Series of unfortunate events with the devil HR hence, job seekers beware.

Series of unfortunate events with the devil HR hence, job seekers beware.

This is an addition to my “Devil HR” series that can be found here. For those of you who haven’t read the first release of the series, you can use the navigation menu to search for it.

This is actually a compilation of unfortunate events experienced by most job seekers that I’ve come to interview with. These notes could be a good tool for HR Heads on whether or not you’re your front lines are doing their job as desired by the company. So brace yourself for this maybe your company that they are referring to. And by the way, let me tell you also that I’ve included some of my bad experiences with your recruiters.  And how was able to get access with your worst practices? I’m a job seeker in disguise.

Wasting my time. I wonder if most of our HR heads here has already trained their recruiters to value a job seekers time, or is it just the attitude of a recruiter. But I wonder why they were hired for a fact that they possess such an unbearable attitude.

He was advised to be there at 1:00 pm but the preliminary exam starts and 2:30pm. If it was me, you won’t be seeing me. Then follows the interview but you were asked to wait (no specific time) for the recruiter. After almost an hour she came, but she went out because her colleague called her and they were talking for a couple of minutes.

As the interview commences right after horrible hours of waiting, the recruiter then brags that it’s not that often the company hires a new employee (as if it’s big deal to me or was she thinking that I’ll be impressed?). After her boastful claims and rhetoric’s on how good was their process and her personality I’m at a lost. Now my turn to throw her the most basic questions, satisfied with a 2 – 3 months process of filling up a vacancy? Okay with being late without even apologizing to everyone around? You owe them an explanation because they waited for you. So war of lexis follows. To make the story short, this applicant was really pissed off.

She’s a waste of my time. Time has been so valuable for job seekers or to professionals. As much as possible let’s not abuse it. Sometimes our recruiters tend to be confident that these job seekers will wait for them because they need a job to the extent that they fail to recognize some of the ethical ways on how to deal with these job seekers. Worst, they may know that it’s the company who needs these jobseekers, but they don’t take it by heart and mind that it’s actually us who needs them the most rather than the other way around. They are our greatest assets.

More devil experiences here!

2008 Demands Creative Minds

2008 Demands Creative Minds

While I was trying to create some sample teasers for our up coming Christmas bash, I then asked myself if I could really produce a really good out put knowing that I haven’t done these stuffs for couple of months now. Worst, I haven’t undergone any training on CS3 Photoshop though I can manage to outline some figures and throw some colors on it but I doubt if you’ll call that an art. But mind you, way back when I used to get enthused I tend to paint stuffs on a canvass. I wonder where those paintings are today…

Anyway, I wonder what the demands are for 2008. Would it still demand for an average employee with less competencies and skills for you to compete in the global arena? Or would it demand knowledge workers packed with innovativeness and creativity to be able to survive. My fellow Human Resource colleagues, what’s your pick? And why such a demand is inevitable? Below is a space for your inputs. Next entry would be a compilation of your random thoughts. Just stick with the format I’m providing below for your thoughts to be recognized.

What’s your pick here!

Networking: Headhunter secrets revealed and how ordinary professionals can learn from it.

Networking: Headhunter secrets revealed and how ordinary professionals can learn from it.

Why other headhunters are so successful in this field while others tend to fail? Failure in the sense that, they run out of resources or referrals for such a really hot seat for a certain company. Was their network too small? Have they run out of ideas on how to pool potential talents, where to search them and place them on a very dynamic database that updates itself from time to time?

A vast network is the key ingredient for one headhunter to succeed and that’s a fact. Without a wider array of network a headhunter fails. If you are looking forward of becoming one, then I guess you’ll have to start networking now before it’s too late.

Headhunters are increasing in population now a days and this is to the advantage to various employers who taps their service. The more an employer taps a service of various headhunters, the higher the percentage of filling such juicy vacancy. Correct me if I’m wrong on this assumption.

Actually, I’ll be presenting to you both offline and online ways on how to broaden your network as a headhunter or just an ordinary professional because this article is not just for headhunters but for those who wanted to broaden their network in general. As they say, it doesn’t matter what you know but rather whom you know.

Read more here if you love networking.. 

Pursuit of Happyness

Pursuit of Happyness

This movie really reminds me of one person who’s very close to me. He shared his story to me just last night about some of his frustrations when he has still in school that turned out to be challenges for him to overcome. As you all know, I’m on call 24/7.

His story really was so inspiring that I really listened carefully word for word. So what’s the price Rodel for listening to him? This article of course, otherwise I won’t be listening to anyone.

Just to make the story short, his story happened long time ago when we were still in high school. Actually, we were at the same school and we have the same passion i.e. dancing & acting Clown. And hell no, this guy is not my alter ego in fact I’m a lot different than him. I was good at school or I was trying to be good at school but my teacher labeled me as a bad kid. She was just sooooo … arggh! Anyway, she labeled me as a troublesome kid wherein everyday I get into trouble and I was the source of it. Poor teacher… Worst, she didn’t even let me in to her class for a month! And it was my science class. Can you believe that? How many experiments I missed and supposedly lessons to learn? Believe me I was really good; it’s just that there were uncontrollable circumstances.

Read more here..

Where are all the video resumes?

Where are all the video resumes?

You’ve been hearing about this tool being used by job seekers in the west but why it did not reach in the Philippines? Actually, it’s not popular either out there for a fact that they started the crazy idea so how much more in our country to day where in bandwidth and internet access to our employees has been an issue. If you’ll check on YouTube then you’ll see thousands of video resumes.

Moreover, I really find the idea fantastic but somehow I find it so funny or odd. We Filipinos love watching movies and we all know that but one thing also that we Filipinos love doing is criticizing. We’ll constructive criticism as you justify it.

Read more here.. 

Where would you get your next employee?

Where would you get your next employee?

This has been a common question to most recruiters recently whether the company is big or small. Others would rather stick to the traditional approach i.e. news paper postings since they’ve got good experiences using that system. To others who can really afford or who just wanted to exploit those job seekers who use the internet as their medium of searching for their next employer they tend to rely on various expensive job portals.  With both trends being used by companies right now, where in the latter is more or less 10 yrs older, I’m sorry to tell you this that your stuck on both old systems that is not really effective to date and shall I say that your recruiters are not doing their job, that you never utilized every resources and means available or simply put you fail to innovate.

Let me drop this question to employers who’ve been using both mediums as their only approach in luring applicants to your vacancies.

How effective was the approach? I define effectiveness here where in you are still in contact with those potential applicants 24/7 out from those methods i.e. news paper postings and job portal subscriptions. Another question is, were the applicants who came from those medium qualified or even potential for the position without even lowering your standards? Is it worth keeping their resumes (efile’s & hard copies) for a fact that resumes gets obsolete after 6 months? Was it worth the investment or resources – time? Well of course cases in point here are dependent to what type of industry you are into. But before flooding me your answers you might consider my points.

The most common problems a recruiter would most likely encounter is that, when a vacancy is available and you now have an eyed applicant in your pool. You start retrieving his/her resume and start calling the potential applicant only to find out that his contact information is not anymore active. To make the matter worst, his not open for the post and his resume is already 6 – 9 months old, not unless if this applicant has been sending you his/her updated resume every week so I would presume also that you’re company has been spending again and again just to get these resumes filed in your resume banks. And then your databank crashes gone are those efiles – resume.

 Read more here..

How does a great company look like?

How does a great company look like?

Some job seekers would tend to ask this question to their fellow job seekers as well as to how does a great company look like and I doubt if that fellow job seeker of his can answer his enquiry. Great companies is a great place to work I tell you. In fact, everyone has been desiring for this status but only a few succeed. Anyway, this entry was inspired by the book of Jim Collins “Good to Great”. I’ve actually read the book months ago when I was still with my first employer. T’was like a bible to them and the Manager’s are really oblige to read the book or if not get a few applicable lessons from the book. Now, you’ll have the idea of what the book really is in terms of contents to managers, executives and company owners. I would suggest you read first his “Built to Last” book since most of the reviews I’ve encountered linked it’s findings to that book.

In addition, since I knew the book was quite expensive for me so what I did was I proposed a initiative to my colleagues specifically in our department at that time to utilize the book as our guide for a learning session since our boss was so busy at that time with other business related activities. And of course they find it cool at first for a fact that we’re looking forward to a first ever department learning session based on a book since most of our learning sessions were based on our functional areas alone. But with my proposed session, it was a bit different since there was a twist coupled with a classroom setting thus; we divide the book per chapter to expedite the process. Of course they know as well how great is the book to read since most of the executives have a copy of that book. Now, the sad thing was… passion eventually dies. Passion for learning eventually dies because of some limitations. People would be so eager to participate in the beginning yet when time comes for them to deliver all you hear is … I can’t, not my schedule, I’m so loaded and worst, I’ll be having a “nose bleed” if I’ll report. What the?… Anyway, at least I was able to get hold of the book for a few days since that was really my ultimate plan.

Read more here.. 

Chariots of Fire: “Resignations”

Chariots of Fire: “Resignations”

Maybe you guys would wonder on what’s the connection of the title of this entry to that song i.e. “Chariots of Fire”. Just recently, I was trying to familiarize myself with that song since I’ll be using it for our Christmas Party thus; was thinking of having it as the title for this entry to add a different taste to this radical content. Suffice to say the song inspired me to write this entry.

Moreover, I’m so grateful that a few friends and guest visited the site. In fact some informed me that the article gave them bliss and gave them something to laugh about. Some also emailed me and gave me their opinions about the article and some points that I’ll be relaying to you as well. Their points should be pondered as well since it can affect future movements especially on resignations. What’s the good thing now is that, with the article I was able to gather a few more points from everyone as far as India and I just hope that more to come from them and from others.  Some points were from the oriental perspective while I was presenting a western perspective since most of us here in the Philippines is adopting the western concept from lifestyle, management etc.

Actually, just minutes after I uploaded my latest entry about “Best months to tender resignations” a friend of mine emailed me telling me how happy he was to resign from his first employer. Just picture this, he’s a fresh graduate and was recently accepted by a small company as a tech support. To add more flavor to it, it was his first employer and he was with the company for just two months and then he resigned. Weird isn’t it? Well, it’s but normal trend recently since lots of idealistic fresh graduates are in the constant hot pursuit of their dreams to the extent that they can close three companies in a year and drop it like a hot potato once their dissatisfied.

Read more..