Why is Continuing Education Necessary for Entrepreneurial Success?

We have always believed that a good education from a prestigious university will guarantee us success in our careers or business ventures. We invest so much on it, to the point that some of us graduate with a huge loan to pay after graduation. We are broke even before we start job searching, and worse, we learn later that most companies prefer those who have sufficient and relevant experience than those who just got out of college.

A college degree is not an in itself. It is but one milestone in a lifelong learning process. It does not guarantee success, but it provides a solid foundation where we can build our future. Take Bill Gates, for example. In spite of his phenomenal success behind Microsoft, still admits the partial education he got from Harvard is invaluable. And even kid that he’s the most successful among Harvard’s drop-outs. However, what we have failed to see is that Gates has an unquenchable thirst for learning new things, trailblazing on new technologies, and outwitting his business competitors by getting ahead in acquiring or even inventing new knowledge when there is none. This is continuing education.

The aim of education is to enable individuals to continue their education ... (and) the object and reward of learning is continued capacity for growth.(John Dewey - American Philosopher, Psychologist and Educator, 1859-1952)

Rightly so.

We tend to believe that education stop once we have our college degree, and that we have everything we need to succeed. We are so busy pursuing our careers and panning our business to life that we neglect continuing education as an essential part of honing our business skills.

You do not need enroll to pursue higher education, although that is ideal. Continuing education can be acquired from a variety of means. And one of which is something that you have complete control of –reading.

I learned that reading books is one of the common habits among successful entrepreneurs. They continue to educate themselves by enriching their knowledge from reading. Fortunately, these days we can access great resources from the internet or buy books from an online bookshop. But how many of us take advantage of this?

Continuing education is necessary for entrepreneurial success. New technology and new way of doing things are being developed every day, and NOT acquiring new knowledge would simply mean allowing our competitors to overrun us. We cannot afford that. Those who usually get ahead are those who are best informed.

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On Recruitment: SEO is NOT the Golden Ticket - SEO Demystified

Although SEO seems to be the new buzz in recruiting web 2.0 strategies, it has actually been used for years as a tactic to increase sales for online businesses.

SEO and how it fits into the recruiting industry is greatly misunderstood.

SEO Is just a tool

At the end of the day, SEO is not the end all be all. It is one tool that can be very effective to have in your tool box. No doubt, if done correctly, search engine optimization can work wonders for getting your jobs seen by people using search engines but it goes beyond just a platform or technique that helps to get your jobs visible in Google. In fact, it’s really about optimizing your entire employment brand on the Internet.

SEO may not be for everyone

There's more than just keywords and a few meta tags that go into a successful SEO strategy, if you’re not willing to look at SEO as a long term investment, it might not be the best fit for you. Maybe something more instant like SEM (PPC) might be more what you’re after.

Go where your candidates are – If the jobs you have available are not what people are searching for within the search engines then maybe you don’t need to do a whole comprehensive strategy. Maybe you just run a basic SEO strategy that strengthens your employment brand.

Note: Keep in mind that 70% of search engine queries are unique, just because a keyword research tool like the Google Adwords tool says that a phrase was not searched does not necessarily mean that it won’t be in the future.

SEO Misconceptions

Can a service provider guarantee a first page ranking? No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google - Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a "special relationship" with Google, or advertise a "priority submit" to Google. See Google webmaster tools.

Using the .jobs domain extension will ensure search engine visibility. The .jobs domain in itself will not automatically help with your search engine visibility. Those who believe otherwise don’t fully understand the way a search engine treats newly-registered domains. Search engine trust is a very important factor in the visibility of your career site. A newly established domain -- .jobs or otherwise -- has not had time to build search engine trust.

Search engine trust includes a variety of factors including but not limited to: when was the domain registered, is there quality content on the domain, is content updated frequently, are there quality links pointing to the domain, etc. In reality, the .jobs domain has more of an employment brand benefit than SEO.

Search engines cannot access my content if using an ATS - It is true that most Applicant tracking systems put up technical barriers that prevent the search engines from being able to access their job content. But there is a work around: If you can get an RSS/XML feed of your jobs and upload the feed to search engines as well as place the feed on a page that search engines can access, your job content will be indexed.

This is not an SEO solution but it will allow content that was once hidden to be found. At the end of the day candidates use a variety of sources to look for jobs. Find out where your candidates are and advertise/be visible in those places, simple as that.
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This is a guest post by Nicole Bodem - Chief SEO Geek for Arbita and the blogger behind HR Search Marketing.

Article courtesy of the Recruiting Blogswap, a content exchange service sponsored by CollegeRecruiter.com, a leading site for college students looking for internships and recent graduates searching for entry level jobs and other career opportunities.

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Finding Great Job Opportunities in Recession – Take Two

It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. ~Theodore Roosevelt

How many of us who can identify with what Roosevelt said? It pays to remember that he was the sitting President during the great depression, so that you can put that on the right perspective.

Inaction and Excuses: Barriers to Job Search Success

Unfavorable circumstances can easily derail us from our goals; we never try for fear of failure. It is easier for us somehow to blame the global financial pandemonium or other life’s tragedy, or make an excuse out of them to justify our inactivity.

I have seen many stifled by these kinds of fears and excuses. “No one will hire me, I am too old.” “I don’t have the right skills, the right education, the right experience or the right connections…” I can fill this entire post with a 10,000-word enumeration of these excuses for what? Nothing! Or perhaps just sow cynicism to those who read. I do not want that.

Excuses and fear of failures work like gangrene that eat out your motivation slowly until you realize later that you have none left.

Reality Check : Smaller Job Market

Finding job during a recession may be difficult because of the scarcity of jobs, and the increasing number of unemployed. In fact, the stats released by the Labor Bureau two weeks ago have caused the stock market to dip. While I agree with most economists that the economy is showing signs of bottoming-out, nevertheless the growing number of unemployed will continue to rise, as companies are not likely to hire in the coming months.

I know.

When the Asian economic flu hits us towards the end of the 90’s, many organizations, including mine, started streamlining. Employees who were retained were asked to multi-task. In fact, there was a time that I had to oversee 3 departments. When the economy rebounded, most companies who survived (or even did well during the downturn) were satisfied with their lean and mean workforce, thus they never bothered to hire additional people or rehire former (displaced) employees. As Weddle observed:

When things start to get better, there will be fewer jobs—not more or even the same number—as there were in the recession. Jobs aren’t being left open until things get better. They’re being destroyed. - A Job Market Filled With “Irrational Expectations”

Alright, 'nuf said.

I have laid down some facts or scenarios from an HR perspective. And yeah, you can include them in your list of excuses. Nevertheless, the fact remains, you are still jobless. Unless you get out of your comfort zone and inactivity, and free yourself from the grips of unending excuses, you will never get a job.

Focus and Determination: Essential to Job Search Success

The key is focus, and a dash of determination on your job search. Do not take a rejection from a potential employer as something personal, especially when you know you are most qualified for the job. It simply means that there is another organization out there who is more than willing to take you in. This is what I call 'finding the right fit.' It works both ways. Take heart. For more often, finding job is a numbers game. “The quicker you let go of old cheese, the sooner you find new cheese.” Spencer Johnson, wittingly puts it in his bestselling book, “Who moved my cheese?”

Note: I have posted a similar entry, although more on an action-oriented different perspective: Finding Great Job Opportunities in Recession; while here I want to encourage you - I hope I did! Good hunting!

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Building a Competitive Organization through HRM Initiatives: A Macro Perspective

An organization's ability to learn, and translate (that) learning into action rapidly, is the ultimate competitive advantage. ~Jack Welch

Jack Welch and the Basic Concept of Competitiveness

Jack Welch, former Chairman and CEO of General Electric, a.k.a. G.E., is probably one of the world’s most influential CEO in modern business management. When he speaks, other CEO's listen. Because he makes sense, and he has proven his management theories when he led G.E. to its unprecedented growth and profit. In fact, when he “left GE, the company had gone from a market value of $14 billion to one of more than $410 billion at the end of 2004, making it the most valuable and largest company in the world. (Wikipedia)”

Why take the pain to mention Welch here? Because in my mind, he taught us about the value of competitiveness in business. He cautioned businesses:

“If you don't have a competitive advantage, don't compete.”

True!

Role of HRM and Competitiveness Defined

In a very competitive market today, unchanging in spite of the economic downturn, a business that have not learned to adapt to changes and has no competitive advantage will be easily overrun by its competitions.

However, it is also true that keeping the business and its people or human resource (HR) competitive is not easy. Albeit, it is one of the most important roles of HR professionals.

Competitiveness, as meant in the sports circle, is the new ball game of doing business. Being competitive does not only mean being better or outclassing your competitors. Being competitive means being able to compete head on with any changes in the market. It is having a human resource that are willing to learn new ways of doing business and being able to use them, as Welch advised.

HRM (Human Resource Management) departments and professionals in businesses have to take on the mandate of building a competitive HR in their respective organizations. Business survival is not only dependent on how good your product and services are, how excellent is your customer service, and how efficient your business processes are but on how competitive your employees who carry out these performances. New technology, business strategies, complicated processes, and management systems are inutile without a competent human resource behind them.

Building a Competitive HR: HRM Creating Value within the Organization

HRM professionals or departments can create real value within their respective organizations when they focus on developing the competencies and positive values of their employees. These are but fundamentals in building a competitive human resource –there is more.

Competitive human performance, not machine and systems performance as some would suggest, is the core of business performance. When organizations are able to harness effectively the talent, energy, and motivation of their employees, they will have an ideal competitive business edge. The competencies of these people, when sharpened and harnessed to their full potential, will greatly enhance the overall value and competitiveness of the organization. Thus, there lies the real value contribution of the HRM professional –building the framework and environment for continuous competency development.

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The Evolving Function of HRM in Businesses

An excellent study made on HRM by Towers Perrin,concluded that:

“...human resources is being transformed from a specialized, stand-alone function to a broad corporate competency in which human resources and line managers build partnerships to gain competitive advantage and achieve overall business goals.” (Priorities for Competitive Advantage)

I must confess that I used to have a myopic view about the true definition of Human Resource Management (HRM) function. I thought then that training and development was just incidental in HRM roles and functions, where the real KRA’s (Key Result Areas) are recruitment, personnel records, salary and benefits administration, and labor relations. What I saw was a department labeled, at best, as a paper mill and, worse, as employees’ counseling clinic.

In fact, when there is no scheduled training or seminars to facilitate, one of my duties is to attend to various employees’ concerns and problems, including personal issues. I enjoyed the job though, but I was craving for more. More challenges. Strategic HRM roles that I think would make my department add value to the business in general.

That was then.

Now, I must say, I have a better grasp of what human resource management is. HRM business practice has evolved considerably over the years. As Perrin concluded, the HRM is no longer viewed as an independent department that caters only to the needs of the employees but as business strategic partner. With this, more and more HRM functions are now being shared, if not delegated entirely, with line managers and supervisors. This is was a welcome and advantageous development, not only for us HR practitioners but for the organization as a whole. With these shared responsibilities, the HRM have now become an integral and indispensable part of organizational change, business planning, and development of company’s competitiveness.

With this evolving HRM role and function, there are at least two important advantages that the organization will benefit there from, to wit:

1. Less administrative burden for the HRM department or professional.

   
   Because some of the important HRM administrative roles, now become a function of line supervision and management. What used to be employees’ problems and issues being hurled to HRM, are now being handled effectively on the shop floor by the concerned unit heads. Grievances and employees’ conflicts are now being mediated and resolved immediately by these people. This should have been the case from the very beginning, in the first place. Who else can better understand and resolve these issues other than the people who have direct supervisions? The most important role of HRM now, in this case, is training these line supervisors and managers to be better at motivating employees for performance and effective dispenser of HRM interventions in their areas of responsibility.
   



2. More time for the HRM to focus on Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM).

   
   This means, they can focus more on developing programs that will increase the organization’s competitiveness. The market is becoming more competitive each day, as technology advances at pace that we cannot almost cope. More so, way of doing business is always improving, if not changing. SHRM means devoting more time on addressing these competitive challenges and issues. This role is not easy, as it seems. This involves developing HRM plans and programs that integrate business policies, goals, and objectives to ensure that company is prepared and equipped to face the fiercest of its competitors while increasing its bottom line. It is a huge task. However, none in the organization is better fit to do this than the HRM.

New markets will emerge and new businesses will open. The HRM function will continue to evolve to adapt to these trends, and they will assert greater influence as to where businesses should be in the future.

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Is your hiring process helping or harming the organization?

Many a times when there is an issue with an employee, people blame it on the employee and do not realize that their hiring process could be the root cause.

It has been demonstrated by research, that even the best interview techniques; only provide a 50-60% (or lower) chance of hiring the right person for the job, or a person who will perform all required tasks according to the standards required.

Not hiring the right/best person can have a number of drawbacks, such as:

• Poor employee performance
• A disgruntled employee
• Unsettling influence on other staff
• Higher turnover
• Wasteful expenditure (e.g. training an employee who will leave soon)
• And finally, lower performance and profit for the organization.

The importance for companies to hire the right people for the right jobs and then retain them cannot be overstressed. This leads to happier and more productive employees and a high performance organization. In current times, it is even more important to have a proper process in place, to make sure you are hiring people who are right for job and your company.

Companies can enhance their recruitment by incorporating additional elements, such as structured and behavior based interviews, proper job and culture profiling, psychometrics, assessments centers and work sample exercises. The additional cost of implementing some of these methods will typically be small compared to the benefits from making better hiring decisions and having a company filled with the type of people you want.

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This is another guest post from Amit Puri, Managing Consultant at SandboxAdvisors.com. He has over 10 years of business, career services and HR related experience, with companies such as Bain & Co, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup. Sandbox Advisors is based in Singapore and provides career management and HR consulting services in Asia.

This article is courtesy of the Recruiting Blogswap, a content exchange service sponsored by CollegeRecruiter.com, a leading site for college students looking for internships and recent graduates searching for entry level jobs and other career opportunities.

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GIVE Potential Investors What they WANT

If you are thinking of starting your own business and want to get funding from venture capitalists or angel investors, there are some important things to think about, to increase your chances of success.

Venture capitalists engage in pattern recognition. They listen to many business plans and pitches and see many successes and failures. Over time they develop an ability to recognise patterns that occur in successful ventures. What you need to do, is understand what patterns they typically look for and develop/position your business idea as a new instance of such patterns. Here is what you need to keep in mind and think about:

Quality of management: The management team is important because investors want to be assured that when things go wrong, the company will be able to cope properly. They will look for signs of integrity, adaptive capacity, passion/motivation, number/depth of contacts and relevant experience

Value proposition: Is your solution/service/product a vitamin or a pain pill i.e. is it a nice-to-have or does it solve a pressing need for your target customers? Look not only at the product offering but also at the buying experience and the usage life cycle. How can you add benefits and/or eliminate costly benefits with little value?

Target market attractiveness: The market segment that you are targetting should provide a large enough customer base and attractive margins

Opportunities for growth: Is there enough opportunity to reap the benefits of economies of scale and scope. In the end you need to provide a return of 3-4 times the investors initial outlay

Competitive advantage and barriers to entry: How long can you hold off competition and is there anything about your business that they will not be able to replicate

These are some of the key issues to consider when starting a new venture and seeking funding. Each of the points covered has many aspects that need to be dealt with and there is too much to cover through articles. However, I hope this provides you with some good food for thought and sets you off in the right direction.


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This is a guest post by Amit Puri. He is the Managing Consultant at Sandbox Advisors. He has over 10 years of business and HR related experience, with companies such as Bain & Co, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup. Sandbox Advisors is based in Singapore and provides career management and HR consulting services in Asia.

Article courtesy of the Recruiting Blogswap, a content exchange service sponsored by CollegeRecruiter.com, a leading site for college students looking for internships and recent graduates searching for entry level jobs and other career opportunities.

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