Work Cycle : Learn the Graph of Hiring

New Year is over, Chinese New Year is next. This also means, bonus time! Many employees would already be looking out for a new job, new career, a new change. From this month till end of April, hiring activities would be at its peak level. 

Employees that would be looking out could differ from many industry, position or even departments. Today will be some tips to share with employees on how to ensure smooth transition of their job hunting. 

1. Update your resume.

Updating your resume from time to time brings no harm. It does not necessarily mean that you are done with your current employment. In fact, it makes the hustle lesser when you want to have a shift in your career. Resume should be compact and on point with important details of your working experience. Making it simple yet detailed is the key. Ensure that all job tittle, duration of employment, responsibilities attached and achievement gained is all listed clearly. Do not forget to state your reason of leaving all your previous organisation to make HR’s screening & selecting much easier! 

2. Application of jobs.

Apply for job that is ONLY RELEVANT to your previous experience. Mind you, we have seen candidates from teaching background applying for a Head of Human Resource department. By applying to other random jobs, you are only making those a capable talent to be hidden by increasing the number of application. The probability of a suitable candidate to be called for interview thus decreases. Now imagine you applied for a position that really suits you and exact requirements were needed for the organisations. But because of many other applicants that applied blindly, the number of application increases from probably 30 application to 210 applications! Do you think we have all the time to read every 210 resumes which each probably may have 7-8 pages in average. You don’t get to be seen among the 210 applicants. Frustrating isn’t it?

3. Interviews. 

While attending for interviews, be all prepared. I mean it. Imagine being a hiring manager and having interviewed candidates who barely know the job responsibilities. It is not the hiring manager’s responsibility to explain what are the expected job responsibilities are but instead the candidates should be knowing it first. If you cannot make it on time for the interview, inform. Inform the HR department, hiring manager or even recruiter that you may be late by 5-10 minutes. If you last minute do not feel good about the role you’re about to be interviews, DO NOT GO MISSING in the Bermuda Triangle. We don’t eat humans. We are not cannibals at least! Have the courage to call the recruiter or even an email would do. We do not want to waste anyone’s time over here. 

4. Follow-ups.

Following up after attending your interviews is very important. Leave a thank you note to the hiring manager/HR department/recruiter. No bouquets of flower is needed, no chocolates delivery is needed. Just a thank you email for handling or organising the interview. Even if it’s rejecting an offer proposal, do not keep HR chasing you for a signed copy of it. If you feel is not worth the move from your current job, justify it. I’m very sure if the justification made sense and if your expertise is in need to the new organisation, they will acknowledge it. Counter offers are just another part of the story that I always hate to face. Another blog on this surely. 

5. Resignation.

Do not leave the current organisation in a bad way. Always remember that everyone we work with is part of the networking that you’re building. While working and delivering our task, we create impression. This same impression is something we can change into building a good range of connection in your work network. You’ll be shocked how people will remember you from your work for years! Leave in good terms and keep in touch if necessary. 

Looking for a new job and starting the cycle all over again may just be tiring and which somehow would make your confidence level decline. Never give up even if you’ve gone for 10-15 interviews. Every interview you attending should have a learning point. The curve always incline after a bad downfall. As Napoleon Hill says strength and growth come only through continuous effort and struggle.

Key Performance Indicator [KPI] - Unseen risk at workplace

KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATOR

Something that everyone tries to run away from? Well, not if the key performance indicators (KPI) are set realistically. But how many of us over here do have realistic targets every month? The number of employees leaving their job due to amount of workload & not practical targets is still crazy. From the management's view, their aim is to actually push their employees to go beyond their capabilities in order to increase the productivity of individual. In other words, give their 100% commitment to the organisation.


Everyone would want to not work hard and yet earn same either higher. Oh well, even I do! But on a serious note, it is necessary for organisation to implement KPI into every functionality? At least not to stress the employees but surely for many other good reason's too.


Besides having a clear job description, employees should be given the expectation of the role so that they will be all clear on what should be delivered. Having KPI(s), you always know what are your goals for the month. We tend to start the month with a certain checklist to be ticked by end of the month. With that, the goals you want to achieve becomes clear. Very often, employees become very stress with their workload and tend to burst out. Having a clear indicator of the expected performance, employees will be able to plan their weekly or even daily plans at work which will be able to result in excellent performance.


For example, a hiring manager opens a Customer Support role handling APAC region focusing on the China market. Target for a HR personnel could be to fill up the position within 1 month of the project given. With this, HR personnel could set days they would want to interview the candidates for 3-4 rounds and hire the individual within 1 month. Being clear with the goal of 1 month to fill the position, HR personnel will be able to work simultaneously with other positions that comes from other department. Without a realistic target, hiring managers would be expecting potential candidates from HR personnel within 1.5-2 weeks which sometimes could be pretty stressful for the recruiter.


Just for the sake of providing candidates to the hiring manage who demanded quick candidates, the chances of the hiring manager interviewing candidates that are not equally good is very high. Hiring manager will waste hours of his time just trying to interview low quality candidates. With the duration set by the HR manager for the HR personnel, it ables them to plan their work accordingly and also increases the quality of candidates submitted to the hiring manager.


With this being said, managers surely plays an important role setting target for employees. Many driven employees leave their organisation due to the unrealistic target given to them. KPI works for many other departments too. Number of position to be filled in by Quarter 1, number of marketing catalogue to be design in 1 month, number of tickets support & satisfactory score level, total sales to cover in a month, number of unit production produced in a month. It works in every way!


What would be the effect of unrealistic targets by supervisor?


Turnover rate. Look at your company's turnover rate. People tend to leave when they feel they are not equally good for their organisation. When they often see themselves not being able to consistently achieve their KPI, it leads them to stressful moments thinking they are not performing well.

Demotivated employees leads to unhealthy office environment. Coming to office being so demotivated, having to speak with a friend and spreading around about how the management kills the sales department with high targets. Stories do go around. Perception of employees changes and they don't tend to look at the awesome management no where like before.

The quality of employee reduces! What is more disappointing to know that employees no more longer focuses on producing quality work and now focuses more to the quantity of work done just to achieve the targets their manager sets for them ? Customer's satisfaction some how links a lot to the quality of work done by the employees. When quality drops, it becomes domino effect to why the organisation can fail.

Employee's low morale, low self-esteem, productivity drops, absenteeism increases, overrunning cost becomes high and many more! The list could just go on and on and on. Employees being the largest asset for every organisations, it is very important to ensure that they are well taken care off. This does not mean that we should be spoon feeding the employees with everything. Having the employees to know that the management care for them is already a good step to developing a healthy environment.

With more good than harm KPI can actually be, it is now known how it can actually cause more harm than anything ever. This hidden risk is something that does not speak much when exit interviews are done but it somehow does contribute to employees leaving the organisation. If targets are set very high, discuss with together with managers and see how could both parties come up to a mutual understanding.

Does New Year Resolution really work ?

Question that many ask towards the end of the year. Many actually wonder if it actually is true. For some it is just a trending topic when New Year comes and it goes forgotten as months pass by.
New Year resolution does not only mean some list of goals for you to list so you can achieve it by end of the year. As much as it guides you with your goals, it helps one to be discipline. Very often New Year resolution is mistaken by everyone of us that it could be for basic health, wealth and career. No. Above all these, resolutions for New Year should be things you are doing for your own happiness.
What makes New Year resolution to fail ? Think back, did the resolution you have listed really does challenges you ? For some, they set their goals something that they know they would be able to achieve. For some, they set goals higher than previous years to set new targets. If the goals do not challenge you, that is where the urge of completing it goes away. The feeling of accomplishment would be gone and therefore, very often individual tends to be demotivated to achieve them.
Aren't those goals SMART enough ? Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timely.
Specific

Are your goals specific enough. What is unclear in the goal you have planned. Are they planned precisely ? Have you thought twice and clarified if the goal you have listed is something you have good understanding and idea on what exactly it is ?

Measurable

Are there any indication on what is the beginning of your goals and when you have finish accomplished it? Through this, you could easily determine the amount of effort you are going to invest into this goal. If a goal requires 50% of your effort, there is no use of putting in 100% or otherwise. Know how much is of effort is required to put in so that you can complete it and move on to the next one.
Achievable
Setting a goal that you are never going to achieve is the same as a hound digging for gold. It’s never bound to happen. Setting something that is acceptable yet not easily to be achieve will be something though to balance. Nevertheless, setting goals like this, comes with a lot of experience.
Realistic
Being practical it is. Setting your goals for savings for RM 1,500 when your salary is RM 3,000 and commitment is almost 40-50% of your salary. Knowing your expenses for the month on basic necessity and then keeping some cash for your saving requires extra calculation and careful planning so you could save realistic amount.
Timely
Setting a deadline to a goal could be very useful to guide you along the way which will allow you to take baby steps in order to achieve your goals. For example. Setting a goal to buy a Range Rover by end of the year could simply be unrealistic if ones savings is only RM 2,000 per month because a minimum of RM 3,400 is required to save for a down payment of RM 40,000 for the car. With this, you'd know that it will take at least 20 month's of savings to get the car rather than 12 month's savings. Setting a very tight deadline may not be healthy for setting goal that could be achievable sometimes.
These acronym is my personal favourite one every time I use it to set a goal for myself. This does not mean that I only use it once a year for my New Year resolutions. I use it in my daily activities. Be it to reach work on time, or to spend only certain amount of money for the day. Using SMART goals does not mean that all the goals will be achieved but it rather helps us to stay focus on how to lead the right path. Setting goals is not a one time thing to be done beginning of the year but it requires some adjustment through out the time. Someone once told me that always take some time back and think if we are reaching our goals already. It is either we modify our goals or we amplify our skill sets. New Year resolution is just a term. A term used to get individuals to begin a new year with new goals and to keep on challenging ourselves. To keep on aiming higher. To keep on setting new goals and achieve wondrous things in life. New goals may come in middle of the year or anytime possible! They key is to never stop aiming! You'll always land higher! Let’s all remember that the minimum requirement to succeed in anything is maximum effort

How can candidates make job hunting easier and better?

How can candidates make job hunting easier and better?

Just the other day, I read an article regarding some statics on recruitment by Glassdoor, somewhat caught my attention that in an average, from 250 resumes of an application, only 2% are usually called for an interview. Several says that applicants are not relevant but that may not be entirely accurate. There can be other contributing influences to why are the remaining 98% candidates not shortlisted. The reason for this writing here today is to share with all those 98% of population on how to make your resume speak for yourself. Here are the few whys and wherefores you should be knowing: 

1. Appearance of resumes. 

Candidates, your resumes speak for you when applying for job while you can’t. Your way of writing resume does not need to have some graphic or attractive templates you pay in making the interviewer to select you. No, certainly not! When we speak about how you present your resume alsodoes not mean you should write down paragraphs over paragraphs on your everyday job. 

As modest it can be, it only takes you to write down your job tittle, organization attached and duration of service followed by tasks allocated in point form to make things be as clear as possible. In average, the human resource (HR) team takes about 30 seconds – 1 minutes to screen through you resume. 

2. Does achievements and target matters? 

Comparing two resumes which one has their sales target and KPI elaborated and another none. We may be startledby the candidate’s resume whom shared their target thus, shortlisting them and ignore the other when we never know if the other candidate may have accomplished better results than the first candidate. Do not wait to be qualified only then to share all the achievements and targets with your interviewer. Again, all these targets speak for yourself. These are those selling point of yourself to the first step of job hunting. Expose your capabilities, you would then be able to see all those hiring managers wanting to have you on board. 

When conducting phone interviews, many candidates says“I can do all the jobs”. You surely can. In what way? Convince the interviewer with results. Describe your key performance index (KPI), share on projects you have driven, speak about how you had grip on precedingcircumstances or even some honors you have gotten over the years. 

3. Motivation of career change

Ironically, money means nearly everything for numerousindividuals. We do not blame you. But primarily, when it comes to interview, many candidates straight say money is their push factor for a career change. Even if your profile is incredible, it quickly deviates the perception to whether considering you. This surely is the top 3 consideration of a career change, but say it with a different perspective. You would not want to miss a better prospect of job over this. 

How can candidate answer this question hitting two birds(salary & compensation and career growth) with one stone? This itself can be another article that I will share next. 

4. Job hoppers

No any hiring manager would like to hire someone who has been less than 2 years in every company. This surely relates to how about the Baby-boomers and the millennials differ their expectation in terms of work force.  

These days, many industries regardless of type of job, are on contract basis. Hence why, candidate should make a note beside the years of service if it may be a contractual service. 

Be it from the administrative department, finance department or even the engineering department. Be it from specialist skills up to C-Level position. From blue collar to even white-collar employees, contract basis work service to some degree has been a common thing now. Consequently,always make a remark to avoid hiring manager categorizing you in the job hopper gang. Touching on this, it is important to highlight the reason for leaving the previous organization. It surely helps to justifying yourself. 

These are surely a few factors on why and how are those deserving people in the 98% population may not be shortlisted despite of being suitable to the relevant job scope. It is your responsibilities to make that 30 seconds of viewing to be a deserving one. This 30 seconds, may change your life with a first step towards your dream job to be in one of the top organizations like Apple, Google and many more.