LinkedIn for job searches;

Facebook defines reputa-

tion: Report

Both employees and

recruiters are going

mobile and using social

media for professional

purposes, with LinkedIn

emerging the most popu-

lar platform for job search-

es and Facebook being

used for personal brand-

ing, says a report.

According to Adeccos

2015 Work Trends Study,

social media can be used

for professional purposes

and its effectiveness can

be utilised in matching

job seekers with open

positions. Among social

networks, LinkedIn

remains the most popular

platform for professional

purposes for both

recruiters (61 per cent)

and job seekers (34 per

cent), whereas Facebook is

the go-to network for all

social activities, including

personal branding.

While recruiters already

stated in the Global Social

Recruiting Study, 2014 that

they have rejected candi-

dates based on their social

profiles, now job seekers

also make it a point to

research the company they

are applying to, the report

said.

Noting that job seekers

are more mobile than

recruiters, it said a total of

65 per cent of job seekers

frequently or sometimes

use a mobile device for

online job searches, where-

as among recruiters, this

figure drops to 41 per cent

when searching for candi-

dates or highlighting open

positions. Going forward,

flexibility in an individ-

uals place of work will

become key to new styles

of work in the future, it

added. New trends are

emerging, such as smart-

working, which will affect

the work environments of

companies and will require

new thinking on the tradi-

tional relationship between

employer and employee,

the report said.

Over 31,000 job seekers

and more than 4,100

recruiters from 26 coun-

tries took part in Adeccos

survey, sharing their opin-

ions and experiences on

the use of social media for

recruitment and job search

practices. The study was

developed in partnership

with the Universit Cattoli-

ca in Milan, Italy. PTI

Going the online way

4 THETRIBUNEJobs&Careers | Worklife CHANDIGARH | WEDNESDAY | 14 OCTOBER 2015C

UB

ICL

ETR

EN

DS

ABHIJIT NIMGAONKAR

At some point in life, most

likely during our career, we

all come to realise that we

have been making use of

less and less of what we had

learnt in college and are now

more open to develop new

skills that are vital to our

success. Here are a few soft

skills that we pick up after

our college life, which stay

with us through our career

and beyond.

Set and honour boundaries: In

this manner, you are respon-

sible for your actions and

decisions. As and when you

stick to your boundaries, you

become a responsible and

reliable go-to person. You

cant go after everything, so

identify your strengths,

weaknesses and passions to

decide what is important for

you. Then prioritise and put

your heart and soul into

those areas. This way, you

will deliver value the way its

most impactful to others and

to you. If you go for every

opportunity, you end up chas-

ing everyone elses dreams

but your own.

Find a mentor advisor: Engage

someone you can trust to

help you understand oppor-

tunities and growth paths for

yourself. Understand the cul-

ture of the organisation,

ensure your fit with it and

plan how you will reinforce it.

Feedback, feedback, feedback:

Others have the best view of

you, so be humble and seek

feedback on everything you

do. There is no better way to

grow. Spend more time lis-

tening and understanding

than talking. If you are lis-

tening 90 per cent of the time

to the person in question,

that means you are left with

10 per cent of the time to talk.

Spend 90 per cent of that 10

per cent asking questions

and that will give you much

insight and open up a world

of awareness for you.

You are answerable for your

actions and decisions and need

to own them: Take pride in

your work, think outside the

box, do the work well and

learn from mistakes. The

consequences of every action

and decision are your respon-

sibility and the sooner we

understand that, the more

pride we can take in our own-

ership and individuality.

Its okay to fail: Its okay to be

lost and miserable sometimes

as long as you have the inner

strength to grow out of the

phase. If you learn from every

wrong decision, you emerge a

winner. Try to develop the

strength to get up every time

you fall. Once you become an

expert in that area, you will be

an inch closer to success.

Always to try to surprise your man-

ager-in a good way: Go beyond

what was asked for, bring

your own ideas into the mix

and ensure that the finished

product will delight by check-

ing along the way. Above all,

do very high-quality work,

which makes the managers

job far easier and prepares

you for the next level.

Remember, you need to make

the most of their experience

and learn from their advice.

You need to schedule one-on-

one time with them to ensure

they are in the know of your

progress and that you are

moving in the right direction.

Be comfortable in your skin:

Understand your limits. You

dont need to venture out of

your comfort zone at every

opportunity and make your-

self miserable. As long as

you push yourself as per

your strengths, its okay.

On the other hand, also

identify areas where you

want to grow and commit to

tasks that challenge you,

make you learn and thereby

grow. Having said that, your

focus needs to be on your

strengths and developing

an area of expertise that

excites you. Go for it.

Recognise good in others: As

you move out of college, you

gradually learn to recognise

minor misunderstandings for

what they are, and begin to

take notice of the good in oth-

ers and their intentions. The

ability to sincerely express

appreciation helps build and

mend relationships, personal

or professional. In most

organisations, its the power

of the team that creates suc-

cess for everyone, so you

dont have to win at someone

elses cost. In the process,

you grow to become someone

on whom people can depend.

Focus on the bigger picture,

perform to the best of your

ability, be accountable, honor

commitments and meet

deadlines.

Growth takes time: Adjust your

perspective to a longer time

horizon. If the process was

faster, it wouldnt have

helped us develop. There are

no shortcuts to wisdom.

Enjoy the process and learn

from it. Set realistic goals

and work toward them a step

at a time. Dont forget to

establish quality of life met-

rics for yourself and assess

your well-being. Your mental

and physical health has to be

on the top of your priority

list. You are the best judge of

the rest, travel, hobbies out-

side work and sleep you

require for your well-being.

Be adaptable: The more flexi-

ble you become, the more

you grow. Also, the more you

listen to others and accept

their opinions as well, the

more you develop your ideas-

and yourself. In the world of

ideas, two and two usually

make far more than four. On

your own, you are a meager

one. Make the most of the

opportunity at hand. We need

to understand that a new

door can also lead to better

prospects. Sometimes a chal-

lenge is all you need to

understand your mettle.

Make your own financial deci-

sions: Be responsible for

your finances. College does-

nt teach this life skill.

Moreover, it isnt taught in

traditional education that

its okay to earn money

through freelancing or any

unconventional career

options. You need to think

beyond the rat race of 9-to-5

jobs as a mentally and

financially independent

individual.

Investing in learning and educa-

tion never fails: Remember

how Steve Jobs accidentally

attending courses on callig-

raphy contributed to

Apples famous friendly

fonts. You never stop learn-

ing or making use of the

cumulative awareness of

subjects and skills.

The writer is Head of India CEC's and

Office Managing Principal, ZS

JAPPREET SETHI

Widespread changes in the

organisational environment

have led to fundamental

changes in how work gets

done. Team members are

highly interdependent on

each other to get the work

done. Thus, a managers

task has become even more

difficult with these changes

and he/ she gets pushed

from both the sides.

To simplify your work life,

these are the nine things you

can do as a manager to drive

high performance in your

team especially if are work-

ing in a new age organisation

or if your sector is getting

disrupted by new players.

Provide fair and preciseinformal feedback

1Fair and precise informal

feedback from you can be

the most effective strate-

gy for driving high perform-

ance at work. In a more inter-

connected, fast-changing

work environment, employ-

ees often feel they dont get

fair and accurate feedback on

their performance and that

its given at the wrong time.

You as a manager must

ensure fairness and accuracy

of informal feedback by

obtaining it from a knowl-

edgeable sources, providing

it at the right time, and veri-

fying it reflects an individ-

uals contributions rather

than the team output.

Emphasise employeestrengths

2By focusing on employ-

ee strengths, you are

reinforcing perform-

ance-enhancing behaviour

and helping your team mem-

bers in identifying where to

contribute to the enterprise.

Employee engagement and

performance effort will fall

substantially, if you focus

excessively on performance

weaknesses without targeted

feedback for improvement.

Clarify performanceexpectations

3As a manager you

should strive to provide

specific, result-oriented

clarification on performance

expectations; by doing so,

you will improve the per-

formance of your team mem-

bers. Clarity on performance

standards what success

looks like is much more

important than precisely

defined company wide goals

or annual plans. Your team

member wants to know what

he/she needs to do to make

the company grow?

Provide feedback on skillsets needed for future

4Given the increasing

pace of change in the

new work environ-

ment, employees contribu-

tions to the organisation

can change dramatically

from year to year. Focusing

reviews on what needs to be

done versus what has been

done is of more benefit to

employees and helps them

in being long-term contrib-

utors. Providing feedback

on both past laurels and

future skill needs can give

your organisation multi-

fold returns in future.

Get wider feedback onemployee performance

5To accurately gauge

employee contribution

in an environment

where employees are coor-

dinating with 1020 other

employees daily, managers

need to get wider feedback

from other employees.

However, you should elicit

feedback only from the peo-

ple who understand the

employees work. You can

gather peer feedback from

employees with accurate

and relevant knowledge of

their colleagues work. A

word of caution, be cog-

nizant of the fact that

employees from the same

team should not be ideally

considered for giving feed-

back on each other, unless

you are planning to do a

360-degree review.

Tell them how they aremaking a difference to the company

6Employees find it diffi-

cult to navigate the

broader responsibilities

of the organisation. Apart

from laying down their roles

and responsibilities, man-

agers need to help them by

clearly specifying how their

role makes a broader contri-

bution and how they specifi-

cally can contribute to the

company growth. This will

keep your team members

charged up and as result,

they would remain in high

performance league.

Facilitate relationshipswith colleagues andstakeholders

7As a manager help the

employees to navigate

relationships by facili-

tating key connections and

allowing them to use those

connections to direct and

support their work.

Encourage externalnetwork building

8In the new work envi-

ronment, employees

performance is more

than ever affected not just

by people in the organiza-

tion but also people out-

side the organisation. In

fact, employees extended

external networks (outside

their immediate team)

impact employee perform-

ance more than coworkers

in their business unit. As a

manager, help your

employees in growing

their network.

Be genuinely committed toemployee development

9The simple presence or

absence of a develop-

ment plan has little

impact on employee per-

formance contribution. But

managers who create quali-

ty plans that convince

employees of the organisa-

tions commitment to them

and their development can

improve enterprise contri-

bution a great deal through

signaling a sincere, credi-

ble, and realistic commit-

ment to the employee.

Employees perceive insin-

cerity on behalf of their man-

agers when development

planning does not stem from

a credible commitment to

their professional growth

and can disengage as a

result. In short, no plan may

be a better option than a

poorly designed, insincere

plan. Development plans

primarily impact perform-

ance contribution through

building employee engage-

mentbut only when the

plans signal credible com-

mitment. Credible commit-

ments occur when the

organisation makes a series

of costly investments to

demonstrate it is sincerely

committed to employees,

will follow through on its

intentions, and, in short,

means business. Develop-

ment plans achieve these

goals when managers

expend the effort to cus-

tomise plans to individual

employee needs and provide

the necessary resources and

opportunities to support the

plans success.

The writer is an HR & Strategy

consultant and writes

www.humanresourcesblog.in

Work basics they didntteach you in college

Sir, I think we should now have a face-to-face interaction to decide

the future course of action.

CAREERCATURESANDEEP JOSHI

Innovation factory has three pillars. The first being

holistic knowledge of the market for your product and

services, thats knowing what sells, why and when?

What more do your customers want and what features

would attract them to make the buying decision. What

are things your non-customers are missing in your prod-

uct and it is deterring them from buying your product.

The second pillar is your ability to select from many

creative ideas, zeroing down on products or services

that would have the highest likelihood of success in

the marketplace. The third pillar is taking the raw

idea and nurturing it into a highly successful product

in the marketplace. These are some of the steps,

which will help you in being adept at this process.

Know thy marketInability to understand your surrounding can be fatal for

business; you need to know what were your customers

preferences in the past, which new products have suc-

ceeded, what do the customers buy today and what are

the new things that they are looking for and are ready to

pay for? You can gather this data by talking to your strat-

egy team or spending time with your customers.

Understand creativityWhile raw ideas are the starting point for innovation,

these ideas may not come from you only. Creativity is not

akin to logical thinking and most

of the times it does not follow

logical reasoning. The golden

apostle of being creative is to

avoid using existing concepts in

the same form; you have to look

at the solution differently. Cre-

ativity requires freedom and

openness coupled with

non-judgmental environ-

ment.

Managing creativepeopleCreative people

are gifted and at times you would need to buffer and pro-

tect them from the routine organisational processes and

procedures. Creative people need time to muse, unfet-

tered by the process expectations of other stakeholders.

In order to synthesize ideas, creative people have to

apportion a part of their time to study issues in depth,

bounce off their thoughts with others, and look for par-

allels in other ecosystems. Naturally creative people are

wired to think in contrasts when they are confronted

with a problem. Being detail-oriented or sticking to the

schedules is not something that most creative people

enjoy; they occasionally miss deadlines as they are in

the flow. Understating them will help you in managing

them better.

Selecting the ideaIdeation stage of creativity is heavily dependent on free-

dom, which has to be provided early on in the process,

but structure becomes a dire need during the next phase

of productisation. In this phase it is best to follow a sci-

entific process of design thinking in managing the cre-

ative output. Once the team comes with the best notion

of what to do, it must pass all logical tests and criticism

as any other alternative is treated to. You dont need to

lower the bar for testing a creative idea's mettle. The dif-

ference is in how the ideas have originated.

Dealing with naysayersEarly on in the process of turning ideas into products,

resources are always a constraint. Companies are com-

plex mazes with many detours, dead ends, short cuts

and options. Mostly in organisations, the optimum path

to get to your desired output is never linear. The key to

successfully maneuvering an innovation through com-

plex corporate system is to find your way through the

complex matrix in the shortest possible time while mak-

ing the least noise. Remember innovative ideas are clos-

er to hand than you; all you need to do is to suspend

judgment and go with the flow. Happy Innovation!

Career Tips from www.careersweetener.com.

Follow on twitter @CareerSweetener

CAREER SWEETENERCREATIVE CONCERNS

Nurtureinnovation

SMART STRATEGY: 9 THINGS THAT GREAT MANAGERS DO TO DRIVE HIGH PERFORMANCE

A motivating managers dossier

TH

INK

ST

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K