Job seekers lost in cyber world

  Are social networking websites failing to help jobless graduates?

 

His resume is probably one of the most viewed in China - but instead of finding "Ma Wen" his dream job, it propelled the desperate graduate to Internet stardom.

When the 21-year-old multimedia designer uploaded a video showcasing his talents on a Chinese social networking site last year, the idea was to increase his chances in a tough job market.

But although the clip attracted millions of hits, very few of them were prospective employers.

"Most e-mails were from other students asking me how I made the video," Ma Wen told China Daily via MSN chat and e-mail (he refused to talk on the phone or use his real name).

Although video resumes are not a new concept, more graduates are now using them to improve their prospects in the chilly economic climate. However, analysts say most employers and online businesses in China are "stuck in the past" and are failing to exploit the recruitment opportunities offered by social media.

Ma Wen graduated with a degree in computer science from Xi'an University of Technology in the summer of 2008, shortly before the world entered the worst financial meltdown for decades. With most companies putting a freeze on hiring new staff, Ma Wen soon became exasperated by the lack of job opportunities..

Popular social media sites in China: RENREN Launched: 2005 (formally Xiaonei, it changed its name in 2008) Typical users: Mostly students and recent graduates. The emphasis is on connecting with real-life friends online. Interface: Almost identical to early versions of Facebook. It has a few unique features, such as a “footprint”, and a “funware” platform for games. Popular functions: Mostly games. It has more than 250 game applications, which are often copied by its competitors. Estimated market share: 17 percent Popularity ranking in China: 17 KAIXIN001 Launched: 2007 Typical users: Office workers. Its users spend twice as much time on the site, compared to users on other social networks Interface: A simplifi ed version of Facebook with very little advertising. Popular functions: It has about 50 applications, the majority of which are games (the site launched the social games craze in China but Renren has since stolen its thunder). Post-forwarding of celebrity gossip, photos and funny stories is also extremely popular. Estimated market share: 12 percent Popularity ranking in China: 13 51.COM Launched: 2005 Typical users: People from small cities Interface: Simple. It is far more functional than elegant. Popular functions: Again, games. In all, it has 50 applications. Estimated market share: 12 percent Popularity ranking in China: 40

"I sent out my resumes to many companies but got no replies at all," he said. "And when I did get interviews, as soon as they found out I didn't go to a 211 project school (a national initiative that includes what are considered the top universities), they passed to the next person." 

About 13 percent of the 6.1 million new graduates last year failed to find work, while another 6.3 million are expected to enter the job market across China this summer, according to figures from the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security.

With such fierce competition, the Internet can be a vital tool for jobseekers, say analysts.

Use the word "resume" - jianli in Chinese - to search any Western or Chinese video-sharing website and you will see short films made by students to show their skills in design, production, animation, music and even teaching.

After months of fruitless searching, Ma Wen decided last April to join them by uploading his video resume to 56.com, a website similar to YouTube.

During his 1-minute 37-second clip, which is based on television advertisements for Hewlett Packard that feature only celebrities' hands, he uses various computer-aided design techniques to display the films and directors he likes. At the end, he introduces himself as a graduate and his e-mail address appears on the screen.

But the response he received was far from impressive and instead of attracting offers from movie companies and large Web firms, "all I got were e-mails from individuals or small groups", he said. "They were offering me work but they didn't provide suitable career directions."

Disappointed, he turned down all the offers and is now studying English at a college in Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang province. He is now working on setting up his own social networking site for netizens to share software.

"It will be more user-friendly and less commercial than the others," he added.

Although Ma Wen failed to land a job, other graduates told China Daily that they believe social networking sites had been instrumental in finding their jobs. One of them was Huang Dongyu, 28, who used a video resume to land a career in advertising.

Creative thinking

After graduating from Xi'an Fanyi University in 2005 with a degree in communication technology, Huang found the only option was to become a technician for a cell phone firm.

"I didn't want to do maintenance work for telecom companies," he said. "My passion was design, so I taught myself how to use graphic design software in my spare time. I made my video resume in 2009 as practice when I was learning to use Flash software."

After uploading the video online, as well as sending it to employers and recruitment agencies, he got a job as a web designer with Sheer Digital Technology based in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province.

"The human resources department (at Sheer) mentioned they saw my video resume," said Huang. "I did other things and I don't think the resume was the only reason they hired me - after all, a resume is only one part of the whole job hunting process - but it definitely helped."

Although some experts argue video resumes are unpopular with employers and job agencies, Jack Lee, a recruitment manager with the Beijing-based Apex Recruiter, encouraged graduates to exploit all avenues to improve their prospects.

"Companies that are hiring usually have too many resumes to deal with, so it is important not to wait for HR staff to come to you. Explore your contacts and find a way to contact them," he said.

Job search forums

However, uploading video resumes is just one of the ways jobseekers can target recruiting companies through social networking sites, as online businesses in the West have proved. Many websites now already set up job search forums and message boards.

The fact that Facebook, Twitter and YouTube - arguably the world's three biggest names in social media - are not available in China should open the door for domestic services to dominate. Yet few are even attempting to enter the recruitment market, say experts.

Renren.com, which is similar in style to Facebook and is among the country's four most popular social networking sites, is the only one that offers a job-searching platform for college students. Most of its rivals are still focusing on pushing entertainment services.

Since the platform was launched on March 9, about 200 companies have posted advertisements for more than 1,000 positions.

Most of its functions are similar to zhaopin.com and 51job.com, both online recruitment agencies, and to ensure security, recruiters must get permission before they can access members' profile pages.

"If companies are interested in any candidates, they can add them as friends and get that person's permission to view their information and network," said Song Tiantian, spokesman for Oak Pacific Interactive, the Beijing-based firm that owns renren.com and mop.com, an online forum also popular with students.

Although no other social networking sites have yet launched job services, Yu Yi, an analyst for Analysys International, a Beijing consultancy firm that specializes in telecommunication and media, is confident they will.

"These sites have attracted lots of users through various game applications. Now, to make a profit they are exploring new revenue streams," he said. "Developing a job-searching platform and other practical applications will attract specific demographic groups and will help websites expand their value."

Meanwhile, several online firms already offer video interview services, including production and distribution to domestic and international recruiters.

The first in China was cnvhr.com, which was launched in 2004, and now has 20,000 registered users and 2,000 affiliated companies. However, it is yet to make a profit and owner Guo Xu said he has stopped paying to promote the service.

"There are still companies and individuals using our video interviewing service every day since it's free of charge, but I don't manage it now," said Guo, whose site is hosted on a free server provided by Tianjin's education authorities and is used to organize job fairs in the city. "It doesn't cost much to maintain the site."

Killing time online?

In the United States and Britain, as well as in multinational corporations like IBM, executives now actively encourage workers to open accounts with Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin to not only advertise events and vacancies organized by the company, but to aid communication between staff.

Chinese companies, however, still rely on "old-fashioned" job fairs to find staff, and even continue to block access to many sites because they believe workers waste too much time playing online games.

"Most firms in China are being too slow in utilizing these new (social media) tools," said Hu Yong, an associate professor at Peking University's school of journalism and communication. "Bosses still think these websites are where office employees spend all day stealing vegetables."

The vegetables he referred to are on Happy Farm, one of several games that have attracted millions of users to kaixin001.com.

Are bosses wrong to think their staff would waste all day playing online games at work?

Not according to a recent survey by the China Internet Network Information Center. Of the 3,007 netizens polled, 42 percent admitted the main reason they log on to social networking sites is to "kill time".

However, if human resources and recruitment firms do not change their mindset and tap into the power of social media, they risk being left behind, Hu said.

"They need to learn how to use Web 2.0 (applications that aid global interaction and collaboration) and social networking. They need to be part of this new environment," he said.

Duan Yan
China Daily
Publication Date : 23-04-2010

What the Goldman Sachs case really shows

The issues go beyond fraud and strike at the heart of how capital markets work

FIRST, a quick re-visit of subprime mortgages. These were packaged together and then resold as collateralised debt obligations (CDOs), which carried higher interest rates than the mortgages based on the principle that diversification reduced risk.

But when you diversify assets you must have different kinds of assets. You could diversify within property but concentrating assets in less than prime real estate where default risk is relatively high is not the best way to do it.

To make these instruments more palatable, investment bankers such as Goldman Sachs and others got the largest insurer in the world, AIG, to insure them, and why they agreed is anybody’s guess.

To make matters worse, what happened was the creation of synthetic CDOs which effectively gives a holder exposure to the CDOs without actually owning any of the securities issued in relation to the CDOs. This is done through the issue of credit default swaps or CDS, a derivative product.

While the actual operations of these are complex – even some of the bankers could not understand these - their effects are not difficult to understand. Basically, a large number of institutions took leveraged bets by buying these instruments both for capital gain and yield.

When the real-estate bubble burst, the loss was greater than the loss in the value of the real-estate assets because derivative instruments traded based on these assets far exceeded the value of these assets.

Not surprisingly, those who were left holding the assets and the derivatives collapsed – some of the biggest names in the US – requiring an unprecedented rescue by the US government, which effectively injected hundreds of billions of dollars directly.

The latest episode, where the US Securities Exchange Commission or SEC is filing civil action against Goldman Sachs for fraud may well be the tip of the iceberg and eventually other financial institutions may be similarly charged.

But really, for those who watch the financial markets and the predatory types of profits that hedge funds, investment banks and others were seeking by engineering all kinds of incomprehensible financial products and market manipulation in some cases, this action comes as no surprise.

That Goldman Sachs may have sold a financial derivative to one client while helping another client short the product is quite a clear example of how the company took money from both sides. The end result was the hedge fund that took the opposite bet made US$1bil at the expense of other investors.

It is pretty difficult to estimate how prevalent this practice was among other investment banks but this action by the SEC is going to put a lot of them under the microscope.

Public opinion is already against the financial shenanigans that brought the mighty US financial institutions to their knees and this latest episode will make it even more so.

One good thing that hopefully will come out of this is that the authorities in the US will no longer be duped by the capitalism mantra into believing that deregulation is the way to go.

Events in recent times clearly show that those institutions that take massive deposits from the public must be closely watched to see what they do with that money and what kinds of products they put on the market and the kind of risks they carry.

Profit is fine so long as it is within the limits of the law, is ethical, within the limits of acceptable risk and does not destroy the very fabric and functioning of the markets from which it comes. More than anything else, both individuals and institutions have to be held to greater account in their behaviour.

There, here and everywhere one thing must be kept in mind: the role of the capital markets is to efficiently intermediate the allocation of capital between those who have too much of it and those who have too little of it. Profits are merely the by-product of this.

A Question of Business
By P. GUNASEGARAM

● Managing editor P. Gunasegaram feels that too often we do not see the forest for the trees.

Productivity and talent management

Productivity growth can make the years ahead much more prosperous

FOR 50 years, sustained growth in Malaysia was based on ever-expanding use of manpower and accumulation of fixed capital assets. Basic economics tells us this business model will eventually give way to the law of diminishing returns, that is, when increasing injections of labour and capital lead to lower rates of additions to output with each passing year.

The message: We can’t be expected to grow efficiently by simply doing more of the same.

To become an increasingly higher-income nation, we need to shift from the “old” resource-based economy to one that is innovation led. Empirical evidence suggests that the old strategies have delivered steadily worse results.

On the other hand, innovation is known to have driven one-half of US productivity growth over 60 years. McKinsey Global Institute notes: “Those innovations – in technology as well as products and business
processes – boosted productivity.” For us, only innovation can be relied upon to drive exponential growth.

By innovation, I mean fresh thinking and approaches that add value to consistently create wealth and social welfare. In the end, innovation drives productivity, and productivity drives the flow of real income.

History teaches us that a burst of productivity growth can make the years ahead much more prosperous. With higher pay, workers can still save and yet have enough left over to spend more to raise living standards.

However, economics is unsure about the predictability of innovation and productivity. Investors are notoriously fickle and entrepreneurs’ serendipity, usually random.

Then, there is the speed with which new products and services can be rolled out and brought to market. It was Paul J. Meyer who said: “Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning and focused efforts.” Perhaps, this can help make productivity growth somewhat more predictable.

In the United States, studies by my econometrics professor at Harvard, Dale Jorgenson, pointed to technology advancing less fast than in the decade before the recent recession. Consequently, productivity can be expected to slacken to around 1.5% annually, yielding potential GDP (or gross domestic product) growth for the United States as a whole at about 2%–2.5% a year over the next few years.

Nothing spectacular, but much better than Japan during the recent lost decade. As of now, continuing high unemployment and rising US GDP growth in the fourth quarter of 2009 and the first quarter of this year means an abrupt 7% annual rate gain in productivity. This reflects in part a reluctance to hire given the uncertainties. There was a similar knee-jerk reaction during the 2001 recession.

A rebound in electronics demand suggests perhaps the wave of technology advances that fuelled productivity in the years prior to 2008 may have some steam left.

Most now see Asia reviving nicely this year. This year’s first-quarter results and forecasts for the year are rather robust, thanks to government stimuli. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the World Bank now talk about 7.5%–8.5% growth for the year (5.5%–6% ex-China). But India and East Asia (China, South Korea, Taiwan) display more impressive productivity growth. Within Asean, the underlying productivity profile remains anaemic, especially the more mature among them.

For Malaysia, productivity growth averaged below 1% a year over past 20 years. That’s a setback. Hence, there is resurgent talk of reform and rebalancing in search of new directions. The ADB suggests finding ways to “shift the drivers of growth”.

Today, China and India are where the action is – they provide the learning laboratory for innovative practices and processes.

As Professor Bill Fischer of IMD (Switzerland) puts it: Whereas Japan’s management revolution was all about “lean”, China’s is all about “speed” – faster to produce, faster to market, faster across markets, faster to expand.

Today, China uses its competitive advantage and “Chineseness” to do things better. But not through conventional blockbuster innovation.

Government as an enabler

There is no prescription for how a country can create a culture of innovation and competitiveness. According to Joseph Stigliz, the 2001 Nobel laureate: “…But government does have a role – in education, in encouraging the kind of creative and risk taking that the scientific entrepreneurship requires, in creating the institutions that facilitate ideas being brought into fruition, and a regulatory and tax environment that rewards this kind of activity.”

Ironically, the US prowess in innovation owes much to government support. As Harvard professor Josh Lerner tells it, the early development of the Silicon Valley emanated from Pentagon contracts. As did the Internet, which grew out of a defence project initiated in 1969.

In Malaysia, development of new industries and restructuring of old ones (creative destruction) often require a nudge from the government in terms of subsidies, loans, infrastructure and other support.

In order to be successful, the government needs to (i) create a conducive climate for public-private collaboration – or as Harvard’s Dani Rodrik puts it: It requires a government “embedded” in the private sector, but not in bed with it; (ii) incentivise innovations with “rental” rewards through a credible patent system; and (iii) ensure “public goods” serving society are promoted in a transparent fashion.

Venture capital

From Asean to northeast Asia and from India to Japan, the big risk to innovative ventures remains the lack of ready access to finance. The onset of the great recession and damage done to the financial system have exacerbated this risk. Firms which depend on bank credit and private equity have been particularly vulnerable.

A recent IMF (International Monetary Fund) study of North American manufacturers estimates that a 1% rise in the corporate bond rate can lead to a 0.25% fall in productivity. This is a big deal.

Worst hit is venture capital (VC). During the best of times, VC funds were already hard to come by. In recent years, reflecting big losses (by foundations and endowments) on hedge funds, private equity, and stocks and shares, venture financing has become more risk-averse.

The same story hits Asia since innovative ventures are forced abroad for financing, even in cash-rich Japan. Worst hit are angels, early start-ups and intermediate-stage start-ups.

In Malaysia, the situation is worse. The bulk of VC monies comes from the government and start-up funding is virtually non-existent in practice. Not only are governing boards and top management of VC funds risk-averse, their fear of loss on their watch scares them.

Furthermore, the environment is set in a culture that does not readily take on risk. As I see it, a government that takes no risk in promoting innovative ventures is one that is likely to make the bigger error of not trying hard enough.

All is not lost. Studies at Harvard Business School have shown that venture financing during and soon after recessions is more successful per dollar spent in practice, than during booms when money flows easily. Indeed, entrepreneurship is resilient to business cycles, partly because many turn to self-employment when laid off or offered a chance to take on risk.

I am told that 40%–45% of corporates listed in the Fortune 500 were born during recessions. As one involved with VCs, I find little comfort in this. I certainly won’t bet on it.

Talent management

Human capital lies at the core of innovation. Raising productivity requires a labour force of high calibre – committed, motivated and skilled enough to drive transformational change based on excellence over the long term. It’s about trapping potentials through acquisition of new skill sets in designing new products and services, and devising new processes and systems to do things smarter and more efficiently. That’s what talent management is all about.

In terms of outcomes, this simply means encouraging businesses to invest in R&D, design, automation, software, training and the accumulation (also acquisition) of intellectual property. Concomitantly, we also need to pursue initiatives on the flip side – promote angel investors and start-ups through an incentive regime that rewards risk taking.

Angels nurture start-ups very early. Their involvement goes beyond funding. They provide hand-holding, mentoring, coaching, and access to business networks. Indeed, this link turns innovative ideas into commercial propositions.

All these need ready access to a talent pool of critical skills and expertise. They make the difference between success and failure; the difference between quality and quantity. In the end, they deliver products and services better, smarter and faster. That’s what productivity is all about.

The Economist Intelligence Unit’s August 2009 global survey on talent strategies identified critical constraints on talent in an enterprise’s capacity to innovate.

Externally these are (i) intense global competition, (ii) rapid turnover, and (iii) rising cost, whereas the internal limitations are (a) lack of collaboration and resource sharing within an organisation, and (b) business and talent strategy not aligned. They reflect the war on talent out there.

In today’s world, I believe competitive enterprises can’t afford to be insular. Indeed, they need to look outside for talent to survive. China and India are wooing their national talent from North America where they have been entrepreneurial drivers. Other parts of Asia are doing the same. Indications are that host advanced nations are fighting back.

They may not have to fight too hard. Between 1997 and 2002, I am told, close to two-thirds of foreigners who earned PhDs in science and engineering in the United States are still there. The “stay rates” are much higher among Chinese and Indians (80%–90%).

Talent scarcity is a global issue. It’s not confined to developed nations, where it’s very serious. By 2050, for the first time, sixtysomethings will exceed 15-year-olds or younger. Even populous nations like India and China lack skilled professionals. The high skills gap reflects inadequate quality education and education mismatch.

Malaysia is reported to have lost up to 400,000 (mostly professionals) to emigration over the past two years. We are told that one to two million Malaysians work abroad (again, mainly professionals).

In his book, The Flight of the Creative Class, Professor Richard Florida states that skilled immigrants gravitate to global “talent magnets” centred on major cities which are open, tolerant and liberal with attractive living lifestyle.

He argues that as a “third-tier” global city, KL cannot engage successfully in the war on talent. To evolve into a human creative hub, KL’s ecosystem and outlook on excellence need to be radically transformed to reflect the true spirit of the New Economic Model.

This will require strong leadership, steadfast political will, and lots of time. Until this commitment is translated on the ground, Malaysia’s success in the talent war remains a serious challenge. Yet, without an adequate talent pool, innovative-led growth can only be sub-optimal.

What Are We To Do
By TAN SRI LIN SEE-YAN

● Former banker Dr Lin is a Harvard-educated economist and a British Chartered Scientist who now spends time teaching and promoting the public interest. Feedback is most welcome at
starbizweek@thestar.com.my.