ChemPharma Event: Brad Schweon

Brad Schweon is President of Schweon Associates, an executive recruiting firm located in northern New Jersey. Schweon’s recruiting firm specializes in the chemical and supply chain areas. His specific areas of talent search include technical leads, sales, business development, C-level positions, manufacturing, quality, and engineering. The firm’s submission for candidate-to-client contact is greater than 76 percent. Schweon takes a strong interest in understanding the company culture and the skill sets required for the position prior to initiating the search, uses the Interview Architect process, and limits submissions to those with a strong record of accomplishment. Feedback from submitted candidates is positive as well… “[Y]ou are the only recruiter who looked at my needs as a candidate.” The firm engages in interview modeling techniques, which help both the client company and the candidate.

On November 20, Schweon gave a presentation to the members of ChemPharma. He went over what many experienced job seekers have already known. What I take away from his talks is his teaching on networking skills. Networking skill sets are probably one of the most difficult skills to learn out of all job-searching skills. He reminded the members to 1) develop at least three contacts from every networking event, 2) return emails and phone calls, and 3) keep in touch with people in a professional manner. I feel that he should further elaborate on the need to develop better networking skills. It is easier to teach the skills on paper and it is harder to learn these people skills and apply them in real situations. 

Schweon recommended the members to write their resumes in ways that highlight those experiences and skills that are relevant to the job in which they are interested.  Along with the skills and the experiences that are required for the jobs, the candidates should also specify the results that have been generated from those skills. He also recommend to the scientific professional to complete at least a graduate certificate program in business. Smaller firms are more interested in candidates who really understand how their businesses are run. Having knowledge of finance and management can make a candidate more appealing to the hiring manager and recruiters. 

Hay Group Activate

Hay Group Activate | Styles and Climate app demo from Hay Group on Vimeo.

Recruiting Chinese Talents Back to Mainland China

Unlike the governments of other countries, China has been actively recruiting talented Chinese citizens who have settled in other countries. The Chinese administration has regarded the policy of recruiting them to work for China as a shortcut to improving the country’s economy.

On October 21, 2013, the United States magazine “Christian Science Monitor” sighed at the conditions under which China’s government has been recruiting Chinese back into the country. For the past 10 years, similar complaints have been acknowledged. This is evidence that the efforts in talent acquisition are considered an important step on the path of reviving the country. 

Expatriate Chinese talent has been a primary supply of human capital for the scientific development of mainland China. In modern history, there have been three well-known economic surpasses:  UK surpasses US, Japan surpasses US, and Korea surpasses Europe. The secret behind these economic surpasses: HR talent management and acquisitions.

Ever since the Sixteenth Chinese Congressional Year 10 years ago, under the strong leadership of talent management nationwide, China has advanced forward in becoming a world leader. 

“In the 21st century, talent is the most important asset,” as said in a movie. This a very truthful statement for the current needs of talent in China.

In today’s world, China’s strength is related to the growing potential of China’s talent. History has provided the evidence that national economic development is strongly associated with the development of leaders in science and technology.   This leadership development can promote further economic and social development and can actively advance a nation to the next level. 

In terms of farmland, China’s per capita is only 43% of the world average; for forest and woodlands the average per capita is 1/6 of world’s per capita; freshwater resources are ¼ of world average. China possesses 12% of the world’s minerals. Per capita, that is only 58% of the average.

If China doesn’t quickly transform its strategies for advancement, the nation will encounter difficulties in trying to develop outside its borders.  The risks encountered in this unpredictable markets.   Without positive transformation, it will be difficult to stay competitive during downturns. When ecological resources are limited, it is difficult to improve the chances of becoming materially better-equipped.

The news reminds us constantly that China is becoming a pioneer in self-innovation. In this newly developed innovative culture, the label “Made in China” will be soon transformed into “Made by Chinese Talent,” a shift that could allow China to depend upon itself rather than to be dependent on ideas developed by other countries. 

How China can leap from a culture of manufacturing to a culture of innovation?

Talent! Only through talent management.  Talent can direct the road.

The “2002-2005 National Plan for Talent Development”  suggested to first initiate the “implementation of this talent acquisition strategy,” to the CPC Central Committee and the State Council. The New China National Talent Work Conference made “on further strengthening the work for this decision, the implementation of full deployment of this strategy.” 

After the inclusion of the “Strategy of Employing Talent Management to Advancing China” in the “Eleventh Five-Year Plan” from the central party, the congress introduced a newly-established national talent meeting which made the decision of “advancing the works of talent management.” This strategy is to develop socialism with Chinese characteristics as the three basic strategies. One written into the party’s congress report and the new constitution.

The CPC Central Committee and the State Council issued a “(2010-2010) National Talent Development Program” addition to the “12-5” plan, which describes talent development as the primary resource for national wealth, which will provide an important argument in persuading the government to develop high quality personnel.

“In this period of 10 years, China’s rapid development has provided us with a great opportunity.”   After Chinese Railway first line workers participated in Beidaihe summer vacation, Giant Xiaolin expert commented: “In respective positions on the dedication of our effort and wisdom, we won the country’s trust and respect.”

For the past 10 years, the national effort has been focusing on mainly on accelerating the development of qualified personnel, which has positively impacted many sectors of the Chinese economy.  Talent development can lead to and support economic and social development. Developing and managing talent has been regarded as one of the most important driving forces for the development of science. 

Changes from established trends often occur inadvertently. “It is the opportunity that [we] need to develop for attracting overseas students back to work,” said Professor Zhang, Beijing University of Science and Technology. Now the conditions of the policies are better, we the Chinese have the responsibility to contribute to the development of our mother country. 

On one hand, China has been actively recruiting overseas Chinese students back to China. On another hand, China has been actively cultivating talents in the mother land. At this point, China has 1,400 “house” academians and more than 5,000 young experts with outstanding professional contribution. Ever since the 2003 “Hundred Talent Projects,” the selection of more than 2,700 people at national level, 15.8 million people have enjoyed special government allowances and more than 70,000 have become post-doctoral researchers, high-level professional and technical personnel. 

“Why has China’s study of science and technology developed more rapidly than that of many other countries?  Hu Angang, director of the Center for China Studies at Tsinghua University, reasons that the training of Chinese talent, especially the growth rate of the number of scientists and engineers in China, has caused this rapid national growth.  This national growth has also benefited from significant growth in higher education and personnel efficiency.

During the past 10 years, the overall growth of talent in China, the quality and the optimization of the infrastructure, the recruitment of high quality personnel, the rewarding of highly skilled personnel, the availability of outstanding HR services, and the types of personnel available have made considerable progress.

Over 10 years of growth, China has reached 120 million HR personnel, who account for 11% of the working professional population. Over 10 years of development, reflected in the improvement in the quality of talents by 2010, China R&D personnel now account for 33.6 people per 10,000 individuals in the labor force. The proportion of skilled personnel accounted for 25.6% of the workforce and the proportion of highly educated was 12.5%.

At the end of 2010, the investment in human capital has reached a GDP ratio of 12%. The human capital contribution to the economic rate reached 32.6%, and the contribution of human capital to the economic growth rate reached 26.6%.

Reflecting upon of the personnel structure at the end of 2008, stated the over the past 10 years of transformation, the ratios of high level, middle level, and entry level workers in the government agencies have changed from 7.3: 33.4: 53.2 to 9.9:36.8:44.2. The impact of human capital has  caused the government to undergo historic changes. Non-public organizations of professional and technical personnel has reached 38.5%. 

The Chinese people have become more optimistic about the future, the spirit of reform, the development of innovative ideas, and institutional innovation.  During these 10 years of transformation, the development of a talent network has gradually become recognized as a crucial factor in the development of an economic network.  Human capital has been an important factor in advancing science.

Beijing, Teijing, Shanghai, Chongqing and other cities have started offering residence visas, skilled migration, financial support, tax concessions, and equity incentives. Social security has taken a series of special measures to promote the settled talent “Promised Land.”

10 year of incentive. Honorary recognition and materialistic incentive to full acknowledge the value of knowledge and learning.

State Supreme Science and Technology Award, Natural Science Award, Technological Invention Award, Science and Technology Progress Award and the International Science and Technology Cooperation. A series of incentive systems that inspire all kinds of talents contribute their talents.

10 year of creation.  Dizzy major projects and key projects develop a broad platform the growth of talent.

Achievement behind the Aerospace Science and Technology talent can 

10 year of improvement- Recruiting and hiring talents have been based on the principles of “democratic, open competitive, merit-based,” 

In this market, talent decide what careers and jobs to choose. Employers in the market can choose their employees. As the mechanisms for talent evaluation reform intensifies, evaluations that are more based on the principles of judging employees against the goals of the organization are likely to increase in popularity. 

Qunitle

NYU SHRM: Navigating Through Office Politics

Navigating Through Office Politics

Navigating the vicissitudes of office politics is not as difficult as it sounds. The word ‘politics’ has often been used when talking about cases in which people get taken advantage of by officemates. One way, though, that people can protect themselves against political manipulation is to strive to meet workplace expectations. As long as individuals are able to present solid evidence that demonstrates their ability to meet job requirements consistently and to earn respect from the people in their workplaces, they are more likely to be protected against political manipulations.

Management should clearly describe the expectations that subordinates must meet. Supervisors and their subordinates as well as their coworkers need to provide regular feedback on how individuals can best improve themselves in order to meet these expectations. When political powers violate workers’ rights protected under the law, the workers document events in which their work rights are violated and report these violations to appropriate authorities within their organizations and possibly to the Department of Labor.

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Corporate Communication and Relationship in HR Using Social Media

            In their quest to achieve business optimization, organizations have become increasingly reliant upon social media technologies. Using social media for communicating with external and internal constituents can reduce business operation costs and improve the effectiveness of strategic managements and operations.  In order to gain a competitive edge, “talent leaders will need to break down barriers between departments and functions, and get people to reach across the organization for information and decisions rather than staying within their own comfort zones.”  This paper describes how organizations use social media to optimize their operational performances in cost effective manners.

It goes almost without saying that the businesses that run best are those that recruit talented people who best fit the needs, culture and structure of an organization.  Unfortunately, hiring the best fit is just as challenging for job seekers as it is for potential employers.  Normally, there are more qualified job candidates applying to any particular job opening than there are people to fill it.  No one can predict with certainty the outcome of hiring any particular person with respect to his or her fit within the organization.  Social media can help to narrow down the pool of qualified potential candidates by allowing employers to develop working relationships with those individuals who are more interested in working with their employers.

To understand potential workers with greater clarity, employers have developed online professional communities to network with potential future job candidates.  In order to join these online communities, the members must already possess a degree in the relevant professional fields.  Over periods of interaction with the members, employers can develop a better understanding of the participant’s levels of qualification for future job openings.  When positions within the employer’s organization open up, the recruiters will focus on a smaller circle of individuals of whom they would like to hire.

The idea of a ‘best fit’ is perhaps best understood as that candidate who can fits the positions they are hired for, but that also show the greatest potential for upward motility.  To assist the employees further in their quest for professional development, employers should assign career mentors to guide those employees who need extra support within the workplace.  To streamline the mentoring processes, mentors and mentees can even conduct many of their communications online.  Mentors and mentees can work together regardless of their locations and times.

Through these online methods of communications, mentees can also consult other mentors at the same time.  Since online dialogues are strictly confidential, the mentees become more open to their mentors and will seek advice from the experts before any problems arise. These mentors are not substitutes for the mentees’ supervisors, and the mentees still need to report to their supervisors with their own work progress.  The mentors are there to help the mentees to become more strategically adept and tactical in terms of how they approach the mentees’ work assignments.  

Employers invest in employee professional growth and development due in large part to the belief that though an individual may presently have less experience, with proper guidance and grooming, they may have the potential to become a future leader.  To avoid talent attrition, employers can develop and deploy internal social media designed to inform their employees about openings in other departments within the same organizations.  Instead of resigning from their present organization to work for a better position outside, employees can work in other areas or departments within the same organization.

HR departments are not always located within the same facilities in which employees work.  In order to overcome this and in order to engage employees over distances, HR departments have developed separate internal social media for discussing the total reward packages offered by their employers.  On HR benefits and compensations social media sites, HR staff members work with individual employees to select reward packages that best fit both the employers’ budgets and their employees’ interests. 

Passionate and talented workers do not work solely for monetary rewards; rather, they also work for the excitement of working on the tasks that they love to perform.  To improve their professional experience, external IT professionals and students work collaboratively on online projects at reduced costs for various IT firms.  These technology firms are curious about what their online projects would be ultimately transformed into.  Online open access projects are intended to serve as incubators of innovative IT ideas.  

Once the online projects reach the revenue-generating stage, the IT department might recruit leading freelance IT professionals, at which point the IT department can direct their internal IT professionals to further advance these projects.  By employing these lower-wages virtual IT professional, IT firms can save money and resources over what they would have paid by hiring similar types of IT professions in the United States, which can cost the firms even more money.   

Businesses have realized that best decisions cannot be made by small groups of executive-level workers.  Major business decisions are made most effectively when the businesses consider suggestions and comments from every facet of the business.  Realizing the significance of individual stakeholder points of view, ideally upper management should expand the scope of their meetings to include the stakeholders and the public.  Due the limitation of spaces, the participants can connect to the meetings through Skype-like video conferences.  As a participant in the executive boardroom meeting described, “We felt the empowerment in the room.”

Another participant praised that, “by fostering a discussion across the entire organization, Benioff [an executive] has been able to better align the whole workforce around its mission. The event served as a catalyst for the creation of a more open and empowered culture at the company.”  Every stakeholder feels empowered by participating in the meeting and contributing positively to the final outcome of the companies.  Organizations feel more confident about the positive impacts that they can have on their businesses when all possible factors are considered, and no stone is left unturned.

Hoyt, a business leader in marketing, predicted that, “[business] will see increased productivity, quality and even employee retention in the long term.”  When employees feel they are in control, and are valued as integral decision-makers for their working environment, they will more likely consider taking ownership of their work and will also participate more actively in this work, along the way collaborating more effectively with teammates when they are all part of the same working families.

Usage of Social Media in HR

Social media are web-based or mobile-based platforms that allow users to interact with each other simultaneously and instantaneously.  These revolutionary technologies have freed users from restrictions imposed by location, time or even status, to come together.  Users and participants can pass along the resulting collective interactions to other interest groups, thereby eliciting other people and groups to join in the same discussions.  Freed from conventional limitations and boundaries, social media rapidly spreads information to other online communities.

Typically, social media services are free and accessible to Internet users, most of whom access the content either at home or on their mobile devices.  This free and constant access to information has allowed users to become less inhibited in networking with strangers or even in engaging in unfamiliar topics.  Online interactive communication can potentially attract a range of different interest groups from varying backgrounds, all of whom can contribute to a discussion on the same webpage, which might lead to the production of new ideas.

The net result of this important communications revolution is that social media have provided channels through which organizations, interest groups, and individuals can come together and develop relationships with each other in ways that previous forms of communication did not allow for.  Social media provide networking opportunities for users in which people develop and maintain relationships that are often founded upon or maintained through shared common interests.  Thus, social media has been used as a major means through which organizations, interest groups, and individuals advertise or market their products, services or ideas.

Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn have grown in prominence and importance, to the point where they are now the three leading social media sites through which organizations and interest groups market services and products, or share perspectives, ideas and information.  These social media platforms offer organizations, interest groups, and individuals the ability to reach their target audiences either on their stationary or laptop computers or via their mobile devices.  In terms of their frequency of use, among all websites on the Internet, Facebook ranks sixth, Twitter ranks eighth, and LinkedIn ranks tenth.  Facebook functions in more than 75 languages; Twitter functions in more than 25 languages; and LinkedIn in more than twenty languages.  

Offering testament to their breadth and popularity, as of May 2012, Facebook has more 900 million active users, Twitter has 140 million, and LinkedIn has 161 million.  To access organization or individual sites on Facebook or LinkedIn, users must register their own individual Facebook or LinkedIn accounts before they can interact with other account holders. Users can describe their companies, organizations, backgrounds, interests, and future goals on their own pages and share them with other users.  In addition to introducing backgrounds, users can also create their own online networks on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn by adding other users as connections for developing, maintaining, and retaining relationships.  In order to expand their influence, users can post their updates on their own pages so as to elicit others to comment; the resultant communications can be displayed by friends of friends or other connections, thereby creating ever-growing circles of influence.

Social media provide businesses with an excellent tool for reaching internal and external constituents in a rapid and cost-effective manner, thus allowing them to expand their business influence efficiently.  They use social media for, “marketing, media relations, internal communications, investor relations, corporate social responsibility, public affairs, and crisis communication.”  Since this paper focuses on how social media have impacted human resource management and on its working functions and relationships both inside and outside their organizational communities, from here, I will briefly lay out a few successful cases of how organizations use social media to build better working relationships for employers, employees, and the public within and outside their businesses.

According to SHRM Social Media in the Workplace Survey, corporations have committed 67% of their social media resources to marketing, 44% to human resources, and 38% to public relations (some activities can cross more than one domain, i.e. they can be involved in marketing as well as public relations).  As for external outreach, Facebook comprises 45%, LinkedIn 38%, and Twitter 28%, of external communications that take the form of social media.

Pfizer is the world’s largest pharmaceutical company and it has many locations and thousands of employees worldwide.  Due to the myriad and diverse cultures, locations, and local organizational structures in which the company operates, it naturally encounters challenges in the course of making clear to its international workforce the spirit, expectations and details of its core values and missions.  Before the incorporation of social media for internal uses, the company felt that employees had some confusion about the company’s overall visions and future standings.  To unify its worldwide employees with the company’s core visions, it has designed and developed internal social media, known as “Pfizerpedia” to engage employees in the details of the company’s decision-making processes.  Pfizerpedia is a Wiki of Pfizer containing the company’s critical information that can enable worldwide employee-participants to understand the company’s unified mission to refocus employee workforces onto the company’s central missions. 

Roughly three-fourths of American organizations require their recruiters to undertake online searches and screenings of potential job candidates in order to understand better their background for recruitment purposes.  Indeed, more than 80% of employers report that candidates’ online reputations can affect individual candidate hiring outcomes.  Social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, provide popular online locations through which human resource workers search for potential candidates and check backgrounds for job openings. The idea of using social media as an integral part of the recruitment process grows out of the assumption that candidate-generated online content can provide a powerful indicator of employee fitness and compatibility with company cultures and interests.

To this end, human resource offices and managers should incorporate social media into all aspects of their functions, particularly with respect to engaging employees within the workplace and when recruiting candidates for job openings.  The potential uses of social media within the realm of human resource management is indeed limitless.  It can be used as a tool for corporate restructuring, human capital management, corporate cultural development, and a broad array of other similar things.  One of the unique aspects of social media are the degree to which they do not fall victim to time boundaries and other kinds of limitations inherent in standard communication.  As such, it would seem only intuitive that social media can be adapted to other functions of human resource management.

The Effect of Social Media on Millennial Behavior in Workplace

Millennials (individuals who belong to Generation Y) have come to view socializing with peers through social media as a core part of their lives.  One commentator noted that, “they are constantly connected to social media outlets” and they cannot function well without checking their social media accounts while working on the job.  In order to understand why social media is so attractive for the younger generation, this paper briefly discusses youth psychology and the psychology of technological usage.  Then, this essay will elaborate upon the question of how social media have shaped the Millennials’ interpersonal skills and how the resultant Millennial’s psychologies have affected their working relationship with their coworkers.

Social media first emerged during the mid-1990s, when the Millennials entered their adolescent developmental stages.  During this stage in personal development, people’s individual psychologies become more curious and tend to year to explore and learn about new things and people.  Adolescents and young adults are more willingly to take risks than are older generations and seem to enjoy experiencing new things.  Since social media are typically free in cost and readily accessible in most locations, online communications have becoming outlets for youngsters to explore or engage in fun and exciting things via virtual platforms facilitated by social media.  In many respects, this allows them to engage in things, and with people that they could not encounter in person.  Through social media, young adventuresome users can explore unfamiliar places, discuss unfamiliar topics or socialize with strangers anywhere anytime they please.

Over time, as the conditions to use social media remain consistent, continual uses of social media can become habitual.  The habitual use of social media develop from positive experiences that young people have during their adolescence or childhood, the very moments when their psychologies have stronger needs for self-identification.  During such periods of self-identity formation, youngsters are malleable to myriad influences, particularly since their self-concepts regarding their identities are not yet matured or fully formed.

Feedback received from others through reciprocal interactions on social media can serve as an important component of adolescent understanding of self-identity.  On social media platforms, people begin to brand themselves by identifying with types of activities or people with whom they are involved.

Youngsters have a psychological need to be involved with social communities in order have a sense of social belonging and acceptance.  Freed from the limitations of location, space, time, and status, young users can easily log on to social media platforms to engage in online activities with others, thereby forming relationships and dependencies with each other.

Marketers have realized Generation Y is not like the generations that preceded it.  The younger generation requires more dynamic and engaging forms of marketing communication before they begin looking into products or services.  Noting this, businesses have developed their own social media communities to engage consumers, especially Millennials.  Marketing research investigating how social media have affected the purchasing decisions of the Millennials shows that individuals who engage in the businesses on social media platforms are 88% more likely to purchase products or services from that business.

Internet provider businesses also have developed their own marketing strategies. Internet devices and their usage price plans are becoming more affordable and more personalized to accommodate a wide range of individual user needs.  The prominence and near ubiquity of Internet and mobile devices can trigger individuals to use social media more.  In an investigation of social and traditional media interactions of Generation Y people, 100% of the Millennial respondents used Facebook, 37% had MySpace accounts, 12% had LinkedIn, and 8% had Twitter. Fifty-eight percent of them log onto their social media account three times a day; the remaining participants do it at least four or more times a day.  When asked why they used social media, 99% replied that they did so in order to communicate with family and friends, 71% in order to find entertainment, 21% for checking news and updates, and 22% for expressing thoughts, perspectives and ideas.

The process of interacting with peers on a near-constant basis can often lead Millennials to develop innovative ideas produced by dynamic online interactions.  This differs from older generations, who prefer to communicate within smaller circles of individuals in secure and restricted places, where privacies or patentable ideas are protected.  Innovative ideas are less likely to emerge in more traditional settings than in more open and less restricted settings.

That said, there are attendant disadvantages and advantages that come hand-in-hand with continual usage of social media.  Chief among them are that interpersonal skills and other human communicative “training” are lost because direct real person-to-person communication are replaced by indirect and electronic communications.  Unsurprisingly, Millennials are less competent when it comes to behaving appropriately in formal and professional settings.  Rather, the younger generation is conditioned to excel in rapid interactions that are more commonly found on social media spaces; as such, the younger generations have become impulsive and imprudent when making decisions.

Growing up in an era of massive social media marketing, and having been bombarded with exaggerated messages in commonly found online advertisements, Millennials have developed a habit of unconsciously “marketing” themselves.  Due to this internalized advertising mentality, they have an inflated sense of themselves.  They are more confident, ambitious, and opinionated than are older generations.  Due to the resultant cross-generation communication gap, the younger generation cannot fully comprehend their managers’ instruction and intentions.  The younger age groups tend to have higher turnover rates, and they constantly look out for better paying positions, which mean they are less loyal to their current companies.

Due such to differences in the way that they perceive the world, think and behave, older generations have found generation Y hard to manage.  Growing up in the age of social media has allowed young users to have a more informal approach when it comes to communications and they also tend to display a laid-back attitude.  This is often interpreted as the Millennials interacting in a manner that is less professional than other workers.  Moreover, Milennials desire more flexibility with their work conditions, a trait imbued by social media.

The younger generation thinks they can work better when they are given more autonomy; and they possess the confidence to believe that they think they have what it take to do their jobs.  The younger generation favors working with technology that has granted them more autonomy than working with their supervisors directly.  Workers from prior generations prefer face-to-face interaction and communication with their workers, because they believe that their less experienced coworkers require more direct supervision.

Generation Y has the potential to produce an excellent generation of leaders, though this group will need to develop more effective communicative skills in order to do so.  As one business leader and educator said, “Clearly, for individuals to stand apart from their competition in the marketplace, newly minted college graduates must demonstrate effective communication skills… effective communication has been directly linked to organizational success.” 

Even though Millennials possess great technological savvy, they generally do not excel in oral, written, reading, and interpersonal communicative skills that have traditionally been required in professional workplaces.  Realizing the needs of Generation Y to succeed in workplaces, managers and business educators are now expected to train their subordinates or student-workers in order to help them develop a wide array of communicative skills that enable them to work effectively with others in team settings.

Advantage of Using Social Media for Recruiting

Increasingly, job-seekers are using social media to find and secure job openings.  In order to handle the rising number of job-seekers, organizations have, in turn, increased their presence on social networking platforms.  The result is that recruiting has become more cost-effective and time efficient.  With more effective ways of reaching and communicating with potential hires, organizations now excel at finding employees whose skills more precisely fit what they need and look for in employees.  

The ability of social media to spread information rapidly allows recruiters to collect numerous applications from highly qualified individuals within a relatively short period of time.  Information regarding open positions and what the job and organization have to offer can be rapidly passed on to myriad and widely-spread job seekers online.  Prior job seekers who have used social media to secure employment can, in turn, pass information about job openings on to friends.  This fuels a robust ecosystem in which qualified people within friend, educational or professional groups can rapidly spread information about potential postings and opportunities.  Indeed, even a single positive comment about the job posting from a knowledgeable and connected person can spread job information to other online friends, followers, or connections, a process that encourages ever-increasing numbers of individuals to take cognizance of job openings and to apply for them.

Using social media to announce job opening and engage job seekers saves organizations time in terms of recruiting new hires.  Rather than waiting for job seekers to apply via traditional online job boards, organizations that use social media to address their hiring needs can have access to a broad pools of job seekers waiting and ready to apply.  The resultant positive interactions between employers and job seekers can encourage new applicants to come forward to join employers’ professional online circles. 

The exchange of information online between recruiters and job applicants and among job applicants can provide a clear process through which to handle questions that commonly arise.  The resultant overall communications on these social media platforms can provide a collaborative venue in which job applicants and recruiters propagate job opening information and spread this information to other online communities.  Instead of handling or dealing with individual job applicants as each case arises, recruiters empower job applicants to spread the news about job openings and encourage other job applicants to apply. 

Reviewing job applicant profiles via social media can provide a way for prospective employers to single out the best possible candidates to come in for in-person interviews.  Moreover, job applicants’ comments on social media pages can be directed to their social media online profiles, such as their individual LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter or YouTube pages.  Recruiters can check a job applicant’s online reputation or even their references before contacting the job applicants.  By checking job applicants’ backgrounds at these early stages of recruiting, employers can narrow the circle of qualified job applicants who can come forward for in person interviews.   

To attract talented people to apply for jobs, organizations will attempt to brand themselves by labeling themselves positively with people, objects or words that describe their central missions and the benefit for them.  The job links on the social media pages can be directed to the webpage of the organization’s human resources division homepage at which are described job openings and other information pertaining to the employers.  To engage job applicants, each of whom has unique sets of learning preferences, the employers can describe the job descriptions in writing or video or photo presentations.  Employers can also have recruiters engage in real time online dialogues with groups of job applicants or with one individual at a time. In sum, employers have tried to engage job the interests of applicants in a variety of ways so a to attract the best possible pool of candidates.

Over time, recruiters, who interact with job applicants via social media can develop an array of skills that allow them to interact with job applicants in ways that allow them to uncover whether and the degree to which their strengths and weaknesses fit within what the company needs and wants.  Recruiters can post some test-in-disguise information or activities that can provide the recruiter information on the job applicants’ qualifications.  Experienced recruiters have become skilled in characterizing job applicants’ online postings, and understand that comments that can reveal information about the applicants’ character and disposition.  Since references are connected to the job applicants’ social media accounts, recruiters are more likely to check job applicants’ backgrounds before they even meet job applicants in person.

Online interactions with job applicants on social media can provide feedback to the recruiters and their employers regarding how to improve their overall interactions with job applicants.  Feedback from job applicants allows both sides to have a clearer sense of what the job entails, both in terms of its general description and also with respect to the work environment and the possibilities for professional advancement, among other things.  Feedback from applicants can teach recruiters and their employers how to brand or even re-brand themselves in ways that can help the employers project precisely the image that they went to portray to outsiders.

Employers themselves can compare their recruiting policies and practices with each other.  Employers can use social media to learn from each other when it comes to how best to brand themselves in ways that distinguish them in the minds of applicants, but in a way that engages and attracts top talent.  Employers can also incorporate positive features from other employers’ websites onto their own websites, so long as they do so in a manner that will not violate any trademark regulations and laws.    

The positive features of using social media for luring top talent are quite attractive to both employers and job seekers.  Surveys on recruiting show that, “83% of employers will recruit in social networks, 46% will spend more on social recruiting, and 36% will spend less on job boards.”  Surveys on job seeking show that, “82% of US job seekers have used social media networks to look for job, 70% of job seekers have agreed that positive online experience with employers would make them more likely to apply, and 14.4 million job seekers have found their jobs via social networking.”

Roughly three-fourths of American organizations require their recruiters to undertake online searches and screenings of potential job candidates in order to understand better their background for recruitment purposes.  Indeed, more than 80% of employers report that candidates’ online reputations can affect individual candidate hiring outcomes.  Social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, provide popular online locations through which human resource workers search for potential candidates and check backgrounds for job openings. 

The idea of using social media as an integral part of the recruitment process has grown out of the assumption that candidate-generated online content can provide a powerful indicator of employee fitness and compatibility with company cultures and interests.  “Hiring managers are using the Internet to get a more wellrounded view of job candidates in terms of their skills, accomplishments and overall fit within the company,” said Rosemary Haefner, vice president of Human Resources at CareerBuilder.com.

My Essay for Disadvantages of Using Social Media for Recruiting

As organizations have sought to find ways to use social media, they have encountered the very difficult truth that it actually requires some skill, understanding and commitment to the medium.  Indeed, as companies use social media more in the process of recruiting, they consistently encounter serious unexpected difficulties.  Chief among these issues is that recruiters will often find and interact with many more disqualified individuals than qualified ones, so much so that finding excellent candidates via social media can seem like searching for a needle in a haystack. 

Part of the difficulty arises because job seekers know that recruiters and their employers will check their backgrounds on social media, which can in turn cause people to either alter their pages to present an inaccurate view of themselves or cause the job seeker to become less interested in the employers.  Additionally, the open and broad use of social media means that recruiters and perspective employers may encounter strangers on job posting pages whose purpose is to make some manner of mischief by, for example, perpetrating online predator intrusions.  Also, the openness of job boards may frighten job seekers who may not want it known that they are searching for new employment for fear of reprisals from their present employers.  Indeed, disloyalty is an oft-cited reason for people getting laid off.

Job-seekers have reason to fear that social media will provide an opportunity for employers to conduct unauthorized background checks.  However, such searches are easier for employers because it prevents them from having to constantly check with the listed references, and it also circumvents situations in which references do not have the legal right to provide certain kinds of information.  Since communications with references are typically carried out in a written format, the written documents can subject the references to potential legal litigation should the job applicant perform at a lower than expected rate.  In order to get around this, sometimes the recruiters can ask for references from outside of the list provided by the job applicant.  Not all the references will provide accurate descriptions about the job applicant, and not all of them are qualified to be references.

Unfortunately, using a job applicant’s personal social media page to perform a background check can violate the integrity of the applicant’s privacy.  If the job applicant gets rejected, they may have grounds to pursue a lawsuit for discriminating against them based on race, gender, religion, health, sexual orientation, or other characteristics that are irrevalent to the technical qualifications of the job.

Given the complexities of using social media to find employees, recruiters have to search for, invite and check out a great many applicants.  Under the guidelines governing equal opportunity, every applicant should have an equal chance to be screened.  Recruiters can grow weary from putting in the work to create, manage and maintain job board social media pages because it takes so much work to check, screen, and moderate all of the job applicants via a particular social media site.  Recruiters can spend more time on maintaining such sites than they do in actually selecting the best-qualified candidates.

Another problem that arises is that not all highly qualified job seekers use social media to apply for jobs.  Indeed, quite often superb candidates are not technologically savvy and they might not have the ability to present themselves online in a manner that attracts employer interests.  It is also possible that excellent candidates lack the time to engage online with the recruiters when they are so involved with their current jobs.  Their professional commitments can cause them to become silent or even to lose interest in the job openings. 

A job applicants’ savvy regarding their social media presence provides limited information about such individuals.  Indeed, recruiters and their employers can easily place too much emphasis on the contents on the job applicants’ social media pages, and in the course of doing so may unintentionally eliminate superb candidates.  So as to better understand job seekers, developing relationships with them online can take months, and it can be time consuming.  Even still, such commitment does not necessarily guarantee that the screening process produces the appropriate candidate.

In the end, it is not surprising that job recruiting will mean that difficulties such as this arise.  After all, despite all of its benefits, the Internet still remains rife with liars, identity thieves, privacy invaders, bullies, predators and antisocial personalities.  As such, those offering a job online will have to sort through all manner of people with dishonest intentions in order to find a true gem.  Moreover, negative interactions on social media can potentially turn away qualified job seekers from applying.

Recruiters and their employers should balance the use of social media with traditional methods for recruiting.  For example, announcing job fairs via social media allows for employers to meet job applicants in person and select out the right applicant for the second round of interviews.  The recruiters should become familiar or even affiliated with various professional associations in order to get acquainted with potential job seekers with the appropriate qualifications.  Additionally, employers should develop better employee referral programs in order to recruit candidates who already have professional relationships with their employees.  Recruiting through social media provides a tool that one can use –in conjunction with a range of other tools- to search for qualified candidates.  Indeed, this notion of using social media, not as the sole tool but as a single item within a bigger palate of tools, is vital to the success of recruiters.

VP of HR Fluor China

Mark Lan Junde is the current executive director of human resources and leads HR operations for Fluor in Asia, Europe, Africa and the Middle East. He also serves as HR executive director for the Ministry of Energy and the Chemical Group. He is responsible for business development for the region which includes the provision of human resources support, including designing and developing strategies and policies, executing labor-related compliance and implementing HR programs for supporting business strategies. As the head of HR, he plays a strategic leadership role in coordinating human resources designed to support energy, chemical and power business units that bolster the development of the company’s business operations worldwide.

Lan Jude joined Lu Jia Rufu in 1989, after which he worked in various departments in human resources and held various important positions. He has led a number of global human resources programs, including those related to compensation, benefits and human resources information systems. He worked as the HR director for Transportation, Operations, and Maintenance. He held the position of Regional Director of HR for Latin America, Asia, Europe and Africa and the Middle East.

He serves as a global human resources leader for project executions, and also as the HR director for the shared business service center. Mark graduated with BS in Geology from Pomona College in Claremont, California.

VP of HR at L'Oreal China

Mr. Guo Hongwei is currently the HR recruitment director at one of the world's top 500 enterprises, L'Oreal China, and he was a former compensation manager at the French Schneider Electric Company.  During his 10 years of professional HR job experience, he has been involved in recruitment, organizational development, factory personnel management, merger HR integration, and strategic compensation management.  He obtained an MS in HR and Labor Relationship from the University of Minnesota, Carlson School of Business, where he won the Dean’s Scholarship. He participated in a number of major acquisitions. The scope of his works is located in Unites States, Mexico, Germany, China and India, where he has accumulated extensive experience in cross-cultural HR management. He is the first one to put forward the concept HR GPS.

HCM Software Function: Strageties to Cut Cost and Reduce Risk

What make some companies succeed, while other fail? HCM may help companies to remain successful or even grow further. What does every company in the world have in common regardless of what those companies do? They all have employees. Every company needs to recruit, hire, train, and manage employees. Once the employees are on board, the employers need to keep track of employee information throughout their stay until they are off-boarded. For those employees who are still active at the companies they work for, their employers need to manage employee performance and motivate them to perform better.

HRM: Strategies to Cut Costs and Reduce Risk from Ting 婷 Yin 應

Managing human capital is not easy. Organizations have experienced growing complexity.

 

As companies grow, they face increased complexity in terms of size, employee demographics, employee skill sets, and geographic distribution of workforce. Due to tight resources, HR is in competition with those in revenue generating roles. HR personnel tend to be more likely to lose out to the types of employees who are more involved in revenue generation. HR are not as well compensated as engineers. Typically without a solid frame, the company might feel the effect of the increasing complexity in managing the workforce. In a difficult economic climate, it has to deal with under staffing and other issues.

Managing Workforce

The actual course of managing employees requires twice their salary and the cost is growing. Each “bad hire” can cost a company on average $50,000. Those “bad hires” are those who are not able to meet expectations. Lost opportunities are due to waiting for the “right” hire to show up and the time and money spent on providing formal training for misfits. It costs $9,400 per employee to replace each, who work for a wage of $8/hour. It costs $40,000 on average to replace a nurse and it costs $125,000 on average to replace an IT specialist. 

While the core HCM functions remain the same, new technologies have been discovered and developed to make those process more efficient and cost effective. Globally available Cloud HCM can support a wide range of business process and new working paradigms. The information on HCM can be updated immediately and made available to all users.

HCM Toolkit

HR toolkits can support the entire cycle of employee management: recruiting, hiring, training, tracking, managing, performance, motivation, and off-boarding.

Hiring

IT: I need an engineer!

HR: When?

IT: (3 days later) ASAP!

HR: (3 days later) Can you give me a job description?

IT: (5 days later) Here it is!

HR: (5 days later) I had some fires to put out; I’ll get right to it.

IT: (10 days later) Lead engineer just had a nervous breakdown and left. Can you also find a lead engineer ASAP?

HR: (3 days later) Can you give me a job description?

Over one and a half month – this process is inefficient. The HCM software can provide automated job requisitioning that can improve the communication and approval work processes among the members of hiring committees. The facilitated application processing automates follow-up reminders and notifications for the next stage of recruiting and hiring. The hiring application can update HR and hiring managers in regard to the interviewing state of the candidates and it enables the storage of prior history of employee applications. The analytics function can provide current status of hiring efforts, review past hiring trends and turnover statistics, and allow one to see budgeting and forecasting figures to plan better HR. As a company grows in size, it becomes more difficult to manage these HR activities. Without efficient HR processes, a company is less likely to hire better suited employees to meet the needs of the organization.

Hiring: Evaluation

The HCM software can automate applicant assessment by administrating application qualification tests and storing the test results. It is able to solicit, gather, and share feedback among the hiring or interviewing committee for each interview. The HCM software provides automated workflow that is able to secure permission to run background checks and job qualification tests to candidates.

Hiring: On-boarding

What happens if that new employee has to wait for new supplies to arrive? This definitely can be avoided by using the cloud HCM. Most of HCM on-boarding collects all the information. The on-boarding checklist ensures that work processes are consistent for all the candidates in compliance with employment laws. It offers the features that includes mandatory form completion, sign-off, and timely filing of information. In addition to form completion, the software also has requisition order completion and distribution. It enables access to the resources appropriate for the job, including any training manuals and instructions. The new hire is on board.

Now what can HCM offer to manage the new employee? HCM enables one to convert candidates into new hires while retaining the candidate application information on file for future reference. HCM automated on-boarding checklists ensure consistency of employee management processes in a compliant manner. The HCM contains mandatory forms for employees to file on their own.

Management: Training

The HCM allows management to assess the skills of the entire organization. HCM can help HR to conduct online training and store any information including any licenses and certifications. It provides reminders about mandatory updates and re-training and re-certification. These training processes on HCM offer the employees the ability to expand their professional skills. HCM also can provide insights to HR and management teams about what the skill sets the organization currently has and the skillsets that the organization needs to continue to grow.

Management: Time Tracking & Scheduling

HCM allows HR to efficiently track employee time worked and absence across projects, business units, departments, and activities. The HR software also offers self-service to the employees to ask for time off or overtime and to get approval for those times off or absent.

Management: Performance Tracking

HCM can help an organization to establish individual and team goals and track performance against measurable targets, team performance, and the overall organization vision and mission. HCM can provide insights into performance across the entire organization that can enable HR and management teams to respond in a timely manner to further improve employee results. It offers guidance for calculating the ROI resulting from employee training and other professional development activities. HCM allows career planning for employees in order to motivate continued growth and development.

Infrastructure

Employee self-service functionality allows each employee to manage his or her own demographic information, benefit enrollment, time off requests, training updates, etc. HCM provides access to company forms, policies, and handbooks. It enables HR to access third-party employment laws to ensure that HR recommendations are in compliance with the most recent regulations.

Closing

According to International Data Corporation, all segments of the HCM software application market will grow by 12.3%.  What causes adoption of HCM into HRM? HCM provides HR with better software tools with better operating efficiencies, more cost effectiveness, and compliance with regulations. HCM on mobile devices can further the range of HR functions the HCM software can support.

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