Archive for March, 2007

Today might be a good day to ask for raise. That is, if you have another offer in hand. Apparently, corporate talent supply lines are understocked and that’s putting the squeeze on hiring managers. Nearly four in five staffing directors expect the competition for talent will intensify this year, according to a new study of 3,725…    Continue reading

Revlon Products, the New York-based cosmetics giant, is expanding its international reach into nearly 200 countries. Revlon’s global strategy isn’t high gloss. Pursuing a cost-cutting initiative, the global-savvy company launched call centers in India last September. Revlon executives tapped 43 trainers and other personnel to fly to Mumbai and New Delhi to brief the new…    Continue reading

While social media such as blogs, wikis, RSS, social networking and tagging technologies have transformed the interactive web experience, corporations have been slow to adopt these ideas to enhance employee communications and collaboration. Most of us know social media through blogs or social networking sites such as Linked-in (I’m a member), Xing (ditto), MySpace or…    Continue reading

Back in the late 90s, in the peak of the dot-com craze, Silicon Valley companies dreamed up imaginative ways to better attract, ‘engage’ and thus retain young tech workers who might otherwise bolt for the competitor’s promise of IPO riches. Perks such as onsite haircuts, gym memberships, laundry services, and sushi chefs were de rigueur….    Continue reading

Until now, the one thing you could never say about immersive, 3-D cyberworlds is that if you can make it there, you can make it anywhere. Bain & Co., a global consultancy, said Wednesday that it intends to start recruiting for summer interns in Second Life, a virtual world with nearly five million residents. Some of…    Continue reading

We think about the jobs. We think about the weather, possibly the schools, and the culture. But how many of us stop to consider infrastructure in choosing where to work? In the current BusinessWeek, my former colleague Steve Hamm reports on how India’s decaying infrastructure undermines the country’s otherwise stellar economic growth. Hamm says India’s…    Continue reading

Reading Sam Palmisano’s official IBM biography, it’s difficult to tell why he’s working. As chairman and CEO of the world’s largest tech services company, he is both well-regarded and scandal-free. And IBM is doing relatively well, so it’s not like he should be embarrassed to show up at the office. It’s just that if we…    Continue reading

You wake up one Monday and read in the newspaper that your employer intends to move its corporate headquarters to the Middle East. How is the rest of your day looking? Undoubtedly, some Halliburton shareholders and at least some of its supporters may endorse the much-maligned government contractor and oil drilling firm’s plans to swap…    Continue reading

A few months before his company announced a merger, B. Lee Jones began building a network of contacts in case of a possible transition. In a matter of months, Jones, a 58-year-old CIO of a midsize, multinational company in Silicon Valley formerly known as Stratex Networks, amassed a whopping 500 connections on Linked-in, one of…    Continue reading

Deepika Bajaj’s new site, Invincibelle, spotlights fascinating multicultural women finding their way in America. Few of the women she profiles are more global savvy than Bajaj, however. Born in Delhi, she studied in Bangalore and New York, and she has lived and worked in multiple countries as a telecom consultant. The high-achieving women she profiles…    Continue reading

Globalization has expanded the opportunities of where we work and for whom we work. But how do global firms ensure that the people they hire locally are suited – from a standpoint of analytic skills, aptitude, and personality – for globally collaborative assignments? According to hiring consultants and human-resources executives at international companies, it’s crucial…    Continue reading

Monster didn’t become a job board colossus by disrespecting anyone’s privacy. In fact, safeguarding identities is a critical component of its commercial success, not to mention its little understood info-tech prowess. But the purple beast has a target on its back. Some job seekers who have entrusted Monster with personal histories and contact data have…    Continue reading

“When the world is flat, whatever can be done, will be done. The only question is will it be by you or to you?” asked Thomas Friedman, New York Times columnist and best-selling author, sounding a familiar theme in a Tuesday night speech to University of Southern California students. True or False? Globalization – it’s…    Continue reading