Story Of Dani Johnson From Broke & Homeless to Millionaire In 2 Years

Jappreet Sethi | February 16, 2013 | Success, Success Strategies | 1 Comment

We are limited by the beliefs we set in our mind, history shows that successful people are able to break these shackles and unleash their potential. The difference is the “ T ” between Can Do and Can’t Do. The “ T ” is your Thought.

In an episode of Sex and the City, the lead character Carrie Bradshaw, once poignantly concluded, “Maybe the past is like an anchor holding us back. Maybe, you have to let go of who you were to become who you will be.”

In extraordinarily different circumstances, in a far cry from the glamorous lives portrayed onSATC, a 21-year-old homeless woman namedDani Johnson, came to roughly the same conclusion, though perhaps, through a more excruciating journey.

She made a meager living as a cocktail waitress in Hawaii, and was living out of her car with just two dollars and three cents to her name and $37,000 in debt. Haunted by a childhood filled with brutal and systematic physical and sexual abuse, she attempted suicide following a cocaine binge – but in that moment, ironically, her life changed forever.

How she went on to make her first million despite a tortured past and despite being homeless, is the stuff of entrepreneurial legend.

This is Dani Johnson’s story ,It was Christmas Eve, 1990.

“I was stoned out of my mind for two months – sleeping with eight different guys. I got to eat only by dating all these people. I realized that I had become worse than the family I grew up in and that was devastating. My mom and dad were drug addicts and I had never seen my parents sober. My childhood was filled with threats and getting beaten daily; week in, week out. My whole life was filled with horror and terror and lies and I vowed that I would never be like my family. And there I was doing cocaine…”

She hated cocaine ‘with a passion’ and recalls that when coke was introduced into the home by her parents when she was a teenager, the violence had intensified and the emotional instability was ‘horrifying’. “They would say one thing and then another thing after 15 minutes.”

That Christmas Eve, she joined other waitresses at the beach on a drink and drug binge.

“I was sweating as I was constantly dancing. I see the coke and I leaned down and I did a line. I remember waking up at 10 the next morning on my beach mat and I am asking everyone for coke. I was walking around saying, ‘Where do I get more of that stuff?’

That day, I would have given my body – I would have become a prostitute for coke and that’s how low I became. I hated everything about myself. I knew my future would never be good. I was suicidal from the age of six. My life was not worth living. There was no chance to turn it into anything better. I was disgusting. I hated how my parents raised us. My life was filled with broken promises and lies and people stealing and people beating me and people hating me and me hating myself even more…”

Fueled by the after-effects of the drug, in an almost catatonic state that morning, Dani decided she was going to end it all. “I started walking towards the ocean and dived underneath the wave.”

A few more moments under, and her life would have ended there – not an unsurprising demise given her circumstances, the coroner and police chief would have quietly concluded.

But as it happened, in that instant, her life changed forever.

‘Almost a Miracle’

“I heard a voice say, ‘Pick up your mat and walk.’’

It felt almost like a miracle to her.

“The feeling of coke left instantly – I wasn’t wanting it anymore. I rolled up my beach mat, turned around and hiked a mile that I needed to in order to get back to my car. I drove 45 minutes to the beach where I was living. And the whole time I was driving, it was as if the left side of my mind was saying, ‘This is not what is intended for your life, you shouldn’t be drinking. There is more to life,’ and the right side was saying, ‘You’re a failure, you’re a loser, you’re filthy; worse than your parents. Drive this car into the ocean.’ This was like a war inside my mind with these voices and I was literally in a trance.

And I have no idea why I chose to listen to that first voice.”

So Dani began to ask herself: What can I do? What do I need to do to get myself out this situation?

“As a cocktail waitress, I was not making enough, so I had to figure out my options.”

She needed $4,500 to be able to afford an apartment but with a small income derived mostly from tips coupled with the island’s high rents, it would take her four months to save enough money.

“I didn’t want to be homeless for another four months. Rent in Hawaii was outrageously expensive and I couldn’t afford plane tickets back to California. I knew no one. I was terrified I would be raped or beaten or kidnapped because there wasn’t any shelter. I was a kid who, between the ages of three to 16, was abused and molested. The emotions were still there. You try to push this back but when you’re homeless, it is at the forefront of your mind all the time and it was terrifying to me.”

That night she fell asleep in her car without any answers but the following day, the proverbial light bulb went off.

“I get this idea. Everything I ever owned was in the backseat of my car. And there was this weight loss program I had purchased long before I was homeless, lying in the back seat. I had used it for a week. I never paid attention to it before. And it just caught the corner of my eye in the sun. It was warped from the humidity. But it was as if this device was talking to me. I picked it up and it was as if this thing was saying, ‘I’m your answer.’ And my first thought was, ‘No, I’m not going to peddle a weight loss program! No way I’m going to do this!’

As if it was beneath me. As if it was sinking to a new depth. And you know, sometimes you have that feeling that you need to do something you don’t want to do?

I turned the box around, saw the manufacturer’s details and called them from the payphone.

I started asking them the question: What is it going to take to carry the product in Hawaii? As it turned out, it would require me to have licensing – and money, that I didn’t have.”

And this is when Dani – given her very scant means – decided to get resourceful.

“I handwrote a flyer [for the weight loss program] but I needed a phone number to advertise so people could contact me – and I didn’t have one. So I picked up the Yellow Pages in the phone booth. You know cocktail waitresses always have coins! So I looked through the Yellow Pagesand called a small telecommunications company. And I chatted with this guy for some time, trying to build a relationship. I asked him what the cost of their voice mail service was.

He said to me, ‘Don’t drive all the way to pay for this. Send me a check for $15. Here’s your new number…!’

Dani, of course, was elated – down to her last quarter for that week, she got the break she needed.

“I put up the flyer at the Post Office where everyone in this town went to, and three hours later, not thinking I would get any messages – it was filled with 25 messages. I didn’t know what to do with them!

Long story short, I ended up with 40 checks, totaling $4,000 dollars from people I didn’t even know – that first month!

I called up the manufacturer with an order but they wanted a physical address to send the product and I didn’t have one. So I talked the local liquor store into letting me use their address.”

Dani made a quarter of a million dollars that first year just by selling the weight loss program, was a millionaire by the second year and went on to open up 18 weight loss centers around the country. She sold the business in 1996 – a multi-millionaire.

Today Dani Johnson is a multi-millionaire many times over, runs five companies and spends her time jetting around the world, giving back through her various charities.

How To Tackle Difficult People at Work

Jappreet Sethi | June 14, 2011 | Career Tips, Co-workers, Colleagues, Dynamics, Employee Welfare,Problem Solving, Self-Improvement, Stress, Workplace | 9 Comments

Troublemakers at the office come in various shades, and they have different styles and approaches to making their presence felt. To be fair, most of them may not even know how disruptive they can be – then again, some do. However, the sincere and focused always has a bad time with them.

Maybe you cannot understand why people want to be anything other than professional or team-spirited at work. Perhaps you feel that people should not let their personal problems or prejudices intrude on the workplace. But the fact is that we all carry outside baggage into the office. It shows up in ways that others will not fully understand. Any professional environment will feature people with vastly different expectations from the job, each other and life in general.

The factor that causes the most interpersonal problems on the job is insecurity. A co-worker’s insecurity may show up in the form of malicious gossip or slander, a fawning attitude towards the management, inappropriate curiosity about what you are doing, manipulation and plain nastiness. Such symptoms in others tend to grate on our nerves. We assume that they are trying to find shortcuts to success – and we are often right.

Considering the pace at which we conduct our work in the 21st Century, our work culture has become highly depersonalized. To fully analyze why certain people behave the way they do would require the services of an in-house psychologist. In fact, many progressive organizations do offer such services.

But how do we protect ourselves from difficult people at work without the benefit of an internal arbitrator?

Brown -Noser

You may, for instance, have come across the typical brown-noser. They seem to have very little personal dignity, or a very strange version of it. Getting and staying in the good books of their (and your) superiors seems to be their main priority. Apart from being a shortcut, this also seems to them to be the best way of saving on effort. Bootlickers are universally despised.

• Bootlickers invariably see their tendencies in a very positive light.
• To them, it is uncommon and enviable dedication and devotion to those in charge.
• This presents a major problem – they are very averse to being told the truth about their tactics.
• This state of denial ensures that the problem does not easily resolve itself.

Yes, such behavior in others is disturbing at the workplace. However, you would do well to remember that they rarely get the results they want. Most managers do not mistake subservience for effectiveness. In fact, you should train yourself to ignore the bootlickers. Many enlightened employees have found that getting to know the brown-noser better on a personal basis can defuse the situation entirely.

Wreckers

If you have people around you who maliciously wreck your efforts, that is another matter. These rank among the most difficult people at work. They disrupt the peace and harmony of the workplace. Unable to achieve good results in their own right, they sabotage those of others. In rare instances, it may be out of sheer ignorance. Whatever the case, their influence is extremely negative.

• You may find that a critical document has been misplaced
• Your Internet connection may have been mysteriously disconnected.
• You may not receive the accounts you badly need even though the person responsible for giving them to you is aware of the urgency.
• A malicious piece of gossip affecting you may have been put in the ear of the supervisor.

Sounds familiar? If you have such a co-worker in your midst, you know that such a person can cause a lot of damage and is often extremely clever. To him or her, the act of sabotage is a game that must be won. Exposing such an individual can be time-consuming and extremely stressful.

The Workplace Bully

What about the obnoxious guy who pushes his weight around? He is the office equivalent of the schoolyard supremo. His tools of the trade are ridicule, overt and veiled threats as well as verbal and physical abuse. The object of these difficult people at work may be:

• To compensate for intellectual deficiencies.
• To compensate for inbuilt laziness by using others to do the work meant for them.
• To compensate for a lousy personal relationship or a past of abuse.

Again, this person is a highly insecure one and probably has real personal problems. If he really is a problem to you, try confronting him alone and asking him what his problem with you is. The idea is to do this in private. He will feel less defensive if there is no audience. Alternatively, you can bring him to the notice of the management and explain that his behavior is disruptive. You can even get the endorsement of other victims in this.

The Chronic Snitch

The chronic snitch is another of the difficult people at work that many of us are familiar with. Whether for personal gain or out of plain mean-mindedness, such persons will not hesitate to sell you down the river. They are usually pleasant and co-operative on the surface. This enables them to obtain inside information and then act on it. Here are some symptoms of such a turncoat in your office:

• A personal confidence that damages your professional image at the workplace is leaked to the authorities.
• The fact that you have under-performed or made a serious mistake is suddenly the talk of the office.
• Someone else gets the credit for a project that you slaved on. Amongst the difficult people at the workplace, these can be the most damaging.

The Super Ambitious

Excessive ambition is another unpleasant trait in certain colleagues. To them, the workplace is the venue for political intrigue or simple personal gain. Co-workers and even superiors exist solely to be manipulated. These extremely difficult people at work are usually power seekers who will stop at nothing. They may employ:

• Blackmail to get a personal deal through
• Gossip to spread a self-serving rumor
• Spurious claims of personal connections to the management

Their ultimate objective is to gain a position of strength. This strength may then used to gain internal political traction (promotions, raises etc) or for financial gain not related to official work. You can confront such people via private memos or in privacy and warn them that you will not stand for their behavior. They are usually spines and easily intimidated.

In any modern work environment, you will encounter these and other troublemakers – be it the chronic latecomer who always has some pathetic excuse, the slob who messes the place up, the workaholic who just can’t stop producing, etc.

It doesn’t matter how great the organization you work for is. It doesn’t matter how fulfilling the work culture and atmosphere is. There will always be difficult people at work with a different agenda than helping with optimum work performance.The idea in your dealings with such people is not to let your own professional momentum and personal equilibrium be disrupted.

Human Resources Jobs: Skills And Qualities

Jappreet Sethi | October 8, 2011 | Career Options, Career Tips, Human Resources | 4 Comments

Human Resource professionals are important personnel in an organization. This is because they contribute to the viability and the success of the business through the strategic organization of human capital. While most people think that ‘people’ skills are the main ingredient of a successful Human Resource professional, one actually needs to have a perfect mix of ‘people’ and technical skills.

Most of jobs in Human Resources entail collecting data, dealing with complex paperwork, analyzing information, and presenting the findings of this information to the top management.

Human Resource professionals require a clear understanding of applicable laws as well as of business administration. They also need to be very conversant with the goals and missions of their organization. Because of this, a majority of employers prefer hiring human resource professional possessing a diploma or degree in any field that is related to human resources.  The fields that are generally considered as related to human resource include commerce, business administration, industrial relation or any other social science.

Personal Characteristics

HR Jobs call for a wide range of skills. For a Human Resource professional background in social sciences and a broad base of business skills and knowledge are particularly important. The best Human Resources professional normally possess excellent verbal and written skills as well as proficiency with computers and basic Information Technology. Not all HR jobs ask for all these skills; however, it is incumbent upon applicants to learn them as soon as possible after landing the job, or in specific training courses.

Human Resource jobs fall in various categories such as selection, placement, recruitment managers, training and development managers, compensation and benefits specialists, labour and employee relations specialists and safety, health and security specialists.

Human Resource jobs in the category of selection, placement and recruiting normally call for someone who is a good judge of character, is tactful yet self-confident and has excellent written, verbal and presentation skills.  HR professionals in such roles also need to be capable of ‘selling’ the organization, making cold calls and building relationships within and outside the organization.

Training and development specialists’ jobs require persons with excellent verbal, writing, and interpersonal skills. Such people also need a good sense of humour, a fertile imagination, cutting-edge knowledge in training fields and good understanding of the future knowledge needs of the organization.

Compensation and benefits specialists’ jobs require persons with strong analytical and quantitative skills, writing and verbal skills, knowledge of local and state level laws, a flair with statistics and the ability to communicate in plain language the meaning of statistical numbers.

Labour and employee relations specialists’ jobs require, above everything else, persons with high levels of integrity, the ability to speak comfortably with people irrespective of their education levels, negotiation skills and communication skills.

Lastly, health, safety, and security Specialists’ jobs applicants ought to possess outstanding levels of attention to details, honesty, communication skills and familiarity with the various human resources laws at the local and state levels, not to mention familiarity with regulatory agencies concerned safety, health and wellness.

Gender Diversity – Women In Leadership Roles

Jappreet Sethi | August 27, 2011 | Gender Diversity, Leadership, Teams, Workplace | 6 Comments

Why is gender diversity at the workplace important? One could cite any number of politically correct reasons. However, those have already been done to death by others. Also, they are not necessarily why gender diversity at the workplace – especially in leadership positions – is essential.

Our workplaces need gender diversity because men and women are, by nature wired differently. In other words, each gender comes with some unique capabilities (and also ‘incapabilities’). This has a direct bearing on leadership abilities. To elaborate on this:

Man lives and operates by logic and reason, while woman is also driven by emotion and the heart. This is, in fact, the more dangerous and therefore more courageous path. Man tends to choose the rational path because it is usually also the safer one. Woman chooses the dangerous path of emotions and sentiments. (This is why women have always found it difficult to live in a man-made society driven by the safe paths of reason and logic.)

The qualities that define a woman are trust, sincerity, truthfulness and authenticity. In times of conflict, such as in war, these qualities do not work well. History has been defined by power struggles and wars, which is where the man’s abilities to be forceful, devious and ruthless served a larger purpose. This is why it now appears to be a male-dominated world.

However, man’s strengths are far more primitive than those of woman. As humanity evolves, it emerges that man’s qualities are those that shaped the past, while woman’s qualities are those that will shape the future. Both serve their purpose, so there is no question of one gender being superior to another. However, there is a subtle difference in abilities. This difference is the one we perceive between what abilities it takes to build a city, and the ones needed to build a society.

Woman should never try to imitate man, because imitation is always imitation – never equality. There are unique qualities of female leadership that the most effective women leaders possess:

• Women leaders are more assertive and persuasive
• They have a stronger need to get things done and are more willing to take risks than male leaders
• Women leaders are more empathetic and flexible, as well as stronger in interpersonal skills than their male counterparts. This helps them to read situations accurately and take information in from all sides
• Women leaders are more effective at bringing others around to their point of view,  because they genuinely understand and care about where others are coming from
• Women leaders demonstrate a more inclusive, team-building leadership style of problem solving and decision-making
• Women leaders are more likely to ignore rules and take risks
• Women are more capable of turning challenges into opportunities

The leadership style of women is not simply unique but possibly also more valuable in business. The male approach of domination as a leadership style is becoming less and less popular. There is a new growing appreciation of the traits that women use to keep families together and to organize volunteers to unite and make change in the shared life of communities.

These qualities of shared leadership, nurturance and doing good for others are today not only sought after but also required to make a difference in the world. The woman’s way of leading includes helping the world to understand and be principled about values that really matter.

How To Do A Good Performance Review

Jappreet Sethi | November 22, 2011 | Career Tips, Employee Welfare, Human Resources, Performance Reviews, Problem Solving, Tips For Managers, Uncategorized, Workplace | 1 Comment

The ingredients of a bad performance review are haste, lack of focus, a non-empathic attitude and a mechanical approach to the process. A good performance review obviously calls for a diametrically opposite approach. Here are some tips for managers whose duties include conducting performance reviews of their team members.

Be Prepared: The intention behind a performance appraisal is to have a fruitful discussion based on previous findings. Meaningful preparation for a team member’s annual appraisal includes referring to old emails, memos and other communications as well as mental notes pertaining to his or her performance. This is, in fact, a two-way process. The employee should be asked to complete a self-appraisal against the previously set goals, backing this up with all possible documentation. This reduces potential fireworks and enhances the quality of the discussion.

Set A Positive Tone: A manager should keep in mind that most employees tend to be anxious about their annual performance appraisals. After all, a lot of things that affect them directly depend on it. Reaffirm that the purpose of the meeting is to help both the employee and the organization to benefit from his or her work. The last thing that a manager should do is allow theemployee to feel trapped or confronted. The best way to begin is by asking the employee to present his or her self-appraisal. During this, the manager should pay careful and courteous attention while the employee relates key achievements during the year.

Identify Performance Gaps: After the self-appraisal, the manager can proceed with his or her own appraisal of the employee‘s performance. This should focus on whether the employee‘s perceived accomplishments are in line with the performance goals set in the previous year. The purpose here is to identify gaps between the actual and expected performance. The employees should be made aware of how a particular performance deficit or achievement/goal imbalance impacts the organization. Employees tend to agree if they see how their work fits into the larger picture. The manager needs to watch out for signs of defensiveness or any kind of negative reaction, keeping in mind that the objective is not to confront but to find solutions.

The manager should:

• Allow the employee to articulate disagreement
• Not pass judgments or make depreciating personal comments
• Stick to areas that matter
• Use praise as well as criticism

Agree On An Action Plan: The employee should be allowed to suggest an action plan first. There should be no spoon-feeding from the manager at this stage. The manager should, however, ensure that the plan is smart, doable and addresses the established performance deficits.

Summarize And Set New Goals: The performance review discussion should lead to the establishment of new goals, or amendments to the previous goals. Again, this is a two-way process which should take into account the employee‘s skills and capabilities. The manager should explain how these goals relate and lead to organizational success, and how business would suffer if the mutually agreed goals are not achieved.

Set A Follow-Up Plan: Even if the conversation has been tense, the manager should ensure that the final summary includes performance strengths. The final task is to set up monthly meetings for following up on the mutually agreed plan.

Annual performance appraisals have their place as a formal system. They serve as a discussion forum that allows all concerned to examine an employee’s performance over the bygone year. However, this process must always be balanced and complemented with abundant recognition and real-time feedback throughout the year.

7 Steps for Effective Leadership Development

HRM 29 Jul 2014

A business is a collection of people working for the same cause, and a leader is required to define that cause. Growth of a business will only come through the time and talents of others. To identify, attract, fill, and retain corporate leadership talent, companies need leadership development programmes focused on hiring strategies, employee development, and career and succession planning.

Companies face two major challenges in finding and developing leaders. They need to identify qualified candidates to fill current and future leadership roles, and to develop a comprehensive leadership programme to cultivate the leaders of tomorrow.

In the past, leadership development was focused on only a few individuals in the organisation. First-generation systems to assist with leadership development were hard to use and were not widely adopted. Companies needed a system-enabled way to unify methods of assessing and selecting leaders, executing programmes to develop skills, and measuring the success of these programmes.

Today, technology can be deployed to extend these practices across the enterprise and down into all levels of the workforce. eHR development then becomes an enterprise-wide effort across the management team and not just the job of the HR department. At the same time, by using a common, integrated technology platform, the HR department can easily and effectively track and execute programmes across the organisation.

Major talent management functions all play a part in a comprehensive leadership development programme and can be well supported by a unified talent management technology platform. These functions include recruitment, assessment, performance management, succession planning and career planning.

A successful leadership development programme begins with the alignment of leadership development with company strategy and an understanding of the type of leadership style(s) needed to execute that strategy.

1. Determine the best leadership style for your organisation

There are many theories and techniques for determining the right leadership styles for an organisation. For instance, the leadership style required by a head of corporate security will be vastly different from an art museum director. Company culture will also play a major role in determining leadership style.

One of the main reasons for the high failure rate of new CEOs (with more than half never making it past the four-year mark) is poor organisational fit. Here are two ways to assess leaders’ fit. Firstly, get to know them better. Psychological and behavioral assessments have been statistically linked to current and future success in leadership roles. Secondly, you must understand the existing culture better. HR must check with the board, employees, vendors, consultants for insight into what makes an effective leader in the company.

Use both sets of information to find alignments or disparities. If there is a glaring cultural conflict, be ready to find a better candidate who possesses the unique skills your organisation requires.

2. Identify current and potential leaders within or outside the company

Leaders can be found both internally and externally. Companies must weigh the cost and timing of developing internal leadership against the cost and availability of hiring from the outside. Research has shown that one of the key advantages of developing leaders internally is that they achieve productivity almost 50% faster than external candidates.

To evaluate potential leaders in the organisation, a leadership programme needs to identify the expected leadership skills and competencies. When leadership positions cannot be filled from within, the company recruitment should use the same measurements to test the existing competencies of potential candidates.

Online pre-assessments and full assessment testing can help ensure that the right candidates are on the short list. Unqualified candidates are automatically filtered out, not on the basis of their résumés but, rather, on the basis of a self-administered online test or questionnaire.

3. Identify leadership gaps

To fully recognise leadership gaps, companies should determine current and future leadership requirements and compare those with the current leadership team. Then, identify current leaders who may be at risk of leaving and develop succession plans. Companies should also look at the leadership development pipeline and identify gaps in skills and the time required to fill those gaps

4. Develop succession plans for critical roles

Succession planning avoids disruption and employee trauma when the CEO leaves, whether the departure is anticipated or not. But a succession plan should not be confined to executive roles. As part of the leadership programme, companies should evaluate critical roles throughout the organisation.

For the greatest efficacy, succession planning should be supported by technology systems that provide the ability to:

• Create backfill strategies that use data captured in the recruiting and performance review processes, coupled with individual career plans
• Display multiple talent profiles—from C-level executives to individual contributors—side by side to quickly identify the best fit
• Track candidate readiness based on skills, competencies, and performance; promote top candidates based on relative ranking and composite feedback scores

5. Develop career planning goals for potential Leaders

Career planning used to be considered the responsibility of an individual. However, today’s companies that support career planning for their employees gain in retention, engagement, and protection of the leadership pipeline. If companies do not provide employees with career planning and advancement opportunities, their competitors will.

Self-service career planning will help motivate and retain talent, by empowering employees to view a career plan and generate their own within the company

Combining employee development with self-service career planning enables employees not only to explore potential career paths but also to monitor and progress through the development activities necessary to attain them.

Competencies can then be tied to relevant development activities, thereby incorporating development planning right into the performance review process, which supports career development and succession planning.

6. Develop a skills roadmap for future leaders

Once the high-potential employees have been identified, a skills roadmap should be developed for the future leaders. Because people learn and develop new skills both inside and outside the classroom, a development programme needs to support both traditional and non-traditional learning.

To support less-formal learning, activities such as coaching, rotational assignments, job shadowing, mentor relationships, and project leadership should also be part of an employee’s development plan. At the core, the very definition of learning should reflect today’s non-traditional learning and incorporate social networking tools into the development process.

7. Develop retention programmes for current and future leaders

Linking pay to performance can be a motivator for an employee, but goal alignment helps potential leaders stay focused on what is important to the company. Recognise excellent performance, and base the upside of bonus potential on the success of both the employee and the company.

Leadership retention is critically important for all organisations, as turnover is expensive and top performers drive optimum business performance.

Another way to retain and motivate future leaders is to involve them in the decision-making process. This teaches them the stated mission, values, and goals of the organisation as well as how they contribute to the success of the business.

A well-designed leadership development programme is the key to identifying, attracting, filling, and retaining corporate leadership. Talent management practices implemented with robust technology applications can effectively identify and develop—from all levels of the workforce—the leaders who will best drive business performance.

About the Author Shaun Han heads the Application Line of Business Unit at Oracle Corporation for ASEAN. He is responsible for the accelerated revenue growth and customer satisfaction for the Applications License portfolio including ERP, CRM, business intelligence and analytics and specialty applications. In his previous company, Han ran the Technology Services business unit at Hewlett-Packard, Singapore. He was responsible for the profit and loss of the unit for a broad portfolio of customer services including customer support business, deployment, availability, performance management and security solutions for business critical, multi-technology environments and networking solutions. Prior to this, Shaun was the lead for the Technology Management Solutions (TMS) for Asia Pacific including Japan. He was responsible for developing the strategy and direction for the TMS business which is focused on revenue, profitability and customer satisfaction. His portfolio includes management, service creation and business planning for Asia Pacific & Japan as part of the APJ Outsourcing Organisation. Shaun graduated with a Bachelor of Science Degree (Hons) in Building and Estate Management from the National University of Singapore. He also has a Master’s degree in Business Administration from Leicester University, UK.

Why HR Needs To Move To Mobile Recruiting

Jappreet Sethi | February 23, 2014 | Best HR Practices | No Comments

The world has skipped a generation of evolution and has moved to smart phones faster than anticipated, by mid of 2013 India outpaced Japan as the third largest smartphone market in the world. Interestingly most of the smart phone users are using it for activities beyond making phone calls and apps constitute a big chunk of this usage.  Cisco said in a 2012 report that Mobile Internet data traffic will grow 13 times by 2017, bulk of this growth in traffic would come from Asia & Africa.

This is scary as most of the candidates in future will move to mobile and they may not use the traditional desktop to apply for jobs, so if you are not there forget about attracting a large chunk of candidates.

What is the current status?

LinkedIn conducted a survey on mobile recruiting in 2013 and found that 74 % of active candidates and 60 % of Passive candidates viewed a career opportunity via mobile for opportunities send to their inbox. 45% of the active candidates even applied to the job via mobile. The survey further pointed put that 72 % of active candidates visited a company career site via mobile to learn about careers. When prospective candidates are looking for you through their mobile device and they are unable to trace you, you simply don’t exist.

On the other hand 49 % of leaders surveyed by LinkedIn in 2013 said that mobile recruiting was not on their top priority list and only 13 % of the job openings were optimized for mobile.  You would be surprised to know that 95% of Fortune 500 companies don’t have a mobile optimized application process.

It is evident that increasingly candidates are researching companies and career opportunities on the go or multi-tasking on the lazy boy in after hours. The writing is clear on the wall, the companies have to change faster or they will miss an important chunk of talent to next gen and smaller startups that are more agile. Talent is what will make or break the companies in next decade, look at Google or Apple’s success.

Five simple things to do

The first step is to optimize your career site for mobile usage, get hold of your IT department and ask them to do a responsive design so that the site is simple and clutter free, remember mobile screens are not as big as desktops!

Second step would be to make your application process mobile friendly, never ending list of questions and multiple transition screens are definitely a put off for mobile users. Remember that the new generation wants everything quick and fast, patience has gone down.

The third step is to hire a mobile expert in your team so that you can get the new changes quickly to the market; the technology is changing very fast in this segment so limit your investment. It will be a good idea to keep it lean initially and thereafter relook at it every six months.

The fourth step is to Piggy bank on good work, No point in inventing everything in house and winning an award There are great technologies in the market place which you can embed in your career site, try using Skype on your career site so that the candidates can do a video interview instead of coming down to your office.  Use LinkedIn data to draw up resume and ask for a detailed sheet only if the candidate moves to final round.

The fifth step is to break the walls, Connect the hiring manager, the team the candidate will work with through the web platform. This will give the candidate a realistic job preview and using instant messaging the questions can be answered real time. Engaging candidates early on using mobile platform can increase job to offer ratio and reduce new hire turnover.

Mobile recruiting is an untapped blue ocean for employers to constructively and emotionally engage connected with the next generation of talent, Job seekers have definitely made a shift and its time that companies move or they will miss the bus.

Jappreet Sethi