Things to consider for a job interview, from the employers perspective

Interview is a nerve wrecking experience not just for the job seekers but also for the recruiting managers too.  Recruiters in Pakistan are in lot of pressure to tap in the talented lot to increase the flair pool of the business veins.  As there can be an issue of illegal or out of context which may offend the job seekers and recruiting agency lost a chance to hire the most appropriate candidate.

Therefore, recruiters should prepare well before going to interview someone as it is important to have answers before throwing questions on the interview’s face. 

 Before interviewing a job candidate, a recruiter must consider following things:

Assess the number of questions you can ask: employers have to select a pattern of question s so that he may not get mislead during the course of questioning.  Being an employer, you should be immensely cautious to not raise questions which are either offending or can raise the issues of company’s discriminatory policies regarding the religious, marital status of the candidates or gender inequality. Having such questions during the interview can question the company’s policies and overall reputation. At times, in order to did in the personality of the candidate or to prolong small harmless talks, employers get in to the discussion over kids and family which seems a little off limits particularly for employees besieged with work life balance.

Be in touch with technology: this becomes more important when you are conducting a video interview or telephone screening. Make sure that you know to adjust the sound levels and other technological stuff to avoid any last minute catastrophe.

Be aware of the job responsibilities you are hiring for:  if you are interviewing for a particular job like an accountant job in Pakistan, be aware of the responsibilities an accountant job in Pakistan brings on the table. Prepare technical questions related to the field. If you are hiring for an accountant job in Pakistan, beware of all the task that he is supposed to perform in the course of time you must have in hand basic industry knowledge and the trends followed by leading patterns.  Have in hand the job resume and credentials of the job seeker to know the potentials of the candidate.

Hiring a software development - Ask Questions Till You're Convinced

Business are always looking for a software development service provider to help either manage their business or increase sales. Hiring a software development company is a tough job. This is a risk that not all can take. Developing a software from a wrong service provider may suffer from loses. And if misused, you may even a threat to your business. So before hiring a software development company, it’s imperative to ask some questions. Some of the questions are given below and many more can be asked:

How much do you charge?

When you’re hiring the services of a software development service provider, they’ll be charging you with some fees. Their price will be based on several factors like:

• The time required to complete your assignment
• Their reputation
• Their expertise
• The nature of the assignment
• The purpose of the software may also contribute in setting the total price.

Their reputation

Reputation is very important when hiring the services of a software development company. You must be sure that the entrusted service provider delivers you the project in time with all the features you agreed upon. Other means of checking on repute are:

• Who were their previous clients?
• What were the results and how satisfied were their clients with their services?
• Demand for previous projects
• Look into their history by reviewing their portfolio.

What are their expertise?

A software development company may provide other services as well like virtual assistance, web development and designing services, mobile application development etc. But there will be one field where their services are incomparable. If you need more services in future you may hire them but only if they are up to your standards.

Do they follow a SDLC?

If they are a reputed software development company, they’ll be following a SDLC or Software Development Life Cycle. You need to ask the process of it and see how they follow through it. SDLC constitute of:

1. Gathering and analyzing the requirements
2. Designing
3. Coding
4. Testing
5. Deployment
6. Maintenance

These are the phases of SDLC and every service provider must follow them.

How are the developers?

Even a reputable company may hire a weak software developer. The unskilled or non-standardized software developer might not be able to deliver you with the services you were looking for. Ask the development company:

• Do you have the professionals with updated skills?
• Do they follow the standards?
• Ask for the individuals’ performance and portfolio
• Have they ever worked with a client like you?

Do they have the capacity to work on your project?

Sometimes, to generate business, companies agree to deliver their clients with the assigned work but later they either reuse to carry on or delay the project. You must be sure that the software development company has sufficient time to work on your project and deliver you the software as promised.

Visiting their office is not a bad idea to get to know about this. You’re investing in the new software and your future project is in their hands now. You have the right to ask as many questions as possible.

The size of the company

This also matters. A larger company means a reputable company, no delays, variety of skills and services. The structure of the company will also matter. There must be a sales team, a developing and a designing team and their will also be software consultants. The rest may constitute the admin, the accounts, the HR and the management team.

Years in business

The more years a business spends, the more chances of expertise they’ll have. A much older firm will know how to survive in tough time, how to hire and retain the best personnel, what are the current market skills in demand, will be more efficient and effective and can provide services in vast array with best services.

Hiring a software development service provider is not an easy job. You need lots of research and time. When found the right software developing company, don’t just leave them on their own but be with in every process of the software development. This will help you to know where your project is leading you, where it needs amendments and also how well the software developers are performing.

Few Tips For Freelancer Interview

Job interview is very important to get the desired jobs and the ideal employee. No one can deny their importance, but for a freelancer, interviews are more of a routine stuff. As being a freelancer, we have to deal many near - interview experiences whenever a client approach us with a project.  I collected a few tips for acing a freelancer job interview. Adopting these techniques will help you to nail your freelance experience.

1.  Always encourage the interviewer and the interviewee to record the conversation. Recorded conversation will help both the parties to avoid any future misunderstanding. This is so because, unrecorded conversation often leads to misquoting from either side. Situations can be different depending upon the state’s laws and regulations. 

2.   Majority interviewees faced interview nervousness every time they appear in an interview. In the moment of nervousness, they usually ruin their talent which is not only detrimental for the freelancer, but also for the hiring manager as he lost the valuable human resource which could have added to the company’s star progress. To avoid this situation, the interviewer should initiate the conversation with lighthearted and casual questions. Raise the questions which give some space to the freelance job seekers to talk about themselves as everyone feels comfortable to talk about themselves. This will give them enough time to compose their nerves and get ready for more technical questions. Getting your interviewee more comfortable with you is the key to get the best out of them. 

3   Half listening will destroy the conversation on both tables. Be an active listener and understand what the other side is sharing. For example, if you are getting interviewed for freelancer job and during the interview you didn't bother to listen to the other side, it will communicate a non-professional approach of yours to the opponent. Whereas, on the part of the employer, if you listen actively to them it will help them to open up more casually in front of you and you will be in a better position to estimate their talent.

4.  Most of the time we build up assumptions before the interview even started. Let the story unfold itself at the later stage instead of jumping to conclusions immediately. Already build expectations will pollute your assessment during the interview process and it can also cause disinterest in the entire interview process.  As an extra note for the interviewee, don’t store your mind with too much of a story before the interview as you may fall short of new stuff during the interview.

Conclusion: Freelancer job interviews are not much different from the regular interviews, but the interviewer and interviewee needs to be well prepared as well as open minded. We need to state facts straight and hence we can achieve the desirable consequences in the interview process for both the parties.

Website Design - Improving Website Navigation System

Website navigation is a route to move on the pages of the website, the easier they are, and the better it will be to attract new users. Easy website navigation means the website is user-friendly. Website navigation system gives a better browsing experience. Website navigation system is an important aspect of website development. One more great advantage of website navigation is SEO. SEO is improved with a better and easier navigation system. Users like websites with easy navigation, so it’s a must thing to develop a great and easy way of navigation system of your website.

Although, there are many web designing and web developing companies which can give your website a great and easy way to navigate, but there are easy tips, which can allow anyone to improve the navigation system website of their website:

HTML is For a Better Website Navigation System

Website designing and developing companies and other experts recommend the use of HTML in improving the navigation system. HTML will for sure helps better in improving the navigation system of a website. Flash, on the other hand, many a times create problems in slowing down the browsing process and can become inefficient. HTML will be much more user-friendly and will give an easy to use interface. One more thing about HTML, it is much faster than Flash.

From the viewpoint of SEO, Flash has yet not been proven to be more effective. The search engine crawlers find it really hard to read Flash. Search engine crawlers like HTML files and easily read them, allowing better SEO.

Use Common Names

Use common names for navigation, as it will make your website easier to navigate, and like said earlier, the better the navigation, the better it is at SEO. You may have more alternative names and terminologies but you don’t want to make your visitors run away. Follow the general rule and the general terminologies and make the navigation system easy and more user-friendly.

Adding a Sitemap

This is helpful for your traffic and will, for sure, improve the navigation system of the website. Add URLs to your sitemap as this will help your traffic to browse with much ease.

Create Relevant Categories

Make categories and out your posts, products and services into relevant categories. This will also help you improving the website navigation system and make it more user-friendly. Improving navigation system should be to provide convenience and effortless browsing to the visitors.

Relevant Content

Posting relevant content on your website. Will not only improve the navigation system easier but will also help in SEO. Another benefit is that the relevant posts on your website will properly guide the traffic on your website, provide them with the information they will be looking for and, again, will help in SEO. Then posting your content to the relevant category is of great use.

Add a Search Box to Your Website

Make your visitors’ life easy by adding things like search box. Search box, again, will help in improving SEO and also the website navigation system. Large and complex websites must have this add-up facility for their visitors. The location of the search box also matters. It should be on top side of the web page and on every page of website. Even adding a search box on blogs is of great help. Remember all these tips are here to make users life much easier and faster, as this will also benefits you.

Breadcrumb Will Also Help in Improving the Navigation System

“Where I started?” may be question of the user as he or she navigates through your website. Breadcrumb trails will show their purpose here. It will the entire route the user has followed and he or she knows the way back. The words in the breadcrumb trail are hyperlinked and from there the user can navigate to any page he or she likes.

Make your Loading Faster

Faster websites will ensure a good and improved navigation system. This has also a direct relationship with the user-friendliness of the website. Slower loading of the websites or the webpages means a loss of the business. Another benefit of this is to bring an improvement in the SEO. Google Panda and Google Penguin updates have proved that websites with fast loading are ranked higher.

Responsive Website Design

Relatively a new concept but it has developed too soon and have been effecting the business and ranking of the websites. Responsive websites will provide a better navigation system, easy to user, SEO is enhanced and creates a better look.

Adding Navigational Text Links to the Bottom

Users, while navigating, might like to go back to the homepage or any other page and there these navigational text links will come effective and useful. These links will ease users’ efforts and will also help in improving navigational system of the website.

Not quite difficult to follow, but if you don’t have the skills to develop your own website, you then must take the help of a webdesigning and web developing company with a good repute and portfolio. This company will then help you better in improving the overall navigation system and will also help you build a great website.

Data Entry Services - A Necessary Part of The Company

Who is a data entry operator?

Data entry operator or clerk, also known as a typist, are the individuals updating or entering data into the database system of a computer. They can be entering data from a hard copy or a soft copy into the computer system database. They may be considered as an unimportant part of the company but the fact is just opposite to it. They are usually considered as unskilled personnel but this is also not a true picture of the data entry operators. With data entry services, a company may not be able to operate. Although, data entry services are in fact a boring job to do, but this is a hectic and skillful job, which not everyone can perform.

What they do?

Their core job is to update the company database system. They can be entering data from various sources like the web, hard copies of company’s documents or even from audio or video files. Most of the data entry operators’ job is done with keyboard and mouse.

The type of data to be entered vary from organization to organization and industry to industry. Data entry operators can be providing services in banks, software houses, financial firms, healthcare industry and so on, you name it and you will find a data entry clerk.

What are the job requirements?

Generally, this job has no specific requirement but a basic but good skill with computers. There can be a requirement of high school education or a diploma. But the main requirement could to be good with searching the web, good typing speed and a good grasp on language.

How to get a good data entry job?

To get the best, you need to do the best. To get a data entry job, you will have to follow the below given pointers:

Get the skill

Yes, this is a skill, it doesn't matter how big or small it’s but still it’s a skill and not everyone has the capacity to get this skill. There are institutes offering typing courses and there are then companies training start-ups to become the future data entry operators. Never forget to get a certificate and also never leave this skill untouched, even if you don’t have any job.

Get some years of experience

As the experience level rises, data entry service providers can expect a higher return. Get into the field, even if you get less than the market standard rate and also never underestimate the value of an internship. If you are getting an internship opportunity, do avail that and learn as much as you can. The more years of experience you get, the better you will get the chance to grow.

Get into an employment

If we talk about jobs in Pakistan, everyone know that it’s a real hard thing to get one. But there are jobs for the good and the hard workers. There are jobs in Pakistan for data entry operators with different salary packages.

Job security

If we talk about job security, no job is secure unless you create such an environment. And to secure the job, data entry operators too have to provide the best services and keep updating their skill and knowledge.

Pakistan and Australia strengthening ties on educational grounds

Australia is an ideal place to live in for those who love the combination of nature and modernism. It’s a country of diverse culture and traditions. Australia is a beautiful island country with a welcoming population of around 22.2 million people. Australian educational institutes and universities are an absolute site of attraction for students across the globe to pursue their dreams of higher education. It is mainly due to the high class quality education and training provided by Australian institutes. They aren’t only experiencing ample growth and learning opportunities, but also excellently supportive and liberal society and support services.

Australian education is on the road of rapid globalization by engulfing international students in the local universities.  According to the official resources, more than 340,000 foreign students were registered in Australian educational institutes. Among them, around 1,626 students were postgraduate students with Pakistan as home country.

Pakistan is also increasing its educational linkages with Australia to get high quality education for Pakistani students. Efforts of Australian High Commissions are worth mentioning. The Australian Department of Education, Science and Training is making its efforts to strengthen the linkages between Pakistan and Australia. This institute is envisioned with the duties of passing information about the opportunities of study in Australia.

Major responsibilities of The Australian Department of Education, Science and Training revolves around

1.     To build up communication between the governments of the friendly nations to extend their collaboration in the areas of education, training opportunities and    prospects of studying in Australia.

2.  Department mechanized the communication between the educational communities of both the countries to build up an educational alliance to foster terms between educational community which will help the Pakistani community learn from Australian excellence in the field of quality education.

Conclusion: Australia has offered several opportunities for studying abroad. Foreign governments should extend their collaboration with the Australian government to explore opportunities for their students to get access to their internationally recognized universities. As such collaboration benefits both the sides equally.

Job Portals - Let the World Know your Existence

With the advent of internet, everything now is going online. Education, entertainment, shopping, jobs and searching for jobs, all are now online. Now the most important and effective way to search for an employment opportunity is online. Job providers find online marketing a better way to reach new job seekers and spread the word for new vacancies in their organizations. And usually the first stage to spread the word for new employment opportunities is to post jobs on job portals. Job portals or websites are one of the best mode to build an interaction between job seekers and job providers. Thousands of companies register with job portals and post new vacancies on these websites and then, against each job post they receive hundreds of applications. But how to get to know about these job websites and then choose the best? To let the word know about the existence of job portals, these agencies or mediators must first market themselves.

What could be the best way to advertise one’s own job portal, is the matter of concern here, so let’s discover it:

Outdoor Advertisement of Jobs Portal

Outdoor advertising

It is not seen a very popular activity for job portals but this is very effective. There are a number of ways to advertise one’s own job portal by using the outdoor advertising mode:

Billboards

One of the best, more viewable and more effective ways of outdoor advertising are using billboards. Billboards on different squares, main roads and other places, are big enough to catch one’s attention and deliver their message. The message must be clear and should have the right font size to be viewed from a distance. Statement like; “Get employment opportunities in your region”, “Get the best job in your city”, “We provide the best jobs”, “Hire the best employees” etc. can be used to attract the attention and deliver the message. The billboard should also add the URL and other contact information on it, so that users easily find them and register with such job websites.

Sidewalk signs

Like the name tells, sidewalk signs are small sized sign boards on streets and passageways. The message can be the same as mentioned for billboards. Sidewalks will be cheaper but will be less viewable as compared to billboards, but there utility can’t be ignored.

Buildings

Many buildings and plazas allow advertising agencies to put a signboard of various styles to on to their buildings. These signboards can come in simple signboards or can use some lighting effects to attract viewers in the night times. Lighting will definitely add to the cost but will be more effective but remember to place such boards on building where it can serve its purpose and not to unpopulated areas.

Vehicles

The owners, managers and other staff members can add staff, paint or decorate their personal vehicles with job portal’s name and web address. If that agency provides a pick and drop service to its personnel, that vehicle should also be having with such an advertisement. There is no recurring cost of painting or putting a sticker on vehicles, this is a onetime expense or an expense for a longer period.

Sale and marketing team

The sales and marketing team, are the advertising agents themselves. They will be spreading the word, attracting more clients and bringing more business. Job portals need sales and marketing team to bring more business and promote their services. It is also a good way to provide the sales and marketing team with a company labeled t-shirts, so that when they go out on their job, they wear these t-shirts, letting the world know who they are and to which organization they belong.

Promotional products

The jobs portal agency can also gift their notepads, pens, cups etc. having their name and URL on it. These will be marketing the company all the time to the clients or other persons who use them or catches the glimpse of it.

Online Advertising of Jobs Postal

Online marketing

Online or internet marketing is today one of the best ways to advertise. There are number of ways for the job portals to market themselves using the online medium:

Social networking

Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn etc. are some of the websites where these job portals can market themselves and attract both the job seekers and the job providers. Almost everyone in Pakistan is on Facebook and this makes one of the best mode to advertise one’s business using official pages.

Online banners

Web banners and ads comes on the web pages other than job portal’s own official website. These are banners of different sizes and are located on different positions on a web page. This is also a good and cheap way for advertising job portal’s website on the web.

Email marketing

Although, not liked by all but advertisements of job related websites are popular and helpful, especially for the job seekers. Job seekers in Pakistan are always looking for a better employment opportunity and such type of advertisements will for sure help them.

Search the web

The best way for all. The job portals can also market themselves by using special keywords or key phrases, which will be used by the job seekers and job providers, so that they can see that job portal on the first page of the search engine. First page appearance is of great value, as many users won’t even move onto the nest page.

Other ways to spread the word, are:

Blog writing

• Blog writing
• Article marketing
• Link building

Outdoor marketing vs. Online marketing

Both of the mediums of advertising are helpful and valuable for the online job providing agencies. Let’s compare their benefits:

                                                   Outdoor marketing                                         Online marketing

Cost                                                       High                                                                   Less

Attracts viewers                                   Less                                                                    More

Reach                                                    Less                                                                    More

For a job portal it is better to start their marketing campaign online but not to underestimate the power of outdoor advertising.