Blake's Recruiting Career as Microsoft Recruiter

I created several polls on LinkedIn. The LinkedIn polls is a very interesting feature and supports data analyis on the backend, as a free user the application is not powerful enough to support multiple choices. However, it's still useful to gather some information and opinions from a wide audience.

 

 

The thinking behind is trying to understand the activeness of the job market and the effecitve methodology to generate quality candidates and talents for the pipeline building. As I was in charge of a Senior Talent Candidate Value Proposition project these days, we am trying to figure out what web 2.0 will impact the recruiting in China and how senior and experienced IT candidates will respond to that, and whether their career motivations and job hunting behavior will be changed by the new technology as well as the tough economical situation.

 

I personally believe it's a trend that recruting will no longer mean sourcing and placement, esp. in IT industry, where candidates are more exposed to new technologies in web and cloud services. And together with the growth of Y generation, in the next 10 years, the staffing function in corporate will be less operative but more strategic, plays more important role in staffing marketing, building the employer brand and analyze your customer, which is your candidate. And as a bridge between businesses, internal HR functions and external job market, gather more market intelligence, actively involved in the decision making such as on C&B adjustment. Candidate experience is another key issue staffing will care more and more as the re-position of employer. The change of staffing function will also be reflected on the outsourcing of low end talent generation through agencies or contractor sourcers, so that FTEs can focus more on high end talents and develop diffrent campaigns to align with business stategy. Another key indicator of a successful inhouse staffing is that the ability of finding and adopting new technologies.

 

The key challenge in my current project is how to build, maintain and grow an active high quality talent network, it's rather time consuming and recruiters involved do need to have a marketing mindsets and be more creative and proactive in creating the media content. And how to successfully adopting a methodology to understand the needs of target audience is another challenge.

 

 

 

We all face hardships at some point in our lives. It's an absolute certainty. How we deal with these hardships defines who we are. Some of us own up to the responsibility and get on with our lives, while the rest of us cop out by blaming others. When you take ownership of responsibility, you empower yourself. You realize you are the cause and your life experiences are the results.  You determine the direction of your life and make changes when necessary. You are in control of your life; your life doesn't control you.

If you are not able to explain why your life is as it is, you are giving your power away to someone else. Most of us tend to blame someone else or something else for our fate and all the bad experiences in our life (such as abusive childhood, loss of a loved one or broken relationships). When you are not in control of yourself or your life - you are powerless.  The "blame game" you are playing is a very disempowering emotion and will get you nowhere. 

If you think by blaming others you can escape from your problems, you are completely wrong and you are behaving like a spoiled child. If you give others the power to control you, your decisions and your life, your life problems will stay the way they are until you take back power and claim full responsibility for your emotions, actions and your life as a whole.

True empowerment is taking responsibility for your life so that you are free to do whatever you want, whenever you want, and be anything you choose to be.

Here are 4 tips to empower you:

1) Make your own choices - Life is full of choices and you have the incredible freedom to choose. You learn only through trial and error. Be bold and accept the outcome of your decisions. If your choice is correct, be happy. If not, don't blame yourself or others. Instead, analyze where you went wrong and correct yourself. I've made mistakes and so will you. The next time around, make a better choice.

2) Practice deep breathing - If you make it a habit to practice deep breathing throughout the day, you will have more clarity in your thoughts. Your body will feel more relaxed to think clearly and make good judgments in your situations.

3) Feel grateful - Gratitude is something we hardly ever take notice of for many of the things we enjoy in life. Instead of cursing your problems, look around you and realize how blessed you are to have nature bestow you good health, sunshine, food, good relationships, fresh air, etc. When you start to feel grateful for these things, you'll be more convinced that life isn't bad at all. It's empowering when you can feel this throughout your body and soul.

4) Develop mental awareness - Observe your thoughts. Are they good or bad? Are they positive or negative? If your thoughts are positive it is good. You can act on them with positive results. What if you have negative thoughts? You can only control negative thoughts if you are aware of them. Don't let these negative thoughts spiral out of control. Diffuse them immediately. Empower yourself by being aware of your good and bad thoughts.

When you can deal with your own pain and pleasure, you are the controller of your life. Don't let anyone else take away your power to control your life and events. You are the master of your destiny.

There was once a stone cutter who was dissatisfied with himself and with his position in life.

One day he passed a wealthy merchant's house. Through the open gateway, he saw many fine possessions and important visitors. "How powerful that merchant must be!" thought the stone cutter. He became very envious and wished that he could be like the merchant.

To his great surprise, he suddenly became the merchant, enjoying more luxuries and power than he had ever imagined, but envied and detested by those less wealthy than himself. Soon a high official passed by, carried in a sedan chair, accompanied by attendants and escorted by soldiers beating gongs. Everyone, no matter how wealthy, had to bow low before the procession. "How powerful that official is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be a high official!"

Then he became the high official, carried everywhere in his embroidered sedan chair, feared and hated by the people all around. It was a hot summer day, so the official felt very uncomfortable in the sticky sedan chair. He looked up at the sun. It shone proudly in the sky, unaffected by his presence. "How powerful the sun is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be the sun!"

Then he became the sun, shining fiercely down on everyone, scorching the fields, cursed by the farmers and laborers. But a huge black cloud moved between him and the earth, so that his light could no longer shine on everything below. "How powerful that storm cloud is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be a cloud!"

Then he became the cloud, flooding the fields and villages, shouted at by everyone. But soon he found that he was being pushed away by some great force, and realized that it was the wind. "How powerful it is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be the wind!"

Then he became the wind, blowing tiles off the roofs of houses, uprooting trees, feared and hated by all below him. But after a while, he ran up against something that would not move, no matter how forcefully he blew against it - a huge, towering rock. "How powerful that rock is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be a rock!"

Then he became the rock, more powerful than anything else on earth. But as he stood there, he heard the sound of a hammer pounding a chisel into the hard surface, and felt himself being changed. "What could be more powerful than I, the rock?" he thought.

He looked down and saw far below him the figure of a stone cutter.