience in technologies/domain/areas – Infrastructure, Banking and finance, software product development, SAP, Project management
• Good knowledge of Singapore local IT market both for contract and permanent

If you fit the bills as listed above and you love to work in a multinational company along side some cool dudes from successful search firm backgrounds and at the same time have lots of stress-free work life and earn above industry standard pay you might as well write into this id – neitham@gmail.com .
I will then give you a call and perhaps guide you on your way to working for one of the most exciting recruitment company in Singapore, I promise.

:: International Women’s Day – Singapore

Related site: International Women’s Day

Today is 8th of March, International Women’s Day(IWD). This day is celebrated the world over for the economic, political and social achievements of women.

Here at home in Singapore, the day is celebrated in many places notably - "Active lifestyle" message for International Women's Day celebrations at Raffles place, - Discovery hunt commemorates International Women's Day.

While most women in Singapore celebrate this day, sadly some section of the society still practices the extreme form of women oppression.

I am of course referring to the headline in the Home section of The Straits Times, Thursday, March 8 2007 – “Girls raped by dad seek leniency for mums who aided incest” by Elena Chong. In the report the father who is a religious teacher told his multiple wives and scores of children that according to the Quran a father “owned” his children and this is extended to having sex with his daughters. How gross!

He has in the course of many years of teaching and living with the wives indoctrinate in them and moulds their minds to the extent that the wives believes and are convinced that it is a sin to disobey the head of the household (the father) and it is ok for the father to have sex with any female member of the family.

Hard to believe but sadly the story is true and significantly this story happens to be published in the leading daily news today on the International Women’s Day.

Some other statistics related to women in Singapore –

• The ratio of Women to Men in Singapore is 1.07 male(s)/female (15-64 years)


• Employment rate (25-64 years) female – 62.6% and male – 89.1%. Statistic source: MOM


• 7.3% of women are obese compared to 6.4% of men (source: Singapore National Health Survey 2004)


• The MiWA index for Singapore is 75.92 for 2007 as compared to New Zealand(89.85) the highest and Malaysia (57.91) the lowest. MiWA – MasterCard MasterIndex of Women’s Advancement is a composite index that measures women’s socio-economic advancements in relation to men.


• World Economic Forum(WEF) gender gap study finds that Singapore women get 65.5% of what the men are getting in four areas: economic participation and opportunity; educational attainment; health and survival; and political empowerment.


• Average Singapore women earns US$16,489($25,194) per year


• Eight out of 10 Singapore women aged 40-49 only had secondary education or lower


• Literacy rate: female – 88.6% and male – 96.6%

The 2007 Resume sourcing survey – Jim Stroud

This survey was conducted by Jim Stroud – “searchologist” and a living legend! And for all those of you out there who are in the business of conducting internet search for sourcing the best candidates on the web, this survey result will give you more than what you bargain for. Very informative, very useful and a must have for all internet recruiters/researchers.

With permission from Jim I am herewith presenting to you some of the main findings of this survey.

• Technical resumes were not the most populated resumes online.
• Yahoo has the biggest index of resumes over Google and Live
• Live outperformed Google and Yahoo on certain types of industry resumes

(Top 3 results from all the surveys)
Most overlooked filetypes for resumes (in general):

• Among the overlooked formats I surveyed, PHP returned the most results.
• Among the overlooked formats I surveyed, ASP returned the 2nd most results.
• Among the overlooked formats I surveyed, XML returned the 3rd most results.

Most popular formats for technical resumes:

• HTML was the most popular format for resumes online.
• HTM was the second most popular format for resumes online
• DOC was the third most popular format for resumes online

Most popular formats for resumes (in general):

• HTML was the most popular format for resumes online.
• HTM was the second most popular format for resumes online
• PDF was the third most popular format for resumes online

Most popular ways to spell “resume”:

• “Resume” was the most popular way to spell resume.
• “Resumé” is the second most popular spelling of resume on the web.
• “Résumé” is the third most popular spelling of resume on the web

Most popular ways to spell “CV”:

• CV is most commonly referenced term cited for CV
• Vitae is the 2nd most referenced term cited for CV
• “Curriculuum Vitae” is the 3rd most referenced term cited for CV

Quantity of resumes found on search engines:

• Of all the resumes I sourced, Yahoo had the biggest collection in its index (43%)
• Of all the resumes I sourced, Google had the 2nd biggest collection in its index (40%)
• Of all the resumes I sourced, Live had the 3rd biggest collection in its index (17%)

To subscribe to Jim Stroud’s blog please click on this link. Jim share’s sourcing tips and commentary on the recruiting industry via articles, videoes, podcasts, comics and more. Or visit him at www.jimstroud.com

***happy hunting folks!***

The Hudson report, Q1 2007, Singapore – Employment and HR Trends.

“Employment expectations are rising and companies express a high level of optimism about future performance. But the other side of the coin is severe competition for staff. Companies recognise they must be prepared to look at the ackages they offer which would now include significant increases in salaries and bonuses in order to attract appropriately talented individuals.” Mark Sparrow, Country Manager, Hudson, Singapore.

The Hudson Report (January-March 2007) is a quarterly survey on the hiring expectations across the industry in Asia (Japan, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore). These surveys are conducted by Hudson consultants amongst the executives from multi-national firms. Some of the key findings within the IT and Telecommunications industry in Singapore is given below:

• Permanent employment expectations: 56% of respondents are expecting to hire more staff in Q1 but an imminent surge is expected as usual in Q2, after detailed planning for the year during the 1st quarter.
• Permanent employment expectations by job roles: Demand for IT professionals is high at 17%, second to Sales jobs which is at 23%. Banking IT specialists are much sought after as more banks are setting up new operations or upgrading existing operations.
• Pay increases to attract managerial staff: 57% say they will pay more than 10%, compared to 35% in Q1 2006. Banks however are expected to pay by far the highest increase, with 78% saying the salaries will rise by ore than 10%.
• Year-end bonus payments: 51% of respondents plan to pay bonuses of more than 10%. Steep rise from 32% in Q1 2006. Banking sector again is making by far the highest bonus payments, with 76% planning to pay more than 10%.
• Staff turnover: 37% of IT&T companies are experiencing turnover of more than 10%.
• Reasons for staff turnover: Poaching is the most significant cause for staff turnover with 30% of the respondents attributing the turnover due to poaching. 10% of the respondents in IT&T, which is significantly higher than any other sector agree that ‘Low staff morale’ is also a very significant reason for staff turnover.

The year 2007 from staffing perspective is expected to be as buoyant as the Singapore economy outlook. Banking and IT are two sectors which will see a significant increase in resource augmentation and this is no surprise considering the number of banking institutions that are already/in-process/on the verge of setting up new/refurbishments/upgrade of operations and data centers.

As competition for quality resources heats up amongst the banks here, a major resource crunch is expected and banks and their recruiting partners will have to progressively look at ways to source and import talent from outside Singapore.

This means that further improvement in salary payouts will have to be implemented in order to attract, recruit and retain quality talents from location such as India and Hong Kong.

Of late, we are seeing a reversal in recruiting trend as far as India is concern – companies in India are looking to recruit from outside India. One of India’s largest Software Development company is in the process of luring back Non-resident-Indian IT pros for middle and senior roles for their projects in India and so are most of the MNC banks in India who are facing stiff challenges in recruiting senior level consultants. We are also seeing specialist recruitment firm such as Job options which is founded and managed by Mr. Achyut Menon. In his own words - “I am pretty convinced that 'global migration' of professionals will be a reality soon, and so it is better to dig ones wells..before one is thirsty!!”. He is of course referring to returning Indian professionals.

This obviously means that companies in India are prepared to match the consultant earnings abroad - dollars to dollars. This will also mean that they are willing to pay the talents within in India which will match their potential earning abroad in order to retain them. This trend is especially prevalent in the banking sector; with so many banks moving their back office support offshore to India this seems to be the obvious.

It therefore, does become necessary for IT&T and banking companies in Singapore to pro-actively look into their existing salary standards and make necessary changes and sacrifices to remain competitive in the fight for quality talents in this part of the world.

For all our current jobs/openings please click on this image


***Happy hunting folks!***

53% of Singaporeans happy in their jobs.

More than half of Singaporean employees are happy in their work and they believe the quality of their bosses is getting better. (Source: HRM Issue 6.12)

Why do I get this feeling that this statistic could be attributed to the better than expected performance of Singapore economy and the higher bonus payouts thereof?

The survey was conducted by Kelly Services and those Singaporeans most happy in their jobs were in Education (62%), Business Services (57%), Financial Services (56%), Engineering (53%) and IT (50%).

This result also means that half the IT crowds are not happy with their job and the rest are happy. It might actually be more worst than what is actually being indicated here because IT industry as compared to any other industry is more dynamic, with more job opportunities, and attrition rates are therefore higher than other sectors.

And for the IT pros under such challenging circumstances chances are that you will have more IT pros that are not happy with their current jobs than those who are happy.

*** Happy Hunting Folks!***

A passionate recruiter

Passion is a source of unlimited energy from your soul that enables you to produce extraordinary results! – Charles Kovess, Australia’s Passion Provocateur.

Ben Gotkin, …from the trenches defines that passion is the drive, the internal motivation, and often most undervalued factor in someone's ability to be successful. He came up with a formula for success which is Passion + Talent = Success.

Passion could be different and unique for each one of us which means we all have passion inside of us. It takes an effort to identify our passion, a greater effort to nurture and pursue it. If you are successful in finding and flourishing your passion with the required skills and talent then you are truly on your way to a life full of excitement and success.

I am passionate about football. I love to play football, watch, and talk and promote the game. But I am not a good footballer; I do not possess the desired skill to be a successful footballer. I am also passionate about recruitment and I belief I have the necessary skills to excel in recruitment and therefore I am a successful recruiter or at least on the path to becoming a successful recruiter.

Some of the renowned personalities that I admire for their passion include –
- Steve Jobs : A living legend, the original innovator. Passionate about new technology and ‘cared deeply about making something wonderful’.
- Sir Alex Ferguson : At 65, he still exudes so much enthusiasm for the game and his team, a sheer joy to watch him celebrate a goal.
- Lee Kuan Yew : A world class statesmen, a master strategist, to hear him deliberate on any issue related to Singapore is an experience to treasure.

Passion is everything in the business of recruiting. Passionate recruiter evolves from being a good recruiter to a great recruiter.

For a recruiter who is just starting out on a recruiting career she might be loaded with ambition, drive and passion but might not have the necessary skills due to lack of experience. This can limit her level of success and performance, at least for the moment. The same can also be said of someone with good qualification and required skills but if she lacks the passion she would likely not have a successful carreer in recruitment.

I belief that passion like attitude cannot be taught or train but skills can be taught definitely. Therefore in due course with improved skills and knowledge gained out of experience and coupled with a continued burning passion one can become a successful passionate recruiter.

A passionate recruiter loves what she does and performs her duty with ease and produce excellent results. She would be well equipped with the necessary knowledge and skills and would be happy to share it with the others. A passionate recruiter will spread positive vibes and good cheers around and would be very committed to her job and the organization. She would be one of those top performers who consistently meet her target.

A passionate recruiter –
• is proactive, energetic and has stamina to last the long run
• learns to motivate and inspire themselves and they in turn inspire the people around them
• transcends any visible or imaginary limitations and consistently achieve
• always has a burning desire or hunger to achieve
• has abundant enthusiasm and a clear conviction about themselves
• operates on different plane/level

• learns from her past mistakes and always endeavors to improve and better herself

For any recruiter it does become very important to be passionate in order to succeed and be recognized.

Be passionate about your clients – keeping their interest in mind at all times while hiring potential candidates.
Be passionate about your candidates - be prepared to fight for them for the best possible deal while representing them.
Be passionate about the requirements you have in hand, be passionate about your recruitment process, the way you conduct your daily business and be passionate about your organization.

Without passion everything becomes mundane, monotonous and ordinary.

Passion is like a flame that needs to be constantly fueled; else it will die. But like a burning flame it also needs constant watch; else it will burn uncontrollably. It might end up doing more harm than good.

*** happy hunting folks***

Recruitment Services Company of the year 2006 - Singapore.

As per the survey conducted by HumanResources magazine in a special annual edition title HR Vendors of the year - voted by HR professionals the top ten Recruitment Services Company of the year 2006 are listed as below:

Rank / Company
1. Kelly Services

2. Hudson Global Resources
3. Adecco Personnel
4. Michael Page International
5. Robert Walters
6. GMP Recruitment
7. Recruit Express
8. Manpower Staffing Services
9. Drake International
10. Korn/Ferry International

Singapore economy for the year 2006 is expected to surpassed all predictions if we are to go by the percentage of economic growth in 3rd quarter 2006 which stands at 7.1%. The economy outlook for the year 2007 therefore also looks very promising. With the booming economy the recruitment business is also expected to experience booming business in the coming years.
Of late, we've also seen the increased acitivities of the various financial institutes either setting up new operations or refurbishing existing infrastructure here in Singapore and thereby increasing on their headcounts. As a result of which competition for quality technical resources are getting fiercer and more and more recruitment services company are compeld to scout for resources outside of Singapore.
This fierce competition for talents also resulted in mushrooming new recrutiment services company and while the likes of Kelly Services will continue to hold thier position in the top by offering various niche services to their clients we can also expect to see new faces in the year 2007 and two such players are Talent2 and Charterhouse Partnership.

For all our current jobs/openings please click on this image


***Happy hunting folks!***

Building Talent Organizational Capabilities - JobMachine Inc.,

I am herewith reprinting the mail that I received from Dave Mendoza. Please contact him directly for more details on their services - Consulting and Training for sourcing and recruiting team in your organisation.

Dave Mendoza is a Master CyberSleuth and Consultant with expertise in the integration of sourcing methodologies, employment branding and recruitment technologies. Few in the recruiting business take “networking” more seriously or
pursue it more passionately. Author of SixDegreesFromDave.com, a leading recruitment blog, Dave is a distinguished writer and a well versed public speaker. He is known in the recruitment industry as an advocate for building aggressive talent pipelines and research capabilities while maintaining substantive social networking relationships. He joined Shally Steckerl at JobMachine as a partner. About Shally - Winner of the Recruiting.com Best Recruiting Research Blog Award! Talent Aquisition Strategy expert, consultant, and researcher. An authority in Internet Search, pioneer in Recruitment Intelligence, accomplished trainer, founder of: JobMachine.net, author of acclaimed CyberSleuthing!

On 11/23/06, Dave Mendoza dave@jobmachine.net wrote:

Good Morning Joe,

I wanted to take this opportunity to follow-up and provide additional information detailing our services . Our consulting practice also provides solution services to assist companies in building passive sourcing teams and talent organizational capabilities overall that will benefit staffing objectives.

Shally Steckerl and I have partnered to add value to our customer’s sourcing and recruiting teams by helping them build organizational capabilities. Shally Steckerl has helped architect sourcing and research teams at companies such as Microsoft, Google, Motorola, Cisco, Genentech, Disney and Wal-mart and we have advised many others. Attached is a detailed custom proposal, in addition to our training services for your review.

Consulting: We offer professional consulting to staffing leadership on how to design, implement or scale sourcing/recruiting models that best support their organization’s business goals. We assist in crafting potential recruiting models that yield greater efficiencies within an organization’s unique environment. Pricing is adjusted after an initial needs assessment meeting. Please select from the consulting services detailed in the attached document.
Knowledge Transfer: On-site training consists of one or two day live laboratory sessions conducted at your facility and customized for your recruiters’ needs. We’ll help you select the most pertinent topics from over 50 hours of training material. Your recruiters will get hands-on practice with open requisitions and walk away with actionable results. Tuition is $3,500 per day for groups of up to ten and $6,000 for up to 35 participants. To ensure adequate hands-on experience and Q&A, groups larger than 35 must be split into separate sessions. Instructor expenses (air/hotel/transportation) are in addition to tuition. A comprehensive list of topics is enclosed.
Feel free to inform your colleagues, associations and staffing management about our offerings.

If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Best regards,

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dave Mendoza
Partner, Master CyberSleuth
JobMachine, Inc.
O: (720) 733-2022, C: (714) 235-1004
http://www.sixdegreesfromdave.com/
http://www.linkedin.com/in/davemendoza
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On becoming a great recruiter!

I was reading this article 'A Profile of the World's Most Aggressive Recruiter, Part 2' by Dr. Sullivan on ere.net and this was based on Questions and answers with Michael Lackaye and I thought it's a very good advice indeed and every recruiter must heed to become a great recruiter.

On becoming a great recruiter:

Michael's advice on how to get better as a recruiter is abandon fear. "You are not paid to be PR, you aren't paid to call and make friends with candidates. You are paid to find the best, sell them, assess them, and hire them. Always be asking yourself 'is this person wasting my time, or is there value in going deeper?' If you want to build a competitive advantage for your recruiting function, be ready to try anything crazy, and fail. Engage your internal network. Brand yourself. Invest time in competitive intelligence, not only in offensive recruiting, but being cognizant of your competitors' efforts to take your best talent."

Whototalkto – the insider’s job search

You know of this blue chip company that you would love to work with and you know that it would have been much easier for you to get a job there if only you knew someone inside the blue chip company or know of someone who can give you the right contacts within the company or give you the inside scoop. But you don’t know anyone at the blue chip company.

In come whototalkto. Whototalkto is the first job referral exchange that brings job seekers together so that everyone can share and exchange the inside scoop.

As a recruiter, this concept did strike me in the past and I am glad whototalkto has come up with a system that is simply very cool and neat. Kudos to you guys!

From the recruiter community perspective, this is a beautiful way of exchanging resources and contacts – a truly give and take policy.

Sometime, we have this exclusive job request from the client/hiring managers and you wish someone could help you provide the right referral or leads.

JOHN
John is a recruiter with XYZ Pte Ltd and has a client with whom he has an exclusive search arrangement. XYZ gives John a requirement for a Kondor+ Business Analyst. John does not have any K+ candidates and does not know where to find one. John however has very strong network in local Singaporean SAP. John decides to post his dilemma in whototalkto.

JOE
Joe works for ABC Pte Ltd and knows someone in Dubai with K+ experience. Joe is also working with IBM client and is in urgent need of Chinese speaking SAP consultants for a project in Shanghai. He came across John’s request and responded.

John and Joe met up at whototalkto and exchanged their referrals and for both it’s a win-win situation indeed.

Some more examples of job referrals:

• I am currently working at Charterhouse. I can tell you lots about the best way to get hired here if you request more info about this referral.
• My roommate is a consultant with Standard Chartered Singapore. If you're looking for good permanent banking jobs he can put in a good word for you. I'll give you his email address.
• My husband is a consultant at IBM. He can refer you to his boss. I'll give you his email address and you can chat with him.
  

For more info and to register with whototalk to please visit http://www.whototalkto.com/

For all our current jobs/openings please click on this image


***Happy hunting folks!***

IT pros median salary in Singapore by PayScale!

The other day I got a mail from Susan at PayScale and she was sharing with me about the IT pros payscale in USA and I ask her if she could provide me for Singapore and she replied back immediately with the chart as given below. I thought it’s pretty interesting. You can also find the salary chart for IT pros in India as well as the median salary of IT pros in the different cities in India.

PayScale, Inc. is a market leader in online compensation information, providing access to accurate compensation data for both employees and employers. Learn more about PayScale.

Median Salary of IT pros in Singapore (in USD)

Median Salary of IT pros in India (in USD)

Compare the two charts above and you find the salary differences between the two countries to be more than 3 folds.

However this figures cannot be applied across the industry especially for the banking sectors. According to a recent article in Times of India the salary drawn by a executive and middle level officer in India is comparable to that offered in Singapore.

And for those of you who are keen to know the salary median in the different cities in India the below given chart is a good base to start from.

Median Salary of IT pros in India-by city (in USD)

For all our current jobs/openings please click on this image


***Happy hunting folks!***

Back Out candidates phenomena

back out
1. To withdraw from something before completion.
2. To fail to keep a commitment or promise.

Recruiting is a very exciting and challenging profession and even more so when you recruit IT consultants. The challenges for an IT recruiter in today’s job market are in convincing and managing IT job seekers to remain committed and not back out during the hiring process. With the current IT market boom, good IT consultant can find himself with multiple job offers at any given point of time and will get approached and head hunted by head hunters and recruiters alike constantly. And because he has multiple offers at hand he is bound to remain true to himself and not being loyal to anyone consultant, after all he can only take up one offer at one time. This will also means that to the other recruiter he is bound to be another case of a back out candidate.

As a recruiter, the most frustrating aspect of my job is to have in my hand a candidate backing out – during or after the selection process. For most of us, the stress that we go through as a recruiter is not so much from the targets and the deadlines but the uneasy feeling of not knowing if your selected/shortlisted candidate(s) will remain committed to your offer and take up the job.

My first back out experience in Singapore was with a candidate who had a niche-hard- to-find-skill that we sourced and selected from one of the leading software house in Southern India. The pre-qualifying and the interview process went smoothly and the client was happy and they want him on board ASAP. To make a long story short, we waited for him for one month and on the day of his departure he kept us in tenterhooks by not picking up his calls and when we called his home his family will not give us proper response however subsequently we managed to talk to him and he assured us that alls well. But later I got a call from the airport and that was 2:00 in the morning and he told me that he is not flying and he will not be able to join us because of family reason. That’s it. He decided in the last minute he won’t join us. Here our client IBM is under tremendous pressure themselves from their client because this candidate was supposed to be the lead guy and they wanted to parade him in front of the client the following day. Poor me, I had that sinking feeling deep down inside and I just wasn't feeling good at all to face the client.

Backing out of job offers is a big issue especially in country like India because of the bullish job market. I believe the situation is not so bad for organizations which are of repute and are well established such as Infosys, TCS, Wipro, etc but those second and third tier organization are the one facing the brunt of most of the back out cases. This could be attributed mainly due to the fact that the big boys do not have difficulty in attracting job applicants because of their good brand image and willingness to shell out above average market compensation.

Types of back out:
Let’s look at what stages of the recruitment process a back out can possibly happen.
1. Candidate backing out before the interview
2. Candidate backing out after interview
3. Candidate backing out after accepting the offer
4. Candidate backing out before joining
5. Candidate backing out just after joining

Probable reasons for back outs:
Varied reasons can be attributed as to why a candidate back out, from my past experiences below are some of the common ones -
* Have in hand several offers and will decide on the one best offer
* Developing cold feet at the last moment before submitting his/her resignation letter
* HR/Line Manager convinced him/her to stay back
* Was given a very good counter offer by employer so decided to stay back
* Not serious about leaving current job, and attending interviews just because the opportunity was presented to him/her.
* Learnt of the project which was not to his liking/preference/expectation and is not keen on joining
* The final offer not up to his/her expectation
* Did not agree with some of the clause(s) in the offer letter/appointment letter
* His/her friends/contacts gave negative feedback about the organisation so decided not to join
* Required joining time not reasonable
* See what offer he/she can get from the market to negotiate a better salary with existing employer
* Selection process took too long and has already accepted another offer
* Tried re-negotiating for more salary after selection
* Genuinely have personal/family issue because of which he/she cannot take up the offer

Repercussions & affects of backing out:
- Recruitment is an expensive activity. Every time a candidate backs out the recruitment process has to be initiated all over again.
- Good amount of time and effort is wasted to find a new replacement and projects can and do get delayed and all these translates to revenue lost
- But most important of all is the lost of client’s trust. This is non tangible and will have long term adverse affect vis-à-vis client-vendor relationship.

How to avoid & reduce candidates backing out:
• If you and your candidates are in the same area it is always advisable to meet face-to-face.
• Be it on the phone or in person spent as much time as you can and dig for information – what motivates him to look for a change, professional and personal reasons, what are his expectations in terms of money and roles, etc.
• It is important to be in control when it comes to recruiter-candidate relationship. To achieve that it is important that you conduct a thorough pre-qualifying. Get all the low-down about his background and aspiration, et al.
• Always insist on obtaining either verbally and/or in writing his/her response and commitment to the job offer. You may do this with a direct approach or with great subtlety. Which approach you resort to will depend on each individual or their level of seniority – you need to make the right judgment.
• Constantly update him/her on the process and try keeping-in-touch on a frequent basis.
• Pay close attention while talking to him/her and listen for those tones and expressed/unexpressed concerns and look for those signs that might indicate his intentions.
• If any of his/her words, expressions, actions gives you a sense of doubt and concern, then drop him/her and move on. It is better to drop him/her now than later have a back out in your hand.
• Have a set of questionnaire that you can run through with him/her before proceeding to qualify him - questionnaire that will test his seriousness and sincerity to look for a change.
• Do not hesitate to ask them if they have discussed with his/her family members about this plan to look for a job change. Especially for those who are married, please confirm with them if they have consulted their other half.
• Try and get inside your candidate’s mind, understand his needs and his aspiration.
• Pro-actively try to cover all areas that you possibly think will be a likely point of concern (reason for a back out) for him at a later stage and addressed them immediately.

If after all this you have a back out it’s probably all right, after all, let us not forget that we are only human and let us accept the fact that they too are also just human like us and not anything else (wink!). Like us they too can have many internal and external influences/flaws for them to change their decision at a drop of a hat or act differently at times without any rhyme or reason.

The trick here is to constantly learn from ones mistakes and not repeat the same mistake the next time round. A good recruiter is someone who no matter how many times he falters and gets knocked down will reinvent himself and come back again and again but stronger, better and smatter.


Appreciate if you can share any additional suggestions/comments on how one can avoid candidate backing out.

*** Happy hunting folks!***

Most IT pros are looking for a new job

I stumbled upon this interesting piece of statistics from a survey and thought to share with everyone.

Most IT pros are looking for a new job, Says survey

60% of IT pros are looking for new jobs, Of the 60% who want a new job,

- 27% are "actively" searching;

- 52% are "somewhat actively" looking,

- 20% say they're "not very actively" hunting for new work,

And the reason why the IT pros are looking for a change:

- 73% cited the desire for better pay as the main reason for their search,

- 40% are looking for better benefits.

- Two-thirds also say they are looking for new jobs because their current positions offered no advancement opportunities.

- 58% say they are looking for new challenges.

- 40% of the job-searching respondents complain that their managers don't respect or value the work they do.

- 40% say they hope to find new work in the same industries they're in now.

*** Happy hunting folks!***

Lost your job – what do you do?

The scenario:

“Yikes! You just lost your job! You’ve been so busy at *work* that you don’t feel your network is as strong as you would like it to be! What are you going to do with (and to) your network in the next 6 weeks as you begin an aggresive job search campaign? And, outside of your network, what job search tactics will you employ? Or your best networking tips related to job searches”. - Blog carnival by Jason Alba

Phone & e-mail:

Firstly, I would update my mentor (if you don’t have one yet, this is the right time to do so) on my unfortunate situation and seek his immediate advice and also share with him on my plan of action and listen to what he has to say. Secondly, pick up the phone and talk to my favorite recruiter and also later call my not-so-favorite recruiters. Thirdly, I would then personally call up all my networks, spend time catching up with them and subtly enquire from them if they are aware of any new jobs around. I would try not to be too aggressive or desperate the first time around. Showing desperation at the first meeting/chat after a long gap can be perceived to be not a ‘cool’ thing to do and for some it might even sound rude or might even be construed to being taken for granted. One has to be respectful and not take any relationship for granted, very basic and important. After all the talk is done suggest a personal meeting over a cup of coffee or lunch/dinner, provided you and your network are within the same city or vicinity. Personal meeting are always more effective then catching up over the phone. I’ll proceed to update my network on my situation, be nice and enquire about his health, about the market/industry, whatever, and be prepared to share my plans and my actual situation. I would then follow up this meeting with a phone call after 3-4 days and this time round I can be completely open with him and share my intention to look for a job immediately. I will check with him if he is aware of any job openings that will suit my profile and request him to talk to his network to enquire any relevant job openings on my behalf. I will be assertive about my intentions but will not show any sign of desperation. To those in my next level of network, I’ll try calling them else make sure I write to them and update them on my situation and enquire from them if they would be kind enough to refer if they know of any openings that would be suitable for my experience. I would also remember to thank them in anticipation of their help/assistance.

Messengers:

I’d use the messenger and the contacts to spread the word around that I’m seeking for a new job. Sometime, those contacts even though they might not be recruiters will know of recruiters whom they can touch base and enquire for any job openings on my behalf. Some folks do have this strong tendency to go out of their way to help others, pray you do have such contacts in your list.

LinkedIn/Orkut/Jibberjobber:

I would also start paying close attention to all my contacts and my contact’s contacts. And try getting myself introduce to them or connecting to them.

Professional Membership:

I’d also find out about the members within the memberships that I currently belong and look around for anyone whom I can network with and get their advice/help/references.

Blogroll:

If you do blog within the relevant area of your professional practice, do get in touch with all your fellow bloggers and subtly enquire around for any relevant job openings.

Mailing group:

If you are part of a mailing group (e.g.; like yahoogroups), do check for any relevant job postings by fellow group members. Also do touch base directly with some of the members whom you think might be able to assist you.

When all the above means are exhausted, the next best option is to go to Job sites and job boards and news paper/magazine advertisements and start checking out the relevant job postings and start applying. This traditional mode of job search sometimes can be very effective and that’s because the openings are generally of urgent in nature and that’s one reason why in the first place the job has been advertised.

Also, it might be worthwhile for me to shortlist few of the companies that I would like to work with, visit their website and check out if they have any relevant job postings on their website.

The last and the most extreme mode of job search outside of one’s network will be blogging. This is the age of web2.0, go ahead blog your way to the attention of your next employer. Blog about anything that is relevant to ‘the’ company that you really wish to work for, do your bit of digging and research, and impress them on how much you know about them, their products and services, talk about any market feedback if you know of any, et al.

And should all else fails, you might even try filming your CV and distributing it to all your prospective employers – this one is innovative but extreme and sure to attract attentions – both wanted and unwanted.

Finally, be passionate about yourself, your profession and your job search and you will find that sooner rather than later your search will land you your next job. Also in the process of searching for a new job and through the journey you would have importantly renewed and strengthen your network, met some wonderful new contacts, increased your knowledge and becoming wiser and more prepared should you have to search for a new job in the near future again.

*** Happy job hunting!***

Desktop Search Engines

Have you ever struggled to locate a specific email message or file on your local or shared hard drive? Have you ever wished that you could find anything inside your email attachments and in your hard disk instantly with just a few clicks and/or by keying in few keywords? The solution is available for you in the form of Desktop Search and it’s free!

Google V/S Microsoft V/S Yahoo

Desktop Search works like an internet search engine and is used to find a file on personal computers using keyword(s). Desktop Search is a tool every recruiter must have to achieve optimum productivity vis-à-vis effective search and retrieval of data – resumes, files, reports etc from their local machines or for those working in a network environment the Enterprise version of Desktop Search. A good recruiter will normally work at a furious pace and will not want to be slowed down by not having the means and tools to mine his database effectively. Desktop Search can be downloaded free and are very light and can be downloaded and installed in a minute or so.

Desktop Search has been around and the most common one that we are familiar with will be the one that Microsoft has in-built along with their operating systems and also with all their office applications. And for those of us in the search industry we all know how frustrating it can be to rely on this search mode because it is very ineffective especially when you have to search the database in the local drive for multiple skills set.

Google has taken the search concept a notch higher and they developed a tool call Google Desktop Search (GDS) and as expected they were soon followed by Microsoft with their version call Windows Desktop Search (WDS). And the latest one being from Yahoo call Yahoo Desktop Search (YDS) - Yahoo licensed the technology for YDS from X1, a desktop search developer owned by Idealab. We also have some more Desktop search applications flooding the market such as Copernic, HotBot, Ask Jeeves, Blinkx etc, but I would like to focus on the above 3 players because they are more or less known by everyone.

FEATURES:	Google (GDS)	Yahoo (YDS)	Windows (WDS)
Indexing	Yes – local	Yes – local	Yes – also network
Interface	Windows Exp	Panes	panes
Email attachment	No	Yes	Yes
Auto preview	No	Yes	Yes
Boolean search	Yes	Yes	Yes
Auto indexing of web pages visited	Yes	No	No
Character search(eg:C#/C++)	No	No	No

One other company well versed in the science of search is Copernic and they offer Copernic Desktop Search (CDS) which has one of the best interface. After experiencing Copernic and Yahoo search, Google is such a huge disappointment. Firstly, the windows interface is very untidy and a pain when you have to click on the link every time you have to access the file and for recruiter like me I would prefer to have a preview before I can waste valuable time clicking on the link when I am not even sure if the file will even be relevant. Secondly, Google missed out on including the email attachment indexing, which to me is very important because most of the resumes are in attachment. Thirdly, unlike Copernic and WDS, Google does not let you search through the mapped network drive.

Almost all the players have something similar to offer and few can offer anything that is radically different. I would give my highest ranking to Copernic except for the fact that I struggled to completely index my database in spite of trying it few times and besides it does not indicate to me the indexing progress (percentage completed) which is like working in the dark.

Based on my requirements and the intended use of the utility which is searching mainly for resumes in email attachment and hard drive, my preference will be WDS. This is because WDS does a good job of indexing and even though it has a limited preview option it does serve its purpose because I can have a glimpse of the search result in the form of a windows pane. So this time round, for me it's got to be Microsoft.