Vibrant Pro (M) Sdn Bhd

What has changed?

The World – Industrial Age to Information and Knowledge Worker Age.

Traditional Approach

Send out resumes and seek interviews. Filling out Application forms.

Poor Results

You are one of many hundreds, sometimes, thousands of applications.
Personnel officers are inundated with applications and have no time.
You are a problem.

The New Approach

Target your companies, they are your customers, you provide solutions to both the company and their customers.

Be creative in finding ways to talk to their employees and managers, their suppliers, their customers and their competitors.

Also vital to understand their culture and norms.

Then you can describe their needs and challenges.

Target Companies

• Companies which are downsizing or carrying out voluntary service separation (VSS). Companies going through VSS are often losing staffs who are good performers. (Not those which are closing down but those which were privatized or going through technology improvements.)

Examples are TM, TNB, Telcos, Banks, MAS, POS Malaysia

• Companies that are expanding, merging. Mergers often cause staff to leave as the culture may change. Expansion creates more vacancies and sometimes HR is not quick enough to advertise positions.

Examples are Sime Darby, Air Asia

• Multinational Companies

Examples are MISC, Petronas, Shell, Exxon-Mobil, Nestle

• Companies providing outsourcing services in Human Resources, Training, Company Call Center, Technical Call Center, Computer Back-up Services, IT services, Facilities Management and Operations, Security Services, Cyber-security services, etc. Outsourcing companies are consistently growing.

Examples are Software application companies, Audit firms, PR companies, Logistic companies

• Others are Blue chip companies or companies making positive announcements in media.

Examples are Genting, PLUS

These companies are not the only companies to target but a fair example of such companies.

The world has changed over the past 10 years, shifting from the Industrial Age to the Information and Knowledge Worker Age. Totally changing the way business operates. The marketplace is now intensely customer-oriented, but this customer-focus has not yet become a concern of job seekers.

The key to getting the job you want is to be oriented to the needs and wants of your customer, which is your prospective employer. Try to think what they want.

The traditional approach of sending out resumes, seeking employment interviews and filling out applications no longer work. Your exposure to the market is very broad. The problem is that to the organizations that receive your resume, you are one of many hundreds or even thousands trying to get a job. Personnel offices are absolutely inundated with letters, resumes and phone calls from people who want work. As good or experienced as you may be, to most of them you are a “problem,” a “hassle,” one of a stack of letters or calls they have to answer today.

This may be harsh, but this is the reality in most organizations in today’s rapidly changing and globally competitive environment. They are dealing with the pain of extensive downsizing and outsourcing. But there are jobs everywhere disguised as problems, even the problem of downsizing.

The approach of just sending out resumes and giving follow-up calls will, for the most part, rarely yield results because those who look for work in this way are behaving as if they are the customer. Customers approach companies with a need and a problem that they want solved—in this case, the need is work—a job. Businesses already have more real customer needs and problems than they can handle. Can you see who and what you are competing with when you approach a company in this way? So you must be is a solution to the needs and problems which that organization and their customers face, not another problem.

If you need to position yourself as a solution to some significant need or opportunity that an organization faces, you are going to have to focus. You must be enormously resourceful and creative in learning about the organization you want to work for. Creativity is a unique human endowment, and is a powerful capacity that lies largely dormant in most people. Do not panic or feel nervous about not having a job, and start immersing yourself in the realities of the company you want to work for. Creatively find ways of talking with and learning from the company’s employees and managers—talk to their suppliers, their customers, and even their competitors. Reach the point that you can describe their challenges and needs as well as or better than they could themselves. Then you can position yourself—your unique background, skills, education, experience and talents (some of which you may need to further develop first)—in the context of their needs. Your resourcefulness and insight will deeply impress them.

Finally, in your creative research it is vital to learn about the culture and norms of the organization. Every organization is different. This awareness should govern how you should approach the organization for an interview or meeting with their managers or executives. Be creative. Have empathy and be aware of these differences. Your proactive approach will provide the wisdom to bring great results.

I acknowledge there will likely be few people who will take this advice and pay a sufficient price to really get the job and career they seek. Consequently, they will still be coming up with excuses as to why they’re not getting employment: blaming the economy, blaming the company, blaming prejudiced people, or blaming themselves. Work to get out of the reactive attitude of waiting for things to happen. Einstein put it this way, “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them.” We must get with the spirit of the age, and gear ourselves to the needs of “our customer.”

Now, what do you think? We have a lot of unemployed graduates. These graduates though have a problem from lack of communication skills. But if they don't would you think, this is a better way to get a job?

Let me hear from you.

Once upon a time, there was a village, which was a great place to live except it had no water unless it rained. To solve the problem once and for all, the village elders decided to award two contracts to two people to have water delivered to the village on a daily basis. The first person who won the contract, Ed, immediately bought two buckets and began hauling water from a lake about one mile away, from morning to dusk. He would empty them into a large water tank the village had built. Each morning, he had to get up before the rest of the village awoke to make sure there was enough water for the villagers. It was hard work but he was happy to be making money.

The second person, Bill, disappeared for a while. Instead of buying two buckets to compete with Ed, Bill had written a business plan, created a company, found some investors, employed a manager to do the work and returned with a construction crew. Within a year, he built large volume stainless steel pipeline connecting the village to the lake. At the opening ceremony, Bill announced that his water was cleaner than Ed’s water, that he could supply the village with water 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Ed could only deliver water on weekdays…he did not work on weekends. Then Bill announced that he would charge 75% less than Ed did for his higher quality and more reliable source of water. The village cheered and ran immediately for the faucet at the end of Bill’s pipeline.

In order to compete, Ed immediately lowered his rates by 75%, bought two more buckets and began hauling four buckets each trip. To provide better service, he hired a few workers to work nightshift and on weekends. Soon he had workers’ problems as the union demanded higher wages, better benefits and wanted its members to only haul one bucket a time. Bill on the other hand, realized that if this village needed water, then other villages must need water too. So he went off to sell his high speed, high volume, low cost and clean water delivery system to villages throughout the country. He only makes a penny per bucket of water delivered but he delivers billions of buckets of water everyday. Regardless if he works or not, billions of people consume billions of buckets of water and all the money pours into his bank account. Bill had developed a pipeline to deliver water to villages as well as money to himself. Bill lived happily ever after while Ed worked hard for the rest of his life and had financial problems forever after.

End of story.

Ask yourself: ‘Am I hauling buckets or building a pipeline?’

The answers to these questions will make you financially free!

This story is often related by Robert T. Kiyosaki during his numerous presentations worldwide. Click the Affiliate banner (on left panel) to see products provided by the Rich Dad community or click here. You may email us at info@vibrant-pro.com for more information on how we, Vibrant Pro may assist you.

Yes, we do have coffee talks now and then. A recent discussion centered around University graduates. Some say Malaysian graduates are way behind foreign graduates in terms of being ready for employment. Some truth but generally blinkered thinking. You see we are all molded by the way we are brought up. Not only will school experience nurture you, what you do at home and in your spare time also makes you. Even if your mother tells you that she brought you up exactly like your elder siblings, do not expect to also be exactly like your elder siblings!

You might think, "Why?" Well what we do not see is what happens in the brains or more accurately in their minds. The mix of environment, genetics, etc. makes all the differences among siblings.

So, back to University graduates. I have met Malaysian University graduates who speak as well or even better than those trained in the United Kingdom or United States. What actually differentiates them is how they use their mental capacities and their experiences to make their decisions. Decision making is never taught in schools and everybody learns from their experiences.

So friends, the exposure obtained overseas may have made many Malaysians more open minded, but it really is up to the individual how he or she looks at life. Really we cannot predict how a person grows up to be, nor can we say foreign graduates are better trained for life after University.

Maybe, foreign graduates are a different group of people as their background has already been better than the average Malaysians.

What do you have to say?

Coffee talk is about what we think, say or do. My wish is that we do not discuss politics, religion or race. These subjects may create ill feeling and my wish is for all of us to be fair and truthful. With these matters though can cause utterances of words which go out of hand. Those are personal to beholder.