LiveC Thots

There is an absolutely wonderful children’s book called 20 Heartbeats about a painter who paints a horse for a very wealthy man. I hate to ruin it for you, but I have to say what happens.

The rich man pays this famous painter to paint his favorite horse. But years go by and the painter won’t finish the painting. The rich man finally shows up at the painter’s house and demands the painting. The painter obligingly whips out a piece of parchment, dashes off a horse in black ink with his brush, and then hands the painting to the rich man. All this takes less than the time of 20 heartbeats.

The rich man is, of course, aghast. He storms after the painter to demand his money back. However, as he walks after the painter, he sees what has been taking so long.

All along the walls are hundreds and hundreds of painted horses. The painter wasn’t procrastinating, he was practicing. The rich man then finally takes a look at the painting that he purchased so long ago, now in his hands. It’s a perfect horse, a horse so real that he whistles to it.

As every art form takes discipline and practice to look easy, every kind of work takes years of diligence to perfect. Recruiting is no different, but few professions look so simple. It’s really hard to pass along a piece of paper, right? You can almost hear hiring managers thinking to themselves, “Yeah, I’ll bet your fingers are really tired from dragging all those resumes from a folder into an email. Real hard work.” Few jobs seem so easy to duplicate.

The end product of recruiting, for one thing, is someone’s else’s work – it is someone else’s talent, ability to interview, and everything else they have that gets them hired that is the end product of the recruiter’s process. It’s hard to pinpoint the recruiter’s exact role in this pseudo-science. Did they identify the talent? Spot them? Find them? Assess them? Understand the job? The culture? Have the right database? The right connections? The right insight into the department or hiring manager psychology? Did they make a lot of calls or know some secret strings to search for in Google? It’s hard to say what it is exactly that the recruiter does and so it’s easy to discount the recruiter’s role entirely.

However, we might be looking at it wrong. A recruiter’s value can’t be found within the process of a single hire. It can’t be found in that space that sometimes spans twenty heartbeats between talking to a manager about a job to the identification of a possible talent.
You have to look at everything that comes before that identification to see the value of a good recruiter. A great recruiter creates the conditions for that magic luck to strike. They don’t talk to a lot of different people. They talk to everyone. They don’t want to know their clients or their company’s competitors. They want to know everything that’s happening at every company in their area. It’s a massive amount of work that requires constant rejection, failure, stress, and is compounded by the minutiae of job offers and the uncertainty of human emotion.
That’s why very few succeed at recruiting. It’s not like there is anything special about that one placement. There is nothing about identifying a candidate and getting them a job offer that requires any particular kind of magic, or even a college degree for that matter. Unlike a beautiful painting, anyone or any recruiter can luck out and make a placement or two. But the background required for long-term recruiting success is much different. It involves the deep study of companies, products, markets, assessment, and professions coupled with a kind of brute force stamina to doggedly pursue the talents of other people. This is the process that forges the recruiter’s talent. This talent, when functioning at its best, is impossible to find.

~~ Source – Linkedin Group.

BABY giraffes never go to school. But they learn a very important lesson rather early in life. A lesson that all of us would do well to remember.

The birth of a baby giraffe is quite an earth-shaking event. The baby falls from its mother’s womb, some eight feet above the ground. It shrivels up and lies still, too weak to move.

The mother giraffe lovingly lowers her neck to smooch the baby giraffe. And then something incredible happens. She lifts her long leg and kicks the baby giraffe, sending it flying up in the air and tumbling down on the ground. As the baby lies curled up, the mother kicks the baby again. And again. Until the baby giraffe, still trembling and tired, pushes its limbs and for the first time learns to stand on its feet.

Happy to see the baby standing on its own feet, the mother giraffe comes over and gives it yet another kick. The baby giraffe falls one more time, but now quickly recovers and stands up. Mama Giraffe is delighted. She knows that her baby has learnt an important lesson: Never mind how hard you fall, always remember to pick yourself up and get back on your feet.

Why does the mother giraffe do this? She knows that lions and leopards love giraffe meat. So unless the baby giraffe quickly learns to stand and run with the pack – it will have no chance of survival. Most of us though are not quite as lucky as baby giraffes. No one teaches us to stand up every time we fall. When we fail, when we are down, we just give up. No one kicks us out of our comfort zone to remind us that to survive and succeed, we need to learn to get back on our feet.

If you study the lives of successful people though, you will see a recurring pattern. Were they always successful in all they did? No. Did success come to them quick and easy? No, no! You will find that the common streak running through their lives is their ability to stand up every time they fall. The ability of the baby giraffe!

Have you heard about a young sales executive from Kolkata who dreamt about becoming an announcer on radio? He auditioned with All India Radio for a job. The authorities felt that he didn’t have a particularly good voice and he was rejected. He refused to accept defeat and continued to chase his dream.

He tried for a role in the movies. He got rejected. They thought he was too tall. He kept trying and got a few lucky breaks. But most of his early films flopped. He did not give up. He played an angry young man in a movie that became a super hit. And the failed radio announcer went on to become the country’s biggest superstar – widely admired for his baritone voice! His name? Amitabh Bachchan.

The road to success is never an easy one. There are several obstacles, and you are bound to fall sooner or later. You will hit a road block, you will taste failure. But success lies in being able to get up every time you fall. That’s a critical life skill. And it’s the habit of all successful people.

Learning to win in life is quite like learning to ride a bicycle. As you start to ride, you might fall and get bruised. It doesn’t matter. You need to get back up and continue to ride. Fall one more time? Get back up again. That’s all it takes. Learn to get back up every time you fall.

And just remember one more thing. Next time you find a friend or a parent kicking you, don’t get upset with them. Like the mother giraffe, they may only be trying to teach you one of life’s most important lessons. It doesn’t matter how many times you fall. What matters is your ability to pick yourself up and stand on your feet once again.

Last night as I lay sleeping I died..

or so it seemed.

Then I went to heaven

But only in my dream.

I was greeted by St. Peter

Standing at the Pearly Gates

He said “I must check your record…

Please stand right here and wait.

He turned and said “Your record

Is covered with terrible flaws,

On earth I see you rallied

For every losing cause.”

“I see that you drank alcohol

and smoked and partied too.

Fact is , you’ve done everything

A good person should not do.”

“We can’t have people like you here…

Your life was full of sin.”

Then he read the last line of my record,

Took my hand and said “Come in.”

He led me to the Lord and said,

“We’ll take him and treat him well,

He used to work for Live Connections

He’s done his time in hell.”

The world today is celebrating “Women’s Day” a special day for every woman. As a woman I sometime can’t find a specific reason to celebrate this day. This is day is as special as every day for me.

But may be I will take privilege of this opportunity to talk about my experience as feminine.

At times, journey of woman might be difficult but where is the fun in learning, if the life is simple enough?

Women have been compared with men and look down in general sense. If someone asks me who is the superior in between man and woman, my answer will be ‘a soul is, not the body’. As per science women are more sentimental, emotional then men coz of their functions of brain. But still a woman can do the miracles with all her short falls and become very successful in her life coz of her inner strength. And we should not forget the support and strength of men who helped/helps us to reach in this stage.

Here is few point why I’m grateful to God being a woman::

• To give me little more emotions than man to be more compassionate about pain.
• For creating us with soft heart so that we can be loved by all. To give a strong heart that has courage to go on after a disaster.
• To give us tears so that we can lessen our pain and release it for better tomorrow.
• For a wonderful experience that we go through to give birth, a new life.
• As we have been loved as daughter, sister, friend, colleague & beloved.
• To provide us experience to learn with an open mind.

HAPPY WOMAN’S DAY!!!

By Dipa Rani

^{Info on Recruiters Day}

For close to two decades now, recruiters in India have been forming the bridge between the demand for qualified professionals and the available talent pool in the country. The booming economy has been riding confidently on the back of an extensive network of Recruitment Consultants across the country, who have over the years streamlined their efforts in the best interests of job seekers and employers alike for identifying new avenues to tap talent.

One of the trends that emerged over the past few years WAS THE NEED from corporates to have recruitment consultants as partners in their endeavour to grow. With the advent of contract staffing in India, several International players entered India through acquisition of established Indian recruitment firms, which in itself is a recognition of the Indian recruitment Industry and its contribution to the growth of the Indian economy.

On March 9th, six years ago a group of senior professionals from the recruitment industry met and conveived of an association that would represent the needs and aspirations of the industry as well as strive to eradicate unethical practices.

What resulted from that rendezvous was ERA (Executive Recruiters Association) - a non-profit Chamber of Commerce representing Indian Executive Recruitment Consulting firms. Registered in 2002, ERA today has 8 chapters and 140+ members spread across India. ERA represents the interests of Search, Staffing and Selection firms. ERA member firms account for more than half the Indian recruitment industry revenue and include most of the large recruitment firms in India as well as international firms. Whether it is lobbying, training, industry growth, interests of member firms and recruiting professionals, over the years, ERA has grown to be an organisation that is the Voice of the Indian Recruitment Industry. The turnover of the organized recruitment industry last year was US$ 1.5 billion by Government estimates and is slated to grow annually at 30% to 40 % in the coming years. 

Many leading corporates around the country, both Indian and MNC, have supported the ERA cause and have been sponsoring ERA programme & conventions - proof of sustained partnership.

Since its inception, ERA has been the torch bearer of ethical practices and to this effect, it has brought Recruiters from across the country under one roof and pledged to adopt only the best, fair & ethical practices in recruitment.

Acknowledging the dedication, sincerity and integrity of its recruiter members, ERA is proud to announce March 9th each year as the Indian Recruiters Day. 

The Indian Recruiters Day is a day of celebration for the reruiters of India. A day for all of us recognise the efrorts of our Recruiters, a day to felicitate and honour our recruiters. Over 300,000 recruiters from across the country will rejoice in the light of the acknowledgment of their efforts to the Indian economy.

On this day, ERA is planning a number of activities at each of its chapter locations to bring together all the recruiters. ERA will provide a platform for recruiters from across organisations to meet each other, be recognised, develop bonding amongst themselves, share their experiences, learn from each other and showcase their talent. Above all, it is a day for recruiters to feel proud of their profession that touches and empowers professionals to realize their latent talent.