The Art of Interviewing People Today

The best thing business needs to know when hiring a person is that employers need to go beyond their expectations, their fears, their prejudices and gain a new perspective of a potential employee. Train your HR recruiters and your staff well because awareness is key to the success of both the company and the individuals involved - train leaders to look for potential rather than focusing on limitations.

Yes, prospective employers and job seekers need to better understand each other. But fostering that understanding is, in part, up to us as job seekers, too. That means, when we are seeking a job, we research companies – and network – so we know where we best fit in terms of our skills, temperament, values and goals.

Knowledge of ourselves and of the companies we target in our job search determines how we hone our resumes, our cover letters and our offering statements. In today’s job market, job seekers need to show up-front proof of their abilities and potential – it always goes back to this: practice what you preach; reflect what you want and you’ll get what you’re looking for.

Bridging the Gap for Fresh Graduates

Thousands of Malaysian graduates have degrees in science, arts, commerce and the opportunities for graduates from these streams have increased manifold over the past couple of years. Yet many graduates remain without jobs.

As graduates complain about a lack of jobs, companies across Malaysia see a lack of skilled applicants. The contradiction is explained by the lack of top quality undergraduate education. Malaysia’s universities swallow in thousands of new students every year, only to churn out many degree holders who are still not "job material".

Here’s an idea of what the industry wants:

Today, the bare essential job skills at the entry-level have evolved from simply pushing papers to answering phones, working effectively in teams, delivering presentations, and handling irate customers/clients tactfully and with finesse.

The ability to communicate effectively in English, professional selling skills, body language, time management, computer-savviness, and the know-how to gather information and use search engines like Google are some of the marketable skills that are required. However, these skills are rarely taught in the graduate curriculum.

Young graduates don't get the chance to learn to communicate effectively, work in groups, or hold discussions. Add to this the fact that many graduates are not taught in English, effectively barring them from the high-end job market. And, where English is taught, it is sometimes not necessarily the kind employers require.

Those of us who are directly involved in preparing these young people for the working world, do remember that their objectives as a student should be to try to proactively bridge the skills gap between what the industry needs and what they possess. Basic oral and written communication skills, basic computer skills (MS Office, Internet, etc), and a good workplace attitude (commitment and teamwork) are prerequisites to landing the best available jobs. Help them understand which sector you are suited for, and then accordingly work on their skills – soft skills being one component.

Employability is automatically increased if you have good professional grooming. It is about how they express themselves, interact with and react to others, form relationships, work in teams, and impress clients. In a nutshell, it is about developing their overall personality.

When Outsourcing Is Necessary

You can’t deny that the market for outsourced goods and services is enormous these days and it seems like every one is doing it. But what is it all about and how can you generate profit from it? That is the key point. Any business will benefit from outsourcing as long as it is done correctly and in the right areas. The reason that most businesses opt for outsourcing these days is due to the effects of globalization, which has resulted in easy access to expertise from any region of the world. Earlier, businesses were geographically limited in their ability to use resources. Gradually, larger businesses began to take advantage of the opening global markets to tap resources from where they were most abundant and affordable.

While the concept of outsourcing started with the larger companies, technology soon allowed smaller businesses to gain access to the world markets. Currently, resources in terms of goods and services travel all over the world to reach businesses that require them. Fifty years ago, it was inconceivable to use services from even across the country, leave alone across continents and today, we don’t even notice how many services are outsourced around us from far flung places.

Another valuable result of outsourcing is that it allows the business to buy resources at the most competitive price. The world is already heading to this balance point and this should make businesses a lot less expensive to run.

Creative Problem Solving

In the business world, solving problems is not only important, it’s essential to keeping things moving along smoothly. When things go wrong with the computers at work, you know you appreciate it when a good I.T. person can solve you computer problems in a timely manner. However, there are some problems in life and work which require more of an abstract and creative approach to problem solving.

Enhancing your creative problem solving skills is a task similar to exercising. Each person must apply various means into their thinking mechanism to accomplish their intended purpose. Following are some four general ideas for improving one’s creative problem solving skills. By taking these principles and applying them into one’s life, the individual will be accessing his or her own abstract mental processes of problem solving.

• All problems have solutions.
• Allow yourself space to think
• How would a genius solve this problem
• Weighing in on the options.

In a demanding and unforgiving world, creative problem solving skills are a tremendous asset. Some people, because of lack of time and creative skill, choose the first solution that comes up, though it may not be the best. There are creative alternatives, and this is where the creative individual comes in. Using the five ideas above, the creative problem solver will emerge on top, with his or her imagination and ingenuity as guides. The creative solution selected will satisfy not only the problem at hand, but other potential problems that might occur in the future.

Ensuring a Passing Grade for Training and Development

With what most people see as a looming recession ahead, too many managers view training as a luxury, not a competitive and strategic necessity. "What if we train our employees and they leave," they ask. Well, what if you don't train them and they stay?

Are you one of those managers who look at training as a nice-to-have instead of a must-have? Do you talk the talk, but when push comes to shove, training gets pushed aside? To assess your commitment to training, see how many of the following statements hit too close to home:

1. Training interrupts in getting a job done.
2. Training is fine as long as it doesn't take me or my staff away from "important" tasks that must get done.
3. I don’t recall the last time any member of my staff or I attended a training or self-improvement course.
4. I can't show you an upcoming schedule for my personal and staff training. In fact, my answer is generally, "What schedule?"
5. I look forward to training so I can catch up on my to-do list.
6. My company has no clearly articulated philosophy on the value of training. Even if they did, I wouldn't be able to produce a copy.
7. If we are forced to go to a training session, we almost never discuss the content in our staff meetings. Out of sight, out of mind — that's our philosophy.
8. There is no way to link our success to our investment in employee development.
9. When, and if, we get around to conducting performance reviews, we don't consider the completion of training important.
   

You've got a training problem if you’ve said yes to at least three statements. In today's business landscape, training is not just a matter of survival; it's what separates high performance organizations from those being fitted for a burial suit.

Sustaining Clients

Any business owner and sales person will tell you that getting new clients is hard work. You’ve got to woo them, deliver above and beyond expectations and constantly look for ways to keep them in your corner. So along with finding new business, it’s also important to manage and keep our old clients happy with our work. These are some of the ways that will help:

1)Provide Outstanding Service:
Hard work never fails – be consistent in ensuring excellent service because if you do, clients won’t go anywhere else as they believe your service is the best and no one else can give better work, except you.

2) Maintain Your Database:
There are some companies that overlook the importance of maintaining a database containing contact details of clients. This is crucial because a well managed database, serves to measure sales value. As there may be some clients, who do not check their e-mails regularly, so it’s not worth to inform them through e-mail. In this case, contact through postal or telephonic way is essential. So, along with client e-mail id, their postal address and telephones must be present in the database. This will help you in easy and fast retrieval of contact details and in any case, it is important in networking while festivals and important events.

3) Direct Mail
This will help in future sales - always be on the lookout for direct communication opportunities with previous clients, particularly when your service has long sequence of sales.

4) Special Offers:
This includes package offers i.e. “buy one get one free” or something like that and:
Time sensitive deals
Offering new services
Bulk discounts

5) Special events

6) Write A Note for Special Occasions

7) Make Meaningful Conversation

9) Send Reminders

Meritocracy at Work

How does one measure merit? How has educational testing and the idea of meritocracy shaped society in the twentieth century?

If you take a look at the ideology of the American Dream, America is the land of limitless opportunity in which individuals can go as far as their own merit takes them. According to this ideology, you get out of the system what you put into it. Getting ahead is ostensibly based on individual merit, which is generally viewed as a combination of factors including innate abilities, working hard, having the right attitude, and having high moral character and integrity. How much of this is present in the Malaysian work place? Is it present in yours? In a meritocracy, each individual reaps the level of benefits s/he deserves based on her work or her talent, i.e. based on merit. Some have grown accustomed to letting their companies tell them what their individual merits are. Perhaps it’s time to take a look at yourself and decide what is meritorious to you and you can use these and add value to what you do.

To Manage or Mentor – That is The Question

Management styles are revolting …and this revolution is fundamentally altering the culture of management within business. Up to recent times traditional management has been viewed as directive, controlling and authoritative - an “us and them” mentality maintaining the strict boundaries between management and personnel.

This style of management is perfect for those of us who are task orientated rather than people-orientated. Of course we can communicate with staff…we tell them what to DO don’t we…?

In recent times, most companies are faced with the challenge of retaining good staff and creating environments in which they can grow and succeed, there has come a radical revision of how management engages with its human capital - hence the rapid emergence of the modern coach or mentor rather than the traditional manager.

Now leaders must be both managers AND mentors. They must learn not just to communicate but to INVOLVE and ENGAGE with their people, but often there is confusion about the difference in the roles. There’s often confusion for managers about what mentoring is all about, what they are expected to do and how to do it.

Mentoring requires engaging with team members in a different way than traditional management and an enhanced ability to influence and persuade is just one such critical skill. Mentoring is more focused on the transfer of skills or corporate culture to a delegate – or training a person’s thinking about a role or organization.

A mentor also tends to work only with those with whom they have a relationship of seniority, or in contrast with whom they have a higher skill set or more experience in the firm or role.

The function of a mentor, while similar to a coach in terms of developing their professional or performance skills, is limited by the fact that it is primarily about the transfer of those skills unique to a role.

Those skills sets include knowledge of the job, it’s personalities, it’s ethics and all the other absorbed knowledge we take on board when we have worked somewhere for a time. The mentor however, focusing on the ROLE, tends to see the same trees as their mentee but are experienced enough with the territory to find their way out of the wood.

It’s not hard to see how the coaching/mentoring approach gets more motivation and buy-in today than the traditional management approach.

In understanding this difference, a manager, by being trained to manage both his or her communications style and expectations of staff, can move effortlessly between both roles and accomplish even more than was thought possible in the past.

Continuous Learning And Its Pluses

It is said that learning is a lifelong journey; and this is more so evident in business and management because they are “moving targets” where new working methods, technology and operational practices are developed. There is need for guidance about how to maintain one’s knowledge and understanding of business and management aspects.

Discharge of new solutions should always include bringing the workforce up to date with the consequent change of work methods. Taking into consideration the continuous evolvement of the technology and business processes, a culture of employee’s self driven quest for knowledge should be encouraged by organizations. On-going research needs to be conducted in relation to change management, not least on sociological aspects, to ensure the most appropriate approach to any given step of progress and situation.

Conveying the message of evolving new knowledge, skills and working methods to the community can be done primarily through educational, “lifelong-training”, schemes and consultancy, matching the needs of both organizations and individuals. Formal education is bound in a rather rigid structure and is not changing fast but on the other hand we could expect most of the changes coming from the informal educational sector that is more flexible but financially much weaker. Research should to a large degree be focused on recognizing the change agents, on being individuals or organizations as drivers and in providing best practice.

Continuous learning is not about constantly taking courses, it is about developing skills in reflection and inquiry. Continuous learning examines the requirement for workers in an occupational group to participate in an ongoing process of acquiring skills and knowledge. It’s a lifelong process comprised of the sum of training, development, and learning. Once individuals work in an environment where these three activities are present, and actively participate in each, lifelong learning becomes a reality.