Archive for March, 2008

Archives for Hot Skills

In a useful BusinessWeek report called Managing the Global Workforce we learn that winning the war for talent is a challenge that few corporations are well-equipped to handle.

I wouldn’t call this news, but it’s certainly a macro-trend: as corporations morph from multinationals into transnationals that establish talent centers around the globe, talent management becomes a more strategic skill set for aspiring executives. Some b-schools are starting to teach these skills, but mostly it’s on-the-job training.

The key takeaway for job seekers is that you want to work for a company that doesn’t try to replicate its culture around the globe but instead embraces diversity as strength and not a weakness.

Archives for Employment

Corporate interviews have become endurance tests, a common way of simulating how candidates will respond if hired. Job candidates sitting on the hot seat can expect to hear the same questions posed four to seven times in a single afternoon. While job seekers are judged on every little detail, feeling pressure not to make mistakes, paradoxically, interviewers often believe they have latitude to come across as aloof, disorganized or rude.

But in a tightened labor market, candidates may experience a role reversal. Savvy employers may drop the fortress mentality - lowering a drawbridge across the moat of fire. For example, some firms may devote more of the interview process to “sell” candidates on the company. And some firms hit by the labor crunch are lowering skill-level or experience requirements for new hires, especially when it’s possible to shape raw talent in a matter of weeks or months.

Not surprisingly, job seekers have a litany of complaints about the interview process. According to a 2007 study of 3,725 job seekers, conducted in five global regions by Development Dimensions International (DDI), in conjunction with Monster, the biggest complaints interviewees make are these:

Interview Habits That Most Annoy Job Seekers

Source: Development Dimensions International, Inc.

Archives for Branding You

If you interact with customers, suppliers or co-workers located in other countries you can appreciate the sublime challenges of navigating a global career. In between rare moments of exhilaration and fear lie the everyday challenges of mastering the virtual workplace.

Fuzzy communications. Time zone gaps. Cultural differences. Puzzling global standards. Complicated logistics. These are among the daily concerns of global workers.

“It is much more common today for companies to have distributed teams, and a lot of them are international,” notes multicultural consultant Colleen Garton, author of Managing Without Walls. “Managers who maybe only five years ago would be managing team members in the same building are managing people in different time zones who speak different languages. You’re dealing with a lot of different communication tools and problems than they would have had to deal with a few years ago.

Archives for Perfect Job

Amid the billions of dollars China has accumulated by underwriting our national debt comes a new initiative - a giant investment fund to be staffed in part by western financial services professionals seeking a global career opportunity.

The China Investment Corp.’s $200 billion sovereign-wealth fund is looking for “global talent” to join them in Beijing. Apparently cash isn’t an issue. In May the new fund sank $3 billion into the Blackstone Group, a private equity firm.

Here are some of the two dozen available positions:

• Compliance Manager
• Risk Control Manager
• North America and Japan Market Equities Portfolio Manager
• Emerging Market Equities Portfolio Manager
• Fixed Income Portfolio Manager
• Public Relations Manager
• Senior IT Project Manager

Archives for Branding You

When a couple gets into a rut, they sometimes enter counselling to get a fresh, outsider’s perspective and, hopefully, reinvigorate the romance.

Similarly, a company seeking a surge of renovation can turn to the outside world by setting up a diverse team tasked with a particular focus.

Not slowed down by corporate bureaucracy, this multi-disciplinary group is, theoretically, agile enough to affect change and deliver innovation.

So contend the authors of a new book, “X-Teams: How to Build Teams that Lead, Innovate, and Succeed.” Deborah Ancona and Henrik Bresman who conducted their research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan School of Management, say that we live in an “era of open innovation.”

They contend that more “radical innovation” comes from smaller organizations and that universities are increasingly forming partnerships with industry to market independent research.

Archives for Employment

It’s no joke: there really are too many lawyers. And there are too few nurses and accountants. At least, that’s the employment outlook this year.

What if you could glimpse the future and foresee low demand for your skills in 2012? Would you change careers based on that data or would you continue to chase your dream?

Most of us would pursue our passion - after all, we only get one shot at life. Still, amid an oversupply of lawyers (was it ever otherwise?), many of whom are struggling to pay off six figure law school debts, you have to wonder shouldn’t they have seen this coming?

Archives for Employment

The US economy coughed up 63,000 jobs in February, its worst performance in five years. Despite President Bush’s recent attempt to downplay recession talk, the markets and media aren’t listening.

The New York Times said the recent jobs report “revealed widespread cracks in the nation’s labor market.”

What troubles economists is that employment is considered a lagging indicator, meaning that by the time jobs are slashed revenues have dropped, pipelines have slowed, and inventory is in oversupply.

I’m watching to see whether a long-term employment split emerges in which demand remains high for “skilled” workers, particularly in the tech and healthcare fields, while “unskilled” workers account for most of the new unemployed. Think of this split as skills warfare.