Looking to create a new business? Read these tips from an award winning entrepreneur

by K B , updated on May 11, 2013

With the announcement of mass job cuts in banking jobs this week, there’s no denying there’s lots of bad news around in the employment market.

There’s also no denying that losing your job can be traumatic.

If you’ve lost your job, it’s highly likely that you’ll move through a cycle of grief starting with denial, anger and depression. Your sense of loss can be compounded by the fact that it can be so unexpected. While nobody really still thinks that they have a job for life, people in permanent jobs do have an expectation that they will chose the way their job ends, not the other way around.

Making this situation worse is what’s waiting when people start looking for a new job.

Many people do not realise just how much the employment market has changed. Part-time, casual and temporary jobs and independent employment arrangements have been increasing markedly for the past 50 years. Given the high cost of labour in Australia and the trend towards “offshoring,” it’s highly likely that if you are over 50 and unemployed, you may never work in one full time job again.

All this is a very gloomy way to introduce my next blog guest, and actually someone whom I am very excited to have interviewed. Meet Craig Deveson.

Why am I interviewing Craig?

Craig is a former client of mine and the CEO and Co-Founder of the newly launched Cloudsafe365. Prior to launching this business Craig established and led a business called Devnet to become the first business in the world to secure an exclusive cloud application development partnership with Google. Highly successful, Devnet experienced year-on-year growth of 200% and won multiple business awards including a listing in the BRW Fast 100.

In this economy the entrepreneur or people who are entrepreneurial about their careers will be the survivors. When Craig mentioned he was launching his new business I thought it was a great opportunity to find out what he’s up to and to ask his advice for readers of my blog who may be facing job execution, and wondering if they have what it takes to start a new business.

Here’s a summary of what he told me:

Tell us about Cloudsafe365.

Cloudsafe365 is a simple to use WordPress plug-in that provides automated online backup, security and content protection for websites.

Why do people need it?

With increasing numbers of people using the cloud there is a greater demand for these sorts of services like Cloudsafe365. Website owners want to make content as available as possible. Yet in doing so they make content available to unscrupulous competitors and content stealers. They can readily scrape and use products, parts, price lists and directories.

Why you have established this business in this market?

Having worked in the cloud space with Devnet and Google for the past four years, I’ve seen that cloud is the way of the future. I saw the change take place years ago with people like Google, Amazon and Facebook leading the way.

More and more people are using cloud technology in a trusting basis. In social media platforms they put lots of trust in the cloud. They don’t know how their information is used. There is lots of network security established such as firewalls, but very little application security.

We are working initially with WordPress sites from the single person to the million dollar corporations. There are 60 million WordPress sites in the world.

There is a huge demand and need for this sort of service, as more and more of the world goes to the cloud.

Everyone it seems, has an idea for a business. When you start a business, how do you know if it’s a good idea?

There are two types of businesses – a lifestyle business and a growth business. It is much easier to build a lifestyle business. To build a growth business you need to look for things you can scale, or something that has a unique feature. You might need to be first second or third in a market segment or carve out a niche in a worldwide market.

Questions you need to ask before looking for people and backing include:

Do you need to invest in systems for it to grow, or do you need to incrementally add people to grow. Is there a close relationship between what you do and the income you earn? Is the cost structure not much difference between one customer and 100 customers?

Do you have the ability to minimise operations and marketing costs to achieve high margins?

What do you need to be successful in business?

I had an inherent need inside me to give it a go. I had the confidence to sell and market things and an ability to make customers happy. That’s a good basis to build a business.

Can you learn to be entrepreneurial or is it natural?

It’s both instinct and can be learned. Some people are just great operational people and others build things. You need enough instinct to be a builder. Then you need to be resilient and understand that you will scrape your knees when you fall.

Do you need to fail?

Absolutely.

When you think you have a good idea, establishing that idea will always take much longer than you envision. You have to make a series of mistakes to get the product up. If you get it up too early you will have a major fall in time. Mistakes help you refine your product and your business model.

Consistent learning makes the difference between success and failure.

What have you learned along the way?

By going through danger you learn confidence and survival skills along the way. If you are not in that situation you will never learn survival skills.

Readers of interviewiq.com.au can download a free version of Cloudsafe365 for the WordPress website from cloudsafe365.com

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Blog Spotter Five

by Richard , updated on November 3, 2020

Kool  Kwerky Kwestioning . . . . . we’re found the best of the best for you.

Stephan Wiedner has written a blog packed with useful information on how to Help Yourself By Helping Get Your Friends Jobs First, including some interesting links. Stephan contends that it will help you see things from the employer’s perspective, increase your network of contacts and get you out of your heads pace to give you some much needed perspective. I think he might be onto something! You can follow Stephan and other life coaches on Twitter @noomii.

Who knew 50 cent was providing life and job success advice these days but Brian Batchelder does and passes it on in 50 Cent Wants you to be a Fearless Job Seeker. Some cold hard home truths here some of which you may not want but probably need to hear. You can follow Brian on Twitter @B_Batchelder.

On Jessica Merrell’s Blogging4 Jobs, Raeanne Thorn reminds us in There are no Do-Overs in Life what a negative (and positive) impact our thoughts can have when we’re faced with failure in life and work. She implores us to be alert to opportunity and go for it! You can follow Raeanne on Twitter @ray_anne and Jessica @blogging4jobs.

I know, I know, this blog dates back to 2009 but I’ve included it because I think it answers How to Answer the Weakness Interview Question much better than most! What I like about Scot Herrick’s approach is that he addresses all the common (and in my opinion somewhat dubious) suggestions that your friends and professional recruiters might give you, before he gives some damn good advice on a much better response. You can follow Scot on Twitter @CubeRules.

In The Effectiveness of Relationships, Bonnie Titgemeyer provides a compelling personal example of social media’s career impact when you fully engage with it. Bonnie has also blogged about her 10 day experiment to massively increase her Twitter engagement, so check it out at The Engagement Project. You can follow Bonnie on Twitter @bonnitoronto.


 

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“Funny” Job Candidates and the Recruiters that “go public” with their story

by Richard , updated on November 3, 2020

I know when you read this blog that some of you may accuse me of being either:

1. the Grinch that stole Christmas or,
2. completely humourless or,
3. the original party pooper.

But I’m afraid I have to take that risk because this is something that I feel very passionate about.

Last time I checked, one of the basic tenants of being a Recruitment Consultant or HR Professional was that candidate information (including the candidate assessment process) is strictly confidential.

In fact recruiters when joining a new company will typically be asked to sign a candidate confidentiality agreement.

And yet, I have but to Google “funny candidate interview” and a veritable online tsunami of stories from Recruiters and Human Resources professionals floods my screen.

I can then choose from a smorgasbord of juicy and delicious tidbits that may include quotes from job candidates that the recruiter found amusing, “strange” and “unusual” candidate behaviour or perhaps some left-of-centre resume information.

Interestingly though I don’t often find any whiff of a suggestion that the candidate has been counselled by the recruiter to get them back on the path towards their goals.

The candidate often as not appears to have simply been written off and I suspect has then become an anecdote to be shared around (and far beyond it would seem) the water cooler.

Two questions spring to mind.

1. What message do we think this behaviour sends to our clients (employers and employees)?

2. Does this behaviour promote or undermine our clients’ trust and respect?

I sit here rather nervously awaiting your response.

Blog Spotter Four

by Richard , updated on November 3, 2020

Here’s what I found for you that’s funny, interesting and clever this week in the Careers, HR and Recruitment blogosphere.

For those of you that seem to be hitting brick walls in your job search, Jacob Share and guest author Dave Thomas have some timely advice in 5 Quick Questions to Review Your Job Interview Progress. Sometimes when you’re in the thick of it all it’s hard to see the wood for the trees. Dave’s blog might just help bring the trees into focus for you! You can follow Jacob on Twitter @JacobShare

3 Ways to Deal with Whiny and Complaining Employees is good advice from Mike Rodgers. We’ve all worked with people like this and who knows, if the advice works, you or they may not need to look for a new job? You can follow Mike on Twitter @Secondgleader.

I thought it was time we raised the intellectual tone of this blog. So I’ve done some research through my alumni network and discovered a very enlightening short doco which I believe provides real insight into just how long humans have been conducting job interviews. Take a look at Job Interview Origins.

The one where it’s in the family is another “hitting-a-brick-wall” story but seen from a very different angle. In a heart-felt post Rob Jones questions why he’s hitting a job brick wall and concludes it’s because of other peoples’ limitations.  Make sure you read the comments as well because they’re just as enlightening. You can keep in touch with Rob through his blog.

And finally I love Bringing something to the party . . . just because it’s a personal, from-the-heart post and reminds us that sometimes it’s not what we do or don’t do, but rather what we say to ourselves that holds us back! Wish I could tell you who posted it but she seems to value anonymity.

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The one killer question you can ask on your job hunt

by K B , updated on November 3, 2020

The other day I received this question as a comment on my blog.

“Hi Karalyn,

I seem to stumble when writing selection criteria. For example I am employed in the client contact role in the APS and wish to transfer these skills to a local government role but never been successful in gaining an interview! and what is the different skills in client contact in local government to the federal government environment.

Regards

James”

Hi James,

Good question. Great question in fact.

Often selection criteria for two different roles read the same way, but actually mean two different things. I would not suggest there is a general difference between local government and federal government as such, but the difference will be in the requirements of the role.

The only way you will know this is to speak with the convener. When you do this acknowledge that you have read the application (otherwise they’ll roll their eyes), and then ask if you can explore the role a little further.

The killer question to ask the convener is: “what will a typical day or week look like in this role?”

I’ll give you an example.

The selection criteria may read:

“Providing excellent customer service to internal and external stakeholders”

As I have said before on this blog, that kind of language is woolly. It’s impossible to unpack what the job actually involves after reading this statement.

If you ask the convener this question: “what does a typical day or week look like?” you get a whole different insight.

You may then find out that you will actually be answering telephone calls from rate-payers disputing their council rate notices. Close to the end of every quarter you will be incredibly busy as people receive their bills. At the end of the year rates go up. So the first quarter of every year when people receive their first quarterly bills, you will be incredibly busy with very angry callers who will often be distressed.

When you understand this, you then provide examples that show you are able to manage this situation.

That’s my killer question. You can apply this question to any other role as well.

What’s your killer question on the job hunt?

We’re very keen to hear what you use.

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“But if I tell my candidate why, they might sue the company!”

by Richard , updated on November 3, 2020

I was chatting to Karalyn the other night about a comment I had come across from the InterviewIQ blog post 6 reasons your recruitment consultants doesn’t give you feedback.

Karalyn gave 6 reasons to explain what goes on behind the scenes at a recruitment agency. She describes why people do not get the service they deserve.

Recruitment Consultants are easy targets. Inevitably when we write posts like this about agencies, we always get told the “seventh reason.”

Like the writer of this comment said:

“What a load of nonsense excuse making. Agents don’t give feedback because they are rude, lazy and arrogant. It’s as simple as that. They’d *never* accept being treated as such so why treat someone else that way? Because they can. It is possible to send someone a quick email stating that the application has been unsuccessful without having to delve into detail.”

However, they choose not to and that is purely a reflection of the poor professional and personal attitude pervasive in the recruitment industry.

Other readers’ comments along similar lines caused me to think that unfortunately not much has changed on the “candidate feedback front” since I was a recruiter 15 years ago.

Don’t get me wrong.

I was no angel when I was looking after candidates! I made my fair share of mistakes and my care of candidates wasn’t always the best.

I remember on more than one occasion deliberately avoiding candidate feedback either because I didn’t know how to handle an uncomfortable situation or because I was paranoid about exposing my employer to a law suit. And the organisational culture meant that a blind eye was turned to this shortcoming if I was generating revenue for my employer.

I do know though that I always had my heart in the right place and that I genuinely cared about my candidates.

Why am I telling you this?

Because it reminded me of a very important lesson I learnt from an eager 19 year old young bloke from the South Western suburbs of Sydney named Mario (name changed).

He told me he had been workin’ in a clothing store, enjoyed playin’ rugby league and was lookin’ for work in call centres within the Finance and Insurance industries.

So here’s my dilemma.

I can’t put him forward for the call centre jobs I have because I know that my clients wouldn’t be happy. They want well spoken staff to represent their organisations with their customers and they would view Mario’s poor enunciation as unprofessional.

But Mario is a bright, enthusiastic young bloke with a lot of potential.

I know that the owner of the recruitment agency would have a heart attack if he knew what I was about to do, but my heart tells me it’s the right thing.

So I do it.

I tell Mario that his speech is holding him back and that I can’t put him forward until he fixes it.

And what does Mario do . . . . . ?

He takes a deep breath, looks like the wind has been taken out of his sails but then looks me in the eye and says….

“Richard I’ve been to over 10 agencies so far and I knew there was a reason why I hadn’t been given a chance! But no one would tell me! It’s not nice to hear it but thank you for bein’ honest with me.”

Mario was genuinely appreciative and I think he respected me more because I’d had the courage to say what needed to be said. I tried to reassure him that his barrier could well and truly be overcome with a bit of effort on his part.

And Mario’s mature response taught me two incredibly valuable lessons:

1. if your candidate assessment is entirely based on valid selection criteria any negative feedback is defendable from potential legal action and therefore;
2. you as a recruiter should always exercise your obligation to your candidates to provide honest feedback.

So as a candidate you have a right to expect honest feedback from your recruiter.

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