Category Archives: From Other Bloggers

What kind of boss would you like to work for?

 

Thank you very to much to all my Social Media Colleagues, Connections, Followers for replying to the question | What kind of boss would you like to work for?. Herewith below some of the responses I received

Phindile Lovejoy Mcanyana – via LinkedINn

I like a strict boss, I feel a strict boss keeps you on your toes. Astrict boss to me is someone who ensures that the work gets done. Sometimes they use methods that might seem harsh but it’s the work hard now and relax later.

Khulekani Christian‏ @KhulekaniMj

Someone who allows me to explore my #creativity in completing my daily tasks. One who understands that #productivity is met when employees feel comfortable in the workplace. A #leader who’s always seeking innovative ways of doing business. #JobAdviceSA

Taylor Bradley SHRM-CP‏ @T2bradley

Little emphasis is placed on vetting a new boss when seeking a new role. Having a mismatch in expectations can be a major set back in your career! Find someone that sharpens your skills! It is a great gift to have a mentor that happens to be your boss. #JobAdviceSA @JobAdviceSA

Amanda seerane‏ @Amandaseerane

A boss that is open-minded and who’s eager to open doors for his/her employees to be part of any learning opportunities

Masana‏ @masanamaqabe

One that allows me: *freedom to work independently when necessary *has empathy and compassion *is transparent *encourages and promotes personal growth *is a leader *maintains professionalism *has a sense of humour *understands and knows diversity

Ruramayi‏ @auqmy

I would like to work for a boss who actually cares about what they do. Who is interested in creating value and growth and importantly the brand of the entity should matter, such a boss potentially might not see employees as dispensable but valuable, quality matters to such a boss. I know if all of these things matter to my boss, I will be happy as to grow the company they have to further develop and take care of their employees. A well taken care of skilled employee is great ammunition to have in your arsenal. At least I would like to believe so.

The kind of boss that looks after their employees, the kind that puts effort and training in to each individual, the kind that creates a positive and effective culture in the work place.

A boss who would not have a problem in you persuing your studies.

I think a boss who genuinely takes care of his staff. The boss has to want his staff to achieve more, so they can learn more, so they can help the business succeed more.

Summary Points

  • Strict Boss –  work now relax later
  • Creates a comfortable workplace for innovation and creativity
  • Sharpens subordinates skills
  • A Mentor
  • Open Minded
  • Eager to opening doors for learning
  • One cares about what they do
  • Creates Value and Growth
  • Creates Positive and Effective Culture in the workplace
  • Genuinely takes care of staff and desires for staff to achieve more

Job Advice SA: Online network uses Twitter to help Job Seekers

Written by Melissa Javan  and READ FULL ARTICLE there —> CLICK ME

If you’re looking for work, Job Advice SA is willing to guide you. All you have to do is contact them on social media for tips.
Three individuals who wanted to connect recruiters and job seekers in an informal environment host a Twitter chat called #JobAdviceSA every Monday at 16:00 for an hour.

The topics of this chat range from job hunting, to applying for jobs and going to interviews. The Job Advice SA team has also hosted chats on seasonal themes such as job seeker horror stories during October, the month in which Halloween falls.

Vanessa Raath, Tim Barry and Wesley Madziva started Job Advice SA in June 2014, not having met in person. “We all chatted regularly via social media and realised that we shared a common goal – to help people find jobs,” Raath says.

Other than Twitter, job seekers can also contact Job Advice SA on the Facebook page or Google+ account.

The beginning
Initially they launched their Twitter chat as #JobRecChatSA. After they met in person at a human resources conference in Johannesburg in May 2016, they decided to change the Twitter chat’s name.

It relaunched to #JobAdviceSA because they realised that more job seekers engaged in their weekly chats. “We found that there was more interest from job seekers as opposed to recruiters,” explains Raath.

“There were far more people looking for advice as opposed to recruiters looking to join in the chat and give advice. The focus shifted slightly to help people looking for jobs and not in connecting job seekers with recruiters as we had done previously.

“This was a good move and I know we have added great value to many job seekers,” she says. “We give good advice but then people must find their own jobs, using what we have taught them.”

How the Twitter chat works
Raath says they choose a suitable theme and four questions to answer during the course of the chat. “(We) write and publish a framing post incorporating the questions and expanding on the theme, then promote the chat leading up to 16:00 on Monday.

“We ask a new question every 15 minutes, starting at 16:00. One of us acts as the main host tweeting the questions from @JobAdviceSA,” she explains. “We answer the questions as well others on the topic or even other topics posed by participants during the hour slot, more often than not going on well past 17:00.”

The team
Madziva is a social media expert, consulting and speaking about the topic. His work experience also includes specialising in human resources (HR) and recruitment.

Barry is a business development consultant. Barry’s work experience also includes speaking about employer branding, HR and recruitment technology, and social media marketing.

Raath has had 10 years experience in the recruitment industry – both internal and external recruitment. She now specialises in information technology recruitment, mainly on the Microsoft platform.

Advice
The one thing you should never do is pay a recruiter to register with them, warns Raath. “You should not pay them if they find you a job.

“The recruiter will have an agreement in place with the client (your new employer) who will pay them for securing you as the candidate’s services. Recruitment agencies who want to charge people for registering with them are scams.”

Raath says that there are recruiters who look for work for people in specific industries or career paths. For example, she is a recruiter for seniors in the information technology industry. “If you are more senior it is best to find a recruiter who specialises in that industry – they will be more connected and will have a better variety of clients and opportunities.”

According to Raath, it’s troubling that most job seekers do not put the required effort into the job hunt. “They must have an excellent, well presented curriculum vitae; make sure they prepare for their interviews and be constantly up-skilling themselves,” she says.

“We also touch a lot on personal branding and how this is important to stand out from your peers. We give advice every week so people would need to join our chat to learn more – every week there are new things on how to improve (your brand).”

Finding Hidden Candidates Online – Carin Lightstone

Capture

Wesley Madziva aka #WesleySocial is a Social Media maverick. His dynamic speaking style enlivened the room, causing even belly-full recruiters at KR’s Electronic Recruitment Conference to perk up and listen as he shared his unique methods for finding candidates who would otherwise remain hidden through social media. As he speaks, he “retweets” quotes from conference participants and other speakers, mimicking the online interactive style of social media marketers.

Often, LinkedIn account holders intentionally hide their profiles from recruiters by misspelling their job titles. Wesley finds them using misspellings: A search for “acountant” rather than “accountant” yields profiles that recruiters using traditional search methods would miss.
Instead of searching for candidates by job title or skill, he searches exactly what they do [e.g bending schedules and drawings], unearthing candidates who might otherwise stayed buried.

He scours diverse social media platforms for his ideal candidates. He has found candidates who are unaware that they have Google Plus accounts, through their Gmail Accounts. All the candidate needs to have entered is a name, and what it is that they do. [By the way: If you have a gmail account, you have a Google Plus account.] He has found candidates using information they’ve entered into the “hometown” and “professional skills” fields on Facebook. He even finds candidates through photo sharing platform Instagram.

Tools such as Followerwonk, Recruitin.net, Socialtalent.co and Intel-sw.com enable him to search social platforms, but his favourite search tool for doing so remains Google. The functions of this powerful search engine are free to use, and Boolean search strings can be used to make Google searches highly specific.

For example, “site:za.LinkedIn.com” specifies that Google should search LinkedIn only.“Intitle:accountant” specifies that only this title should be searched for within the site. The minus symbol specifies which terms to exclude, e.g. “-Trainee”. He boasts that Google enables him to circumvent the need for paid tools such as LinkedIn Recruiter.

This Article was published by Carin on The HR Pulse Site. Click Here for article

www.2Qi.co.za

Carin Lightstone | Senior Facilitator at The 2Q Institute

The Challenges of Connecting with South African Jobseekers #JobAdviceSA

By Guest Blogger Tim J Barry aka African Heart Celtic Soul Consultancy

In June last year I started hosting a Twitter chat for South African jobseekers along with fellow South African Twitter aficionados in recruitment, Vanessa Raath and Wesley Madziva, called #JobRecChatSA (Job Recruitment Chat South Africa, a bit cumbersome I know). To our knowledge it was the first ever Twitter chat to help people looking for a job in South Africa connect with recruiters and get advice to assist them in their job search.

Given that more than a quarter of the adult population of South Africa are unemployed (and at least another 10% have given up all hope of getting a job), we felt that it was a worthwhile endeavour to try to help people to find jobs, even in a small way, as not many jobseekers in South Africa have access to or know where to get career advice.

As relatively few South Africans are on Twitter (and even less jobseekers), and there are very few Twitter chats hosted by South Africans on South African topics, we invited as many South African recruiters on Twitter as we knew, both to give advice and to spread the word to jobseekers, and publicised the chat in jobseekers’ groups on Facebook and LinkedIn. As we might have predicted, the first chat included only one jobseeker and half a dozen recruiters, other than me and my co-hosts. Nevertheless Peter Herring, our sole jobseeker who has remained faithful up to the most recent chat, found the experience to be very rewarding and the advice he received to be of great benefit.

Week on week we were joined by an additional jobseeker, along with high-profile representatives of the HR and recruitment industry professional bodies. The total number of participants and volume of tweets increased, and we hosted some lively discussions on issues affecting the South African jobseeker. Unfortunately the number of people taking part in the chat soon reached a plateau and, due to our busy schedules and my tech problems (my laptop is five years old, the equivalent of riding a horse and cart rather than driving a car in hardware terms), either one or two out of me, Vanessa and Wesley were unable to attend every week. We tried switching the time and day in order to attract more participants and allow the chat to fit in with our weekly schedules, but it made no difference and soon we were forced to hold the chat fortnightly rather than weekly until we had to put it on hold approaching the end of the year.

It struck me that our struggles in promoting the chat and getting jobseekers to take part mirror those of South African employers and recruiters trying to find people to fill jobs, despite their being no shortage of jobseekers. Every week we published a framing post on our respective blogs and shared it on Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and Twitter as well as inviting interested parties directly, as a recruiter would post a job spec online or a careers advisory service promote a workshop, but its reach was limited to the few who had the means and the time to find it.

Even if jobseekers are able to get online, are they members of the right groups on Facebook, do they even have a G+ account, are they connected to recruiters through their LinkedIn profile, or follow employers and regularly use Twitter?

This begs the question – how many South African jobseekers are able to register or search for jobs on job websites or find information about career advisory services and workshops, let alone connect with employers and recruiters though social media?

To reach more jobseekers we, and South African employers and recruiters, need to:

  • Ensure that the blog/careers page/website is mobile-friendly, especially to apply for jobs
  • Interact with jobseekers through an active Facebook page and post in relevant groups
  • Use IM apps to inform jobseekers about available jobs/upcoming chats

The problem for South African jobseekers is not just a matter of being able to find jobs online or having the time to do so, many either do not have a computer, laptop or mobile device that can connect to the internet, and those that do are hindered by lack of access to ADSL lines and high data charges for mobile internet usage. The majority of South Africans access the internet via a mobile device, and most of their time online is spent on Facebook, IM apps such as BBM, WeChat and WhatsApp and search engines.

Relatively few South African employers and recruiters interact with jobseekers via Facebook, post jobs or even have a Facebook page. Even fewer keep jobseekers updated of available jobs via IM apps, and even if jobseekers manage to find an employer’s careers page or recruitment agency’s website, they are not only incredibly hard to view on a mobile device but it is also impossible to apply for jobs. Hopefully South African employers and recruiters will begin adapting their methods of finding people to fill jobs so that they can access the untapped pool of talented jobseekers, rather than searching in the already saturated pond of experienced job-hoppers who are easy to reach, and help address the problem of unemployment in South Africa.

We relaunched our weekly Twitter chat connecting jobseekers and recruiters as #JobAdviceSA with the new Twitter handle @JobAdviceSA in February this year, but encountered the same problems of availability, scheduling and turnout, so the chat is not currently taking place, but I am still committed to using social media and technology to help South African jobseekers find work and ease unemployment.

The Team

10 words you must NEVER use to describe yourself – Greg Savage

Article by Greg Savage

Who am I to tell you how you can describe yourself? Nobody. So ignore me at your leisure.

On the other hand, I can tell you for free that the words you use in your résumé, your LinkedIn profile, your Twitter bio, your cover letter, and in spoken language, create a response in the reader, which can condemn you faster than the blink of an eye.

Believe me on this. Recruiters, hiring managers, potential clients, and those in your social community will scorn you, even ‘delete’ you, based on the emotion these words evoke. I am not saying it’s right, but you will be judged if you use these words. And not judged well.

  1. ‘Guru’, ‘legend’, ‘maven’, and ‘ninja’: Incredibly, these are used a lot! They are very common in Twitter bios for example. Seriously? Have you paused to consider what these words actually mean?  What they imply? And you are happy to ascribe them to yourself? You are a ‘legend’, are you? And you say so? Publicly? Nothing writes you off, and smashes your credibility as quickly as describing yourself with words like these.
  2. ‘Expert’: Not as bad as the words above, but from the same stable. You have gone too big. You may be an expert. Just don’t say it. We will be the judge of that.
  3. ‘Humble’: Just by saying it, you prove that you are not.
  4. ‘Generous’: You may be, but if you are prepared to say it in public then you are not humble (see above). And we value ‘humble’. And we want our ‘generosity’ without thought for personal gain and acknowledgement. So don’t say it. Live it.
  5. ‘Honest’: If you have to say it, it’s clear you think it’s a ‘special talent’. We view it as a given. Do you have to work at it, we wonder?
  6. ‘Rock-star’: Oh, heaven help us! (Unless you are, in fact, a rock-star, but we doubt that)
  7. ‘Nice guy’: No seriously, I have seen this on three twitter bios recently. You are announcing you are a ‘nice guy’? Surely that is the ultimate accolade that has to be bestowed by others. Narcissistic, much?
  8. ‘Exceptional’:  Too big. Too much. Too bad.
  9. ‘Funny’: Pretty much every person I have ever met who describes him or herself as ‘funny’… isn’t.
  10. ‘Visionary’: Just (don’t) do it.

If these traits are true about you, then other people will say them about you. In references. On social media. In private conversations. Say them about yourself, you look silly at best, and a right plonker at worst.

When will the Market Recover?

Geoff Morgan “You know, maybe it has recovered. Maybe this is the new-normal. Maybe, the way it is now, is just… as good as it gets”

Greg Savage says “build a business that makes good money in this environment. This could well be the way it is, forever”. If what you are doing now does not deliver in this environment, change what you do. Reshape your business, or your offering, or your skill set, to fit the realities of now. And while you are about it, stop whining about the tough market. Suck it up, princess. Because this just may be as good as it gets.

Original post here

The rise of dual screening

Thanks Wesz for letting me guest post! I would like to share an extract from the Mobile Recruiting Guide 2012 which I co-authored. You can download the guide for free.

Mobile and tablet devices may not provide the user with a keyboard or high powered computing capabilities but they do deliver unparalleled convenience. These highly portable devices switch on at a touch of button with no waiting and are always connected to the web. 

“Arms reach” and “use anywhere” convenience has driven a dramatic rise of dual screen consumption. The mass market is now interacting with mobile web from the sofa or the bed, often while watching the TV at the same time. A UK national TV broadcaster recently carried out research which found that 60% of their audience was browsing the web from a mobile / tablet while watching TV. The implications of mass mobile web consumption in the home over WiFi, instead of on the move via cellular networks has revolutionized traditional assumptions of mobile web and driven huge levels of mobile video content consumption.

The mobile web adoption rates for South Africa and neighbouring markets show that mobile is the primary Internet connection for many people.

If you consider the tight coupling between mobile and social media it quickly becomes clear that any company pursuing a social recruiting strategy is wasting their time if they are not engaging a mobile strategy at the same time.

The Mobile Recruiting Guide 2012 is aimed to provide strategic and tactical advice to support companies implementing mobile recruiting.

If you have mobile recruiting questions or have recently released an recruiting mSite please tweet me so I can blog about! (@Mobile_Dave)

Check out this US centric infographic which summarises todays circumstances.

Recruitment industry #fail the candidate

My Comment on the Dave Martin Blog

http://mobiledave.me/2012/01/05/recruitment-industry-fail-the-candidate/#comments Image

Wesley Madziva says : January 6, 2012 at 9:21 am

Thanks to Dave for sharing and enlightening me on Mobile Recruitment when I met with him in Johannesburg. After having met him we then realised we needed a mobile site or mobile optimised site. Shockingly in South Africa I failed to find even one employment mobi site up to today and still searching.

Here are some South African Stats

1) 87% of South African working adults use a mobile phone (AMPS 2010AB)

2) There are almost 4.7 times more households with a cellphone than a computer  +- 1:5 ratio (AMPS 2010AB)

3) 11.5m mobile data users (AMPS 2010AB) 4) 200,000 South Africans are using their location aware applications like Nokia Ovi Maps, and other top navigation apps (Mobitainment)

Yes as a result we have jumped on the bandwagon and working on our mobi site.

The December 20, 2011 List of largest mobile sites in SA (Effective Measure partner to Digital Media and Marketing) had 18 sites listed of which

1) 39% were general news sites

2) 11% general sports news sites

3) 17% soccer/football sites

4) 5.5% Cell Network provider site

5) 5.5% Classified aid site

6) 5.5% Digital Satellite Television site

7) 5.5% Car Sales Site

8) 5.5% Magazine site

9) 5.5% other I am aiming to make sure we fall into this category of SA largest mobile sites.

Therefore Dave to answer your question we have done something about..