The internet has allowed people across the world to communicate seamlessly with each other, and this has bridged physical barriers that existed earlier. One of the latest and biggest developments in the online sphere is the concept of social media.

Social media websites have become all the rage, with Facebook being the biggest player of them all. In fact, Facebook is not just limited to social networking today. With each passing day, new companies are entering the popular social networking website and using it to recruit employees.

Here are some facts about this surprising trend:

• Almost 80% of companies today are either using social networking websites such as Facebook for recruiting or are planning to do so.
• Facebook is responsible for almost 60% of recruitments done through social networking websites.

Why has Facebook become a hub for recruitment?

The reasons for Facebook and other social networking websites becoming recruitment hubs are:

• Facebook allows recruiters to catch a glimpse of the real personality of the candidate. A candidate is easily able to mask weaknesses or negative personality traits in a resume. However, social networking websites allow people to display who they really are without any barriers. Thus, Facebook allows companies to truly evaluate an applicant.

• Candidates may lie about their professional experience or educational qualifications in their resumes in a bid to impress the recruiter. However, most of these candidates post their true experience and educational details on Facebook and other social networking websites they are part of. By reviewing a candidate’s Facebook profile, a recruiter can check if the candidate is sincere and if his or her professional profile truly matches the requirements of the company.

What does this mean for a job candidate?

The use of Facebook as a recruitment tool speaks volumes about the (now) thin line between the professional and personal world. Things that you considered to be ‘private’ in your life are now clearly visible to recruiters and can play a huge role in shaping the success of your career.

• A lot of critical and extremely personal information that you would have liked to hide from recruiters are now seen by them. As such, you need to keep your profile private and hide sensitive information from your recruiter that may create a negative impression. The best thing to do is to delete any Facebook posts or information that could have a negative impact on your career.

• Facebook allows seamless and transparent connections between you and your friends. Unfortunately, this boon may turn into a curse with the presence of recruiters on social networking websites. Your friends may have written some inappropriate content about you on their profile. Recruiters can now view this information and mark it against your professional profile. Therefore, you need to be really careful about who is in your friends list and what they write about you.

The entry of recruiters into the previously private and personal world of Facebook may seem very inconvenient to job seekers, but it is a hard truth they need to accept. It is time you exercise caution on such social networking websites so that you can make a good impression on recruiters.

Your resume is a representative for you that gives the HR team of a company a glimpse of who you are and what role you could play in the company. If the company feels that there is nothing you can offer to them after looking at your resume, they will reject you.

On the other hand, if your resume is able to convey the right message to the company, you would be taken into consideration even if you don’t exactly fit the job profile. So, it is clear that the resume is a very important part of your job hunt, but how do you know if your resume is good enough for the job?

The biggest factor that makes a resume attractive to a reviewer is its length. Before understanding what length is right for your resume, let’s look at some of the myths related to the length of a resume:

• The resume should be limited to one page: According to this myth, you should keep your resume within the confines of one page, making your job profile and other details as short as possible. However, you may edit out a lot of critical information about yourself, which could have been a positive for the company while trying to fit everything in one page.

• The resume should be really long and detailed: This myth talks about putting whatever you have to say on your resume so that the company can review everything in it. According to the myth, any resume that is less than 3 pages in length is not considered long enough for bagging the job.

These are very common myths, and they have confused a lot of interviewees into making big mistakes in their resumes that have cost them a great job opportunity. Now, let’s unravel the mysteries of resume length and discover how long your resume must be:

When your resume must be one paged

If you are a fresher or a new entrant into an industry, it is obvious that you would not have enough experience or information to fit into more than one page. Making a long resume may seem a good idea to make yourself look accomplished, but it’s not. You need to keep away from resume stretching ideas, such as additional spacing between lines to fill up the page. In fact, a lot of interviewers and HR personnel believe that if you don’t have a huge amount of experience, it is better to keep your resume as short as possible by focusing on important points or professional achievements.

When your resume must be two paged

If you are applying for a position or in a company where experience is of prime importance, it is better to keep your resume at two pages. An HR executive would not read every line in every resume that is brought forth. The personnel would generally look at the length of the resume, and a one page resume might be considered to be that of an inexperienced candidate. A two paged resume, on the other hand, would be looked at as that of an experienced candidate, and therefore would merit a read-through.

When you are determining the length of your resume, you need to remember that it depends on the job you are applying for. However, irrespective of how long it is, your resume must be important and have specifically targeted information without any decorative words added.

Personality assessment has been the topic of debate for measuring the success of a profile as critically as that of a salesperson. There have been times when these assessments have dominated the process of selecting the sales staff for organizations. At the same time, these assessments have been surrounded by doubts and have been criticized by experts who take a closer look at the success metrics in the sales industry.

As per the majority of reviews, personality assessment should be a part of the selection process, but it should not be the sole driving force. Here are some reasons that support such reviews regarding personality assessments for filling the sales positions:

Broad and General Personality Assessments

One drawback of personality assessments for predicting sales success is the general and broad-fitting nature of these assessments. If the outcome of a personality assessment for a candidate is that he or she is assertive and gets along well with people, it should not form the basis for perfect personality traits required for a sales job. These broad and general personality traits are applicable for different job positions, and not just for those in the sales department.

A better approach is to assess the specific personality traits of the candidates that match the requirements of a particular sales job. For instance, selling a particular product requires a salesperson to have good presentation skills. This particular trait should be evaluated and preferred over the broader physical and mental traits of the candidates appearing for the job interview.

Not Capable of Measuring Sales Requirements

Personality assessments are capable of underlying those aspects of candidates that add to their individual personalities. These assessments are not capable of measuring what a particular organization expects from the candidate. The selections based on these assessments are of those individuals who have a wonderful personality, irrespective of whether they fit in the job frame or not. In other words, assessing personality generally overpowers the actual skills of the candidates desired for the job.

People with Different Personalities Can Be Successful

Those who have the experience of working with a big team of salespersons should agree with this. Those working in sales may have different personalities than one another, but they also have comparable success rates. This is because the concrete job skills matter more than the individual personality traits of different people. Competencies and behaviors of different people opting for sales positions should be excellent, no matter what personality traits they possess.

Personality Assessments with Social Context

The questions asked to candidates during personality assessments follow the social perspective. As a result, these questions are not specially related to the sales based jobs. The questions that must be asked for the evaluation of candidates for sale-specific jobs need to combine personality traits with the actual job-specific skills.

To conclude, the selection of salespersons should be based on the specific job-based behaviors and skills required. The belief that personality assessments are exclusively capable of predicting success at sales positions should be considered a myth and discarded.

Gen Y Employee Erosion – Some of the Underlying Reasons

Based on some recent reports, it is not hard to believe that over 50% of Gen Y employees change their jobs within a small duration of one year. These reports are not just applicable to few industry domains, as the trend is clearly reported from different types of workplaces. This establishes the undisputed fact that Gen Y new age employees simply don’t stick around if they are not happy with their job.

This also underlines the fact that most organizations fail to feed the enthusiasm of capable and adaptive young employees. Here is a discussion on some of the important points that organizations neglect that ultimately lead to employee attrition:

Impersonal Growth Motives

Gone are the days when employees were considered as the tools to solely achieve organizational goals. The Gen Y employees seek a growth equation that defines individual employee growth along with that of the organization. The impersonal growth motives make these employees feel like their own professional growth and development has been restricted.

Promises of Flexible Benefits that Fail

Most of the organizations promise to offer flexible benefits to new age employees at the time of hiring. Flexibility is one force that drives the modern workforces to their jobs. According to a recent survey conducted by Cisco among young employees, three-fourths of all employees said they would work for an even less pay if they are allowed to follow a flexible approach. However, it is the inability of the organizations to keep up to their promises that often leads to employee dissatisfaction. 

Outdated Policies

Organizations, no matter how modern they are in terms of technology, prefer to stick to their outdated policies. Gen Y employees enter the organizations with their own set priorities. It is important to prepare policies considering the traditional policies and the modern outlook which most of the organizations overlook. The imposition of old policies makes it hard for the new age employees to gel with the working environment.

No Clarity of Contributions

Many Gen Y employees get discouraged when they don’t get the clear picture as to how important their contributions are. This happens when the organizations fail to value the contributions of individuals or teams. Feeling important as a part of the organization is what keeps employees motivated.

Lack of Opportunities

Gen Y employees are hardworking; they don’t want to sit idle, and they always love to get challenged. As a result, they often get disheartened when no good opportunities come their way.

Lack of Feedback

Rewarding here doesn’t only imply monetary rewards or perks. For the new age employees, it is more about obtaining constructive feedback that helps them grow and enhance their contributions. Organizations that fail to reward their young age employees often fail to retain them.

No Value in Decisions

If the Gen Y employees are kept completely out of the loop, they will lose interest in their jobs. Implementing changes that affect their jobs without considering their inputs is another unworthy attitude adopted by many organizations.  

Gen Y employees are great assets for any organization, and their worth keeps increasing with time. Retaining these employees is important for an organization, and this can be done by taking note of the points mentioned above.

Tips for Potential Employers to Avoid Making Job Interviews Stressful

Job interviews are regarded as stressful situations for potential employees. However, the person sitting on the other side of the table is not exempted from the stress associated with an interview process. In fact, it is more the responsibility for a potential employer to conduct an interview in a lawful manner.

Here is a discussion on how an interviewer can avoid the stress from building up during the interview process:

Reasons for Stress

There are mainly two reasons for an employer to get stressed while interviewing a candidate. First, the stress is due to the responsibility of having to select the best person for a particular position in the company. The second reason can be the stress of asking suitable questions to the candidates.  

The companies that have been dragged into such complaints may have to end up paying some compensation to the candidates. Such situations also tarnish the image of the company. Before interviewing a candidate, it is important to make preparations for the right interview procedure.

Questions to Be Avoided

Here is a list of questions that must be avoided by an interviewer:

Questions regarding the candidate’s age and date of birth. It is illegal to evaluate candidates on the basis of their respective age group. However this is not illegal in Asia.

Questions related to disability, until and unless it reflects any ineligibility on the basis of the nature of the job.

Questions regarding marital status of the candidates. Female candidates in particular should not be asked their maiden name. However this is not illegal in Asia.

Questions regarding the family of candidates. It is inappropriate to question a candidate about juggling the responsibility of his or her children and working hours. Again this is not illegal in Asia.

Questions related to the candidate’s economic status, race, religion, and origins should also be avoided. Generally it is alright to ask such questions in Asia.

As an interviewer, you can take a different path to make a question look legitimate. For example, you can ask questions like “Are you over the age of 18?”, or “Are you willing to provide age proof after employment?”

Making Other Preparations

An important requirement is to understand the roles and responsibilities required for the position which is to be filled. Decide the experience you expect from the potential employee to be considered appropriate for the position. You can consult the teams of that particular department to prepare the list of questions.  

It is a good idea to maintain consistency while interviewing different candidates fro the same position. By maintaining a definite pattern and by asking the same questions to all the candidates, you can compare and evaluate their answers. The interview questions should be related to the professional and communication skills of the candidates. There should also be some questions related to the salary expectations and future ambitions of the candidates. 

Hiring the best talent for every position in one’s company has to be a thoroughly screened process. By following these tips, you can avoid the stress from creeping in a potential employer-employee relationship.