Passion Trumps Intellect

Gary Hamel is going to revolutionize talent sourcing as we know it. Initially, all companies were looking either for conscientiousness and discipline when looking for blue-collar labor or smarts when recruiting for top brass. Back in the 80s the big multinationals realized that the soft skills would also come handy when dealing with the rapidly diversifying business across the globe. So all kinds of "helicopter view" assessments sprang up. At Shell, for instance, the graduate selection criteria are about Capacity (thinking), Achievement (doing) and Relationships (people) - the CAR, as we used to refer to it.

So this Hamel guy comes up with the idea that Intellect accounts only for 15% of what an employer should look for in a potential candidate. Together with Obedience and Diligence, these three account only for 20% or one-fifth of a desired employee profile - they have become commodities, available at will anywhere in the world. What comes on the top of the list? You will find out from the following short video:

Recruitment "Wise" Thoughts of the Day

Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them.

Know your limitations and be content with them. Too much ambition results in getting a job you can't do.

If your recruiter is playing smart aleck with you, look at him through the prongs of a fork and imagine him in jail.

Prudential Momentum Program vs. American Idol

Have you heard of a successful graduate recruitment program?

I am deliberately not using words like "successfully-run" or "successfully-implemented" - a graduate program that would produce results positively impacting the bottom line of a company. I stopped by the Moscow Shell office a few weeks ago to have a cup of coffee with an old friend of mine. We tried to remember if any of the graduates who joined the company together with me under the auspices of the Shell Graduate Program were still working there. Fingers on one hand were sufficient.

I have successfully passed the Prudential Momentum Assessment on March 28th, 2011 (i.e. exactly seven months ago), and you can check my notes on that experience in my earlier posts:

It's a small but connected world - Prudential Momentum assessment (Part 1)

Tough Day: Prudential Momentum assessment (Part 2)

Dealing with assessment centers: personal lessons

To give them some credit, Prudential were quite quick to call and congratulate me and assure that a job was guaranteed. I nearly relaxed and started planning my summer vacation, putting my job search on hold. Fatal mistake. Once a month we would swap e-mails and one a month I would be reminded of how wonderful I am and that the job was going to be signed off for me sharp-sharp. The only timeline I was given was October 16th, the date for the global Prudential Momentum kick off. This date did come and pass and only today I received an e-mail:

******

Dear Sergey 

I hope this email finds you well? Today is the day when we formally close the role alignment process for Momentum 2011; it is a great shame that we have been unable to find you a placement within the business but unfortunately we are limited by the live vacancies in the business and this year the role alignment process as been the most competitive yet. I would very much like to stay in touch, you have been an excellent candidate and I would most definitely encourage you to apply again next year if Momentum is still a viable option for you. 

The very best of luck for the future, 

******

I understand that the decision has been taken not to take me in, but maybe a phone call after such a lengthy process and so many promises would have been more appropriate.

Moral: recruitment and dating are very much alike - don't believe anything they say until you see a ring on your finger.

Why did I start talking about American Idol? The principle hardly works: looking for talent just for the sake of talent, with no imminent business need for it does not yield worthy results. A high-potential program is only good when the business is ready and there is a need and (most importantly) available resources (positions, coaches, mentors) to take care of that incoming talent. When HR goes out on a crusade to find bright and beautiful, they do find it but then they are in a fix because the business has not asked for them or they have asked for something else… it's all about communication.

I am not bitter. After all, I am happily employed. Having Plans B, C and D does help a lot when you are back in the marketplace fresh out of school. What left a negative residue is the approach and the attitude… it's all about communication.

How to Trick the Applicant Tracking System?

Getting through the online assessment tools may be the only hurdle you'll face on the way to the job of your dreams. Unfortunately, the ruthless and unyielding to pleas or flattery ATSs (Applicant Tracking Systems), keep their watch at all times to make sure that only those who KNOW how to play the game get through.

The Ladders have unveiled the ultimate checklist of proper resume submission to gain personal attention of the recruiters.

Read it here: Resume Checklist

More posts on resume writing:

• Resume stuff
• Unique tips to help Executive Recruiters find your resume

Interview Places: Always Ready

Recently I have run a small bit of research on interview situations some people have found themselves in. The results came in as expected - varied - still some of them are hard to believe. Take a look for yourself:

Having a job interview over coffee seems to be a regular practice. What is the MOST UNUSUAL place that you've even had a job interview in?

• hotel room
• petroleum depot
• trattoria
• in a park because the fire alarm went off in middle of my interview at the hotel
• in the Presidential Suite in the GrandWest Hotel in Cape Town
• aeroport
• at a theatre

 Without being too philosophical about the topic, the moral is,I hope, clear: you need to be prepared all the time for whatever outcome and never miss an opportunity to have an interview right then and right there. Hence:

• make sure you always have a copy of your CV with you, either in hard copy or on your smart phone/iPad/laptop;
• have an ample supply of business cards (consider placing a QR code linked to your uploaded CV on it);
• unless it is absolutely impossible, do not try to postpone the interview (later... in your office... etc...). Demonstrate your flexibility and ability to deal with unpredictable situations!

Thank you all those who have replied to my survey on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Interviewer is a Stressful Job

Many people think that being an interviewer is like having a vacation every now and then retiring to the meeting room with new and interesting people and chatting about their lives, likes and personal interests. No, it is like going into a battle and you never know your enemy, who are becoming more ferocious and unpredictable in their underhanded ways of sneaking into the company you are trying to protect so ardently.

Unfortunately, technology is not on your side, so nowadays you can be recorded, videofilmed, encoded, decoded, digitally modified and uploaded in no time, so a recruiter constantly needs to be on his toes (or her toes if it happens to be a lady).

Below is a short but funny compilation of the perils that recruiters are exposed to on a daily basis without really getting any credit or pay raises for the dangers of their noble trade.

Total Recruitment Scam

Concise Oxford English Dictionary © 2008 Oxford University Press:

scam/skam/ ▶n inf a dishonest scheme; a fraud.

Parents always tell their children to look before they leap, respect elders and not put anything in their mouth that isn't wrapped. My mom was not an exception and I wish I listened to her more often.

Last week I got an e-mail from a certain Mr Jordan, who presented himself as a recruiter for Total, one of the oil majors. He congratulated me on being pre-selected as one of the candidates for the job and invited me to London for the face-to-face interviews on July 4th, mere two weeks from then. I did apply for one of their positions advertised on LinkedIn a few days before and I was surprised at their reaction speed, as I know that big companies may take weeks to do pre-selection only. However, it was a project position and big projects do have a tendency to be ramped up quickly + obviously, I got interested. The alarming factor was that T&C (terms and conditions) were attached, but who listens to the voice of reason at the moments of great excitement? In his message Mr Jordan also advised me of the interview date and venue and gave the travel agent's contact details to arrange the trip. I emailed the travel agent asking what exactly they needed and got the following reply (pay special attention to #5):

Attn: Sergey Gorbatov

This is to acknowledge the receipt of your mail and we congratulate you on your new appointment with Total Oil and gas Company. As you are aware, we have been mandated by Total Oil and Gas to assist you in procuring your traveling documents to London, United Kingdom.
You are required to meet our requirement by sending the below listed document to us immediately so as to proceed with the travel arrangement and visa application.

1. A scanned Copy of your identification and International Passport.

2. The Nearest Airport to you.

3. Your Contact Address.

4. A Scanned Copy of a recent UK visa

5. You are to make a refundable deposit of £1,157.55 GBP, as this covers for the cost of your flight, accommodation and transportation while in UK. Note that this is important as we will need to file your flight itinerary along with the visa application. (my emphasis)

6. Invitation Letter from Total Oil and Gas

Payments for such services are accepted via various payments but due to the service nature and the time frame, we advise you to remit it via either Money Gram or Western Union transfers, depending on the one that is convenient for you. Below is the accountant information is as thus follow;

Receiver Name: Margaret Cole,
Address: Unit 3, 61, Princelet St, London, E1 5LP

Upon payment, do send a scanned copy of the deposit slip along with other document requested to me via this email address and send a copy to our client (Total Oil and Gas) for confirmation as that will be used for refund process.

We assure you that every part of the travel documentation process will be fast as long as you provide us with the relevant documents that we are requesting for.

I hope to hear from you soon so as to proceed with your traveling arrangement.

Sincerely,
Mr. Martin Walker
Chief Consultant (Air Express Travels and Tours)

At this point I knew it was a scam. I was so cross with myself for being naive and unable to recognize the obvious signs from the very beginning even though I (better than anyone else being an HR) should have known!!!

Please, be careful with schemes like this. Surely, they can be devised in a myriad of ways, but here are some pointers that shout "run!":

• all major companies will only accept job applications via their official recruitment portals, which are security encrypted (start with https at the very least);
• if at any given time you are asked for any money to subsidize your travel to the venue of the interview, double-check. Not all companies have large recruitment budgets and smaller firms may offer you to share the expenses or come to their premises at your own cost, but I have never come across such practices dealing with large multinationals;
• you will not be invited for a face-to-face without having had a cheaper (phone or Skype) type of interview first;
• check the e-mail addresses and websites:

1. The email address was carreers@totaloiluk.com (check the spelling of careers, could I have looked straight away?!?!), and, surely, the official domain of Total is total.com.
2. Air Express has a nice-looking webpage (http://www.airexpressuk.com/welcome.html) but most of the links do not work and someone spent some time to make it look credible.

I hope you will share this with your friends, as the best way to deal with fraud is to be aware and apply reasoning even in situations where it's most difficult to do so.

My personal job searching techniques

Now that I am in the midst of job hunting, maybe I should sum up all the different approaches I used trying to land a cool sexy MBA type of a job and analyze what really worked for me and what was a total waste of time.

Sending out my CV
Most time consuming and least effective. It's like cold calling: you think that it's gonna work just because you are so amazing and everyone will be taken by your accomplishments, but it practically never works: the success rate is one in a zillion or something.

Applying on companies' websites
Slightly better and I did get a few interviews out of that. Among the best career portals that I have been to are the ones of BP, GE, Philips, and Shell. Sometimes they are horrible - if you want to spend an hour of your time and arrive nowhere, try applying for a job at Investec or ABSA.

MBA programs
The finance maxim applies: high risk - high return. Applications to these take hours to write and the recruitment processes are stringent. However, once you are in, you will be taken care of and from the career development perspective, this might be the best choice, as normally  those are rotational programs, giving you a chance to move around a few countries and change a couple of positions within 3-5 years and providing senior leadership exposure. You might want to read about my personal experiences with the Prudential Momentum Program or DHL Inhouse Consulting.

Overall, such experiences are quite unnerving, so here are some personal lessons on dealing with assessment centers: http://hrboutique.blogspot.com/2011/04/dealing-with-assessment-centers.html.

Job portals
I am registered on a couple of those and I do not find them effective at all. To the best of my knowledge, none of the opportunities came from that avenue. The ones that I am using (maybe they are the wrong ones!) are:

• Experteer
• Ivy Exec
• MBA Exchange
• Step Stone
• Head Hunter (Russian)

LinkedIn
Proved to be very effective and easy to use. There are at least two different ways how it can be used in job hunting. The first one is straightforward and it is applying for jobs openly published on LinkedIn. I do get e-mails and phone calls back regarding those applications. The second is joining various LinkedIn groups that are of interest to you (function, industry or affiliation). In the group space you will see numerous publications from headhunters and managers looking for candidates. What I do is sending them a LinkedIn message (something like below) and I can tell you, it is a very effective way to get noticed...

Hi xxx, I came across your profile in the xxx group on LinkedIn.

I am an HR professional with 10 years of experience including 5 years of international experience in the oil&gas industry (Shell). I am now finishing my MBA at IE Business School in Madrid and looking for further career opportunities. Please take a look at my CV (http://bit.ly/iuCgxh) and hopefully my candidacy will be of interest to you.

Kind regards, 

Sergey

Head Hunters
Difficult to get to, but if you are in, your life is a breeze. Since most head hunters work on assignment, often you are only of interest to them if they have a "burning" vacancy. However, sometimes (particularly if you are very interesting candidate possessing a rare skill, like petroleum economist) they would want to have a chat with you "for future reference". Such relationships need to be nurtured and those head hunters need to be kept in the loop of your career development. We all know the names of the best ones:

• Russel Reynolds
• Korn Ferry
  
• Spencer Stewart
• Heidrick & Struggles
• Egon Zehnder
• Michael Page

Leveraging Networks
In Spain it's a must do, but it equally applies to all other countries: best jobs are found through personal connections. Think about it... People recommending you to their employers or their personal contacts take risks so if they do that, they do it for a reason - because they are sure that you are a good candidate. Hence, personal recommendations are most trusted. Shamelessly use your networks! Contact former colleagues and bosses, people you did business with, your professors, strangers you met at conferences and business lunches... Yet, be suave. Don't ask for a job, but ask for information or being introduced to someone. That was you are not putting your network under pressure but rather leveraging its potential. In my experience - super effective!

IE Career Center

I know that half of my fellow-MBAs are going to hate me for what I am about to say, but IE Career Center has helped me greatly in the job search process. As they say, the best helping hand is a good kick in the butt, and that's what they help you to do: get off yours! I noticed that the Career Center specialists help those who help themselves. In other words, they won't find a job for you, but if you are active in your job hunting and making progress, they will direct, provide advice, polish your resume and cover letter and will open door, within IE and externally, be it with head hunters or directly with companies. I got a few interviews directly with the hiring managers merely because a Career Center officer recommended me to an employer. It's all about relationships!

Stupid interview questions

I borrowed these cartoons from http://theoatmeal.com/comics/interview_questions; I am sure you'll also enjoy them, and sometimes they do come across exactly as shown below!

Enjoy the last working day of the week!

 

What countries want to hire me?

A few months into the job search process, I guess now I have a clearer picture of how different countries view potential employees when it comes to work permits and relocations. Some hard truths:

• the expat rush is over: companies are no longer excited about flocking in hords of outrageously expensive foreign workers (maybe apart from the top executive range) and prefer to grow local talent;
• if you are a talented graduate with high potential, the color of your passport is irrelevant.

These two statements might sound contradictory but they are not. Companies clearly distinguish between two different pools of candidates: performers and HiPos. Performers are needed as they form the bulk of the company, the so-called "solid citizens". HiPos are the future senior managers, the blue blood and white bone of the organization, the small proportion of the workforce intended to deliver the disproportionate share of the value. If you look at job ads for regular "performer positions", you will see phrases like "Apply to a location where you already have a work authorization. This is an absolute requirement." or "Only nationals of xxx should apply". As you read descriptions of leadership development/management programs, you will not find such statements. The reason for that is quite simple - companies that want to grow global leaders want you to move around and gain as much international experience as possible, so for them it actually makes little difference where you start and what sort of visa support you require.

Well, to be fair, there are countries that are much laxer of their entry requirements and issuing work permits, while for others that might be an issue. In many countries, companies will be allocated a certain quota on how many non-nationals they may have per year, and you won´t have any problems getting there as long as that number is not exceeded, but others have much stricter requirements:

• Africa: easiest thing to get in is with one of the oil&gas or mining company. South Africa is the nicest places but also of of the toughest to get into because of their BEE legislation. Not sure if you want ot be in North Africa at the moment.
• Europe: regardless of the Blue Card initiative, the governments are still very protective of their local workforce, especially if it is one of the PIGS countries.
• Asia: China is attractive for those in search of global career, but knowledge of Mandarin is often a prerequisite. India is relatively easy to get into, but only for specific industries and you will be competing with large pools of talented Indians who have the local knowledge and are willing to work for less money.
• Australoasia: lucrative place to work - great climate and awesome people, but so far that the employers are mostly focusing on the local market.
• North America: after the most recent crisis has become extremely protective of its own laborforce. You will only get in if you are a hi-tech guru with business education (example), i.e. a future Steve Jobs. Canada is more flexible on granting work permits and has special points-based programs for skilled labor (http://www.canadaworkpermit.com/).
• South America: forget about a job if you do not know someone personally there... ideally the president of the country or his son/daughter/cousin/etc. People do not want to have phone or Skype interviews and are rather unwilling to engage into any form of communication unless you are physically present in those countries.
• Antarctica: the penguines and polar bears will be thrilled to have you over.

We´ll see where I´ll end up in a month´s time - maybe this blogpost will need updating then :)

Dealing with assessment centers: personal lessons

I am not sure how to explain it, but for the me most difficult part in the job search process is getting to the interview stage. Maybe I just don´t have the winning CV, not matter how much it gets reviewed and re-rewiewed by Career Services and peers. However, once I get to talk to a live person on the other side of the fence, everything goes nice and smoothly. To prove that... all assessment centers I have gone through so far - passed all!

• Shell Recruitment Day 2005: got a job
• DHL Inhouse Consulting assessment 2010: got a job offer
• Prudential Momentum Assessment 2011: successfully passed, awaiting an offer.

Anyway... yesterday I had coffee with my friend Anton who is travelling to Bonn next week for his DHL Inhouse Consulting assessment, so he asked me for advice or any tips that would help him do better. The recommendations I gave him (in concurrence with my friend, who is an expert at SHL, a company specializing in assessment centers and global talent management) were only three, and that is exactly what I try to do every time I face a panel of assessors:

• Don't try to be someone who you are not. It is risky and won't get you far. Trying out new uncustomary behavioral models in the assessment itself will push you off guard and you will reveal even more negative information about yourself than you would if you behaved normally. You will only get more nervous and artificial, and such things are easily picked up by trained assessors.
• Manage your time. This one is critical. The exercises are composed in such a way, that you should only have enough to cast a cursory glance at the materials, identify the key issues and prepare your plan of attack. Nobody expects you to be precise and comprehensive, vice versa - your ability to prioritize and pinpoint the essential is more important.
• Boost your attitude. Don't give up if you feel that you have not done everything right. In a correctly composed assessment, there will be at least two different exercising designed to measure a specific competency. So even if you feel that you have bombed one exercise, there will be at least another opportunity to redeem yourself. Thus, keep your nose up at all times!

Besides, have at least five copies of your resume with you, be smartly dressed, try to establish personal connections with the assessors and the candidates, and remember that it is a learning and netwroking opportunity - make the most out of it.

Good luck!

Up until now I have mostly been using LinkedIn of all the social networks to look for jobs. Twitter is moving in that direction, primarily by using hash tags (e.g. #jobs, #jobhuntchat, #jobsearch, #jobadvice). Many companies have recruitment sections on their Facebook pages already, but according to the article below, we are taking it even further now. 

FACEBOOK RECRUITING INNOVATION

For talent acquisition professionals, recruiting on facebook is not a new concept.  Creating both a seamless and engaging process from the time an active or passive candidate sees or hears about an opportunity and enabling them to apply for a job – without ever leaving facebook, however, is.

A few months ago, Bernard Hodes Group created Social JobMatcher, enabling companies to socialize their career site and referrals.  They didn’t stop there..  A couple of weeks ago, the team announced their “Instream Jobs Facebook Application“.  The recruiting facebook app allows candidates see your career opportunities while on your company page – or right in their news stream – and apply without leaving facebook.

I had a chance to catch up with Hodes’ VP of Digital & Social and Digital Strategy, Shannon Seery Gude (@seerysm) and asked her about Instream.  Here’s what shared, “We took lessons from the successful consumer focused retail Facebook apps and applied them in making our new InStream Jobs app. The app is a first of its kind in the recruiting space, bringing job updates front and center and publishing directly to a Company’s Page Wall (rather than to custom page section) which allows Fans of your Company Page to conveniently consume your job content straight from their Live News Feed.” When asked what’s the most exciting component of Instream, she added, “Companies have never had the ability to share jobs and other contextually relevant information in such a rich and engaging way on Facebook, until now“.

Other application features of the Hodes’ Instream app include:

• Job seekers who “like” a company will see job opportunities in their personal news stream
• Viewing a full job title and description without leaving Facebook, as opposed to posting only a job title and brief description.
• Viewing up to three similar job openings.
• Starting a job search within the application that will take users directly to their search results on the company’s career site.
• Displaying videos and/or photos that can be viewed within the application.

While we’ve seen many facets of social recruiting, very few organizations have made progress towards simplifying the candidate experience and process, while focusing on engagement.  Kudos to the team at Hodes for just that.

When do you stop the interview? My short BP story.

Has it ever happened to you that you realize that the job you are being interviewed for is actually not a got fit? That's my today's experience. I applied for an HR Business Partner position with BP in their Shipping business and on paper it looked weighty and exciting. This is obviously a caveat everyone should be wary of - job ads do not equal job descriptions and both often do not equal reality. But I thought that it was an interesting opportunity. I had to do two psychometric tests online before the interview (really looking forward to see the results!), so everything was set for this morning's 9 am phone chat with the HR Manager.

She called me promptly on the dot (this is not Spain we are talking about) and after a brief and jovial introduction we jumped into discussions of the role. After a couple of minutes it became clear to me that the role was even smaller than what I used to do with Shell in South Africa. I looked after a much larger client portfolio, I did have the experience of looking after the Health & Safety and Maritime functions, and I had more organizational support people to manage and coordinate + all the exciting projects that regularly came my way. I asked a couple of questions more and politely told the recruiter that I was not interested in that particular role explaining why. She was very understanding and even recommended an agency to contact who is handling the lion's share of BP recruitment in the UK, so that they are aware of my candidacy.

Should I have gone though the entire interview just for the experience and maybe a chance that in the process I could have developed a stronger bond with the interviewer and hence she could have considered other opportunities for me, or was it the right thing not to spend our time on discussing something that was outright not suitable? Both options have their pros and cons... Tough choices...

Video Regret Message: Priceless!!!

This is totally cool. When everyone else is ignoring your applications or merely sends out hundreds of standardized regret letters, tricks like this stand out.

A few days ago I applied for a Talent Management & Diversity position on LinkedIn. Today I received this link with a recorded regret message. Even though I was unsuccessful, it made me feel great, and now I have a positive opinion about Simpson Consulting, even though I really have no idea who they are. But they found a creative way to connect with their candidate base and they offer to stay in contact. In short - kudos!

Watch the video message here:  

Tough Day: Prudential Momentum assessment (Part 2)

As the Heathrow Express (nearly said Hogwarts Express…) is carrying me away from London, I would like to ponder on the key moments that I would like to take away from the last day, the day of my assessment for the Prudential Momentum Program. Yes, by the end of the day I was completely exhausted, but energized at the same time. It is a weird feeling of when physically your body is tired, but the level of excitement refuses to go – it happens when you work on exciting but challenging projects, undergo strenuous assessment or get married, I suppose.

The day of assessment brought me what was promised by Prudential and they worked hard on sticking to the time and ensuring that the schedule runs as planned. Two interviews (one business and one HR), a case preparation, individual and group exercises on that case and a peer feedback session at the end. As I mentioned yesterday, only 1% of the applications make it to the assessment center, so that was a motivational factor repeated several times as a kind of morale boost during the pep talks we had at the beginning of the day. The ratio candidatate:assessor of 1:1 also suggested that we were in for some serious stuff. Over coffee I had a chance to ask around about the backgrounds of the folks I would have to go through the day with – mostly British, mostly Finance and (a point in my favor) not MBAs.

The pace of the day does not leave you time for a leisurely comfort break and the lunch is tightly squeezed between assignments. This is also an exercise in managing your time properly, because the amount of information you have to process does not allow you make a thorough analysis of everything, so prioritization is important. Without disclosing the contents that much, here is an overview of the tasks that I went through:

• Business Interview: probably, the easiest part for me. We had a nice chat about my past work experiences with a guy who used to work for Shell, so it was easy to connect and draw on common experiences. In general, I find it very beneficial to find commonalities with the person who interviews you and try to establish a stronger personal bond. I know that it’s trying to skew the scales to my side using the similarity bias, and it does not work at all times, but hey – in love and war… 
• HR Interview: something new for me professionally – a semi-structured interview that is built to gather information about your personality through the experiences you had in the past. It’s narrative-based and there is a lot of latitude for the candidate to talk. I am always a bit wary of talking too much in such occasions. 
• Case Preparation: I was given a bunch of materials about a company and a specific business task. I am not sure if there is a variety of cases and one is selected to ensure that none of the candidates had explicit work experience in that particular industry, but at least that was the case with our group. One hour is enough to prepare for the individual and the group part of the exercise, but yet time is a scarce resource. One piece of advice – brush up your SWOT skills. Otherwise, it’s very similar to any case you would have at a business school, with financials and whole lot of other data cryptically scattered around. 
• Individual Presentation: you have to present back to a panel of assessors the results of the case preparation using any materials available. Even shorter time is allocated for their questions, but the questions are on the spot and some of those were quite unanticipated. 
• Group Exercise: the longest exercise of the day. The group (8 people in my instance) has to arrive at a unanimous decision around a business problem. Only three pieces of advice: collaboration, collaboration and collaboration. My personal challenge was, as usual, balancing not talking excessively but yet being heard and making a good impressing on the assessors. In the feedback session I got some positive comments on how I had done it. 
• Peer Feedback: to my utmost delight, this part was built in the official outline of the day – it is rather uncommon for events like that and it sends a strong message that the company is committed to personal growth of its employees, if it chooses to spend the assessors’ time on conducting those sessions during the assessment center. Mind that there will be official feedback provided at a later stage once the assessors’ opinions are aggregated and the hiring decision is made. This exercise is presented as a chance for the assessors to observe our abilities to give and receive feedback, but personally for me it was more important to hear from my partner how I came across throughout the day. 

It was also a great opportunity to meet the Prudential employees and ask them questions about the company, its culture, working there and their instant feedback on how they perceive you fitting in. Unfortunately, there was only one “momentee” but I did have a long chat with him about his experiences (at the expense of a larger chunk of my lunch though). Even though the time is limited, there are numerous occasions for networking and we all know that sometimes a rightly placed question can get you further than a full-hour interview.

I was promised the feedback and the decision within about 10 days. A bit long for my personal liking, but this is another indication that this whole process is taken seriously at Prudential. Indeed, this was a rewarding experience and irrespective of what the results will be, I am grateful I have gone through the process and already have learnt a lot.

Resume Stuff

Just for some lazy but insightful reading :)

Here are two interesting links that I came across:

• http://blogs.hbr.org/silverman/2009/06/how-to-write-a-resume-that-doe.html

• http://blogs.hbr.org/silverman/2009/06/the-best-cover-letter.html

Online assessment tools

Have you recently had a chance to take an online assessment as a part of the recruitment process? I should tell you from my personal experience that those things can be quite tedious and long, but also you are constantly riddled by the question: how do I trick the system?

The system can be tricked - no doubt about that. I am making this bold statement purely because anything created by one human being can be reverse-engineered by another. In the past couple of months I have completed quite a number of various online questionnaires, forms, tests and other forms intended to find out who I am and what I do.

Undoubtedly, there are many advantages to using an online tool in the selection process: they save time, money, efforts and provide consistency alongside with objectivity. At the same time, inadvertently they will sort out potentially brilliant employees who get bored with online assessments / are having a bad day / press wrong buttons / or because the system has been configured improperly. Obviously, each company will be looking for different things in candidates and each assessment tool will be tailored made for them - there are no cookie-cut solutions when it comes to selecting future employees. Still, my success rate so far has been around 50% with those and I can never really predict if I am doing great or poorly on the test.

For instance, I applied for the Sony European Graduate Prorgamme. They offer you to rate the responses to typical management situations according to the degree of their appropriateness in that particular context. There are 20 of them and thinking of each one can get quite tedious. The system is fully automated and there is surely a cut off score that defines if you are progressing in the process of if you receive a "we are sorry" letter. Well, I did not get in.

A different example is The Momentum Programme at Prudential. Their online assessment tool is a combination of pre-selected response choices and free-text answers. While this approach is more time and effort consuming, you get much better results, primarily because they are qualitative.

Which one is better? As always - it depends. For the candidate, doing an automated "click-the-button" test is easier and faster: those normally get completed in about 20-40 minutes. Writing essays is more difficult and you need more time - it took me a couple of hours to complete the Prudential online assessment, but that effort paid off: I have received an invitation for the assessment center at the end of March in London. I am not sure what conclusions we can draw from this, but my observation is that when I get a chance to convey my personality and experience through a narrative, my results are much better. If I am dealing with a robot, I normally fail.

I am still undecided about online assessments. Yes, there are advantages as well as drawbacks and in some situations they can be real life savers. As long as one fully understands the risks associated with using those and uses the tools effectively, there are definitely large organizational benefits that can be reaped. In the meantime, I should be packing for London!

Future of the Jobs in Luxury, Fashion and Design

The world of fashion, luxury and design has been captivating hearts and minds of people for centuries. We want to be close to what is beautiful, attractive and valuable. It makes us feel good. It makes us feel valuable, just like the precious pieces that we create, handle and sell in multi-million dollar boutiques around the globe. We want to be associated with such names as Patek Phillipe, Louis Vuitton, Carolina Herrera and such. What is all this industry about? Basically - about anticipating the dreams of people, helping customers live those dreams and revel at the intimate proximity of sheer beauty.

Contrary to popular opinions, creative people sometimes do know how to make money, and not surprisingly, the luxury industry is growing, while others are shrinking. As I learnt from my professor, María Eugenia Girón (former CEO of Carrera y Carrera, by the way), it's nearly a 160 billion euro industry (2009), which continue growing or at least was not as susceptible to the recent downturn as other parts of the global economy:

A rapidly developing industry means a lot of change. A lot of change means many opportunities. Ergo, for a steep career curve you should move closer to the rich and beautiful, and here's the catch:

• there is a psychological dissonance between the perception of the industry and actual salaries for people working there (for more info see my earlier post: HR in the Luxury Industry)
• to get up in the ranks, you will have to start at the very bottom. A couple of weeks ago we had the CEO of Louis Vuitton for Spain, Portugal and Morocco coming to IE with a presentation about career opportunities for MBA students. The only MBA entry position around the world in LV is a Store Manager. They believe that the only way to learn the ropes is to get your hands dirty (as dirty as it can get selling EUR 25 K handbags).

Yet, hundreds of freshly baked MBAs join this industry each year and with the change in values across societies, the luxury industry is also trying to be more responsible and sustainable. When 80% of customers would choose a product demonstrating its sustainable nature at the same price, it becomes evident that we are moving from conspicuous to responsible consumption. Look at these example of fashion/luxury ventures, which are definitely "greener" than the others:

• CIEL: only sustainable and socially responsible sourcing;
• Ecoalf: recycling PET bottles to make textiles for their fashion creations;
• BabyDeli: only ecological product for babies.

CSR practices of a company nowadays have a definitive power to skew the employment decision of many young and bright specialists, who care about the future, and I believe we can expect the fashion and luxury industry to be more and more attractive for business school graduates.

Fly on the wall: how I witnessed an interview

I am typing this up as I am sitting in a Starbucks café in Castellana next to IE. I positioned myself in my favorite corner, set down my order, pulled out my laptop and inadvertently overheard a conversation among three people sitting right in front of me. OK, eavesdropping is bad, but here I had no other choice: those were sitting right in front of my nose, so the best I could do was to pretend uninterested and engrossed in my own stuff. Thus, clicking away and sipping on what turned out to be an atrociously watered down americano, I realized that I was listening to an interview in a sort of typical setting: an interviewer, a candidate and an observer (maybe a line manager?) who did not say much throughout the whole process. I should say I genuinely enjoyed the experience. For once I was able to be outside of the interview, being neither on the one or the other side of the fence, and, goodness gracious!, every single one should be granted such a marvelous opportunity in their lives - to be a fly on the wall.

The interviewer was good. I mean... really good. Professionally dressed, nice posture, slightly leaning forward, taking notes, but still keeping the eye contact, constantly reaffirming that she is listening, probing... I wish I could film that encounter to show later as an example of good interviewing skills.

The guy across the table, however, evidently was not accustomed to going through rounds of uncomfortable questions very often. Here are just a few examples of what I observed in his behavior that would raise some flags for me:

• Talking too much and too quickly. His style came across as selling. It was so obvious that he was trying to convince the lady in his own worth, that I started wondering whether he himself believed in it.
• Too much gesticulation. It is important to use hands to emphasize a point, but doing it all the time takes away the importance of gestures, dilutes the message and after a while becomes increasingly annoying (no pointing fingers in the direction of the Italian boot-shaped piece of land...).
• Overgeneralizing. Saying things like "I see myself as being a great success in the Latin American market" is not enough. Give details, facts, examples, names - something that would corroborate your statement, then they are fine. If the recruiter has to probe you on those broad declaration and, to make matters worse, you don't have a convincing argument at hand -> too bad.
• Having no questions. The interviewing lady asked at the end if the candidate had any questions, and he (foolishly?) replied in the negative. Normally it means one of the two: (1) you are unprepared, i.e. you have done nothing to find out more about the company, the person himself/herself, the job, etc., or (2) your level of intelligence does not extend further than the limited scope of your work and ABC News.

As I came to observe the process quite late, I could not comment on how the conversation started and developed, but the 10 minutes that I witnessed were enough for me (even without the need to ask anything) to figure out that the guy was not getting the job. Why? The level of the recruiter's professionalism indicated that she comes from a serious executive search agency or a large company (later I found out she flew in from London for this interview), and the level of answers and the nature of behavior of the candidate demonstrated that he was not up for the challenge. 

What if start frequenting lobbies of posh hotels and observe various interviews? You won't believe how many interviews are taking place in settings like that! I was interviewed in hotel lobbies on a number of occasions, particularly because I used to travel a lot. I think that would be a cool idea for a book, no?

10 Things You Need To Know About Social Media for Your Job Search

10 Things You Need To Know About Social Media for Your Job Search

Published by: Vault.com | Post a Comment

We've all heard the horror stories about workers losing jobs or candidates being passed over for interview because of something they did on a social networking site. But did you know that many companies are actively recruiting via social media?

With that being the case, wouldn't it be nice to know what it is that recruiters are looking for when they check out your profile. Or even to know which sites they're visiting, and what advice they have for candidates on maintaining their profiles?

In the summer of 2010, Vault asked thousands of job seekers and recruiters about their experiences with social media. The results—from over 3,500 candidates and 150 companies—provide answers to many of the questions about using social media to further your career success.

To see this great piece of research (and it´s really cool!!!), 

10 Things You Need To Know About Social Media for Your Job Search