The Asia Pacific Headhunter

How to Build a Better Boss and Why It's the best recruiting tool

Link: New York Time's: Google's Quest to Build a Better Boss

What's the new next thing in leadership? Nothing quite so new, but definitely some reaffirming qualities that should be focused on (but usually aren't focused on enough). Leave it to Google to mine through tens of thousands of their own HR data - employee feedback, surveys, performance reviews, promotion nominations, etc. to come up with a succinct 8-Point Plan. Their findings in a nutshell: deeper technical expertise is not as important as it was thought. Being a good coach, empowering and stretching your employees and showing genuine interest in them as people makes a team that is happier and performs consistently better. 

Why is a headhunter writing about this? Because when I work with clients, I need to be confident that they are, indeed, a good company people like working for: a company with happy employees that perform well. That's my leverage in getting the best people for that company. It's known that hard-to-find/highly-sought-after people (like at Google) leave their jobs for three most common reasons: 1) they don't feel a connection to their company or their own purpose 2) they don't get along with colleagues, and 3) they have a bad manager.  What's interesting with Google's Project Oxygen, is that they found the the last reason - how employees viewed their manager, had the most impact on employee happiness and performance. Happy employees are the biggest recruiting tool a company could ever use. If you want to hire the best, make sure your current employees have a great manager or team leader. 

 

Shift Happens

It seems 2010 is going to be a massive year of career shift for many people. Surveys in most developed markets point to massive numbers of skilled candidates intending to change jobs this year. Some of the results include:

• 60% of US Workers intend to leave their jobs in 2010 (link).
• 25% of employees believe organization morale is low (link).
• 20% of workers plan to switch careers and/or industries within two years (link).
• Only 45% of US employers are satisfied with their jobs in 2009 down from 61% in 1987 (link).
• Only 53% of Singapore financial workers are satisfied with their jobs (link).

It makes you wonder what really happened with all these people, what is it that causes them to have so much suffering at work? I talk with a lot of people in regards to their situation at work, most will admit to wanting more of something. Sometimes when we flesh it out their needs are quite realistic. Other times they are looking for an easier path to a better reward, which unfortunately, rarely exists. Meshing reality with what the person wants is often the biggest part of understanding whether someone really needs to make a job change in order to improve their satisfaction.

This can be really difficult to do alone, even for the most experienced candidates. After all, if you're good at your job you are busy doing that, not analyzing the marketplace and/or your skills and abilities to see whether you are ready for a big move. In order to make the decision on whether the time is right I recommend answering a few of the following questions. Be honest with yourself, anything else is pointless.

• What are my biggest achievements in my current position?
• How have I grown in the last 2 years?
• Am I giving 100% of my effort to the work I'm doing?
• If not, why am I holding back?
• If yes, then is the work satisfying me?
• If it's not satisfying me despite my effort, what are the areas that are holding me back?
• Can I improve on those areas in my current position?
• If I made a job change what are all the areas I need fulfilled to make me happy in a new position. 
• Being that nowhere is perfect. What would I be willing to give up/take on to make that move anyway?

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Are you a software developer in Auckland, want to be happier at work? Click here!

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Forget Career Success What About Some Career Happiness!

I've spoken to a lot of people about success in their career, but more often I speak to people who are straight up unhappy. They haven't lost interest in being successful in their career but they know they aren't happy where they are right now, or happy doing what they are doing. These are smart people so if you quiz them on career success they'll answer intelligently about what they want to do and where they'll be when they succeed. Unfortunately, they rarely get that success because the real problem is that they aren't having any joy in their journey.

What's more important career success or career happiness? I've decided it's the latter and so I've started advising my candidates and clients that they need to spend some of their time really investigating where they find the joy and happiness in their career. For some of them focusing on this area has helped them engage with jobs they thought they were sick of!

So, how do you focus on finding more joy at work? Sometimes a problem defined is half way to solving that problem, so you need to investigate yourself in order to find job happiness. Asking the following questions might be a nice way to start exploring your thoughts:

1. What are the jobs/projects you've done in the past that you've felt the most engaged in?
2. When do you feel most happy at work?
3. Why do you think you felt engaged when doing those job/projects you identified?
4. Why do you think you felt most happy in the times you did?
5. What are the obstacles to me doing more work like that?
6. What are the opportunities to doing more work like that?

Good luck with finding that happiness at work, it'll make a huge difference to your life.

Online Workshop From Japan: How to Attract the Right Job Candidate

My friend Bernd Kestler has another online workshop coming up soon, if you are interested details are below:

Online Workshop: How to Attract the Right Job Candidate - Bernd Kestler

The reason why finding that great talent can be so challenging is very simple - great people aren't job hunting. They already have one. The magic is reaching not just a lot of candidates, but the one great talent that will make your search a success.

Details:
Date: October 9th, 2008 (Thursday)
Time: 9:00PM Japan Time (room open from 8:50PM)
To join, click on the "Join now" button below

You will need at least speaker or a headset.

Online Seminar - Attracting and Sourcing Candidates in Japan

Bernd Kestler is giving a free online seminar on attracting and sourcing candidates in Japan and thought it might be of interest to APH readers. Please find details below from Bernd:

I have schedule a web-seminar titled: "Japan - Sourcing and Attracting Job Candidates" The seminar is free of charge and takes about 45 minutes. I am using a virtual classroom to deliver the presentation. Please use the following link to attend. You do not need to download any application to take part.

http://www.wiziq.com/tutorsession/session.aspx?JuX%2bgH%2b2GbZ8vZ%2f5CB3YhJ2NIlMdlK3OZAKjiEiwD8uXzOeeGkHfWSxCjgqg5o8ZF0o8nGkSip0%3d

You will need a headset to listen to the presentation. The session will be recorded and is available later in a flash format.

Details:

Title: Japan - Sourcing and Attracting Job Candidates
Date: May 23rd, 2008
Time: 3:00pm German time (10:00pm Japan time) - The classroom will be open from 9:50pm
Duration: 30 -45min.
Location: Internet www.wiziq.com
Language: English

Content:
- The Japanese hiring system
- Labor demographics
- Sourcing Channels
- Q&A

About Bernd: I have been living in Japan for over 10 years and work as a trainer mainly with multinational companies. In a previous role I worked with a recruiting agency and currently get requests for trainings on sourcing candidates in Japan. If you know someone, who might be interested in the presentation, please pass on the information.

Sincerely
Bernd Kestler

Why The Buddha Doesn't Give Referral Fees

Image Via Flickr

The Buddha states there are three gifts you can give a person. The first is a material gift. Perhaps if someone is suffering you give them some money or food to help them, which is truly a wonderful thing. The second is know-how. The gift of know-how is one that eases suffering by teaching so a person can stand on their own two feet and support themselves.  This is also a wonderful gift. But the third and greatest gift is the gift of non-fear.

Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese zen monk, peace activist and mindfulness teacher explains in the excerpt below (link) the gift of non-fear:

  In 1991, I visited a friend in New York who was dying, Alfred Hassler. We had worked together in the peace movement for almost thirty years. Alfred looked as though he had been waiting for me to come before dying, and he died only a few hours after our visit. I went with my closest colleague, Sister Chan Khong (True Emptiness).

    Alfred was not awake when we arrived. His daughter Laura tried to wake   him up, but she couldn't. So I asked Sister Chan Khong to sing Alfred   the Song of No Coming and No Going: "These eyes are not me, I am   not caught by these eyes. This body is not me, I am not caught by this   body. I am life without boundaries. I have never been born, I will   never die." The idea is taken from the Samyutta Nikaya. She sang   so beautifully, and I saw streams of tears running down the faces of   Alfred's wife and children. They were tears of understanding, and they   were very healing.

  Suddenly, Alfred came back to himself. Sister Chan Khong began to practice what she had learned from studying the sutra The Teaching Given to the Sick. She said, "Alfred, do you remember the times we worked together?" She evoked many happy memories we had shared together, and Alfred was able to remember each of them. Although he was obviously in pain, he smiled. This practice brought results right away. When a person is suffering from so much physical pain, we   sometimes can alleviate his suffering by watering the seeds of happiness that are in him. A kind of balance is restored, and he will feel less pain.

  All the while, I was practicing massage on his feet, and I asked him whether he felt my hand on his body. When you are dying, areas of your body become numb, and you feel as if you have lost those parts of your body. Doing massage in mindfulness, gently, gives the dying person the feeling that he is alive and being cared for. He knows that love is   there. Alfred nodded, and his eyes seemed to say, "Yes, I feel your hands. I know my foot is there."

  Sister Chan Khong asked, "Do you know we learned a lot from you when we lived and worked together? The work you began, many of us are continuing to do. Please don't worry about anything." She told him many things like that, and he seemed to suffer less. At one point, he opened his mouth and said, "Wonderful, wonderful." Then, he sank back to sleep.

  Before we left, we encouraged the family to continue these practices. The next day I learned that Alfred passed away just five hours after our visit. This was a kind of gift that belongs to the third category. If you can help people feel safe, less afraid of life, people, and death, you are practicing the third kind of gift.

The gift a Recruiter can give to their candidates and all the people they deal with on a daily basis encompass these three gifts. They can provide actual jobs, the know-how to get a job, but the third and least acknowledged gift is the gift of non-fear. Encouragement to those on the journey, encouragement to those trying to push through a fear. That fear might be unemployment, but it may be something else. I know that many Recruiters get caught up in the money side of the business. But I truly believe that you'll not REALLY enjoy this business until you see the opportunities you have to practice all three gifts.

So remember this next time you are asked to pay a referral fee. The reason the Buddha doesn't pay for referrals is because the Buddha has other gifts to give that are much greater. You also have the opportunity to give these gifts. If you are only seeing this business as one to exchange material gifts you are missing out on giving so much more.

Get paid for going on a job interview

Getting paid to go on a job interview... by the company that's interviewing you???! Sounds like a far-fetched fantasy for candidates, but that's what start-up NotchUp.com is basing it's whole business model on. Candidates (preferably happily employed ones) can sign up for free, put up their (LinkedIn) profile and calculate what their interview fee would be with an interview-price calculator. This is based on your industry, job, highest educational degree, years in industry, time in current position, and current salary.

This platform is meant to cut out the recruiters and headhunters. Since companies need only pay the interview fees set up by the candidates they choose to interview, the comparable fees are supposedly lower than the recruiter's traditional placement fee which is a percentage of the new hire's first-year salary. As a recruiter, I should really discredit this model (after all, it's going after my job!), but I'm a fair person and see that everything has its merits and disadvantages.

First off, sure -- throw money into the mixture - and changing the roles of who gets paid, you'll get some interesting results. I'm sure in some cases companies -- esp. start-ups who's future depends on excellent talent can save money in placement fees by paying lower interview fees. Passive candidates (happily employed who are successful at their job) who otherwise would not put their profile up may be enticed to put their profile up if there's money in it for them. In it's best light - it may work well over regular online job boards and with a companies that work with lame recruiters who just slap up job ads everywhere and wait for whatever comes in - only to send out high-volumes of low-quality candidates to their client.

Now, here's where I see the model lacking:

First off, the point is to attract good candidates right? Good people aren't attracted just by a few hundred dollars for their time. They are attracted to good opportunities that help grow their careers and their strengths. I'd say 9 times out of 10 the candidates I recruit are attracted to the opportunity, the challenges, and the company rather than just the money.

Secondly, recruiting and headhunting isn't just about getting the right candidate to the job or vice-versa. I doubt any recruiter would be paid just for that. (Contingent recruiters usually get paid ONLY when THEIR candidate gets hired, and they usually provide a guarantee for up to 3 months - it varies of course). The hard work doesn't end there (which is where NotchUp does). Job interviews don't automatically lead to a job offer. And a job offer doesn't necessarily lead to a successful hire. There's a whole process in making the successful hire go through. Recruiters and headhunters manage people (candidates, HR managers, hiring managers, other decision-makers), people's expectations, timing, and other factors that are crucial in making a successful hire. A lot of wasted time, energy and money (in terms of lost productive work time for everyone) happens not only in the search for getting that first interview, but in the follow-through that happens after the initial job interviews. This is another part of where recruiters and headhunters provide value and service.

In the end, I seriously doubt this online platform will make a dent in the demand for good quality recruiters and headhunters out there who provide very targeted, high quality service for their clients. It certainly won't replace third party recruiters. If anything, this will probably become just another tool for recruiters to use in research.

Friday Links

Some great articles for you to take in over the weekend:

Evidence from Japan that companies that offshore operations are more successful at maintaining and growing their domestic workforce. This is worth a read for all the anti-offshoring types. Offshoring has been a big issue in Japan since the 80's thanks to all the manufacturing done there. And while the study can't say what type of employees are hired in the domestic operations, the results do show that perhaps not offshoring is a bigger risk to the growth of a company in their country of origin.

Immigrants Fuel Workforce Growth in Canada - Canada's foreign-born population has reached it's highest point in 75 years with 20% of the population born overseas. They have given a much needed boost to an ageing workforce.

South Asian Blood Sweat and Tears in the Middle East - A damning article on the treatment of nearly 600,000 Sri Lankan domestic workers in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Lebanon, and the UAE. The Sri Lankan government reports that 50 domestic workers return to Sri Lanka "in distress" every day! More needs to be said about this, it's disgusting that this type of abuse of workers continues.

Indonesian Economy on The Rise But Jobs Scarce - Quick article on economy growth in Indonesia but also how that growth has been confined to certain parts of the country. In some cases people can make more money offering themselves as passengers to commuters so they can use the car pool lane, than they can from working near their homes.

Dow Chemical cuts 1000 jobs - Includes leaving the automotive sealers business in Asia. Hardly even causes a blip on the share price which always seems to be the case when there are layoffs.

UK Investment Bankers Predict Doom in 2008 - But they still think they'll personally get bigger bonuses!  You've gotta love their optimism. Not that those bonuses weren't bad last year either.

Indians and Filipinos Happiest People in Asia - Who would of thunk it? Filipinos in particular are happy about their career prospects and families but are most of all happy about their health. Unfortunately they came last in "preparedness for retirement". Still at least they aren't unhappy about it.

Where Do The Highest Paid Executives Live?

We really live in a mobile world nowadays. In particular many people will consider working not only different careers but also in many different countries during their career. There is no doubt that Asia is seen as an excellent area to move to and work for many people, at the same time many people in Asia are very interested in working in other parts of the world. The spirit of adventure drives many but if you are also interested in the power of money you might want to check out the Hay Group's 2007 World Pay Report available here (beware the link goes to a PDF download).

I like this report because it doesn't just show salary levels, it takes into account the cost of living and tax in each country to reveal disposable income levels - the true purchasing power of executive salaries for 46 countries in North America, South America, Africa, Europe and Asia Pacific. The results might really surprise a lot of people. The USA is 24th while countries like Russia, Turkey and Thailand are all in the top 10. From within Asia Hong Kong is 3rd while Thailand is 8th, Singapore 9th and China 14th. If you've been thinking hard about taking your executive skills off the beaten track then this might make you even more interested. While you might take a pay cut to go to many places your purchasing power may make up for that cut.

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Experience.com provides information on internships and entry level jobs.

The Single Most Powerful Question in Recruiting

Link: The Single Most Powerful Question in Recruiting - Articles - ERE.

Dr. John Sullivan has been called the "Michael Jordan of Hiring" by Fast Company so I think  it's worthwhile noting what he feels is the single most powerful interview question a Recruiter and hiring manager can use:

"What criteria will you use to determine whether to accept a job offer?"

Dr. John Sullivan hits it on the nose with his analogy to car salesman when they ask the customer" What is it going to take you to get into this car?"  Without asking this question of a candidate it's like putting any kind of car in front of a prospective buyer without knowing what kind of car he wants. Sportscar or family van? Does he want to go off roading or does he want an energy-efficient commuter car? Only a rookie sales person wouldn't ask this and in an employee's market it's only rookie Recruiters who forget to ask this too. The information is useful for quite a few reasons (which John notes in his article) but in my opinion it's most useful for "crafting your sales pitch", and "getting managers to change the job".

In extremely tight labor markets the ability to change a job and the way you present to a candidate are going to be key factors in getting them to choose you over another company. I find that doing this in hindsight (asking them what they want in the offer stage) is often seen as reactive by candidates and they sometimes question the legitimacy of the changes. But if you can get this question in early then you can really smooth the process.

Now from a candidate perspective, this question is just as important to you. Knowing that good employers truly value what you want should be a catalyst for you to take the time to really isolate and prioritize your wants when looking for a new opportunity. The more clear you are of what you want - what points are essential and which ones are negotiable, I think the better results you'll get in your job search.

Find thousands of Bilingual jobs at LatPro.com.