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Leadership in Little Things

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There is the picture of a larger than life figure leading an army.

Sometimes there is an archetypal visual of a booming war cry.

 In a more contemporary imagination, we imagine world political leaders in their suits and blazers, shaking hands and signing treaties.

But being a leader doesn’t necessarily entail any of the above mentioned grandeur!

Leading teams in an office environment is definitely not about leading armies and countries. But there are some qualities which all leaders, in all environments display.

 Leadership is reflected in the minutiae of our lives.

 Leadership is not about force. In fact, what author Daniel Goleman has to say about an essential quality of a leader has nothing to do with bossing people around at all.

Goleman considers ‘Emotional Intelligence’ as the quality which puts a leader apart. Some seemingly simple characteristics of a person with high EI are:

  • Empathy. The ability to put yourself in other’s shoes.
  • Self-awareness and self-regulation. Being aware of one’s emotions and in control of them, especially during crises.
  • An ability to handle interpersonal relationships in a balanced way.

One has to realise that true leadership lies in the gestures and actions. Possessing a quality is one thing, acting over it is what makes a leader.

Let us look at the quality in the context of a workplace

  It is true that some designations, have “leadership” attached to it, for example a manager, director, etc. But a leader as such could be anyone, irrespective of their post. It’s the actions that show leadership qualities.

 Some projects often involve efforts of many people. A leader here is someone who:

  • Sets immediate and ultimate goal: it could be as small as setting up an unofficial deadline for all team-members.
  • Organises the roles of all those involved in the project.
  • Doesn’t simply “assign” responsibilities. Rather, he or she shapes the conversation in such a way that there is an element of choice of the team-members.
  • Appreciates and gives credit to everyone’s contribution.
  • Encourages to communicate ideas, no matter how bizarre one might feel they are.

   He or she listens to what each one has to say and then through dialogue and consultation brings each member to pick the responsibility which perfectly matches their capabilities.

  A good leader is almost always chosen unofficially and without any sort of announcement. There is a sort of unspoken, unanimous agreement working here.

  Meetings are tricky. Sometimes they might turn boring, or employees may feel they are pointless. A leader would be someone who:

  • Makes a suggestion about an agenda if the meeting seems to lack direction.
  • Keeps a tab whether everyone has said what they wanted to say.
  • Takes charge if someone is feeling hesitant in communicating.
  • Keeps a tab on the structure of the meeting: when did it begin, when will it end, what would this meeting cover and what the previous one did.

Leadership involves finding a purpose for everyone, through collaboration.

It is not about exercising power but about empowering your colleagues.

It is not about rivalries and ego-tussles. It is about creating an environment with good participation, dialogue, and flow of ideas. It is about making your colleagues comfortable and at the same time, making sure no one feels hesitant to step out of the comfort zone, including yourself.

Do You Need A Resume Or A CV?

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You are done with your education, and you now feel ready to take on the  world of work.

Or you are just planning to get back to working after that much needed  sabbatical.

Your little one now goes to school and you finally feel you have enough time to rejoin the office after years.

BUT… there’s always a BUT, isn’t it?

The companies ask for a CV. You see the menacingly familiar word ‘resume’ all over the place. You have no idea how to go about creating it. You vaguely remember learning to create something like that in school, but that was years ago! Feeling overwhelmed to some extent is natural but that  shouldn’t drag you down, right? Especially right at the supposedly first step.

 

Preparing a resume and/or a CV (yes, the two are a bit different: we will get  to it soon) could be a daunting task for many. After all, to a great extent  “it  gives you away.”

So, here is a little guide as to what all you should look out for and what all you could include while making a CV.

 

First things first, let us get our concepts clear! Earlier there used to be a huge difference between a CV and a resume. But now the only difference is essentially of the length. Both include a summary of your work experience and education; only, the resume is ideally supposed to be just a page long. A  CV, short for  ‘curriculum vitae’  could be a little more detailed, with two or  three pages.

 

‘Resumes’ are used in the United States, Canada and Australia. CVs are  used everywhere in the world including the UK, New Zealand, Asia and the  European Union.

If this is a bit too complicated to understand, the good news is that the two terms are used in an interchangeable manner in India, New Zealand and South Africa.  You could now just focus on creating a CV and tweak it according to the country where you have applied.  (Source)

Now, let us get to creating one!

You need to list down your skills, that is, your key expertise. These are what the recruiters would screen through.

Your work experience needs to be added. You begin with the latest, then the one before, then the one before (you get the drill, right?) and right up  to your first job.

 

You also include your work tenure. You have to be particular here:include not just the duration but the years of joining and quitting. Make sure to include the location. Basically, where on Earth have you been when you were at this job?

Also, if you have had a particularly short stint at a role or you have had to change jobs too frequently, include your reasons. You don’t want to come  off as a job hopper to the recruiters! Make sure to convey your reliability  this way so that there is no fear that you would suddenly quit or stop  showing up at work.

 

You have to include your job responsibility. What all you handle at your  current job/ what did you handle at your previous job. Make sure to write  only your responsibilities and not blindly copy-paste the ones you might  come across from sampled CVs.

Essentially, you subtly sell and market yourself. It is a job “market” after  all.

 

You continue the self selling and the marketing and list down your educational qualifications. You write down your degree, the institution where you did  your degree from, the year you finished your degree.

 

You include your contact details: your name, very very obviously, but it’s always a good idea to check such a seemingly basic thing. Your E-Mail I.D, contact number, address, Skype I.D  have to be there.

Your age, and date of birth are important because certain jobs do have age limits.

 

The subtle self-marketing continues as you list down the languages you know.

 

You tell your prospective employers what a well-rounded personality you have as you list down your other skills, and your interest areas.

It is important that you are honest. Do not copy and paste. Imagine if everyone copied and pasted a few samples. Every other CV would end up looking the same. We certainly don’t want that, do we? A personalised CV is a lot more attractive.

 

Check, double check, triple check your spellings, punctuation and grammar. You may or may not be applying for the job of a proof-reader but you must use that skill for scanning though your own CV. Ask your trusted friends and family to go over the document. An external observer could spot mistakes you might have overlooked.

Check the layout. Make sure it looks professional and tidy. Imagine your reaction if you were the employer and a CV such as yours came to you.

The format should be that of Word and PDF. Provide the necessary links and URLs.

 

Draft and re-draft your CV if needed.

 

Once you have got a hang of it, and if you want to notch it up a bit, you could check out the concept of video-resumes. They directly showcase your communication skills, personality and your overall presentation. Although you must make sure that they are accepted where you are planning to apply.

Video or no video, using a neat photograph of yours accompanying your CV  is a good idea.

 

Lastly, what not to do: if you don’t have some essential job requirements, you shouldn’t apply. You could be under-qualified or over-qualified for the role. Besides this fact, in case some of your experience matched very well to the job role, then you may apply stating this fact , and highlighting it. Here, you do the self marketing and selling a little loudly and clearly.

Do not list completely unrelated skills. The skills you talk about on your CV should always be relevant to the role you are applying for. This is where tailoring comes in. For every role you should ensure you are highlighting the skills it requires and remove any completely irrelevant skills or experience.

 

It is always a good idea to research online as you go on creating your CV. Make sure you create something original. Use the samples just as samples.

Again, try to use your imagination and see if you would be pleased as an employer/recruiter if you received a CV such as yours.

 

Good luck!

How to Find a Balance Between AI and Humans in Recruitment

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Unsurprisingly, this idea has seemingly become the lynchpin of the sales pitch for more than a few HR technology companies, a never-ending stream of dialogue surrounding the benefits of “removing the human element” from recruiting, interviewing, hiring, onboarding, and training. The list goes on and on.

With this emerging trend that seems to be resonating well within the recruiting industry, it is time for a rethink. In theory, the concept makes sense: reduce manual time spent on low-value processes and increase time and attention on the strategic. Using technology is also helping reduce bias in recruiting. For example, tools we have at our disposal can “de-bias” job postings and that’s the right thing to do.

But speed should be the main criteria that technology tools offer to a recruiter. This point has been used by a growing number of vendors to sell the notion that technology (and eventual dehumanization) is the only way to make a valid decision in recruitment.

Here are three points these vendors need to consider:

1.They misunderstand the demands of today’s workforce

We use new tech to become more in touch with present-day job seekers and new hires. Of course, tech-savviness is a must-have for any recruiter today. But the problem is that there is something “experts” proposing the elimination of the human element in favour of speed fail to get. They fail to understand the most basic needs and desires of the millennials and, arguably, those of candidates in general.

While it is true that the emerging workforce is very reliant on social media and instant communications, with many preferring electronic communication over face-to-face, the concept of removing the human element seems to be looking only at the “instant” and completely ignoring the “communication”.

With all these advances in recruitment AI, tools and tech, we are tempted to focus only on speed and neglect candidate experience. We forget that real communication is the benchmark of quality candidate experience.

Imagine the frustration a candidate would experience repeatedly getting the same spammed messages from a recruiter with the same message sent to another ten recruiters before because they are using the same software that generates templates for every candidate. Why would anyone want to dehumanize the recruiting process and candidate experience?

Yes, today’s candidates want an instant response, but remember they expect communication to be a two-way thing. Regardless of the medium being used, there is always dialogue. There is back-and-forth with a living, breathing human.

That human may not be sitting across the table from them, but it would be a huge mistake to assume that any candidate would prefer instant one-size-fits-all generic email in lieu of customized responses. At the very least, your automated responses should be written with the recruiter’s tone of voice and company brand in mind with human strategizing in the content.

Yes, the A.I. and chatbots will bring benefits to our lives, but so far the technology is still new and not perfect by any means.

Communication with Chatbot (just an example)

Bot: Welcome, I am Alex, chatbot of company Acme. How can I help you?

Me: Can you give me the name of the recruiter responsible for the Hiring Manager role at SF?

Bot: I am sorry, I don’t understand. Can you rephrase your question?

Me: Can you give me the contact details for the recruitment team at your company?

Bot: I am sorry, I don’t understand. Can you rephrase your question?

Me: Can you tell me what the company’s EVP is?

Bot: I am sorry, I don’t understand. Can you rephrase your question?

Not the right candidate experience that I was looking for.

2.  They forget that emotional intelligence is still of the utmost importance
One stressful aspect for recruiters in the hiring process is planning the interview. In a positive light, there are a number of great tools out there that are fantastic for arming recruiters with additional information and insight as they are walking into an interview. These tools range in function from providing poignant (legally vetted) interview questions to helping understand what specific body language means. The A.I. behind is able to evaluate candidates and prepare a report for the recruiter.

However, what these technologies should not do is to solely dictate who does or does not get a job without a human appraisal. Solely entrusting a computer as the ultimate decision authority on a candidate’s ability to perform their job ignores the fact that, to date, there is no software in the world that can reliably measure, judge or understand human emotional intelligence. Maybe you are going to tell me that recruiters will never only trust the decision of some program. But, in reality, many people believe the fake news, just because they are too lazy to double-check facts.

Attempting to utilize currently existing technology in this function would be a vast waste of resources and offer no guaranteed results. The solutions we use today must provide guidance on the interview process and act as what they are—a tool for screening to help guide effective hiring decisions.

3. They still carry a false illusion of speed
Nowadays, recruiters, even well-meaning ones, get a bad name. It has reached a point where speed is more important than the accuracy and hard work. Spammy inmails and a lack of respect for job seekers and candidates have become the order of the day. Accompanied by the diseases of ineffective following up and biases like ageism, job seekers form negative opinions of the recruitment process.

But we can’t totally blame the recruiters here. When they move too fast, they make mistakes. They know that being the first to approach a candidate and present an offer is important. Being the second will not count as a hire in their KPIs. Many new tools were bought just to support the illusion of speed. In reality, they could quickly find the candidate, schedule the interview, but in many cases, the hiring manager will say to the recruiter the magical sentence, “Good candidate, but I would like to see one more.”

Speed is important, but sometimes it does not go hand in hand with a good candidate experience. Even with all the technology that recruiters have at their disposal they still treat candidates poorly. They do nothing more than run a resume through a software program looking for the right keywords matching the requirements of their open roles. And what surprises me is that, with all the cool ATS that companies are using, they are unable to send every candidate that applied a rejection email after they close the role. Tools are only as good as the people who are using them.

A call for change

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I know that it looks like I am against A.I., but the opposite is true. I am big A.I. fan, I also built few chatbots. I just want to point out that we are focusing our attention on that technology with the hope that it will solve our problems. But people are missing the point that these tools are only there to help us, not to fix all problems that a company has. The best A.I. or chatbot on the planet will not fix toxic company culture.

Of course, we use cutting-edge tools to streamline our recruiting processes, greatly easing those complex legal/compliance issues. Additionally, technology will be of immense help in attracting great candidates and narrow down the applicant pool to the candidate with the best job fit. But if you are planning to create a bias-free recruiting process, the tools can only help you to solve one part of the equation. The second part, which is more important, is to create a culture that encourages leaders and hiring managers to recognize their own unconscious biases and foster an inclusive environment.

Most importantly, we should not forget the importance of basic human interaction and emotional intelligence. And as we continue to incorporate more innovative technologies to enhance human interactions and candidate experience, let’s keep in mind that it’s a delicate balance to achieve.

The Hiring Graph To Go Up , Next Quarter- Good News For The Industry

After prolonged slump, hiring in India expected to bounce back next quarter.

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The net employment outlook for the October to December quarter stands at 19 percent. The outlook for the same quarter last year was 30 percent. Hiring prospects are 4 percentage points stronger as compared to the previous quarter.

The survey covered 5,005 employers across India.

Sector-wise, the services sector is expected to see the highest growth in employees with an outlook of 12 percent. Services are followed by the transportation and utilities sector at 20 percent.

The remaining sectors – mining & construction, public administration & education, wholesale & retail and insurance & real estate – will also see positive growth in hiring, the survey said.

Region-wise, all four regions expect to see an increase in employment with North topping the list with an outlook of 27 percent. Inthe south and west, the employment outlook is 20 percent and 15 percent respectively.

The East has the worst outlook at 7 percent.

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The survey further indicates that large and medium-sized employers report positive hiring plans with an employment outlook of 19 percent while for small businesses the outlook is 17 percent.

Globally, India’s hiring pace has fallen slightly as compared to other countries. The strongest hiring trend is visible in Japan with an outlook of 23 percent. Taiwan (22 percent), Costa Rica (19 percent), India follows Japan in the ranking.

“Fourth quarter forecasts are mostly positive with employers in 42 of 43 countries and territories expecting workforces to grow by varying margins over the next three months. Only employers in Switzerland forecast a flat fourth-quarter hiring pace,” the survey said.

In the July-September quarter, hiring in India was at a 12-year-low due to stress in the telecom and IT sector and the global scenario, a previous survey by the Manpower Group said.

Credit Source: http://www.moneycontrol.com