Blogging and Recruiting

There’s a group in Linkedin that’s aptly called the Social Media Recruiting Group.  The group has acknowledged the value of multiple social networks in recruiting and its use in staying competitive. It also explores creative ways to combine various online sources for candidates.

The use of Social Media and Networks, though as non-traditional as it may be, is now an accepted strategy for sourcing and recruiting candidates.

“Word-of-mouth” is the force that is driving social media.

News travels fast among IT professionals and leveraging social media to announce job openings is a key sourcing strategy. You can also talk about the company (albeit anonymously) and the benefits of working with that company. It would be like having an online recruiting brochure.

Sysgen, as an IT staffing and recruiting company now recognizes social media as a critical component in their sourcing and recruitment plans. With the advent of Web 2.0 and social media, the power of word-of-mouth is much greater than before.

Blogging is a form of social media, and having said this, Sysgen is now applying blogging to recruiting. We are convinced that the use of recruiting blogs may be a good alternative to the old help wanted ad. Advantages of using recruiting blogs include giving the advert a more personal touch; having a feedback mechanism; and encouraging conversation.

************************************************************

Two weeks ago, we sought the assistance of bloggers in trying fill up the thousands of job openings that we are currently working on.  Their role was to blog about our job openings and act as sourcing channels for potential candidates.

As promised, we will be giving a Sysgen Digital Clock to the first five bloggers who blogged about our job openings... and they are:

1.  Andresito Villato - http://quimboph1.blogspot.com/2010/11/job-hiring.html
2.  Liaochiling - http://lilmisschrissie.blogspot.com/2010/12/it-professionals-sysgen-wants-you.html
3.  Miss K - http://kiranbudhrani.blogspot.com/2010/12/openings-for-it-computer-science.html
4.  Prudence - http://prudencemd.com/?p=2459
5.  Paige - http://yourmylovepoems.com/job-opportunities.html

Remembering my grandfather for who he was...

Last night, we were invited to watch “100: Insular Life’s Musical Journey in C Major” - a  musical narrative of Insular’s rise from being the first Filipino owned life insurance company founded in 1910 to one of the biggest in the Philippines today.

As a non-commercial production for its employees, retirees, and special guests, we were invited on account of being a descendant of a man who helped insular grow to what it is now... that man was my grandfather...Emeterio Chavez Roa Sr.

I always knew that my grandfather was at one time the GM of Insular. As it turns out, he was the general manager of Insular when World War II broke out and was instrumental in seeing Insular through those tumultuous years.

Watching the musical brought me back to memory lane. I fondly remember my grandfather for who he was. He was a kind and patient man, a man with superior intellect and an outstanding sense of humour. My fondest memories of him was when he quipped  to me that “he doesn’t mind a liar, but a stupid one is something else ” – this was after he caught me delivering an obvious lie.

He had a PhD in Math and was the first Actuary in the Far East - a feat he accomplished in the 1920’s as one of the first American “pensionados” sent to the U.S. to study. As a scholar in the University of Michigan, he established a record of having a perfect grade of 1.0 in all his subjects.  In the 1950’s, he together with 3 other Roas (my father, an uncle, and a granduncle) and 3 other Actuaries founded the Actuarial Society of the Philippines.

My grandfather during his senior years (holding a cane)
with his siblings Tecla and Mickoy

The love of his life was of course my grandmother, Candida Capistrano. She was 6 years his junior and happened to be a high school student when they met – HIS high school student! He was a teacher (and a stalker?) who fell in love with his student and followed her home every day.  Prior to leaving for the U.S. as an American pensionado, he professed his love to her and promised to come home and marry her. .. the rest as they say is history.

Coming from a clannish family, I remember all the Sundays we had at their home at Bohol Avenue, Quezon City. Sunday was always a party at their house wherein my dad’s family would all gather for Sunday lunch. I always looked forward to those Sundays when we’d be among our cousins playing games like “agawang base” and “patintero.”  (Of course, there were the occasional squabbles but that’s another story).

During their latter years, he and my grandmother decided to move back to Cagayan De Oro which I think he really considered as home.  Though he passed away 29 years ago at the age of 85, I still have very fond memories of my grandfather.

My First True Shot As An Entrepreneur

The year was 1974 when my two buddies and I decided to go into the retail business. We were 13 years old and in grade 6 at an exclusive school for boys run by the Jesuits.

Our target market – teenage and pubescent classmates who like us had raging hormones to quite down. We had a captured market that had daily allowances to spend. So, just as Facebook’s origin may have been due to a rush of testosterone, we decided to get into the adult magazine retailing business.

Wikipedia defines a target market as a “group of customers that the business has decided to aim its marketing efforts and ultimately its merchandise. A well-defined target market is the first element to a marketing strategy.”

It furthers adds that “the target market and the marketing mix variables of product, distribution, promotion and price are the two elements a marketing mix strategy that determine the success of a product in the marketplace.”

Without really knowing it then, we had the perfect marketing mix strategy:

1. we had a target market.
2. a product that met a basic need.
3. a distribution channel that did not require middle men nor expensive locations.
4. marketing promotion  that went viral without the luxury of today’s social network.
5. a relatively affordable price considering some rich classmates' daily allowance.

In effect, we identified a need within a readily available market.  We had a product that went viral within the day and profit margins most entrepreneurs can only dream of. 

Our costs:

1. The bus ride to Avenida Rizal where are suppliers were located.
2. The cost of the magazines.
3. The limitless excuses we gave our parents as to why we got home a little late.

It was a short lived business venture that lasted for a month. Like all illegal and immoral business ventures, it was bound to end suddenly with calamitous repercussions. Luckily for us, we were busted by a veteran teacher who talked to us and brought us to our senses instead of throwing the book on us.

I have since then stuck to businesses that are moral and legal.

About 5 years ago, my company (Sysgen) was approached to staff a project to develop an adult website for an American firm. It meant revenues in dollars and hourly rates that were above the norm. The project would have earned us a hefty amount but without giving it much thought, we politely said no to the project.

I have found that integrity and honesty are the cornerstones of a good business. 

Why I Became An Entrepreneur

Though I was fortunate to go to the best schools in the country, I was never an achiever in terms of academics. In grade school, I was happy-go-lucky and was always finding ways to enjoy my childhood to the fullest. My mom would always find me playing in the streets of our village instead of burying myself in textbooks. I would wonder why my two older brothers would study more than two hours a day, while I’d be up to something else.  But then, I guess it was no wonder why they were both in the honors class of Ateneo and I was always in a regular class. High school and college were no different… those were the “good time” years and I lived them like there was no tomorrow.

They say necessity is the mother of taking chances. My decision to become an entrepreneur was borne out of the fact that I did not have the credentials to climb the corporate ladder… nor the patience to climb it. I reached a conscious decision that if I was going to work hard, then I was going to do it for myself and not for anybody else. It just didn’t make sense to me to work hard and make others (i.e. my employers) enjoy the fruits of my labor.

I also assumed that being an entrepreneur meant having the freedom to choose when to work. That assumption though quickly faded as I started my first business. An entrepreneur is 24x7 profession. Owning your business requires you to be on top of everything especially during the start up years. You need to be ready to wear different hats and perform all the roles needed to get the business going. You need to be ready to have sleepless nights when collections aren’t good and cash flow is slow. It’s only when the business is established and you’ve hired good people when you truly enjoy the fruits of your labor. At Sysgen and Sysgen Outsource, I have been fortunate enough to work with the best managers in the business… managers who are entrepreneurs in their own way.

The morale of the story is that anybody can be an entrepreneur as long as they put their heart and mind into it. Having good grades in school is not a prerequisite to setting up your own business, though being knowledgeable is a definite plus.

By the way, it always helps to have a family that supports you all the way. 

Being lucky requires a lot of hard work.

We very often hear business people refer to the “pain point” and that business opportunities revolve around that pain point. In 1997, the Y2K problem (or the Year 2000 problem) was fast approaching its deadline. For those too young to remember, the Y2K problem was a problem in the computer world resulting from the practice of abbreviating a four-digit year to two digits. Thousand of computer programmers were needed to solve the situation by changing the computer codes to accommodate 4 digits instead of 2 digits.

Identifying pain need not be a flash of brilliance. It was obvious that the I.T. industry would need IT staffing support to address the problem. Since the Y2K was a temporary but urgent situation, the need for IT Staff Augmentation became essential for the IT companies addressing the problem… this gave birth to the Sysgen IT Staff Augmentation business.

What started in 1997 continues to be a profitable business for Sysgen. What started with me alone being the business developer, account manager, and the recruiter has grown to 2 people doing business development, 5 people doing account management and 12 people doing recruiting. Sysgen’s a annual revenues from IT Staff Augmentation is in the neighborhood of Php 80M (USD 1.8M). Currently we have almost 200 IT Professionals deployed to different projects.

Thomas Edison once said that “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”

Being able to identify opportunities is the true mark of an entrepreneur. Making the best out of the opportunity is what makes you lucky… being lucky requires a lot of hard work.