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Atricle Dump - Talent Recruitment Challenges of High Technology Companies
Mexico is the #1 consumer of soda in the world per capita. Mexicans thirst for new beverages is great but supply is small. Learn how to be the first to market to penetrate this growing marketMexico has always been at the top of the list when it comes to Beverage Consumption. Mexico leads most categories in beverage or is in the top 10 per capita and as a country.Superstores, supermarkets and convenience stores give beverages number 1 priority in shelve space. When you go into some of these stores you see how different the beverage shelves look.I often travel Monterrey, Mexico City, Tijuana and Guadalajara checking retail accounts like supermarkets. Their first comment was "Wow, look at all this soda"! I'm talking about pallet after pallet on the retail floor filled with soda, water, tea, new age beverages, water and every type of beverage you can imagine. Not just in Pallets, shelve after shelve filled with beverages not just 6 feet tall, in some hallways up to 12 feet tall.Beverage exports to Mexico are underrepresented with a mere $147,000,000 per year being exported from the USA to Mexico. This shows a Trade Deficit of $2 Billion Dollars in Beverage worth of good. Now, this is the "declared value" and not wholesale or retail value of goods, that's much higher.Selling beverages to Mexico is easier than ever, especially exportin
Key Skills for Turbulent Times
Once you have ensured that your organization has access to a pool of talented IT professionals, the next step is to be rigorous in your screening and selection processes. To be successful in the turbulent high technology industry, employees need much more than strong technical skills. They must also be able to:
- embrace change;
- tolerate ambiguity;
- learn quickly;
- produce high quality work within short time frames;
- maintain constructive relationships with team members, team leaders and clients;
- juggle multiple projects, tasks and priorities multi-task.
It can be challenging to assess how well candidates will fit your environment. During periods of job shortages and intense competition the job market, candidates develop strategies to present themselves favorably during traditional interviews. Many candidates receive:
- assistance in designing resumes;
- image consulting regarding dress;
- coaching to improve their effectiveness in
Are you monitoring the results of your management team? Are you charting the progress of your organization? Are you paying attention to the organizational capital, which comes thru working thru crisis and achieving results?Can your management team cut the mustard? Does everyone put in 110% or do you have social parasites and too many ladder climbers who are completely self-absorbed? Have you ever considered this? When a mistake is made or the organizational management structure is breaking down are you able to turn that ship around or are you too busy stroking egos?Are there too many Alpha-Males in the group, who are so into being top dog that they fail to adhere to the mission statement and what is truly best for the company, employees, customer and shareholders? Do you have a mechanism in place to monitor this? Well, do you?Your management team must be held accountable from the top echelon to every single middle manager at every position, whether a factory or outlet. Business management must be tracked just like production, marketing, advertising or sales. If you do not know where you are any road will take you there, while you are passed by your competition who is tracking and charting their management’s progress. Please Consider this in 2006.
For high technology organizations, attracting, hiring and retaining the right talent is critical. Add the right players to your team and you have a key source of competitive advantage. Attract the wrong talent and you will have difficulty meeting your strategic goals and objectives. Your first challenge is to generate a large enough talent pool from which you can draw when searching for top talent. The second is to develop an effective process for screening and selecting the best candidates.
Out of the Box Recruitment Strategies
Putting the right long and short term strategies in place will ensure that you attract the right talent now and into the future. Short term strategies to explore include:
- talent auditions;
- job fairs;
- incentives and contests for employee referrals;
- the use of web based resources such as job boards and job distribution services.
When we recently conducted our behaviour based interviewing workshop in Singapore, a Vice-President who attended the session indicated that his company had sponsored an employee's participation in a high profile sporting event. The company received so much publicity and exposure that it was more than worth their while to allow the employee to take time off to attend practices and compete in the event.
Longer term strategies could/might include:
- giving executives and senior managers time off to become actively involved in the leadership of professional associations or the alumni associations of universities and secondary schools from which they graduated;
- giving executives and senior managers time to broaden their network of up and coming professionals by teaching at university or community college (this can be done on a part-time basis or through sabbaticals);
- summer and co-op placements for high school and college students;
- providing scholarships for high potential high school graduates from low income families in exchange for a certain number of years of service;
- sponsoring tutoring and upgrading programmes at elementary and secondary schools with high failure and drop out rates;
- partnering with local juniour high and secondary schools to arrange field trips and site visits to company locations.
Some of these strategies may seem far fetched but the talent has to come from somewhere. If we don't help the schools to grow it, the talent may not be there for us to buy when we need it.
Other long term strategies involve positioning your organization as an employer of choice. A lot of it has to do with the corporate culture that you shape and the way you treat your employees. During the last recession, some employers took advantage of the fact that it was a buyer's market. They offered new employees rock bottom wages and treated the members of their team in a harsh and demanding manner. When the economy picked up, those organizations experienced a mass exodus of talent and severe talent retention challenges. It is important to learn the right lessons from their experience. Some long term strategies to explore include:
- initiating tele-commuting, flex hours, job sharing, and part-time work to tap into the female labour force on a long term basis;
- investing in the members of your team by providing opportunities for training and development, an area that is typically cut in turbulent markets;
- increasing your organization's public exposure by making it possible for employees to participate in high profile activities (e.g the Olympics and other major sporting events, acting) even if means giving them some time off work. Like Home Depot and McDonald's, you can then feature them in some of your advertisements;
- attracting media coverage and publicity by shaping a unique and vibrant corporate culture and environment where up and coming young professionals will want to work.
Key Skills for Turbulent Times
Once you have ensured that your organization has access to a pool of talented IT professionals, the next step is to be rigorous in your screening and selection processes. To be successful in the turbulent high technology industry, employees need much more than strong technical skills. They must also be able to:
- embrace change;
- tolerate ambiguity;
- learn quickly;
- produce high quality work within short time frames;
- maintain constructive relationships with team members, team leaders and clients;
- juggle multiple projects, tasks and priorities multi-task.
It can be challenging to assess how well candidates will fit your environment. During periods of job shortages and intense competition the job market, candidates develop strategies to present themselves favorably during traditional interviews. Many candidates receive:
- assistance in designing resumes;
- image consulting regarding dress;
- coaching to improve their effectiveness in
Have you always wanted an Internet business but been stopped by hurdles like no web site, no product idea, no networking marketing knowledge, etc, etc, etc? Or are you one of the many affiliates struggling to make sales and commissions from your business or Affiliate programs?If you answer “Yes” to any of the above question, then listen ……. I have extremely exciting news.Read this article in its entirety to find out what you should do if you’re serious about making money and finding the secret ingredient for your success.Statistics gathered by industry expert show that over 90% of people who join affiliate programs never make enough money from their sales commission checks. Why do they fair miserably?You see, if you want to make money on the Internet then you need to understand the “rules” of the game... Then you need to play better than everybody else.So...how exactly is it that you learn the “rules” so that you can play better (and more profitably) than everybody else?You go to an expert at making money. That’s how.Everyone in the Net community knows that Google Adwords” is the most powerful Advertising Tool today.Trying to make money from Google Adwords can be a VERY COSTLY affair and you can’t afford to get it wrong.Therefore, you need to know the REAL secret to getting cheap traffic from Google AdWords
Out of the Box Recruitment Strategies
Putting the right long and short term strategies in place will ensure that you attract the right talent now and into the future. Short term strategies to explore include:
- talent auditions;
- job fairs;
- incentives and contests for employee referrals;
- the use of web based resources such as job boards and job distribution services.
When we recently conducted our behaviour based interviewing workshop in Singapore, a Vice-President who attended the session indicated that his company had sponsored an employee's participation in a high profile sporting event. The company received so much publicity and exposure that it was more than worth their while to allow the employee to take time off to attend practices and compete in the event.
Longer term strategies could/might include:
- giving executives and senior managers time off to become actively involved in the leadership of professional associations or the alumni associations of universities and secondary schools from which they graduated;
- giving executives and senior managers time to broaden their network of up and coming professionals by teaching at university or community college (this can be done on a part-time basis or through sabbaticals);
- summer and co-op placements for high school and college students;
- providing scholarships for high potential high school graduates from low income families in exchange for a certain number of years of service;
- sponsoring tutoring and upgrading programmes at elementary and secondary schools with high failure and drop out rates;
- partnering with local juniour high and secondary schools to arrange field trips and site visits to company locations.
Some of these strategies may seem far fetched but the talent has to come from somewhere. If we don't help the schools to grow it, the talent may not be there for us to buy when we need it.
Other long term strategies involve positioning your organization as an employer of choice. A lot of it has to do with the corporate culture that you shape and the way you treat your employees. During the last recession, some employers took advantage of the fact that it was a buyer's market. They offered new employees rock bottom wages and treated the members of their team in a harsh and demanding manner. When the economy picked up, those organizations experienced a mass exodus of talent and severe talent retention challenges. It is important to learn the right lessons from their experience. Some long term strategies to explore include:
- initiating tele-commuting, flex hours, job sharing, and part-time work to tap into the female labour force on a long term basis;
- investing in the members of your team by providing opportunities for training and development, an area that is typically cut in turbulent markets;
- increasing your organization's public exposure by making it possible for employees to participate in high profile activities (e.g the Olympics and other major sporting events, acting) even if means giving them some time off work. Like Home Depot and McDonald's, you can then feature them in some of your advertisements;
- attracting media coverage and publicity by shaping a unique and vibrant corporate culture and environment where up and coming young professionals will want to work.
Key Skills for Turbulent Times
Once you have ensured that your organization has access to a pool of talented IT professionals, the next step is to be rigorous in your screening and selection processes. To be successful in the turbulent high technology industry, employees need much more than strong technical skills. They must also be able to:
- embrace change;
- tolerate ambiguity;
- learn quickly;
- produce high quality work within short time frames;
- maintain constructive relationships with team members, team leaders and clients;
- juggle multiple projects, tasks and priorities multi-task.
It can be challenging to assess how well candidates will fit your environment. During periods of job shortages and intense competition the job market, candidates develop strategies to present themselves favorably during traditional interviews. Many candidates receive:
- assistance in designing resumes;
- image consulting regarding dress;
- coaching to improve their effectiveness in
Follow their methods to create your own fortune.What a privilege. Over the last weekend I attended an action packed Entrepreneurs Bootcamp on Internet and Direct Response Marketing.Do the names of these famous entrepreneurs mean anything to you?Ted Nicholas - Master author and copywriter, millionaire by age 25, multi millionaireYanik Silver - Brilliant Internet Marketer, multi millioniareArmand Morin - Search on Goolge and you will find his name on 744,000 pages! Multi millioniareDerek Gehl - Partner of the late Cory Rudl of Internet Marketing Centre fame, multi millioniarePlus other famous entrepreneurs, too many to mention.The event was in aid of a children's charity and raised in excess of ?400,000. It was created and hosted by Andrew Reynolds, from the UK, another self made millionaire, who has developed his 'Cash on Demand System' over the last 10 years netting a cool ?30,000,000 in the process.This is heady stuff and it really was a privilege to be able to meet with and listen to these masters.If you have been anywhere near the internet in recent times you must have come across some of these people, all outrageously successful in their own niche.All nice easy people, comfortable with what they are doing. Honest and open, sharing their ideas and techniques.A number of common them
- giving executives and senior managers time to broaden their network of up and coming professionals by teaching at university or community college (this can be done on a part-time basis or through sabbaticals);
- summer and co-op placements for high school and college students;
- providing scholarships for high potential high school graduates from low income families in exchange for a certain number of years of service;
- sponsoring tutoring and upgrading programmes at elementary and secondary schools with high failure and drop out rates;
- partnering with local juniour high and secondary schools to arrange field trips and site visits to company locations.
Some of these strategies may seem far fetched but the talent has to come from somewhere. If we don't help the schools to grow it, the talent may not be there for us to buy when we need it.
Other long term strategies involve positioning your organization as an employer of choice. A lot of it has to do with the corporate culture that you shape and the way you treat your employees. During the last recession, some employers took advantage of the fact that it was a buyer's market. They offered new employees rock bottom wages and treated the members of their team in a harsh and demanding manner. When the economy picked up, those organizations experienced a mass exodus of talent and severe talent retention challenges. It is important to learn the right lessons from their experience. Some long term strategies to explore include:
- initiating tele-commuting, flex hours, job sharing, and part-time work to tap into the female labour force on a long term basis;
- investing in the members of your team by providing opportunities for training and development, an area that is typically cut in turbulent markets;
- increasing your organization's public exposure by making it possible for employees to participate in high profile activities (e.g the Olympics and other major sporting events, acting) even if means giving them some time off work. Like Home Depot and McDonald's, you can then feature them in some of your advertisements;
- attracting media coverage and publicity by shaping a unique and vibrant corporate culture and environment where up and coming young professionals will want to work.
Key Skills for Turbulent Times
Once you have ensured that your organization has access to a pool of talented IT professionals, the next step is to be rigorous in your screening and selection processes. To be successful in the turbulent high technology industry, employees need much more than strong technical skills. They must also be able to:
- embrace change;
- tolerate ambiguity;
- learn quickly;
- produce high quality work within short time frames;
- maintain constructive relationships with team members, team leaders and clients;
- juggle multiple projects, tasks and priorities multi-task.
It can be challenging to assess how well candidates will fit your environment. During periods of job shortages and intense competition the job market, candidates develop strategies to present themselves favorably during traditional interviews. Many candidates receive:
- assistance in designing resumes;
- image consulting regarding dress;
- coaching to improve their effectiveness in
How far does your service go? And how much farther can you stretch it?If you serve customers, do you stretch to do it better every day? Are you eager to learn from colleagues and mentors, seminars, books, websites, and a healthy dose of candid customer feedback?If you provide internal service, do you reach across functional lines, or stay stuck inside your departmental 'silo'? Is your communication with colleagues and partners positive, proactive and persistent?If you serve in your community, do you volunteer time and stretch a little more by asking others to join you?If you serve your family, do you reach out with a higher level of attention and affection every day?If you serve the planet, are you ecologically aware? Do your actions inspire and educate the neighbors?If you serve humanity, do you cultivate true compassion, patience, kindness, respect and encouragement of others?If you serve all life, have you expanded your sense of life itself and your understanding of what it means, being here 'in service'?Key Learning PointService is a great line of work, and those of us who do it daily are certainly among the fortunate on Earth. You can increase your good fortune, and that of others, by deepening your commitment and expanding the impact of your service every day.Action StepsMake an extra ef
- initiating tele-commuting, flex hours, job sharing, and part-time work to tap into the female labour force on a long term basis;
- investing in the members of your team by providing opportunities for training and development, an area that is typically cut in turbulent markets;
- increasing your organization's public exposure by making it possible for employees to participate in high profile activities (e.g the Olympics and other major sporting events, acting) even if means giving them some time off work. Like Home Depot and McDonald's, you can then feature them in some of your advertisements;
- attracting media coverage and publicity by shaping a unique and vibrant corporate culture and environment where up and coming young professionals will want to work.
Key Skills for Turbulent Times
Once you have ensured that your organization has access to a pool of talented IT professionals, the next step is to be rigorous in your screening and selection processes. To be successful in the turbulent high technology industry, employees need much more than strong technical skills. They must also be able to:
- embrace change;
- tolerate ambiguity;
- learn quickly;
- produce high quality work within short time frames;
- maintain constructive relationships with team members, team leaders and clients;
- juggle multiple projects, tasks and priorities multi-task.
It can be challenging to assess how well candidates will fit your environment. During periods of job shortages and intense competition the job market, candidates develop strategies to present themselves favorably during traditional interviews. Many candidates receive:
- assistance in designing resumes;
- image consulting regarding dress;
- coaching to improve their effectiveness in
I recently surveyed CEOs and Business Leaders of large companies and small, profit and not-for-profit, and I asked just them just one question: 'What is the single biggest factor that you believe will inhibit your sustained profitable growth into the future?’ A, perhaps, surprising 37% responded that it was people - the recruitment, motivation and retention of people that was the biggest factor.So let’s address the first one - recruitment.I see many, many businesses through a year from the very smallest through to the largest corporate and I am simply amazed how many people still use 'traditional' methods to recruit - maybe a couple of interviews, nothing more – together with a great reliance on the content of the CV and on references.You may know that the generally accepted wisdom is that by using these methods you are likely to get it right just 2 times in 5 ie. a 60% failure rate!Is there anywhere else in our businesses where we would accept that degree of failure?So we need to be more sophisticated in our recruiting methodology. For example:When we recruit a sales person how often do we establish directly whether they can sell?When we recruit an accountant how often do we establish whether they can read, interpret and, most importantly, report on a set of accounts?There are comprehensive methodologies that
Key Skills for Turbulent Times
Once you have ensured that your organization has access to a pool of talented IT professionals, the next step is to be rigorous in your screening and selection processes. To be successful in the turbulent high technology industry, employees need much more than strong technical skills. They must also be able to:
- embrace change;
- tolerate ambiguity;
- learn quickly;
- produce high quality work within short time frames;
- maintain constructive relationships with team members, team leaders and clients;
- juggle multiple projects, tasks and priorities multi-task.
It can be challenging to assess how well candidates will fit your environment. During periods of job shortages and intense competition the job market, candidates develop strategies to present themselves favorably during traditional interviews. Many candidates receive:
- assistance in designing resumes;
- image consulting regarding dress;
- coaching to improve their effectiveness in handling typical interview questions.
This preparation can mask a candidate's deficiencies. Although interviews are the most widely used selection tool, they are not the best predictor of on the job performance. Strategies such as assessment centres, job samples and rigorous reference checks will uncover much more reliable data. Whenever possible, these strategies should be used in conjunction with selection interviews.
Interviewing Do's and Don'ts
To ensure that interviews yield the best possible data on which to base selection decisions here are some tips to share with your executive and management teams. First let's look at some interviewing pitfalls:
Avoid questions which make it easy for candidates to bluff their way through interviews.
For example, if you are still using such dinosaurs as:
- Tell me about yourself?
- What is your greatest strength?
- What is your greatest weakness?
- Why do you want to work for us?
as part of your standard battery of interview questions, you will miss key information that you need to assess potential employees.
Don't inadvertently screen candidates out because they don't fit your non-job related pre-conceived notions about your ideal candidate
(e.g. Caucasian, attractive, mid thirties, plays golf, no foreign accents).
Make sure that you don't inadvertently "telegraph" the right answers to the candidates
(e.g. "We are a very fast-paced company. How well do you deal with pressure?") This is a very common interviewing error.
Don't be fooled by a smooth interaction style during an interview.
Dig deeper. You may be dealing with a charmer or a con artist who will, at best, fail to produce results and, ultimately, cost you money.
Don't neglect to contact the candidates last 3 immediate supervisors for references.
Some candidates try to impress potential employers by supplying as references the names of high profile executives with whom they are personal friends. Sometimes, these individuals have no direct knowledge of an individual's work styles or habits.
Don't get so caught up in the intense pressure of a turbulent industry that you fail to do some long term manpower planning.
Decisions made in haste because filling a particular position is left until the need is urgent can be costly.
Don't leave the bulk of the hiring up to inexperienced managers and then fail to give them adequate training or tools.
Their mistakes can cost you time, money and even get your company involved in a human rights complaint or discrimination in hiring lawsuit.
Here are a few ideas to help your team improve the effectiveness of their selection interviews:
To improve your selection decisions, use a panel of 2 - 3 interviewers instead of relying on the judgment of one person.
Pre-plan the interviews with structured interview guides and questions.
Develop a clear picture of the type of corporate culture you want to foster and the values that will support that culture.
Design behaviour based questions to give candidates an opportunity to provide specific examples of when they have demonstrated those values. ("Please describe a specific situation in which you took a stand regarding a tough ethical dilemma at work even though there was a personal cost.")
Develop a realistic picture of the constraints of your working environment and prepare questions to help candidates describe when they have successfully performed under these constraints.
("When have you successfully executed a project within a tight time-frame and with a limited budget? What project management tools and methodologies did you use to ensure success?")
To get a balanced picture of a candidate's skills, develop some questions to give candidates an opportunity to describe when they have not handled situations effectively.
("Tell me about a time when you became so overwhelmed that you were unable to deal effectively with a change at work that you did not support.")
Make training available for all inexperienced managers and for experienced managers who have made poor hiring decisions.
Ensure that all managers involved in the hiring process are thoroughly familiar with the legislation that has a bearing on hiring and selection. This will help you avoid negative publicity and time consuming human rights complaints.
© 2005 Executive Oasis International - All Rights Reserved
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