The Official Blog of Benifys HR Solutions

If you look around our blog, you will find quite a few articles that deal with the ‘ambiguity’ of things, being comfortable with the uncomfortable is an underrated activity. There are many times when there are no clear answers, Entrepreneurship is no different, and it actually would be a tad misleading to associate the ‘entrepreneurship’ phenomenon to any one single attribute – but if we are to talk about the most dominant one, it would probably be instinct.

There is the instinct bit, the drive, the ability to sniff out an opportunity, the packaging, the yearning for freedom and value-add, and yes, wealth creation. If the instinct is matched with the requisite skills that can be taught and learnt – that is, fiscal planning, learning from others who failed or succeeded, go-to-market strategies and tactics, hiring right, surviving on shoe-strings – then you have the perfect mix.

Resources for entrepreneurs

• Guy Kawasaki suggests entrepreneurs to Make Meaning and Get Going (Download PDF).
• Entrepreneurship resource page by Havard Business School.
• Alltop page for Start-Ups is another great resource for entrepreneurs.
• About.com has a knowledge base and blog dedicated for entrepreneurs.

For those of you who have missed it…

The tickets for NASSCOM Product Conclave 2009 are sold out! But there’s hope yet… IndiBlogger (India’s largest blogging community) is organizing a contest and are giving away T-Shirts and free passes to the event itself! Two passes have already been given away, three more to go. Read their blog post for further information and knowledge about how you can help spread the word.

1. NASSCOM Product Conclave 2009 and a contest (via IndiBlogger.in)
2. The Official NASSCOM Product Conclave 2009 Page (at NASSCOM.in)
3. IndiBlogger on Facebook
4. Nasscom on Facebook

The month is almost about to end, and we are just gearing up for the finalization and distribution of the Fourth Edition of our in-house Newsletter HR@Work for which we have been consistently getting great feedback; well, this issue is extra special then… why you ask? That’s because the newsletter now has a completely revamped look and let us tell you we just absolutely love it, and know that you will too! So here come the updates:


When we conceptualized HR@Work, we were not sure how it would be taken and whether we would be able to pull it off to any degree of success, now fourth month into it’s run, it now has a circulation of around 2000! The primary target audience and majority of the opt-ins that we get are from people working in the HR leadership domain in India with the occasional sign-up from professionals overseas who happened to stumble upon the Blog.


As I said earlier, the Newsletter has a complete new look and will have a guest column starting this month. We plan to use this space to not only get experts to talk on varied aspects of business like management, motivation, workforce management, people issues, organizational climate and the likes, but also as a space where our clients and partners can talk about the challenges they face in their day-to-day business affairs and what is it that keeps them going.


We love experimenting with Web 2.0 and believe there is a vast latent potential to it, once the targeted users reach a critical mass; taking action on that thought we are now on Facebook and Twitter (and are about to cross 4000 followers on the latter!). Eventually, we also plan to open a support group on LinkedIn where business professionals and budding entrepreneurs can discuss the problems they face while implementing their HR, or the lack of it.


This update is rather special, thanks to Shauna Moerke of the HR Maven Blog, we are now participating members of the “Carnival of HR” community and besides being featured in that space, we will be hosting it on our Blog on the 14th of April, 2010! Check out the latest carnival post hosted by Effortless HR Blog here.


A little late in the day to mention, but we signed a content partnership with HRguru (Part of the Monster.com Worldwide Company) for syndication of our articles on their website. HRGuru is an online community dedicated to advancement of current and future human resources professionals and of the improvement of HR as a whole. We plan to help each other in our online promotion efforts besides content sharing.


Lots of birthdays this month in our team, three to be precise and what fun it was! We wanted to share the photos but then someone suggested (smart thinking indeed) that posting our cake covered faces all over the internet might not be a very good idea and it for sure wouldn’t do any wonders for our branding effort! So I guess we wait until we can get some no ‘cake on the face’ photographs of us, fat chance of that I think! You can check more information about our team here, for once we have clean, bright faces .

Orkut, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIN… What do these remind you of? People, connections, communities, networks… Social networking is the latest way to connect, reach out and build networks. Social networking connects all kinds of people at all levels to each other. In recent times they have also emerged as a means of connecting organizations to individuals and vice versa. Thus, they reveal a huge potential for organizations, especially for recruiters, to build up their networks. Recruiting is, after all, a lot about networking.

So how does networking work for recruiters or organizations? Let’s draw up a parallel with the traditional form of networking here. Recruiter connects with a prospective candidate, interacts frequently at a personal level and, going forward, develops a long term relationship with him. In the real world, these interactions are typically face-to-face or telephonic and, in both cases, one to one. These meetings take place at conferences, trade fairs, alumni meets etc. In the case of e-networking, these interactions are usually one to many and take place through bulletin boards, posts, e-mails, forums, communities etc. In both cases, what networking allows you to do is:

1. Find high-quality prospects who fall in the ‘passive jobseeker’ category and who may or may not have heard of your organization.
2. Pre-qualify or evaluate them on the basis of what you feel they can bring to the table. And how well they fit in with your organization.
3. Establish a personal connection with them away from the forum or the meeting and endeavour to convince them why it is in their best interest to join your organization.

Thus, e-networking becomes a powerful tool for the recruiter as well as a supplement to the traditional form of network building. The biggest advantage in this, of course, remains that e-networking has a far wider reach and access to a far greater talent pool. Also, it can save time and money because it can serve the purpose of a promotional for the company as well as a job board at the same time and most of these sites offer free registration. Building your company’s page or profile on these websites can put it in the line of view of professionals and peers and even prospective clients. Most of these websites also offer options like becoming a fan or follower of a profile. People attracted to your organization can show their interest and you can take it further from there.

So what’s the best way to make the most of this medium? Create a good profile description of the company to be put on the website and keep on updating it with everything that is current in the company. Checking out profiles of other similar companies can also bring in ideas about how to make your company’s page better. As a recruiter, be a regular at the discussion forums and the bulletin boards. Keep interactions open and regular so that contact is not lost. Providing links to blogs or other discussion forums that might interest your prospects is also a good way of keeping them coming back. Another thing which can yield results is making use of your own company’s website to network with your prospects. Establish a discussion forum or a bulletin board at your own corporate website so that you can attract posts from not only people inside the company but also those outside it. This can also be done with the help of managers who can nominate their best performers to be the moderators of these boards. Devote thirty minutes everyday to reading these posts and interacting with people who stand out. This little investment will greatly enhance the quality of the candidates you recruit.

Social networking websites or e-networking is yet to catch on in India as a recruitment tool, but the potential it holds is vast. LinkedIn has made some headway in the arena as many company profiles can be found here, but the potential held by other websites like Facebook, Twitter and even YouTube is yet to be harnessed. Jobseekers are also looking for newer ways to connect with recruiters and the increasing use of internet is only opening up the field. Though the idea of using social networking for recruitment has been around for quite some time, it is now that it seems to be catching the fancy of jobseekers and recruiters alike. Traditional recruiting techniques are in no manner on their way out, but social networking seems primed to be the tool of choice for recruiters wanting to attract ever growing pools of talent.