Anyway, I’ve noticed that nowadays nearly everyone has an instant messenger account and we use these messengers very often in our life – be it at work, or at home. And nearly all of these messengers have a feature which allows the users to set the statuses, pretty much like Facebook status. This status feature is very useful actually since we can post up announcements, promote something, or just to tell the world how we’re feeling at any particular time.

Funny statuses by people (not my YM)

But there’s not all. To me, these statuses also show glimpses of the person’s personality. For example, if a person has the status “Today is a f**ked up day”….and he/she has it for several days, then it either means the person is a very hot-tempered and frustrated person or the person is actually a very forgetful person (since he/she forgot to change the status after several days).

On the other hand, if a person’s statuses are always sentences like “……..”, “Why can’t you understand me?”, “Why do you do this to me?”, “Why everyone treats me like an idiot?” ……..these statuses show that the person is having some serious emotional problem. My first impression upon seeing such statuses = this guy/girl is not suitable for very stressful job because he/she will most likely lets his/her emotion gets the better of him/her.

And there are also people who always put you in the invisible list but would not hesitate to message you. To me, these people are either very busy people, or they are selfish. If they don’t want you to message them, what makes them think they can message you anytime?

Ah well, I don’t know. This is just my observation. I’m actually taking my break now so my mind is a bit …mixed up between all those Java codes and the real world stuff. Sorry if it sounds funny. LOL.

Last but not least, if you’re on Twitter, maybe you can add me in there

Here’s my account – daydreamer20.

Something we need to deal with more during this employer job market?

This has actually transformed the job market from an employee market to an employer market. Employees are no longer in a good position to bargain with the employers unless they belong to those “elite” group of employees which are very rare in this country. If you belong to those “elites”, then good for you. Otherwise, you better start changing your mindset and accept the fact that the job market is now an employer market.

Here are few changes which I can think of when employers take over the control of the job market:

• The amount of increment/adjustment from your current pay to the new pay will be greatly reduced. Rather than the regular 20% jump, you might need to look at only 5% to 15% difference.
• A lot of employee benefits will be removed. New employees might have much lesser benefits than existing employees.
• It is advisable for you not to say “I only do what I am hired to do”. Because if you don’t do something which is outside your job scope, someone else will.
• You might be required to work for longer hours on more projects, with the same amount (or lesser) salary. Again, if you are not willing to do it, someone else out there will be glad to take over your role.
• Job candidate needs to be very impressive in order to land a well-paying job because being average will not give you any advantage over the other 1000 candidates who applied for the same job.
• If you have been an IT programmer for many years, then maybe it’s time to know other things besides your programming stuff. Employers love to have someone who can be good in more than 1 thing.
• You might need to pay for your own training outside in order to skill up on the necessary skills. Most companies would prefer to hire someone who has been trained, than someone who needs to be trained.
• Attitude, attitude and attitude. This has been very important throughout the years but it has become even more important now. A lot of people are feeling demotivated and having a good attitude and motivated spirit will actually give you an advantage over other job candidates.

That’s why if you are looking for a job and you’re thinking you’re the best and deserve only the best company…maybe you should think again. If you are the best, then good for you and I believe those big companies will surely want you. But if you are not the best (which is more likely), then it’s time to wake up and realize that your bargaining power with the employers or potential employers will be greatly reduced due to the supply and demand of the job market.

It’s an employer market now, and it’s not really a good news for us employees. Maybe I should start my own business to take advantage of such opportunity. LOL.

But I believe that there’s no definite right or wrong here. It depends on what you want to achieve with that photo of yours and how confident you are with it.

When applying for a job, you are hoping that the company will give you a chance in terms of job interview based on your qualifications and experiences and NOT based on your look. Unless, you are applying for marketing or personal assistant kind of role where good look is very important. Otherwise, in my opinion, it is better not to attach any photo in your CV. Why?

• Your photo might not look like your real person. This might cause a very big disappointment to the interviewer if he/she calls you for an interview based on your “good-looking” photo.
• Your photo might be mislead the interviewers and they might neglect your true qualifications.
• Your photo might not be as nice as you would’ve hoped for. Thus, by placing your photo there, they will just filter you out without looking at your CV’s content.
• By placing your photo in there, you are trying to cover some facts about your skills and trying to mislead the person doing the filtering. And yes, I’ve said this before.

Not convinced? Let me give you an example. The other day, I was talking to a recruiter friend of mine who used to work in the Human Resource department of a large multinational company. She has to go through a lot of resumes and CVs in a single month…and I do mean A LOT. Some of the CVs have the photos attached and whenever she saw such type of CVs, there will only be 2 outcome. Either the photo is very bad and the candidate got filtered out straight away, or the photo is very good and she will proceed to the content. Because by placing a photo there, that is the first impression you are giving to the HR. Imagine if you received a CV with a photo belonging to someone who cannot even open his eyes properly…the sleepy and tired look. Do you think you want to hire him as a consultant? Ok, first filtering done….so she called up the group of people qualified for the job interviews. Apparently, a lot of those with good looking photos, didn’t appear to look as nice. Some of them were …well…ridiculously different. And they got penalized for that too because they were not being honest.

Do you want to hire an employee who always looks like this?

Conclusion? I really feel that the disadvantages you get by placing your photo in the CV or resume far outweight the advantages.

That’s why I’ve never adviced any of my friends to attach their photo in the CV or resume (even though some of my friends are really good looking people). Whenever they ask why, my answer will be “Don’t blindfold them with your photo. Convince them with your skills and experiences. That is how it should be done.”

Why?

2 reasons.

• Worth a try? You need to know whether the company’s financial result is okay in order to decide whether it’s worth it. No point jumping into a company with serious cashflow problem. Besides that, you also need to know whether the company’s culture is suitable for you. What’s the point of joining a company with a culture which does not suit your personality? For example, if you know the company will make you work 12 hours a day but you don’t fancy such working culture, then no point wasting your time going for the job.
• Information for interview? By knowing the company profile, their history and what they do, you can actually use the information to your advantage during the interview. Nearly all the interviews I’ve been to (especially the big companies) will ask what do I know about their company. And if you’re able to impress them by saying something they don’t know (like saying the Fortune ranking of the parent company in US), you will most likely impress the interviewers. It also shows that you know the reason you want to join the company. You’ll be surprised that some people just go for the interview without knowing what the company is doing.

That’s why before you go for an interview (or even before you apply for the job), always find out about the company. It is one of the most important things to do.

Remember that to join the wrong company and then quit few weeks later, is a very bad record for you especially if you do that too often.

All the best and hope it helps.

To be honest, I pity her because I have quite a similar experience as well.

I then threw her one question “Why don’t you find a way to force him out?”

She replied “My colleagues and I have tried isolating him. But he’s still the same! Our HR policy does not allow us to terminate someone due to their idiotic behavior. And so far, he didn’t do anything which is against the policy of the company (aka misconduct).”

She’s right. If there’s such an employee in your company who doesn’t do anything against the policy of the company and still do his job (pretty good too), there’s no good reason for you to terminate him unless you want the company reputation to go down the drain.

But the fact that this guy is bothering nearly every single employee (except the bosses) in my friend’s company doesn’t help either. I’ve seen such cases before in my previous companies and the idiots actually left soon after the isolation. Guess the case with my friend’s company is that the idiot does not want to leave. There are already few good people who left because of him and this is not good for the company.

And to be honest with you, I can’t think of anything to handle this guy – except for isolation from colleagues and if possible, bosses.

Maybe that’s why people always say prevention is better than cure. Always recruit people carefully. It’s true that it’s never easy to recruit good people, but I feel that it’s even harder NOT to recruit idiots. Reference checks? Those are useful but they are not 100% accurate. But it’s better than nothing at all.

If I were the boss, I will take in an average guy as my new employee rather than an idiot – all the time. No point ruining the spirit of the entire company because of one person.

Remember, no one person is bigger than the company.

What bout Human Resource recruiter (headhunters are not tied to the company and the company’s work culture)? Impression is also very important. It gives the candidate a brief “look” at how your company works.

Few years ago, a HR recruiter of a Singaporean company called me for interview. Prior to the call, I was pretty interested in what the company was doing at that time. But after the call, I turned down. Why? Because called me twice – 9pm on 1 day, and 10pm on another day. On the second occasion, she thought I was a new candidate.

And just recently, another recruiter called me. I was very very interested in the job description actually (no, I didn’t apply) but I turned it down anyway. Why? Because she called me at 11.30pm.

The good thing is that these HR recruiters did not try to hide the fact their respective company’s work culture is to work until very late. It’ll be much worse if you go to a new company, ONLY to realize that their work culture doesn’t suit you.

Still, it is also undeniable that……they were scaring the candidates off by calling the candidates at such ungodly hour.

So if you’re a recruiter, try to call the potential candidates at around 6-7pm. I think that’s the best timing to call.

Remember, first impression is very important.