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The Recruiter Bill of Rights

Our exploration of The Job Candidate Bill of Rights created by Accolo¡¯s John Younger gave us a chance to take an in depth look at what it is that job candidates want, expect, and deserve from recruiters and hiring managers.

The 11-week series led to discussion among candidates, but it also sparked some talk regarding the rights of the recruiter. Over at Confessions of an Executive Restaurant Recruiter they even took the candidate Bill and applied the rights one-to-one for the recruiters of the world.

We love the idea of a Recruiter Bill of Rights (and a hiring manager Bill of Rights for that matter), so we¡¯ve borrowed some ideas from the aforementioned Executive Restaurant Recruiter post, the folks at SittingXlegged, Guerilla Job Hunting, and recruiters that we work with. We¡¯ve also culled the depths of our own addled brains just for good measure to come up with our own Recruiter Bill of Rights:

1.Self-Evaluation: Job candidates will look themselves in the mirror and form an honest opinion of what they want out of a job and what they have to offer. They will also realize that maybe they aren¡¯t perfect for every single job on the market.

2.Homework: Job candidates will not go into interviews blindly. They will utilize the resources at their disposal to learn as much as possible about the company and the position.

3.Truth: Job candidates will provide the truth in regard to experience, education, accomplishments, etc. Lying on a resume doesn¡¯t help anyone.

4.Change: Candidates shall be willing to listen to advice given by the recruiter when advice is given in an honest attempt to help. Candidate will also be willing to make the changes necessary to make themselves a better candidate for the positions they¡¯re interested in obtaining.

5. Salesmanship: It¡¯s important to realize that while your dreams are meaningful, they¡¯re not always the top priority for a company. Candidates should commit to demonstrating how they can serve a company right now and selling themseleves as the right candidate for the job.

6. Communication: Hiring managers will keep open communication with recruiters on all matters pertaining to the job search. They will give timely updates when their needs change or when new positions open.

7. Commitment: Hiring managers will commit to hiring. If the right candidate comes through the door, mangers won¡¯t put off hiring just for the sake of ¡°seeing as many people as possible.¡±

8. Integrity: Job candidates don¡¯t have to accept every job offer that comes their way. However, coming up with a new set of demands each time is not a viable means for finding the right position or the right compensation, and it makes the recruiter¡¯s job almost impossible.

9. Follow-Up: It¡¯s something that candidates demand, but sadly they don¡¯t receive it enough. They¡¯re not the only ones, though. Recruiters also need to be kept abreast of the candidate¡¯s situation. Whether it¡¯s touching base after an interview or just returning phone calls.

10. Respect: It¡¯s the lifeblood of the job search, but nobody feels the other parties involved are giving them any. Candidates need to respect the time, efforts, and basic humanity of recruiters, and they should expect the same.

Over the next several weeks, we hope to break this Bill down just as we did the last. Hopefully it will give everyone a better understanding of the challenges facing recruiters, and maybe it will help candidates and recruiters work together more effectively than they have in the past.

Hong Kong jobless rate falls to lowest in almost six years

HONG Kong’s jobless rate fell for a fifth straight month in November to the lowest in almost six years, helping sustain the longest economic expansion in a decade, the government said yesterday.

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for the three months ended November declined to 4.4 percent from 4.5 percent in October, the government said on its Website. That was the lowest since January 2001 and matched the median estimate of 13 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.

Banks, transport companies and retailers have stepped up hiring as the special administrative region piggybacked on booming growth on the Chinese mainland. Rising wages, and soaring stock and property prices are underpinning consumer confidence, helping Hong Kong withstand a slowdown in the United States economy.

“This reflects the healthy expansion in Hong Kong that has translated into the labor market,” said David Cohen, an economist at Action Economics in Singapore. “It should be supportive to consumer spending.”

Total employment jumped by 12,900 from a month earlier to a record 3.51 million. The number of unemployed slipped by 7,200 to 161,700, the lowest in more than five years, the report said.

The Brunswick Purchasing Mangers’ Index, a gauge of economic activity in Hong Kong, climbed to 56.3 in November, the highest in three years. The index of employment rose to an eight-month high of 54.3, suggesting companies may step up hiring in coming months.

A tighter labor market has forced employers to raise salaries to keep workers and attract new ones. Wages rose 3.3 percent in the third quarter – an increase that may start to feed into inflation, economists said.

“Labor costs may push prices higher in the next two years,” said Vivian Chiu, an economist at UBS AG in Hong Kong. Still, inflation “isn’t a big crisis at the moment.”

Hong Kong’s consumer prices climbed one percent last year, the first annual increase since 1998. The government forecasts inflation will accelerate to two percent this year.

On November 21, the government raised its forecast for economic growth this year to 6.5 percent from as much as five percent previously, partly because of rising domestic demand. The economy expanded 6.8 percent in the third quarter.

The city has created about 311,000 new jobs since unemployment peaked at 8.6 percent in July 2003, the government estimates. The benchmark Hang Seng index almost doubled in the same period, breaking 19,000 for the first time last month.

As a result, residents are spending more on everything from clothes to transport. Sa Sa International Ltd, Hong Kong’s biggest cosmetics retailer, on November 30 said first-half profit climbed 11 percent as sales jumped.

ERP Software as GDP Indicator for China

HONG Kong’s jobless rate fell for a fifth straight month in November to the lowest in almost six years, helping sustain the longest economic expansion in a decade, the government said yesterday.

The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for the three months ended November declined to 4.4 percent from 4.5 percent in October, the government said on its Website. That was the lowest since January 2001 and matched the median estimate of 13 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.

Banks, transport companies and retailers have stepped up hiring as the special administrative region piggybacked on booming growth on the Chinese mainland. Rising wages, and soaring stock and property prices are underpinning consumer confidence, helping Hong Kong withstand a slowdown in the United States economy.

“This reflects the healthy expansion in Hong Kong that has translated into the labor market,” said David Cohen, an economist at Action Economics in Singapore. “It should be supportive to consumer spending.”

Total employment jumped by 12,900 from a month earlier to a record 3.51 million. The number of unemployed slipped by 7,200 to 161,700, the lowest in more than five years, the report said.

The Brunswick Purchasing Mangers’ Index, a gauge of economic activity in Hong Kong, climbed to 56.3 in November, the highest in three years. The index of employment rose to an eight-month high of 54.3, suggesting companies may step up hiring in coming months.

A tighter labor market has forced employers to raise salaries to keep workers and attract new ones. Wages rose 3.3 percent in the third quarter – an increase that may start to feed into inflation, economists said.

“Labor costs may push prices higher in the next two years,” said Vivian Chiu, an economist at UBS AG in Hong Kong. Still, inflation “isn’t a big crisis at the moment.”

Hong Kong’s consumer prices climbed one percent last year, the first annual increase since 1998. The government forecasts inflation will accelerate to two percent this year.

On November 21, the government raised its forecast for economic growth this year to 6.5 percent from as much as five percent previously, partly because of rising domestic demand. The economy expanded 6.8 percent in the third quarter.

The city has created about 311,000 new jobs since unemployment peaked at 8.6 percent in July 2003, the government estimates. The benchmark Hang Seng index almost doubled in the same period, breaking 19,000 for the first time last month.

As a result, residents are spending more on everything from clothes to transport. Sa Sa International Ltd, Hong Kong’s biggest cosmetics retailer, on November 30 said first-half profit climbed 11 percent as sales jumped.

PROJECTMANAGER

Company introduction:
a number of successful operating companies with a worldwide coverage. With establishments in Europe (the Netherlands and Belgium) and Asia (Shanghai and Hong Kong) provide for each need in metal components: from standard fasteners to all other types of “custom made”metal- and or plastic components.

Job description:
1.Full responsibility for the projects overall.
2.give guidance to the planning manager, quality controller and purchase manager and report to the Project manager in the Netherlands.
3.Fully responsible for the project costs. Check the teams carefully and control the goods process.
4.Communicate with the purchase department in the Netherlands.
5.Responsible for contribute to a well organized processing of the goods with high lead-time of the projects.

Your profile:
1.Minimum education of BA (Bachelor).
2.Experienced on managing projects.
3.Well grounded through education or experience and have a commercial approach when it comes to problem solving.
4.Accurate and disciplinary, able to work individually as well as in a team.
5.Familiar with coaching but especially educating of Chinese co-workers as well as the Chinese culture.
6.initiative and are able to organize and plan your activities.
7.Fluency in English is required. You know how to use Word, Excel and Outlook
8.European with work experience in China is desired

* Please send us your complete resume (both in Chinese and in English) to: ‘topjob_mn115sh@dacare.com’

PLANNINGMANAGER

Company introduction:
a number of successful operating companies with a worldwide coverage. With establishments in Europe (the Netherlands and Belgium) and Asia (Shanghai and Hong Kong) provide for each need in metal components: from standard fasteners to all other types of “custom made”metal- and or plastic components.

Job description:
1.Responsible for the total process planning of the goods.
2.Monitor and control whole process from preparing up to the actual samples.
3.Evaluate and directly report to the Project manager and Purchase manager in the Netherlands.
4.Moreover you need to act in a pro-active way in order to analyze possible problems and issue solutions in time.
5.Can interface between the quality controller and the purchasing manager.

Your profile:
1.Minimum education of BA (Bachelor).
2.Experienced on planning.
3.Well grounded through education or experience and have a commercial approach when it comes to problem solving.
4.Accurate and disciplinary, able to work individually as well as in a team.
5.Familiar with coaching but especially educating of Chinese co-workers as well as the Chinese culture.
6.Initiative and are able to organize and plan your activities.
7.Fluency in English is required. You know how to use Word, Excel and Outlook
8.European with work experience in China is desired

* Please send us your complete resume (both in Chinese and in English) to: ‘topjob_mn114sh@dacare.com’

PURCHASE MANAGER (SOURCING)

Company introduction:
a number of successful operating companies with a worldwide coverage. With establishments in Europe (the Netherlands and Belgium) and Asia (Shanghai and Hong Kong) provide for each need in metal components: from standard fasteners to all other types of “custom made”metal- and or plastic components.

Job description:
1.Accompany, Educate, Give guidance to Chinese purchase co-workers who manage several projects as a team.
2.Check the teams and ensure to purchase the best products at the required quality and best conditions.
3.Directly report to the Project manager and Purchase manager in the Netherlands.
4.Responsible for contributing to a well organized purchase department with high lead-time of the projects.

Your profile:
1.Minimum education of BA (Bachelor).
2.Experienced on purchasing.
3.Well grounded through education or experience and have a commercial approach when it comes to problem solving.
4.Accurate and disciplinary, able to work individually as well as in a team.
5.Familiar with coaching but especially educating of Chinese co-workers as well as the Chinese culture.
6.initiative and are able to organize and plan your activities.
7.Fluency in English is required. You know how to use Word, Excel and Outlook
8.European with work experience in China is desired

* Please send us your complete resume (both in Chinese and in English) to: ‘topjob_mn113sh@dacare.com’

QUALITY CONTROLLER (TRAINER)

Company introduction:
a number of successful operating companies with a worldwide coverage. With establishments in Europe (the Netherlands and Belgium) and Asia (Shanghai and Hong Kong) provide for each need in metal components: from standard fasteners to all other types of “custom made”metal- and or plastic components.

Job description:
1.Responsible for the total quality management of products and deliveries in China.
2.Monitor the quality and check the actual products when needed.
3.Evaluate and report directly to the Project manager but also the Quality manager in the Netherlands.
4.Analyze possible problems and issue solutions which include visiting of suppliers and factories.
5.As a trainer and give guidance to several Chinese co-workers who cooperate within the purchase department team.
6.Implementation of zero defect system is of great importance.

Your profile:
1.Minimum education of BA (Bachelor).
2.Good knowledge of production processing on metal products and surface treatments.
3.You are technically well grounded through education or experience and have a commercial approach when it comes to problem solving.
4.Accurate and disciplinary, able to work individually as well as in a team.
5.Coaching but especially training of Chinese co-workers, Chinese culture.
6.Initiative and able to organize and plan your activities.
7.Fluency in English is required. Familiar Word, Excel and Outlook.
8.European with work experience in China is desired

* Please send us your complete resume (both in Chinese and in English) to: ‘topjob_sh@dacare.com’

Achievo’s approach to finding talent in China

By Ian Lamont on Mon, 12/18/2006 – 12:28pm
Last week for the Computerworld Weekly I/O podcast, I interviewed James Zhang, vice president of human resources for Achievo. This Silicon Valley company has capitalized on Western and Japanese firms’ interest in outsourcing software development work to China, where costs are cheaper. Zhang told me the privately held company has grown rapidly since being founded several years ago, and now has more than one thousand employees in North America, Europe, Japan, and Asia.

However, the competition for talented developers in Asia has led to high turnover in some cities. Achievo’s strategy for recruiting and retaining developers in China includes setting up partnerships with universities and training institutes across China, in addition to Beijing and other economic centers, where competition and costs are higher. The institutions that have already partnered with Achievo include:

Beijing ACEIT Training Institute
Beijing Information Technology Institute
Hunan Vocational College of Science and Technology
Shenzhen University
Zhuhai College of Jilin University
While industry-academic partnerships are nothing new, they are a first for some of the institutions approached by Achievo, and also entail alterations to the curriculum for those students who are interested in working for Achievo after graduation. A transcript of a portion of my interview with Zhang follows:

Computerworld: Achievo has a very interesting HR strategy, to find talent in China. You’ve created a series of partnerships with local training institutes and universities. Can you describe generally how these partnerships work?

Zhang: My plan is to strategically select some partner, mapping [to where] we have operations in China. Because China is so big. You cannot really [depend on] just one university to supply [talent] from North to South, from East to West. People have a different regions, [and] styles, and … habits, so they probably want to live and work close to their [home] region. We have four universities lined up with us, and we have one training institution lined up with us. Then the schools will specifically tailor some courses for the people who are interested in working for Achievo for the long term. So those students will be having some courses being switched to what we like them to have. And then they will take an internship to come to our company to work for us for several months, [to work toward their] graduation, their essays or final papers. We need to do the interviews to see who will be qualified, and then they will join Achievo. So there’s progress, and a program set up.

Computerworld: Why bother doing this? Can’t you just put an advertisement in the local newspaper, saying that you are looking for talented people? Or use other channels, like an H.R. agency to find people?

Zhang: Well, the [personnel] strategy needs to match the long-term growth of the company. The company is growing very fast, and doing very well. The university program is specifically targeting entry level engineers, which from cost-competitiveness and also from the supply pool, this will be the best source that we can get candidates.

Computerworld: How many graduates from these training institutes and universities will Achievo be able to recruit in your plan?

Zhang: We are looking for probably several hundred that we will need to hire next year from the university program.

Computerworld: So have you been able to hire anyone so far, or you really just got this off the ground?

Zhang: Yes. I think we have recruited close to a hundred [people] already through two universities and one training institute. And there are two more [programs] that we have set up, and one more [program] that will be finalized in a two-week timeframe.

Recruiting The Different Types of Job Seekers

There are many types of job seekers, and knowing which you¡¯re recruiting for can make your job attracting the right applicants and getting them through to the offer process much easier. Here¡¯s a profile of 3 major types.

The High Maintenance Job Seeker
High maintenance job seekers tend to increase when the stakes are higher. These might be for senior talent or leadership positions. In fact, it¡¯s perfectly appropriate for these job seekers to be higher maintenance ¨C there¡¯s more on the line for both the employee and the company.

The high maintenance job seeker is marked by the need for more attention, more information, more interview time, more decision making time, and more negotiation. The reason for the extra time is simple ¨C money is not as important. When a senior talent or leader is thinking of joining your organization, the employer brand, culture and peer group are exponentially more important. It takes time for a person to decide if the employer brand is real and if the employees that surround them will match the personal needs of the job seeker.

By tailoring your recruiting strategy to the high maintenance job seeker for the appropriate positions, you¡¯ll be more able to understand their unique wants and needs and have more success in converting them to employees.

The Habitual Job Seeker
Being a habitual job seeker is not necessarily a bad thing. Most of these people should probably be consultants, but not all of them may qualify. At the lower levels of employment and maybe at the senior levels, habitual job seekers may not be desirable. At the lowest level it may not actually matter, but you don¡¯t really want to train receptionists and administrative assistants on an ongoing basis. Similarly with senior leadership positions, they will need enough time to execute on their strategy and see it successful.

In the middle tier, there might be need for short and mid term employees for specific projects or to act as turnaround agents. These are the perfect spots for habitual job seekers. They enjoy new challenges and get bored easily if they don¡¯t constantly try new things. Occasionally you¡¯ll find a habitual job seeker that is worth hanging on to (in fact there are many out there who are wonderful ¨C they just have commitment problems). This is where your recruiting department¡¯s partnership with talent management is critical. Transferring these employees from project to project or allowing them a growth path unrestricted by manager¡¯s desires to ¡°hold on¡± to them can give you the benefits of these employees for a much longer time.

What¡¯s important about the habitual job seeker is that the work is important, but not the employer brand, culture, or other employees.

The Indifferent Job Seeker
The indifferent job seeker may be the most problematic. Even with alternatives where high degrees of employer brand exist, the indifferent job seeker is really looking for the highest wage. This employee is hard to engage and will easily choose to leave when a better wage opportunity exists. Identifying and avoiding these types of job seekers early in the process and certainly before you offer them a job will save you much headache in the future.

Recruiting in the Creative Age: Portfolios

Experience and education are the two pieces of information that most recruiters use to determine whether someone is a fit for a job. These two measures are easy to understand, widely accepted and easy to communicate. They are perfect measures of a likelihood that someone will be able to do a great job. Except for the fact that, in the Creative Age, they don’t work.

Regardless of which age it is, it is hard to describe all the factors that go into deciding whether someone is a good fit for a job: personal factors, relative maturity, diversity of background in experience, comfort with learning, flexibility and openness to change and reaction in difficult situations are all important. None of them can be described by looking at a diploma or a resume.

In the Creative Age, a person’s ability to create / produce under highly unique and individualized situations is the single most critical factor in deciding whether someone can produce in your situation. So how do you determine this if you can’t use experience and education? A portfolio.

Artists of all types have been using portfolios to show their ability since before the renaissance. It’s now time to expand that concept to all candidates. When I talk with someone about a project management job, or a software engineering job, or even an administrative job, I ask them for examples of their work. I am always very specific with them: don’t share something that is proprietary or confidential. If they say they don’t have any examples I ask them what kinds of work they have done in the past. No matter the type of work, they always have some example somewhere. Once you lead them through how to ¡°clean out¡± any confidential data (take out names, dates, descriptors, etc.) they can usually come up with a great portfolio.

Once you have the portfolio in hand, you need to review each piece while asking behavioral questions about each piece:

1 – Describe the situation in which you did this work. What was the specific outcome that was demanded? By who? What specification or instructions did they give you?
2 – Who did you work with on this project? Describe at least one conflict that happened during this project and what it was about. How did you resolve it? Where is that exhibited in this work you have given me?

And so on. Use the portfolio as a way to guide the discussion. Finally, ask for references that can verify that the candidate did the work.

The information you get out of a portfolio and subsequent question session will be much more valuable than simple statements about education and experience.