Many years ago a recruiter connected with me. During our conversation he asked me what's my tag line. My tag line, what's that? I asked. He said, you know, like someone is a "Problem Solver", or "Deal Closer" etc. You need to have a tag line that describes you, he said to me.
The conversation got me thinking. Before that time I had never thought what was my tag line. After some thought, I chose "Enabling People" as my tag line. I like to enable people deliver better, by creating an environment that enables them to succeed, by sharing knowledge, by learning from them, by encouraging free ideas and thoughts, This could be my team, my clients, or my friends and family.
What's your tag line?
I recently became a little active on Quora. I came across a question there that caught my attention.
"As a decision-maker, when did you hire an introvert over an extrovert? Did you find them more productive or less?"
I think it depends on the role you are hiring for. I have seen that when hiring for an individual contributor role, I might be okay to select introverts. I might even consider introverts for roles like testing, editing, proof reading etc.
I am more likely to select an extrovert for leadership roles, sales roles and roles that require a huge amount of teamwork.
In a recent post,
RWW reports that “In a study of 300 hiring managers and
recruiters, Palo Alto-based social networking monitoring service Reppler
reports that 76% of hiring managers look at applicants' Facebook profiles. An
additional 56% are looking at Twitter, and 48% check out LinkedIn.”
The fact that recruiters should be checking out basic info
on social networks makes perfect sense to me. Unfortunately this doesn’t seem
true, at least for Indian recruiters. I recently got a call from a recruiter,
apparently someone involved in senior level recruitment in a reputed
recruitment firm in India. So this guy starts with introducing himself and how
he is specifically focused on senior level recruitment and how they carefully handpick
the candidates for select senior level jobs. He goes on to say that he got my
reference through someone (he wouldn’t reveal his ‘source’).
After the pleasantries, he asks me about my career background.
I said my career profile is listed on LinkedIn and asked him if he had checked
that before calling me.
Oh we don’t check LinkedIn profiles, we are required identify
candidates from independent sources, he says to my surprise.
Sure, that’s okay but having identified me from independent
sources, why haven’t you checked my public profile before calling me?
Oh no, we aren’t supposed to do that.
Duh!!!!!!!!
Why don’t the recruiters realize that they are wasting the
candidate’s and their own time by not reviewing the profile on social networking
sites? Surely they will be able to find a better job-candidate match by
reviewing the profile before they approach the candidates.
During a recent organizational development workshop that I attended, the facilitator talked about changing context. It was an interesting discussion that got me thinking about my changed context. I could recognize a few that I have experienced in the last couple of years.
About two years ago my context as a manager and leader changed about the way I was managing my teams. I moved from
"I have to do everything and I have get everything done” to “I have to enable people to do their jobs"
This significantly changed my approach to tasks that I and my team are responsible for. I would like to believe that this has actually made me more effective as a manager.
Since I started my blog and being more active on the social network another interesting context changed for me. I have gone from
“You are an expert because you know something” to “You are an expert because you share what you know” and “You are also an expert because you know who knows”.
Truly gives meaning to the phrase “the more you give, the more you get”
People retention and recruitment is a big challenge. I have tweeted in the past how I came across resumes of people who’ve had far too many job changes in their career. Now when I am recruiting, I am looking for if the person will stay in the organization for around 2 years. My context changed from looking for
“Longevity in an organization” to “Will the person stay in the organization for about 2 years”
While it is too early to know about the specific hiring decisions but at least I find it easier to hire now.
What context changes have you experienced?
Labels:
Content Development,
eLearning,
India,
Industry,
Instructional Design,
Jobs,
Recruitment,
Salary,
Survey,
Training,
training delivery,
Work
Some highlights so far:
- Functions that have participated are Instructional Designers (33%) and Technology/Programmers (22%), followed by Project management (17%) and Graphics and Media (11%).
- Most participants have 10 years work experience (28%) followed by 5 and 3 years (11% each).
- So far the survey seems to be dominated by male responders (72%).
- Only 28% people switched jobs last year.
- Mostly people from elearning/training vendors have participated (72%).
- City spread is fairly even with nearly equal participation from NCR, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Chennai. Surprisingly, Bangalore has had low participation so far.
Some changes I had introduced in this year’s survey were:
- Number of years of experience is more specific rather than a range.
- Salary details are now a number instead of a range. This will help get better inputs about salaries.
- Gender info can help to see if there is any gender inequality in salaries.
- Industry info can help identify salaries in different industries.
The survey can be useful only if more people participate. Do spread the word around.
There's nothing official about this survey. The survey is not based on responses by companies but based on responses provided by you, the employee. This survey is not associated with any organization. The survey is anonymous.
This survey is for you if you are an Instructional Designer, Content Developer, Technical Writer, Project Manager, Graphics designer, Flash Programmer, Content Integrator, Tester, Editor, Trainer, Training administrator, SME, or any other role involved in elearning, content development and training delivery.
Click
Unofficial eLearning Salary Survey of India 2010 to participate in the survey. I will publish the findings on my blog here sometime in August/September 2010. This year’s questionnaire attempts to find out more about you and the industry to provide a more in-depth analysis.
Help derive maximum benefit from this survey: spread the word about this survey. Email, Tweet, Facebook, Orkut, LinkedIn and Blog about this page for your friends and colleagues.
Earlier survey findings:
Labels:
Content Development,
eLearning,
India,
Industry,
Instructional Design,
Jobs,
Recruitment,
Salary,
Survey,
Training,
training delivery,
Work
It’s time to launch the 2010 Unofficial Salary Survey for elearning, content development and training jobs in India. There's nothing official about this survey. The survey is not based on responses by companies but based on responses provided by you, the employee. This survey is not associated with any organization. The survey is anonymous.
This survey is for you if you are an Instructional Designer, Content Developer, Technical Writer, Project Manager, Graphics designer, Flash Programmer, Content Integrator, Tester, Editor, Trainer, Training administrator, SME, or any other role involved in elearning, content development and training delivery.
Click Unofficial eLearning Salary Survey of India 2010 to participate in the survey. I will publish the findings on my blog here sometime in August/September 2010. This year’s questionnaire attempts to find out more about you and the industry to provide a more in-depth analysis.
Help derive maximum benefit from this survey: spread the word about this survey. Email, Tweet, Facebook, Orkut, LinkedIn and Blog about this page for your friends and colleagues.
Earlier survey findings:
I recently discovered how I can effectively use LinkedIn to find potential candidates for recruitment. I simply update my status message with what I am looking for and get responses from interested candidates. Okay, I know this isn’t really new but hey, it’s new for me. Anyway this post isn’t about this discovery of mine.
I received a few responses to my status updates. These were from people I know and have worked with in the past. Unfortunately, a few of the people who responded did not have an updated LinkedIn profile. Their profile simply listed the jobs they held but had not details about what they did in each job or their achievements. Since I knew these people personally, I had a good idea of their profiles and the jobs they have held since they moved on. However I possibly couldn’t forward their profiles to my other colleagues because of their incomplete profiles. Lost opportunity!
I recommend that you update your LinkedIn profile with details of what you did in each job you held. Include your achievements too. Consider LinkedIn profile your updated and most recent résumé, even if you are not actively looking for a job. And do remember to write a Summary and Specialities too.
If you want to connect with me on LinkedIn, simply add me to your network. On my LinkedIn profile, click Add Manish to Your Network, select Other and put in my email manishmo [at] hotmail [dot] com. Please do provide some introduction about yourself in your initial connecting message.
Update: Survey is closed for the year. You can view the elearning and content development salaries in India for 2009 here.
Launching the Unofficial Salary Survey for eLearning / Content Development Jobs in India for year 2009. There's nothing official about this survey. The survey is not based on responses by companies but based on responses provided by you, the employee. This survey is not associated with any organization. The survey is anonymous.
This survey is for you if you are an Instructional Designer, Content Developer, Tech Writer, Project Manager, Graphics designer, Flash Programmer, Tester, Editor, Trainer, SME, or any other role involved in developing elearning or any other form of training content. This year I also attempt to find out how the economic conditions have impacted the salary hikes this year.
Click Unofficial eLearning Salary Survey of India 2009 to participate in the survey. I will publish the findings on my blog here sometime in August.
Related posts:
Unofficial salary survey of elearning/content development jobs in India – 2008
Unofficial salary survey of elearning/content development jobs in India – 2007
In my second part in the series, I share what Manish Sabharwal spoke at our annual strategy input conference.
Manish Sabharwal is the Chairman and co-founder of
TeamLease. Manish wanted to start a new company that was profitable, fun, and good for India. He co-founded Team Lease, a staffing company, and in six years his company has grown to 80,000 employees and $250 million company. It was great fun listening to Manish again this year.
According to Manish, vocational training has to come with a job. There has been an employment failure. No one is really willing to pay for training. The employers are not willing to pay for training but for trained candidates. Candidates are not willing to pay for training but for a job, and financers are not willing to lend for training but to a candidate with a job.
Manish is working towards making labour markets more inclusive. The labour market has seen many transitions lately:
- Farm to non-farm
- Rural to urban
- Unorganized to organized
- Subsistence self-employment to decent wage employment
- School to work
Commenting on the economic conditions, he says while there may be a slow down but there is no shutdown. Manish’s company still finds it difficult to find people for jobs. They have more than 4000 open jobs on any given day that need to be fulfilled. The problem is not that there are no jobs, the problem is that the workforce is not employable. And rural India doesn’t have the same choices as the urban India in terms of the jobs they might qualify for.
The way he sees the current situation, in the immediate term the immediate strategy is that of Matching, which is matching the workforce to the right jobs. Medium term the strategy is to reduce the mismatch. He calls this ‘Repair training’, skilling the existing workforce to close the skill gaps. And long term, the strategy is to build the pipeline, preparing the workforce for the jobs. He calls this ‘Prepare training’.
Manish laments to the poor education regime in India. There is low penetration of education, low returns to education, uneven quality of education, and while the system is accreditation heavy the outcome is light.
Manish also talks about the poor employability and employment regime. He describes the entry and exit gates (e.g. IIT, CA exams) in the education systems not meeting the requirements of the employment available in the market. He feels the current assessment systems are just not suitable and cannot really identify the right candidates. In spite of various assessment systems, the actual performance at workplace still seems to be the luck of a draw. Manish would really like to see more apprenticeship, more learning by doing, and the government policies current don’t encourage that.
Manish talks about lopsided GDP. Very few people contribute to a large part of India’s GDP and he would like more people employed and contributing to the GDP. He also feels that we are missing the middle – there can only be a hero or a zero. He wants us as a society to accept the ‘middle’. Not everyone is a hero and not everyone is a zero.
It was also interesting to know that employment exchanges in India are in a really bad state. There are 4 crore people registered and only 2 lakh jobs provided across India. The Delhi employment exchange gave 500 jobs last year at the cost of Rs. 2.5 lakh each! (1 lakh = 100K, 1 crore = 10million)
For building a pipeline, Manish feels quantity comes first and then quality. He feels we should get the critical mass and then refine the process/delivery as we go along; the good is not the enemy of great, e.g. not looking for Einstein for Front Office Sales; we are not trying to be right, we are trying to be successful. He urges the education system to include softskills and communication skills in schools and colleges.
It was interesting to hear him say that knowledge of English language is a must. He says English is like Windows, it is an operating system. We can like it or hate it, but we need it.
According to Manish, we can’t have employment and employability conversations independently. To increase employment, we have to improve the employability. Skill deficit is worse than the infrastructure deficit, and an unemployed or unemployable India is not free India.
Finally let me leave you with this interesting quote:
Entrepreneurship is the art of staying alive long enough to get lucky
Seth Godin writes about how he selected candidates for marketing and web internship. He was overwhelmed by the quality of applications he got, so he created a Facebook group for candidates to meet and hang out online. As he explains:
It was absolutely fascinating. Within a day, the group had divided into four camps:
- The game-show contestants, quick on the trigger, who were searching for a quick yes or no. Most of them left.
- The lurkers. They were there, but we couldn't tell.
- The followers. They waited for someone to tell them what to do.
- The leaders. A few started conversations, directed initiatives and got to work.
Nifty experiment! Read full post
here.
Update: See 2009 elearning and content development salary data here.
Announcing the analysis of the
Unofficial Salary Survey of elearning and content development jobs in India. This was a direct survey of individual respondents. No company response was sought. I used viral marketing to promote survey. This included an initial direct mailer and then posting on eCube Facebook and various Orkut groups. Orkut seems to have a larger Indian audience.
The survey received total 62 responses, including 8 incomplete responses. Most responses were from the NCR region, followed by Mumbai. Pune, Bangalore and Chennai had more than 4 responses, while Hyderabad, Kolkata, Coimbatore, and Cochin had 3 or less responses.
Instructional Design/Content Development had 24 responses and Project Management had 16 responses. The rest of the functions had less than 4 responses. I provide analysis of only ID and PM functions.
In case you are interested in the PPT or raw data to draw your own conclusions (the survey was anonymous), please contact me on email at manishmo2007[at]gmail[dot]com.
This work by Manish Mohan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 India License.
