Monday 21 December 2015

Passive recruitment with Branding

                        Passive recruitment with Branding 


Driving branding efforts and doing passive recruitment goes hand in hand. For branding efforts one creates groups, communities, etc. on social media. One needs to take utmost care while creating communities that the right segment is getting added. Just going behind the numbers will not make sense. Let me try to give you an example. Suppose you are a company who manufactures chocolates, you want a feedback from the customers. Here you would not like your target segment more than 50 % people who have diabetes. Target segment will play a critical role while creating such communities else getting ROI will be a challenge. Important thing is not to go behind numbers in creating groups, communities.

Also don’t forget to engage the group, community while building your target segment. Keep them engaged with periodic updates. Acknowledge a new member joining in. If the group is in hibernate mode, try and rejuvenate the group with odd polls, reviews, on the latest trends.

Here is a short list of free sites: SurveyMonkey,PollCode, PollMaker, Easy Polls

Join meetups on meetup.com. There are many professional groups where one can join the communities and be a part of a physical meet up. Here you actually get opportunity to meet the target segment. Not to forget you also get a chance to host a meetup and get visibility to attract the target segment.

I believe all of the above are important aspect for passive recruitment with branding matters.

Caveat – All the thoughts, actions are personal.

Thursday 24 September 2015

Does one loses to creative thoughts when one has to work in stringent processes?

Process are defined to ease out work or let’s say lot of work. When there are huge teams working around to solve a common goal. I think processes do play a pivotal role when there are overlaps among varied functions in an organization. Processes do play critical role when there is a new entrant on floor where in the newbie can refer to the standard operating processes.

Amid all the back and forth communication among various stake holders are we forgetting to be innovative, creative in the journey or are we really blind folded following the processes.
If innovation stops then maybe we would have still used pigeons to send messages across. Or are we really afraid to be receptive to new, innovative, creative ideas or thoughts around.

This brings me to closer to my function – People say think out of the box, where as I say don’t “Don’t have any box.

                                                                                                                                          ….. TBC

Wednesday 16 September 2015

Continuous employer / talent branding?

Continuous employer / talent branding?

Branding is the buzz word!

It’s a continuous process for talent acquisition team to acquire talent 365 days in a year. It’s a continuous and an ongoing process where teams have to leverage their networking skills and build avenues, build relations and engage the professionals.

How to do that?

·         Hackathons – It helps in continuously building relation with the target segment. Good way to build a brand and a good way to hire. By this it is pretty evident who has hands on skill to do the job or otherwise.
·         Internships – Well, I think it is the most important form of branding at the grassroots level. Cost effective, win-win and continuous engagement form of framework.
·         Social media – Just being on social media, liking and sharing post will not yield result. Form groups, communities – engage them with relevant materials, run meetups if possible. It will not straight away give you results but as mentioned earlier it will take its own time to reap the benefits of this framework.
·         Blogging platform for the organization – I think the name itself says it all!  This will give a platform to the people inside the organization to share, learn new technologies, best practice across the domains. This platform should also have access to the outside target segment and this way the outside talent can interact without being part of the organization.
Very effective way to communicate with professionals externally and build a good relation which may yield result at a later stage.

How do we achieve or measure while one leads such kinds of efforts? This is something I aim to learn.

Caveat – My thoughts, my opinion.



Friday 12 June 2015

Analogy between Cricket captains and Managers


Analogy between Cricket captains and Managers


Well no gyan baji here. Just observation as I am a cricket enthusiast.

I have been following cricket and especially Indian cricket and their captains since 1996. I was in awe of Sachin Tendulkar smashing SriLanka and Australia in our very own India. I thought here is another batsman and making of a captain. But the time proved me wrong. Good batsman = Good captain.

When Indian cricket came under the scanner of match fixing, here was a new and young Indian captain who was expected to do well in crises. Similarly there is a manager category wherein they perform only under pressure. Some managers are born to back a sinking boat. Some managers a born to turnaround situations like Sourav Ganguly. Here was the manager who built team from scratch where the fear of match fixing was looming over India cricket. Identified talent and nurtured them, gave opportunities and time to blossom. Sourav Ganguly is one captain who shaped careers of Yuvi, Harbhajan, Zaheer, Sehwag to name a few.

Captainship is a baton that you forward one era to another.

Post Ganguly era, there came a shy person from Karnataka leading the ranks of the Captain India-Rahul Dravid-The wall. When he came the team was pretty much settled. You had Gambhir, Sehwag, Yuvraj, Zaheer, Harbhajan, VVS Laxman, Tendulkar which formed the core DNA of the team. He was not supposed to do tweaks here with the matured team. He was supposed continue the legacy what Sourav left. So here is the manager category who does not have to hire new people and form a team but just have to maintain the camaraderie. No cost cutting, no new rules to the game, no tweaking of policies, just have to maintain the discipline. Completely different skill set is required here compared to the earlier situation which Sourav Ganguly faced. Under him he showed perseverance by beating West Indies in West Indies, Australia in Australia, England in England. Though there were lows of early exit in 2007 world cup.

So here is an analogy between Cricket Captains and Managers in different situations of the phase.

 

Next blog is on MS Dhoni as a captain-Stay tuned.

Tuesday 5 May 2015

Sourcing From Twitter

How to source from Twitter?

Login to followerwonk.com with your twitter login id & pwd (https://followerwonk.com/)
Click on Search bios
Click on “more options”, put your search: skill, location then hit  “ Do it”


Happy sourcing

Wednesday 22 April 2015

Review: The Mahabharata Secret by Chris Doyle

Review: The Mahabharata Secret by Chris Doyle

This is a very gripping read written deftly by the writer Chris Doyle. It’s about a scientist being part of the unknown secret community of 9, killed by the non-state actors of our neighboring country. This group (who carries illicit activities) hungers the secret of Mahabharata badly for their personal motives.

It talks about the secret saved and stored 2300 years ago by Asoka and Surasen courtier of Asoka the great. There have been many parvas written about Mahabharata and there is one which is not documented anywhere in the world. It is believed that this secret was used by the King of Magdha to kill Pandavas but the war ended before this secret was used.

Well back to the core story- Vijay cousin of Vikram Singh( Scientist killed who had the secret) leaves a trail of emails. Vijay deciphers these emails and that leads him to the secret and to his love during the journey.

Hope I have not revealed the secret and would urge to read this.

Sunday 5 April 2015

An Experience to Experience

                                            An Experience to Experience
J This is not an article about globetrotter reaching a destination.
But surely this is an (generic) employee’s   experience during notice period.  Does employee’s become too casual in approach once the resignation button is pressed? Does the responsibility vanish?  Is the interest lost?

Employer is more skeptical in earmarking responsibilities to the employee who has resigned.
Employers are keener on creating a backup or doling out the responsibility to other team members.
So what happens if the responsibility is taken from the employee (who has resigned) and given to other team member? Obviously employee interest, motivation to do the role, which impacts the deliverables!

In turn employer complains of the person not doing work to the mark, and eyebrows are raised toward employee of losing interest. Employer drills down to the point that the employee was a bad hire.

Well, this does not happen in all the cases, but in some farewell treats, gifts are just formalities?
Employer is really not happy about an employee and if there is not high dependency then should permit an early release.

There is an old maxim, "Love your job but don't love the company you work for, because you may not know when your company stops loving you". ... Steve Finnell

Does this hold true?

In turn employee, who is not so outspoken, once presses the resignation button, observed that the behavior changes completely. Starts speaking very upfront as he/she does not care about the present employer and this may create a bad belief in the mind of employer?

Even employee has to be extra cautious working in notice period. He/ She should not stray from routine line items.Has to be more mindful of the leaves, breaks, on time delivery of assignment, reaching office on time, leaving for the day as per schedule etc. . . .

Employee has to avoid working in a lackadaisical manner and stop calling “Notice period” as “Time pass”. They are equivalently responsible till the last working day as they were hitherto.
Employers have to aware as the employees create a brand image of the organization outside.

Attrition is part of the routine and both employer and employee have to part happily.

Note: This does not intend to any employer- it just a generic article. This article was written 2 years back- publishing it now :)

Monday 9 March 2015