The Asia Pacific Headhunter

What you can learn from NFL Quarterback Steve Young

I always get so much from these podcasts from Stanford's Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders series. In this one, Stan Christensen interviews former San Francisco 49ers star quarterback Steve Young on his perspective on negotiating based on what he's learned from his football career, business ventures and personal life. Many of you may know him just as the the quarterback that replaced Joe Montana, or may even know he is a Pro Football Hall of Famer and MVP of Super Bowl XXIX. But he's also a successful entrepreneur, having formed one venture fund with other NFL buddies back in the mid 90's when they were practicing out of Silicon Valley and is now the co-founder of another Sorenson Capital.  Throughout his career, both in football and after, he's been negotiating and leading others to success - which he talks about - all the tactics, strategies and soft skills that helped him along the way.

It's a long one (1 hour 28 mins), but well worth it - Steve has some great stories and I'm sure you'll find it useful, motivating, and pretty funny.

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If you're committed to being a life-long learner and want to find more useful podcasts, videos and articles check out Stanford Technology Venture Program's The Educator's Corner.

Find information on Diversity recruiting at DiversityJobs.com.

Japanese Business Podcast Review

I have had a lot of questions about podcasts in Japanese and in particular those on business. Blogging and podcasting are huge in Japan and there are some pretty impressive resources online that any Japanese learner might be interested in checking out. Those I listen to the most are provided by Radio Nikkei (ラジオNIKKEI) and Nikkei Business Online (they have the same content, but you get more written detail on the individual podcasts from the Nikkei Business Online site). Their podcasts are extremely comprehensive and have wide-ranging topics from stock investing, tax consulting, business english lessons, interviews with business leaders, as well as weekly commentary from reporters and editors.

They do require a high-level of Japanese skills and really are recommended for advanced learners rather than beginners. But in terms of improving your comprehension and exposing yourself to business-level, relevant terms then it would be hard to beat them. One of my favorites is 日経ビジネス編集長の終わらない話 2.0 (my basic translation would be: "Nikkei Business Editor-in-Chief's Neverending Story 2.0". Nikkei Business Publications Editor in Chief, Yutaka Inoue does a weekly podcast of about 45 minutes where he and Announcer, Mihoko Yakujin discuss weekly stories in depth. Inoue and Yakujin are passionate about business and opinionated as well which makes it enjoyable listening as long as you keep your dictionary handy :-).

Podcast of the Week - Joe Liemandt from Trilogy

Fun podcast below from Joe Liemandt, one of the founders of Trilogy. Joe quit Stanford with friends to start Trilogy. They used credit cards to fund the business until they did their first sale (over two years later). I don't mean one or two credit cards either. I mean A LOT of credit cards. He joked in the podcast that when he would fill out the application forms for new cards there was always only one box to answer the question: "How many other credit cards do you have?". He would think to himself "seventeen", and then write in the "1" and then wouldn't have room for the "7" so he just left it out. Nice!

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Business Podcast of the Week: Tina Seelig

This is a great motivational and insightful podcast by Tina Seelig, Executive Director for the Stanford Technology Ventures Program, where she reflects on "What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20." She initially came up with this "list" for her 17-year-old son, and soon realized how useful this would be for so many people at all levels. From young graduates, to mid-career executives looking for the next step, to employers and entrepreneurs building their companies and ideas, there are so many fundamental ideas to take away from this and put to use right away in our own lives.

I especially liked her first point: Every problem is an opportunity for a creative solution. Turning problems into opportunities for creating solutions and value is key for anyone wanting to get ahead . Listen to her problem-solving lesson she assigned to a Stanford design class. She gave each team a sealed envelope containing an undisclosed amount of seed funding and gave them a week to come up with a business idea to create value. From the time they opened the envelope they had 2 hours to implement their business plan. How much was inside? Five bucks.

At the end of the week, each team had to give a 3-minute presentation on what they came up with. What do you think those teams did, and how much do you think they made from that $5???? I'll give you a hint: the winning team made over $600...

Listen here.

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Podcast Jobs in New Zealand

Dan Salter at New Zealand's funniest IT Recruitment firm's usually quiet blog, has started to deliver their latest jobs by podcast. The podcasts are nice and short and give updates on jobs that they don't have full job descriptions on yet. I think it is a really nice idea; especially for those candidates who prefer to listen rather than read. Although a lot of people will think podcasting is a fad, I think there is something much warmer about listening to details about something than just reading it. Dan has a great voice and I hope he keeps them up, it differentiates him from his competitors in a very busy market.

Podcast interview: Recruiting in Japan

For some insight on Recruiting in Japan, have a listen to Jim Stroud's Recruiter's Lounge, in which he interviewed me last month. It was a surprise to get a request for an interview, especially since I'd been following his blog and listening to his interviews with really interesting people involved with recruiting.

Issues Jim addressed in our interview:

• How popular is English over there?
• How quickly can companies break into the region and start staffing immediately?
• Is there the threat of outsourcing?
• Insight into what candidates value in that side of the world.
• What it takes for candidates to be competitive in the job market over there.
• My best advice to a fellow recruiter looking to recruit in to and out of that market.

To listen, click here.

What Turns You On - Opportunity or Culture?

Another interesting point that Jim Stroud and Gerry Crispin brought up in their recent podcast was a discussion on what is more important to prospective candidates. Is it company culture or the career opportunity itself?

I'm with Gerry in that it's tough to have company culture without performance. If performance isn't there, you end up riding that great culture right up until the company goes out of business. Culture needs to be in sync with good performance.

As for opportunity, he talks about how many software developers and engineers want to stay on top of the game. They want the company to keep them sharp and honed so they can perform, or they're out the door. I've come across plenty of developers with this belief who will up and leave a company if they feel their company isn't up on new techniques and technology. Falling behind or becoming "obsolete" seems to be their number one fear. And rightly so, I must admit.

Gerry also had a great point about training. Training and the facility to learn will be the only reason for many employees to stay. So for him, the answer to culture vs. opportunity would be having a culture of learning balanced with the pressure of performance. Good answer.

In the end though, most job advertisements are focused towards one or the other to appeal to the candidate. I feel some serious marketing and measurement are needed to decide what really works. Internet advertising provides a great opportunity to really measure that. Try testing your ads with either a career or culture focus and see how the results pan out.

 

What Will Recruiting Look Like in 2016?

Jim Stroud asks this question in his interview with Gerry Crispin in a Podcast on his blog. Crispin, of CareerXroads Consulting, first interestingly pointed out how much recruiting has changed in the past 10 - 15 years in which companies have become much more aggressive about doing their own sourcing, and hiring third party recruiters internally to do that for them.

And so looking at 2016, recruiters will be on their way out as we know them. Their role will change from a more external and transactional nature to one that is more internal, requiring a more creative skillset with much more discipline in helping hiring managers redesign jobs for the flexible worker. As the type of worker evolves away from the standard 5 days/40 hour week type work toward flexible work involved with independent contracting, job sharing, temp, temp-to-perm, contingency, semi-retirement/mentoring, etc., companies need to rethink their jobs and needs. They will require that flexibility to overcome both a labour shortage and a candidate that has more choices.

I agree that recruiters need to be working even closer with hiring managers. I feel for my clients who are in HR and who seem to get hamstrung by their hiring managers who insist on the old "I'll know it when I see it" method of profiling jobs and candidates. There's often distance and lack of communication between HR and hiring managers, and therefore passed on to external recruiters. A lot more effort, efficiency and creativity put in at the beginning of the hiring process will ensure great results and a recruiting vehicle that's agile and nimble, not reactive.

Anyway, go have a listen; it's well worth your time.

Japanese Podcast for Intermediate and Advanced Learners

Improving and retaining my Japanese language skills is one of my biggest challenges. I don't have anyone in particular to speak with on a day to day basis in Japanese so most of my study involves listening or reading. I recently called a friend in Japan and spent some time talking with them on the phone and realized I do need to schedule something a little more regular to maintain my skills.

Up until now I hadn't taken a great interest in the different podcasts available in Japanese, just because of time constraints. But last week I did some searching and came up with one that I really like. It is called Nihongo Juku, and is produced by Reiko-san at www.njuku.com. There are 3 good reasons to really like her work. Firstly she is creating a Japanese podcast about Japanese, not a lesson. That means it is more like a news story and in a small easily digestible 2 or 3 minutes. Secondly it is strictly for Intermediate or Advanced learners. And thirdly she provides a vocabulary list on her site so you can prepare yourself or check your comprehension afterwards.

Her recent few podcasts have some really interesting topics (if you study Japanese) like subject omission and gender language (a very important topic for Japanese speakers who speak to more women than men or vice versa). It will be really interesting to see what comes up next.

Business Podcast of the Week

I listened to a great podcast from Janice Fraser, CEO of Adaptive Path, yesterday. Janice was presenting for Stanford University's Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders series. Her first 20 minutes were very insightful for recruiters and anyone in business. In particular she talked about how important "culture" has been to her company and their growth. Also she made a point that one of my clients also made to me recently. The importance of understanding what the purpose of your company is, and what are the values your company holds.

If everyone understands the purpose and values  of a company then  recruiting and actions  can all be aligned to those values. Adaptive Path's values are "Think, Make, Collaborate and Grow". Janice was certain that everyone in the company was aware of this and had joined the company with the knowledge of what those values were and how they influenced the company culture. My client gave a great example of how to know whether a company follows it's values. If the company preaches superior customer service as their value, but when it comes to paying their own bills their Accountant habitually delays payment that basically means they don't live up to those values across the business. Eventually that kind of inconsistency will really hurt a company.

He recommended Built To Last by Jim Collins as a great book to get more detail on building a company based on values. I have to pick up a copy so if anyone has a spare copy up for grabs then let me know.