What after Wall Street? AfterWallSt.com !

You have to give it to these RiseSmart guys!

They know how to grab a job seeker’s attention. Specially the loaded ones 🙂

According to an email the folks there sent me:

RiseSmart, a $100K+ job site and HR service provider that delivers human-powered job search and outplacement services via the Web, today announced the launch of AfterWallSt.com, a Web site dedicated to finding new jobs for the thousands of workers displaced by Wall Street layoffs. Wall Street layoff victims who sign up at the site will receive one month of free job search help from RiseSmart, a $43.95 value.

Well over 100,000 individuals have lost their jobs on Wall Street in the past year. But RiseSmart CEO Sanjay Sathe says these workers shouldn’t be discouraged — because there are currently nearly a million senior-level management openings on the Web, including tens of thousands of $100K+ finance and accounting positions.

“The problem isn’t that the $100K+ jobs aren’t out there,” explains Sathe, who has been quoted as an expert on Wall Street layoffs by CNBC and other media outlets. “It’s that finding them using conventional job-search sites is extremely time-consuming and inefficient. It’s like searching for a needle in a haystack. This is the problem RiseSmart Job Concierge was created to solve.”

RiseSmart Job Concierge is a subscription-based service for $100K+ jobseekers that assigns each member a dedicated HR professional who searches senior-level job listings across the Web, returning only the listings that best match the subscriber’s specific criteria. The RiseSmart Job Concierge team listens to customer feedback to continually enhance the results it delivers to each subscriber.

By signing up at AfterWallSt.com, laid-off Wall Street workers will receive one free month of RiseSmart Job Concierge service, a $43.95 value. Interested jobseekers should visit www.AfterWallSt.com.

BJP leveraging bloggers for election

Looks like the BJP folks are really keen to learn from Barack Obama’s campaign. Some days ago I got an email that stated:

Dear Gautam,

I am from LK Advani Communications Office. We are launching a programme called Bloggers ForAdvani. We would like to know if you are a supporter and would like to be a part of this initiative. Do write back with an affirmative or negative. Look forward to hearing back from you and sharing more details of this campaign!
— 

Regards,
Mallika Noorani
LK Advani Communications Office
26 Tughlaq Crescent, New Delhi 110011
Tel: +91 (11) 23001741 (board line)
Tel: +91 (11) 23001721 (direct line)

Apparently they’ve tried to reach other bloggers too like Sidin of Mint who wrote an articleon why he won’t be joining the BJP campaign which got published in HT this sunday.

The reason I won’t be participating in the campaign is that I am not a political blogger at all. My focus is HR and organizational business and I’ll stick to it

50 most influential Twitter users in India

Image via CrunchBase

[tweetmeme source=”gautamghosh”]

Ok, I know Twitter is the next big thing or already is the big thing in the social media scene.

Mani Karthik’s put together a list of the 50 most influential Twitter users in India, and yours truly gets ranked there at number 16!

Now there’s another list maintained by the Twitter Grader folks which enables you to list geographically the “twitter elite” of India, where again I get ranked as number 16.

However, the point in social media is not to get swayed by the big hits or big guys, but to find the most relevant for your needs in The Long Tail of blogs/twitterers/networks etc.

So forget the Elite of all India, who all are your most prefered twitter users? That’s important!

Hiring is stable in India, says Naukri

Got this in an email from the Naukri folks:

The Naukri JobSpeak indicates a stable job scenario, the index inches up by 5% in Jan 2009

According to Naukri JobSpeak – The Overall Job Index inched up from 697 in December 2008 to 738 in January 2009, an increase of 5% in new jobs.

Bangalore saw an increase in new jobs by 18% in January 2009 as compared to December 2008.

The job index for ITes and BPO industry moves up by 28% in Jan 2009.

Functional areas including Teaching and Hospitality inched up above the July 2008 levels indicating a more robust job scenario in these sectors.

A location wise analysis reveals an improved situation in IT centres like Bangalore, Kolkata Hyderabad and Pune. The industry analysis reveals a positive scenario in IT, BPO, Telecom, Banking and Hospitality.

City wise Analysis: The job index for Bengaluru moves up by 18% in Jan 2009

The city wise analysis revealed a growth in new jobs in Bangalore and Kolkata. The Bangalore job index at 747, gained 18% as compared to December 2008. The Kolkata job index that had slipped to a low of 586 in December 2008, gained 23% in January 2009. Delhi, Hyderabad and Pune saw a marginal increase in jobs as compared to December 2008.

Industry Analysis:  ITeS , BPO and Telecom buoy the job industry

Most of the industries saw a positive hiring scenario in January 2009 as compared to December. Niche industries including Legal, Government and Defence continued to see an increase in Jobs, with the index above July 2008 levels.

Functional Area / Department Analysis: Most functional areas see an increase in demand

IT, ITeS, Sales, Project Management Accounting and Banking professionals saw an upward movement in the index, especially the ITes saw an increase in new jobs by 18%. Functional areas including Teaching and Hospitality inched up above the July 2008 levels indicating a robust job scenario in these sectors.

Methodology

The index has been calculated based on new jobs added to the site month on month. July 2008 has been taken as the base month with a score of 1000 and the Aug 08-Jan 09 index is compared with the data for July. Data has been sourced from Naukri.com and is reflective of new job listings added on the site. Jobs have been categorised by location, functional area and industry. The index has been analysed across Cities/ Functional Area – Deptt / Industry verticals. The report (produced monthly) will show hiring trends across industry sectors, geography and functional areas. More than 32500 national and  international clients use Naukri.com, leading to high reliability of data.

The 3 vertices of your social media presence

If you are looking at branding your strengths, competencies, skills and talents in these times of economic slowdown here are the three vertices on which your personal branding strategy has to rest:

 

1. Blogging: The fact that you are reading this means you get it. However, mere hobby or political or movie blogging (unless you plan to make a career in anything related to politics/movies) is not going to help. Even in India people are getting googled for the traces of their digital past. So blog about your professional passions.

Love to write code? Blog about the cool stuff you’re doing – but be careful not to reveal any company secrets.

Love to sell ? Blog about the latest sales method you employed and how it’s benefiting you.

Blogging as a cornerstone is useful in skills which can be showcased. Linking to news items or commenting your opinion is not enough. Your thinking and skills should be able to come through on your blog.

Love painting? Photography? Then you probably need to use flickr as a blog.

Respond to comments. Write passionately. Keep a deadline for yourself. Connect with other bloggers in your niche and build a community that grows. Participate in the blogging community events. Like this.

2. Social Networks: Depending on who you’re trying to reach out you could try to brand yourself on social networks like Orkut and Facebook. However, you could also choose to keep yourself private. However, if like me you choose to use social networks like a platform, then you’ve got to make sure you take every step by thinking about it – twice! You could also use a page on Facebook to brand yourself. Profiles on Facebook and Linkedin – are searchable by Google. Here are ten ways to use Linkedin (via the Linkedin Blog)

3. Twitter: Slowly but surely Twitter in India is becoming as much a way to increase one’s reach and connect with other passionate people. In a way twitter enables me to connect with people on a more personal level than a blog and have a mix of personal and professional conversations.

Try not to spam people on twitter, so things like Twitterfeed (which publishes my blogs’ feeds) are posted through a different twitter account. There are a lot of bloggers outside my niche with whom I would never have connected if it wasn’t for twitter.

According to my experience Microblogging services like Twitter help one build a breadth of networks while blogging help people build a greater depth in network. Or maybe that’s simplistic. The truth is somewhere in-between.

Twitter also has helped me shorten my earlier long winded statements – 140 characters only forces you to edit yourself ruthlessly.