No gloom here, job-seekers are having a field day

The India story remains robust, as far as human resources go.

The local recruitment and human resource (HR) services industry will post a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of almost 20% in the next five years, says a report by the Executive Recruiters Association (ERA) in association with global consulting firm Ernst & Young (E&Y).

The sectoral size will race to the `55,700 crore milestone, given the rapid growth of the market from a highly fragmented and unorganised sector to a structured and organised industry.

The industry size currently stands at `22,800 crore, dominated by talent acquisition in the form of recruitment, temporary staffing and executive search. The best part is it has been growing at a CAGR of 21% for the last four years — from 2008 to 2011.

Vipul Varma, chairman, ERA, thinks that HR services and recruitment have come of age and may see a wave of consolidation with the entry of multi-national companies (MNCs) and emergence of new models like recruitment process outsourcing (RPO) and managed services.

“HR consultants are now increasingly being viewed as partners in an organisation’s growth strategy rather than just being vendors.
The search market is growing on the back of expansion and diversification plans by domestic and international companies across sectors. This apart, recruitment as a practice is evolving from an unstructured and fragmented ecosystem to players adopting new norms of productivity and efficiency,” said Verma, while marking out key industry growth drivers. ERA is a non-profit chamber of commerce representing Indian executive recruitment consulting firms.

The report also highlighted that more and more companies are pouring into the temporary staff model due to growing business complexity and talent challenges. This approach allows them to go for smaller bench strength to tackle mounting global economic uncertainties.

Amit Zutshi, partner, Ernst & Young Transaction Advisory Services practice, offers some useful insights. He is of the opinion that the Indian economic, social and cultural landscape is in an unprecedented state of flux.
“The need for solutions for complex problems of growth, innovation, and professionalisation is driving the opportunity for the HR solutions industry in a way that has never been seen before,” said Zutshi.

Coming to the professional staffing market in India, IT and engineering sectors, along with increased staffing, may play a decisive role, moving forward. Growth in key user industries such as retail, ITeS and telecom, and large companies shifting to the organised space are likely to add momentum to general staffing.

Reeling off some statistics, Bijou Kurien, president and chief executive, Lifestyle, Reliance Retail, said: “The $450 billion Indian retail sector employs 35 million people across traditional and modern retail. Retail is the second-largest employment generator after agriculture sector and modern trade will create 18 million new jobs by 2022. Approximately, 75% of these people will be required in the front end.”

Pradeep Dhar, CMD, Vitasta Consulting Pvt, feels temporary staffing is getting bigger especially with IT, ITeS and a few other services industries like hotels, food and catering businesses.

“The phenomenon is huge with information technology and IT enabled services as the requirements there are very huge, given the kind of attrition levels at these companies,”said Dhar.

Payroll outsourcing is also picking up big time with domestic and international companies operating in India as it’s considered a complex and non-core activity. The other notable aspect here is attrition. While players in the IT industry put it at 12-13%, the figure actually tends to go up to as high as 20%. Of the whole lot, RPO has been identified as an emerging concept in the Indian recruitment and HR services industry.

Source : DNAINDIA

Why women do better than men in job interviews

Women, although typically more stressed about interviewing, perform better than their male counterparts in job interviews because they handle stress better than guys, say researchers.

That is the finding of new research by three University of Western Ontario researchers who looked at how men and women handled the stresses of job interviews.

“We conducted two different studies,” Live Science quoted JustinFeeney, a doctoral student who participated on the research team, as tellingBusinessNewsDaily.

Feeney conducted the research with Julie McCarthy, a professor at theRotman School of Management, Richard Goffin, professor of industrial psychology, all of the University of Western Ontario.

“The first one examined the effects of job interview anxiety on job interview performance and we confirmed previous research that interview anxiety is a negative predictor of performance. Then what we looked at was whether gender influenced these findings. We found that even though women experienced more interview anxiety than men, it didn’t affect their performance as much as it did for men. We were curious of why that was,”Feeney stated.

That curiosity drove the researchers to look further into why there was a difference between men and women in interviews.To determine this, the researchers conducted simulated interviews in more than 400 students at the university to see the coping mechanisms those students employed.

“We tailored an instrument that measured coping styles of men and women in interviews and what we found was women adapted more proactively than did men,” Feeney said.

“They would do things like seek social support from loved ones, friends and colleagues about their anxiety and do practical things like practicing mock interviews with their friends. Men, on the other hand, reacted with more maladaptive coping strategies. They would pretend it was not happening, ignore it, watch TV and do things that relieved stress, but hindered performance later,” he explained.

While the findings of this research may be useful for interviewees, they also have significance for businesses looking to hire.Since businesses also have a lot to lose by hiring the wrong person, Feeney warns businesses not to simply look to the interview as the ultimate predictor of future success or failure.

“Research is showing that anxiety actually impairs the validity of the instrument. You will actually end up making poor hiring decisions as a result of anxiety,” noted Feeney.

“Based on the current research, I would suggest really practically focusing on how to improve their performance. Practice mock interviews and read books on interviews so you can increase your self-efficacy. Talk to friends and family about the interview and how to deal with the anxiety,” Feeneyconcluded.

Source : DNAINDIA

When to quit your job

Sick leave is not just an excuse: 
You reach home late every night, too mentally and physically exhausted to think. Food is just something you shovel in about twice a day, when your stomach starts sending loud warning signals. You get recurrent headaches from staring at your computer screen. You feel like hiring a personal masseuse just to soothe your aching muscles every night. If you check-marked all the above, your body is probably giving you the signs that your job is quite literally making you sick. Health should come first.

You’ve outgrown your job
Started out as a trainee, you have reached the maximum level you can at your job. You have gathered as much work experience and people skills as is possible. Now your experience is more than what your job requires. If you feel stagnant or have become complacent because the work is too easy or too low-level, but you have greater ambitions, it’s time to start looking for a position that will allow you to grow and develop.

You have a better offer
The peanuts you get as a salary has been driving you up the wall, and there seems to be no raise in sight. Meanwhile outside, people are eager to hire you and are willing to offer a salary hike and a designation hike too. If you find this difficult to refuse, then give it serious consideration.

You’ve stopped having fun
Work has begun to be a drag. Dragging yourself out of bed every morning and to work has become a daily battle. You don’t pay much attention to how you dress or whether your work is on time, because you have just lost interest. You can’t be motivated to push yourself any further and just make card-swiping appearances in office. It’s probably time to just leave.

Your workplace environment isn’t good
You suffer the subtle and not-so-subtle sexual innuendos and jokes from your boss or co-worker because you love your job, the pay and the position. When the situation gets really unbearable and you dread meeting and talking to the said colleagues, it’s time to give up. Living in a toxic environment will only hamper your growth and your self-esteem in the long run. Bullying or harassment of any kind should not be borne beyond a point.

Source : DNAINDIA

Success in your career

To innovate and create opportunities for your career enhancement is also necessary
With regard to the selection of carrer, it is clarified that the careers included here may not be the last word on being the top ten ones. We have been primarily guided bt the criteria of popularity of the careers, views of career counselors.

Success in realizing your career dream to a large extent depends on own attitude which includes your sincerity and strong will to vigorously pursue your goal.

First of all, you need to have a clear understanding of what you want to be. It must be your determination to fulfil the requirements that are needed to enable you achieve your goal.

It means you have to acquire the required academic qualification followed by professional qualification and training in your particular field. Once you have these you will be able to compete.

Success also requires you to be self-disciplined, making optimum use of your time, being self-confident and having qualities of a professional.

To rise rapidly on the career graph, there is a need not only to keep yourself abreast with what goes on around you nad in the outside world today but also to have the ability to visualize the likely future developments.

Source : The Hindu