Archives 2006

Senior Engineer (Device Analysis)

Company Introduction:
A Top semiconductor Company

Responsibility
1.To provide supportive functions to the organization in performing device analysis.
2.Perform electrical and physical device analysis of IC and material and recommend corrective actions whenever possible.
3.Lead and set direction for Device Analysis Engineers and EA
4.Conduct or facilitate training that improves skill set of Device Analysis Engineers and EAs
5.Develop device analysis tools/ techniques and seek breakthroughs
6.Drive tool/technique and skill-set roadmap
7.Participate in cross-functional activities or projects
8.Plan for future capabilities in failure analysis.

Qualification
1.2-4 DA engineers / engineering assistances.
2.Good knowledge on IC assembly / package and test.
3.Good knowledge on wafer fabrication process, package and device layout.
4.Device analysis techniques such as SEM / EDX / bench testing /cross-section, etc.
5.Understanding of device performance with design and / or packaging.
6.Sense of ownership and maintain equipment at optimal operating conditions.
7.Able to work with and understand acids / chemicals.
8.Able to publish the technical report / paper.
9.Able to work with all levels in a cross-functional environment.
10.Help build and maintain effective teams.
11.Independent, resourceful and takes initiative.
12.Degree in Electrical / Electronic / Material / Mechanical Engineering or Chemistry / Physics with preferred>4 relevant years experience or equivalent. PhD is preferred.

* Please send us your complete resume (both in Chinese and in English) to: ‘topjob_eng036sh@dacare.com’

Use of Exit Interviews Grows, Gets More Sophisticated

Companies are using exit interviews to decrease turnover, often by comparing their results to engagement surveys. They’re also finding exit interviews useful in luring ex-employees back.
By Eilene Zimmerman
——————————————————————————–

he HR metric of the moment may be employee engagement, but many companies have also placed a new emphasis on employee disengagement by reinventing the exit interview and acknowledging there¡¯s much to be learned from a departing employee. The development and implementation of these surveys is increasingly being outsourced, and the data compared with other workforce surveys.

Vendors that provide these services say demand is rising because outsourced exit interviews are often more comprehensive and strategic than internally devised surveys, which can be incomplete or haphazard. Beth Carvin is CEO of Nobscot, a Web-based software provider whose products include WebExit, which was introduced in 2001. She has seen growth in both the number of her business’s clients as well as her revenue of between 20 to 50 percent a year since then. “Exit interviews are the one process that companies haven¡¯t really figured out how to do well,” says Carvin.

Like Carvin, Diane Irvin has seen demand for her firm¡¯s exit interview services grow rapidly in the last few years. Irvin, senior vice president for the HR research and consulting firm Strategic Programs, says the Denver-based company has been growing more than 70 percent a year for the past three years, largely due to its exit interview work. “Right now it¡¯s trendy to do employee engagement surveys, but to engage employees you have to understand them. Comparing your exit data to your engagement data helps you do that.” Irvin and others in the exit interview business find employees are both more likely to participate and to be more honest when someone unconnected to their employer asks the questions.

Nobscot, Strategic Programs and most other vendors provide clients with detailed reports that correlate responses from departing employees and analyze data, breaking it down by age, seniority, gender and other demographics. The number of questions ranges from about 35 to 70. For larger organizations, the questions are generally quantitative rather than qualitative, although most surveys contain a section for open-ended comment.

Since January, Black & Veatch has been comparing data from its newly designed exit interviews with its workforce engagement surveys in order to accurately gauge how employees feel about their jobs. The engineering consulting firm hopes the information gleaned from its surveys will help senior management find ways to increase employee productivity and, ultimately, profits. The company may discover, for example, that supervisors need a specific kind of training or development to better manage their teams.

Michael Harris, a professor of human resources at the University of Missouri-St. Louis¡¯ College of Business, says that¡¯s a smart move. “Think of your employee as your customer,” he says. “Most companies want to measure customer satisfaction, but it¡¯s important to also find out why your customers are leaving.”

Black & Veatch changed its old set of exit interview questions–which B.J. Holdnak, vice president of organization effectiveness describes as “kind of hit or miss”–to a standardized survey that identifies high performers and categorizes the reasons they leave. Black & Veatch¡¯s exit survey also tracks demographics. “Are younger people leaving us more often than those with a longer tenure? If so, why? Is it compensation? Their team? The environment? The culture? We are looking for patterns,” says Holdnak.

Some of the same questions asked in Black & Veatch¡¯s exit interviews are also asked in their engagement survey, so that the responses of those currently in the workforce can be compared to those who are leaving.

Richard Wellins, a senior vice president at human resources consulting firm DDI, says asking exit interview questions before people actually exit–in engagement surveys–can help a company prevent people from leaving. “The idea is that the questions you ask for a current employee are very similar to what you ask a person who is leaving. For example, on an engagement survey you might ask, ¡®Do you feel you have opportunities to expand your knowledge and learning? Are we meeting your needs for learning and growth?¡¯ and on the exit survey it¡¯s the same questions, only past tense,” says Wellins.

Richard Harding, director of research at Kenexa, says this kind of comparison across surveys is relatively new for businesses. “You¡¯re looking not just at why people are leaving, but why they are staying,” says Harding. “Then you give your managers actions they can take to keep their people. Just doing exit interviews after someone leaves is like shutting the door after the horse has left the barn.”

Expansion plans
Black & Veatch has an aggressive expansion plan in place, a response to dramatic growth in worldwide energy and water markets that began about three years ago. Its work is concentrated in those industries, says Holdnak, and the firm wants to capitalize on the opportunity for growth by hiring people that are a good fit and will stay put.

“We are going to have to increase the number of people we hire and retention is also going to be an issue. If [energy and water] markets are better, people are more likely to jump ship,” says Holdnak.

Black & Veatch hasn¡¯t been collecting data long enough to know how it will use the information to make changes, but as the firm grows, a big concern is fostering a globally inclusive corporate culture.

Between 30 and 35 percent of Black & Veatch¡¯s 7,000 employees work outside of the U.S. “Having policies and processes that resonate with employees in different countries across a variety of cultures is a challenge for us and we¡¯re hoping the data we get from these surveys will help us achieve that,” says Holdnak.

Increasing participation
Sutter Health, a healthcare network based in Sacramento that serves northern California and Hawaii, overhauled its exit interview process when it developed a nursing retention and recruitment plan four years ago. The data is being used to help stem the turnover of newly hired nurses, which is very high compared to Sutter¡¯s general nursing population, says Diane Lahola, director of workforce planning and retention at the company. Turnover of new nursing school graduates is high throughout the healthcare industry, says Lahola, and Sutter wants to find out “what it will take to create a more satisfactory work environment for nurses, because the cost of turnover is very high and they are difficult to recruit.”

Sutter¡¯s affiliates–the members of its network–have been allowed to either internally redesign their exit interviews or contract with third-party vendor Strategic Programs. “It made sense to use a third party because you tend to get better participation rates and more [candid] data,” says Lahola. The first year, between 40 and 50 percent of affiliates outsourced exit interviews; this past year 75 percent did. Lahola says for affiliates who conduct the interviews themselves, participation among departing employees is between 0 and 12 percent. With a third party, average participation is about 70 percent.

The new exit surveys give Lahola more accurate information than she had previously. “A lot of times someone will say they are leaving because they are getting more money across town, when the real reason is that you can¡¯t pay them enough to work for their manager,” says Lahola.

In an effort to get at the true reasons employees leave, Lahola compares exit data to the data she gets on annual employee opinion surveys. She was surprised to learn this fall, after the most recent opinion survey, that the orientation and assimilation period was a sore spot for new nurses. It wasn’t the structure of the orientation program itself. It was other things, such as current employees not being prepared for a new employee¡¯s first day on the job. “Although it wasn¡¯t happening at all our affiliates, I didn¡¯t realize the degree to which this was a problem,” says Lahola. “New nurses and other employees would show up for their first day and staff may not have been prepared to orient and assimilate them.”

Also surprising was the issue of competitive pay. Employees currently with the organization are actually less satisfied with their pay than those who leave. “That tells me people aren¡¯t leaving because of money,” she says. “And I can drill down by affiliates to see where the problem is most acute.”

Sutter Health¡¯s affiliates are just starting to make changes based on the exit data. New nurses are now surveyed about their work experience at the 30, 60 and 90-day mark and several affiliates have begun mentor or buddy programs. Another reason nurses were leaving, says Lahola, was a perceived lack of career opportunities, despite the fact that Sutter offers a variety of programs that allow employees to move from one affiliate to another or attend management and leadership programs. “We need to connect the dots better to show employees these opportunities exist,” says Lahola. “Now we focus on that in all of our communications.”

Sutter does hear from employees in other ways. Hundreds of its employees are currently on strike over a number of issues; the Service Employees International Union has said employees want “a voice in staffing decisions, a training fund and protections for speaking out for patients.”

Hiring alumnae
Jeppesen, an Englewood, Colorado company that provides aviation data such as maps and flight plans, redesigned its exit interviews in 2000 with the help of an outside vendor. Information from the exit surveys spurred the company to offer more training for managers and change the way management jobs are posted. “There was a perception here that people got jobs through who they knew rather than what they knew,” says Alice DiFraia, the company¡¯s director of human resources and organizational development.

The changes had a profound effect: by 2003, turnover was down to six percent, which was DiFraia¡¯s goal, and the company stopped performing exit interviews. This year, however, turnover began rising again–it¡¯s 12 percent now–and the company has reinstituted the interviews.

Data from exit interviews is also used in less obvious ways. United Risk Partners, for example, a firm that does background checks, is finding that about 40 percent of companies also use it to conduct exit interviews. Craig Lawrence and Marco Confuorto, partners in the suburban Chicago firm, are both trained investigators and use the interviews to gain information about a company that management can¡¯t find on its own. “From a risk management standpoint, you can find out things about sexual harassment, drug and alcohol abuse, intimate relationships and criminal activity,” says Lawrence. “To investigate a criminal allegation you would have to hire an investigator to go under cover for a 90- or 120-day investigation. Exit interviews are a way to obtain inside intelligence about operations without having to make those significant investments.”

Boomeranging–getting highly valued employees who leave voluntarily to return–can also be facilitated via exit interviews. Exit questions for those employees focus on what it would take to get them to stay. Beth Carvin of Nobscot recalls an insurance company client that was able to do just that. “They called an employee who had left to say, ¡®All the great things you liked about working here are still here, and the things you didn¡¯t like? They are gone.¡¯ They hired this guy back within two weeks,” she says.

Richard Harding of Kenexa says because employees sometimes find the grass isn¡¯t necessarily greener at another company, doing exit interviews a few weeks or even months after valued employees leave can help a company find out what it will take to bring them back. Harding says Kenexa asks departing employees if they’d consider returning to the company, and under what conditions. About two-thirds say they would consider returning if the circumstances changed. Often, employees don’t say they want more money–they just don’t want to work for the same manger.

5 Great Tips For Conducting The Best Job Search Ever!

Finding a new job can be a daunting task. You need to make sure your job search involves positions you’re qualified for, but you also want to land a position that pays well and comes with some benefits. And, since it wouldn’t hurt to do a job search for companies that treat their employees right, the stakes can be pretty high.

A good job search starts with you. You’ll need to do some things in advance before you head out the door to apply or interview. First off you’ll want to get your resume in order. Make sure it’s accurate and offers a fair representation of your past experiences and qualifications. Keep it as short as possible while not skipping over major details. Next, you’ll want to make sure you have your references in order before you conduct a job search. Employers like to hear as well as see that potential hires can do the job.

With your paperwork straight, you can now begin a more thorough job search. Here are five tips to help make that job search go more smoothly:

Evaluate your skills, strengths and weaknesses. Try to match up what you can do and what you’re trained to do with ideal positions. Going after the wrong kinds of jobs for your skill set can be an exercise in futility.
Evaluate your desires. If you have a 10-year background in management, you might not want to settle for an entry-level position. Make sure you know what you want and try to find jobs to match not only your qualifications, but also your actual worth. Sometimes this might not be possible, but shoot as close to the mark as you possibly can in your job search.
Narrow searches by location, type of job and pay. You don’t want to waste your time going after minimum pay jobs if you’re over qualified and vice versa. The more you focus your job search, the less time you’ll waste on positions that don’t fit the bill. But, do be honest with yourself. If you’re only qualified for an entry level, go after one with the notion of building on it for a better career.
Consider skill enhancements. If you’re a computer programmer, but you haven’t taken a new course in five years, you might want to add a certification or two to your resume before you start your job search. Or, at the very least, have some retraining or advanced training in the works when you start applying.
Use the tools at your fingertips. A good job search covers all the bases. This means those on the hunt look online, in papers, and even in trade magazines to find ideal positions. The more you spread out your search, the better.
There’s no magic way to land a position and ensure a job search will be ideal, but the more realistic you are about yourself and you are to yourself during a search, the more likely you are to land the right job. Take time to evaluate where you are in your career and your background and be certain to have all paperwork in order before you begin your job search. With some time and patience and a bit of confidence thrown in, you’ll likely have a successful job search.

Rates may rise as jobless falls

UK unemployment unexpectedly fell in November by the most in almost two years and wage growth accelerated, adding to the case for higher interest rates, the statistics office said yesterday.

The number of Britons claiming jobless benefits fell by 5,700 to 950,800, the biggest drop since January 2005, the Office for National Statistics said in London. Economists expected unemployment claims to rise by 4,000, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of 30 economists. The claimant count rate of unemployment was unchanged at three percent, Bloomberg News said.

Falling unemployment and bigger wage gains may add to concern that workers will boost pay demands at talks starting next month. Inflation quickened to the fastest pace in at least nine years last month, prompting investors to raise bets on the Bank of England raising interest rates next year.

“The labor market is rebounding strongly and that points to wages picking up,” said Raj Gunaratna, an economist at 4Cast Ltd, a research group in London. “The report gives the Bank of England more reasons to hike interest rates.”

The pound and interest-rate futures rose on speculation that the central bank will raise its benchmark rate again next year after two increases since August to five percent, a five-year high.

Higher energy bills pushed consumer prices up an annual 2.7 percent in November, the most since the index was introduced in January 1997, the statistics office said.

Wages growth excluding bonuses rebounded to an annual 3.8 percent from August through October from the 3.5 percent gain in the previous period, which was the slowest since July 2003.

UK employees at Ford Motor Co and Rolls Royce Plc, as well as air traffic controllers, are set to receive pay increases of more than four percent, said Ken Mulkearn, the editor of Incomes Data Services.

About 4,200 people working for financial-services companies and law firms in London will get bonuses of more than one million pounds (US$1.97 million) this year, according to the Centre for Economics and Business Research.

Still, an influx of migrant workers and rising unemployment have kept a lid on workers’ average pay so far. Around half a million immigrants came to the UK from Eastern Europe last year, keeping wages “subdued,” and damping consumer prices, Deputy Governor Rachel Lomax said.

What employers want (and you need to have)

Each year the survey is conducted, employers name the skills and qualities in the “ideal candidate.” They also compare their desires to the skills and qualities the current crop of graduates actually possess.

Employers rate the importance of specific qualities/skills Qualities Rating
Communication Skills 4.7
Honesty/integrity 4.7
Interpersonal skills (relates well to others) 4.5
Motivation/initiative 4.5
Strong work ethic 4.5
Teamwork skills (works well with others) 4.5
Computer skills 4.4
Analytical skills 4.3
Flexibility/adaptability 4.3
Detail-oriented 4.2
Organizational skills 4.0
Leadership skills 4.0
Self-confidence 4.0
Friendly/outgoing personality 3.9
Tactfulness 3.9
Well-mannered/polite 3.8
Creativity 3.7
GPA (3.0 or better) 3.6
Entrepreneurial skills/risk-taker 3.3
Sense of humor 3.2
Bilingual skills 2.3
(5-point scale, where 1=not important, 2=not very important; 3=somewhat important; 4=very important, and 5=extremely important)
A good GPA is, of course, important.

Employers look at other attributes, too. In fact, year after year, the number one skill employers say they want to see in job candidates is good communication skills: the ability to write and speak clearly. Unfortunately¡ªin spite of requesting this skill year after year¡ªmany employers also report that college graduates lack good grammar and writing skills.

Employers also want new hires who are honest, have teamwork skills, and have a strong work ethic.

What college candidates lack
Ironically, communication skills not only top employers’ list of most-desired skills, but also their list of the skills most lacking in new college graduates.

Many employers reported that students have trouble with grammar, can’t write, and lack presentation skills. Poor communication skills are often evident in the interview, where students are unable to articulate, as one employer said, “how what they have done relates to/contributes to the position” they are seeking.

In addition, employers pointed to other skills and attributes that had made their “wish list,” and cited those qualities and abilities as lacking in many new college graduates, e.g., relevant work experience, strong work ethic, team work skills, and the like. They also faulted new college graduates for not conducting themselves in a professional manner.

Get experience¡ªand learn how to highlight it on your resume and at your interview
What this means is, you need some real-world experience before graduation. Although you won’t learn everything about the workplace with an internship or co-op assignment, you can build many of the skills employers find lacking. An internship, for example, is not just an opportunity to gain experience, but it’s also a setting for you to learn professional behavior, learn what it means to work in a team, and practice interpersonal communication. An internship or co-op position helps you see the professional skills employers seek in action¡ªand helps you learn how to fit into the world of work.

Where employers are looking for new graduates
On-campus interviews
Employer’s internship program
Employee referrals
Employer’s co-op program
Career/job fairs
Job postings on the college web site
Faculty contacts
Job postings on the company web site
Student organizations/clubs
Commercial job boards
Internet resume data bases
Job postings to career offices (printed)
Request resumes from career offices
Recruitment advertising (print)
Newspaper advertising (campus and/or local newspapers)
Career/job fairs(virtual)
Internet banners
Video interviewing

Plus, hands-on experience may lead to a full-time job offer. Employers say they look within their own student programs to recruit new graduates. In addition, many employers said they offer higher salaries to new graduates who have any co-op or internship experience than they do to those who do not have that experience.

Further, practical experience is an element that employers will look for on your resume¡ªwhether it is with their organization or another. While employers prefer “relevant” work experience, having any work experience is better than no work experience. If you get this valuable experience before graduation, you’ll have a distinct advantage over job candidates who lack the experience.

MySpace tops Yahoo for first time

NEW YORK (AP) — The online hangout MySpace got even more popular in November, beating Yahoo in Web traffic for the first time, a research company said Tuesday.

News Corp.’s MySpace recorded 38.7 billion U.S. page views last month, compared with 38.1 billion for Yahoo Inc., according to comScore Media Metrix. MySpace’s growth was 2 percent over October and triple the 12.5 billion recorded in November 2005.

The numbers underscore the rapid rise of a social-networking site that encourages visitors to stay and make friends through free tools for messaging, sharing photos and creating personal pages known as profiles.

ComScore warned, however, that a one-month change could represent an aberration. Furthermore, Yahoo’s page views could be diminished by the company’s growing use of Ajax technology for maps, e-mail and other services.

Ajax is a set of tools that speeds up Web applications by summoning snippets of data as needed instead of pulling entire Web pages over and over.

Yahoo, which last week announced a major reorganization after finding itself repeatedly beat in advertising sales by rival Google Inc., still remains the leader in unique audience, with 130 million visitors in November. (Full story)

“Yahoo continues to be the overall Web audience leader with the largest number of unique users and most time spent online. The page view change in November is related to the use of Ajax and other Web 2.0 technologies across the Yahoo network,” Yahoo spokeswoman Nissa Anklesaria said Tuesday.

“These technologies enhance the overall user experience, but do not either generate a page view or qualify to be counted as a page view while the user is engaged with the product,” she said,

Fox Interactive Media ranked sixth at 73.8 million, including 57.2 million for MySpace. Unique audience is a measure of how many people visit in any given month; page views reflect how often they come back and how long they stay.

Including other Fox properties such as IGN Entertainment Inc., comScore said Fox had 39.5 billion page views in November. In a statement, Peter Levinsohn, president of Fox Interactive Media, credited strong traffic at game site IGN.com due to the release of Sony Corp.’s PlayStation 3 and Nintendo Co.’s Wii video game consoles.

ComScore had planned to release the numbers Wednesday or Thursday, but word of the figures leaked in an analyst report from UBS Investment Research.

Jefferies ups the ante in China

AMERICAN investment bank Jefferies & Co expects to arrange 10 deals worth US$1 billion in transaction value for China-based clients next year, its Vice Chairman Paul Deninger said.

The deals, which include public offerings and stake transactions, compare with six China-related mandates worth US$500 million in transaction value for the past two years, he said. The Chinese clients cover alternative energy, shipping, natural resources and industrials, according to Wei Hopeman, the firm’s chief representative in Shanghai.

The Corporate Recruiter Obstacle Course: Hiring Managers

Last week we introduced what we like to call the job search obstacle course. We¡¯re determined to break down the obstacles that are standing in the way of job candidates, recruiters of all kinds, and hiring managers of every ilk.

We all know that matching the right candidate to the right job involves a lot of jumping through hoops, swinging over moats, and countless other travails for all parties involved. Today, though, we want to focus on one of the major obstacles corporate recruiters have to deal with on a regular basis: hiring managers.

In a perfect world, these two forces would work together for the greater good. Unfortunately it doesn¡¯t always work out that way, and corporate recruiters continue to express their frustration with the folks they¡¯re trying to help. The recent results from a recruiter survey don¡¯t bode too well for anybody:

¡°A total of 80% noted struggles with hiring managers. Fifty percent of the survey respondents indicated that dealing with hiring managers was the biggest problem they faced, while another 30% indicated it was the second- or third-biggest problem they faced. Collectively, these problems had to do with their belief that managers are not strong at assessing competency or recruiting, and that many overvalued skills and experience when determining which candidates to interview.¡± (From Adler Concepts)

While opinions about what is important in a candidate can cause problems, they are problems that seem to relate back to a lack of communication, an issue we continue to see in all aspects of the job search. Sitting Xlegged highlighted this all too common occurrence in their recent list of challenges and frustrations corporate recruiters are forced to face:

¡°I¡¯m in a desperate need to fill my position. When will you send me some candidates? I¡¯m dying here.

¡°Don¡¯t you just love getting calls like this from hiring managers who spent a month creating their requisition and the day it opens they expect results from you? Three words: communication, partnership, and service.¡±

Some of the obstacles standing between corporate recruiters and hiring managers may never quite disappear. But if we can create a space for these two groups to communicate effectively with each other and with job candidates they might remember that ultimately they want the same thing: to effectively match the right person to the right job.

Hiring Top Sales Performers

The assumption that “sales is sales” and that previous experience, a clean r¨¦sum¨¦ and a great appearance are the primary predictors of success often leads to recruiting mistakes that can cause high turnover and ineffective sales teams.
“What we know is that the traditional process results in failure three out of four times, and nobody likes it,” says Alan Fendrich, president of Advanced Hiring Systems, a sales selection consulting firm based in Norfolk, Virginia. “There are lots of people who look and act like salespeople, but they don¡¯t sell because money doesn¡¯t motivate them.”

Herb Greenberg, president and CEO of Caliper, a human capital consulting firm based in Princeton, New Jersey, says that interviewing alone will not expose experienced candidates who continue to be ill-suited for jobs in sales. Nor will it uncover the prospective rising star who has no previous experience.

“You can¡¯t assess sales people by asking questions during an interview that produce socially acceptable answers and then figure out what this crazy, neurotic human being is all about,” Greenberg says.

Fendrich says that the key to success starts not with a review of experience, but with a look at the motivation and the psychological makeup of the candidate.

Hire for Behaviors
There are numerous providers of behavioral profiles that measure traits such as ego drive, empathy, confidence, sociability, helpfulness, thoroughness and problem solving, all of which are personality traits that are required in varying degrees based upon the sales position and the company.

Greenberg, a former psychology professor, says that several methodologies are used to develop a behavioral profile customized for each company and position. The assessment is administered to sales staff who are exceeding, meeting or performing below expectations. The scores produce the necessary data to build a behavioral-traits profile that correlates to performance.

Once the traits of the top performers are gathered, Greenberg suggests job shadowing sales reps as well as interviewing sales managers and human resources staff to build consensus as to the actual job description, the performance requirements and the best personality match for the position. This step provides additional validation as to the traits and behaviors that are required to complete the job duties successfully.

“Oftentimes we interview three different people in the same organization and get three different descriptions of the job and the responsibilities. Some of the people doing the interviewing don¡¯t know the difference between a ¡®hunter¡¯ and a ¡®farmer,¡¯ ” Greenberg says.

He adds that a job requiring more new-business development, or “hunting,” will generally require a candidate with less patience and higher scores in the areas that measure confidence, ego strength and ego drive. A “farmer” is usually a representative that maintains customer relationships and increases the sales volume of each customer rather than opening new doors. “Farmers” will be less aggressive, according to Greenberg, but will score higher in empathy and have a greater desire to please as well as a strong service motivation.

Learning Through Experience
Early in his HR career, John Beattie accepted an assignment requiring him to hire more than 250 office equipment sales representatives for an emerging national firm. He thought that he had “struck gold” when he received a large influx of applicants from a major international competitor. The company compensated on straight commission, and most of the sales reps he hired from the competition didn¡¯t work out.

In retrospect, he realized that the competition¡¯s reps did not have the same job responsibilities, such as opening new accounts in cold territories, and so they possessed a different set of personality traits.

“They were merely order takers,” Beattie says.

That experience has proved to be invaluable in his current role as chief HR officer for the personal-lines insurance division of GMAC based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He supports two different sales groups. One is decentralized, independent and out on the road in a very competitive environment. The other group works in a highly structured inbound call center, where the goal is to convert prospects who are responding to direct-mail solicitations into policyholders.

Beattie says he uses the behavioral assessment in his initial candidate selection and then adapts his interviewing process for the different work environments. He measures the success of his program by both a reduction in turnover and an increase in the new customer conversion rates in the call center.

Build a Pipeline
Alan Fendrich advises clients to use the assessments before they proceed with any interviews. That process reduces the number of qualified candidates by as much as 85 percent. He then suggests conducting three or four interviews, with each meeting having a unique purpose, structure and a script to uncover new information about the candidate.

“The first interview is a throwaway. You are seeing a highly prepared and coached candidate who only provides anecdotal evidence of their behavior. By the third interview, you are getting high-quality information about the candidate. Having a defined hiring process also positions the company as a high-quality employer,” Fendrich says.

Judy Reich, vice president of sales for Renda Broadcasting in Pittsburgh, is responsible for the hiring and performance of more than 200 advertising sales representatives who work in the firm¡¯s 25 radio stations. In addition to a three- or four-stage scripted interviewing process, she requires candidates to make a final presentation to the sales manager and general manager of the station in order to assess their communication skills before extending an offer and then conducting background checks and drug screens.

“In order to be successful with this process we have to recruit every day, not just when we have a vacancy,” Reich says. “If we find a great candidate we will proactively hire them because other factors influence turnover, which is just a natural part of sales,” she says.

She requires her managers to submit a weekly report showing the number of candidates that have taken the assessments in order to assure that the pipeline remains full.

While no hiring process eliminates turnover, Alan Fendrich says that the real goal is to improve sales productivity.

“There are people out there with sales experience that should never have gotten into sales in the first place,” Fendrich says.

Hiring strictly from experience can filter that type of candidate into a process; hiring for the right psychological match opens the doors to a greater number of candidates and, potentially, brand-new top performers.

Citigroup appoints a new COO charged to slash costs

CITIGROUP yesterday promoted Robert Druskin to chief operating officer and told him to cut costs at the world’s largest financial-services company.

Druskin’s job will be to “make sure we have the most efficient and effective operations in the business,” Chief Executive Officer Charles Prince said yesterday.

Citigroup’s operating costs rose 13 percent in the first nine months of this year, Bloomberg news reported yesterday.

Druskin, 59, will remain head of the corporate and investment banking unit, and join Prince and former United States Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin in the chairman’s office.

Prince is under pressure to increase Citigroup’s stock price as shareholders, including Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, demand that he take steps to revive earnings growth.

Speculation mounted last week that New York-based Citigroup would break itself up or that Chief Financial Officer Sallie Krawcheck would leave, suggestions Prince dismissed as baseless.

“The market is looking for a lot of things at Citi, one of them was a spinoff of the businesses,” said Anton Schutz, president of Mendon Capital Advisors, who manages US$270 million and doesn’t own Citigroup shares.

“The market was looking for a whole lot more” than Druskin’s promotion, he said.

Prince ruled out a breakup and said no more changes were planned.

Shares trail

Citigroup’s stock rose US$1.03 yesterday to US$52.88 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading before the management change was announced.

Shares of Citigroup are up 9 percent this year, trailing the 20 percent advance of JPMorgan Chase & Co and Bank of America’s 14 percent gain.

Druskin has previously served as Prince’s deputy, and helped former CEO Sanford Weill integrate many of the more than 100 acquisitions that went into building Citigroup, Schutz said.

Druskin will be Citigroup’s first COO since Robert Willumstad resigned in July 2005.

Citigroup’s 5 percent increase in revenue was outpaced operating costs, which swelled to US$38.1 billion in the first nine months of 2006.