Archive for June, 2008

Lost in the heated rhetoric of the endless immigration debate is the basic fact that people want to go where there is work and governments want to regulate the matter.

In a tight labor market it’s not surprising to see workers relocate for the right opportunity. In a recent study Manpower reports that 78 percent of the workers it interviewed worldwide said they would be willing to relocate for a job. Nearly 37 percent said they would leave their home country. Of those willing to move, two in five said they would do so permanently.  

But what happens to the countries and cities these migrating workers leave behind? Does brain drain cause economic pain? Apparently, yes, many employers around the globe are feeling that the global talent market is working against them, at least according to a new study.

Internationally, 31 percent of employers express concern about the global migration of talent, according to a Manpower study of 28,000 employers in 27 countries. The same study reports that only 15 percent of employers feel that government and business are “doing enough” to stem the flow of talent to other countries.

Archives for Workplace

One evening in May 2006, the president of the China division of a $10-billion-a-year multinational locked himself out of his office. Using his handheld, he fired off a nasty e-mail to his secretary, ordering her to start checking with her superiors every night before she went home. He also CCed others in the company before hitting send.

She replied, CCing the company’s entire China staff and asking him to remember his manners. “Even though I’m your subordinate, please pay attention to politeness when you speak,” she wrote.

The Chinese press caught wind of the exchange and because the president was from Singapore, it sparked a fury about cultural imperialism. He later resigned.

Archives for Social Media

When the scientific study hit the wires recently establishing that obesity spreads virally across large “social networks,” I figured that science was simply appropriating a popular cyberspace term.

After all, if obesity could spread across Facebook, or MySpace, science would have a larger problem on its hands than excessive girth. Are my contacts on Facebook really that susceptible to my suggestions? If so, I have a get-rich-slowly scheme to sell them.

Still, it’s obvious that some news and ideas spread virally over the Net; think about how many times you have spammed your friends or associates with jokes, links to articles, blog posts or videos. Before there was e-mail there were fax machines and (lawyer) jokes made the rounds pretty quickly, too.

Archives for Perfect Job

In his new book Punching In Alex Frankel a journalist and “brand observer” recounts his recent experiences working entry-level jobs for some of America’s best-known employers: UPS, Starbucks, the Gap and Apple among others.

Unlike those of us who prefer to learn about companies by reading academic case studies or magazine articles, Frankel discovers firsthand how employees are indoctrinated into becoming brand evangelists. He gets his hands wet by whipping up Frappuccinos, delivering packages, folding merino sweaters and selling car rental insurance.

“Whenever I neared the UPS building in San Francisco I felt a strange pull inward, a longing for something I couldn’t articulate,” he writes. Frankel decides to experience “what it felt like to be part of an interconnected global workforce by becoming a piece of it.”

Does a hive-like mentality pervade American retail jobs? If so, many of the worker bees appear to be drones, but according to Frankel the chain stores look for certain types of employees. The Container Store, for instances prefers compulsive neat freaks.

Archives for Branding You

The Wall Street Journal says being a motivational speaker is a high-paying gig. Actually what they say is it one of the five most overpaid jobs in the country.

Apparently that’s a bad thing.

For some of us, overpaid is ample motivation. But you really can’t make a name for yourself on the lecture circuit until you write a book.

And if you’re going to write a non-fiction book, quite often you need a novel thesis or - barring that - a gimmick.

Archives for Hot Skills

Terry Hird is a professional negotiator in Silicon Valley who enjoys teaching others the craft. Arranging a time to interview him by phone didn’t involve a lot of back and forth. It was a take it or leave it proposition.

Well, not really, I suppose I could have held out for an in-person meeting and then I would have been obliged to accept his location. That’s the thing about negotiations - you have to know when to press for what matters to you and be very selective about it. We agreed I would call him, but I’m no pushover.

A lack of good negotiation skills can hold back career advancement - and worse - says Hird who in addition to running his own firm also teaches an extension course at UC-Berkeley. “The most popular topics for [my students] are how to get a raise, and how to deal with a bad boss,” he says.

Archives for CV/Résumés

Are you buzzword compliant? Maybe that’s the problem - in the careers field they’re no longer called buzzwords. They’re called keywords, and without them, your résumé will slide into a black hole in cyberspace from which no search engine can find you.

Sounds dire, but getting the right words into your résumé is pretty simple according to Wendy Enelow, executive coach, résumé expert and author of more than 30 careers books including some on keywords and search engine optimization (SEO). “You can be the single most talented integrated-logistics manager but if you don’t have those words in your résumé you will get skipped over,” says the Virginia-based author.

To be clear, no one equates keywords with actual job experience or accomplishments. But in this highly competitive, technological age, the résumés that stand out are the ones that satisfy filtering software.  As for keywords, says Enelow, they are no more or less complex than “nouns and noun-phrases that describe what you do every day in your position.”