Has this Recession led to more Job Offer Declines??…By Raghavendra Shetty

A new trend seen in recruitment during this recession is the increase in the “post-offer declines” from the offered candidates and “pre-offer declines” from candidates when they receive potential offers. A candidates reason for declining offers may be their decision to stay back at their present company. While the cause of the same can be easily identified as being due to the recession, here is how candidates may quote this –

-“I’m concerned about possible lay-offs”

-“My job is very secured and I have got good project pipeline in my present company…. I don’t want to take a risk”

As a Recruiter, some of these questions can really put you in a difficult situation to answer when candidates quote some of the examples of their own dear ones losing their jobs. However, there are many ways a Recruiter can turn such cases to successful hires and I believe on the following ones.

1. Help the candidate realise the importance and value of hiring during recession: Of late many candidates ask this question to me as to why are we hiring during recession and I turn this question as an answer to their question. First of all, we should make the candidates understand and realise the importance and value of hiring during recession. Candidates should be given enough information about the roadmap and future of business and also the position they are hired for as to how it can be a possible “recession proof”.

2. Involve Business/Hiring Managers: Asking the Hiring Manager to call the candidate very often after the offer release would definitely help to keep the candidate’s interest level high. Some time candidates may consider Recruiter as more of a job “seller” but their “trust factor” will be more when a hiring Manager calls up the candidate and talk to him.

3. Re-Brief the importance of the role in the company: Re-briefing is very important during a candidate’s post offer to pre-joining phase. Those candidates who are getting interviewed in multiple companies may forget what was explained to them during their interview. The Recruiter should make an attempt to address all queries related to job roles and responsibility.

4. Give personal touch: Perhaps there is nothing better than giving a personal touch to a rapport built with the candidate to avoid offer declines. Add the candidate to social networking sites like Orkut and Facebook, your chat room etc to make him feel more comfortable with the process. Meet the candidate very often both at office and outside, if possible. Apart from being his “career consultant”, talk to him about his personal part of life and make him feel you are not an outsider.

5. Beware of negative candidates/Window shoppers: Don’t be a victim to those ‘window-shopping’ candidates by letting them to make use of your offer to get what they want from their current employer.

The author of this article has been with the Oracle India Recruitment Team for the past three years and can be contacted at raghavendra.shetty@oracle.com

Changing Jobs in a Recession...is it Safe? by Lucy Zhuang

Almost every morning, CNN announces list of companies that have cut jobs, Google, IBM, Microsoft, AMD, Autodesk…… While it is tough times at Oracle we are hiring people. More and more of the candidates I have been speaking to have expressed their concern that they don’t want to change their job because of the recession. I always like to ask them back “are you really safe/stable with your current employer?”

Most people feel insecure to change jobs because they worry about the high possibility to be laid off as a new staff member. In my opinion, not really, we need to look at exactly what kind of situation you are facing. From a recruiter’s point of view, there are several factors I suggest to consider:

1. If you are facing risk at being laid off by your current company. A few days ago, a friend of mine told me her company laid off several employees, to “save the company and the rest of employees”. I asked her if she was considering of looking for some other opportunities, she said NO, because she felt blessed. What if the company’s business gets worse if the economy continues to struggle? What if they need to cut more jobs to “save the company”? If your company already has laid off people, you need to think more about future, think about what kind of positions are being cut off and analyze for your own situation.

2.Is your performance at the bottom of the team? If your department is at the edge of the business? If yes, try your best to improve performance, get more training, and if possible, try to transfer to core business units or start to look for a new opportunity.

3. When a new opportunity comes, don’t simply say yes or no. Get to know more about it, not only regular information about the job such as the scope and responsibilities, but also some facts such as if it is a new position or a replacement position, why to hire for the position, if the company is cutting off jobs and what types of jobs they are, if the company’s business is badly influenced by the recession. Usually a new headcount could be more risky to be cut off than a replacement headcount. Sometimes, a company cuts some positions in one business group while at the same time hiring more for another business group. Some business is not influenced as badly as others. For example, one of my friends is working for a reseller of tires. Due to the recession, more people choose to change tires instead of buying a new car. So their business is not that bad at all.

4. If a company has an effective HR management system. Usually companies with a good HR management system that includes an effective HR planning system has a lower risk to cut jobs dramatically. Working at this type of company will be more stable than those without good HR planning system, which leads to irresponsibly hiring and lay off.

Actually to change jobs is the best way to potentially get a salary increase given many companies cancelled all the salary increase and bonus in recession for existing employees. So be careful with changing jobs, but do not necessary stop pursuing great opportunities for your career development just due to the fact there is a recession.

The author of this article has been with the Oracle China Recruitment Team for the past two years and can be contacted at lucy.zhuang@oracle.com

Interviewing in 2009: Let’s get Ready….By Lucy Zhuang

You may have interviewed numerous times and gained solid interview skills in the past, in this article I want to share some of my experiences from a Recruiter’s point of view and share some ideas on interviewing successfully with Oracle.

1. Be prepared – I am not focusing on interview skills like eye contact, dressing accordingly, being confident, etc… Other than those, please really be ready for any single interview mentally. Don’t let good opportunities pass you by because you already have a wonderful job. I have some candidates who are not quite motivated to change their jobs currently, so they just go to interviews very casually without any preparation. If you are not motivated to move, tell the Recruiter politely that you would like to try some other opportunities later on. Don’t go to an interview knowing you are not ready to move from your current role. You may end up damaging your personal brand with that company and potentially lose the opportunity to explore future opportunities as you may be perceived (correctly or incorrectly) as “the sheep that cried wolf”.

2. Tell a story and paint a picture - Understand what behavioral based interviews measure. Behavioral based questions are designed to assess individual competencies by measuring your past successes. Using S.T.A.R. a well known and also my favorite method to give an example you can recount your experiences and provide examples of how you overcame challenges at work? I found many candidates with great experience failed to give good examples to demonstrate their experience. S.T.A.R method, that is Situation – Target - Action - and Result, can help you. Use one or two sentence each to describe the Situation and Target, put most emphasis on Action part, and one or two sentence to give the Result. This can make your example expressed in a clear and logical way.

3. Have an open communication with your Recruiter. The Recruiter should know the job requirements. Open and honest communication with Recruiters can definitely help you to win an opportunity. Many of my candidates try to collect information from their friends who used to work with Oracle or guess by themselves what we are looking for. Sometimes, the information is correct and helpful but sometimes not. Talk to the Recruiters directly if you have any questions or concerns regarding the position, and I am sure they are willing to help. The best thing to do is to have open and honest communication so we can ensure you have the information you need to be successful.

4. Write a “Thank you” letter promptly after the interview. In China, it is not very popular to write a Thank You letter however, a Thank You letter is not meant just to say Thank You but you can also highlight or re-emphasize some of your skills/experience required that you noticed the hiring managers focus on during the interview. It is a professional and polite way to engage with the Company and genuinely thank someone for their time.

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

Using Twitter to Land a Job: Real Life Examples

As readers of our blog may know I am an advocate of Web 2.0 technologies and Social Networking Tools - specifically as it applies to Job Searching and Recruitment.

I have just read an article by Jonelle Marte titled “Twitter Yourself a Job .

Jonelle Marte writes "Looking for a new job, Alexa Scordato didn't email or call her contacts about possible openings. Instead, she messaged them via the social-networking Web site Twitter.com.

Her brief message: "Hey there! Looking for a Social Media job up in Boston. Are you guys doing any entry level hires?"

Within a week, she had an interview. Within two weeks, she had a job.

...It's been criticized as a site for sharing mundane details about everyday activities. But people like 22-year-old Ms. Scordato, who used Twitter to privately message some people she'd met at a conference, show the site can be more than that.

"I would guess that if I had just sent them a long email with my résumé, I might not have gotten a response as fast as I did," says Ms. Scordato, who was hired by Mzinga, a Boston-area company that helps businesses use social technology.""

This is a fantastic example of the changing way that companies and candidates are now using Social Networking Tools to connect with each other. I do not believe tools like Twitter have gained widespread acceptance in the Recruitment Industry yet (I stress the word yet as it is becoming more mainstream) but it is quickly becoming a more viable tool and will soon be common practice in Recruitment. To stay connected with candidates companies will need to integrate these tools into their recruitment strategies and be less reliant on using job boards and traditional means of recruitment to attract top candidates.

My Twitter ID if you want to connect is http://twitter.com/DavidTalamelli

Oracle is Hiring in Melbourne: Multiple Roles

Following up from our blog entry in August:

Oracle Wins National Australia Bank Project

Oracle is now at a stage where we are looking to grow our Consulting Team to work on this project. I think this is going to be an exciting project and team to work from all that I have heard to date.

From a Permanent perspective our Financial Services Consulting Practice is growing and as a result we will be looking at hiring people for the following roles:

1) 3x Developers - Primary Skill: Oracle 9i/10G, PL/SQL - Secondary Skill: Solaris / AIX / HP-UX (2-5 yrs experience)

2) 3x Developers - Primary Skill: Core Java, JDBC, JavaBeans - Secondary Skill: RMI, Servlets, JSP, XML, Enterprise Beans, ANT, Oracle SQL & PL/SQL (2-5 years experience)

3) 1 x Developer - Primary Skill: Visual Basic 6.0, C++, MTS/COM+, SQL 2000 - Secondary Skill: IIS, Windows 2003, UNIX, Oracle (10g), Web Services (3-5 years experience)

4) 2x Domain Expert - Primary Skill: Clearing & Settlement Processes, General Banking knowledge, FX Processing, GL, Bank Reporting Requirements (4-8 years experience)

These are permanent positions and could be a great next step in your career - if you are interested in exploring these opportunities mail your resume to david.talamelli@oracle.com or feel free to contact me on +61 3 8616 3364 if you have any questions or would like to discuss further.

Upcoming Oracle Presentation at Australian Computer Society: Melbourne Australia

Over the past few weeks I have been talking to and meeting with the Australian Computer Society (ACS) about having Oracle present to ACS Members about what it is like to work at Oracle and what skills we feel are in demand.



Special thanks to Yasas and Daphne from ACS who helped co-ordinate this. Details of the date and time are below. If you are interested in attending you must register via the ACS link below.


David Talamelli, Principal Recruiter at Oracle Corporation will provide a presentation detailing what its like to work at Oracle, the skills that are in demand and the recruitment process;

Date:
Tuesday 28th October 2008
Time:
5:30PM for a 6:00PM Start


Australian Computer Society: Oracle Recruitment Presentation

Other Countries Are Gaining in the War for Talent

I read an interesting blog earlier today titled:

Other Countries Are Gaining in the War for Talent

It is by Raghav Singh and while it is based around the labour shortage that is happening in the US - the article was interesting as it noted: "While a disproportionate number of skilled immigrants still come to the U.S., the numbers that are staying home or are going elsewhere is increasing. Over the last five years, the U.S. attracted an average of 73,000 skilled immigrants annually, down from about 107,000. That may still seem like a lot, but Canada attracted 56,000, Australia 20,000, and even tiny New Zealand managed to get 10,000."

In today's market place when I am recruiting staff here at Oracle, it is no longer about who is available in a city or location - but more so who is the best talent we can identify for a role. In Australia and New Zealand many skilled IT people overseas look to move here for either lifestyle choices or the opportunity to work on new projects, etc... By being able to consider people from outside Australia and New Zealand this increases the potential number of candidates we speak to.

From a candidate perspective moving overseas is a big decision to make. We have hired many people from overseas who have joined us at Oracle in ANZ. I think that before you put you start looking for work overseas you have to go through a thorough thought process and be able to answer:

1)Why do I want to move overseas to a specific location(lifestyle,family,work, etc)?
2)If I have family, is everybody in the family comfortable with this decision?
3)Have I considered salary expectations and cost of living?
4)What Visa requirements must I meet/have to go through?
5)What time frame do I need to be able to relocate?

Moving overseas can be great for your career and also be a great adventure in your life. If you are overseas and would like to think about work with Oracle in ANZ or APAC, have a look at opportunities besides your current location, we may be hiring for that dream job you are looking for now.

Are Permanent Roles more attractive than Contracts in today's market

I recruit for multiple business lines for Oracle and one trend that I have been noticing for the past while is that more and more contractors are approaching me for permanent work with Oracle.

This trend started late last year with a number of contract candidates with a specific skill set approaching me and again I have seen this happen this year over the past few months. I think that contractors are looking for permanent work now as an option due to a number of factors.

1) In the industry a number of large implementation projects have come to a close and I do not believe there have been similar sized projects requiring the contract numbers there was a few years back.

2) I think people are interested in working at Oracle to get the chance grow and develop their careers and get the opportunity to do some industry leading work. I think people have seen Oracle's success over the past few years and want to be associated with that. We have some great employees that really drive our culture here that attracts people to us.

3) I believe that to a smaller degree the economic uncertainty, rising interest, petrol prices, etc.... has caused some contractors to look for that stability that a permanent role provides.

I read a number of the job reports that are published in the market and while they give mixed results depending on whose reports you read, these comments above are just what I have seen in my role talking daily to people in the IT industry that I have noticed mover the past 6-9 months more than in previous years.

New Section: What it is like working at Oracle

Hi all,

I mentioned earlier that I wanted to give people some insight into what it is like to work here at Oracle. With all the new industries and solutions we now offer and work in we have a number of Business Units in Oracle who all work together to provide solutions to our customers.

What I am plan to do is provide a quick overview on what it is like to work with some of the Business Groups in Oracle that I deal with. I have created a new tab on this Blog below titled "What it is like working at Oracle".

Here, I plan to explain what some of our Business Groups do and what makes it exciting to work in each group. The first group I have written about is our Applications Business Development Team. They are a great group of people I really enjoy working with.

I hope you like this new section and feel free to let me know your thoughts, questions, etc....

What it is like working at Oracle

Applications Business Development Team

The Applications Business Development team focuses on the creation of new sales opportunities for us within the commercial market.

The exciting thing about working in this team is the exposure to several facets of Oracle's application business, including sales, marketing, industry & solution presales, as well as working with the Oracle partners. The team includes members from each country throughout the Asia-Pacific, which fosters a diverse approach to demand generation.

Employees in the business get the chance to interact with executives in multiple industries as they qualify sales opportunities. They then incorporate other resources within Oracle - and the partner community - to bring our sales deals through to closure.

Watch this Business Group, because we plan to increase Oracle's foothold on the mid-market as we work to incorporate Oracle's Business Accelerators. This will ensure that all potential customers see reasonable prices and fast implementations.

When we are looking for people to join this group, I find people are always interested in talking to us, as I mentioned in an earlier post it is important to find the right role for potential candidates in Oracle and if you are looking for great sales opportuntity - the Oracle Apps Business Development Team may be the group for you.

Middleware Sales Team


As the fastest growing business in Oracle, our Middleware Sales Team in ANZ is a team within Oracle that has been actively recruiting of late. The Middleware Sales Group focuses on building solutions for customers in many different areas related to Security, User Interaction, SOA, Business Process Management, New Application development, Complex Event Processing, and providing a foundation for Fusion Applications.

The exciting thing about working in this team is the opportunity to work for the fastest growing area at Oracle and in the IT market. This means you will need to thrive in an environment of growth, teaming, and change. We have built a successful Sales Team including recent additions through the acquisition of BEA. Employees in the business get the chance to work on a number of different solution areas and large deals. Customers see the need for Middleware as they try to solve their everyday business problems. Often you need to be creative and think differently as customers look to you and your team as a solution to their most pressing needs.

Watch this space, we plan on taking on our competitors aggressively yet increasing profitability, and our customer base in Australia and New Zealand. The Sales GM moved to Australia six years ago from Oracle in California and he imagined Oracle would be the same dynamic place to work with a lot of intelligent, motivated people as in San Francisco. He found this was absolutely the case, but found that Oracle was the best kept secret in Sydney and Melbourne. Most people in the industry did not understand how smart, motivated, and really enthusiastic this group is! If you come to work at Oracle you will get a real buzz out of coming to work. If you like challenges and rewards for rising to these challenges, you will get a lot out of being here.

Retail Global Business Team


One of the first Business Groups that I started doing work with when I joined Oracle almost 3 years ago was our Retail Global Business Unit (RGBU).

The Retail Business Group is the number one provider of innovative and comprehensive industry software solutions for retailers – enabling organizations to serve their customers better by applying insight into daily business decisions for more profitable results. With software that provides supply chain, operations, merchandising, store systems, optimization as well as enterprise applications and infrastructure software, Oracle partners with the world’s leading retail companies, including 20 of the top 20 retailers worldwide, to transform the economics of their businesses.

The exciting thing about working in this team is that working in the Retail Business Group provides exciting opportunities to work nationally, regionally and globally on marquee customer projects. Employees in the business get the chance to implement the latest versions of the Oracle Retail assets on their projects while working to help their customers achieve success.... Watch this space as we extend our growth into Asia Pacific and Japan working with the rest of Oracle as One Red Team.

CRM On Demand Solution Consulting Team (SaaS)


The CRM On Demand Solution Consulting Group works together with the CRM On Demand Sales team to understand customer issues and needs and translates the CRM On Demand product capabilities into a solution to address those needs. In other words, we are constantly presenting and demonstrating our lovely application! Often we also find ourselves evangelizing this SaaS product. Education and knowledge transfter both in- and outside of Oracle is an important component of our work as product specialists.

The exciting thing about working in this team is that we are basically a startup inside a larger organization. CRM On Demand is 4 years old and in its 15th release. We don’t only have a rapidly evolving, class leading product, we have the customer base and pipeline. Since we are specialists, we tend to travel more than others and this is also an interesting part to working for Oracle at the moment.

This team really get the chance to show what they are made off. We have the latest technology at our fingertips, all we need to do is show how can effectively leverage the Oracle Eco System of our local partner and Oracle sales community to bring deals in the door.

Watch this space, we are in the middle of launching our Social CRM applications on a multi-week APAC wide roadshow. These apps are only the beginning of an exciting stream of end-user focussed SaaS applications that Oracle is bringing to market. If you are keen to be part of something new, rather than watching things unfold from the sidelines, CRM On Demand Consulting could be something for you.

Oracle Technology Sales Team


The Technology Sales group is responsible for the growth of the world's #1 database platform and related products including Middleware and Business Intelligence offerings.

The exciting thing about working in this team is that the Technology sales groups provides opportunities to work across many and varied customers from lone developers, small and midsize business, or large corporate enterprise across multiple business and technical focus areas. New innovations such as the HP Oracle Exadata Storage Server provides new opportunities.

The Technology sales group provides the opportunity to work on large complex sales engagements, across the spectrum of Oracle customers, providing a broad range of Oracle technology offerings that support vertical industries such as Financial Services, Telco, Retail and Government to horizontal solutions such as Financials , HCM, SCM etc.

Oracle will continue to focus on developing and extending the core technology offering to provide innovation and leadership to customers. Innovations such as the HP Oracle Exadata Storage Server and the HP Oracle Database Machine, revolutionise high performance data warehousing. Customers are experiencing performance boosts of 10x or more over their current Oracle data warehouses.