Employment confidence hammered

Source: stuff.co.nz

By AARON LIM – BusinessDay

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Employment confidence has fallen to a historic low as gloom continues to stalk the job market, according to the Westpac McDermott Miller employment confidence index.

The index fell to 93.2 in the March 2009 quarter, the first time the confidence index has hit a sub-100 level since the survey began in 2004.

“After holding firm through most of 2008, employees are now admitting defeat,” Westpac senior economist Donna Purdue said.

“Continued bad economic news has seen concerns around current employment conditions reach fever pitch, while expectations of future conditions have worsened.”

The survey found 54 percent of respondents said jobs are hard to get, compared to 26 percent in December. A year ago 57 percent of respondents said jobs were plentiful.

In the March quarter, 28 percent of the people surveyed thought jobs would still be hard to find next year.

Purdue said the collapse in perceptions around current employment supported the view that the 0.9 percent rise in employment growth recorded in the December 2008 quarter will be more than unwound in Q1.

“Against the backdrop of perceived poor job opportunities, job security has fallen even further.”

“That is telling for consumer spending going forward. The less secure people are in their jobs, the more conservative their spending decisions are likely to be,” Purdue said.

Perceptions around current and future earnings also suffered, with 25 percent of people expecting to be earning more in a year’s time, down from a net 37 percent in December.

Managing director of McDermott Miller Richard Miller he wasn’t surprised by historic lows in employment confidence given the economic climate.

“It is hard to see employment confidence recovering until New Zealand begins to pull out of recession.”

100 Potential Interview Questions

By Thad Peterson, Monster Staff Writer

Source: Monster While there are as many different possible interview questions as there are interviewers, it always helps to be ready for anything. So we’ve prepared a list of 100 potential interview questions. Will you face them all? We pray no interviewer would be that cruel. Will you face a few? Probably. Will you be well-served by being ready even if you’re not asked these exact questions? Absolutely.

• Tell me about yourself.
• What are your strengths?
• What are your weaknesses?
• Who was your favorite manager and why?
• What kind of personality do you work best with and why?
• Why do you want this job?
• Where would you like to be in your career five years from now?
• Tell me about your proudest achievement.
• If you were at a business lunch and you ordered a rare steak and they brought it to you well done, what would you do?
• If I were to give you this salary you requested but let you write your job description for the next year, what would it say?
• Why is there fuzz on a tennis ball?
• How would you go about establishing your credibility quickly with the team?
• There’s no right or wrong answer, but if you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you be?
• How would you feel about working for someone who knows less than you?
• Was there a person in your career who really made a difference?
• What’s your ideal company?
• What attracted you to this company?
• What are you most proud of?
• What are you looking for in terms of career development?
• What do you look for in terms of culture — structured or entrepreneurial?
• What do you like to do?
• Give examples of ideas you’ve had or implemented.
• What are your lifelong dreams?
• What do you ultimately want to become?
• How would you describe your work style?
• What kind of car do you drive?
• Tell me about a time where you had to deal with conflict on the job.
• What’s the last book you read?
• What magazines do you subscribe to?
• What would be your ideal working situation?
• Why should we hire you?
• What did you like least about your last job?
• What do you think of your previous boss?
• How do you think I rate as an interviewer?
• Do you have any questions for me?
• When were you most satisfied in your job?
• What can you do for us that other candidates can’t?
• What are three positive things your last boss would say about you?
• What negative thing would your last boss say about you?
• If you were an animal, which one would you want to be?
• What salary are you seeking?
• What’s your salary history?
• How do you want to improve yourself in the next year?
• What were the responsibilities of your last position?
• What do you know about this industry?
• What do you know about our company?
• How long will it take for you to make a significant contribution?
• Are you willing to relocate?
• What was the last project you headed up, and what was its outcome?
• What kind of goals would you have in mind if you got this job?
• Give me an example of a time that you felt you went above and beyond the call of duty at work.
• What would you do if you won the lottery?
• Can you describe a time when your work was criticized?
• Have you ever been on a team where someone was not pulling their own weight? How did you handle it?
• What is your personal mission statement?
• Tell me about a time when you had to give someone difficult feedback. How did you handle it?
• What is your greatest failure, and what did you learn from it?
• What irritates you about other people, and how do you deal with it?
• What is your greatest fear?
• Who has impacted you most in your career, and how?
• What do you see yourself doing within the first 30 days of this job?
• What’s the most important thing you’ve learned in school?
• What three character traits would your friends use to describe you?
• What will you miss about your present/last job?
• If you were interviewing someone for this position, what traits would you look for?
• List five words that describe your character.
• What is your greatest achievement outside of work?
• Sell me this pencil.
• If I were your supervisor and asked you to do something that you disagreed with, what would you do?
• Do you think a leader should be feared or liked?
• What’s the most difficult decision you’ve made in the last two years?
• What do you like to do for fun?
• Why are you leaving your present job?
• What do you do in your spare time?
• How do you feel about taking no for an answer?
• What was the most difficult period in your life, and how did you deal with it?
• What is your favorite memory from childhood?
• Give me an example of a time you did something wrong. How did you handle it?
• Tell me one thing about yourself you wouldn’t want me to know.
• Tell me the difference between good and exceptional.
• Why did your choose your major?
• What are the qualities of a good leader? A bad leader?
• What is your biggest regret, and why?
• What are three positive character traits you don’t have?
• What irritates you about other people, and how do you deal with it?
• If you found out your company was doing something against the law, like fraud, what would you do?
• How many times do a clock’s hands overlap in a day?
• How would you weigh a plane without scales?
• What assignment was too difficult for you, and how did you resolve the issue?
• If I were to ask your last supervisor to provide you additional training or exposure, what would she suggest?
• If you could choose one superhero power, what would it be and why?
• What’s the best movie you’ve seen in the last year?
• Describe how you would handle a situation if you were required to finish multiple tasks by the end of the day, and there was no conceivable way that you could finish them.
• What techniques and tools do you use to keep yourself organized?
• If you could get rid of any one of the US states, which one would you get rid of, and why?
• With your eyes closed, tell me step-by-step how to tie my shoes.
• if you had to choose one, would you consider yourself a big-picture person or a detail-oriented person?
• If selected for this position, can you describe your strategy for the first 90 days?
• Who are your heroes?
• Tell me 10 ways to use a pencil other than writing.

Our Managing Director resigns

Effective today, our Managing Director says goodbye to our company.  After 5 years of staying, he decides to leave at the peak of Asia Pacific growth and development.

I am saddened by this loss, but I also wish him good luck on all his future endeavors. I also wish that his replacement will be as nice and as good as he is. I also wish that our bonus scheme will not be affected.

Microsoft axing 5,000 jobs

SEATTLE – Microsoft says it will cut 5,000 jobs over the next 18 months – more than 5 per cent of its work force – a sign of how badly even the biggest and richest companies are being stung by the recession.

The layoffs appear to be a first for Microsoft, which was founded in 1975, aside from relatively limited staff cuts the software company made after acquiring companies.

The company announced the cuts as it reported an 11 per cent drop in second-quarter profit, which fell short of Wall Street’s expectations. Microsoft shares plunged almost 11 per cent in midday trading.

“We’re certainly in the midst of a once-in-a-lifetime set of economic conditions. The perspective I would bring is not one of recession. Rather, the economy is resetting to lower level of business and consumer spending based largely on the reduced leverage in economy,” said chief executive Steve Ballmer during a conference call. For consumers, that may mean less discretionary income to spend on a second or third home computer, he said.The biggest names in the technology sector have been no stranger to layoffs lately. Giants such as chip maker Intel and even Google are among the companies that have pulled back on jobs to hunker down in the recession.

Even with $US20.7 billion in cash on hand, Microsoft said its business prospects were hurt by the deteriorating global economy and lower revenue from software for PCs. The holiday quarter of 2008 was the worst the PC market had seen since 2002, with computer shipments declining about a half of 1 per cent, according to IDC, a technology research group.

Making matters worse, the one type of PC consumers have warmed to in tight times – the low-cost, low-power “netbook” – actually cut further into Microsoft’s earnings. The tiny portable computers run on Windows XP, which is older and less profitable for Microsoft than Windows Vista.

In a memo to employees, Ballmer acknowledged that Microsoft is “not immune to the effects of the economy. Consumers and businesses have reined in spending, which is affecting PC shipments and IT (information technology) expenditures.”

Ballmer said Microsoft cut operating expenses by $600 million in the quarter, but that it wasn’t enough.

The layoffs, starting with 1,400 on Thursday, will affect workers in research and development, marketing, sales, finance, legal and corporate affairs, human resources and information technology, and mostly in Redmond, Washington, where the company is based. Ballmer also said changes would occur in departments that handle support, consulting, operations, billing, manufacturing, and data centre operations, but he did not say whether layoffs are planned in those cases.

Microsoft won’t stop hiring entirely. During the conference call, Ballmer said the company will add new jobs to support certain key areas over the next 18 months, including Web search, so the total number of employees will drop by 2,000 to 3,000. Microsoft employs 94,000 people overall.

“I would have expected a more aggressive cut,” said Cowen and Co. analyst Walter Pritchard. “They’re trying to have their cake and eat it too, in terms of not cutting and hoping to have everything they were going to have before.”

The software maker is trimming costs for travel, contractors and vendors, and said it will scale back a massive expansion to its Redmond campus.

Microsoft said its job cuts will reduce operating costs by $1.5 billion as it prepares for lower revenue and earnings in the second half of the year. The company says it is unable to offer profit and revenue guidance for the rest of the year, because of the market volatility.

Microsoft said profit in the last quarter fell to $4.17 billion, or 47 cents per share, from year-ago earnings of $4.71 billion, or 50 cents per share.

Total revenue edged up 2 per cent to $16.63 billion.

The results missed Wall Street’s forecast for earnings of 49 cents per share on sales of $17.08 billion.

Microsoft makes most of its profits on sales of the Windows operating system and its Office package of software, which includes programs such as Word, PowerPoint and Excel. Revenue and earnings shrank in both of those divisions.

A bright spot for Microsoft is software for corporate server computers, where revenue is still rising. Gartner analyst Neil MacDonald noted that the server business can thrive in a downturn because back-office software can help companies improve efficiency and save money.

Microsoft shares fell $2.08, or 10.9 per cent, to $17.30 in midday trading after sinking to a 52-week low of $17.19 earlier in the day.

-AP

Source: NZ Herald

25 Ways to Sabotage Your Job Search

By Anthony Balderrama, CareerBuilder.com writer

See the entire article.

CV Writing

A CV or Curriculum Vitae is: Your Life History Your Job History Your Achievements Your Skills A CV or curriculum vitae is a marketing tool. With your CV you will be able to promote yourself. Imagine the CV as being a brochure that will list the benefits of a particular service.

CV Examples

The service being your time and skills! When writing a CV look at it from your employers point of view. Would you stand out against the competition (the other candidates) and would the manager want to talk you for a possible job? You have to ask yourself these questions when writing your CV or curriculum vitae.

Networking and interviewing are essential for your job hunt and your CV is just the first step in the job search. However a CV will be your first contact with potential employers and will open the door. If you are invited for an interview you would then be in a position to explain and expand on what is in your CV.

A CV is an essential tool in your job search. When applying for a vacancy you generally first have to send your CV to present yourself to the prospective employer.

Source: CV Tips

CV Writing Tips

Having a well written and compelling CV is an essential tool in your job search as it is the first thing a prospective employer will see. Think of your CV as a marketing tool, promoting yourself and listing the benefits an employer will gain from employing you. Make sure these benefits are clear, concise, and easy for the employer to find and read.

Tailor your CV to the particular job you are applying for. Ask yourself, ‘If I was the employer, would I want to interview me? Does my CV stand out from the crowd?’

There is no set way to lay out your CV, or rules around what to include, but below are some suggestions.

Layout

The basic rule for layouts is to keep it brief and simple.

• Use a font that most computers will have such as Times New Roman or Arial.
• Save your CV as a pdf, this guarantees your format will not change.
• You can also match your layout to the job you are applying for – i.e. if you are applying for a job as a designer, it may be a good idea to include some design elements in your layout.
• Use bullet points to help break up large amounts of text and highlight key achievements.
• Avoid using emotive language and keep your sentences concise.

Spelling and Grammar

Make sure that you have checked the grammar and spelling on your CV. It is a good idea to get someone else look over it to ensure that it makes sense, and reads well.

Customising your CV

It is a good idea to tailor your CV to the job you are applying for. In some cases, this can be as easy as changing out a few sentences. Emphasise the skills you have that are relevant to the position you are applying for. Research the company and industry and state how you can be of assistance to them.

Sell your strengths and benefits first

Give the employer an overview of the benefits of hiring you up front. This will draw them in and make them want to read the rest of your CV.

Sections to Include

Contact details

Make sure your contact details are correct, and easy to find. Include your name, address, telephone number, mobile and email. It is a good idea to include your name and mobile on the footer of each page in case your cv gets separated.

Ensure your answer phone messages and email addresses look and sound professional. This is no time to have joke answer machine messages on your mobile phone.

You are not legally obliged to include your date of birth, number of dependants or marital status, but if you think listing them would be an advantage to you (i.e. having 2 children may be an advantage to someone applying to become a nanny) then include them.

Your career

Outline your career first to give the employer an overview of what to expect. Use a couple of sentences to outline some of your achievements and key responsibilities.

Follow this up with your career history. List all your employment in chronological order, starting with the most recent first. Be prepared to explain gaps in your career history if required. List your achievements in each role, and back them up with figures where you can.

Education and Training

List your qualifications starting with the most recent achievements. You can include as much information as you like, working right back to secondary school if you feel this is appropriate. You can also use this section to list all the skills you have gained. This may be IT packages, foreign languages or specific industry skills.

Professional Memberships

Include all professional bodies of which you are a member and include your involvement with that organisation.

Referees

List the names and contact details of referees. If you have written references provide copies of these at the interview. Make sure that you inform your referees about the role you are applying for so that they can be prepared when they are called.

Things to avoid

Below are some things to look out for and avoid, when writing your CV.

• Don’t highlight irrelevant skills or achievements.
• Keep it professional – don’t focus on details of your private life.
• Always spell check manually as a double check.
• Keep your CV concise – 2-4 pages long.
• Be honest – exaggerating the truth is bound to catch up with you.
• Be succinct – if you can say the same thing in 5 words, do not use 20.
• Do not use vague language, be specific and back it up with details relative to you and the company and role you are applying for and the relevant industry.

Source: NZ Herald

New Zealand Employment: Don’t leave home if you don’t like commuting

New Zealanders heading to Australia for higher-paying jobs are likely to spend longer getting to them according to a trans-Tasman study of urban commuting habits.

The study by recruitment specialists Robert Half found that on average, urban Australians take much longer getting to work than do urban New Zealanders.

More than twice as many New Zealanders (11 per cent) as Australians (5 per cent) said they took less than 10 minutes to get to work. And more than three times as many Australians (22 per cent) as New Zealanders (7 per cent) said they took more than 50 minutes to get to work.

At the extreme end of commuting times, 2 per cent of Australians but no New Zealanders take 90 minutes or longer to get to work.

But Australian commuters rely more heavily on public transport than do New Zealanders. While 81 per cent of Kiwis regularly travel to work by car or motorcycle, only 50 per cent of Australians do, with 45 per cent of them regularly using trains (NZ 8 per cent), 17 per cent using buses (NZ 23 per cent) and 11 per cent using trams (NZ 0). And with 14 per cent of Australians regularly walking or biking to work, they are more likely to combine travel with exercise than are Kiwis (9 per cent).Reflecting their preferred travel method, urban Kiwi commuters (66 per cent) are more likely to listen to the radio than their Australian counterparts (43 per cent), but only half as many Kiwis (19 per cent) as Australians (40 per cent) listen to music or a podcast on an MP3 player to pass the time.

Australian commuters are a better-read bunch than their New Zealand counterparts, with 43 per cent of them regularly reading a newspaper or magazine on their way to and from work (NZ 12 per cent) and another 30 per cent regularly reading a book (NZ 11 per cent).

Kiwi commuters are, however, a friendly bunch, with 11 per cent of them regularly talking to fellow passengers during their daily commute, compared with just 7 per cent of Australians who pass the time in conversation.

However many more Australians (18 per cent) than Kiwis (12 per cent) risk annoying fellow commuters by talking on their mobile phones during their daily commute.

The Robert Half study asked finance and accounting professionals last year about their commuting habits. The almost 300 New Zealand respondents came from Auckland, while the 385 Australian respondents came from Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane.

Robert Half senior manager Megan Alexander said the survey showed New Zealanders had more to consider than just salary when thinking about moving to Australia.

“In most of our surveys over the past two years, Kiwis have rated work-life balance, including shorter commuting times as a vital factor in their job choices.

“In our Auckland Salary Survey early in 2008, 44 per cent of accounting and finance professionals said they would be willing to trade a lower salary for a more convenient work location – meaning a shorter commute.”

While there might be increased job opportunities available in Australia’s larger cities, Kiwis were likely to find they came with longer commuting times, and so they had to weigh up what was important before deciding to move, Alexander said.

Source: NZ Herald