Recruiting in China

Outsourcing ¡ª the practice of using outside firms to handle work normally performed within a company ¡ª is a familiar concept to many entrepreneurs. Small companies routinely outsource their payroll processing, accounting, distribution, and many other important functions ¡ª often because they have no other choice. Many large companies turn to outsourcing to cut costs. In response, entire industries have evolved to serve companies' outsourcing needs.

But not many businesses thoroughly understand the benefits of outsourcing. It's true that outsourcing can save money, but that's not the only (or even the most important) reason to do it. As many firms discovered during the outsourcing "mania" of the early 1990s, outsourcing too much can be an even bigger mistake than not outsourcing any work at all. The flat economy caused many companies into huge layoffs and subsequently outsourced functions that were better kept in-house. Wise outsourcing, however, can provide a number of long-term benefits:

Control capital costs. Cost-cutting may not be the only reason to outsource, but it's certainly a major factor. Outsourcing converts fixed costs into variable costs, releases capital for investment elsewhere in your business, and allows you to avoid large expenditures in the early stages of your business. Outsourcing can also make your firm more attractive to investors, since you're able to pump more capital directly into revenue-producing activities.

Increase efficiency. Companies that do everything themselves have much higher research, development, marketing, and distribution expenses, all of which must be passed on to customers. An outside provider's cost structure and economy of scale can give your firm an important competitive advantage.

Reduce labor costs. Hiring and training staff for short-term or peripheral projects can be very expensive, and temporary employees don't always live up to your expectations. Outsourcing lets you focus your human resources where you need them most.

Start new projects quickly. A good outsourcing firm has the resources to start a project right away. Handling the same project in-house might involve taking weeks or months to hire the right people, train them, and provide the support they need. And if a project requires major capital investments (such as building a series of distribution centers), the startup process can be even more difficult.

Focus on your core business. Every business has limited resources, and every manager has limited time and attention. Outsourcing can help your business to shift its focus from peripheral activities toward work that serves the customer, and it can help managers set their priorities more clearly.

Level the playing field. Most small firms simply can't afford to match the in-house support services that larger companies maintain. Outsourcing can help small firms act "big" by giving them access to the same economies of scale, efficiency, and expertise that large companies enjoy.

Reduce risk. Every business investment carries a certain amount of risk. Markets, competition, government regulations, financial conditions, and technologies all change very quickly. Outsourcing providers assume and manage this risk for you, and they generally are much better at deciding how to avoid risk in their areas of expertise.

Technical barriers established by foreign countries cost Chinese exporters up to 69.1 billion US dollars last year, said a report from the Commerce Ministry in Beijing on Monday.

"The textile industry has been most affected by barriers, taking up to 43 percent of the losses," said the report. "Exports of food, poultry, wood products, electronic and machine products were also greatly affected."

The report said the European Union and the United States had taken the lead in setting high technical standards for Chinese export products, followed by Japan and the Republic of Korea.

These countries usually added items to inspection and quarantine lists or revised trade regulations on the grounds of environmental protection, consumer health and other reasons, said the report.

Among 22 categories of Chinese export commodities, 18 had encountered technical barriers in 2005, said the report.

Chinese export companies were learning to respond rapidly to foreign technical barriers and improve competitiveness in exports, but there was still a long way to go, said the report.

The government started to set up centers across the country this year to analyze technical standards for foreign market access, issuing regular reports for the government and industries.

Under WTO rules, every WTO member has the legitimate right to question new trade regulations by other nations within 60 days of the promulgation. However, the lack of assistance from technical experts and the abstruseness of technical standards often frustrate Chinese companies and prevent them from taking effective action.

One hundred technical service centers are scheduled to be set up by 2010 to cover more than half the country's export commodities, according to the ministry.

Checking applicants' references is one of the most important procedures in the hiring process. Many job seekers misrepresent their backgrounds and credentials; others simply leave out important information. And no matter how honest applicants are, you can still learn a great deal by talking to other people who know them well.

Checking references takes time, but it can save you a lot of money and headaches down the road. A negative reference could save you from hiring someone who is woefully unqualified for a job or who has destructive tendencies that could land you in trouble. For example, you can be held liable for a new hire who becomes violent and injures an employee or customer, or commits fraud ¡ª if it's proven that a reference check could have stopped you from hiring the applicant. The best rule of thumb: always check applicants' references before offering them the job.

These nine tips will help you get the goods on a job applicant:

1.Tell all applicants that you will check their references before you make any hiring decisions. Business owners often hire applicants because of a sharp-looking resume or a "good feeling" from an interview. No matter how quickly you'd like to get a position filled, always perform due diligence before you take the hiring plunge.

2.Ask each applicant to sign a release form permitting you to ask detailed questions of former employers and other references (sample background check permission forms are listed on this page). Make sure the form prevents the applicant from suing you or any former employers based on the information you learn during the reference checks. Without this permission, you may only be able to confirm employment dates, pay rate, and position ¡ª information that tells you little about a prospective employee's character. Also, check with your lawyer, because some kinds of liability cannot be waived.

3.Fax over a copy of the prospective employee's background check waiver and your personal credentials before you call a prospective employee's references. Many employers fear being sued for defamation if they say anything negative about a former employee. Your fax will ease their fears. Keep in mind that some states now consider employers' comments to be "qualifiedly privileged." That means the employer cannot be held liable for the information he or she reveals unless he or she knows it to be false or reckless. If that's true in your state (check with your lawyer), make sure the references know it.

4.Verify basic information such as employment dates, job titles, salary, and types of jobs performed. If one of the basic checks doesn't match the prospective employee's resume or what you heard during an interview, you've got a clear sign that something may be amiss.

5.Avoid vague questions. Ask specific questions based on what you learned about the applicant in the interview. For example: how did the employee contribute to projects mentioned in the interview?

6.Pay attention to neutral or negative comments from references. Lukewarm comments or half-hearted praise speak volumes. Ask the former employer if they would hire the person back. If they hesitate, move on to the next applicant.
Put less weight on positive references. Most people can find someone to say something good about them. And some employers give positive references even to bad ex-employees, because they're afraid of legal action or are tired of paying unemployment taxes on the applicant.

7.Use former supervisors or senior coworkers as references. An applicant might not want you to contact their current employer (who might not know about the job hunt), but there are always people who can provide a reference.
Don't rely on prospective employees' verbal word regarding salary figures. Ask for a current pay stub to verify employment and pay rate.

8.Another bit of research you might conduct on a prospective employee is a background check. Not every company does this, and not every position merits it, but it might be appropriate for many of your staff. Learn more about how a background check is different from a reference check.

Our guide to online recruiting includes some general guidance on interviewing, reference checks, and other aspects of hiring, and it also tells you about the different online resources available to support your hiring and recruiting.

Foreign banks are expanding aggressively in the lucrative Chinese market, knowing they will soon be able to deal in the renminbi retail business.
The country's banking regulator approved over the weekend the first group of nine foreign lenders to incorporate locally, a sign that these overseas players will qualify for the business that is currently closed to them.

Executives of major domestic lenders in Shanghai said yesterday that Chinese players would be compelled to engage in further reforms amid the pressure that comes with full-front competition with overseas rivals in attracting high-end customers, recruiting talent and offering products with high added value.

At the same time, an equivalent competitive environment and supervisory framework would help domestic and overseas institutions carry out further partnership, they insisted.

The Hong Kong-based Hang Seng Bank plans to expand its operation on the mainland to more than 2,000 staff working among a network of 50 outlets by 2010, the bank said yesterday. The lender, a principal member of the HSBC Group with 15 outlets on the Chinese mainland, has been approved to begin preparations for setting up a subsidiary bank.

"Hang Seng's mainland subsidiary bank, with its headquarters in Shanghai, is expected to be set up in the first half of 2007," Johnson Fu, the bank's head of China business, said.

He said that it would incorporate locally with a registered capital of 5 billion (US$625 million) and, as of 2007, the total investment by the lender would reach 6.7 billion (US$838 million), together with its 1.7 billion (US$213 million) investment in a 15.98 per cent stake in the Fujian-based Industrial Bank.

Compared with domestic rivals, the biggest obstacle for foreign banks is the scarcity of outlets. To close the gap, the British Standard Chartered Bank has decided to open two additional sub-branches before the end of 2006 and double the number of existing outlets within the next 18 months.

With one of the largest foreign bank networks in China with 20 outlets in 14 cities, Standard Chartered intended to expand the number of staff in China to more than 2,000 before 2008 from the current number of about 800.

It also signed a framework agreement last week with Shanghai's metro operator and is about to install its ATM machines inside metro stations. Last month Standard Chartered announced the installation of their first ATM machine in Shanghai and their plan to set up at least 20 self-service facilities in key Chinese cities in the next few months.

In view of the fierce competition in the eastern regions, overseas players are advancing westward to explore the relatively less developed areas.

HSBC, Europe's biggest lender, opened a new branch in Xi'an, capital of Northwest China's Shaanxi Province, on Friday, becoming the first foreign bank to expand its presence to western China following the full opening of China's financial sector on December 11.

"As an economic centre of western China, Xi'an has achieved impressive growth in recent years and offers great potential for HSBC," Richard Yorke, HSBC chief executive officer China, said.

Vincent Cheng, HSBC chairman, said: "as long as there are customers, we will go there."

Other players approved in the first group of nine to set up local corporations are also sparing no efforts to roll out new outlets. ABN AMRO and the Bank of East Asia plan to open 30 and 35 new outlets respectively in five years.

Overseas lenders are working to boost other parts of their operation such as product development, service improvement and image building.

Singapore's DBS Bank posted an ad on Kong.net, a WAP portal owned by China wireless value-added service provider Kongzhong, to promote its brand.

Among imminent full-front competition, leaders of domestic lenders pointed to a wider prospect for co-operation in areas such as owner-management mechanisms, risk control, profit-making plans and product and service innovation.

Chen Xin, president of Bank of Shanghai, said yesterday that lenders would compete more fiercely for high-end customers in the relatively developed regions.

In order to best respond: "domestic banks should fully play on their advantages in geography, human resources and network, and enhance management, innovation ability and provide qualified services," Chen said.

The San Diego Zoological Society, which employs 2,600 people, this year introduced an employee performance management system whose ratings will determine managers¡¯ pay raises. It¡¯s part of an emphasis on employee accountability outlined in the organization¡¯s strategic plan.
By Todd Henneman
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or years, employee performance evaluations were a low priority at the Zoological Society of San Diego, with no uniform metrics and no consequences for ignoring appraisal paperwork sent by the human resources department.

Different versions of the one-page form were used. Managers didn¡¯t judge subordinates on goals, but on a nebulous sense of how they were doing. Some employees hadn¡¯t been reviewed in years¡ªa few of them had waited decades.

"It wasn¡¯t taken seriously, and it didn¡¯t hold any credence because there was not a pay-for-performance system here," says Tim Mulligan, director of human resources for the not-for-profit Zoological Society, which operates the San Diego Zoo, the San Diego Zoo¡¯s Wild Animal Park and the Conservation and Research for Endangered Species scientific center. Managers received annual raises, which were essentially cost-of-living increases not linked to their performance, Mulligan says. "HR would send out a form, say, ¡®This review is due,¡¯ but then would never follow up to see that it was turned in."

That is changing. The Zoological Society, which employs 2,600 people, this year introduced an employee performance management system whose ratings will determine managers¡¯ pay raises. It¡¯s part of an emphasis on employee accountability outlined in the organization¡¯s strategic plan, which was being finalized when the nonprofit organization hired Mulligan two years ago.

Like an increasing number of organizations, the Zoological Society, whose revenues in 2005 reached $176 million, wanted a Web-based employee-appraisal system that helps guide managers through the process and reduces rote work.

The demand for software that accomplishes this is growing. Fueled by the performance and succession management segments, the talent management software market will increase by 20 percent this year, surpassing $2.3 billion in revenue, according to an estimate by technology consultancy Yankee Group. Of 244 large and midsize organizations surveyed by consulting firm Towers Perrin, 34 percent said their spending on human resource technology increased in 2005 compared with 2004. Only 15 percent said spending decreased; the rest of the respondents said spending was flat.

This year, the Zoological Society¡¯s management team, which consists of 225 employees classified as assistant managers or higher, falls under the Web-based employee appraisal system. Next year, the practice will be expanded to include all exempt employees.

With built-in prompts for completing reviews, performance management applications standardize the format of performance reviews and free human resource professionals from the administrative tasks of reminding managers that appraisals are due. They also tend to be affordable ways to update appraisal processes, have multiple raters and enable timely feedback on performance.

Setting goals
Mulligan identified the primary objectives for the Zoological Society¡¯s new system: establish impartial employee goals directly linked to the organization¡¯s goals; include a midyear review to ensure an ongoing dialogue and to prevent end-of-the-year surprises; and require year-end reviews whose ratings will be used to determine merit increases.

Mulligan also realized his diverse workforce, which includes everyone from world-renowned scientists to teenage food-service workers, needed metrics to measure performance, as well as easy-to-use software. He created two teams¡ªone looking at vendors, the other at skills that characterized a successful leader within the organization, regardless of their department.

"We didn¡¯t want to throw this down our managers¡¯ throats," he says of involving employees in the planning. "We wanted to have them work on and approve of it."

The process led to performance appraisals based on two categories: goals and leadership competencies. At the beginning of the year, each manager chooses five goals, at least three of which must be linked to organizational objectives. Those goals are based on everything from guest satisfaction to revenue.

The other two goals are what Mulligan calls "wild cards"¡ªtargets pertinent to their specific area. Together, the performance goals make up 50 percent of the overall employee appraisal.

The other half comes from ratings on leadership competencies. Those were identified by 220 managers and then whittled to a list of six, each with five sub-factors. For example, the competency of "professionalism" includes scores on teamwork, communication, interpersonal relations, Zoological Society mission and customer focus.

Halogen Software of Ottawa was chosen as the vendor. Halogen has gained a reputation as an appropriate choice for midsize companies. Business-information provider Hoover¡¯s Inc. estimates that Halogen¡¯s sales reached $4.2 million in 2004. Halogen declined to disclose its current revenue but says it is profitable and has added 400 customers during the past two years. The company also says a nondisclosure agreement prevents it from divulging the value of its contract with the San Diego Zoo and the length of the agreement.

In a market report last year, research firm Gartner rated Halogen and competitors Softscape of Massachusetts and SuccessFactors of California each as "strong positives" based on criteria that included product capability, affordability, scalability, viability, market momentum and vision.

Halogen¡¯s eAppraisal performance management solution lets employees record accomplishments in an online journal that they may share with their manager. Mulligan says the tool helps to craft an accurate year-end review. "Many of our people are very involved with organizations in conservation and in the animal world," he says. "We don¡¯t want those things to be forgotten by management at the end of the year when they do their review."

The performance management solution¡¯s other tools include a "comment helper" that offers feedback templates that automatically insert pronouns using the correct gender and a "language sensitivity checker" that flags offensive words and suggests alternatives. The company¡¯s product tour shows the language checker suggesting "overqualified" to replace "old," for example.

Many human resource professionals feel an increasing demand to build business cases for HR investments and to calculate their return on investment. Last year, even the publisher of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator introduced a guide for measuring the ROI of the venerable personality-type test.

As a not-for-profit organization, the Zoological Society is more concerned about the "return on mission" than its ROI for the technology, Mulligan says. But Halogen¡¯s president, Paul Loucks, points to studies by research firm IDC as proof that his clients can expect a healthy return on their investment.

IDC determined that Amcor Sunclipse North America, a division of Australian packaging manufacturing company Amcor, saved more than $300,000 a year since introducing Halogen¡¯s eAppraisal. In a separate analysis, IDC estimated that Halogen client Howard Regional Health System of Indiana might see a 164 percent return on its investment, in terms of cost savings.

Flexibility of the web
The Zoological Society¡¯s adoption of a Web-based solution also reflects another trend. One of the notable changes in the past five years has been the shift to Internet-based appraisal systems from client-server platforms, in which programs are kept on a central computer connected through a network to PCs. "As long as they have a Web connection, managers can write appraisals at home," Loucks says.

Loucks expects that organizations will expand from using Web-based appraisal systems to adding compensation and succession planning processes. In fact, Mulligan lists such a flexible system among the reasons he liked Halogen.

"Those types of processes will be adopted by more companies over the next few years," Loucks says. "It¡¯s not clear whether the new customers will do it in steps or whether they¡¯ll go for more of the big bang."

Not everyone sees Web-based employee appraisals as all good news. Anthony Chelte, dean of Dillard College of Business Administration at Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas, says the key benefits of online employee appraisals are the timeliness of feedback and the efficiency of eliminating paperwork.

"When you look at the ratio of individuals to HR people in terms of the number of reviews that have to be looked at for completeness, accuracy and legal concerns, it¡¯s probably far more efficient," he says.

Chelte cautions against relying on online appraisals to deliver feedback, saying one-on-one discussions are as important. "I do not think the online appraisal system is a good proxy for delivering feedback," he says. "The whole social context is gone. It takes the entire human element out of the mix."

Halogen executives say their system is not intended to replace one-on-one appraisal meetings, but rather to simplify preparation for it.

Mulligan says he ensured the "human element" remains intact for zoo staffers. The appraisal must be delivered in person, with the supervisor printing and reviewing it with the subordinate or the two discussing results as they go over it on the computer screen. "It has to be done with two people together," he says. "You can¡¯t just pull it up and read your review."

The supervisor then must certify that the in-person meeting occurred. "I don¡¯t want us to go back to where we were before, with employees and managers not having this face-to-face dialogue on performance," Mulligan says.

Michele Stancer began working at the zoo 28 years ago, starting in food service while in high school and working her way up to animal-care manager. She describes her experience with the new appraisal system as positive because of discussions with her boss about setting goals and basing raises on performance.

"If you perform well, you¡¯ll get more," Stancer says. "I think people should be held accountable. I¡¯ve been here a long time. You see people who are ¡®working in retirement,¡¯ and that¡¯s not good for anyone."

Mulligan says the Web-based appraisal process has helped the zoo attract talent. "What I found is that it¡¯s a recruiting tool," he says. "A manager who starts here sees that we have a program like this where you have goals and objectives and are given timely feedback and paid for the work that you do. As we come into the modern world here in HR, we have to provide programs like this."

R¨¦sum¨¦ flow is strong and time-to-hire is fast in Asia¡¯s largest labor pool. Broad statements in the U.S. media about an impending talent shortage in China are not borne out by more granular data on the labor supply and direct reports from companies engaged in heavy recruiting.
By Fay Hansen --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
San Francisco-based Freeborders reviewed 25,000 job applications in China last year, conducted 3,400 first-round and 800 second-round interviews, and hired 251 new employees for its IT outsourcing services facility in Shenzhen. Recruiting is proceeding at roughly the same pace this year, with more than 2,000 r¨¦sum¨¦s flowing in each month for 30 to 50 positions.

Gomez Inc., another U.S.-based high-tech firm, moved from no presence in China to a fully functioning R&D facility for new-product development in less time than it takes many companies to hire a single advanced-degree engineer in the United States. The company posted positions in May and opened its new Beijing office in July.

Despite widespread predictions of looming talent shortages in China, where GDP growth is now clocking in at 10.2 percent, Freeborders¡¯ recruiters are swimming in r¨¦sum¨¦s in Shenzhen and the company¡¯s CEO discounts reports of acute shortages of managerial and high-level technical workers. Gomez¡¯s executives anticipate no difficulties in building headcount in Beijing.

Broad statements in the U.S. media about an impending talent shortage in China are not borne out by more granular data on the labor supply and direct reports from companies engaged in heavy recruiting.

Hard data offer no evidence of tighter labor markets, even in China¡¯s first-tier cities. In 2005, 295,000 new university graduates looked for work in Beijing alone. The highly developed Chinese university system is pumping out an ever-larger annual pool of candidates whose skills more closely match the needs of high-growth multinational companies than graduates in the United States and most of Europe.

Simultaneously, China¡¯s recruiting infrastructure is growing to meet the needs of employers, including multinationals expanding in the urban areas. The number of online job boards in China hit 2,000 this year and online sites have become the dominant form of recruiting for large companies, according to BusinessForum China. Last year, Monster Worldwide bought a 40 percent stake in one of the largest players, ChinaHR.com, which currently offers 480,000 jobs and 7.5 million registered job seekers.

Bulking up
Freeborders announced in June that it plans to quadruple the size of its Shenzhen facility to accommodate 2,000 employees, who will work in coordination with the company¡¯s U.S. and European project managers. Freeborders has stepped up its recruiting efforts to sign on hundreds of new employees in short order.

"We plan to hire several hundred graduates majoring in software development in a month or two as trainee developers," Freeborders CEO John Cestar reports.

With revenue up 45 percent in 2005 and year-over-year bookings up 30 percent, Freeborders is a high-growth firm recruiting in a high-growth market.

In Shenzhen, Freeborders can pull from the 600,000 technology professionals who live there or the thousands who pour in from other regions of China every month. Most of Freeborders¡¯ new hires come from outside the Shenzhen area.

Shenzhen is home to 3,000 software companies. GDP growth for the metropolitan area is topping 15 percent a year. IDC forecasts that China will be the largest IT services market in the Asia-Pacific region by 2010, with a 24 percent share of IT spending in the region.

But those growth rates do not necessarily translate into tight labor markets. Instead, they act as a magnet for new investment and job seekers. China¡¯s Ministry of Science and Technology is pouring money into incentives for investment in new technologies, particularly in e-commerce, logistics, design and finance, and the Education Ministry is moving in tandem with university programs that boost the supply of tech candidates.

When Freeborders moved into China five years ago, it recruited 20 Chinese nationals who were working for software multinationals in North America and Europe. This core group then recruited for Freeborders¡¯ Shenzhen expansion. The company now runs a nationwide recruitment program through its own network, Web sites and job fairs.

"Our strategy is to focus our hiring for the key technologies that we know North American and European companies have demand for," Cestar says. "We determine these needs through client surveys and training-needs questionnaires with our workers. Our software graduates speak good English and become highly valuable resources after going through our rigorous training program."

Freeborders has not been forced to accelerate salary increases or bonuses to meet its recruiting goals.

"We find that many of our employees choose us because of the opportunity to work with Western clients," Cestar says. "It¡¯s a source of prestige and they know it¡¯s good for their careers to deliver services to Western companies. That¡¯s our main selling point. When we survey our teams, compensation is usually the third or fourth reason they chose Freeborders."

Freeborders minimizes its use of expatriates, but most of its senior managers in China have worked or been educated in the United States. This is changing, however.

"We are leveraging our current employees to recruit heavily within their personal networks to find managerial talent," Cestar says. "We also plan to promote the next group of managers from within."

Securing the managerial talent in China is a top priority for the company.

"It is a challenge simply because the universities are churning out so many young and highly skilled technology workers that there are not enough middle managers to handle the massive labor pool," Cestar notes. "But it¡¯s a manageable challenge. Over time, this shortage will shrink as the junior-level technology workers grow in experience to become middle managers. It¡¯s only a matter of time."

Meanwhile, Freeborders¡¯ global structure allows the company to segment tasks when necessary.

"Because we¡¯re a U.S.-based company, we mitigate a lot of the risk by having a strong U.S.-based project and technical management component to our teams," Cestar reports. "They essentially work with the client on site and with our offshore teams at all hours of the day."

Starting from scratch
While Freeborders is calmly recruiting more than 1,000 IT workers in Shenzhen, Gomez is expanding its R&D staff in Beijing, bringing in additional support staff and basking in the new recruiting environment that China offers.

"We were up and running in Beijing with 20 R&D employees in 12 weeks," reports Richard Darer, vice president and CFO of Gomez.

"We never could have done that in our U.S. office near Boston, no matter what we threw at it. The talent pool is so much smaller in the United States that there simply isn¡¯t sufficient r¨¦sum¨¦ flow." The company pulled in 3,000 r¨¦sum¨¦s to fill the Beijing jobs.

"In the United States, we use job boards like Monster, but we end up hiring contract recruiters," Darer says. "The universities in China are turning out so much talent that it¡¯s a different situation."

In its site search, Gomez considered Shanghai, but it settled on Beijing because of its exceptionally strong university system. The company¡¯s new facility is located near Tsinghua University, China¡¯s leading science and technology institution. The Beijing area is home to 274,000 tech workers, with scientists and engineers accounting for 83 percent of the total, according to the Beijing Municipal Science and Technology Commission.

Gomez provides Web application performance management solutions for 400 companies worldwide, including Amazon, Yahoo and Best Buy. Headquartered in Lexington, Massachusetts, with European operations centered in Hamburg, Germany, the company reported Q1 2006 revenue growth up 50 percent compared with Q1 2005. As its first step in expanding into China, CEO Jaime Ellertson personally recruited Yuan Cheng, a Chinese national with an engineering degree from Tsinghua University and a doctorate from MIT, as general manager for China.

The new office will triple Gomez¡¯s product development staff by the end of 2006. To recruit the first group for the Beijing location, Cheng tapped job boards such as ChinaHR.com and targeted university online job sites. The company¡¯s online job postings for China include JavaScript software engineers and technical support engineers.

"Cheng screened the r¨¦sum¨¦s to find candidates with the right technical skills and to eliminate job jumpers," Darer says.

From the 3,000 r¨¦sum¨¦s, Cheng invited 200 candidates for interviews, most with two to five years of experience and 40 percent with graduate degrees.

Large groups of candidates attended high-level presentations on the company, followed by one-on-one interviews that used the presentations as the context for detailed technical questions.

"Our challenge was screening out candidates, not finding sufficient talent," Darer says.

He worked with technology companies operating in India before joining Gomez, and notes the sharp differences there.

"If you want to fill two positions in India, you make offers to four candidates because only two of those will actually show up to start the job," he says.

During Gomez¡¯s initial recruiting drive in Beijing, a few candidates who received offers didn¡¯t accept because of compensation issues.

"Our challenge in China is that compensation is beginning to move up," Darer says. "But the economic cost ratio for the United States and China is 3-to-1, so even if compensation creeps up in Beijing, there is still a huge cost advantage."

Darer is not concerned about retention in the Beijing office.

"We work on the cutting edge of the Web and e-commerce, and part of the attraction for our employees is the opportunity to work on exciting and sexy stuff," he notes. "You can see the gleam in their eyes."

The R&D employees in Beijing develop new products with worldwide reach and the company now plans to hire direct-sales and support staff, but with different language skills.

"When companies set up R&D in China, they have to think about language proactively," Darer advises. "For some of our key managerial and customer support positions, our employees must be fluent in English. But we do not require fluent English from our engineers."

Darer, who received an engineering degree and an MBA from Harvard, sees his HR responsibilities as a logical part of his work as CFO.

"As we all know, our assets walk out the door every night at 5," he says.

Managing talent is a critical component in the company¡¯s financial success.

"And the talent in Beijing is well beyond our expectations," he notes.

Firms based in the east of China have invested more than 300 billion yuan (about US$37.5 billion) in western China, Fu Ziying, assistant minister of Commerce, said on Wednesday.

The 10,000 east China-based enterprises include state-and private-owned enterprises as well as foreign companies, Fu said at a press conference at the 11th China Chongqing Investment and Global Sourcing Fair (CCISF).

Abundant resources, preferential policies, and cheap land and labor in the region spelt opportunities for investors. The rapid expansion of manufacturing, high-tech, power, and tourism industries in the region has added to its attractiveness.

The CCISF, held every two years, promotes trade and investment in west China. It is a platform that allows the western region to seek investment from outside, according to Fu.

The 11th CCISF will be held between April 18-21, 2007 in Chongqing Municipality, focusing on the theme of "Global sourcing and investment."

China launched the western development program in 2000 to narrow the economic gap between the region and the country's east.

In 2005, the region generated a total of 3.37 trillion yuan in gross domestic output, up 12 percent on 2004, significantly higher than the national average of 9.9 percent.

The Ministry of Personnel is bringing in some 30,000 overseas specialists next year to address China¡¯s talent shortage in certain sectors. ¡°The governmnt is to introduce 10,000 economic and technical specialists and 20,000 education, health and science specialists in 2007,¡± Zhang Baolin, Minister of Personnel, told Xinhua News Agency in an interview. Zhang said China should further explore international intellectial resources, which has provided strong support to the country¡¯s overall development. China has already recruited a total of 400,000 specialists from overseas, Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions and Taiwan.

¡¡¡¡At the same time, China will explore establishing a mechanism to attract Chinese currently overseas to work in the country. The plan also hopes to target foreign talents.

¡¡¡¡The ministry is preparing for the fifth round of job recruitments in Beijing slated for April 21, 2007. For more information, contact.

What is the secret to creating and managing a successful human resources function? With so much at stake, HR must step up and demonstrate it is worthy of the human and financial capital entrusted to it.
By Derek Carissimi
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"Employees are our greatest asset."

"We are nothing without our employees."

"Our strength is our employees."

e¡¯ve all heard these words, or something similar, uttered at one time or another by every CEO in the country. We¡¯ve heard these words so often they¡¯ve become clich¨¦, and almost meaningless.

How many organizations really believe these words and conduct business accordingly? How many give human resources equal status and importance with finance, marketing, medical affairs and patient services? The good news is: more and more every day. The bad news is: not enough.

As staffing shortages continue; the true cost of employee turnover finally hits home; the connection between employee satisfaction and patient satisfaction is recognized; the importance of effective employee relations understood; the number of dollars and percent of budget devoted to employee benefits acknowledged; and the exposure to employee-related lawsuits realized; organizations throughout the country are coming to appreciate that employees truly are the organization¡¯s greatest asset--and expense.

As such, human resources, which is charged with managing the "people function," is a very important role and needs to be on the same level of the corporate food chain as finance, marketing, IT, et al.

That being said, what is the secret to creating and managing a successful human resources function? With so much at stake, HR must step up and demonstrate it is worthy of the human and financial capital entrusted to it.

Traditionally, this has not been a strength of human resource leaders. Reliance on the touchy-feely and warm-fuzzy intangibles is no longer adequate as HR must step up to the plate and become a true business and strategic partner.

How to step up to the plate? Here are the building blocks to establish an effective human resources function:

Aggressive recruitment
Keeping the organization staffed is, and will continue to be, an essential function of the effective HR department. Today¡¯s recruitment strategies, however, must be different than in the past.

Very few organizations have invested in the most fundamental and necessary component of a strong recruitment program¡ªthat being the preparation of a workforce projection document. Workforce projection consists of an in-depth analysis of the staffing needs of the organization five to 10 years into the future.

This analysis, done by job classification (i.e., staff nurses, pharmacists, respiratory therapists, food service workers, etc.), must include the following components: (1) projected voluntary and involuntary turnover; (2) projected retirements based on the current age of employees in each job classification; (3) projected growth or decline of each of the organization¡¯s service lines; (4) anticipated population growth or decline in the community or communities the organization serves; (5) geographic shifts in the population, anticipated growth and strategies of the organization¡¯s key competitors; (6) future plans of local and state governments.

Only after the workforce projection analysis is complete is human resources in a position to aggressively recruit, and even more important, direct resources in the proper direction, effectively utilizing budget dollars.

Aggressive recruitment in today¡¯s world is definitely different than in the past.

Newspaper advertising, long the staple, is no longer effective. Spending significant amounts on newspaper recruitment is a waste of resources. Instead, more creative methods are required.

Today¡¯s recruitment requires the extensive utilization of on-line methodologies, including resume mining, applicant tracking, on-line applications, the extensive use of banners and headlines, and direct messaging to the targeted audience.

Cold-calling, direct mailings, recruitment events, employee referrals, internal career mobility programs and the use of targeted professional journals are the ways to attract candidates. It is also important to include current employees in the formulation of strategies and focus groups in the community, and elsewhere, to determine what the public thinks of you as an employer, and why current employees came to, and stay with, your organization.

It is also crucial to have a robust exit program to determine why employees leave the organization. Lastly, recruitment must not be the sole responsibility of human resources.

Hiring departments--and indeed, all managers--must have a stake in keeping a low vacancy rate. The best way to accomplish this is to include it as a performance measurement item that determines pay adjustments.

Education
Invest in your employees. Once on board, new employees must be immediately immersed into a culture of continuous learning.

Starting with the new-hire orientation program, employees must feel the organization¡¯s commitment to education and continuous learning. Such commitment translates into an investment on the part of the organization to its employees.

Meaningful tuition reimbursement programs, salary increases for certifications, salary adjustments for the attainment of degrees, tapping skilled employees to teach, career ladders, the opportunity to attend internal and external workshops, rewards for publishing articles and books and for presenting at professional conferences, mentoring programs and internal career mobility programs are all ways to demonstrate commitment to education and a culture of continuous learning. With a little creativity and innovation, these outcomes can be achieved with less expense than one might think.

Communication
Communicate early and often.

There is no substitute for communication in establishing a loyal workforce. Human resources should be the focal point for employee communication.

Organizations frequently hide behind the cloak of confidentiality as a reason for not communicating with employees. In reality, however, there is a lot we can tell employees without hitting the confidentiality barrier.

To be credible, communication needs to be open, honest, truthful, frequent and humble--and should disclose as much as possible, good news or bad. It must also be two-way and come in a variety of formats, such as newsletters, open meetings, letters to the home, opinion surveys, 360-degree evaluations, management rounding, rumor hotlines, open-door policies, broadcast voice mails, management meeting minutes and information centers.

There is no secret to effective communication. It is easier said than done, however. If an organization trusts its employees as stakeholders in the business, this process of communication will come easily. Without trust, it will prove very difficult.

It is human resources¡¯ responsibility to develop the good will and foundation for effective communication. It is then HR¡¯s responsibility to coordinate the ongoing process of solid two-way communication.

Without a good communication program, there is no way an organization can succeed. With one, there is no way it can fail.

Recognition
The fourth building block for constructing a strong human resources function is an organized and methodical employee recognition program. Many organizations believe they have a recognition program because they have a service awards luncheon once a year and an annual company picnic.

These activities are good if part of larger effort, but virtually worthless if they stand alone.

Today¡¯s recognition programs must be broad-based, long and short term in nature, individual versus event-oriented, and woven into the culture of the organization. A culture of recognition is one where employees know they are appreciated every day, without corny or awkward gestures from managers and administrators.

There are five objectives for a recognition program:

To build a long-term relationship with each employee.

To promote strong supervisor-employee relationships.

To involve and encourage employees to contribute to solutions.

To let employees know they are key to the organization¡¯s success.

To address issues before they become major problems.

Recognition programs sound like a no-brainer. It¡¯s hard to disagree with the concept, isn¡¯t it?

Nevertheless, a relatively small number of employers actually have one. It¡¯s easy to throw together a couple of events every year and say we have a recognition program.

But we don¡¯t.

A true recognition program must be systematic, methodical, in writing and measurable. It must also allow for spontaneous recognition every minute of every day, and it must allow for employee peer recognition. A recognition program that doesn¡¯t allow for spontaneity, and for employees to recognize one another, is doomed to failure.

Organizations without comprehensive recognition programs should remember the following: (a) praise and recognition are keys to employee satisfaction; (b) employers receive the lowest ratings from employees in the area of recognition; (c) high employee satisfaction equals low turnover; (d) according to employees, being ignored is the worst.

In conclusion, despite the clich¨¦, people really are the organization¡¯s greatest asset; as managers of the people function, human resources deserves recognition as a business and strategic partner, but must step up and prove its understanding and connection to the business; and the building blocks of a strong human resources function are (1) aggressive recruitment, (2) education; (3) communication and (4) recognition.

An HR function strong in these four areas will be successful and meaningfully contribute to the success of the organization.

SHRINKING TALENT pools, increased mobility of workers, an ageing workforce and a desire on the part of younger generations to work for companies that are honest in their dealings with employees are driving an increase in employer branding.

Brett Minchington, managing director of Collective Learning Australia, said HR professionals need to engage senior executives in the benefits of developing a strong employer brand and its impact on the ability of the firm to attract, engage and retain talent.

¡°In essence, HR needs to develop a business case that is written in the language that will engage the hearts of mind of those at the top,¡± he said.

¡°To develop a culture that is supportive of the employer brand concept and is reflected in the actions of leaders at all levels of the organisation, firms should measure employee engagement and/or satisfaction and commitment on a consistent basis and link the results to financial performance.¡±

Speaking at a recent Select Australasia event in Sydney, Minchington also said employer branding should not be the sole responsibility of HR, even though research shows that, globally, the strategy is generally driven by the HR department.

¡°Ideally HR should work closely with the marketing and internal communications department to ensure that there is consistency in the development and communication of the employer brand internally and externally,¡± he said.

¡°Without the support of the MD or CEO, it is unlikely employer brand efforts will achieve the financial and operational outcomes being experienced by firms that integrate employer brand efforts into their overall business strategy.¡±

He also noted that the biggest criticism by owners and senior management of employer brand activities has been the lack of measurable outcomes for their investment.

¡°In simple terms, what doesn¡¯t get measured doesn¡¯t get managed. There are a number of human capital measures to determine the ROI of your employer brand program,¡± he said.

According to the FirstGov.gov Web site, three of the most popular New Year¡¯s resolutions are losing weight, saving money and getting a better job.

So why is it that, come February 1, most of us are still chubby, broke and not doing work we love? Could there be a better way to finally get a new job this new year?

The answer is ... maybe. It all depends on you. After all, the best advice in the world is useless if you don't follow it.

But, if you¡¯re willing to change your attitude, change your actions and persist for at least 21 days -- the time it takes to form a new habit, according to many self-development experts -- you can find yourself in a new and better job by February 1.

Here are two paths to that new job you've resolved to get this new year ...

1) Start Where You Are
If you've ever read Russell Conwell's "Acres of Diamonds," you know that riches may be hiding right under your feet (and if you haven't read it, go Google it now).

Most folks who resolve to find a better job do so without first taking a long, unbiased look around their own workplace. But wait -- your dream job might be found at your current employer! All it takes is a little imagination to uncover it.

Example: Years ago I worked with Jane, who dreamed of becoming a graphic designer. But she was an administrative assistant. Did she despair or bemoan her lot in life? No. She got busy hanging around with graphic designers, learning the software, taking on small projects, demonstrating her skills, until one day -- presto! She was promoted to graphic designer.

You can do this, too, and work your way into almost any job, in almost any industry. Why not have a meeting with your boss this week and discuss your plans? If you get an encouraging response, get busy learning the skills you'll need. If you meet with resistance, then you can start looking for a new employer.

But you'll never know if your dream job lies hidden just a few cubicles away unless you look around ... and ask around.

2) Take Small Steps
Just as you can't lose 24 pounds in one day, don't resolve to find your dream job in 24 hours or even 24 days. Unrealistic deadlines produce more frustration than results.

Instead, try small, incremental steps.

After all, you didn't gain all those extra pounds overnight, did you? No. It happened over time, almost imperceptibly. An extra helping of pancakes here, an ice cream sundae there, a few missed trips to the gym and, before you knew it, your pants no longer fit.

Research by Dr. Robert Maurer, based on the principles of kaizen (the industrial science of continuous improvement), can help you take the right small steps toward you next job.

Example: By asking yourself one small question every day, such as, ¡°If finding a new job were my top priority, what would I be thinking and doing now?¡± you can train your subconscious mind to deliver useful answers, because the brain loves questions.

According to Dr. Maurer, small incremental steps work because our brain is hard-wired to resist change. Even thinking about a major life change, such as finding a new job, can trigger the brain¡¯s fight-or-flight response, which in turn shuts down creativity and thinking -- and you get stuck. Small changes, however, can bypass that automatic defense.

And by taking small steps, Dr. Maurer means small. Hate to exercise? Start with one minute of marching in front of the TV. Overeating? Throw away the first French fry. It sounds ridiculous at first, but what you¡¯re doing is rewiring your brain so that it enjoys your small successes and lets you build on them.

For your job search, try taking one small action every day, such as calling one relative or old friend for a networking conversation. At the end of 30 days, you'll have made about 25 more call than most other job seekers, and you'll be that much closer to your dream job.

So, start where you are and take small steps toward a new job today. Before you know it, you could be doing work you really love.

Happy New Year!

Attending a face-to-face interview in the cyberworld may help you get a job in reality.
Two national employment service websites, www.myjob.edu.cn and www.job100.com, will hold online job fairs from December 22 to 28 and from March 12 to 18, aiming to broaden employment channels for university graduates.

More than 4000 enterprises, including some State-owned enterprises, will release 50,000 items of employment information via Internet during the two weeks.

Using webcam technology, the two websites will enable applicants to have a face-to-face online interview with an employer, saving time spent traveling to interviews and making the job search more efficient for job seekers.

With the number of students graduating from university in 2007 expected to reach 4.95 million, 820,000 more than in 2006, the employment situation for university graduates is becoming increasingly difficult.

In order to help more university graduates fine jobs, the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Personnel, Ministry of Labor and Social Security, National Development and Reform Commission and State-owned Assets and Administration Commission in November decided to jointly launch special employment service websites and provide online job fairs.

The job market is vibrant and vacancies have increased in the past year, especially in the financial sector, but Hong Kong is facing a shortage of qualified talents, an online recruitment portal said yesterday.

Monster Hong Kong Vice-president Suk Chiu said 58,000 job vacancies were posted on his website in 2006, an yearly increase of 104 per cent.

Vacancies in the banking and finance sector had increased by 56 per cent, with those in banks and accounting/audit firms rising by 28.45 and 102.51 per cent.

The need for more and wider banking services and products has fuelled the growth, he said. "There are more insurance and private investment services today, and they have been creating the demand for talents."

Accounting firms, too, reported a rapid growth because of a high demand for such services created by the mainland's economic development.

Vacancies in the marketing and retailing sectors have doubled because of the increasing number of individual travellers from the mainland.

But despite the rosy job market, Hong Kong has a dearth of talents, the Asia regional director of head-hunting firm Hays, Emma Charnock-Smith, said. So serious is the problem that not a single candidate from among the 200 shortlisted by Hays were offered a job by a company.

Such a problem is common particularly in legal, accounting, trading and banking sectors, she said.

This could force companies to hire Hong Kong residents living overseas. "Such candidates have local knowledge and international experience both. They have a good command over Chinese and English, too," she said.

Companies could also offer a more attractive package, including family allowances, to hire such people.

She said Hong Kong people in Canada and Australia would be more interested in coming back because the Hong Kong dollar was comparatively more competent against their currencies than the greenback or the pound sterling.

China's sizzling economy will slow slightly next year but still should grow by a robust 9.8 percent even as Beijing extends controls to cool off an investment boom, the Central Bank said in a report published Friday.

The forecast was in line with outside estimates but well above the 8 percent target for 2007 set by a government strategy report released this month. It would be by far the highest growth rate for any of the world's major economies.

Growth this year should be 10.5 percent, said the Central Bank report, which was carried on the Web site of the official China Securities Journal newspaper. That was in line with earlier official forecasts.

Chinese leaders want rapid growth to reduce poverty. But they are trying to stop an investment boom in real estate and other industries where they worry that overspending on unneeded factories and other assets could ignite inflation or a debt crisis.

Beijing has raised interest rates twice this year, tightened controls on credit and imposed curbs on new construction.

Despite the controls, the government says investment in factories and other fixed assets in the first 11 months of this year soared by 26.6 percent over the same period last year.

In comments to state media, Ma Kai, chairman of China's main planning agency, the National Development and Reform Commission, said this month that the "relentless expansion has yet to be stopped."

Ma said in an interview Friday on the Web site of the People's Daily that economic controls will be extended into next year to prevent runaway investment.

Inflation should be 1.4 percent this year and 2 percent in 2007, the Central Bank report said.
The government reported economic growth of 10.7 percent for the first nine months of the year. But official indicators show the expansion has slowed slightly since then.

The planning report, released this month following a meeting led by President Hu Jintao, said Beijing would focus next year on trying to shift the basis of China's economic growth from investment and exports to domestic consumption.

Few HR leaders attempt to take responsibility for their workforce's productivity.
By John Sullivan
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Iroutinely ask HR leaders around the world, "Do you see increasing productivity of your workforce as a primary part of your job, and do you compare your results with those of your worldwide competitors?" The response of most leaders is the same: bewilderment, a long pause, a blank stare. It continues to amaze me that HR leaders do not recognize that every business function, whether it be marketing, finance, production or HR, is in the productivity business. That means continually getting more out of every dollar you spend on the resources that you control.
Workforce productivity is in the news: I am highlighting this issue because workforce productivity is in the news on a daily basis. Corporate giants like Ford, Kraft, Hewlett-Packard, United Airlines and General Motors are being pounded by analysts because their labor costs are skyrocketing past those of their domestic and foreign competitors.

My point is simple: Despite the constant rants by analysts and CEOs, few HR leaders attempt to take responsibility for their workforce¡¯s productivity. In finance, for example, calculating the productivity of financial investments is a common practice, as in real estate, marketing, manufacturing and supply-chain management. Measuring workforce productivity is not that hard. The most basic measure is simply the cost of the inputs (all salaries, benefits and HR department costs) compared with the value of the outputs (production output value, revenue or profit).

HR must declare itself "captain of the ship": One argument I often hear is that HR does not directly manage the workforce and therefore cannot be held directly responsible for productivity. That argument is weak. Every other corporate function is held accountable when the resources that it manages do not produce adequate results, so why should HR be exempt? HR must declare itself accountable and then design systems that influence, cajole and sell managers and employees so that the productivity levels of the workforce remain competitive.

Cutting costs is easy; managing strategically is hard: Occasionally HR leaders will respond that they do manage the productivity of the workforce by manipulating labor costs. Any accountant can figure out how to shave 10 percent off the budget, but developing systems to maximize the output of all the budgeted pieces requires significant thought and coordination. This, in my estimation, is the true purpose of HR: to increase workforce productivity through activities that increase the other (but most important) side of the ROI equation, which is revenue. If HR leaders can shift their emphasis to driving increases in workforce output without increasing people costs, they will have demonstrated that they can strategically manage the workforce.

Global competition is forcing HR to change: Globalization and economic growth in China, India and Eastern Europe, where labor rates are significantly cheaper than in the United States and Central Europe, will make managing workforce productivity an imperative for organizations that wish to survive. This new imperative means that HR must monitor labor productivity and advise senior management when moving offshore or outsourcing presents an opportunity to better compete. HR must begin to look at what type of work must be done and under what parameters, and then suggest to management what labor type to use and where such labor should be sourced or located. In addition, HR must advise managers when they have too many employees before a wide-scale correction is needed. Labor costs will be a component of the analysis, but they cannot be given more weight than quality, innovation and agility.

I argue that these wake-up calls signal that it is time for the DNA of HR to change. The new HR leader learns from the old slogan "What¡¯s good for General Motors is good for the country." But the lesson learned is a new one: Managing workforce productivity like HR at GM has may be the cause of your organization¡¯s downfall.

Every job seeker...and there are lots of you out there...wishes there was a "magic formula" to accelerate their job search. The truth is how well your job search fares is directly dependent on preparation. Just like in the game of chess, a sound strategy before you start to play is more likely to reap success than just "winging it".

Here are 3 preparation strategies you can use now, so your job search is equipped with a winning game plan:

1. Get FOCUSED: What specific occupational field, what level within that field, and what industry (or industries) of choice are you targeting? For example, you may be passionate about outdoor adventuring and have a background in retail sales and sales management. You may choose to focus on Retail Sales (occupational field) Manager (level within that field), Outdoor Sports Equipment, Accessories, Services and Vendors (industries of choice). The employers in your industry (or industries) of choice are your target audience, rather than any employer anywhere!

Trying to be all things to all employers in a "generic" resume just doesn't work anymore. Keyword resume-sniffing software mandates that the job seeker or career advancer identify exactly what they are going after, and then crafting their marketing message around that, incorporating required and desired keywords for the occupational field, level of position, and industry.

2. Get BRANDED: Differentiation is key to career and job search success. You cannot appear to be just another one of the thundering herd. So knowing your personal brand - what makes you unique and different from your competitors, as well as what attributes your target audience really values - AND being able to express that in your marketing materials (like your resume and cover letter) will put you ahead in the job search arena.

Personal branding and the 360Reach personal branding assessment - a confidential online branding assessment - can aid you in unearthing your personal brand so you can begin to use it effectively in your job search.

3. Get UPDATED EDUCATION and TRAINING: Do not assume that Associate's or Bachelor's Degree you got 10 or even 20 years ago suffices anymore. Employers want to see that you are actively engaged in learning about advancements in your field. They do not want to have to train you on what they believe you should already know.

If you technology skills are rusty, look at non-credit courses at your local community college or even tutorials online. To stay updated in your professional field, you can take courses (credit or non-credit) or join a professional association in your field and attend the workshops and conferences. If the association offers credentialing, consider it. Objective evidence of up-to-date skills and knowledge, like credentials, offer proof that you are serious about your career and the value you can bring to a potential employer.

BONUS - Keep track of your ACCOMPLISHMENTS: Accomplishments are the "meat" that makes up your resume's main course. Without relevant and convincing results, you may be perceived of by an employer as just a "seat warmer" in your current (or past) jobs. That's not exactly a stellar approach to securing a potential new employer's interest. But, benefits (accomplishments) are! What better place to showcase the benefits of hiring you than by demonstrating what you have been able to accomplish for others in the past.

We continually see recruiters and hiring managers urging job candidates to evaluate themselves and what they¡¯re looking for. Hell, Heck, we tell job candidates to do that ourselves. People who work with candidates in any capacity want them to conduct a focused job search:

¡°Get FOCUSED: What specific occupational field, what level within that field, and what industry (or industries) of choice are you targeting?¡­The employers in your industry (or industries) of choice are your target audience, rather than any employer anywhere!¡± (From Career Goddess)

One of the major problems with job boards, though, is that they don¡¯t allow for focused job searches. Candidates can¡¯t always hone in on specific companies or even specific types of jobs. Instead, they¡¯re inundated with every job opening that might match a single keyword in their resume or that falls within their broad search parameters.

An effective Plan B job search should give you the best opportunity to find the right company and the right job for you. It should also allow you to avoid having to deal with companies and positions that hold no interest for you. Unfortunately, this doesn¡¯t seem to be the case on most boards these days, and messages on job openings have become their own kind of spam:

¡°Post your resume to these boards, and you¡¯ll be added to the Job of the Hour club. After you get tired of emails about jobs selling insurance and delivering pizzas you will discover that you can¡¯t opt out of an email list you did not sign up for in the first place.¡± (From Job Matchbox)

The Plan B search should be a targeted one. Candidates should be able to gather information and receive job opening notifications from companies they¡¯re truly interested in. They shouldn¡¯t have to waste their time looking through countless openings or getting hassled by businesses that they want nothing to do with.

MICHAEL G. Zink, the former head of Citibank Korea, has been named the new president of Guangdong Development Bank.

Guangdong's former president quit after a Citigroup-led consortium won a US$3.1 billion bidding war on the lender.

Zink, a Citigroup veteran with 19 years' experience in the United States firm, has had corporate banking and executive management roles in New York, Cote d'lvoire, Gabon, Tunisia, Russia, Australia, Indonesia, and South Korea.

Citigroup has six seats on the 16-seat board of the lender in China's southern commercial hub. One is an independent executive.

The appointments were approved at a board meeting on Monday, Citigroup said yesterday.

Citigroup, the biggest US financial firm, and its partners, won out against Paris-based Societe Generale SA, and Ping An Insurance (Group) Co in the 18-month-long race for a combined 85.6 percent stake in Guangdong Development Bank.

The New York financial services company, China Life, State Grid and CITIC Trust and Investment Co each holds 20 percent, while IBM holds another 4.74 percent and Guangdong Finance Investment Holding, an investment arm of the Guangdong government, holds 0.85 percent.

The bidding money was injected into Guangdong bank, the country's 11th-biggest lender, yesterday.

Citigroup says it will help improve the internal governance, risk management, introduce lending expertise, and upgrade technological infrastructure.

"There's lots of restructuring to be done in the future to make the lender a globally competitive one," said the China Banking Regulatory Commission.

Guangdong bank is a test case for banking reform as regulators allowed the bank to sell a majority stake to private investors to ease its debt burden.

Zhang Guanghua, the former president, quit last Monday. He was reported to have joined China Merchants Bank.

Wouldn't it be nice if you could just press a button and find a great new job? With all the job search tools available online, you can. New opportunities are only a mouse click away in cyberspace. The only problem is the competition can be tough with so many other space travelers taking advantage of the Internet to market themselves to potential employers. The key to success when responding to online job postings is using the right strategies to break out the pack and get noticed.

An estimated 80 percent of companies use technology to help scan resumes and store the data in keyword-searchable databases for future use. So how does a computer decide who stays and who goes? In simple terms - keywords! These electronic processing systems are designed to seek out resumes that contain specific keywords chosen by the recruiter.

What are the right keywords for the job you are seeking? You'll need to spend some time researching job postings and help wanted ads for jobs that are closely associated with or nearly a perfect fit for your experience. Read as many job postings and job descriptions as you can find and start writing down words that you see over and over again. Then, incorporate these words into your resume(s) and cover letter(s).

For example, a recruiter is looking to hire someone to work in his manufacturing plant. He also needs the employee to operate the company's computer tracking system and conduct quality assurance testing. He will likely choose the following words to seek out applicants: Manufacturing; Computer; Quality Assurance.

The inclusion of these keywords is important, but make sure not to overdo it. Today's scanning technology is advanced and programmed to identify resumes that appear to duplicate a company's job posting. If you basically cut and paste a job posting into your resume, it will not be considered and your name will remain in the company's system in the red flag file. It is better to pepper in keywords as they relate to your experience.

After the initial screening by the computer, recruiters take over and begin reviewing resumes for qualified candidates. Primarily, they will look for relevant experience and qualifications. That is why it's important to highlight your accomplishments up front.

One happily employed Public Relations executive suggests throwing out the window any humble thoughts and hushing that inner voice that says you are bragging. Start your cover letter with a clear statement outlining your skills and abilities and try to put a different spin on your communications to stand out. For instance, her cover letter opens with: "Communications expertise. Results-driven media strategy. Ability to juggle multiple projects simultaneously...there are just some of the benefits I can bring to your organization."

She knows this technique works because she's used it to successfully land her last two jobs. As she says, "If you don't toot your own horn, who will?" Experts agree that by stating your key selling points right off the bat, you are maximizing your resume's chances of being placed in the "call for interview" file instead of the circular file.

Experts also say that the appearance and professionalism of your communications are critical. All too often, recruiters and hiring managers report finding typos and grammatical mistakes in the resumes and cover letters they receive. Before responding to even one more online job posting, take the time to edit your resume, proofread it and proof read it again. It's also a good idea to ask someone else to review it for you.

Once you are sure your resume and cover letter have the right keywords in place, are aggressively advertising your skills and qualifications, and are error-fee, start pushing those buttons and let the opportunities come to you.

Often when receiving a job offer, candidates are eager to sign on the dotted line. Maybe they¡¯ve been with out work for awhile, maybe it is an increase in pay, or maybe it is simply a better commute.

It is important to remember though, that the most important time in salary negotiations are those early meetings. Be prepared and act confident, it can mean a huge difference in your future lifestyle.

Here is some advice to help you land not just the gig, but the salary that you dream of

Give a Range

The general rule of thumb in negotiations is that the first person to name a number loses. Unfortunately, most people know this and it can quickly lead to nonproductive encounters. If you are in a position where you are expected to name a number, give the range that you are comfortable with. Research salaries in your area using sites like Salary.com. This will also allow the conversation to move forward so you can learn all the new costs associated with the gig.

Know the Costs

Make sure to factor in all the expenses your new position will require. Will you need a new wardrobe? Does it require you to pay tolls on your commute? Is there overtime pay? What¡¯s the health insurance like? Are you going to have to worry about your own retirement package? Total compensation is important in determining the salary that you require for accepting the job. Don¡¯t sell yourself short.

Be Bold

Fortune favors the bold. Especially if the bold has previous experience. Remember that managers are trying to keep their costs low. Salaries can often represent the largest cost within a company. If you have a target number in mind, always respond with something higher. Remember one key thing ¡ª If they say no, negotiations are not over. If they say yes, the negotiation period is finished. Many companies have policies that prevent salary increases over certain percentages. You may only grow 4-5% a year once employed by the company. During negotiations, this can be achieved in seconds. Be bold. You owe it to yourself and your family.

Consider Growth Potential

A high salary may mean nothing if you are not learning skills to use later on in your career. Sadly, the concept of a life long position is a disappearing notion. Always try to search out positions that will train you for your next job and improve your resume. If a job has a lower than expected salary, but a ton of growth potential and training, it may be worth considering, especially if you are lacking experience.

Outline Key Goals

Another strong tactic is to work out an outline of suggested accomplishments. Negotiate a follow up meeting for an early review at the 6 month period. When the time comes, be prepared to show how you¡¯ve accomplished each of the agreed upon milestones. You¡¯ll be able to make the case for a higher salary after proving yourself.

Our exploration of The Job Candidate Bill of Rights created by Accolo¡¯s John Younger gave us a chance to take an in depth look at what it is that job candidates want, expect, and deserve from recruiters and hiring managers.

The 11-week series led to discussion among candidates, but it also sparked some talk regarding the rights of the recruiter. Over at Confessions of an Executive Restaurant Recruiter they even took the candidate Bill and applied the rights one-to-one for the recruiters of the world.

We love the idea of a Recruiter Bill of Rights (and a hiring manager Bill of Rights for that matter), so we¡¯ve borrowed some ideas from the aforementioned Executive Restaurant Recruiter post, the folks at SittingXlegged, Guerilla Job Hunting, and recruiters that we work with. We¡¯ve also culled the depths of our own addled brains just for good measure to come up with our own Recruiter Bill of Rights:

1.Self-Evaluation: Job candidates will look themselves in the mirror and form an honest opinion of what they want out of a job and what they have to offer. They will also realize that maybe they aren¡¯t perfect for every single job on the market.

2.Homework: Job candidates will not go into interviews blindly. They will utilize the resources at their disposal to learn as much as possible about the company and the position.

3.Truth: Job candidates will provide the truth in regard to experience, education, accomplishments, etc. Lying on a resume doesn¡¯t help anyone.

4.Change: Candidates shall be willing to listen to advice given by the recruiter when advice is given in an honest attempt to help. Candidate will also be willing to make the changes necessary to make themselves a better candidate for the positions they¡¯re interested in obtaining.

5. Salesmanship: It¡¯s important to realize that while your dreams are meaningful, they¡¯re not always the top priority for a company. Candidates should commit to demonstrating how they can serve a company right now and selling themseleves as the right candidate for the job.

6. Communication: Hiring managers will keep open communication with recruiters on all matters pertaining to the job search. They will give timely updates when their needs change or when new positions open.

7. Commitment: Hiring managers will commit to hiring. If the right candidate comes through the door, mangers won¡¯t put off hiring just for the sake of ¡°seeing as many people as possible.¡±

8. Integrity: Job candidates don¡¯t have to accept every job offer that comes their way. However, coming up with a new set of demands each time is not a viable means for finding the right position or the right compensation, and it makes the recruiter¡¯s job almost impossible.

9. Follow-Up: It¡¯s something that candidates demand, but sadly they don¡¯t receive it enough. They¡¯re not the only ones, though. Recruiters also need to be kept abreast of the candidate¡¯s situation. Whether it¡¯s touching base after an interview or just returning phone calls.

10. Respect: It¡¯s the lifeblood of the job search, but nobody feels the other parties involved are giving them any. Candidates need to respect the time, efforts, and basic humanity of recruiters, and they should expect the same.

Over the next several weeks, we hope to break this Bill down just as we did the last. Hopefully it will give everyone a better understanding of the challenges facing recruiters, and maybe it will help candidates and recruiters work together more effectively than they have in the past.

HONG Kong's jobless rate fell for a fifth straight month in November to the lowest in almost six years, helping sustain the longest economic expansion in a decade, the government said yesterday.

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for the three months ended November declined to 4.4 percent from 4.5 percent in October, the government said on its Website. That was the lowest since January 2001 and matched the median estimate of 13 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.

Banks, transport companies and retailers have stepped up hiring as the special administrative region piggybacked on booming growth on the Chinese mainland. Rising wages, and soaring stock and property prices are underpinning consumer confidence, helping Hong Kong withstand a slowdown in the United States economy.

"This reflects the healthy expansion in Hong Kong that has translated into the labor market," said David Cohen, an economist at Action Economics in Singapore. "It should be supportive to consumer spending."

Total employment jumped by 12,900 from a month earlier to a record 3.51 million. The number of unemployed slipped by 7,200 to 161,700, the lowest in more than five years, the report said.

The Brunswick Purchasing Mangers' Index, a gauge of economic activity in Hong Kong, climbed to 56.3 in November, the highest in three years. The index of employment rose to an eight-month high of 54.3, suggesting companies may step up hiring in coming months.

A tighter labor market has forced employers to raise salaries to keep workers and attract new ones. Wages rose 3.3 percent in the third quarter - an increase that may start to feed into inflation, economists said.

"Labor costs may push prices higher in the next two years," said Vivian Chiu, an economist at UBS AG in Hong Kong. Still, inflation "isn't a big crisis at the moment."

Hong Kong's consumer prices climbed one percent last year, the first annual increase since 1998. The government forecasts inflation will accelerate to two percent this year.

On November 21, the government raised its forecast for economic growth this year to 6.5 percent from as much as five percent previously, partly because of rising domestic demand. The economy expanded 6.8 percent in the third quarter.

The city has created about 311,000 new jobs since unemployment peaked at 8.6 percent in July 2003, the government estimates. The benchmark Hang Seng index almost doubled in the same period, breaking 19,000 for the first time last month.

As a result, residents are spending more on everything from clothes to transport. Sa Sa International Ltd, Hong Kong's biggest cosmetics retailer, on November 30 said first-half profit climbed 11 percent as sales jumped.

HONG Kong's jobless rate fell for a fifth straight month in November to the lowest in almost six years, helping sustain the longest economic expansion in a decade, the government said yesterday.

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for the three months ended November declined to 4.4 percent from 4.5 percent in October, the government said on its Website. That was the lowest since January 2001 and matched the median estimate of 13 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.

Banks, transport companies and retailers have stepped up hiring as the special administrative region piggybacked on booming growth on the Chinese mainland. Rising wages, and soaring stock and property prices are underpinning consumer confidence, helping Hong Kong withstand a slowdown in the United States economy.

"This reflects the healthy expansion in Hong Kong that has translated into the labor market," said David Cohen, an economist at Action Economics in Singapore. "It should be supportive to consumer spending."

Total employment jumped by 12,900 from a month earlier to a record 3.51 million. The number of unemployed slipped by 7,200 to 161,700, the lowest in more than five years, the report said.

The Brunswick Purchasing Mangers' Index, a gauge of economic activity in Hong Kong, climbed to 56.3 in November, the highest in three years. The index of employment rose to an eight-month high of 54.3, suggesting companies may step up hiring in coming months.

A tighter labor market has forced employers to raise salaries to keep workers and attract new ones. Wages rose 3.3 percent in the third quarter - an increase that may start to feed into inflation, economists said.

"Labor costs may push prices higher in the next two years," said Vivian Chiu, an economist at UBS AG in Hong Kong. Still, inflation "isn't a big crisis at the moment."

Hong Kong's consumer prices climbed one percent last year, the first annual increase since 1998. The government forecasts inflation will accelerate to two percent this year.

On November 21, the government raised its forecast for economic growth this year to 6.5 percent from as much as five percent previously, partly because of rising domestic demand. The economy expanded 6.8 percent in the third quarter.

The city has created about 311,000 new jobs since unemployment peaked at 8.6 percent in July 2003, the government estimates. The benchmark Hang Seng index almost doubled in the same period, breaking 19,000 for the first time last month.

As a result, residents are spending more on everything from clothes to transport. Sa Sa International Ltd, Hong Kong's biggest cosmetics retailer, on November 30 said first-half profit climbed 11 percent as sales jumped.

By Ian Lamont on Mon, 12/18/2006 - 12:28pm
Last week for the Computerworld Weekly I/O podcast, I interviewed James Zhang, vice president of human resources for Achievo. This Silicon Valley company has capitalized on Western and Japanese firms' interest in outsourcing software development work to China, where costs are cheaper. Zhang told me the privately held company has grown rapidly since being founded several years ago, and now has more than one thousand employees in North America, Europe, Japan, and Asia.

However, the competition for talented developers in Asia has led to high turnover in some cities. Achievo's strategy for recruiting and retaining developers in China includes setting up partnerships with universities and training institutes across China, in addition to Beijing and other economic centers, where competition and costs are higher. The institutions that have already partnered with Achievo include:

Beijing ACEIT Training Institute
Beijing Information Technology Institute
Hunan Vocational College of Science and Technology
Shenzhen University
Zhuhai College of Jilin University
While industry-academic partnerships are nothing new, they are a first for some of the institutions approached by Achievo, and also entail alterations to the curriculum for those students who are interested in working for Achievo after graduation. A transcript of a portion of my interview with Zhang follows:

Computerworld: Achievo has a very interesting HR strategy, to find talent in China. You've created a series of partnerships with local training institutes and universities. Can you describe generally how these partnerships work?

Zhang: My plan is to strategically select some partner, mapping [to where] we have operations in China. Because China is so big. You cannot really [depend on] just one university to supply [talent] from North to South, from East to West. People have a different regions, [and] styles, and ... habits, so they probably want to live and work close to their [home] region. We have four universities lined up with us, and we have one training institution lined up with us. Then the schools will specifically tailor some courses for the people who are interested in working for Achievo for the long term. So those students will be having some courses being switched to what we like them to have. And then they will take an internship to come to our company to work for us for several months, [to work toward their] graduation, their essays or final papers. We need to do the interviews to see who will be qualified, and then they will join Achievo. So there's progress, and a program set up.

Computerworld: Why bother doing this? Can't you just put an advertisement in the local newspaper, saying that you are looking for talented people? Or use other channels, like an H.R. agency to find people?

Zhang: Well, the [personnel] strategy needs to match the long-term growth of the company. The company is growing very fast, and doing very well. The university program is specifically targeting entry level engineers, which from cost-competitiveness and also from the supply pool, this will be the best source that we can get candidates.

Computerworld: How many graduates from these training institutes and universities will Achievo be able to recruit in your plan?

Zhang: We are looking for probably several hundred that we will need to hire next year from the university program.

Computerworld: So have you been able to hire anyone so far, or you really just got this off the ground?

Zhang: Yes. I think we have recruited close to a hundred [people] already through two universities and one training institute. And there are two more [programs] that we have set up, and one more [program] that will be finalized in a two-week timeframe.

There are many types of job seekers, and knowing which you¡¯re recruiting for can make your job attracting the right applicants and getting them through to the offer process much easier. Here¡¯s a profile of 3 major types.

The High Maintenance Job Seeker
High maintenance job seekers tend to increase when the stakes are higher. These might be for senior talent or leadership positions. In fact, it¡¯s perfectly appropriate for these job seekers to be higher maintenance ¨C there¡¯s more on the line for both the employee and the company.

The high maintenance job seeker is marked by the need for more attention, more information, more interview time, more decision making time, and more negotiation. The reason for the extra time is simple ¨C money is not as important. When a senior talent or leader is thinking of joining your organization, the employer brand, culture and peer group are exponentially more important. It takes time for a person to decide if the employer brand is real and if the employees that surround them will match the personal needs of the job seeker.

By tailoring your recruiting strategy to the high maintenance job seeker for the appropriate positions, you¡¯ll be more able to understand their unique wants and needs and have more success in converting them to employees.

The Habitual Job Seeker
Being a habitual job seeker is not necessarily a bad thing. Most of these people should probably be consultants, but not all of them may qualify. At the lower levels of employment and maybe at the senior levels, habitual job seekers may not be desirable. At the lowest level it may not actually matter, but you don¡¯t really want to train receptionists and administrative assistants on an ongoing basis. Similarly with senior leadership positions, they will need enough time to execute on their strategy and see it successful.

In the middle tier, there might be need for short and mid term employees for specific projects or to act as turnaround agents. These are the perfect spots for habitual job seekers. They enjoy new challenges and get bored easily if they don¡¯t constantly try new things. Occasionally you¡¯ll find a habitual job seeker that is worth hanging on to (in fact there are many out there who are wonderful ¨C they just have commitment problems). This is where your recruiting department¡¯s partnership with talent management is critical. Transferring these employees from project to project or allowing them a growth path unrestricted by manager¡¯s desires to ¡°hold on¡± to them can give you the benefits of these employees for a much longer time.

What¡¯s important about the habitual job seeker is that the work is important, but not the employer brand, culture, or other employees.

The Indifferent Job Seeker
The indifferent job seeker may be the most problematic. Even with alternatives where high degrees of employer brand exist, the indifferent job seeker is really looking for the highest wage. This employee is hard to engage and will easily choose to leave when a better wage opportunity exists. Identifying and avoiding these types of job seekers early in the process and certainly before you offer them a job will save you much headache in the future.

Experience and education are the two pieces of information that most recruiters use to determine whether someone is a fit for a job. These two measures are easy to understand, widely accepted and easy to communicate. They are perfect measures of a likelihood that someone will be able to do a great job. Except for the fact that, in the Creative Age, they don't work.

Regardless of which age it is, it is hard to describe all the factors that go into deciding whether someone is a good fit for a job: personal factors, relative maturity, diversity of background in experience, comfort with learning, flexibility and openness to change and reaction in difficult situations are all important. None of them can be described by looking at a diploma or a resume.

In the Creative Age, a person's ability to create / produce under highly unique and individualized situations is the single most critical factor in deciding whether someone can produce in your situation. So how do you determine this if you can't use experience and education? A portfolio.

Artists of all types have been using portfolios to show their ability since before the renaissance. It's now time to expand that concept to all candidates. When I talk with someone about a project management job, or a software engineering job, or even an administrative job, I ask them for examples of their work. I am always very specific with them: don't share something that is proprietary or confidential. If they say they don't have any examples I ask them what kinds of work they have done in the past. No matter the type of work, they always have some example somewhere. Once you lead them through how to ¡°clean out¡± any confidential data (take out names, dates, descriptors, etc.) they can usually come up with a great portfolio.

Once you have the portfolio in hand, you need to review each piece while asking behavioral questions about each piece:

1 - Describe the situation in which you did this work. What was the specific outcome that was demanded? By who? What specification or instructions did they give you?
2 - Who did you work with on this project? Describe at least one conflict that happened during this project and what it was about. How did you resolve it? Where is that exhibited in this work you have given me?

And so on. Use the portfolio as a way to guide the discussion. Finally, ask for references that can verify that the candidate did the work.

The information you get out of a portfolio and subsequent question session will be much more valuable than simple statements about education and experience.

couple of weeks ago in The Job Search Obstacle Course, we discussed how difficult it can be for job candidates to find the right type of recruiter. There are several different categories of recruiters out there, and if you¡¯re working with the wrong type, your search is going to encounter some problems.

The situation for recruiters isn¡¯t all that different. There are various types of candidates out there, and different tactics need to be employed to successfully recruit each one. Systematic HR recently provided an overview of their ¡°3 major types¡± of job candidates and how to recruit each one:

¡±The high maintenance job seeker is marked by the need for more attention, more information, more interview time, more decision making time, and more negotiation. The reason for the extra time is simple ¨C money is not as important¡­

¡±In the middle tier, there might be need for short and mid term employees for specific projects or to act as turnaround agents. These are the perfect spots for habitual job seekers. They enjoy new challenges and get bored easily if they don¡¯t constantly try new things. Occasionally you¡¯ll find a habitual job seeker that is worth hanging on to (in fact there are many out there who are wonderful ¨C they just have commitment problems)¡­

¡±The indifferent job seeker may be the most problematic¡­Identifying and avoiding these types of job seekers early in the process and certainly before you offer them a job will save you much headache in the future.¡±

Once you know the type of candidate you¡¯re working with, you¡¯ll have a much better idea of how to successfully recruit them and match them to the right job. But how do you know exactly which category they fall into? Slowly but surely, recruiters and hiring managers are realizing that the simple resume doesn¡¯t quite do it any more:

¡±Artists of all types have been using portfolios to show their ability since before the renaissance. It¡¯s now time to expand that concept to all candidates. When I talk with someone about a project management job, or a software engineering job, or even an administrative job, I ask them for examples of their work.¡±
(From Simply Hired)

Recruiters should have the same advantages as hiring authorities. They should have access to candidates¡¯ ¡°portfolios¡± before committing their time and energy to the recruiting process. With a fuller representation of a candidate¡¯s history, education, skills, etc. it will be much easier to identify which type of candidate they are, and it will make recruiting them or choosing not to recruit them a much faster and more effective process.

In this ¡°flat¡± world, you gain competitive advantage by capturing the best talent, wherever they are. In Indiana or India. Gone are the days when recruiting was an administrative activity. Now it needs to be repositioned as a strategic weapon. You need to remove the gloves. Attack. And counter-attack.

Leading global recruiting strategist Dr. John Sullivan will show you how. His aggressive presentation includes topics like:

Why "but we are different" is no longer a valid excuse
How to use talent poaching to disarm competitors
How to identify, improve and build these capabilities
How to prioritize internal recruitment needs and external recruitment opportunities
How to block your employees from being poached
Get ready for an experience that will challenge your ideas about recruiting and turn you into a winner in the global war for talent.

Dec.18 - China next year is to introduce 30,000 overseas specialists that the country is most in need of but also is in great shortage, according to the Ministry of Personnel.

"The government is to fund the introduction of 10,000 economic and technical specialists and 20,000 educational, health and scientific specialists in 2007," said Minister of Personnel Zhang Bolin.

Zhang said China should further explore international intelligence resources which has provided strong support to the country's overall development.

China has recruited a total of 400,000 specialists from overseas, Hong Kong and Macao special administrative regions and Taiwan, and has dispatched nearly 40,000 qualified personnel to study overseas.

The Chinese government will fund 10,000 Chinese talents to go and study overseas in 2007, Zhang said.

He calls for more preferential policies for returning students from overseas study so as to draw more Chinese students back to the motherland.

Since 1978, more than 400,000 Chinese students have studied abroad, with more than 100,000 returning to the country over the last two decades.

Official statistics show that government scholarships have allowed 26,658 Chinese to go and study overseas since 1996, and 97 percent of them returned to China after completing study.

Most students go to top notch universities and research institutes in the United States, Great Britain, Germany, Australia and Canada.

Just because the job market is a good one doesn't mean you can or should get cocky about getting the job you want. If you want some control over your opportunities, consider this next section your homework¡ªit's advice employers¡ªthe people who are recruiting and hiring¡ªoffer. Most of the following sounds like common sense, but you might be surprised by the number of job candidates who blow off these details (and employers can tell which students/new graduates have taken their advice seriously).

Research
Take 60 minutes, go online, and learn everything you can about any company you might want to work for. Your goal is to be able to articulate how you will be a good fit within the company. If you have trouble putting your research into words, ask a career services counselor for help.

Experience
Do you know what you want to do? An internship or co-op experience (or several of these positions) on your resume will tell an interested employer that you've tested your career up close and you've learned some of the basics of the workplace. Almost three-quarters of employers say they prefer to hire students who have relevant work experience, and a little less than a fifth of employers said they are willing to consider any type of real-workplace experience.

If you're an underclassman, line up your experience as early in your college career as possible (go to your career center for leads on internships and co-op positions). Some employers recommend getting that first internship during your freshman year so that you get to know a company well and have your "foot in the door" at graduation!

Prepare
Employers rate the influence of attributes when choosing between two equally qualified candidates Attributes Rating
Has held leadership position 4.0
Major 4.0
High GPA (3.0 or above) 3.7
Has been involved in extracurricular activities (clubs, sports, student government, etc.) 3.7
Has done volunteer work 3.2
School attended 3.0
(5-point scale, where 1=no influence at all, 2=not much influence, 3=somewhat of an influence, 4=very much influence, and 5=extreme influence)
You'd think getting organized and ready to apply for jobs would come naturally, but it doesn't. Just because you learned to write a nice thank-you note in sixth grade or put together a rudimentary resume in "career class" in high school doesn't mean you have the skills to crank out the appropriate cover letters or build resumes that attract employers. Among the skills you need to learn in college include:

how to write a cover letter that markets you to employers.
how to compose a well-written, error-free resume that articulates your skills and course work as a match for the company and position.
how to interview and explain the value you can bring to a potential employer.
Take advantage of the resources on your campus provided by the career center. Trained, professional staff are available to guide you through the process and teach you how to take the various steps in the process with success. Plus, these career counselors know the employers¡ªthey work with them on a regular basis¡ªand can put you in touch with the organizations where you'd like to work.

Don't be fooled. A career counselor won't find you a job or "place" you in a position. They're on campus to teach you something more important: the tools and contacts to successfully find a job today¡ªand in the future when you're looking for your second, third, or 10th position!

Research, experience, and preparation: If you have these, you won't need "good luck" to be successful in your job search.

STRIKING union members battling Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co took their picket lines to about 150 tire retailers in the United States and Canada on Saturday.

They decided to take their case over health care and retirement benefits directly to consumers.

In Lincoln, Nebraska, 50 United Steelworkers' members protested at two Goodyear retailers, decrying the company's use of replacement workers during the two-month strike.

"We know what it takes to build tires, and unskilled workers just can't do it," said Gary Schaefer, 54, vice president of the United Steelworkers' Local 286 in Lincoln. "We do not want the general public riding their lives on temporary workers."

Goodyear spokesman Ed Markey said the protests do not affect plans to return to the bargaining table in Pittsburgh today for the first time since talks broke down on November 17.

"Our goal in the negotiations remains the same, and that is to reach a fair agreement that enables us to be competitive and win with our customers," he said.

The company's temporary workers are qualified and received the same training as all new employees, Markey said. "Goodyear will never compromise quality."

About 15,000 workers are on strike at 12 US and four Canadian plants.

Goodyear workers went on strike on October 5 after talks broke down on a new contract.

Since the strike began, Goodyear has been making tires at some of its North American plants with non-union and temporary workers, as well as some managers, and relying on production at its international plants to help supply home customers.

In suburban Pittsburgh, more than 80 people handed out fliers and urged holiday shoppers driving past a Goodyear service center to honk in support of employees.

Leo Gerard, USW international president, said the protests were intended to inform consumers about treatment by Goodyear, including plans to slash health care and retirement benefits.

MORGAN Stanley has given Chief Executive Officer John Mack the biggest bonus for the head of a Wall Street firm, awarding him US$40 million as the company headed for the best profit in its 71-year history.

Mack, 62, was granted shares valued at US$36.2 million, and about US$4 million in options to buy Morgan Stanley shares, Bloomberg News reported yesterday.

Seven other top executives in the company were given bonuses of more than US$57 million.

The payout for Mack, 44 percent more than Morgan Stanley awarded him last year, eclipses the US$38.3 million given in 2005 to Henry Paulson, CEO of Goldman Sachs Group Inc.

Shares in Morgan Stanley, the second-biggest United States securities firm by market value, are recording their best year for investors since 2003 after Mack put the firm on course for record earnings.

"You expect performance to be reflected in the compensation," said Laura Thatcher, an Atlanta-based partner in charge of the executive-compensation practice at law firm Alston & Bird.

"You're talking about staggeringly big companies with huge market caps and huge performance."

Shares of Morgan Stanley have gained 40 percent this year and closed yesterday at US$79.60, giving the company a market value of US$84.2 billion.

The firm may report next week that full-year profit rose 41 percent to US$6.98 billion, the average estimate in a Bloomberg survey of 10 analysts.

Mack, who's also chairman, received his entire bonus in stock and options, Morgan Stanley said. Last year, he declined a US$28 million bonus because he had worked at Morgan Stanley for only five months.

He accepted a pro-rata payout of US$11.5 million in stock and also received a US$337,534 salary.

Lehman Brothers, the fourth-biggest US securities firm, earlier this week said Chief Executive Richard Fuld received US$10.9 million in stock for 2006, down from US$14.9 million last year.

Mack, who left Morgan Stanley in 2001 when he was president, returned in June 2005 as the board's choice to revive a firm bruised by a battle with dissident shareholders.

Some of Morgan Stanley's top executives, including President Stephan Newhouse and Vikram Pandit, abandoned then-CEO Philip Purcell during the dispute and dozens of other bankers and traders quit.

Since Mack joined, Morgan Stanley has fired more than 1,000 underperforming brokers, made acquisitions to bolster the firm's energy, fixed-income and hedge fund businesses and created new incentives to keep top employees.

Screening techniques honed in developing markets provide valuable lessons for talent management everywhere. Originally, the push for screening in the developing markets was driven by the multinationals, but now local employers are increasingly recognizing the need for background screening.
By Fay Hansen --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The White House sent Steve Casteel to Iraq for two years to recruit 200 people to rebuild the Interior Ministry under the Coalition Provisional Authority. In Iraq and in his previous position as chief of intelligence for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Casteel learned how to screen candidates in Latin America and the Middle East.

"Recruiting in Iraq is not that different from recruiting in Jordan or Egypt, or China, for that matter," Casteel says. "You can use any databases that are available--military and police data, for example--but in the end you have to rely on local contacts to research an applicant¡¯s reputation and history in the community. You can¡¯t just use a Western approach."

Casteel is now senior vice president for international business development at Vance International Inc., an investigation and security consulting firm based in Oakton, Virginia, with 3,200 employees worldwide. His approach to screening and background checks will become increasingly relevant as globalization accelerates in 2007 and corporations pursue a broader mix of geographies and less familiar locations.

Business reports indicate that companies will continue the trend toward staffing new facilities with local nationals instead of expatriates.

"Multinationals have found that they can reduce costs and eliminate many problems by hiring locals," Casteel notes. "Shell, for example, has moved to local hiring in Nigeria."

As Shell has discovered in Nigeria, however, recruiting in the developing nations requires extreme due diligence.

"By far, the biggest risk in recruiting in less-developed markets is corruption, most likely in the form of political corruption but also, in some locations, organized crime," Casteel reports.

In 2005 alone, Shell Nigeria investigated 74 cases of employee fraud and ethics violations, ending in the dismissal of 24 career and contractor staff, warning letters to 49 employees and delisting for six contractors. In addition to the recruiting difficulties that arise from corruption among candidates and employees, Shell is also plagued by local scam artists who make bogus offers of employment at Shell Nigeria and then shake down job seekers for money or personal financial information.

Digging deeper
"The biggest weakness among companies that are recruiting in the developing countries is their lack of knowledge about the local market and their willingness to rely entirely on cheap background checks," says Bob Sikellis, managing director and associate general counsel at Vance. "In the U.S., the quality of standard pre-employment screening is good enough for entry-level positions. But outside the U.S., the quality is abysmal. The databases are simply not available."

Instead, companies must develop the capacity for deeper pre-employment investigations, often working with local partners. Even then, the company must know which local security companies do quality work.

"In Iraq, there are 52 security companies, and you need one that has local operations in the city where you need to recruit," Casteel notes.

"Companies need to be very cautious and do full due diligence on the security companies they choose to work with," Casteel says. "Just because a local vendor seems to take a Western approach and shows up in a business suit does not mean you will get high-quality work. This is true anywhere."

The client company should ask the security firm exactly what information they will provide.

"And, as the Hewlett Packard case demonstrates, the security firm should also explain exactly how they will get that information," Sikellis says.

The fact that negligent hiring lawsuits are uncommon abroad does not reduce the need to screen applicants carefully.

"To focus on the potential for negligent hiring lawsuits or other legal actions is a dangerously narrow approach," Sikellis says. "Outside of the U.S., the ability to remove employees is so limited that you want to be extremely careful about who you hire. In many countries, a company that removes an employee faces long unemployment payments and other significant costs."

Local demand
Originally, the push for screening in the developing markets was driven by the multinationals, but now local employers are increasingly recognizing the need for background screening, according to Chuck Papageorgiou, executive vice president of international services for First Advantage, a risk mitigation and business solutions provider. The company, based in St. Petersburg, Florida, employs 4,500 people, with 1,200 outside the U.S. devoted to employee screening.

Papageorgiou reports that screening by local employers in the developing markets has accelerated during the past three years, driven by different factors in each country. In India, for example, the rise of diploma mills has generated a new focus on education credentialing.

In other developing countries, concerns about cyber-crime, corruption and terrorism have spurred local employers to institute screening policies along with the multinationals that operate there.

In addition, developing-market BPO providers that work for financial institutions must screen applicants to meet their contractual obligations.

"Some of the contracts are very explicit," Papageorgiou says. "This is spreading to other industries, especially design firms and manufacturers with high-value intellectual property. Also, more companies are screening all management applicants because they see credentialing managers as very important."

India¡¯s outsourcing industry has been rocked by cases of data theft and fraud. KPMG¡¯s 2006 survey on fraud in India reports high levels of deception in CVs, fueled by unethical practices at placement agencies. In March 2006, Wipro cleaned house after discovering major screening shortcomings in the placement agencies it used.

The National Association of Software and Service Companies, the trade group representing the Indian IT software and services industry, launched a national skills registry in early 2006 that provides information on employees¡¯ backgrounds. Job candidates authorize release of the information to employers.

Papageorgiou does believe that other nations will soon follow with the same level of self-policing.

"But we are seeing professional associations in some countries building membership rosters, and we can work with this information to verify certifications," he says.

According to Papageorgiou, companies in India are also plagued by scammers posing as recruiters who demand money and personal financial information from job seekers.

In both India and China, candidates and employers can no longer rely entirely on familiar village contacts to make recommendations. Dramatic increases in worker mobility in recent years leave candidates and employers more vulnerable fraudulent practices

Living with limitations
In some countries, full accurate screening is simply not possible.

"We deem screening in these countries as ¡®nonreliable¡¯ for background information," Papageorgiou says. "The limits on the amount of information available about candidates may enter into site location discussions, and some companies may decide that they cannot expand into these areas."

"There are many ways to get information in many countries if you are willing to break the law, which we are not," Papageorgiou says. "We advise clients of these restrictions and then use research teams to gather as much information as possible on criminality, for example. The key is to make sure that the client is well aware of the limitations."

In India, the crime rate is relatively low and some information is available about most job applicants.

"If all the education and employment checks are clean, it is highly likely that the candidate is clean," Papageorgiou says. "In other locations, a clean check may not mean the same thing."

In China, educational and professional qualifications, employment history and employment performance history can be secured, but criminal record checks are more difficult.

First Advantage is developing statistical models that provide some indication of the probability of criminal records and other negative factors for specific groups of applicants. These models are in place in some locations and in development for others.

First Advantage abandoned the idea of screening candidates abroad from offices in the U.S., and now has offices staffed with its own employees in the Philippines, Singapore, China, Japan, India, New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the United Arab Emirates. It will open an office in South Korea by the end of 2006 and new offices in Europe, Africa and the Middle East in 2007.

The international portion of First Advantage¡¯s screening services now represents 25 percent to 30 percent of its total screening revenues. The company expects 20 percent growth in the international portion in 2007.

"In this industry, it is extremely expensive to have a physical presence on a worldwide basis, but there is a competitive advantage in expanding our international presence," Papageorgiou says. "In addition, the market for screening is relatively saturated in the U.S.; the real growth in screening is abroad."

For clients, the biggest advantage in using screening firms that have a physical presence overseas is speed and more control over compliance. Also, firms with offices abroad may be more effective in managing costs because they utilize their own staff and operations.

In any developing market, screening must be tailored for the specific risk level, legal environment and infrastructure, and executives should be aware of any limitations.

"When a company moves into a new location, it must develop a market-entry strategy," Sikellis says.

"Recruiting should be part of the discussion and HR should have a seat at the table." Sikellis says. "HR executives need to analyze the personnel risks and maintain a close relationship with legal counsel while they do this."

The Job Outlook survey is a forecast of hiring intentions of employers as they relate to new college graduates. Each year, the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) surveys its employer members about their hiring plans and other employment-related issues.

From mid-August through October 4, 2006, NACE collected data for the Job Outlook 2007 survey. The survey was provided to 1,137 members; there were a total of 267 usable surveys, a 23.5 percent response rate. This report focuses largely on the results of that survey.

Of those responding, 52.4 percent were service sector employers, 37.8 percent were manufacturers, and 9.7 percent were government/nonprofit employers. In addition, 38.6 percent of respondents were from the South, 25.5 percent were from the Midwest, 21.7 percent were from the Northeast, and the remaining 14.2 percent were from the West.

Job Outlook 2007 Spring Update (data collected late March through early April) will offer a final update on hiring for 2006-07 graduates. Results will be available in mid-April.

BEIJING, Dec. 15 - For years, China's stock market was an anomaly: the economy was going one way up and it was going in the opposite direction.

This year, it seems it can't wait to catch up gaining a staggering 94 per cent and becoming one of the best performing markets in the world in 2006 mainly because of successful security reforms.

Yesterday, the market hit a historic high: the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index rose 1.15 per cent to close at 2249 points, passing the previous intra-day high of 2245 on June 14, 2001.

Turnover of Shanghai A shares was a heavy 36.88 billion yuan (4.67 billion U.S.dollars).

The Shenzhen Composite Index yesterday closed at 6044.28 points, up 71.80 points from the previous day. It has more than doubled since the beginning of this year.

"Factors like the steadily growing economy, a series of reforms in the capital market, and massive capital inflows into the mainland will see the stock market embracing a 'golden decade'," said a report in Shanghai-based Orient Securities. "The index is expected to break 3000 points in 2007," it added.

In May last year, the central government embarked on an ambitious reform to convert non-tradable shares worth as much as US$250 billion to tradable ones.

"Now for the first time, the stock market is able to reflect China's booming economy. It proves the ongoing securities reform has fundamentally changed the stock market from a gambling house to a normally functioning market based on true value", said Li Yongsen, a professor at Renmin University of China.

With the bulls clearly on the ascendant, analysts point out that massive inflows of new money into the market make it hard to foresee when the rally will stop.

"With such excessive liquidity, the index is likely to continue to climb, and there is no clear sign it will end in the short term," said Zhang Qi, an analyst with Haitong Securities.

The rise of A shares yuan-denominated mainland stocks has tempted many blue chips originally listed overseas to come back to the home market.

China Life Insurance, the nation's biggest life insurer, has applied to issue A shares worth as much as 25.5 billion yuan (3.23 billion dollars) in Shanghai. The offer will likely make the company the second largest public offering in the A-share market after Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the country's biggest lender.

The bullish market has allowed many ordinary Chinese to share the profits from the economic boom for the first time.

"The rise is just crazy. Many of my friends have doubled their money by investing in stocks or mutual funds this year. I also want to put some money in the market," said Li Yan who works for a law firm.

by: (ContentDesk) ¡ª With the busy hiring season just ahead, now is the time to think about preparing for the interviewthat can land you the job you want in 2006. To get that coveted offer, the interview must be considered one of the most important steps in the hiring process to create a relationship with a potential employer. With the right preparation, qualified candidates can take the driver¡¯s seat and position themselves as the top pick for the position.

Jill Donnelly, president of CareerWomen.com advises, Practice, practice, practice. Many questions, such as those inquiring about your experience and qualifications, should be expected. By creating the right storyline to anticipated questions, your delivery will sound natural and confident. Remember, if you are qualified, the interview is where you can win or lose the game. To get the job you want, CareerWomen.com¡¯s top five tips to impress interviewers are:

1. Be the qualified candidate

Know why you are qualified for the position by matching your experience to the specific requirements of the job ahead of the interview. By offering examples that match your qualifications to the exact position, the interview will be a breeze for you.

2. Prepare by doing your homework

Do your homework on the company as well as the position. Get up to date on the company¡¯s current business issues so you can address any questions about direction and opportunity. Develop a list of questions prior to the interview to demonstrate your interest and curiosity about the company.

3. Speak with confidence

This is not the time to by shy and timid. Be confident about your professional accomplishments and talk about your results. Talk about yourself through your previous employer¡¯s words to give your claims needed validation. If you have some work samples you are proud of that are related to the position, why not show them off?

4. Act like a professional

This may seem like common sense, but you¡¯ll be surprised how many people forget this completely. Common courtesies will take you a long way at setting the right professional impression. For example, dress appropriately for the position, be sure to turn off the cell phone and most importantly, be on time!

5. Be a good communicator

Listen and be appropriately enthusiastic. Listen to the questions before you answer. If you interrupt, it could send a warning flag that you are not interested. Lean forward, listen carefully and be sure to make direct eye contact.

Additional resources to enhance professional development and advance women¡¯s careers can be found at http://www.CareerWomen.comincluding career development tools, career and employment news, professional associations and employment opportunities across the US with some of the best women-friendly companies.

What is the actual shape of the recruitment market in China?
What you have to understand first is that twenty years ago there was no recruiting market in China. The government allocated all jobs. Then, when China began to embrace free enterprise, the local recruitment market started to develop. But at that time, employers still mainly used referrals and job fairs as sourcing channels: they were the traditional government channels.
Suddenly, after 1990, there was a rapid rise in the number of job seekers, and at that time, new sourcing channels appeared. Today, job seekers can choose between many different channel types as Online recruiting, executive search agency, news papers, job fairs ect.
Not only foreign ventures, but also local HR service companies face a booming market. To use a popular Chinese expression to describe a market with such a great potential, I would say that the recruiting market in China is quite a "big cake." I believe the size of China¡¯s recruiting market will reach to over $1 billion in 2006.

How did the first recruitment agencies appear?
Once the Chinese door have been opened on the outside world, the big cities and business centers as Beijing or Shanghai have quickly attracted foreign companies -- giant corporations as well as small start-ups. All those companies need to recruit, and so need professional HR agencies to help them source their ideal personnel and build their Chinese HR structure. This is how we first met these clients.
That was specially the case for small "start-up companies", for which competition increased quickly. In the same time, skills and abilities were hard to find. They needed professional recruiting experts to help them improving management team¡¯s quality.

What are the key success factors for non-Chinese multinationals when they start recruiting in China?
First of all, multinational should know that attitude is the vital thing when they start recruiting in China.
Then, they should be prepare to face real shortage of candidates in certain circumstances. Sometimes the war for talent is as fierce as in many parts of the Western countries, although China has a population of 1.3 billion people. Most foreign companies entering into China, have been surprised to find that managers were particularly hard to find.
I think there are four points playing a key role in the success of non-Chinese multinationals when they start recruiting in China:

Get professional recruiting staff in their HR department. That¡¯s very important for a foreign company in China.
Get an effective vendor management system.
Deploy perfect Recruiting tools.
Implement an Internal staffing inspiriting process system.
Is the using of a recruiting technology a good option when recruiting in China?
Yes. Certainly it is.
As skilled managers are in particularly short supply on the Chinese market, attracting good ones can present a special challenge. The truth is that recruiting for any position in China can require a whole new outlook. Usually, recruiters in HR department always aim to decrease costs and increase recruiting quality. For that, an excellent recruiting technology is the vital thing for making the difference and recruits the right staff.
That is why we promote Talent Management Solutions to companies in China.

What is your assessment of the added value brought by recruitment technologies on the Chinese market?
Using Recruitment Technologies, especially when associated with Process Outsourcing, can help recruiters decrease costs and increase working efficiency. For example, in a traditional model, a recruiter has to take a lot of time to filtering resumes from the Internet, mails, job fairs ect. The follow up of candidates¡¯ interviews with line managers is also very time demanding. Recruitment technologies can help recruiters save more time and more money.

What is your vision of the future of recruitment in China?
It is a difficult question: the major fact about our market is its capcaity to change and evolve in a fast fast way. Tomorow can be a totally different thing. Still, I think that in the future, the evolution of the recruitment market in China will be driven by three important sectors:

The quality of candidates
The ability to build efficient recruiting processes,
The ability to integrate technology.

An "adventure" is what Dave McCann calls the quest to recruit and retain good workers in the rapidly changing economy and market in China.

"The opportunities are great, but they create HR challenges," says McCann, who is based in Beijing and has responsibility for HR activities for PricewaterhouseCoopers throughout China. The country may have a population of 1.3 billion people, but there's a war for talent as fierce as in many parts of the Western world, he explains.

Carrie Conlon, director of human resources for Nanjing Interbrew Breweries in Nanjing, says China is undergoing significant changes and wants a market economy. "But they don't have the talent," she explains. "They haven't recognized the need to train people to go into that type of economy.

And managers are particularly hard to find. "The challenge is finding managerial talent," she says. "You can't find a marketing director to save your soul."

The reason: While many Chinese professionals have good technical educations, few have managerial training because in the past managers were promoted based on their political party allegiance. "There never had been any selection criteria; it was not attached to skills," she says.

While managers are in particularly short supply and attracting good ones can present a special challenge, the truth is that recruiting for any position in China can require a whole new outlook. In some cases you may need to rethink what you know about finding and hiring talented workers because, when it comes to recruiting, China has its own particular rules of the road.

Do's and Don'ts

As in other countries, companies operating in China can use campus recruitment, job fairs, newspaper advertisements, search firms, internal referrals and the Internet to search for the right talent. But, "in terms of hiring, there are more than a hundred 'do's and don'ts,'" says P.O. Mak, president of the Hong Kong Institute of Human Resource Management.

"First of all, you have to know where you are and what kind of people you wish to hire. And then, a thorough knowledge of applicable law is important," says Mak.

Given the complexity of the market, Annella Heytens of Watson Wyatt urges U.S. companies to develop a well-thought-out recruitment strategy that spells out screening and interviewing methodology.

"Do not look for the perfect candidate--he or she does not exist," Heytens says. Other mistakes: being inflexible with the benefits package and taking too long to interview or make an offer, in which case, "You may lose a good candidate," she warns.

In addition, she warns not to market the company too optimistically or negatively. "Be realistic when describing the working conditions," she says, because new workers "may not stay too long if you misrepresent the company."

When interviewing, don't be fooled by "a perfect accent and Oxford English," Mak warns. "You still need to probe into values and experience. In the older days, many firms hired people primarily because of language proficiency. Don't do this anymore. I put values first because unfortunately--due to education systems, culture and norms--we tend to see a big gap between 'our' values and 'their' values, and this can make or break a working relationship."

Conlon warns that Chinese interviewees "may not be polished. Be cautious not to make a judgment on that."

Unlike Heytens, Conlon advises conducting several interviews because people in the Chinese culture tend to be less direct than in Western cultures, and they "take a long time to say what they want to say. Bring them back, so they feel comfortable and you get the information you need. Tap into their true potential. The system is not geared to helping people know their own potential."

Michael Colozzi--general manager for Portola Packaging Inc. in Shanghai--agrees. "Everyone I hired on my immediate staff I interviewed five times," he says. "In two cases, I gave people minor assignments to prepare presentations. I tested them. I let everybody know I was extremely serious."

Camille Elliott, who returned from Beijing last year to work as a recruitment manager for PricewaterhouseCoopers in the San Francisco area, also made use of multiple interviews in China. In fact, Elliott would regularly ask a Chinese native and someone from the West to interview and assess a candidate's ability to balance Western and Chinese styles of management. The Chinese management style tends to be very directed, she says, and Chinese managers "tend not to have the coaching skills that you as a Westerner would like to see."

This lack of managerial skills can be overcome, says Colozzi. Chinese managers "don't like to make decisions without having 100 percent of the facts," he explains. "In the United States we're not reluctant. If we make a mistake, we clean up the mess and start again," he says. But he has found that Chinese managers can learn to make direct decisions "and you'll be amazed at how creative they are at solving problems."

Conlon adds that references are easy to obtain in China. "You can call up a previous manager and ask for a reference. People have been pretty open."

Companies are using exit interviews to decrease turnover, often by comparing their results to engagement surveys. They're also finding exit interviews useful in luring ex-employees back.
By Eilene Zimmerman
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

he HR metric of the moment may be employee engagement, but many companies have also placed a new emphasis on employee disengagement by reinventing the exit interview and acknowledging there¡¯s much to be learned from a departing employee. The development and implementation of these surveys is increasingly being outsourced, and the data compared with other workforce surveys.

Vendors that provide these services say demand is rising because outsourced exit interviews are often more comprehensive and strategic than internally devised surveys, which can be incomplete or haphazard. Beth Carvin is CEO of Nobscot, a Web-based software provider whose products include WebExit, which was introduced in 2001. She has seen growth in both the number of her business's clients as well as her revenue of between 20 to 50 percent a year since then. "Exit interviews are the one process that companies haven¡¯t really figured out how to do well," says Carvin.

Like Carvin, Diane Irvin has seen demand for her firm¡¯s exit interview services grow rapidly in the last few years. Irvin, senior vice president for the HR research and consulting firm Strategic Programs, says the Denver-based company has been growing more than 70 percent a year for the past three years, largely due to its exit interview work. "Right now it¡¯s trendy to do employee engagement surveys, but to engage employees you have to understand them. Comparing your exit data to your engagement data helps you do that." Irvin and others in the exit interview business find employees are both more likely to participate and to be more honest when someone unconnected to their employer asks the questions.

Nobscot, Strategic Programs and most other vendors provide clients with detailed reports that correlate responses from departing employees and analyze data, breaking it down by age, seniority, gender and other demographics. The number of questions ranges from about 35 to 70. For larger organizations, the questions are generally quantitative rather than qualitative, although most surveys contain a section for open-ended comment.

Since January, Black & Veatch has been comparing data from its newly designed exit interviews with its workforce engagement surveys in order to accurately gauge how employees feel about their jobs. The engineering consulting firm hopes the information gleaned from its surveys will help senior management find ways to increase employee productivity and, ultimately, profits. The company may discover, for example, that supervisors need a specific kind of training or development to better manage their teams.

Michael Harris, a professor of human resources at the University of Missouri-St. Louis¡¯ College of Business, says that¡¯s a smart move. "Think of your employee as your customer," he says. "Most companies want to measure customer satisfaction, but it¡¯s important to also find out why your customers are leaving."

Black & Veatch changed its old set of exit interview questions--which B.J. Holdnak, vice president of organization effectiveness describes as "kind of hit or miss"--to a standardized survey that identifies high performers and categorizes the reasons they leave. Black & Veatch¡¯s exit survey also tracks demographics. "Are younger people leaving us more often than those with a longer tenure? If so, why? Is it compensation? Their team? The environment? The culture? We are looking for patterns," says Holdnak.

Some of the same questions asked in Black & Veatch¡¯s exit interviews are also asked in their engagement survey, so that the responses of those currently in the workforce can be compared to those who are leaving.

Richard Wellins, a senior vice president at human resources consulting firm DDI, says asking exit interview questions before people actually exit--in engagement surveys--can help a company prevent people from leaving. "The idea is that the questions you ask for a current employee are very similar to what you ask a person who is leaving. For example, on an engagement survey you might ask, ¡®Do you feel you have opportunities to expand your knowledge and learning? Are we meeting your needs for learning and growth?¡¯ and on the exit survey it¡¯s the same questions, only past tense," says Wellins.

Richard Harding, director of research at Kenexa, says this kind of comparison across surveys is relatively new for businesses. "You¡¯re looking not just at why people are leaving, but why they are staying," says Harding. "Then you give your managers actions they can take to keep their people. Just doing exit interviews after someone leaves is like shutting the door after the horse has left the barn."

Expansion plans
Black & Veatch has an aggressive expansion plan in place, a response to dramatic growth in worldwide energy and water markets that began about three years ago. Its work is concentrated in those industries, says Holdnak, and the firm wants to capitalize on the opportunity for growth by hiring people that are a good fit and will stay put.

"We are going to have to increase the number of people we hire and retention is also going to be an issue. If [energy and water] markets are better, people are more likely to jump ship," says Holdnak.

Black & Veatch hasn¡¯t been collecting data long enough to know how it will use the information to make changes, but as the firm grows, a big concern is fostering a globally inclusive corporate culture.

Between 30 and 35 percent of Black & Veatch¡¯s 7,000 employees work outside of the U.S. "Having policies and processes that resonate with employees in different countries across a variety of cultures is a challenge for us and we¡¯re hoping the data we get from these surveys will help us achieve that," says Holdnak.

Increasing participation
Sutter Health, a healthcare network based in Sacramento that serves northern California and Hawaii, overhauled its exit interview process when it developed a nursing retention and recruitment plan four years ago. The data is being used to help stem the turnover of newly hired nurses, which is very high compared to Sutter¡¯s general nursing population, says Diane Lahola, director of workforce planning and retention at the company. Turnover of new nursing school graduates is high throughout the healthcare industry, says Lahola, and Sutter wants to find out "what it will take to create a more satisfactory work environment for nurses, because the cost of turnover is very high and they are difficult to recruit."

Sutter¡¯s affiliates--the members of its network--have been allowed to either internally redesign their exit interviews or contract with third-party vendor Strategic Programs. "It made sense to use a third party because you tend to get better participation rates and more [candid] data," says Lahola. The first year, between 40 and 50 percent of affiliates outsourced exit interviews; this past year 75 percent did. Lahola says for affiliates who conduct the interviews themselves, participation among departing employees is between 0 and 12 percent. With a third party, average participation is about 70 percent.

The new exit surveys give Lahola more accurate information than she had previously. "A lot of times someone will say they are leaving because they are getting more money across town, when the real reason is that you can¡¯t pay them enough to work for their manager," says Lahola.

In an effort to get at the true reasons employees leave, Lahola compares exit data to the data she gets on annual employee opinion surveys. She was surprised to learn this fall, after the most recent opinion survey, that the orientation and assimilation period was a sore spot for new nurses. It wasn't the structure of the orientation program itself. It was other things, such as current employees not being prepared for a new employee¡¯s first day on the job. "Although it wasn¡¯t happening at all our affiliates, I didn¡¯t realize the degree to which this was a problem," says Lahola. "New nurses and other employees would show up for their first day and staff may not have been prepared to orient and assimilate them."

Also surprising was the issue of competitive pay. Employees currently with the organization are actually less satisfied with their pay than those who leave. "That tells me people aren¡¯t leaving because of money," she says. "And I can drill down by affiliates to see where the problem is most acute."

Sutter Health¡¯s affiliates are just starting to make changes based on the exit data. New nurses are now surveyed about their work experience at the 30, 60 and 90-day mark and several affiliates have begun mentor or buddy programs. Another reason nurses were leaving, says Lahola, was a perceived lack of career opportunities, despite the fact that Sutter offers a variety of programs that allow employees to move from one affiliate to another or attend management and leadership programs. "We need to connect the dots better to show employees these opportunities exist," says Lahola. "Now we focus on that in all of our communications."

Sutter does hear from employees in other ways. Hundreds of its employees are currently on strike over a number of issues; the Service Employees International Union has said employees want "a voice in staffing decisions, a training fund and protections for speaking out for patients."

Hiring alumnae
Jeppesen, an Englewood, Colorado company that provides aviation data such as maps and flight plans, redesigned its exit interviews in 2000 with the help of an outside vendor. Information from the exit surveys spurred the company to offer more training for managers and change the way management jobs are posted. "There was a perception here that people got jobs through who they knew rather than what they knew," says Alice DiFraia, the company¡¯s director of human resources and organizational development.

The changes had a profound effect: by 2003, turnover was down to six percent, which was DiFraia¡¯s goal, and the company stopped performing exit interviews. This year, however, turnover began rising again--it¡¯s 12 percent now--and the company has reinstituted the interviews.

Data from exit interviews is also used in less obvious ways. United Risk Partners, for example, a firm that does background checks, is finding that about 40 percent of companies also use it to conduct exit interviews. Craig Lawrence and Marco Confuorto, partners in the suburban Chicago firm, are both trained investigators and use the interviews to gain information about a company that management can¡¯t find on its own. "From a risk management standpoint, you can find out things about sexual harassment, drug and alcohol abuse, intimate relationships and criminal activity," says Lawrence. "To investigate a criminal allegation you would have to hire an investigator to go under cover for a 90- or 120-day investigation. Exit interviews are a way to obtain inside intelligence about operations without having to make those significant investments."

Boomeranging--getting highly valued employees who leave voluntarily to return--can also be facilitated via exit interviews. Exit questions for those employees focus on what it would take to get them to stay. Beth Carvin of Nobscot recalls an insurance company client that was able to do just that. "They called an employee who had left to say, ¡®All the great things you liked about working here are still here, and the things you didn¡¯t like? They are gone.¡¯ They hired this guy back within two weeks," she says.

Richard Harding of Kenexa says because employees sometimes find the grass isn¡¯t necessarily greener at another company, doing exit interviews a few weeks or even months after valued employees leave can help a company find out what it will take to bring them back. Harding says Kenexa asks departing employees if they'd consider returning to the company, and under what conditions. About two-thirds say they would consider returning if the circumstances changed. Often, employees don't say they want more money--they just don't want to work for the same manger.

Finding a new job can be a daunting task. You need to make sure your job search involves positions you're qualified for, but you also want to land a position that pays well and comes with some benefits. And, since it wouldn't hurt to do a job search for companies that treat their employees right, the stakes can be pretty high.

A good job search starts with you. You'll need to do some things in advance before you head out the door to apply or interview. First off you'll want to get your resume in order. Make sure it's accurate and offers a fair representation of your past experiences and qualifications. Keep it as short as possible while not skipping over major details. Next, you'll want to make sure you have your references in order before you conduct a job search. Employers like to hear as well as see that potential hires can do the job.

With your paperwork straight, you can now begin a more thorough job search. Here are five tips to help make that job search go more smoothly:

Evaluate your skills, strengths and weaknesses. Try to match up what you can do and what you're trained to do with ideal positions. Going after the wrong kinds of jobs for your skill set can be an exercise in futility.
Evaluate your desires. If you have a 10-year background in management, you might not want to settle for an entry-level position. Make sure you know what you want and try to find jobs to match not only your qualifications, but also your actual worth. Sometimes this might not be possible, but shoot as close to the mark as you possibly can in your job search.
Narrow searches by location, type of job and pay. You don't want to waste your time going after minimum pay jobs if you're over qualified and vice versa. The more you focus your job search, the less time you'll waste on positions that don't fit the bill. But, do be honest with yourself. If you're only qualified for an entry level, go after one with the notion of building on it for a better career.
Consider skill enhancements. If you're a computer programmer, but you haven't taken a new course in five years, you might want to add a certification or two to your resume before you start your job search. Or, at the very least, have some retraining or advanced training in the works when you start applying.
Use the tools at your fingertips. A good job search covers all the bases. This means those on the hunt look online, in papers, and even in trade magazines to find ideal positions. The more you spread out your search, the better.
There's no magic way to land a position and ensure a job search will be ideal, but the more realistic you are about yourself and you are to yourself during a search, the more likely you are to land the right job. Take time to evaluate where you are in your career and your background and be certain to have all paperwork in order before you begin your job search. With some time and patience and a bit of confidence thrown in, you'll likely have a successful job search.

UK unemployment unexpectedly fell in November by the most in almost two years and wage growth accelerated, adding to the case for higher interest rates, the statistics office said yesterday.

The number of Britons claiming jobless benefits fell by 5,700 to 950,800, the biggest drop since January 2005, the Office for National Statistics said in London. Economists expected unemployment claims to rise by 4,000, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of 30 economists. The claimant count rate of unemployment was unchanged at three percent, Bloomberg News said.

Falling unemployment and bigger wage gains may add to concern that workers will boost pay demands at talks starting next month. Inflation quickened to the fastest pace in at least nine years last month, prompting investors to raise bets on the Bank of England raising interest rates next year.

"The labor market is rebounding strongly and that points to wages picking up," said Raj Gunaratna, an economist at 4Cast Ltd, a research group in London. "The report gives the Bank of England more reasons to hike interest rates."

The pound and interest-rate futures rose on speculation that the central bank will raise its benchmark rate again next year after two increases since August to five percent, a five-year high.

Higher energy bills pushed consumer prices up an annual 2.7 percent in November, the most since the index was introduced in January 1997, the statistics office said.

Wages growth excluding bonuses rebounded to an annual 3.8 percent from August through October from the 3.5 percent gain in the previous period, which was the slowest since July 2003.

UK employees at Ford Motor Co and Rolls Royce Plc, as well as air traffic controllers, are set to receive pay increases of more than four percent, said Ken Mulkearn, the editor of Incomes Data Services.

About 4,200 people working for financial-services companies and law firms in London will get bonuses of more than one million pounds (US$1.97 million) this year, according to the Centre for Economics and Business Research.

Still, an influx of migrant workers and rising unemployment have kept a lid on workers' average pay so far. Around half a million immigrants came to the UK from Eastern Europe last year, keeping wages "subdued," and damping consumer prices, Deputy Governor Rachel Lomax said.

Each year the survey is conducted, employers name the skills and qualities in the "ideal candidate." They also compare their desires to the skills and qualities the current crop of graduates actually possess.

Employers rate the importance of specific qualities/skills Qualities Rating
Communication Skills 4.7
Honesty/integrity 4.7
Interpersonal skills (relates well to others) 4.5
Motivation/initiative 4.5
Strong work ethic 4.5
Teamwork skills (works well with others) 4.5
Computer skills 4.4
Analytical skills 4.3
Flexibility/adaptability 4.3
Detail-oriented 4.2
Organizational skills 4.0
Leadership skills 4.0
Self-confidence 4.0
Friendly/outgoing personality 3.9
Tactfulness 3.9
Well-mannered/polite 3.8
Creativity 3.7
GPA (3.0 or better) 3.6
Entrepreneurial skills/risk-taker 3.3
Sense of humor 3.2
Bilingual skills 2.3
(5-point scale, where 1=not important, 2=not very important; 3=somewhat important; 4=very important, and 5=extremely important)
A good GPA is, of course, important.

Employers look at other attributes, too. In fact, year after year, the number one skill employers say they want to see in job candidates is good communication skills: the ability to write and speak clearly. Unfortunately¡ªin spite of requesting this skill year after year¡ªmany employers also report that college graduates lack good grammar and writing skills.

Employers also want new hires who are honest, have teamwork skills, and have a strong work ethic.

What college candidates lack
Ironically, communication skills not only top employers' list of most-desired skills, but also their list of the skills most lacking in new college graduates.

Many employers reported that students have trouble with grammar, can't write, and lack presentation skills. Poor communication skills are often evident in the interview, where students are unable to articulate, as one employer said, "how what they have done relates to/contributes to the position" they are seeking.

In addition, employers pointed to other skills and attributes that had made their "wish list," and cited those qualities and abilities as lacking in many new college graduates, e.g., relevant work experience, strong work ethic, team work skills, and the like. They also faulted new college graduates for not conducting themselves in a professional manner.

Get experience¡ªand learn how to highlight it on your resume and at your interview
What this means is, you need some real-world experience before graduation. Although you won't learn everything about the workplace with an internship or co-op assignment, you can build many of the skills employers find lacking. An internship, for example, is not just an opportunity to gain experience, but it's also a setting for you to learn professional behavior, learn what it means to work in a team, and practice interpersonal communication. An internship or co-op position helps you see the professional skills employers seek in action¡ªand helps you learn how to fit into the world of work.

Where employers are looking for new graduates
On-campus interviews
Employer's internship program
Employee referrals
Employer's co-op program
Career/job fairs
Job postings on the college web site
Faculty contacts
Job postings on the company web site
Student organizations/clubs
Commercial job boards
Internet resume data bases
Job postings to career offices (printed)
Request resumes from career offices
Recruitment advertising (print)
Newspaper advertising (campus and/or local newspapers)
Career/job fairs(virtual)
Internet banners
Video interviewing

Plus, hands-on experience may lead to a full-time job offer. Employers say they look within their own student programs to recruit new graduates. In addition, many employers said they offer higher salaries to new graduates who have any co-op or internship experience than they do to those who do not have that experience.

Further, practical experience is an element that employers will look for on your resume¡ªwhether it is with their organization or another. While employers prefer "relevant" work experience, having any work experience is better than no work experience. If you get this valuable experience before graduation, you'll have a distinct advantage over job candidates who lack the experience.

NEW YORK (AP) -- The online hangout MySpace got even more popular in November, beating Yahoo in Web traffic for the first time, a research company said Tuesday.

News Corp.'s MySpace recorded 38.7 billion U.S. page views last month, compared with 38.1 billion for Yahoo Inc., according to comScore Media Metrix. MySpace's growth was 2 percent over October and triple the 12.5 billion recorded in November 2005.

The numbers underscore the rapid rise of a social-networking site that encourages visitors to stay and make friends through free tools for messaging, sharing photos and creating personal pages known as profiles.

ComScore warned, however, that a one-month change could represent an aberration. Furthermore, Yahoo's page views could be diminished by the company's growing use of Ajax technology for maps, e-mail and other services.

Ajax is a set of tools that speeds up Web applications by summoning snippets of data as needed instead of pulling entire Web pages over and over.

Yahoo, which last week announced a major reorganization after finding itself repeatedly beat in advertising sales by rival Google Inc., still remains the leader in unique audience, with 130 million visitors in November. (Full story)

"Yahoo continues to be the overall Web audience leader with the largest number of unique users and most time spent online. The page view change in November is related to the use of Ajax and other Web 2.0 technologies across the Yahoo network," Yahoo spokeswoman Nissa Anklesaria said Tuesday.

"These technologies enhance the overall user experience, but do not either generate a page view or qualify to be counted as a page view while the user is engaged with the product," she said,

Fox Interactive Media ranked sixth at 73.8 million, including 57.2 million for MySpace. Unique audience is a measure of how many people visit in any given month; page views reflect how often they come back and how long they stay.

Including other Fox properties such as IGN Entertainment Inc., comScore said Fox had 39.5 billion page views in November. In a statement, Peter Levinsohn, president of Fox Interactive Media, credited strong traffic at game site IGN.com due to the release of Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Co.'s Wii video game consoles.

ComScore had planned to release the numbers Wednesday or Thursday, but word of the figures leaked in an analyst report from UBS Investment Research.

AMERICAN investment bank Jefferies & Co expects to arrange 10 deals worth US$1 billion in transaction value for China-based clients next year, its Vice Chairman Paul Deninger said.

The deals, which include public offerings and stake transactions, compare with six China-related mandates worth US$500 million in transaction value for the past two years, he said. The Chinese clients cover alternative energy, shipping, natural resources and industrials, according to Wei Hopeman, the firm's chief representative in Shanghai.

Last week we introduced what we like to call the job search obstacle course. We¡¯re determined to break down the obstacles that are standing in the way of job candidates, recruiters of all kinds, and hiring managers of every ilk.

We all know that matching the right candidate to the right job involves a lot of jumping through hoops, swinging over moats, and countless other travails for all parties involved. Today, though, we want to focus on one of the major obstacles corporate recruiters have to deal with on a regular basis: hiring managers.

In a perfect world, these two forces would work together for the greater good. Unfortunately it doesn¡¯t always work out that way, and corporate recruiters continue to express their frustration with the folks they¡¯re trying to help. The recent results from a recruiter survey don¡¯t bode too well for anybody:

¡°A total of 80% noted struggles with hiring managers. Fifty percent of the survey respondents indicated that dealing with hiring managers was the biggest problem they faced, while another 30% indicated it was the second- or third-biggest problem they faced. Collectively, these problems had to do with their belief that managers are not strong at assessing competency or recruiting, and that many overvalued skills and experience when determining which candidates to interview.¡± (From Adler Concepts)

While opinions about what is important in a candidate can cause problems, they are problems that seem to relate back to a lack of communication, an issue we continue to see in all aspects of the job search. Sitting Xlegged highlighted this all too common occurrence in their recent list of challenges and frustrations corporate recruiters are forced to face:

¡°I¡¯m in a desperate need to fill my position. When will you send me some candidates? I¡¯m dying here.

¡°Don¡¯t you just love getting calls like this from hiring managers who spent a month creating their requisition and the day it opens they expect results from you? Three words: communication, partnership, and service.¡±

Some of the obstacles standing between corporate recruiters and hiring managers may never quite disappear. But if we can create a space for these two groups to communicate effectively with each other and with job candidates they might remember that ultimately they want the same thing: to effectively match the right person to the right job.

The assumption that "sales is sales" and that previous experience, a clean r¨¦sum¨¦ and a great appearance are the primary predictors of success often leads to recruiting mistakes that can cause high turnover and ineffective sales teams.
"What we know is that the traditional process results in failure three out of four times, and nobody likes it," says Alan Fendrich, president of Advanced Hiring Systems, a sales selection consulting firm based in Norfolk, Virginia. "There are lots of people who look and act like salespeople, but they don¡¯t sell because money doesn¡¯t motivate them."

Herb Greenberg, president and CEO of Caliper, a human capital consulting firm based in Princeton, New Jersey, says that interviewing alone will not expose experienced candidates who continue to be ill-suited for jobs in sales. Nor will it uncover the prospective rising star who has no previous experience.

"You can¡¯t assess sales people by asking questions during an interview that produce socially acceptable answers and then figure out what this crazy, neurotic human being is all about," Greenberg says.

Fendrich says that the key to success starts not with a review of experience, but with a look at the motivation and the psychological makeup of the candidate.

Hire for Behaviors
There are numerous providers of behavioral profiles that measure traits such as ego drive, empathy, confidence, sociability, helpfulness, thoroughness and problem solving, all of which are personality traits that are required in varying degrees based upon the sales position and the company.

Greenberg, a former psychology professor, says that several methodologies are used to develop a behavioral profile customized for each company and position. The assessment is administered to sales staff who are exceeding, meeting or performing below expectations. The scores produce the necessary data to build a behavioral-traits profile that correlates to performance.

Once the traits of the top performers are gathered, Greenberg suggests job shadowing sales reps as well as interviewing sales managers and human resources staff to build consensus as to the actual job description, the performance requirements and the best personality match for the position. This step provides additional validation as to the traits and behaviors that are required to complete the job duties successfully.

"Oftentimes we interview three different people in the same organization and get three different descriptions of the job and the responsibilities. Some of the people doing the interviewing don¡¯t know the difference between a ¡®hunter¡¯ and a ¡®farmer,¡¯ " Greenberg says.

He adds that a job requiring more new-business development, or "hunting," will generally require a candidate with less patience and higher scores in the areas that measure confidence, ego strength and ego drive. A "farmer" is usually a representative that maintains customer relationships and increases the sales volume of each customer rather than opening new doors. "Farmers" will be less aggressive, according to Greenberg, but will score higher in empathy and have a greater desire to please as well as a strong service motivation.

Learning Through Experience
Early in his HR career, John Beattie accepted an assignment requiring him to hire more than 250 office equipment sales representatives for an emerging national firm. He thought that he had "struck gold" when he received a large influx of applicants from a major international competitor. The company compensated on straight commission, and most of the sales reps he hired from the competition didn¡¯t work out.

In retrospect, he realized that the competition¡¯s reps did not have the same job responsibilities, such as opening new accounts in cold territories, and so they possessed a different set of personality traits.

"They were merely order takers," Beattie says.

That experience has proved to be invaluable in his current role as chief HR officer for the personal-lines insurance division of GMAC based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He supports two different sales groups. One is decentralized, independent and out on the road in a very competitive environment. The other group works in a highly structured inbound call center, where the goal is to convert prospects who are responding to direct-mail solicitations into policyholders.

Beattie says he uses the behavioral assessment in his initial candidate selection and then adapts his interviewing process for the different work environments. He measures the success of his program by both a reduction in turnover and an increase in the new customer conversion rates in the call center.

Build a Pipeline
Alan Fendrich advises clients to use the assessments before they proceed with any interviews. That process reduces the number of qualified candidates by as much as 85 percent. He then suggests conducting three or four interviews, with each meeting having a unique purpose, structure and a script to uncover new information about the candidate.

"The first interview is a throwaway. You are seeing a highly prepared and coached candidate who only provides anecdotal evidence of their behavior. By the third interview, you are getting high-quality information about the candidate. Having a defined hiring process also positions the company as a high-quality employer," Fendrich says.

Judy Reich, vice president of sales for Renda Broadcasting in Pittsburgh, is responsible for the hiring and performance of more than 200 advertising sales representatives who work in the firm¡¯s 25 radio stations. In addition to a three- or four-stage scripted interviewing process, she requires candidates to make a final presentation to the sales manager and general manager of the station in order to assess their communication skills before extending an offer and then conducting background checks and drug screens.

"In order to be successful with this process we have to recruit every day, not just when we have a vacancy," Reich says. "If we find a great candidate we will proactively hire them because other factors influence turnover, which is just a natural part of sales," she says.

She requires her managers to submit a weekly report showing the number of candidates that have taken the assessments in order to assure that the pipeline remains full.

While no hiring process eliminates turnover, Alan Fendrich says that the real goal is to improve sales productivity.

"There are people out there with sales experience that should never have gotten into sales in the first place," Fendrich says.

Hiring strictly from experience can filter that type of candidate into a process; hiring for the right psychological match opens the doors to a greater number of candidates and, potentially, brand-new top performers.

CITIGROUP yesterday promoted Robert Druskin to chief operating officer and told him to cut costs at the world's largest financial-services company.

Druskin's job will be to "make sure we have the most efficient and effective operations in the business," Chief Executive Officer Charles Prince said yesterday.

Citigroup's operating costs rose 13 percent in the first nine months of this year, Bloomberg news reported yesterday.

Druskin, 59, will remain head of the corporate and investment banking unit, and join Prince and former United States Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin in the chairman's office.

Prince is under pressure to increase Citigroup's stock price as shareholders, including Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, demand that he take steps to revive earnings growth.

Speculation mounted last week that New York-based Citigroup would break itself up or that Chief Financial Officer Sallie Krawcheck would leave, suggestions Prince dismissed as baseless.

"The market is looking for a lot of things at Citi, one of them was a spinoff of the businesses," said Anton Schutz, president of Mendon Capital Advisors, who manages US$270 million and doesn't own Citigroup shares.

"The market was looking for a whole lot more" than Druskin's promotion, he said.

Prince ruled out a breakup and said no more changes were planned.

Shares trail

Citigroup's stock rose US$1.03 yesterday to US$52.88 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading before the management change was announced.

Shares of Citigroup are up 9 percent this year, trailing the 20 percent advance of JPMorgan Chase & Co and Bank of America's 14 percent gain.

Druskin has previously served as Prince's deputy, and helped former CEO Sanford Weill integrate many of the more than 100 acquisitions that went into building Citigroup, Schutz said.

Druskin will be Citigroup's first COO since Robert Willumstad resigned in July 2005.

Citigroup's 5 percent increase in revenue was outpaced operating costs, which swelled to US$38.1 billion in the first nine months of 2006.

Write a resume that generates results.
This award-winning guide to resume writing will teach you to write a resume equal to one done by a top-notch professional writer. It offers examples, format choices, help writing the objective, the summary and other sections, as well as samples of excellent resume writing.

Writing a great resume does not necessarily mean you should follow the rules you hear through the grapevine. It does not have to be one page or follow a specific resume format. Every resume is a one-of-a-kind marketing communication. It should be appropriate to your situation and do exactly what you want it to do. Instead of a bunch of rules and tips, we are going to cut to the chase in this brief guide and offer you the most basic principles of writing a highly effective resume.

Who are we to be telling you how to write your resume? As part of our career consulting practice, we wrote and produced resumes for several Fortune 500 C.E.O.s, senior members of the last few presidential administrations, and thousands of professionals in nearly every field of endeavor. We also wrote resumes for young people just starting out.

We concentrate on helping people choose and change to careers that fit them perfectly. We have not employed resume writers for several years. If you are trying to decide what to do with your life, we can help you. That is our one and only specialty. Please don't ask us to write your resume. We offer this resume writing guide to you because most of the resume books out there are so primitive.

This guide is especially for people looking for a job in the United States. In the U.S., the rules of job hunting are much more relaxed than they are in Europe and Asia. You can do a lot more active personal marketing here. You may have to tone down our advice a few notches and follow the traditional, conservative format accepted in your field if you live elsewhere or are in law, academia or a technical engineering, computer or scientific field. But even when your presentation must fit a narrow set of rules, you can still use the principles we will present to make your presentation more effective than your competition's.

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THE GOOD NEWS AND THE BAD
The good news is that, with a little extra effort, you can create a resume that makes you really stand out as a superior candidate for a job you are seeking. Not one resume in a hundred follows the principles that stir the interest of prospective employers. So, even if you face fierce competition, with a well written resume you should be invited to interview more often than many people more qualified than you.

The bad news is that your present resume is probably much more inadequate than you now realize. You will have to learn how to think and write in a style that will be completely new to you.

To understand what I mean, let's take a look at the purpose of your resume. Why do you have a resume in the first place? What is it supposed to do for you?

Here's an imaginary scenario. You apply for a job that seems absolutely perfect for you. You send your resume with a cover letter to the prospective employer. Plenty of other people think the job sounds great too and apply for the job. A few days later, the employer is staring at a pile of several hundred resumes. Several hundred? you ask. Isn't that an inflated number? Not really. A job offer often attracts between 100 and 1000 resumes these days, so you are facing a great deal of competition.

Back to the fantasy and the prospective employer staring at the huge stack of resumes: This person isn't any more excited about going through this pile of dry, boring documents than you would be. But they have to do it, so they dig in. After a few minutes, they are getting sleepy. They are not really focusing any more. Then, they run across your resume. As soon as they start reading it, they perk up. The more they read, the more interested, awake and turned on they become.

Most resumes in the pile have only gotten a quick glance. But yours gets read, from beginning to end. Then, it gets put on top of the tiny pile of resumes that make the first cut. These are the people who will be asked in to interview. In this mini resume writing guide, what we hope to do is to give you the basic tools to take this out of the realm of fantasy and into your everyday life.

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THE NUMBER ONE PURPOSE OF A RESUME

The resume is a tool with one specific purpose: to win an interview. If it does what the fantasy resume did, it works. If it doesn't, it isn't an effective resume. A resume is an advertisement, nothing more, nothing less.

A great resume doesn't just tell them what you have done but makes the same assertion that all good ads do: If you buy this product, you will get these specific, direct benefits. It presents you in the best light. It convinces the employer that you have what it takes to be successful in this new position or career.

It is so pleasing to the eye that the reader is enticed to pick it up and read it. It "whets the appetite," stimulates interest in meeting you and learning more about you. It inspires the prospective employer to pick up the phone and ask you to come in for an interview.

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OTHER POSSIBLE REASONS TO HAVE A RESUME
To pass the employer's screening process (requisite educational level, number years' experience, etc.), to give basic facts which might favorably influence the employer (companies worked for, political affiliations, racial minority, etc.). To provide contact information: an up-to-date address and a telephone number (a telephone number which will always be answered during business hours).
To establish you as a professional person with high standards and excellent writing skills, based on the fact that the resume is so well done (clear, well-organized, well-written, well-designed, of the highest professional grades of printing and paper). For persons in the art, advertising, marketing, or writing professions, the resume can serve as a sample of their skills.
To have something to give to potential employers, your job-hunting contacts and professional references, to provide background information, to give out in "informational interviews" with the request for a critique (a concrete creative way to cultivate the support of this new person), to send a contact as an excuse for follow-up contact, and to keep in your briefcase to give to people you meet casually - as another form of "business card."
To use as a covering piece or addendum to another form of job application, as part of a grant or contract proposal, as an accompaniment to graduate school or other application.
To put in an employer's personnel files.
To help you clarify your direction, qualifications, and strengths, boost your confidence, or to start the process of commiting to a job or career change.

You make six figures, you have the office in the corner, and you¡¯re used to calling the shots. You¡¯re a high-level exec, and you have been for a while. You¡¯ve got a great understanding of your industry and business as a whole, and you do a fine job of motivating those you work with. You¡¯re education is enviable and so is your experience. So why are you totally confused when it comes to the job search?

Of all of the groups of employees out there, many believe that executives are the most misguided when it comes to conducting an effective job search:

¡°It¡¯s surprising how many executives I work with think all they have to do is float their resume to a couple of headhunters, then wait for interviews and offers to flood in.

After all, they have a great track record¡­ industry expertise¡­ name-brand employment¡­ stair-step career progression¡­ maybe an Ivy League education. What more could any recruiter (or employer) want?¡± (From Executive Career Management)

The author goes on to highlight all of the different steps executives need to take to get hired including networking, targeted searches, quiet search strategies, and more. They¡¯re all important, and they ensure that executives won¡¯t have their resumes fall into the abyss as so many resumes do.
Now, recent studies have shown that executives, like many others, would prefer to and expect to use an online job board to find their next job:

¡°They recently asked the visitors to the WEDDLE¡¯s Web site to tell where they expect to find their next job. A total of 1,270 people participated in the survey. Here¡¯s how they think they¡¯ll be successful in future job search campaigns:

57.6% Responding to an ad posted on an Internet job board
16.8% Networking at business and social events¡­
Since it is accepted wisdom that most executive level jobs are found via some form of networking, this points to a major disconnect in the minds of employment seekers and the real world.¡± (From Executive Resumes)

So, executives expect to find their jobs online, but right now that¡¯s not the best way to go for them. Well, we say let¡¯s make it the best way to go. Networking will always play a large role in the job search, but if executives can¡¯t find what they¡¯re looking for online, maybe it¡¯s the searches and not the executives that are expereincing the disconnect. The fact that you¡¯re looking for a higher salary than many others or that you¡¯re in search of a top-level position shouldn¡¯t keep you from finding the right job match online.

An online search that facilitates communication and information exchange; one that allows executives to do more than just ¡°float their resume to a couple of headhunters,¡± and one that attracts top companies and top talent will allow executives to use the online job search as a primary tool in finding their next position.

Comments

What is the worst outfit ever worn to a job interview? For a career services director at the University of Chicago, it was the applicant who sported a Madras tie as a belt and a patterned cotton hat. Other contenders, according to a CareerBuilder.com survey of hiring managers, include candidates with dirty fingernails, micro-miniskirts, t-shirts with offensive slogans and even bare feet!

No one needs 'Queer Eye's' Carson Kressley to tell them that wearing shoes to an interview is a good idea, but could you be guilty of one of these top 20 fashion faux pas?

1. Carrying a backpack or fannypack instead of a briefcase or portfolio: Some image consultants suggest women ditch their purse, too!

2. Sunglasses on top of your head or headphones around your neck: Be sure to remove all your "transit gear" and tuck it in your briefcase before entering the lobby.

3. Too-short skirts: Forget what some of those gals on 'The Apprentice' are wearing. Your skirt should cover your thighs when you are seated.

4. The wrong tie: Ties should be made of silk, no less than three and a quarter inches wide with a conservative pattern. Image consultants say the best colors are red or burgundy.

5. Overly bright or large-patterned clothing: With the possible exception of creative fields like advertising or computer programming, it's best to stick with navy, black or gray.

6. Heavy makeup on women (or any makeup on a man)

7. Earrings on men: In fact, men should avoid wearing any jewelry unless it is a wedding ring, class ring or metal watch.

8. More than one set of earrings on women

9. Facial piercings, tongue jewelry or visible tattoos

10. Ill-fitting clothes. Few people can wear things straight off the rack. Spending a little extra to have your garments tailored is a worthwhile investment.

11. Long fingernails, especially with bright or specialty polishes. Nails should look clean and be trimmed to a length that doesn't leave an observer wondering how you keep from stabbing yourself.

12. Unnatural hair colors or styles. Remember, Donald Trump was a billionaire well before he began wearing a comb-over. If you're balding, try a close-cropped cut like Bruce Willis or Matt Lauer.

13. Short-sleeved shirts, even worse when worn with a tie

14. Fishnets, patterned hosiery or bare legs (no matter how tan you are). Women should stick with neutral color hosiery that complements their suit.

15. Men whose socks don't match their shoes, or whose socks are too short and leave a gap of flesh when they are seated

16. Rumpled or stained clothing: If interviewing late in the day, try to change to a fresh suit beforehand.

17. Scuffed or inappropriate footwear, including sneakers, stilettos, open-toed shoes and sandals

18. Strong aftershaves, perfumes or colognes: Many people are allergic to certain scents. For a subtle fragrance, use a good quality bath soap.

19. Belts and shoes that don't match: Shoes and belts should be made of leather or leather-like materials and the best colors for men are black or cordovan.

20. Telltale signs that your wearing a new suit. Remove all tags and extra buttons -- and remember to cut off the zigzag thread that keeps pockets and slits closed!

Don't be a wardrobe malfunction waiting to happen. Plan and lay out what you're going to wear several days before the interview, so you'll have time to shop or get garments pressed and cleaned.

Save "innovative" or revealing garb for the club (or your couch) and strive for crisp, clean and professional. Remember, you want the interviewer to be listening to what you're saying, not critiquing what you're wearing.

The strength in the pipeline of the economy and the growing lack of skills required by employers is seen in the starting salaries for new graduates which are now said to be their best since the tech-boom period that ended in about 2000. The Australian Graduate Employers¡¯ 2007 survey reveals that vacancies have risen nearly 14 per cent compared to last year with median salaries climbing from $43,000 to $45,700 for 2007.

The Graduates Careers Australia research shows that just over 40 per cent of employers wanted to hire more graduates if they were available and just over half of those surveyed reported trouble recruiting in particular fields. About 23 per cent of companies had problems recruiting in the IT sector and about 19 per cent had problems finding graduates in mathematics, statistics and science.

Today Australia will continue talks with China on removing foreign equity restrictions on the legal, banking, insurance and education professions as part of ongoing free-trade talks. While Australia is attempting to protect the clothing, footwear and textiles industries and to improve the situation for the agricultural and services industries, China has called these industries sensitive.

Peter Bell

Chinanews, Washington, Dec. 11 - Vice Minister of Commerce Ma Xiuhong recently said that if Sino-US trade could maintain the current growing momentum, China is expected to become the third largest export market for the United States next year.

She made the statement when delivering a speech in Washington last Thursday in her visit to the United States.

Since China established diplomatic ties with the United States 27 years ago, bilateral trade between the two countries has undergone fundamental changes and cooperation between the two countries has expanded to every part of the economic field. China and the United States have forged a pattern characterized by economic interdependence and mutual benefit, seeking win-win outcomes and mutual development. Over the past 27 years, Sino-US trade volume has increased 86-fold, with the United States now becoming China¡¯s second largest trade partner and China the third largest trade partner of the US, she said.

Since China joined the World Trade Organization five years ago, US export to China has witnessed the most rapid growth. During this time, US export trade volume to China has grown at an annual rate 4.9 times that of US export growth rates to other countries. In 2005, US export to China increased by 118% compared with 2001, far exceeding its export growth rates to other major export markets. In 2001, China was the ninth biggest export market of the US, whereas in 2005, it already became the fourth largest export market of the US. China has become an important market pushing up the overall export trade volume of the US. During the first ten months of this year, US export to China reached nearly 50 billion US dollars, exceeding the total amount of last year and increasing by 24% from the same period last year, the vice minister noted.

Executing pre-employment background checks can save your company time, money and its reputation.

It is a company¡¯s worst nightmare. A star employee gets caught funneling money from the company coffers. This was not the first business she¡¯d robbed. In another instance, a security guard unjustly detains a customer whom he suspects of shoplifting. The customer was injured during the restraining and sues the company for negligent hiring / training of the guard, and excessive use of force. The court case reveals that the guard has a history of domestic violence and alcohol abuse, and rules in favor of the plaintiff: $100,000 in damages payable by the guard¡¯s employer.

Each of these incidents could have been avoided if the employer had performed a simple background check before making an official offer to the employees. With negligent hiring lawsuits on the rise, companies must take every precaution in looking into an applicant¡¯s background. One bad decision can wreak havoc on a company's budget and reputation; and ruin the career of the hiring executive.

What type of information is included in a pre-employment background check?

Employment background checks can vary depending on the nature of the position for which the company is hiring. Here is some of the information that might appear in a background check:

* Driving records
* Vehicle registration
* Credit records
* Criminal records
* Social Security no.
* Education records
* Court records
* Workers' compensation
* Bankruptcy
* Character references
* Neighbor interviews
* Medical records
* Property ownership
* Military records
* State licensing records
* Drug test records
* Past employers
* Personal references
* Incarceration records
* Sex offender lists

Employers who are actively recruiting may be able to find some of these documents on their own via the Internet, however this task could be quite time-consuming, and has the potential to uncover second-hand information. Legal experts agree: the most accurate, efficient option is to hire a company that specializes in employment screening.

What to look for in an employment background check firm?

There are thousands of background check companies ranging from private investigators, to firms that do nothing but employment screening, to online data brokers. A corporation with many employees may use a third-party background checking company on a retainer basis, or may even use an affiliated company for employment screening. Other background checking firms work on a less formal basis with their clients.

In choosing an employment screening firm, look for a professional partner as opposed to just an information vendor selling data at the lowest price. Use the same criteria that you would use in selecting any other provider of critical professional services. For example, if your company needed a business development consultant, you would not make your selection based on the lowest price, but would instead choose a firm that was experienced, reputable and fairly priced.

An employment background check firm should have an understanding of the legal implications of background checks, particularly the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act. Avoid companies that claim to be able to uncover everything about everyone. Such companies run the risk of breaking federal and state laws, particularly provisions that require accuracy of employment background check reports.

Doing this type of ¡°due diligence¡± will confirm your decision to hire the best candidate for the job, and potentially save your company millions of dollars in damages in a negligent hiring or retention lawsuit.

Vote for this story on recruiting.com

VANCOUVER, BC -- (MARKET WIRE) -- December 07, 2006 -- Global Developments, Inc. (PINKSHEETS: GBDP), a publicly traded venture capital company, is pleased to provide the following update with respect to China Career Builder Corp., a human resources services company headquartered in Hong Kong, in which Global holds an equity stake.

China Career Builder Corp. (PINKSHEETS: CCBX) announced today that it has completed its reverse merger with Crescott Inc., a publicly traded company incorporated in the state of Delaware, and trading on the over-the-counter Pink Sheets. As a result of the reverse merger, the company changed its name from Crescott Inc. to China Career Builder Corp. and was issued a new trading symbol.

The National Association of Security Dealers (NASD), the regulatory organization responsible for the operation and regulation of the NASDAQ and OTC stock markets, published on November 16, 2006, the name change to China Career Builder Corp. and that it had issued CCBX as its trading symbol.

About China Career Builder Corp.

China Career Builder Corp. is a human resource services company, focused on various industries in Hong Kong and Mainland China. The company provides recruitment services focusing on the professional, management, clerical, administrative, and industrial market in Greater China. Its services include screening, recruiting, training, workforce deployment, loss prevention and safety training, pre-employment testing and assessment, background searches, compensation program design, customized personnel management reports, job profiling, description, application, turnover tracking and analysis, opinion surveys and follow-up analysis, exit interviews and follow-up analysis, and management development skills workshops. The company markets its recruitment services through a combination of direct sales, telemarketing, trade shows, and advertising.

About Global Developments

Global Developments, Inc. is a publicly traded venture capital company. It was formed to create a unique investment vehicle representing a growing portfolio of innovative and emerging growth-oriented companies. Global acquires its portfolio companies either as wholly or partially owned subsidiaries, or as an investment where Global is the lead investor. As a result, Global maintains substantial management and operational control, thereby giving it the ability to provide significant oversight and guidance in building value and creating liquidity events for its shareholders. Global invests in companies with solid management, operational excellence, and the potential to grow substantial revenue streams.

Please visit http://www.globaldevelopmentsinc.com for more information.

Forward-Looking Statements

You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements in this press release. This press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Words such as ``will,'' ``anticipates,'' ``believes,'' ``plans,'' ``goal,'' ``expects,'' ``future,'' ``intends,'' and similar expressions are used to identify these forward-looking statements. Actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements for many reasons, including the risks we face as described in this press release. For further information about Global Developments, Inc. please refer to its Web site at http://www.globaldevelopmentsinc.com.

An applicant tracking system only works when all parties¡ªapplicants, hiring managers, recruiters and executives¡ªuse the system. Ease of use remains an issue for smaller firms while midsize companies are adding functions to existing systems, and large companies are moving toward full integration of applicant tracking and talent management systems.
By Fay Hansen --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
asty turnover rates, high recruiting volume, deep cyclical volatility, a difficult mix of low-end and high-end positions, and a heavy emphasis on customer service have always marked the hospitality industry. It's not a pretty place for recruiters or applicants.

"The problem today is to fill open positions with speed because of the impact on customer service at each property," says Jonathan Kubo, director of recruiting and relocation for Interstate Hotels & Resorts, a hotel management company with more than 280 properties and 26,000 employees. "Open positions, or positions filled with less than optimal candidates, can have a negative effect."

With most companies in the industry hiring on an ongoing basis, inefficiencies in the recruiting process generate additional problems.

"For both hourly and nonhourly employees, any delay in hiring caused by an untimely process or compliance issues means that you lose candidates to your competitors," Kubo says. Constant hiring can burden staff and pump up costs.

Jeff Wade, vice president of human resources at Hersha Hospitality Management in Philadelphia, feels the same pain.

"Recruiting in the hospitality industry is always a challenge because many of the positions are lower-wage jobs, and front-office positions are often filled by college students who want to move on with their careers," Wade says. "We can find bodies, but it's difficult to find people with the right attitude toward guests, and it's hard to train people to be hospitable and guest-focused."

Kubo reduced the hiring workload at Interstate by installing a customized applicant tracking system that allows direct comparisons of candidates and fully automates compliance monitoring. In an average 30-day period, 3,400 applications come in through Interstate's ATS and the company closes out 400 positions.

Wade followed the same path at Hersha to meet the company's growth surge as it expanded from 15 hotels to 54, with a dramatic surge in hiring. Hersha's new ATS launched on September 1.

But applicant tracking systems only work when all parties¡ªapplicants, hiring managers, recruiters and executives¡ªuse the system. Ease of use remains an issue at smaller firms, which are still in the early phase of ATS adoption. Midsize companies are adding functions to existing systems, while large companies are moving toward the full integration of ATS and broader talent management systems.

ATS initiation
Rapid growth and high turnover in the hospitality industry provide a fertile field for testing quick and effective automation.

Hersha personifies the smaller-company trend toward ATS adoption, while Interstate is following the ATS developmental pattern for midsize firms that are now adding functionalities.

When Wade joined Hersha in April 2006, there was no HR function or recruiting infrastructure. A general manager handled hiring for all hourly positions; a half-dozen outside recruiting agencies filled management positions.

The company signed on 1,000 employees in 2005 with no uniform process for applicant tracking and no systematic practice for interviewing. With 1,000 additional new employees needed for 2006, Wade had to install an HR function, build a recruiting process and hire more than a hundred new employees a month.

Although Wade faced urgent hiring needs, he rejected the idea of outsourcing.

"We have a unique founder-led culture, built on a foundation of taking care of our associates who, in turn, take care of our guests," he explains. "My fear was that outsourcing providers might look for candidates and pass them on to us too quickly, and not take the time to tell our story effectively. Outsourcing recruiting would be like outsourcing sales."

Instead, Wade hired HR and recruiting personnel and installed an ATS system, all within a matter of months. He now works with a staff of seven, including a director of talent acquisition.

"The recruiting process is no different from any sales position," he says. "When I looked for a director of talent management, I did not look for someone with a HR background. I hired a director of sales from a hotel."

Wade also structured the director's compensation so that 30 percent of it is contingent on meeting recruiting goals and preset metrics.

"Part of her performance will be measured from the feedback we get from both successful and unsuccessful candidates through our ATS," he notes.

Hersha surveyed its 3,000 employees, who reported that they searched and applied for employment online, confirming Wade's sense that the company could automate recruiting for all positions, from hourly associates in hotels to senior leaders at corporate headquarters.

"All candidates want to be able to go online and to be kept in the loop," he notes. "Automating the system allows recruiters to focus on speaking with the candidates."

Wade tapped ERC Dataplus Inc. to provide an ATS.

"We began the process in April 2006, signed an agreement in June and had a complete customized system in place by September 1, which is really fast," Wade notes.

The customized system takes employees all the way from prehire to three-month and six-month reviews to exit interviews and everything in between.

New hires go through an initial hour-long orientation online from anywhere they chose, which speeds up onboarding and gives them a better sense of the company.

"No one, from senior vice presidents to hourly workers, can go on payroll without being in the system," Wade says. "It's our first step in moving to a paperless HR function."

Evolutionary process
Interstate implemented its current ATS in September 2005.

"I like our system because we have the option to post positions on job boards and community organization sites though a one-step process for posting on multiple sites, but then all applications are brought in to a single point," Kubo reports. "We can track the status of the application and manage online all the data related to selection and interviewing."

With ATS up and running, Kubo is now considering adding a prehire assessment function that can sort applicants by their probability of success on the job. The function uses prescreening questions for basic information and specific questions designed for each position, and then remove applicants that don't meet minimal requirements.

Kubo is now meeting with ERC, Interstate's ATS provider, to determine which assessment tools are most appropriate.

"We want tools that are customized for the industry and the company," Kubo says. "One of the big advantages is that all the tools will all be incorporated into the system. My role is to evaluate if the assessment tools make sense."

"Now, we are seeing modifications of the technology at the larger companies, including a significant increase in using validated assessments to get better hires and reduce time and costs," says Paul L. Rathblott, president and CEO of ERC.

He also reports significant improvement in the integration of other add-on components.

"At one end of the spectrum, you have PeopleSoft HRIS systems, which store a lot data but do not have extensive capabilities or functionalities," Rathblott notes. "At the other end, you have systems that have a lot of functionalities such as performance assessments."

The goal is to integrate data storage and functionalities and fold all the components into one process that links all information for new hires and existing employees.

Intuitive systems
"Recruiting technology must be redesigned so that it is as intuitive as Travelocity or Orbitz, which we use as a model for truly intuitive systems," Rathblott notes. "The point is to have a system that someone can use even if they've never used it before."

Employers commonly underestimate the extent to which applicants are able and willing to use a fully automated system, but ERC and other ATS providers report that the flow of applicants actually increases when companies move to an Internet-only application process.

"The higher flow occurs because candidates are attracted by the flexibility of the Internet," Rathblott explains. "It allows them to learn more about the company and the job and provides them with a quicker response."

Access to the ATS is critical for hiring managers, but the system may go unused if it is not intuitive.

"For example, hiring managers cannot use the requisition system in PeopleSoft," Rathblott says. "They end up filling out a requisition form and faxing it to HR."

"With the exception of very heavy employee-based industries such as call centers, the typical span of control for a manager is eight to 10 employees, which means that even with very high turnover, the manager will interface with the recruiting technology no more than eight times a year," Rathblott notes.

An ATS must be designed to accommodate this very infrequent user. The ERC system is supported by a wizard process like Orbitz uses, with a step-by-step process for requisitions and audio support.

"Recruiters may be interfacing with the system on a daily basis, so it must be not only user-friendly but also user-pleasing¡ªpleasant to work on," Rathblott says. He believes that resistance to ATS adoption in small and midsize companies will disappear as cost and ease of use improve.

At Hersha, Wade is already approaching his goal to cut by half the fees that the company hands over to outside recruiting firms. Time-to-hire for hourly associate positions is now down to five days.

"Salaried positions take 30 days, but we will cut that in half," Wade says. "You have to get recruiting right."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fay Hansen is a Workforce Management contributing editor based in Cresskill, New Jersey. To comment, e-mail editors@workforce.com.

THE number of US workers filing first-time applications for state unemployment benefits fell last week from a 13-month high that was inflated by end-of-year seasonal adjustments, the Labor Department said yesterday.

Initial jobless claims fell by 34,000 to 324,000 in the week that ended on December 2 from 358,000 the prior week, the department said in Washington, according to Bloomberg News. The four-week moving average, a less volatile measure, rose to 328,750, the highest since May, from 325,250.

Claims from the prior week, which included Thanksgiving Day, were distorted by seasonal adjustments that cause wide fluctuations in weekly figures at this time of year, a department spokesman said. Attention will now turn to today's report on November payrolls, which may show job growth remained below the average for the year, according to a Bloomberg survey.

"Most of the jump in claims in the prior week was due to a seasonal adjustment problem around the Thanksgiving holiday," Mike Englund, chief US economist at Action Economics LLC in Boulder, Colorado, said before the report. "Most of that gain was reversed this week. Data suggest some downside risk for payrolls."

A Bloomberg survey of 40 economists forecast claims would decline to 325,000 from an originally reported 357,000. Economist estimates ranged from 300,000 to 350,000.

The number of people continuing to collect state jobless benefits rose to 2.524 million in the week that ended on November 25, the highest since January, from 2.467 million in the prior week. The unemployment rate among people eligible for benefits, which tends to track the US jobless rate, held at 1.9 percent.

Forty states and territories reported a decrease in new claims, while 12 reported an increase and one had no change, the department said. Those numbers are reported with a one-week lag.

Initial jobless claims, which reflect firings, usually increase with slowing job growth, which is measured by the US government's monthly report on non-farm payrolls.

Still, as fewer women seek jobs and the population ages, the labor market remains tight. The unemployment rate was 4.4 percent in October, a five-year low, and workers' average hourly earnings rose 3.9 percent from October 2005, close to September's five-year high of 4.1 percent.

Some companies continue to hire to boost output or introduce new products.

Electric Boat Corp, a unit of General Dynamics Corp and the primary contractor on the US Navy's Virginia-class nuclear submarine, plans to hire about 200 engineers this year to work on advanced submarine concepts, said Robert Hamilton, spokesman for the Connecticut-based manufacturer of nuclear submarines .

SOFT drink bottler PepsiAmericas Inc said it plans to reorganize its field sales and delivery network in the United States as part of a realignment estimated to result in charges of US$18 million.

Sara Zawoyski, vice president of investor relations, said most of that money would go toward relocations, and some field operations will be centralized in Schaumburg, Illinois, where the company's operating headquarters are based. While PepsiAmericas is officially based in Minneapolis, its executive office is small.

PepsiAmericas is the world's second-biggest producer, seller and distributor of PepsiCo beverages. It has operations in 19 US states, Central Europe and the Caribbean.

While Zawoyski declined to give a head count on the job reductions, she said it would be less than one percent of the company's US work force, she said which is now around 12,000 to 13,000, and that they would be scattered across the country. Worldwide, PepsiAmericas employs about 16,000 people, she said.

The US$18 million charge will consist of severance and other employee-related costs. About US$12 million of the charge will be recorded during the fourth quarter

Is it legal?

In preparing to post a Part III on this subject, I decided to revise and re-release this post, which originally appeared at collegerecruiter.com
There has recently been considerable attention in the media to instances of employers rejecting candidates or firing employees based on information obtained from social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook.

For example, see New York Times: ¡°For Some, Online Persona Undermines a R¨¦sum¨¦,¡± telling this story:

When a small consulting company in Chicago was looking to hire a summer intern this month, the company¡¯s president went online to check on a promising candidate who had just graduated from the University of Illinois.

At Facebook, a popular social networking site, the executive found the candidate¡¯s Web page with this description of his interests: ¡°smokin¡¯ blunts¡± (cigars hollowed out and stuffed with marijuana), shooting people and obsessive sex, all described in vivid slang.

It did not matter that the student was clearly posturing. He was done.

¡°A lot of it makes me think, what kind of judgment does this person have?¡± said the company¡¯s president, Brad Karsh. . .

Today I¡¯ll discuss a question posed by Steven Rothberg of collegerecruiter.com ¡ª prefacing my remarks with a lawyerly disclaimer that I am not providing legal advice and have not thoroughly researched these issues, but am merely making some general comments.

Steven asked that I comment on the lawfulness of making adverse employment decisions on this basis. He raised several concerns: that with Facebook, students often have an incorrect understanding that only other students can access their profiles; that there may be false information on those sites, perhaps not even posted by the individuals themselves; and that Facebook¡¯s terms of service explicitly prohibit users from using Facebook for commercial purposes.

General rule (employment at will)

Let¡¯s start with the proposition that, like it or not, generally employers are free to make unfair, stupid, arbitrary, and wrongheaded hiring and termination decisions, even based on false information, as long as in doing so they do not violate some specific law.

Discrimination Law

One category of specific laws that could be violated by an adverse employment decision based on information on a social networking site is federal and state discrimination law.

It could be evidence of unlawful discrimination if an employer checks for such Internet information on only certain types of applicants or employees, for example, African-Americans and Hispanics.

It may also be evidence of unlawful discrimination if although the employer searches for such information on all applicants or employees, discriminatory bias affects the employer¡¯s evaluation of the information obtained.

For example, an employer may view more negatively photos of an African American male, beer in hand, hanging out at a bar with a hip-hop DJ than photos of a white boy, also with beer in hand, hanging out at a rock ¡®n roll bar with a bunch of other white boys wearing frat T-shirts.

Tell me, was it really the public evidence of drinking that disqualified the individual? How many current employees would be disqualified from employment if never getting publicly intoxicated ¡ª or even drinking in public ¡ª was a job requirement? These are the kinds of questions the EEOC would ask if discrimination was raised.

Sexual orientation might be another touchy area. These days, it may be frankly disclosed on social networking sites without much thought. Yet, sexual-orientation bias remains and might cause some employers to make adverse decisions. In many states and municipalities, sexual orientation discrimination is unlawful, so such decisions will be prohibited.

Invasion of Privacy

Invasion of privacy is a claim that I doubt would fly. It requires a ¡°reasonable expectation of privacy.¡± A student may believe that access to their Facebook profile is limited to a few thousand of their schoolmates and their closest friends. The Facebook FAQs clearly support such a belief in limited access, stating:

Can I see the profiles of people on other networks?

Facebook was intentionally designed to limit the availability of your profile to only your friends and other people on your networks. This simple but important security measure promotes local networking and makes sure that your information is seen by people you want to share it with, and not by people you don¡¯t.

Nonetheless, it would be tough to claim that this expectation of limited access, even if reasonable, is an expectation of ¡°privacy.¡±

On the other hand, if you are using privacy features that you believe allow you to limit access to only invited individuals, as opposed to all others on your network, and an employer somehow hacks past such a privacy barrier, you may have a strong privacy claim.

Terms of Service Violation

Now, onward to the terms of service issue raised by Steve. For sake of brevity, I will only address Facebook. MySpace may present somewhat different issues. The Facebook terms include the following:

You understand that the Service and the Web site are available for your personal, non-commercial use only. You represent, warrant and agree that no materials of any kind submitted through your account will violate or infringe upon the rights of any third party, including copyright, trademark, privacy, publicity or other personal or proprietary rights; or contain libelous, defamatory or otherwise unlawful material.

You further agree not to harvest or collect email addresses or other contact information of Members from the Service or the Web site by electronic or other means for the purposes of sending unsolicited emails or other unsolicited communications. Additionally, you agree not to use automated scripts to collect information from the Service or the Web site or for any other purpose.

You further agree that you may not use the Service or the Web site in any unlawful manner or in any other manner that could damage, disable, overburden or impair Web site. In addition, you agree not to use the Service or the Web site to:

impersonate any person or entity, or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent yourself or your affiliation with any person or entity; . . .
intimidate or harass another;
use or attempt to use another¡¯s account, service or system without authorization from the Company, or create a false identity on the Service or the Web site.

Steven thinks it¡¯s a no-brainer that checking individuals out on Facebook for purposes of employment decisions is a commercial use. This certainly is a possible interpretation, but I believe not the only one.

The next sentence focuses on materials submitted through your account, not what you do with information you learn about others. Therefore, ¡°non-commercial use only¡± could be interpreted as prohibiting only posting information for commercial gain, such as advertisements, not surfing the site for information in support of a business purpose.

The paragraph goes on to specifically prohibit certain methods of obtaining and using information about others. Though it prohibits automated scraping and spamming, it does not address the issue of searching for specific individuals and using the information to make employment decisions.

It seems a stretch to say an employer is ¡°intimidating or harassing¡± the user of Facebook by using Facebook information to make an adverse employment decision, but this certainly could be argued.

A more serious issue would arise if the employer misrepresented their affiliation with a college in order to create an account allowing them to look up certain individuals, or used another¡¯s account to do so. This would appear to be a plain violation of the terms of service.

Consequences of Violation of Terms of Service

Now, let¡¯s assume the employer violated the terms of service. So what? My answer is that this fact may support a tortious interference with business expectancy claim, but probably only if it was a third-party recruiter or investigator who committed a violation. This is because interference by a third party is required. Perhaps such a claim against the individual who obtained the information improperly, not the company, would satisfy this requirement, but that is still somewhat iffy.

Other elements of this type of claim might also be difficult to prove, such as whether the candidate has a reasonable expectancy of employment.

There might also be a federal cause of action under the Federal Computer Fraud And Abuse Act to the extent the recruiter/employer exceeds authorized access (as authorized in the terms of service) in obtaining data from a computer system (the Facebook server).

Other Laws

Another law that could come into play is the Fair Credit Reporting Act. Despite its name, this law has broader application than credit inquiries. It might apply if the Facebook information was obtained by a third party investigator such as a recruiter or background-checking service. It would not prohibit use of the information, but would require disclosure of the fact that such information was the basis for the decision.

Thinking Practically

Those are a few of my well-educated, but still speculative, legal thoughts. Long ago, one of my mentors taught me to always ask not only what the law requires my client to do, but also what the client should do, taking into account extra-legal factors such as business realities, employee morale, employee and public perceptions, etc. Here, in the face of some murky and emerging law, I have some thoughts on what both employers and applicants/employees should do, given this growing trend of employers checking social networking sites.

I would advise applicants/employees to assume that future employers will read everything you post. So when you put something about yourself out there, you can be yourself, but avoid obvious negatives like saying you hate to work or posting sleazy or drunken photos. It may help to ask yourself whether you would want your mother to see your site. Sorry to say, but you may not even want to admit homosexuality or extreme political or religious views.

On a positive note, use your Internet postings, including blogs as well as social networking sites, affirmatively. They can help you build visibility and credibility as an expert in your field (or hobby). Join more ¡°serious¡± networking sites like LinkedIn even if you are still a student ¡ª and work at building a network there that can help you in future job searches.

I would advise employers to cut applicants and employees some slack. You were once young too and maybe did similar things ¡ª if not publicly on the Internet. Ask yourself how relevant the information creating the negative impression is to job performance.

If you are going to do Internet searches and use them as a basis for employment decisions, you better do so consistently, without regard to any legally protected classifications, e.g. race, sex, age. You should document them.

I also agree 100% with Steven¡¯s suggestion to use social networking sites and blogs in a positive fashion in your search to find good candidates. Consider the whole person, of whom the Internet persona is not always a fully accurate reflection.

The thought of writing a resume intimidates almost anyone. It's difficult to know where to start or what to include. It can seem like an insurmountable task. Here are 15 tips to help you not only tackle the task, but also write a winning resume.

Determine your job search objective prior to writing the resume. Once you have determined your objective, you can structure the content of your resume around that objective. Think of your objective as the bull's-eye to focus your resume on hitting. If you write your resume without having a clear objective in mind, it will likely come across as unfocused to those that read it. Take the time before you start your resume to form a clear objective.

Think of your resume as a marketing tool. Think of yourself as a product, potential employers as your customers, and your resume as a brochure about you. Market yourself through your resume. What are your features and benefits? What makes you unique? Make sure to convey this information in your resume.

Use your resume to obtain an interview, not a job. You don't need to go into detail about every accomplishment. Strive to be clear and concise. The purpose of your resume is to generate enough interest in you to have an employer contact you for an interview. Use the interview to provide a more detailed explanation of your accomplishments and to land a job offer.

Use bulleted sentences. In the body of your resume, use bullets with short sentences rather than lengthy paragraphs. Resumes are read quickly. This bulleted sentence format makes it easier for someone to quickly scan your resume and still absorb it.

Use action words. Action words cause your resume to pop. To add life to your resume, use bulleted sentences that begin with action words like prepared, developed, monitored, and presented.

Lead with your strengths. Since resumes are typically reviewed in 30 seconds, take the time to determine which bullets most strongly support your job search objective. Put those strong points first where they are more apt to be read.

Play Match Game. Review want ads for positions that interest you. Use the keywords listed in these ads to match them to bullets in your resume. If you have missed any key words, add them to your resume.

Use buzzwords. If there are terms that show your competence in a particular field, use them in your resume. For marketing people, use "competitive analysis." For accounting types, use "reconciled accounts."

Accent the positive. Leave off negatives and irrelevant points. If you feel your date of graduation will subject you to age discrimination, leave the date off your resume. If you do some duties in your current job that don't support your job search objective, leave them off your resume. Focus on the duties that do support your objective. Leave off irrelevant personal information like your height and weight.

Show what you know. Rather than going into depth in one area, use your resume to highlight your breadth of knowledge. Use an interview to provide more detail.

Show who you know. If you have reported to someone important such as a vice president or department manager, say so in your resume. Having reported to someone important causes the reader to infer that you are important.

Construct your resume to read easily. Leave white space. Use a font size no smaller than 10 point. Limit the length of your resume to 1-2 pages. Remember, resumes are reviewed quickly. Help the reader to scan your resume efficiently and effectively.

Have someone else review your resume. Since you are so close to your situation, it can be difficult for you to hit all your high points and clearly convey all your accomplishments. Have someone review your job search objective, your resume, and listings of positions that interest you. Encourage them to ask questions. Their questions can help you to discover items you inadvertently left off your resume. Revise your resume to include these items. Their questions can also point to items on your resume that are confusing to the reader. Clarify your resume based on this input.

Submit your resume to potential employers. Have the courage to submit your resume. Think of it as a game where your odds of winning increase with every resume you submit. You really do increase your odds with every resume you submit. Use a three-tiered approach. Apply for some jobs that appear to be beneath you. Perhaps they will turn out to be more than they appeared to be once you interview for them. Or perhaps once you have your foot in the door you can learn of other opportunities. Apply for jobs that seem to be just at your level. You will get interviews for some of those jobs. See how each job stacks up. Try for some jobs that seem like a stretch. That's how you grow... by taking risks. Don't rule yourself out. Trust the process. Good luck in your job search!

In this ¡°flat¡± world, you gain competitive advantage by capturing the best talent, wherever they are. In Indiana or India. Gone are the days when recruiting was an administrative activity. Now it needs to be repositioned as a strategic weapon. You need to remove the gloves. Attack. And counter-attack.

Leading global recruiting strategist Dr. John Sullivan will show you how. His aggressive presentation includes topics like:

Why "but we are different" is no longer a valid excuse
How to use talent poaching to disarm competitors
How to identify, improve and build these capabilities
How to prioritize internal recruitment needs and external recruitment opportunities
How to block your employees from being poached

Get ready for an experience that will challenge your ideas about recruiting and turn you into a winner in the global war for talent.

Dec.7 - China's banking regulator issued guidelines Wednesday to encourage financial innovation by commercial lenders, such as increasing earnings made from fees and giving out less risky loans.

The guidelines will take effect next Monday, the day China will fully open its banking sector to foreign lenders in line with its commitment to the World Trade Organization.

According to Tang Shuangning, vice-chairman of the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC), China's banking industry urgently needs to speed up its financial reform to deal with rising competition after fully opening.

"Chinese commercial banks lag far behind their international counterparts in terms of financial innovation," Tang said.

He said non-interest income generally accounts for more than 50 per cent of the total income of big international banks. But the highest rate for Chinese commercial banks from fees is less than 30 per cent and most of banks earn less than 10 per cent.

He said the guidelines are the first such document concerning financial innovation issued by the banking regulator, signalling a new stage of reform.

According to the guidelines, the CBRC will set up a sound legal environment to encourage financial innovation. The regulator will further streamline approval procedures and strengthen supervision to facilitate financial innovation.

The guidelines also emphasize the importance of risk control. They require commercial banks have a good knowledge of their businesses, risks, clients and competitors.

In addition, the guidelines clarify commercial banks' obligations to consumers, such as correct disclosure of information, professional services, protection of assets, and offering effective complaint channels.

Despite this need for reform, Tang said, commercial banks in China have made progress in financial innovation.

The CBRC's statistics show the trading volume of major commercial banks reached 14 trillion yuan (US$1.77 trillion) last year.

Nearly 30 Chinese banks offer renminbi wealth management services, with a total value of 130 billion yuan (US$16.46 billion).

A total of 17 foreign and Chinese banks have been approved to invest clients' assets overseas under the qualified domestic institutional investor (QDII) programme. So far, they have launched nine QDII products, with sales of 2.3 billion yuan (US$291 million) in renminbi and US$87 million in US dollars.

But more financial innovations need to be made, Tang said.

In addition to financial reform, commercial banks are being asked to engage in public education, informing investors that they should be responsible for their own purchasing decisions.

At yesterday's press conference Tang also said the Bank of Communications and China Construction Bank have applied to establish insurance companies.

If you're a job search candidate looking to bestow gifts upon the recruiters of the world, here are seven packages they would love to unwrap this holiday season...

1. Resumes that really fit
If your resume isn't a fit for the job, don't send or submit it blindly! Recruiters are rewarded for fit so if your an unclear or unlikely fit, you better have an internal ally who can lobby for you.

2. Candidates that aren't stalkers
Recruiters don't mind a call every once in awhile for you to check in on your status or see if they are interested. But when you start to call multiple times a week (or even a day) you'll get a shoulder colder than Minneapolis this time of year.

3. Perfect grammar and spelling
This time of year everyone in the office is looking for a laugh. So if your cover letter proclaims that "your the won for the job," don't be surprised if you never hear from us.

4. Commitment
Slowdowns at the office and sheer boredom may mean you start to send out resumes willy nilly. Please don't. If you're not serious about moving on, please don't waste my time or yours!

5. No more vanity
As the job market starts to get stronger, candidates start to get more cocky. Please don't focus on what's in it for you. Instead, focus on telling me what you can do for my company.

6. Make our lives easier
Really understand what we are looking for. If you help us understand why you are the perfect candidate for the job, we can better convince other internal employees of the same thing. Make it easy for us to make your case!

7. Don't be an online embarrassment
We're starting to Google you and look at your MySpace and Facebook accounts. Don't get us all excited that you're a great candidate for us only to find out your MySpace page is full of activities that would make an employer blush!

And please, no more fruit baskets. We like coffee and chocolate.

Effectively developed, job descriptions are communication tools that are significant in your organization's success. Poorly written job descriptions, on the other hand, add to workplace confusion, hurt communication, and make people feel as if they don't know what is expected from them.

Job descriptions are written statements that describe the duties, responsibilities, required qualifications, and reporting relationships of a particular job. Job descriptions are based on objective information obtained through job analysis, an understanding of the competencies and skills required to accomplish needed tasks, and the needs of the organization to produce work. Job descriptions clearly identify and spell out the responsibilities of a specific job. Job descriptions also include information about working conditions, tools, equipment used, knowledge and skills needed, and relationships with other positions. Still uncertain about the value of job descriptions? Consider these tips about employee job descriptions.

Job descriptions provide an opportunity to clearly communicate your company direction and where the employee fits inside of the big picture.

Whether you're a small business or a large, multi-site organization, well-written job descriptions will help you align employee direction. Alignment of the people you employ with your goals, vision, and mission spells success for your organization. As a leader, you assure the interfunctioning of all the different positions and roles needed to get the job done for the customer.

Job descriptions set clear expectations for what you expect from people. According to Ferdinand Fournies in Why Don't Employees Do What They're Supposed to Do and What To Do About It," (see sidebar) this is the first place to look if people aren't doing what you want them to do. He says you need to make certain that they clearly understand your expectations. This understanding starts with the job description.

Job descriptions help you cover all your legal bases. As an example, for compliance with the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), you'll want to make certain the description of the physical requirements of the job is accurate. Whether you're recruiting new employees or posting jobs for internal applicants, job descriptions tell the candidate exactly what you want in your selected person.

Clear job descriptions can help you select your preferred candidates and address the issues and questions of those people who were not selected.

Well-written job descriptions help organization employees, who must work with the person hired, understand the boundaries of the person's responsibilities.

People who have been involved in the hiring process are more likely to support the success of the new employee or promoted co-worker. Developing job descriptions is an easy way to involve people in your organization's success.

HONG KONG -- If the world's telecommunications executives thought that bringing their industry's biggest trade show to China would spur Chinese officials into opening their vast market, they were wrong -- at least so far.
Government officials have avoided using the ITU Telecom World 2006 conference in Hong Kong this week to say when they would allow next-generation mobile phone networks to enter the country.

With third-generation services slow to take off in Europe and the United States, telecommunications suppliers have been counting on China to provide a major lift, and most say that they are ready to jump in whenever so-called 3G network building begins in earnest on the Chinese mainland. But, so far, the industry has encountered only delays and postponements.

At the opening ceremony for the conference on Sunday and again Monday, Chinese leaders declined to announce a timetable. Three important decisions remain: which technology China will select, which mobile phone operators will get the licenses, and when. "China will consider three standards for 3G," Wang Xudong, the minister for the information industry, said Monday. "The timing for issuing 3G licenses will be determined by the market."

With India and China together adding more than 12 million cellphone subscribers a month, the two countries are the fastest-growing markets for conventional networks. These networks are good for voice calls, but too slow to allow subscribers a comfortable experience surfing the "mobile Internet" on a cellphone.

With present-day mobile phone use reaching a saturation point in many industrial economies, telecommunications supply executives can seem almost wistful about the potential for 3G networks in China, a $26 billion market for such systems.

"This is for the government to decide, but there's no negative," said Frederic Rose, president of the Asia-Pacific region for the newly merged Alcatel- Lucent.

His boss, Patricia F. Russo, and the chief executives of Ericsson, Motorola and Nortel Networks are among those meeting here with clients, suppliers and Chinese officials. But China has shown a preference for developing and choosing its own standards, and if it does so in this case, some Western companies may be left out.

The European version of 3G is called W-CDMA, a technology with the backing of Nokia and Ericsson; one used by some American carriers is called CDMA 1000x; and China's is called TD-SCDMA. Technically, they are related, but there is little consensus on differences in quality.

"I expect we will get some clarity by summer," Mr. Rose said. "We expect there will be 3G networks operational in the main cities for the Olympics in September 2008."

Alcatel-Lucent gets about a third of its revenue from the Asia-Pacific region. Mr. Rose said the company was buffered in two ways from the impact of a decision about a 3G standard. First, it is actively investing in the second-generation business, which is still growing in China.

Second, Alcatel-Lucent is prepared to jump into any of the three standards.

Its TD-SCDMA equipment, through its Shanghai Bell joint venture with Datang Communications of China, is already being used in pilot networks in the country. And since Datang owns most of the TD-SCDMA intellectual property, Alcatel-Lucent would generally not pay royalty fees to use it. (Datang is also working with Siemens.)

In addition, Alcatel-Lucent makes W-CDMA equipment for the European market. And the merger of Alcatel and Lucent Technologies brought to the combined company Lucent's expertise in CDMA.

Chinese manufacturers are also ready. ZTE and Huawei are among the biggest pushing for the TD-SCDMA standard, and they, too, make equipment for the competing standards. They would also be eager to see companies like Nokia and Motorola give up their dominance of the second-generation network business in China.

Samsung of South Korea would like a piece of the action, as well. "We are ready to enter that market, whether it is TD-SCDMA or W-CDMA -- whatever the standard," said Jeong Han Kim, senior vice president for Samsung Electronics' telecommunication network business. "We will be a major player in that area," he said, citing two factories that Samsung has on the mainland.

Although 3G phone services like videoconferencing, Internet browsing and TV viewing may be more expensive than most Chinese can afford, Mr. Jeong said that "China has very big potential, so it will grow very fast."

After three years of waiting, the telecommunications industry is still speculating. But there is one thing that companies can bank on, Mr. Rose said.

"There's no fear that 3G won't happen in China."

How do we get smarter about our recruiting? Our telecommunications company is going through an extended growth spurt. I¡¯d like to challenge management¡¯s thinking regarding whether certain jobs are necessary or merely "nice to have." Our human resources systems and processes are very limited, we lack formal systems for job evaluation, and we have no job grading or a structured recruiting model. I¡¯m of the belief that a good route to pursue would be to start with verifiable data.

Starting with verifiable data is a great way to get smarter about recruiting, and with your organization¡¯s extended growth spurt, the timing could not be better.

When demand is on the rise, the traditional approach to recruiting is to react with fervor: filling vacancies as quickly as possible at the lowest cost, no questions asked. Companies barely take the time to develop recruiting strategies and plans, let alone try to create an overall plan for the workforce. When it gets busy, they don¡¯t have time for planning, and when it¡¯s not busy they don¡¯t see the need for it. Even when organizations figure out how to make the time, many just don¡¯t do a good job of workforce planning.

With limited HR systems and processes, it may be more challenging to pull together the data, but here is an approach you can take.

First, start with the headcount of your current workforce. You will want as much data as possible on this so you can analyze by different variables such as department, job classification, exempt vs. nonexempt employees or geographical locations. Then, take a toll of your active requisitions and map them to these variables. If you have informal systems or processes and your requisitions arrive on the back of a napkin, instead of through an applicant tracking system, you may need to estimate. The last pieces of data you will need are your historical attrition rates, sorted by the same variables, as well as your average time to fill (again, you may need to estimate).

Based on your average time to fill and your attrition rates, you can now produce a forecast of what the workforce will look like three months to six months out. You can show projected net gains or losses from a departmental view, job classification, geography or any view that is important to the organization. To take this a step further, you could convert any net gains into estimated cost increases and compare this to existing budgets, or analyze any projected losses to determine the impact on operations.

In human resources we have been longing to prove ourselves as business partners. If you arm yourself with this type of data, not only will you be able to challenge management¡¯s thinking on the growth of the workforce, but they will probably also listen to you.

SOURCE: Ed Newman, the Newman Group, Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, December 23, 2005.

New Monster Product Aimed at Franchisee Hiring Headaches
A job-posting process that often hampers hiring for companies with franchises spread across the country could be getting a makeover if Monster gets its way.

Monster is launching its National Account Suite, which seeks to streamline the recruitment process and quell the push and pull that often exists between corporate headquarters and franchisees, says Mike Madden, the company¡¯s senior vice president of product.

The suite makes use of existing technology to the meet the recruitment needs of specific employers, says Peter Weddle, CEO of Weddle¡¯s, a research firm and consultancy in Stamford, Connecticut. Such customization is the wave of the future, he says.

"This product spells the next evolution of online recruitment services," he says. "Companies will be tailoring technology to better meet the needs of their recruiting clients."

Essentially, Monster is mimicking something newspapers created over time. As papers evolved, they developed classified advertisement products that cater to specific industries, such as real estate and automobiles, Weddle explains.

Monster, which launched its suite in November, believes there will be significant interest from clients because it is the only product of its kind in the industry, Madden says.

"There are about 2 million franchise businesses in the U.S.," he says. "It would be great if we could get 30 to 50 percent of that market."

Monster¡¯s product aims to reduce recruitment gridlock. Though each company differs in its policies, the job-posting process generally is slowed because hiring managers at franchise sites must get approval from corporate headquarters each time they want to post an opening.

Often, headquarters will contend that it¡¯s a necessary step to control recruitment expenses. Local hiring managers have complained that the process is cumbersome, time-consuming and ineffective, particularly in industries where turnover is high, like chain restaurants.

Monster¡¯s new product offers a compromise. Franchisee hiring managers will no longer have to seek approval from corporate headquarters before posting a job. That will enable them to more easily hire the help they need. Corporate headquarters, meanwhile, don¡¯t have to worry about overspending at the franchise level because the price of the subscription has been pre-negotiated.

The subscription, typically lasting a year, gives local hiring managers access to self-service tools that let them control the content and the frequency of job postings. Customizing the ads at the local level is important because hiring managers can use language that resonates with the community in which they are trying to hire, Madden explains. The entry base price is $800 to $1,000 for a year¡¯s subscription, he says.

Local managers will be able to quickly post a job opening, even proactively managing future needs in the workforce pipeline. Posting a job can take 24 to 48 hours, compared with a week or more with the traditional checks and balances.

Dec.5 - One third of Europeans and Americans see China's rapid economic growth to be an opportunity, while nearly 60 percent remain wary of China's rising economic power, an opinion poll showed on Monday.

The survey, by the German Marshall Fund, a transatlantic think tank, comes as policymakers in Brussels and Washington are planning to update trade and investment ties with China, wary of its new economic might but keen for more of its huge market, the Reuters reported.

China skeptics worrying about China's economy see its inexpensive goods export and their companies relocating to China as a threat, according to the poll which covered France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, Britain and the United States.

Of the six European countries covered, 70 percent of people in France and only slightly fewer in Poland, Italy and Slovakia expressed jitters over China's emerging economy, said the Reuter report.

Traditionally free-trading Britain had more people who saw China as an opportunity than a threat, the survey found.

With European manufacturing coming under pressure from Asia, the European Commission has imposed anti-dumping duties on a range of Chinese exports, including leather shoes.

EU and Chinese negotiators are due to begin talks next month on a broad new bilateral agreement, including economic issues. And, US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is leading a high-level Washington delegation to China later this month.

In potentially good news for attempts to break a deadlock in world trade talks, the poll showed 52 percent of respondents favored globalization in general, up from 46 percent in 2005.

Possibly behind that was a fall in dissatisfaction about the local economy -- 41 percent of Americans and 27 percent of Europeans were satisfied with their own economy, up from 30 and 20 percent respectively in 2005, the survey found.

But in a sign of how sensitive an issue free trade remains, two thirds of the French and over half the American respondents in the poll favored keeping trade barriers when local companies are at risk, even if it means slower economic growth at home.

The poll heard the views of about 1,000 people in each of the seven countries between September 5 and 25.

We¡¯re trying to polish our recruiting efforts after some bad hires. How can we measure the impact, both in dollars and other costs, of poor hiring decisions?

¡ªPenny-pinching Recruiter, government, Dee Why, New South Wales, Australia

Dear Penny-pinching:

Employee turnover is an important tool to use in measuring a company¡¯s success. But let¡¯s be honest: There are different costs associated with "good turnover," in which underachievers are separated, and "bad turnover," in which quality performers leave for other opportunities. Therefore the data alone does not tell a whole story. Radical as it may seem, some turnover can be good--even desirable, in some instances.

But let¡¯s start with the basics. There are certain quantifiable costs involved in filling a vacancy, whether it¡¯s caused by good or bad turnover. These costs are composed of employment advertising fees (print or online), recruiter fees (contingency or executive search,) assessment tools and background checks, travel and relocation costs, HR staff time, and new employee orientation and training. Additionally, turnover will have a qualitative impact on productivity, with work being reassigned and new hires needing time to learn their new jobs.

Now let¡¯s take the analysis one step further and distinguish the differences between good and bad turnover. When a valued employee leaves, not only do you incur obvious costs, but the company also loses that employee¡¯s internal corporate knowledge and experience, external client contacts and sources¨Cand it faces the possibility that the employee will use his or her skills to work for a competitor. Alternatively, when a marginal employee leaves, a company has the opportunity either to incur a savings by not filling the job or to recruit an employee that adds more value than the one who has left.

The obvious question from human resources¡¯ perspective is how to avoid bad turnover, rather than how to avoid turnover in general. In order to fight bad turnover, every manager in your company should be trained in employee relations, conflict resolution and the implementation of equitable corporate policies and procedures. An employee-retention program that is geared toward maintaining a positive corporate culture and employee well-being always attracts job applicants. However, discouraging bad turnover requires properly trained managers working with human resource strategists to recognize telltale signs of frustration among employees, especially in areas within their direct control. In the end, it is frontline supervisors who are accountable for employee satisfaction within individual departments. Success means giving those managers the proper tools.

Electronic recruiting leader LinkedIn is actively courting the headhunting set with new services. But new potential competitors are emerging and it remains to be seen whether business-focused networking sites will become central to most recruiters.
By Ed Frauenheim
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Recruiter Tim Farrelly starts his day at his computer getting linked in.

That is, his Internet home page is the business networking site LinkedIn, where Farrelly, a San Francisco-based executive recruiter, does such things as seek out and contact job candidates. About 15 times a month, he uses the site¡¯s new "InMail" feature that lets him send a message directly to one of LinkedIn¡¯s more than 7 million members. And 90 percent of the time, he gets a response.

There¡¯s "probably no better place out there to find a passive candidate," Farrelly says, referring to the job candidates not actively seeking new employment. "It¡¯s really effective."

Among social and business networking sites, LinkedIn is standing out these days as a tool for recruiters. According to Palo Alto, California-based LinkedIn, the number of recruiters who are registered users of the site has more than doubled in the past year, to more than 100,000. And LinkedIn is actively courting the headhunting set with new services, including the InMail product and job ads targeted to specific types of professionals. Meanwhile, other business networking sites such as ZeroDegrees and Spoke Software have faded or changed course.

Konstantin Guericke, a LinkedIn co-founder and the company¡¯s vice president of marketing, says LinkedIn is leading the way when it comes to a critical part of recruiters¡¯ work.

"I think we are becoming the main site where people are looking for passive candidates," he says.

But LinkedIn¡¯s quest to be a hub for recruiters may still prove difficult. New potential competitors in the social networking arena are emerging. And it remains to be seen whether LinkedIn or other business-focused networking sites will become central to most recruiters.

Kevin Wheeler, a recruiting industry analyst and president of consulting firm Global Learning Resources, says LinkedIn has managed to attract a significant share of recruiters to its site, and he believes that social networking will become ever-more important to recruiters over time. But, he says, that doesn¡¯t mean LinkedIn is going to command recruiters¡¯ attention--or their dollars.

"We¡¯re all signed up" to the site, he says. "But the real question is not how many recruiters have signed up, but what percentage of recruiters is actually using it for recruiting?"

Recruiting recruiters
Statistics from LinkedIn suggest that a fair amount of recruiting is going on at the site. A LinkedIn survey of its users found that a third had been contacted at some point regarding a job opportunity. And most of the "power users" paying LinkedIn $200 a month for premium services such as InMails are recruiters, Guericke says.

At this point, most recruiters on LinkedIn are using the site for free, Guericke says. He expects that about 10 percent of those recruiters will upgrade to a paid account or post a job on LinkedIn during the next 12 months.

As Guericke sees it, many of the recruiters new to the site are likely to snap up its hiring-related services. As opposed to "networking people" who love the socializing dimension of recruiting, many of the newer members have come to LinkedIn for utilitarian reasons. These business-oriented people appreciate the value of LinkedIn as a database with detailed information and the high response rate the site offers, Guericke says.

"They weren¡¯t the early adopters," he says.

It¡¯s hard to gauge exactly what percentage of recruiters have profiles on LinkedIn, given imprecise numbers for the profession. A few years ago, industry publication Recruiter Magazine Online estimated there were 200,000 internal, contract and human resources recruiting professionals working full time for corporations throughout North America, as well as more than 100,000 retained and contingency-based recruiters working at some 25,000 firms.

LinkedIn¡¯s attractiveness to this population has a lot to do with not touting its recruiting role to most users. Guericke and four colleagues started LinkedIn three years ago with a vision of making money from professionals such as recruiters, attorneys and management consultants, who could benefit from a network of high-powered people by pitching their services or snaring job candidates.

The average LinkedIn member, however, would come to the site and use it for free to keep track of colleagues, arrange deals and otherwise make business connections. So far, the plan seems to be working.

LinkedIn¡¯s membership doubled in the past year, and revenue at the site is growing at twice the rate of membership growth, Guericke says. The privately held company, which employs about 70 people, became profitable earlier this year.

In the past year or so, LinkedIn has made several improvements designed to help recruiters land passive candidates. Passive candidates typically are preferred over active job seekers, in part for their lower likelihood of job hopping. LinkedIn¡¯s InMail service is designed to speed up recruiters¡¯ pursuit of passive job seekers. After searching the LinkedIn network for people with particular job titles or experience, recruiters used to have to wait for various intermediaries to approve the forwarding of a message about a job opportunity.

Although contacting someone directly amounts to a kind of cold-call, Guericke says recruiters using InMails tend to have a much higher response rate than the 2 percent to 5 percent typical in the sales world.

"Over 60 percent of people you contact respond to you," he says.

LinkedIn¡¯s 7.5 million members have the ability to block InMails or other sorts of contacts. But just a small fraction of members wall themselves off, Guericke says.

LinkedIn also has a job-posting service that will provide the person posting the ad with a list of 10 people in the network who closely match the ad. In addition, LinkedIn members¡¯ homepages now display job ads designed to fit their skills and experience.

LinkedIn has various levels of premium accounts allowing for InMails and additional introduction requests. The highest level, a "pro" account, costs $200 per month and lets individuals send 50 InMails a month.

Guericke and crew would like nothing better than for more recruiters to follow in Tim Farrelly¡¯s footsteps. Farrelly, president of Coit Staffing, requires all 12 recruiters in his company to use the site. He estimates he spends $7,200 a year on LinkedIn services. But the payback from LinkedIn has been far greater.

"We¡¯ve probably made at least $100,000 because of it," says Farrelly, who offers both contingency and retained search services and focuses on industries including technology, biotechnology and health care.

Guericke is confident the recruiting business at LinkedIn will expand, though not as fast as revenue overall. He expects LinkedIn¡¯s total revenue to triple or quadruple next year, while revenue from recruiters should about double. Although the recruiting business is important to LinkedIn, recruiters buying premium services account for less than 50 percent of LinkedIn¡¯s overall revenue.

Competitive environment
To a large degree, LinkedIn has outlasted its rivals.

Business networking site ZeroDegrees shut down its service September 30. At one point, the site had more than 1 million members, says Jas Dhillon, who founded the company and sold it to media company IAC/InterActiveCorp in late 2003. Dhillon left IAC/InterActiveCorp about a year ago and has taken a position at Microsoft. LinkedIn has done well, Dhillon says.

"I think they¡¯re in a pretty solid position now," he says.

IAC/InterActiveCorp, which owns prominent online businesses including Match.com and Evite, did not respond to requests for comment.

Other sites, including Ryze, have lost momentum, says John Zappe, a recruiting analyst with consulting firm Classified Intelligence.

"They¡¯re still around, but they¡¯re a shadow of their former self," he says.

That¡¯s not to say LinkedIn is a shoe-in for lots of recruiters¡¯ dollars.

Serious questions about the wisdom of spending on business networks were raised in a survey of about 350 recruiters this year by Classified Intelligence and ERE Media, which maintains an online portal devoted to recruiting. The study found that 40 percent of respondents rated business networks as "ineffective" or "very ineffective" in producing hires. Just 24 percent rated them "effective" or "very effective." National/general job boards and niche professional sites scored higher in terms of their effectiveness than networking/referral sites, according to the survey, which went out to recruiters within organizations as opposed to third-party recruiters.

Networking/referral sites did score higher in effectiveness than executive job boards, diversity sites and regional/general job boards.

The survey made a distinction between business networking sites like LinkedIn and predominantly social networking sites, such as MySpace.com and Facebook. And it found room for growth in that latter category. Nearly 60 percent of respondents had yet to try using social networks, the study concluded.

The report also found that a large majority of respondents spent less than $25,000 last year on social networking sites. But 44 percent of respondents expected to spend more on social network sites this year, while just 6 percent expected to spend less.

Conceivably, some of that new spending could bleed into business networking sites such as LinkedIn. But it¡¯s not clear that employers will invest heavily in LinkedIn or another business-focused networking site, Zappe argues. That has something to do with the fact that compared with traditional recruiting tactics such as print ads, career fairs and even general Internet job boards, business networking sites are new.

"People are somewhat reluctant to say, ¡®Hey, they¡¯re great¡¯ or ¡®They¡¯re awful,¡¯ " he says.

Consultant Wheeler is convinced networking tools in some form will grow increasingly important, replacing newspaper ads, cold-calling and job boards. "More and more, it¡¯s going to be who you know that gets you the job," he says.

In any event, LinkedIn faces new or revamped competitors.

Spoke Software, for example, has shifted its business model from social networking alone to a combination of social networking and data about people and companies. That information comes from sources including Web research and the signatures from e-mails sent to Spoke members who in effect "validate" data about people¡¯s job titles and companies, Spoke CEO Frank Vaculin says. Spoke now says it has data on 32 million people, which should aid recruiters seeking passive candidates.

"These are people below C-level," Vaculin says. "These are the kinds of people you can¡¯t get off the Web."

Vaculin, who took the reins of the company a year and a half ago, says Spoke¡¯s e-mail validation system offers recruiters more current data on people than LinkedIn does, and he argues that LinkedIn members aren¡¯t exactly passive.

"People publish information about themselves, and in fact become an active candidate," he says.

As a gauge of LinkedIn members¡¯ "passivity," Guericke says less than 10 percent visit the site¡¯s job listings. He also says LinkedIn members have uploaded more than 300 million contacts. But he says that because of privacy concerns, LinkedIn doesn¡¯t make that data visible until the contacts themselves have opted in to LinkedIn and created a profile.

It¡¯s also possible social networking players could elbow into the business networking scene. The wildly popular MySpace site says that one of its target audiences is "Business people and co-workers interested in networking." The U.S. Marines Corps has a MySpace site, with a prominent "Contact a Recruiter" button.

Facebook, the social networking site that until recently was largely geared to college students, also allows people to connect to company networks. Launched in early 2004, Facebook currently has more than 10 million registered users.

Guericke, though, doubts the latest social networking sites will move in on his turf. A key, he says, is the low-key, formal nature of LinkedIn versus the fun-first feel of Facebook and MySpace. Guericke says LinkedIn has consciously avoided photos on the site in part to prevent attractive members from receiving inquiries that have less to do with business than hoped-for pleasure.

"When you mix personal and business networking, business goes right down the tubes," he says.

Then there¡¯s online recruiting service Jobster. The site, which combines elements of social networking with job posting capability, said in July that it snagged another $18 million in funding from investors. That brings the company¡¯s total capital raised to $48 million since 2004. Jobster said its second-quarter sales doubled from the first quarter, and that it now counts 15 of the Fortune 100 companies as customers.

Dave Lefkow, Jobster¡¯s vice president of professional services, says Jobster helps companies tap into networks of talent through a mix of social networking, permission marketing and customer relationship management tools. Among the products Jobster offers, he says, is software that makes it easy for a firm to ask its employees for the names of the top colleagues they¡¯ve worked with in the past, as well as technology for asking those referrals if they¡¯d like to learn more about the company. Jobster software also is designed to help companies distribute job ads via e-mail--messages that can be forwarded easily to others and tracked by the employer in what Jobster refers to as a "targeted job announcement."

Lefkow says Jobster and LinkedIn don¡¯t compete directly. But a new focus on consumer use of the Jobster Web site could amount to a challenge to LinkedIn. So far, Jobster hasn¡¯t invested heavily to lure job seekers to its site, Lefkow says. But the firm is on the verge of going after consumers more aggressively. It hopes to persuade more people to create profiles on Jobster.com in part by offering new tools such as "superstar tags" designed to capture a person¡¯s unique qualities better than a r¨¦sum¨¦ can.

"This is going to be a big push for us in the next few quarters," Lefkow says.

Wheeler portrays Jobster as a major threat to LinkedIn¡¯s recruiting business. Recruiters can use Jobster¡¯s site to post jobs to major job boards, see if candidates have applied to open jobs and conduct searches.

"They want to become the portal for recruiters," Wheeler says.

Jobster has a better shot of succeeding than LinkedIn does, in part because the site and its services can help employers go after a wider range of employees than the white-collar professionals typically found on LinkedIn. Jobster is "much more versatile," Wheeler says.

Guericke responds that LinkedIn isn¡¯t concerned with Jobster as a competitor. Its push with job seekers still misses the Holy Grail for recruiters, he says.

"You¡¯re not really attracting the passive candidates, which is what recruiters want, " Guericke says.

Maybe not. But it could be that neither LinkedIn nor Jobster, nor any other networking site, will emerge as the dominant place for recruiters. As Wheeler sees it, recruiters aren¡¯t likely to put all their eggs in one networking basket. Smart recruiters will use a combination of tools and tactics, such as niche job boards, their own career site, Jobster and LinkedIn.

"All of these networks will have a minor role in the sourcing process," he says. "There¡¯s no magic bullet."

Workforce Management Online, November 2006 -- Register Now!

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Ed Frauenheim is a Workforce Management staff writer based in San Francisco. E-mail editors@workforce.com to comment.

DIFFERENTIATING BETWEEN HR MANAGEMENT AND INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS

Human Resource Management:

¡¤There are only two important parties namely employee and employer.

¡¤Formulation of objectives, policies, procedure and programs of human resources and implement them.

¡¤Individual employee contacts with the immediate superior.

Grievance and disciplinary procedures are resorted to, to solve the employee-employer conflicts.

¡¤Reformulates the objectives, policies etc ,based on industrial conflicts which are the outcome of unsound industrial relations.

Human Resource Management (HRM) is the overall management of all resources including workers, staff, executives, Top management and even suppliers and customers.

Industrial Relations:

Industrial Relations (IR) in practice are the relations between actual work force and management of the organization.

Given below are some of the salient features of IR:

¡¤The implementation of HRM policies results in IR.

¡¤There are four important parties namely employees, employer, trade unions and government

¡¤The sound IR contributes to the organizational goals. The unsound IR result in industrial conflicts demanding for change and reformulation of HRM objectives and goals

¡¤Employees contact even the top management as a group.

¡¤Collective bargaining and forms of industrial conflicts are resorted to solve the problems

¡¤Industrial relations are governed by the system of rules and regulations concerning work, workplace and working community.

¡¤The main purpose is to maintain harmonious relations between employees and employer by solving their problems through grievance procedure and collective bargaining.

¡¤Trade Unions is another important institution in the Industrial relations. Trade unions influence and shape the industrial relations through collective bargaining.

¡¤Industrial relations are the relations mainly between employees and employers.

¡¤These relations emphasis on accommodating other parties interest, values and needs. Parties develop skills of adjusting to and cooperating with each other.

For those who are looking for a new position in information technology, here are the 10 employers who hired the most high tech people in 2006:

1. Merge Healthcare
2. Clinical Data
3. CalAmp
4. Adobe Systems
5. Secure Computing
6. ValueClick
7. Cognizant Technology Solutions
8. eBay
9. J2 Global Communications
10. OmniVision

Source: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/b2fastestgrowing/

The types of interviews are:

1.Informal Interview.

2.Formal Interview.

3.Planned Interview.

4.Patterned Interview.

5.Non-directive Interview.

6.Depth Interview.

7.Stress Interview

Dec.4 - China on Sunday issued a five-year program (2006-2010) on international cooperation of science and technology, promising to open wider to foreign partners.

The program said except those concerning national security or with special requests, China's key national scientific and technological projects and funds will be open to overseas partners.

Scientific institutions, universities and key national laboratories are required to expand cooperation and exchanges with foreign counterparts, according to the program.

China will also encourage and help enterprises and research institutions to set up overseas research and development agencies for further development by "using international scientific and technology resources", the program says.

Meanwhile, China will "actively" participate in key international scientific projects, join international scientific organizations and encourage Chinese scientists to work in international organizations, the program says.

It says the moves are aimed at increasing China's possession of or its reasonable share of intellectual property rights internationally and improving its status on the world science arena.

China also hopes to bolster its high-tech industry and boost export of its high-tech products through such cooperation.

The program listed a number of areas as priorities for cooperation, including clean energy development, environmental protection, HIV/AIDS treatment, responses to newly occurred infectious diseases and chronic diseases, nanoscience and aeronautic and astronautic technology.

Chinanews, Beijing, Dec. 2 - China Small and Medium Enterprise Index of Economic Development 2005(SMEI) was released on November 28, 2006, which indicates that small and medium enterprises have taken up 99.6% of China's enterprises in quantity (including small private businesses), and they have contributed to 70% of the country's export and import.

Small and medium enterprises have become important boosters to China's economic growth, and they have contributed to about 59% of China's GDP, and taken up about 60% of the domestic market, as well as 48.2% of the total tax revenue, not to mention that they have also provided 75% of job opportunities in towns and cities in China.

Edge believes it is time to confess to your sins and embrace these Twelve Steps that will lead you to the land of milk, honey, and better candidates...

We admitted we were powerless over our fear of the phone - that newspaper ads, job boards and Internet sourcing had become limited.

Came to believe that Ma Bell - a power greater than ourselves - could provide a steady stream of potential candidates that will invigorate our careers.

Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the use of the telephone as we embrace the telephone as a friend.

Made a searching and fearless metric-based inventory of sourcing channels and found these to be full of hot airs.

[You have been weighed, you have been measured, and you have been found wanting. In what world could you possibly beat me? ~Chaucer]

Admitted to ourselves, to our bosses and to each other the exact nature of why we couldn't get past the use of newspaper ads, job boards, Internet sourcing¡­and Gatekeepers.

We humbly ask to have our fear of the phone eviscerated.

Humbly asked our bosses to pay someone to come in and help us learn the one true path to candidate sourcing.

[She can be reached at 513 899 9628. ASK for Maureen]

Made a list of all the jobs we short-shifted and resolved to use the names we found calling directly into companies to make amends to our past hiring managers or customers.

Made direct amends to hiring managers wherever possible, except when to do so would cause them to berate us for not telephone sourcing in the first place.

Continued to take a career inventory, becoming aware when our past sourcing habits tempted to lead us astray and back into the vaporous confines of newspaper ads, job boards and Internet sourcing - and guarding vigilantly against those temptations.

Sought through telephone and some internet research and reading Sourcers Unleashed (and ASK Maureen on ERE and the Edge) daily, to improve our physical contact with potential candidates and our spiritual contact with telephone sourcing Gurus, invoking our powers to continuously improve and continuing to seek out knowledge on the subject.

Having had this career-changing awakening as the result of all these steps, we try to carry this message to other print and web-bound sourcers who only use newspaper ads, job boards and Internet sourcing, and to practice these principles in all our recruiting decisions.

1. job postings should be free. the value is not and never will be in the posting. the value is in connecting with the right person to hire.

Don¡¯t agree.
a) Advertising costs. Should a TV commercial be free? Last time I checked, Super Bowl ads cost well over $1MM per minute, and they don¡¯t guarantee results either. Job boards are advertising with the added benefit of being direct response.
b) Connecting with the right person to hire can happen in many ways - direct application, research, sourcing, third party recruiters, referrals, etc. In today¡¯s competitive world, companies must use many sources to find great candidates.

2. employers are struggling with the quality vs. quantity gap in online recruiting. job boards provide quantity while hiring managers desire quality.

Depends on what online tools they are using and how they use them. People are still getting quality resumes and applicants from the big job boards, if they focus their efforts on quality. There are also many other online resources which can augment candidate flow with quality prospects.

3. the value of job boards (as we know them today) is beginning to erode for employers with well known brands as most active jobseekers are more than able to go directly to the career websites at companies like starbucks, microsoft, google, etc.

Don¡¯t really agree. The value of large job boards (for employers) comes from large candidate pools. The value of large job boards (for candidates) comes from the ability to find multiple jobs in their field from many employers. Something they can¡¯t do by visiting Microsoft¡¯s career center. This is what is driving the vertical job boards. Employers will always go where the candidates are and candidates will go where the jobs are. My personal feeling is that niche job boards are where the future lies. IT boards for IT companies and professionals, HealthCare boards for Healthcare companies and professionals, and yes, even Restaurant Job boards for restaurant professionals.

4. referrals have been and always will be a great source of quality hires. not the only source, but an important source.

Totally agree. I think this is why almost every big company has some sort of incentive program to reward employees for bringing in referrals who are hired and stay for a specified period of time. Companies (and employees) that use inventive ways of leveraging networking technologies will see increased effectiveness in referral hiring.

5. as has occurred in other markets like travel, and as is increasingly transpiring in real estate, over time we will see new marketplaces evolve which eliminate the need for the specialist (recruiter) and enable the purchaser (hiring manager) to transact efficiently with the seller (candidate).

Totally disagree. In order for Jason¡¯s prediciton to come true, one would have to assume that the only value of a recruiter in recruiting candidates would be the initial introductions or that all the other value propositions offered by recruiting specialists could be replaced through online technologies. I don¡¯t know if Jason has ever actually done any recruiting, but to assume that the value proposition of recruiters can be replaced by Jobster or some other Internet thingamajig is naive. There are still plenty of Realtors, and there are still plenty of travel agents. The industries may have been shaken up by how people use the internet, but they are still thriving industries¡­ as is recruiting 10 years after Monster.com and as recruiting will continue to be far into the future. Just as there are some percentage of home sales that are done in the FSBO style there is still great value in specialization and many customers who are willing to pay for specialized help so the largest percentage of sales in the housing market are done by professional realtors.

In conclusion, let me just say that my prediction is that recruiters won¡¯t become extinct and neither will Internet based job boards. Now, I may be a little biased because I am after all a recruiter and have a very small job board myself - it¡¯s just that I don¡¯t plan on being extinct any time soon.

CHINA has cut the maximum allowed margin of wage rises in state-owned companies for this year to keep pay growth, especially in monopolistic sectors.

State enterprises which paid employees twice as much as the average level of local urban wages in 2005 can increase total pay not more than 0.6 percent for each percentage of profit growth this year, according to a circular on the Website of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security late on Wednesday. The original cap was 0.75 percent.

The ministry said the government will stringently inspect the linkage between corporate profits and wage payments in state-owned companies where wages are too high and increasing too fast.

"Such a link-up mechanism is of great importance to help create a healthy relationship between growth in wages and profits," the circular said.

The adjustment came amid a backdrop of intense public calls, starting in the second half of this year, for a wage reform in state firms where employees are considered outrageously overpaid than the average worker, widening the gap between the rich and poor segments of society.

"The latest move is a step forward to increase state control in reining in wage growth," said Hou Ning, a columnist for several business newspapers. "But I think there is still a long way to go."

Workers in state companies, typically in highly regulated industries such as telecommunications, energy and tobacco, usually earn much more than they deserve based on the profit they produce.

The monopolistic nature generates complacency resulting in these state firms operating at lower efficiency than global counterparts, thanks to competition. State firms are accused of contributing lower profit while holding a huge amount of state assets and reserves.

Several reports and surveys have indicated average wage for employees in monopolistic industries is up to three times the national average. The gap could be widened to as much as 10 fold if non-wage income like bonuses and pensions are included.

THE next generation of trains for Sydney's rail system will be built by a Chinese company with little experience delivering passenger trains to a developed country, a move that will cost hundreds of jobs in the Hunter region.

The Premier, Morris Iemma, made no mention of the Changchun Railway Vehicle Company a fortnight ago when he awarded a $3.6 billion order for 626 rail cars to a consortium headed by the maker of CityRail's Millennium Trains, Downer EDI Rail.

The Reliance Rail consortium said at the time the experience of EDI in building and maintaining the Millennium Train was a "key plank" in securing Australia's largest-ever train order.

But EDI will only be responsible for the design and the final fit-out of the double-decker carriages, to be imported from China. Their electronics will be provided by the Japanese company Hitachi.

Changchun boasts on its website the "great progress" it has made in the international rail market, referring to Iran, Pakistan and Zimbabwe as its notable export success stories. Its carriages also operate in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang.

The 626 carriages in the contract are due to enter the Sydney rail network between 2010 and 2013. They will also replace 498 carriages in the existing fleet.

The Minister for Transport and Deputy Premier, John Watkins, said the Reliance bid provided a superior train at better value for money, "making it a clear winner".

The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union campaigned for the contract to go to two local bidders, EDI or United Goninan. The union's state secretary, Paul Bastian, welcomed the contract going to EDI, but blamed the State Government for requiring only 20 per cent local content. EDI and United, against foreign bidders, had no choice but to look at sourcing some trains from overseas to mount a competitive bid, he said.

EDI says 290 jobs will be created at its Cardiff plant in the Hunter from the contract. However, there is expected to be a net loss of rail-related jobs in the Hunter. United may have to lay off some of the 550 workers at its Newcastle plant.

The NSW director of Australian Industry Group, Mark Goodsell, said the contract required less local content than comparable contracts let by other states.

"There is a risk - a risk to local capacity to build trains and our ability to service them in the future," he said. He warned of flow-on effects to other manufacturing with the loss of skills.

Mr Watkins defended Changchun's quality and reliability. "CRC has significant experience building trains in joint-venture arrangements with major international rolling stock manufacturers, including Alstom, Hitachi, Bombardier and Siemens. It also has significant expertise in stainless steel car body construction and is building 540 stainless steel cars with Bombardier for the Beijing Airport line for the 2008 Olympics."

It was one of few companies that could produce more than 2000 carriages a year.

The Opposition said the project was running late and had blown out from $1.5 billion to $3.6 billion.

Report outlines how tapping the older worker talent pool can fill skills gap

LONDON ¨C November 30th, 2006 ¨C Taleo, the leading provider of on demand talent management solutions and The Age and Employment Network (TAEN) are calling on companies to change their approach to recruitment to capitalise on the ageing workforce in the UK. ¡°Tapping into the older worker talent pool¡± is a joint white paper that highlights the opportunity for companies to address the looming skills crisis by recruiting older workers, and provides step by step advice on how companies can execute this strategy.

¡°Tapping into the older worker talent pool¡± explains the demographic trends in the UK with an ageing workforce that is causing a general shortage of skills. Despite these trends and the recent UK Age Regulations, many organisations retain significant biases and misconceptions about recruiting older workers. Practical recruitment strategies that take advantage of the growing talent pool of older workers will therefore be increasingly critical in creating a competitive workforce in the UK. Central to these strategies are the philosophy of skills based recruiting and the use of e-recruitment technology to promote wide access to job roles, and implement a compliant, skills based recruiting process.

Specific advice from TAEN and Taleo Research includes:

¡¤ Consider where you are advertising your job opportunities
¡¤ Word your job opportunities carefully
¡¤ Capture candidate data on compliant, electronic application forms
¡¤ Drive the selection process based on skills
¡¤ Consider re-skilling or up-skilling new or existing employees

According to Taleo Research Vice President, Alice Snell, ¡°The message is loud and clear for organisations that are looking ahead and developing their recruitment strategies. Retaining the traditional preference for recruiting only from younger age groups will lead to a weaker workforce than competitors who tap into the older worker talent pool. Organisations can gain a significant advantage from adopting a skills-based approach to recruiting that creates a level playing field for older workers. E-Recruitment technology is a powerful tool in implementing this approach because solutions such as Taleo¡¯s have compliant skills-based matching of candidates to roles as a fundamental design principle. ¡±

Patrick Grattan, chief executive of TAEN adds ¡°The recruitment profession has the opportunity to play a crucial role in response to an ageing work force. At present too much of the focus is on age. It should be on skills and experience regardless of age. Internet-based recruitment can spotlight competencies required for the job, whereas a classic CV, with its chronological recital of past job history, encourages assumptions about age and working life. ¡®Tapping into the older worker talent pool' is a valuable guide for businesses looking to change their recruitment practices to welcome older workers. ¡±

GERMAN unemployment fell more than expected in November to the lowest in four years as increased optimism in the economy prompted companies to hire and the warmest fall on record buoyed the construction industry, a government agency said yesterday.

The number of people out of work, adjusted for seasonal swings, fell 86,000 to 4.24 million, the lowest since November 2002, the Nuremberg-based Federal Labor Agency said.

Economists expected a decline of 30,000, according to the median of 34 forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey. The adjusted jobless rate fell to 10.2 percent, a rate last recorded in December 2002.

Carolyn, an HR professional with a Honda subsidiary in Marysville, OH shared with me that she once had
a job candidate show up dressed very casually and wearing a baseball cap. When the interview started, the candidate leaned back in the chair and put his feet up on her desk!

All I can say to this is, ¡°Boy, were you born in the wild and raised by a pack of wolves?¡± I¡¯m pretty sure you weren¡¯t or we would have heard about you on the evening news. What were you thinking?

When you¡¯re lucky enough to be called for an interview, it means something made a good impression¡ªeither your application or your r¨¦sum¨¦, depending on the job. Here¡¯s a gentle reminder: being called for an interview is not the same as being guaranteed the job. In the first interview (and possibly the second, third and even fourth), you¡¯re still selling yourself to the hiring company. So, how should you dress?

The best advice is to always dress professionally. However, not only is professional dress subjective, in some cases it¡¯s also more than you need. To help you determine what you should wear to your interview(s), read on.

• If you¡¯re a guy, you probably have your own House of Fashion brewing just under the surface of your life. Do you have a wife, girlfriend, sister, mother or female friend? Among all of these, you¡¯ll find at least one (probably more) person who can offer sound, reasonable advice on appropriate dressing for various occasions. I would recommend checking with your wife, girlfriend or mother (in that order) before moving to the other options.

• If you¡¯re a woman, you have the same options. You also have multiple reality shows and magazines that obsess over these various subjects. Get together with a group of your friends, a bottle (or two) of wine and a stack of magazines and team up to define your look. Take bits and pieces from each magazine and then have a ¡°What Not to Wear¡± shopping and modeling weekend. If you walk away with a couple of professional outfits, you¡¯re further ahead.
• Check with your local department store. Oftentimes they retain one or two associates dedicated to personal shopping and styling. If you¡¯re in central Ohio, both Macys and Nordstrom offer this service. Nordstrom has two personal shoppers on staff¡ªone male and one female. Some personal shoppers allow you to bring in wardrobe pieces you already own (and adore) and help you build from there.
• Call the hiring manager at the company where you¡¯re getting ready to interview. HR professionals will gladly help you decipher the dressing dilemma. After all, they have a little bit invested in you at this point (they selected your resume for review by others, thereby putting their initial stamp of approval on you (at least on the paper representation of you).
• Drive by the company (OK, stalk it a little) and observe how the employees are dressed and then plan on dressing one step better (unless you¡¯re going for a management position, then wear a suit).

All of this to say that no matter how much we¡¯ve become business casual in the workplace, the interview is not the time to embrace the concept. First impressions still matter and still weigh heavily in the start of any relationship.

I introduced a client to my business coach at a networking event last week. My client was surprised that I¡ªalready a business owner and coach myself¡ªwas working with a business coach. I told her, ¡°Doctors need doctors, attorneys need attorneys, and coaches benefit from coaches.¡±

Later, I started thinking about why I decided to work with a coach. I still stand by my rather witty (if I do say so myself) response, but I also realized I actually started down this path over a year ago¡ªlong before I actually hired an coach.

Last year I started taking a hard look at my business and what I wanted to be doing. I convened an ¡°advisory board¡± of trusted friends and colleagues to help me make the shift. I was losing passion for what I had been doing and I needed people to help me be objective. Again, if I do say so myself, this was one of the smartest moves I have ever made. This group of advisors began helping me more clearly define my business direction and my strengths. It became a source of inspiration, feedback, encouragement, and a million ideas.

As a matter of fact, the million ideas were overwhelming me to the point of inertia. It seemed natural that my next step would be working with a business coach. I was at a point where I knew it was time to make the shift in my business, yet the million ideas had me paralyzed. I started working with Gail from NuGrowth Coaching to help me move from inertia to momentum. This proved to be another great decision and wise investment.

Here¡¯s how working with a coach has helped me:

• A coach holds us accountable. Let¡¯s face it; we can all talk ourselves out of doing something we know we need to do because the only people we might disappoint are ourselves.
• A coach asks the hard questions, expects honest answers, gives direct feedback, but never judges.
• A coach focuses 100% on the client. With friends, conversations tend to be about commiserating or sharing the focus. Coaching allows us to be selfish.
• A coach is an excellent source of information and ideas, helping us get past our ¡°D¡¯oh!¡± moments and getting to our great moments.
• A coach is well-versed in the general area of need. In my case, I needed business assistance and my coach has significant experience in business, sales and marketing.
• A coach never tells you what to do. Through very direct questioning, though, a coach will help you reach your own solutions.

Think about your own needs. Are you stuck in your job and just can¡¯t figure out how to move on? Do you love your current employer, but really want to move up the feeding chain? The benefits of career coaching are tremendous and the investment is one you can¡¯t afford NOT to make. To find out if you¡¯re a candidate for career coaching, and for more information on career coaching, go to www.permanent-ink.com and click on Career Coaching. If you have questions or comments you¡¯d like to see addressed in a future blog, e-mail me at permanentink@insight.rr.com.

CHINA has cut the maximum allowed margin of wage rises in state-owned companies for this year to keep pay growth, especially in monopolistic sectors.

State enterprises which paid employees twice as much as the average level of local urban wages in 2005 can increase total pay not more than 0.6 percent for each percentage of profit growth this year, according to a circular on the Website of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security late on Wednesday. The original cap was 0.75 percent.

The ministry said the government will stringently inspect the linkage between corporate profits and wage payments in state-owned companies where wages are too high and increasing too fast.

"Such a link-up mechanism is of great importance to help create a healthy relationship between growth in wages and profits," the circular said.

The adjustment came amid a backdrop of intense public calls, starting in the second half of this year, for a wage reform in state firms where employees are considered outrageously overpaid than the average worker, widening the gap between the rich and poor segments of society.

"The latest move is a step forward to increase state control in reining in wage growth," said Hou Ning, a columnist for several business newspapers. "But I think there is still a long way to go."

Workers in state companies, typically in highly regulated industries such as telecommunications, energy and tobacco, usually earn much more than they deserve based on the profit they produce.

The monopolistic nature generates complacency resulting in these state firms operating at lower efficiency than global counterparts, thanks to competition. State firms are accused of contributing lower profit while holding a huge amount of state assets and reserves.

Several reports and surveys have indicated average wage for employees in monopolistic industries is up to three times the national average. The gap could be widened to as much as 10 fold if non-wage income like bonuses and pensions are included.

Chinanews ,Beijing, November 28 ¨C A recent questionnaire survey finds that the jobs of about 80% of white-collar workers in China have nothing or very little to do with the areas of study they were trained for..

Many of them choose a ¡°strange¡± job because they don't like their fields of study. In fact, only 42% of college students get jobs in their own fields. About 26% actually chose the fields of study at the request (or even orders) of their parents. The others were ¡°assigned¡± to major in the areas of study according to the result of the national college entrance examination.

The pressure of the job market also forces many of them to give up their dreams and pick up jobsthey don't like at all. For example, many college graduates have become salespersons not because they have learned sales in colleges or because they enjoy the challenge of being salespersons, but because they have no choice: Salespersons are always needed in a commodity economic society.

Yahoo China has announced Yahoo China president Xie Wen has resigned for personal reasons after just over a month on the job. Xie will now serve as a strategic consultant for Alibaba. Alibaba vice president Zeng Ming will be named Yahoo China's acting president. Xie was named Yahoo China's president on October 17. There are rumors that Xie resigned because Yahoo China management did not support his strategic plans for the company.

The values, or even purpose, of developing recruitment strategies generally are misunderstood within companies. It is important to build a recruiting strategy with the following questions in mind:

1) What kind(s) of candidate skills do we need?

2) When do we need them?

3) What is our corporate culture?

4) What are our recruitment processes? (employee requisition approval, marketing, sourcing, selection, reference, sales/offer, new employee orientation).

5) When did we last examine our recruitment strategies? As time passes, recruitment needs change and the methods of recruitment change (most recent major impact - the Internet). Can we do better than we have up until now?

6) What is preventing our success at attracting the top 10% of candidates?

7) Can we achieve our goals utilizing corporate staff? Or do we need outside temporary professional recruitment assistance? If we need outside help, what kind is most beneficial to this situation?

8) What is our budget for recruitment?

We address these questions in this area. Remember, recruitment is not magic. The top recruiting staffs do the fundamentals well. A strong, yet flexible recruitment strategy is the basis of the fundamentals of recruiting and delivering the best candidates.

As a contract recruitment firm, The Humbert Group assesses your current recruitment strategy and assesses your staff. We will be happy to either tweak your current recruitment strategy or help your company develop a new one. Additionally, we consult with you on the best way to upgrade your staff.

1. Could you please describe the management team to me?
2. Does the company have a Net-use policy?
3. Will I receive my assignments from IT or from the business
unit?
4. Do developers have little contact with the business unit or
significant contact?
5. Can you show or sketch me an organizational chart?
6. If for any reason you were unable to function as CEO, how
would you like to see the company managed?
7. To whom does the chief information or technology officer
report?
8. How would you describe the degree to which you want your
heirs to have strategic or operational influence in the company until
one of them is ready to assume the role of COO or CEO?
9. What are you hoping to accomplish, and what will be my role
in those plans?
10. May I see a job description? What are the most important
responsibilities of the job?
11. How much time should be devoted to each area of
responsibility?
12. What is my spending/budget authority?
13. What initial projects would I be tackling?
14. What are the biggest technical challenges ahead for this
department/ company?
15. Presuming that I'm successful on this assignment, where else
might I be of service to the company?
16. Traditionally, companies have used IT to reduce bottom-line
costs. But I am excited about the use of IT to advance top-line
opportunities such as creating new products and identifying new
markets. Can you talk about how IT is used in this company to create
top-line value?
17. What structured strategies for software testing have you
found effective here?
18. Does the company use an IT steering committee?
19. If you put all the salespeople in a line from your best to
the merely acceptable performer, what are the earnings of the 50th
percentile? The 25th? The 75th?
20. Can you describe the performance of the sales team?
21. What is the commission structure, and what is my earning
potential in 1,3,5, or 10 years?
22. What percentage of salespeople attain objectives?
23. What percentage of the current people are above and below
their set goals?

Questions That Are Defensive -- designed to protect the employee
1. I understand the company has experienced layoffs within the
last two years. Can you review the reasons why they were necessary?
2. How were the layoffs handled in terms of notification,
severance, outplacement services, etc.?
3. What rewards have you found effective in recognizing and
rewarding exceptional work?
4. Are there formal metrics in place for measuring and rewarding
performance over time?
5. How effectively has the company communicated its top three
business goals?
6. I am a hard worker, and like to be around hard-working
people. Am I going to be comfortable with the level of effort I find
here?
7. Is the company's training strategy linked to the company's
core business objectives?
8. How does your firm handle recognition for a job well done?
9. When was the last time you rewarded a subordinate for his or
her efforts? What token of appreciation did you offer?
10. How does the firm recognize and learn from a brave attempt
that didn't turn out quite as expected?
11. If I were a spectacular success in this position after six
months, what would I have accomplished?
12. How much freedom would I have in determining my objectives
and deadlines?
13. How long has this position existed in the organization? Has
its scope changed recently?
14. Do you foresee this job involving significant amounts of
overtime or work on weekends?
15. What are the greatest challenges I will face in this position
in furthering the agenda of the organization?
16. Are my tasks limited to my job description, or will I be
performing duties outside the described job scope?

Questions Designed to Get Feedback
1. How do you like me so far?
2. Do you have any concerns about my ability to do the job and
fit in?
3. Is there anything standing in the way of us coming to an
agreement?
4. Do you have any concerns about my experience, education,
skills?
5. How do I compare with the other candidates you have
interviewed?
6. Describe your ideal candidate. What do my qualifications lack
compared to those of the theoretical ideal candidate?
7. I'm ready to make a decision based on the information I have.
Is there anything else I can elaborate on so that you would have a
better understanding of my qualifications and suitability for this
position?
8. Are there any areas in which you feel I fall short of your
requirements?
9. Can you give me any feedback that would make me more
attractive to the company in the future or that I could benefit from
next time?
10. Is there anything else you need from me to have a complete
picture of my qualifications?

Chinanews, Hangzhou, Nov. 28 ¨C Zhejiang's Yiwu has begun to see an increasing export of Christmas gifts this month when Christmas is no longer than a month away and many super markets in Western Countries are busy collecting Christmas products.

From last May to October, actually, there had been 10-million-US-dollar worth of Christmas gifts made in Yiwu exported to more than 200 countries and regions worldwide every month.

These 200 countries and regions, such as the US, Germany, Holland, and Brazil, have made Yiwu as their key channel importing Christmas commodities by this year, according to a chief of the Yiwu office of the Jinhua Customs.

The exported Christmas goods cover not only traditional colorful lamps and wrapping paper, but also many other categories including costumes, toys, and even household appliances, indicating a climbing added value of export.

Yiwu Festival Gifts Co., Ltd. is now running up a set of Christmas products for South Korea. Salesman of the company said it was a temporary order, and the products ordered by many European and American countries have all been turned out and shipped there already.

Sometimes people in our industry can get a bad repetition or make someone mad. But, is that because what the industry is or what they did?

Remember the movie, Dave. It¡¯s about an average Joe that poses as president. At one point, he¡¯s talking to the real president¡¯s wife and she asks him what he does in real life. He answers he runs a very small staffing company. She answers ¡°Oh, you find people jobs¡±, and is very impressed. That¡¯s it in a nutshell. Over a lifetime career in this business, think about how many, houses, cars and college educations you have contributed to the economy by doing your job well?

You are a:

- Talent Agent ¨C No agent in sports or the entertainment industry has anything over you.

- Psychologist ¨C You have to get into the head of the candidate and figure what makes them tick and what their ¡°real¡± job interests are.

- Computer Scientist ¨C Few IT recruiters have a technical degree but we¡¯re expected to be able to wade through thousands of acronyms, know what they do and be able to screen candidates.

- Career Coach ¨C Be able to convince the candidate it¡¯s not in their best interest to wear that 2 pound nose ring to the interview.

- Travel Agent ¨C Figure out how to get that candidate in Fairbanks to Miami by 2 pm tomorrow to meet the CIO.

- Marriage Counselor ¨C Remember, it¡¯s the whole family that is affected by a job change.

- Friend - **the most important** No explanation other then ¡°treat others and you want to be treated¡±.

If you've been laid off or have somehow lost your job, you might find your self in the uncomfortable position of having your job be to find yourself another job. Unless you have gobs of money saved up, you'll have to hit the streets looking for a replacement that'll give you the weekly paycheck.

Many people are unprepared for looking for a full-time job under this type of pressure. Here's some tips that help you land a better job in no time.

Pen A Perfect Resume

Your resume is the first impression that prospective employers will have of you. Therefore, you want to really stand out from the crowd. The best way to do this, is to cater your resume to the job you are applying for. You want to highlight the skill you have that match the skills they need and remember to always be truthful.

Keep your resume short, with bullet items that highlight the important parts. You don't need to elaborate with a huge novel about what you've accomplished - that's what the interview is for, however, you do need to pique their interest enough for them to call you in for an interview.

Always include a cover letter with a short paragraph on why you are interested in their particular company or industry and how you think your skills will fit the job.

Submit Your Resume

Now that you have your resume written, you need to find places to submit it to. You could always go through a recruiter who has a list of jobs in your field open and can match you to them. You could also try using contacts you have in the business - call all your old friends and coworkers to try to ferret out any openings and companies who might be interested in working for. Finally you can check the papers and online job search websites.

Impress Them In The Interview

When you do get an Interview, you want to be sure to impress them with your skills and knowledge of the job. Don't go overboard and be both full, and always be truthful. do some research on the companyy so that you can ask pertinent questions. If there Is some skills they you might be rusty and that the job calls for, do some homework so that you can talk about them intelligently.

Always show up for interviews on time, take traffic into consideration and make sure you get there to check in about five minutes ahead of time. Don't forget to dress appropriately, while this may seem silly it actually does go a long way to making a big impression. Don't be nervous! This is your chance to shine, remember that a lot of times the interviewer can be just as nervous or even more as an interviewee. Many people who are interviewing are just simply workers who lack interviewing skills, you can go a long way towards gaining their trust by being confident and easy to interview.

Follow Up

After the interview, don't forget to follow up with a brief thank you letter. in a letter thank them for their time and also state how your skills are a perfect match for the job and in your particular interests in that area. People want to hire someone who is a good match for the job and will stay and enjoy it, and not just someone who needs a paycheck.

Sending a thank you letter may seem a bit old-fashioned, but this will help to get your name in front of the hiring managers again. You wouldn't believe how many people don't do this and it really makes an impression when someone does.

Stick To A Schedule

Obviously, the more places you interview the better your chances of landing a job. You can't just interview one place and then sit back for two weeks waiting to hear from them. Therefore, you need to set up some sort of schedule or goal for yourself. Perhaps you want to make sure you get In five interviews a week, then set this goal and make sure you work towards it.

While finding a new job can be a bit scary and often tedious you need to treat it as if it is your job and work at it full-time. If you make a great effort to find another job you'll be back in the workforce in no time.

1. Could you explain the company's organizational structure?
2. What is the organization's plan for the next five years,
and how does this department or division fit in?
3. What specific skills from the person you hire would make
your life easier?
4. Will we be expanding or bringing on new products or new
services that I should be aware of?
5. What are some of the problems that keep you up at night?
6. What are some of the skills and abilities you see as
necessary for someone to succeed in this job?
7. What would be a surprising but positive thing the new person
could do in first 90 days?
8. What challenges might I encounter if I take on this position?
9. How does upper management perceive this part of the
organization?
10. What are your major concerns that need to be immediately
addressed in this job?
11. What do you see as the most important opportunities for
improvement in the area I hope to join?
12. What are the attributes of the job that you'd like to see
improved?
13. What are the organization's three most important goals?
14. What is your company's policy on attending seminars,
workshops, and other training opportunities?
15. How do you see this position impacting the achievement of
those goals?
16. What is the budget this department operates with?
17. What attracted you to working for this organization?
18. What committees and task forces will I be expected to
participate in?
19. What have you liked most about working here?
20. How will my leadership responsibilities and performance be
measured? By whom?
21. What are the day-to-day responsibilities I'll be assigned?
22. Are there any weaknesses in the department that you are
particularly looking to improve?
23. What are the department's goals, and how do they align with
the company's mission?
24. What are the company's strengths and weaknesses compared with
the competition? (name one or two companies)
25. How does the reporting structure work here? What are the
preferred means of communication?
26. What goals or objectives need to be achieved in the next six
months?
27. Can you give me an ideal of the typical day and workload and
the special demands the job has?
28. This a new position. What are the forces that suggested the
need for this position?
29. What areas of the job would you like to see improvement in
with regard to the person who was most recently performing these
duties?
30. From all I can see, I'd really like to work here, and I
believe I can add considerable value to the company. What's the next
step in the selection process?
31. How does this position contribute to the company's goals,
productivity, or profits?
32. What is currently the most pressing business issue or problem
for the company or department?
33. Would you describe for me the actions of a person who
previously achieved success in this position?
34. Would you describe for me the action of a person who
previously performed poorly in this position?
35. How would you describe your own management style?
36. What are the most important traits you look for in a
subordinate?
37. How do you like your subordinates to communicate with you?
38. What personal qualities or characteristics do you most value?
39. Could you describe to me your typical management style and
the type of employee who works well with you?
40. Corporate culture is very important, but it's usually hard to
define until one violates it. What is one thing an employee might do
here that would be perceived as a violation of the company's culture?
41. How would you characterize the organization? What are its
principal values? What are its greatest challenges?
42. How would you describe the experience of working here?
43. If I were to be employed here, what one piece of wisdom would
you want me to incorporate into my work life?
44. What are a couple of misconceptions people have about the
company?
45. Work-life balance is an issue of retention as well as
productivity. Can you talk about your own view of how to navigate the
tensions between getting work done and encouraging healthy lives
outside the office?
46. How does the company support and promote personal and
professional growth?
47. What types of people seem to excel here?
48. Every company contends with office politics. It's a fact of
life because politics is about people working together. Can you give
me some exams of how politics plays out in this company?
49. What have I yet to learn about this company and opportunity
that I still need to know?
50. I'm delighted to know that teamwork is highly regarded. But
evaluating performance of teams can be difficult. How does the
company evaluate team performance? For example, does it employ 360-
degree feedback programs?
51. What are the organization's primary financial objectives and
performance measures?
52. What operating guidelines or metrics are used to monitor the
planning process and the results?
53. To what extent are those objectives uniform across all
product lines?
54. How does the company balance short-term performance versus
long-term success?
55. What kinds of formal strategic planning systems, if any, are
in place?
56. Can you describe the nature of the planning process and how
decisions concerning the budgeting process are made?
57. Can you identify the key corporate participants in the
planning process?
58. How often and in what form does the company report its
results internally to its employees?
59. In the recent past, how has the company acknowledged and
rewarded outstanding performance?
60. What are the repercussions of having a significant variance
to the operating plan?
61. Are budgeting decisions typically made at corporate
headquarters, or are the decisions made in a more decentralized
fashion?
62. I'm glad to hear that I will be part of a team. Let me ask
about reward structures for teams. Does the company have a formal
team-based compensation process?
63. Is the company more of an early adapter of technology, a
first mover, or is it content to first let other companies work the
bugs out and then implement a more mature version of the technology?
64. How does the company contribute to thought leadership in its
market?
65. How advanced is the company's commitment to knowledge
management?
66. I was pleased to hear you describe the company's branding
strategy. How does branding fit into the overall marketing mix?
67. How does this position contribute to the company's goals,
productivity, or profits?
68. According to (name source), your principal competitor, Brand
X, is the best-selling product in the space. What does Brand X do
better than your product?
69. Business Week magazine ranks the company second (or whatever)
in its industry. Does this position represent a change from where it
was a few years ago?
70. How accessible is the CEO (name him or her) to people at my
level of the organization?
71. Does the CEO (name him or her) publish his or her email
address?
72. I understand that the CEO is really approachable. Are there
ground rules for approaching him or her?
73. Staff development is mentioned in your annual report as a
measure on which executives are evaluated. What kinds of training
experiences might I expect?
74. Is the department a profit center?
75. Can you please tell me about the people who will look to me
for supervision?
76. Would I encounter any coworker or staff person who's proved
to be a problem in the past?
77. What happened to the person who previously held this job?
78. The incumbent was dismissed? How could the problems have been
avoided?
79. The incumbent was promoted? I'm delighted to hear it. Would
it be possible for me to talk to him or her?
80. What is the company customer-service philosophy?
81. Could you tell me about a time when the team/company went out
of its way to provide knock-your-socks-off service?
82. The best companies rely on rich customer data to fuel
personalized content and services. How is the company doing in
personalizing its offerings?
83. Customers are expecting companies to protect their data. Does
the company have a privacy policy for its Web initiatives, and how
does the company balance the momentum for ever-increasing
personalization with rising concerns for privacy?
84. How empowered are employees? How much of the company's money
can your people (including the ones with single-digit pay grades)
spend on their own recognizance to satisfy a customer or address a
work-process issue?
85. How often would I come into direct contact with real, living,
breathing, paying customers?
86. What are the success factors that will tell you if the
decision to bring me on board was the right one?
87. To make our working relationship successful -- something we
both want -- we'll need to be sure we have good chemistry together.
How might we determine this, and then what action would you see us
engage in to build that relationship?
88. If you and I were developing some sort of philosophical
difference, how would you want to go about resolving it?

Prepare for the Negotiations

It is foolhardy to negotiate on assumptions, so make sure you have some specific facts in hand. Some of these information can only be learnt during the interview process; elicit them from the interviewer when an offer is made, before starting the negotiation.

What is your worth in the market? Changes in the job market is constant due to a globally competitive economy. So the first thing you should find out is the current salary trend for your job profile.

There are many free and fee based online resources on salary surveys like payscale.com, jobstar.org and salary.com that can give you a ballpark range.

Research salaries at similar firms in the same job function and the same industry. Call similar companies directly and ask their salary ranges for the type of job you seek.

Ask recruiters, employment agents, other professionals and your own network of friends and associates.

Other places to research are professional trade journals and business magazines and newspaper and online job listings.

Remember to consider factors like location and experience that play a huge role too.

What is the offer package? In case an offer has been made to you, get specific details on the following facets of the offer -

Job Responsibilities: The specific job responsibilities and the first assignment you'll be working on is one of the most important aspects of the offer. If the assignment is to your liking, you might be more willing to be flexible.

The Signing Bonus: Some companies also offer an initial one-time bonus for start-up expenses like a new wardrobe or as an incentive to accept an offer over another. But keep in mind that since future raises are computed as a percentage of your base, it can be to the employer¡¯s advantage to entice you with a signing bonus rather than a higher base salary.

Base Salary: It is best to present a neutral appearance and not tip your hand by any involuntary response like "Wow!". Some firms offer a higher signing bonus if you accept the offer immediately. Unless you've made up your mind, it is always better to ask for a reasonable amount of time to consider their offer.

Relocation Package: If you are offered a relocation allowance, make sure you understand what is included - moving household goods, house hunting trips, and brokers' fees are examples.

Benefits Package: These are generally non-negotiable and are often standard for all employees. But they vary from company to company and so can be used to compare various offers before reaching a final decision.

Promotional Opportunities: Find out the promotional opportunities of this position, and the kind of salary progression to be expected in the first three to five years?

Tuition reimbursement: Organizations that want to encourage their employees to gain further education and training offer some form of partial or complete tuition reimbursement.

Future raises: Find out the methodology of the reviews and how future raises are computed and awarded. Are there performance-based raises and bonuses?

Profit sharing: If you are working for a growing and profitable organization, profit-sharing programs can offer you great year-end bonuses based on the success of the organization or your division.

Starting date: Some companies might want you to start immediately, and some might be more flexible.

Deadline: When an offer is made, the company also provides a time frame to respond. This is often negotiable; don't hesitate to ask for more time if you need it.

What does the interviewer earn? This information can give you an extra edge if the interviewer is also the one under whom you'll be working. After all, you wouldn't like your subordinates to make more money than you, right? So keep that sensitive issue in mind when you start negotiating. Generally ten percent less than what he/she earns may be an appropriate figure to negotiate on, but proceed carefully to make sure that the interviewer doesn't feel personally threatened by your salary request. (If you can't find the exact figure, even an estimate can help - use step 1 to figure it out.)

Who's the boss? As early as possible, find out who the final decision maker is with regard to hiring, determining your job title, and authorizing your compensation agreement.

Who's the competition? If possible, determine how desperate is the employer to fill in the position, how many other candidates are being considered and how you measure up to them.

Be Realistic, This is How the Market Works

According to Jeanne Sahadi, CNNMoney.com senior writer, employers seem to have the better hand in pay negotiations. Some insights from her:

Your pay doesn't necessarily reflect performance and seniority. Demand and supply in action - Managers will pay what the market demands to get the right candidate. So in a tight job market the starting salary of a new hire at your level may come close to or even match yours, despite your seniority and experience. And companies generally won't correct this discrepancy unless you raise the issue.
Keep abreast of the going rate for people with your experience and education, especially if you were hired in a down market.

Campaign for pay raises months before the review. Smart companies "always have a little something in their back pocket ... to use when they need it - say to keep an employee they can't afford to lose," said Dallas-based compensation consultant Rebecca Elkins. Say you fit that category, and you request an 8 percent raise when the company typically has offered you 4.5 percent. Smart managers would ask themselves, "Am I willing to lose this person for $500 a month?"
The day of your review is not the time to negotiate a higher raise since your manager has already gotten approval for the increase he's budgeted. Your campaigning should start months before.

When you're told they can't pay you more now, budget may not be the issue. If you ask for more money and your boss says the budget is too tight now, it might mean - your boss doesn't think you're that much, he doesn't have the authority to make that decision, he doesn't want you competing with him or that you are already paid at the top of the company's scale for your position.
Ask around what it will take for you to reach your desired pay level or consider whether you want to continue working in that position at that company

Bosses pay more if they like you. Bosses do have favorites. So it's easy to assume your manager sweetens the pot for his faves. But more realistically, chances are the employees he likes the most are also the ones who make his job easy and who make him look good to his managers.

Yes, there is a blacklist. Some companies push select employees out of their jobs or layoff an entire department just to get rid of one or two people without incurring liability. One easy way to get on a blacklist is to insult the boss or be overly negative about the company on email, in a meeting, or at the water cooler. Then there are some employees who can do no wrong, or if they do, they're far more likely to be given some slack. They're the employees who are perceived as trustworthy, even if they're not the top performers.

Negotiating Tips

While every interview will be different here are some common pitfalls you should avoid while negotiating your salary package:

Initiating Negotiations Too Soon
Timing is very important. The best and appropriate time to negotiate is when a formal offer has been made.

Only Negotiating Salary
While the base salary or the money is the most negotiated piece of the salary package, don't ignore the other parts. These include signing bonuses, unpaid leave, relocation expenses, flextime, severance and predetermined timeframes for salary reviews. Be flexible.

Mistrusting the System
Many job seekers operate under the assumption that employers will, without exception, try to lowball and take advantage of them, no matter how well-qualified they are for a position. While some employers might pay employees below industry standard, you should never enter a negotiation with a them-versus-me mentality. Many companies have a predetermined budget for every position and an offer may boil down to a take-it-or-leave-it proposition, only because that's all the budget allows for the position, not because the employer is trying to take advantage of you.

Assuming Your Degree Entitles You to a Higher Starting Salary
Having an advanced education is nothing more than a threshold requirement that enables prospective employers to narrow down the pool of applicants to a manageable size. If you have relatively little real-world work experience, your degree may keep you in the running, but it won't entitle you to a higher salary.

Believing Every Negotiation Should End in Your Favor
It's naive to assume you'll always get what you want. Negotiating isn't a win-lose proposition; it's a compromise, and you should be prepared for that. That doesn't mean you should settle for any offer that comes your way, but sometimes an agreeable settlement just might not be possible.

Here are some questions that applicants may ask recruiters, managers,
HR pros, and others. Some of them you may start hearing more often as
the balance of power continues to tilt toward employees.

Do you know the answers to these questions? Some of them you may
start hearing more often as the balance of power continues to tilt
toward employees. Others, you'll never hear from a candidate's mouth.
Still, asking yourself these questions -- and finding out or
exploring the answers -- can give you a deeper understanding of your
company.

? Questions for Headhunters and Recruiters
? Questions for HR
? Questions for Hiring Managers
? High-level Probing Questions
? Questions That Are Defensive
? Questions Designed to Get Feedback
? Questions Designed to Close the Deal
? Questions Stars May Ask

Questions for Headhunters and Recruiters

1. How did you find me?
2. Is this a retainer or contingency assignment?
3. Are you dealing with the client's HR people, or do you
have direct contact with the hiring manager?
4. How long has the client been with you?
5. How many candidates have you placed with this client?
6. When will I find out the name of the principal or client
company?
7. May I have a written job description?
8. Where is the position located?
9. Where is the company headquartered?
10. To whom does the position report?
11. Can you tell me about this executive's management style?
12. Why is the position open?
13. What happened to the person who previously held this position?
14. Is this a new position?
15. How long has the position been open?
16. How long have you been working on the assignment?
17. What does the position pay?
18. Are here any pay or compensation constraints that I
should take into consideration?
19. What can you tell me about the person who will
be interviewing me?
20. What is his or her po