2008...A Review and 2009...A New Beginning

Happy Holidays to all of our readers.

Work wise, it has been a quiet few days over the holiday period that has been spent enjoying time with family and friends. It is good to take a break and reflect on the year that has been and on the New Year that is upon us.

2008...A Review

2008 has been an exciting year for our Recruitment Team here at Oracle, we have welcomed a number of new employees into our family (either from acquisition or as new hires) and it has been great to see these people contribute to our overall success. Personally I have had the opportunity to meet and interact with some truly talented individuals and it is great to see so many people passionate about what they are doing.

I began posting on this blog in May 2008 with the hope of sharing information about Oracle and also to share my thoughts and ideas in the IT and Recruitment Industries. Over the past 6 months this blog has grown to include contributing writers from our China and India Recruitment Teams and we have had 6000+ views of the Oracle APAC Recruitment Blog. I hope that the information we have shared has been informative and/or useful to our readers.

2009...Time to think about new beginnings

2009 will be an exciting year it will bring us new challenges in the global markets and businesses will be working in a much different economic climate than 2008. I find it is often at these times when we tend to grow and innovate to continue to be successful.

In 2009 I would like for our APAC Recruitment Team to continue to share with our readers on our thoughts and ideas on what is happening both here at Oracle and in the greater IT industry. I am hoping for more surveys, more stories, and also input from our readers.

I would welcome any comments/ideas/suggestions from our readers - if there is any topic or segment you would like us to cover or talk about let us know and we will answer your questions as best we can.


Thank you all for a fantastic 2008 and a Happy New Year and best wishes for 2009.

David Talamelli

Oracle Corp.: Ranked #1 Human Resource Company in China

Over the last five months, the major job portal in China, 51JOB conducted an extensive screening and selection process to identify the top 100 companies in China that have demonstrated best practices in the area of Human Resources Management.

Through their initial screening of numerous companies, followed by data collection and analysis of hundreds of companies, combined with telephone and face-to-face interviews, they have identified the 100 companies whose Human Resources practices have significantly contributed to their success.

This has been one of the most comprehensive, in-depth and far-reaching awards in the field of Human Resources in China and these 100 companies, with their demonstrated best practices, can and should serve as models for other companies in China.



In November 2008, it was announced that Oracle's China Recruitment Team is the winner of the 2008 “100 Best Human Resources Management (HRM) Companies” Award and won a second award of “Best Campus Recruitment Practice for 2008” as well.



Malcolm Bentley, Head of Oracle Recruitment Greater China and Korea, was interviewed in July this year in relation to Oracle Internal Recruitment Function and Campus Recruitment Program.

The author of this article is the Head of the Oracle Greater China Recruitment Team and can be contacted on mal.bentley@oracle.com .

Oracle Q2 Results: Results in Line with Expectations

Oracle today released it Q2 results and our second quarter was in line with expectations as earnings excluding charges hit targets on lower than expected revenue.

ORACLE REPORTS Q2 GAAP EPS OF 25 CENTS

Also of interest was news from Larry Ellison: “We signed our largest on-demand sales force automation contract this quarter,” said Oracle CEO, Larry Ellison. “This was just one of several recent wins over salesforce.com. We also sold our first database machine, launching an all new and important business for Oracle.”

In an article by Jim Goldman Oracle Withstands Currency Headwinds it was interesting to note that Brendan Barnicle, software analyst at Pacific Crest Securities, called Oracle's performance a "home run," especially in this climate, and especially with those currency fluctuations, pointing to the company's surprisingly strong applications software business and solid database unit.

Oracle had second quarter revenue from Asia Pacific of $822 million. This figure is up modestly from the first quarter and year ago quarter.

It is great to see all the hard work that we do here come together to achieve these results.

Other news facts include:


-Oracle Corporation (NASDAQ: ORCL) today announced fiscal 2009 Q2 GAAP earnings per share were $0.25, in line with GAAP earnings per share in Q2 of last year. Second quarter GAAP total revenues were up 6% to $5.6 billion, while quarterly GAAP net income was down 1% to $1.3 billion. GAAP software revenues were up 8% to $4.5 billion with new software license revenues down 3% to $1.6 billion. GAAP software license updates and product support revenues were up 14% to $2.9 billion. GAAP services revenues were down 2% to $1.1 billion. GAAP operating income was up 11% to $2.0 billion and GAAP operating margin was up 166 basis points to 35%. GAAP operating cash flow on a trailing twelve month basis was $8.1 billion, up 16%.

-“Our non-GAAP operating income grew 25% in constant currency to $2.6 billion in Q2, resulting in operating margins of 46%,” said Oracle Executive Vice President and CFO, Jeff Epstein. “In addition, Oracle generated $7.6 billion in free cash flow in the past twelve months, up 15% over the same period last year.”

Recruiting Survey Results: What would you do??

Last Thursday I raised the question "if you were approached by a Recruiter about a new opportunity would you be interested in exploring further?" with our readers. Over the past few days there have 20 responses to this question and the results were a little bit different than I had thought they would be.

The results of the Survey were:

-No, I am comfortable and happy in my current role/company - 15%
-Yes, I am actively looking for a new role - 30%
-Yes, but only if it provided me with career advancement or other opps. - 35%
-Yes, but only if it was a significant increase in salary - 20%

I initially suggested that a larger percentage of people would say "No, I am happy where I am" - this suggests to me that people in today's environment are more open to the idea of new opportunities then they may have been as long as it falls in line with what they are looking for. One possible reason for this could be the changing demographics of the workplace. With more Generation Y workers joining the workforce, there is a shift in the thinking of what a career means to a person (note: this is a small sample size of 20, however I can see this shift in my daily interaction with candidates).

The other interesting point to note was that people who would move but are not actively looking for a new role are more interested in the career advancement more so than the salary increase. When changing roles, salary makes up only one portion of the reason people look to move and should not be the focus point - I do believe in the saying: do the work what you enjoy (love) and the rewards will follow.

Recruiting Survey: What would you do???

I had the chance to meet Thomas Shaw (CEO of Recruitment Directory) earlier today, it was great to meet him and we had a very thought provoking conversation.

As Thomas and I spoke about passive and active candidates, it got me to thinking of some statistics that I had been told years ago during some training and I thought I would put those statistics to the test.

A number of Recruitment Professionals classify candidates as either being Active Candidates or Passive Candidates. Active Candidates being people who are actively seeking a new role and Passive Candidates being people who Recruiters may approach about roles when they are not necessarily looking for a new role.

Loosely speaking the statistics generally look like this: out of 100% of the workforce: 15% of that workforce is actively looking for a new role. Out of the remaining 85% of the workforce 40% would say "no, I am not interested in a new role" if they received a call from a Recruiter, while the other 45% would say "yes, I would be interested in a new role" if they received a call from a Recruiter.



I have put this survey above together and would like to get our readers thoughts to see what they would do if they were to receive a call from a Recruiter about potential new roles or opportunities.

It would be interesting to see what the results. As you know Recruiters talk to both "Active and Passive Candidates" but regardless of what type of candidate you are I still believe the main thing is to find the right role for an individual that meets what they are looking for (whether it is money, career, work/life balance, etc...)

Can Work be both Challenging and Fun??? by Lucy Zhuang

As a Recruiter for Oracle in Beijing, the one question that I always ask candidates during the interview process is “Why would you like to work for Oracle?” I have received a whole range of different answers, but I have an answer that you may not have thought of from my own personal experiences and that is…..you may have a lot of fun working with us.



Early this year, a co-worker of mine volunteered me to participate in ORACLE IDOL. To explain, ORACLE IDOL was put together for Oracle China Employees and is a take off of the television show China Idol (as well as American Idol, UK idol, Australian Idol, etc…) where contestants sing and a winner is selected. I did not think it was a big deal to sing a song in a Karaoke contest even though I am not that good a singer, but I have to say I had an amazing experience from participating in ORACLE IDOL.



Oracle not only provided a very fancy location, but also offered us a professional make-up service, a photographer, music, a brochure and a banner for each participant’s fans. We were able to invite our families, friends and colleagues as fans to support us. I found that we have many excellent performers within Oracle whose singing and dancing skills almost reach professional level. It was a great experience and sitting there, I felt really proud of myself for being part of such a superb team and company.



So if you are talking to one of our Recruiters and we ask you why do you want to join Oracle? You could say that by joining our family you could be part of the fun too (as well as all the interesting work that we do as well). Yes, the work we do is challenging and exciting and at times can take up a lot of our focus, but with events like ORACLE IDOL it is great to be able to have fun at work as well.
The author of this article has been with the Oracle China Recruitment Team for the past two years and can be contacted on lucy.zhuang@oracle.com

Recruitment is Becoming an Increasingly Transparent Business

With the advent and increased usage of the various social networking sites available I believe recruitment will increasingly become a much more transparent business then it traditionally has been in the past.



In the past, it was the Recruiter's who held most of the information about a Candidate and vice versa about a Hiring Manager. A Hiring Manager or Candidate would have to rely on getting information they wanted about each other from the Recruiter. This put the control of the flow of information for the most part with the Recruiter.

However, with sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Personal Blogs, etc.... information about a Candidate or about a Hiring Manager is no longer just in the hands of a Recruiter. For example, with the right search criteria Candidates can find out what a company is like to work at, why a role is open, what a Hiring Manager is like, etc... I think our roles as Recruiters is changing. A Recruiter's role should be to act as a facilitator in the hiring process and be able to provide the relevant information to both Candidates and Hiring Managers for them to be able to make an informed decision.

With the information available online and on social networking sites, it is not just about finding the right person for a role, I think that is only half the job. It is also equally important to find out what type of role a Candidate is looking for in his next challenge. If a Recruiter can find the right fit for a Candidate and Hiring Manager then it leads to a road for success. If Recruiters are only concerned about meeting their KPI's or putting "bums on seats" it is hard to see that model being successful for a sustained period of time, especially in today's environment.