June 2008 Archives

This ZDNet article on what Asian employees are looking for in a job, isn’t too bad. To quote,

It is the total package that counts, by that I mean salary, plus challenging work, a competent and understanding supervisor, great coworkers, and opportunities to keep learning and to move up the ranks.

Recruiters say finding good talent and keeping them is a challenge. I will not argue with that, but I believe more can always be done, and earlier rather than later. In fact, I believe employers can take proactive steps to preempt resignations and to give their staff a reason to stay, way before their staff even start to entertain thoughts and offers of employment elsewhere.

However, I don’t agree on Facebook being classified as simply a distraction to real work, because it’s part of my job :) Or at least, I made it part of my job. It really is a matter of trust - not just for this issue but for everything else as well.

It’s really clear that while it’s nice to have more money, there’s no point staying on if you’re miserable or have no career prospects.

I met up with a university senior of mine who completed his MBA in London a few years ago. He was telling me how an MBA isn’t just about studying - in fact that was a relatively small consideration (!) compared to the networks that one could build.

The premise is: We are all strong and weak in different areas. We should therefore help our classmates in areas that we’re strong in, and in turn they might help us in areas where we’re weak.

My senior helped a Korean classmate who was a high-ranking exec from a MNC. As this Korean’s English wasn’t as good, he asked my senior to vet his work, which he did. They didn’t keep in touch after that.

Years later, though, my senior received numerous business leads from this classmate of his, because the classmate remembered that in his first week, my senior had helped him. My senior had even forgotten the precise details of how he helped his classmate, but the classmate never forgot his act.

These are the sorts of friendships and alliances forged in business school and I hope I’ll have my own stories to tell, in the years to come.