Chickens Come Home to Roost

About a year ago, I wrote a blog that predicted what would happen as a result of a specific (unnamed) corporation’s outsourcing strategy. http://habaconsulting.blogspot.com/2010/10/no-crystal-ball-required.html

It’s time to say, “I told you so.” I do not relish being right in this circumstance, as many hard-working, loyal professionals lost their jobs to overseas workers. But the chickens are coming home to roost, and I must say that I don’t have any sympathy for the big guys that have been calling the shots, who are now scrambling for a solution.

Here’s the update on the situation:

MY PREDICTION: “Customer satisfaction will erode with the quality of support provided by the call center(s).”
WHAT HAS HAPPENED: According to insiders, call response times have increased from seconds to many minutes. Once someone answers the phone, the interaction is frustrating and solutions are elusive. Customers are angry.

MY PREDICTION: “Dissatisfaction with support services will foment into serious complaints to senior business management outside the IT/support arena.”
WHAT HAS HAPPENED: Business owners and managers have been complaining vociferously to the people in power in the business, demanding that something be done to improve the quality of support.

MY PREDICTION: “The relationship between IT and the rest of the company will deteriorate.”
WHAT HAS HAPPENED: Although it was the executives on the business side who made the decision to outsource, the CIO entrusted with implementing the strategy has become the whipping boy for the failure. If the CIO is in bad graces, his organization suffers as well.

MY PREDICTION: “At least some support functions will be brought back in-house.”
WHAT HAS HAPPENED: This is where it gets really interesting. The outsourcing contract is being revised. The vendor has sent letters out to support employees who were laid off early this year to solicit their application to be hired (by the vendor, not the corporation) to establish a support escalation organization.

Where this all goes long term remains to be seen. Once in place, will the escalation group staffed by former employees of the corporation end up handling all the calls, making the outsourced first contact group redundant? How many people, burned once by the corporation’s layoffs, will accept a job with the vendor? Will the change in direction and additional services placate the business customers? Will the CIO’s career with the corporation survive?

This would make a really interesting outsourcing case study. I’m staying tuned in.

A LinkedIn Primer for New Graduates

You have graduated (or are about to graduate) from college, and are hunting for a job. You already know that you need to create a professional profile in LinkedIn. Unfortunately, you don’t have much of a meaningful professional life to describe, yet. Nevertheless, you need to proceed with the task. Think of your LinkedIn profile as a work in progress – continuously. It’s crucial to keep your information fresh and up to date. But you need to start somewhere. Here are some tips:

1. YOUR NAME: Everyone searching for you or connecting with you will use this information. If you have always been known by a shortened version of your first name (e.g. Tim vs. Timothy), you should continue use that name. On a Search, LinkedIn knows enough to return Timothy for Tim, William for Bill, Richard for Rick. (Note that it doesn’t seem quite as smart in regard to shortened versions of women’s names, e.g. it did not list Kaitlyn for Kate.) If you have a very common name, you will need to provide other information in your profile to facilitate an Advanced Search, such as your Alma Mater and your Location.

2. YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS: Not only will you use your email address to logon to LinkedIn, but your email address will be visible to all of your LinkedIn connections. It will also be used to notify you of important LinkedIn updates (including requests to connect and incoming messages). Many students have been using a university-provided email account. If you are about to graduate, you may need to create a new email address for yourself. Using gmail is a good, free option. Make your email address moniker a version of your name, so that people can easily recognize it as yours.

3. PHOTO OR NO PHOTO: Having a photo on your LinkedIn account is optional, but I believe that it is beneficial. However, a bad photo is worse than no photo. Change out of your T-shirt, put on a shirt with a collar and/or a jacket, and have a friend take a decent head shot of you for your profile.

4. YOUR AVAILABILITY: Your profile should include your graduation date and a statement regarding your availability – both in terms of timing and location. For example: “Available for employment immediately after June 2012 graduation. Currently living in Chicago, IL, but open to relocation anywhere in the continental U.S.”

5. CRAFTING THE SUMMARY: Tell us what you have studied, what your degree is in, and how you hope to apply your education (what kind of job you hope to find). This isn’t a resume. You can be a little creative here and give us a glimpse of your personality.

6. YOU DO HAVE EXPERIENCE!: A big part of your LinkedIn profile is the enumeration of your experience. You may require some help thinking about this from the perspective of a potential employer. It’s certainly easier to detail the experience you gained from an internship related to your field of study than it is to find the relevance in other types of summer jobs, but you can always focus on the responsibilities with which you were entrusted and the skills you gained. If you closed up a pizza joint after the manager went home, you were entrusted with the security of the premises and the cash register – AKA “Management Experience”. If you were a camp counselor, you were entrusted with the development and safety of children – AKA “Mentoring”.

7. RECOMMENDATIONS: You need several professional recommendations on your profile. Tap your connections while they are current! If you have had an internship, as for a recommendation from your Supervisor(s). Consider approaching other past employers and professors as well. For more tips, read my April 2010 blog on Collecting Recommendations.

8. HELP US RELATE: LinkedIn Profiles can be very dry and technical. Your profile will most likely be viewed by related professionals who understand your field, and by Human Resources professionals and other acquaintances who do not. The wording and terminology you use needs to generate universal interest. If you are in a technical field, use of specific terms may be necessary – but you also need to offer a translation for people who don’t know the lingo, so they can relate to your skills and experience in some way.

9. WELL-ROUNDED: Something prospective employers consider is whether you will “fit in” to their team and work environment. Give them a glimpse into who you are by adding a little information about your interests and extracurricular activities. LinkedIn also allows you to add a “Reading List by Amazon”. Use this if you are reading books that highlight your interest in continued learning and professional growth.

10. START CONNECTING: Send out invitations to connect to past employers, fellow students, friends, relatives, etc. The real value in LinkedIn is your network. You’ll be surprised how quickly it expands once you get started.

Once you have a draft of your LinkedIn profile – ask trusted, experienced professionals that you know to review it and give you feedback. Make changes. Look at other people’s profiles and adopt good ideas for your own use. A healthy majority of employers now search social websites to research job candidates. You can make a good impression by having a well-developed LinkedIn profile.

Other recommended reading:
Advice for Newly Hired Graduates
10 Ways to Screw-Up Your LinkedIn Presence
10 More Ways to Screw-Up Your LinkedIn Presence
Are you Purposefully Positioning Your Online Identity?

Since 9-11-01

My blog is tardy today, because I struggled with the feelings generated by yesterday’s many commemorations of the 10 year anniversary of 9-11-01. Since the terrorist attacks and tragic loss of life and reactive heroism of that day, what have we learned and how have we changed as people?

We continue to mourn the victims of that day and say that we will never forget. Let’s remember, most of all, the people who died that day…the workers, the travelers, the first responders, and the terminally unlucky. All those lives and loves and dreams cut short by evil. The pain left with those who were witnesses and survived. Yet today we continue to willfully cause each other pain.

• Children bully each other in school, aiming to boost their egos through the pain of others.
• Urban gang members create their own cultures and brutal turf wars to fill the void created by weakness and dysfunction in their uncaring or powerless family circles.
• “Entertainment” features violence, perversion, and stereotypes that desensitize our youth.
• We gather friends online instead of getting out and finding meaningful ways to relate to people.
• Our politicians are allowed to throw muck at each other in the most shameful, irrelevant ways. Not only do we allow the media to follow suit, but we gleefully get caught up in the name-calling.
• Corporate executives continue to bow to greed – sending jobs and careers overseas while our friends and families collect unemployment, lose their homes, and struggle to reinvent themselves.

We remember, but what did we truly learn? To continue to lash out, hate, and be fearful?

Perhaps we can’t all be great philanthropists, but we can take steps to live our lives and do our jobs with more love, tolerance, and grace.  That's what I aspire to do.

Be a Fan of Laborers - Today and Every Day

Many people think of a “good job” as a salaried, Monday through Friday, white collar professional position behind a desk. In today’s economic environment, those positions may be hard to find and not as secure as they once were. We forget that there are many, many important jobs in our country filled by people who work very hard and provide us with highly valuable services that we sometimes take for granted.

Labor Day is a good day to remember to be grateful to those people who do “real work”. I know that corporate jobs can be require long hours and be very stressful. But if you spend your day mostly sitting behind a desk or at a conference table, typing on your computer in a climate-controlled environment, thank your lucky stars for these types of professional, skilled, hard-working contributors to our society:

• The medical aide who takes care of your sick relatives and friends in hospitals and clinics.
• The guy at the automotive repair shop who gets his hands dirty to keep your car road-ready.
• The line cook who prepares your fancy expense account meal.
• The farmer who nurtures the crops that make their way to your kitchen.
• The construction worker that resurfaces the roads you drive on.
• The servers who are on their feet all evening, responding to your signals for a refill.
• The guy who comes out in the middle of the night when your sewer backs up.
• The electrician who finds the wiring problem that keeps your house from burning down.
• The landscaper that cuts your grass and rakes your leaves.
• The room attendant who cleans your hotel room and changes your bedding.

Treat your fellow laborers with the respect they have earned. Happy Labor Day!

This blog was inspired by a CBS Sunday Morning interview with Mike Rowe.  For more:
Sept 4 Interview - Mike Rowe