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Hiring Guide Series (Guide 5): Training Future Company Leaders

As the person in-charge of motivating company employees, you have the primary role of developing leaders from within. One of the best practices in “succession planning” is to have a comprehensive plan that ensures leadership continuity and talent building from within your company.

In developing leaders you need to acquire a set of innate skills that can increase productivity in the workplace, give direction and focus to each staff, strong intuition in identifying talent, and boost an employee’s morale.

Since leadership skills can be developed, it is important to lift the lid by training your leaders with long-term goals in mind. This effort will increase success and profitability without cutting chunk in the company’s budget. Besides, without leadership training, long-term performance and inefficiency can cripple the company’s overall objectives and mission.

Identifying potential leaders and developing their leadership skills will translate into sound direction for the company and success in the future by adhering to the organization’s missions and visions.

When you work to developing leaders, you are making an investment. If an individual is made to feel like a valuable commodity being groomed for bigger and better, chances are they will stick around. Turnover is expensive and it can be greatly reduced with investments in leadership development. Also, the wisdom they develop will also allow them to recognize other potential leaders and set up those employees for long-term success.

And although many internal and external factors can influence morale, the greatest impact comes from the top. The majority of managers sincerely desire to lead a team with strong morale, amazing productivity and recognizable effectiveness, and this comes through in the way they lead those around them.

Hiring Guide Series Guide 5: Sustain Workforce With Activities

A good company culture that lives up to its company standards toward its employees helps sustain company workforce. Needless to say, as a recruiting officer, it is your main goal to satisfy his needs as an employee. And there are various ways to retain an employee. Involve him to internal and external events that will boost employee morale, teamwork, and company-employee relationships.

Activities inside the company:

1. Reward your team. Have small team lunch or dinners in the office
2. Engage your employees to join open-forums, brainstorming sessions, and company talks to discuss news and updates, or issues.
3. Play a “treasure hunt” game. The winning pair or team will receive good prizes.
4. Encourage everyone in the office to join profit-sharing activities, but never impose it as a “compulsory.”
5. Make your department an open door. As the human resource officer, your job also entails to guide your employees and provide counselling sessions. Encourage everyone to talk to you about work problems, or personal problems that affects working relationships and work as a job.

Activities outside the company:

1. Join a sports league in your community. Start up company-sponsored basketball, volleyball, or golfing leagues in which any employee can join and play for free.
2. Team gathering for charity. You may ask the support of non-profit organizations in your community on how your company can be of help to their vision activities.
3. Let your employees attend seminars, symposiums or conferences outside of your company. This way, they will experience meeting other people in the industry.
4. Reward your team. Have small team dinners outside the office.
5. Company Outings. Go to private resorts or beaches every summer.

Hiring Guide for Small Business (Guide 4):
The New Hire Aboard

The “boarding” process of a new employee is just as critical as the hiring process. It should provide new hires with the knowledge, tools, and contacts they need to success in their new role in the company. More importantly, the boarding process is about making the new employee feel comfortable, safe, and welcome in his or her new environment.

If in case you have an employee who is not fitting in with his colleagues, take some time to assess the situation and consider implementing the following:

Initiate group activities everyone can get involved in. Organize a lunch outing, a creative brainstorming session, or other fun activities so your new team member can feel a part of the group.

Ask team leaders to step up and make new employees feel welcome. Encourage employees to set up “lunch dates” with three others they don’t know very well and to follow up on their experiences.

Consider a mentor program. Pair a new employee and veteran employee together so the latest member of your team can learn the ins and outs of the company.

Take on the responsibility of getting to know your employees. Find out their strengths and weaknesses. If you work on building a positive and trusting working relationship with them, in time, they will feel more confident talking to you about what they want in a workplace environment.

You have practised days for the answers to the crucial questions that shall determine your future; whether you get hired or not, that is. Gone are the days of “tell me something about yourself” because there is a new batch of questions that a great number of recruitment officers like asking job applicants. Geek Evaluation have rounded up its network of recruiting officers to dish out their top ten interview questions:

What circumstances bring you here today?
One recruiter laughingly shared her experience with a job applicant who answered, “I am here for the interview.” Obviously, you are there for that reason; you don’t have to reinstate. Simply answer something like: I am here to tell you what I know and what I can do for the company, and why I am the best applicant there is.

What would you say are your two greatest weaknesses and how do you work at overcoming them?
It is hard for someone to admit his weakness; what more to tell it to other people. Only someone with an assertive or strong personality can open that to public and that kind of candidate is what’s sought after by recruiters. It is believed that when a person acknowledges his weakness, he can counter it good positive disposition.

How do you alleviate stress?
With great power comes great responsibility, and with great responsibility you get stressed. Having a senior position (mostly) in a company comes with it and there are different ways to alleviate it. People have their own preferred comfort zone. For example: when a writer gets writer’s block syndrome, she seeks solitude by looking at the clouds or walking it off.

How do you typically deal with conflict?
Conflicts are normal in the workplace. When it is asked, simply recall a past experience and illustrate how you managed to deal with it. Just a tip: do not bad-mouth a past employer or a past colleague. This is a bad sign to all recruiting officers as they believe that you will have the tendency to badmouth them too in the future.

What are three goals you’ve achieved this past year?
Recruiting officers like hearing what a candidate’s plan for the future and the goals they have achieved in the past because if a person knows how to plan and succeed, he can do also do it the workplace.

What was a major obstacles or risks you overcame in the past year?
This is the type of question that requires no bull answers. Recalling past obstacles whether professionally or personally is all right.

When were you most satisfied in your job?
The interviewer wants to know what motivates you. If you can relate an example of a job or project when you were excited, the interviewer will get an idea of your preferences. “I was very satisfied in my last job, because I worked directly with the customers and their problems; that is an important part of the job for me.”

What salary are you seeking?
It is to your advantage if the employer tells you the range first. Prepare by knowing the going rate in your area, and your bottom line or walk-away point. One possible answer would be: “I am sure when the time comes, we can agree on a reasonable amount. In what range do you typically pay someone with my background?”

Why did you leave (or why are you leaving) your job?
If you are unemployed, state your reason for leaving your previous company always in a positive context. But if you are employed, focus on what you want in your next job based on your need to a newer environment, better remuneration, or more challenging responsibilities.

Why should we hire you?
Summarize your experiences: “With five years’ experience working in the financial industry and my proven record of saving the company money, I could make a big difference in your company. I’m confident I would be a great addition to your team.”

Hiring Guide for Small Business (Guide 3):
Get To Know The Recruitment Process

A job applicant becomes engaged with your organization as soon as he becomes aware of your company and motivated to apply in your company’s available career opportunity. So when you receive a candidate’s application, it is your responsibility as a recruitment officer to communicate that his file was received or is being considered or not for the position, and also the usual timeline of the recruitment process. Keeping your candidates connected throughout the recruitment process sets an expectation that your company takes part or adheres to good and fair open communication within the company.

The premise of the paragraph above is all about active engagement with your candidates circling about the recruitment process. In a recruitment process, I could say that the objective of it is “managing your candidates the right way”. How do you go about it?

It starts with application, second is the sorting, followed by aptitude testing, then setting of the interview, next is another sorting, and lastly the negotiation/final interview.

From the many qualifying traits of a recruitment officer, aside from having the capability to read a person’s personality and having strong analytical skill, organization is one of the most valued traits in human resources department. Imagine a day flooded with applicants and resumes?

When an applicant submits his resume, make sure that you go through his resume. Based from his qualifications, you can assess if he proceeds to the next stage of the recruitment process. After you have sorted the “short-listed” candidates, you can schedule a job pre-screening test or go straight to the interviewing stage. Just remember: when you screen or interview an applicant, make a quick note on your notebook if he is likely to proceed to the final stage of the recruitment process. And once you have selected your applicants down to two or three, you are now about to negotiate with him. Candidate negotiations is where you discuss with him what to expect in your company or pre-employment requirements like orientation.

Hiring Guide for Small Business (Guide 2):
How To Attract The Best Job Applicants

Job seekers don’t just compete for the position your company is offering, but companies compete, too, in finding the right – and probably – the best job applicants in the market. In fact, a strong job applicant is on the market for two weeks, then off the market for two years. So, it is important to attract candidates who fit your company culture and help your business grow.

How exactly do you attract job applicants? But first I should orient you on how job seekers make career decisions before I give away tips on how to attract the “highly coveted” job applicant.

It starts with them being aware. The more exposure job applicants have about your company, the more likely they are to recall the opportunities you are possible too offer them. Get your company out there as often and in as many ways as possible. With the current situation of the economy, using social media is the most cost-effective way to promote your company.

Once you get the job applicants’ attention, their interest shall spark. When they are interested, it is likely that they want to know more about your company, the position you have for open, and how the company culture is – and it also includes how good the management is, and how you compensate an employee’s hard work.

Interest then leads to motivation. Of course, when the job applicants’ believe they are fit to the job responsibilities your company requires, they will be driven to apply in the open position you have to offer, which is the last final aspect of a job seeker’s career decision.

SOME TIPS TO ATTRACT A CANDIDATE:

Know your candidates.
Get in the mind of your applicants. Know what they are like outside of your company’s interviewing room. Know their lifestyle and general interests. Know how they respond to job opportunities.

Create a message.
When you build a company’s brand name, you must have a solid message to disseminate the job market. For example, Company A is the “best place to work with because of having the best benefits.” And when you create a message, do not forget to reach them through available means in your office like using the Internet to source potential candidates or send them emails.

Utilize open-social communities.
Create a Facebook page or Linked In page and start spreading good messages about your company or if you have open positions in your company. Get the word out!

Try applicant experience.
Understand the recruitment process through a job seeker’s eyes – and shoes. Nothing beats personal experience; this way you can better engage yourself to the totality of building a company brand name.

Hiring Guide for Small Business (Guide 1):

Introduction:
Geek Evaluation’s Hiring Guide for Small Business is a definitive how-to-hire guide stacked with the latest recruitment tips and advices designed to equip you with information needed to make the smartest hiring decisions and hire the best candidate for your company.

Geek Evaluation understands that a recruitment process is never a one-size-fits-all solution. Each job vacancy in your company requires a specific amount of work experience and knowledge, and it requires a keen recruiter to sort out which among the active files are fitted to fill the open position.

Nevertheless, Geek Evaluation’s hiring guide shall define to you from ways to attract the best job candidates to how to create an effective and efficient plan for your employees’ success, which will enable you to improve or fine-tune your current recruitment process.

Guide 1:  Build your company’s brand name to job applicants.

Attracting the best, highest-quality of candidate is the foremost important step in creating a successful company or organization. The people you hire has the ability to make or break it. So it is vital that you are attracting potential employees who fits within your company culture and are dedicated to helping your company thrive.

Building your company’s brand name or “employment branding” is the process of creating a favorable image (e.g. “a great place to work with”) in the minds of your employees as well as job seekers. Once you have branded your company with positive perceptions, it becomes easier to attract better candidates or job seekers in general.

As the job market becomes competitive by the minute, employers should learn to brand themselves as a great company to work with. Below are five great tips to build (or rebuild) your company’s brand during or post-recession and hype your company’s name in the job market.

1. Do not neglect your company’s brand name. Your company’s name is one of your greatest assets during a negative economy. Building a brand name, however, does not happen overnight. It requires a repetitive and integrated campaign to send to all public. By maintaining a strong brand, job seekers’ will recall your company’s name at the top of their minds — and should they be looking for a job, they will think of you first.

2. Answer your candidate’s questions. Company culture, stability and longevity in the market, company reputation, career advancement opportunities, flexible scheduling options, and management: these are the factors important to all job seekers apart from the position they are applying for. Once you have identified your company’s key strengths, you can answer all the candidate’s queries without hesitation and without disinformation.

3. Working with a smaller recruitment budget? It’s about “reality bites!” Instead, make use of the situation to affix the budget laid out to your department. Evaluate or reassess the areas of your department that needs more budgeting, but make sure that your employees benefit, too, in the process.

4. Clarify which marketing activities your employees should focus on to drive the most revenue, and assess all marketing activities for return on investment. All other initiatives should be put aside until there is enough time available to focus on them.

5. Sharpen your vision. If you clearly position your company’s brand name, you will have a much better chance of shining through the clutter of all the other companies out there. Make sure you are meeting the needs of your candidates and employees but still being true to your corporate vision and mission.

Companies must realize that it needs “fuel” to keep the business running. And it is not about the cash flow, but having a critical foundation of research. Companies should never take a research department for granted especially if you promote products that are technology-bound.

With copious funding from corporate and venture-capitalists for commercialization, these research labs have made enormous contributions not just to technology but to the economy as well; including the creation of millions of high-paying jobs.

For example, Bell Laboratories (or Bell Labs) is the research and development organization of Alcatel-Lucent and AT&T. Their man-made marvels equally led to bringing better lives to all: invention of transistors, photovoltaic cell, Unix operating system, C++ programming, the first wireless local area network (WaveLAN), 56K modem, and the cellular technology. Without discovering such, where will the likes of Motorola, Xerox, or Cisco be? And where will we be without their mobile phones, photocopy and facsimile machines?

What started in the past continues today. America exported high-paying jobs to low-wage countries. We have stopped creating new high-paying jobs. But we should not underestimate the magnitude of creating more jobs. Outsourcing and extended recessions are not just the factors why there are stiff choices in the job market today. There is also the pressure of “value migration” or the the creation of new business models. What companies should realize is that economic situations like recessions should not overhaul how a company does business, but instead befit the situation to the company’s current needs. Again, you have to research and gather data before you lay-off employees. In fact, even in recession, there are companies that remain triumphant.

“Of the roughly 130 million jobs in the U.S., only 20% (26 million) pay more than $60,000 a year. The other 80% pay an average of $33,000. That ratio is not a good foundation for a strong middle class and a prosperous society. Rather than a demand engine, it’s a decay curve. As a nation, we have papered over our declining incomes by accepting the need for two incomes per household and by borrowing heavily, often against paper assets inflated by financial bubbles (dot-com and housing). In recent years, personal debt has grown much faster than personal income. In 1985 the ratio of household debt to household income was 0.7 to 1; in 2000 it was 1 to 1; in 2008, it was 1.7 to 1. We earned less, so we borrowed more. In 2007 we reached our limit.” — Adrian Slywotzky, a partner at management consultants Oliver Wyman, and has written books on profitability and growth (BusinessWeek).

A company’s success, so to speak, is driven by products or services widely appreciated and favored by the mass. When more people appreciates, more people buys and therefore create an exceptional contribution to the economic growth.

For instance, cars and petroleum boomed in the 1920s, movies and radio in the 1930s, appliances and television in the 1950s, pharmaceuticals in the 1960s, PCs in the 1980s, and the Internet and cellular technology in the 1990s. These era made exponential contribution to the economy as well as to those employed and job seekers.

So what about 2000? Alternative energy, biofuels? Green living? Nanotechnology? These are the words in the market, so why not these become a source of new employment to millions of job seekers. Why not fulfill the 15 to 17 million high-paying new jobs as estimated by economists. Do more research on these and maybe, it will materialize and thus will create more work for us all.

An economic downturn is inevitable. You never know when change is coming. When experiencing recession or two consecutive quarters of negative G.N.P growth can shake all enterprises’ department from operations and management to finances, and to human resources. When such happens, large corporations and small companies alike tighten their means including reorganizing their staffing. Some companies reduce staff members, others may implement a “hiring freeze,” others may try to look at hiring people internally with credible work background experience, or outsource jobs to freelancers or “virtual employees.”

After an economic recession, it is recognizable that the job market is also making adjustments. Before, companies outsource part of their business (e.g. customer service department) offshore to minimize cost. Now, after the recent global recession, companies outsource employees through virtual assistance programs online to continuously save on their company expenditures. In fact, this trend has spun a lot of attention from professionals wanting to earn more and companies wanting to save more.

True to the fact, the job market adapts to the current situation; always making an opportunity to uncontrollable shortcomings. And it is not just the industry that faces the challenges of recession and the effect of it. The companies, too, are experiencing it. Which is why the employed and the job seekers have treated the downturn as an opportunity to be versatile in the workplace.

As an officer in-charge of recruitment, finding the right person for a job requires more than a comprehensive resume. It also matters that you are able to interview an applicant not just on what is written in his resume but what he can do or contribute for your company.

Career objectives, scholastic records, academic achievements, skills, work history and character reference: these are the points in which you look for when searching for that right candidate. But how do you sort the good catch?

Finding the right candidate in this populated job market is to find someone who has a Vision. He should be able to envision himself as part of the company by helping it grow – by contributing what he knows and what he does best. Aside from his visions, he should possess a sense of Initiation. He should be the type of person who needs less supervision, thus he can manage his own time (Time Management) and tasks and deliver it in due time (Project Management). You might also want to look at how he deals with people. Check his resume if he’s part of any organizations. People involved socially are friendly people. They tend to be optimistic and can blend with different personalities. A person with social skills is not only an asset for your company, but they will also serve as an ice-breaker when work stress sets in. And lastly, of course, you need someone who is highly-skilled to perform the responsibilities the job entails. As this is the most crucial part of finding the right candidate, you must assess his employment history and previous work background.

Sometimes, I get fascinated that a person can be a writer and a graphic artist at the same time, or a skilled bookkeeper who knows how to troubleshoot a computer malfunction. So when interviewing an applicant, I always ask if he has other skills not written in his resume – this way I get insights about his personality.