The Dot-Commer's Survival Guide to the Job Market
LIAN PEK, HOST: This week on EBIZASIA, tough economic times call for thinking out of the box.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Now I work at home, you know, in the mornings, if I have meetings.</s>PEK: But for the thousands who've already lost jobs, can the online world lead back to them?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It made more sense for me to, you know, look for it online.</s>PEK: Fresh ideas for the dot-commers survival guide in this edition of EBIZASIA. Hello, and welcome to EBIZASIA. I'm Lian Pek. With unemployment rates creeping every higher and the global economic slump dragging on, it's no wonder job insecurity is running high. But what doesn't kill you sometimes makes you stronger. Today's tough economic climate has inspired a new kind of work ethic. Rather than go out of business, some dot-commers have retreated to their own homes. As Andrew Brown reports, they've cut costs dramatically and are still keeping the dream alive.</s>ANDREW BROWN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Once upon a time, dot- commers wanted it all.</s>LESLIE KENNY, FOUNDER, DOTLOVE: We all wanted the chrome, you know, the nice new designs. It was important to look professional and look as if you were established.</s>BROWN: No longer. Leslie Kenny, founder of the dating site, Dotlove, has closed her office in downtown Hong Kong and runs the company from home.</s>KENNY: Survival is really the name of the game.</s>BROWN (on camera): The new economy was a gift to landlords. Start- ups spent huge sums of money on rent, paying for real estate they could not justify. (voice-over): At one stage, the Finnish technology company OpenMobile operated out of a business center in Hong Kong. It paid around $1,200 U.S. a month for a tiny space that was under-utilized.</s>WILLIAM LOK, CONSULTANT: I'd go in at 9:00, basically sit there for the first few hours, and really not performing.</s>BROWN: William Lok stayed at the office to give his company a physical presence in the local marketplace, but what the firm really needed was an employee able to deal with other time zones. Later, they let him work from his apartment so he could operate more flexibly. Still, Lok is staggered by the money he says the IT industry has thrown down the drain.</s>LOK: If you see any IT companies that have a big, huge office, a lot of waste of resources. And the overheads are just killing them.</s>BROWN: Lok has now left OpenMobile and is building his own technology company. Since he doesn't have an office, he uses Starbucks for business meetings, and plans to remain low-profile until the tech market turns around. OpenMobile says it is still active in Asia and is using Singapore as a regional base. Leslie Kenny is adjusting to her new life, managing Dotlove at ultra- low cost. The company now only has four full-time staff and a team of 20 freelancers around Asia. All of them operate from home.</s>KENNY: Depending on how large we get and into which markets we push, we might decide to open an office; but I doubt that our office would be opened here in Hong Kong. I think that the lesson we've learned is that Hong Kong is too expensive.</s>BROWN: Kenny expects Dotlove to be profitable in just six months, proof that there's no place like home. Andrew Brown, CNN, Hong Kong.</s>PEK: Working out of your home is one survival strategy, but there are other options. I delved into them with Larry Cambron, the head of Asian operations at our placement firm, Drake Beam Morin.</s>PEK: If I could start up with Andrew's package, because we saw there how dot commers who are taking their businesses back home -- very ironically, that's the way most start-ups really started. I mean, that is a very valid proposition, is it not?</s>LARRY CAMBRON, DRAKE BEAM MORIN: Absolutely. I think if you look at most industries over a period of history, you will find that perhaps they've gotten off to a great start, but then there will be a correction at some point. It doesn't mean that the industry is inviable or that it will not come back stronger than what it was in the past. But people with a passion for what they do are willing to step back and start again.</s>PEK: But until the industry actually comes back, what do all these people, who have developed so many skills for the new economy -- what should they do? Can their skills be put to good use elsewhere?</s>CAMBRON: Absolutely. We encourage them to certainly be flexible. In looking at employment in the near-term, don't think about employment in terms of 9:00 to 5:00, five days a week, including taking some short-term assignments which ultimately we have found can very definitely end up into long-term employment opportunities.</s>PEK: So, what they need is really a change in mindset, because IT skills really come in handy anywhere.</s>CAMBRON: Absolutely.</s>PEK: Now, for those who are still, you know, having very secure jobs, should they be looking as well? I'm sure a lot of people out there are very worried. Now, should they be looking out for something else as a safety net?</s>CAMBRON: Well, I wouldn't say they should specifically be looking for another job. What we would encourage everyone to do is to constantly be building their network. As we've discussed previously, most of our clients do find their next opportunities through networking. So, even if you feel secure in what you're doing now, looking at the long-term, it's better to keep building the number of people that you have contact with.</s>PEK: Now, every couple of days we're hearing of friends who get laid off or friends of friends, and the first question is, what sort of compensation did you get. Now, you've worked with a lot of tech companies which have had to downsize. Where are they coming from?</s>CAMBRON: Well, again, our experience -- and we're working with tech companies on regional agreements, where we're working with their departing employees across all of the region as well as globally -- and our experience is that the tech companies are being very generous. They certainly do not like the situation. They are looking forward to it changing. And there is also the potential for the opportunity that they will want to attract these same employees back when the business improves. And certainly the attitude of a departing employee toward their company will help to determine whether they will be interested in returning to that company when business improves.</s>PEK: So, what is a typical payout package then? I mean, in order to keep these people, you know, feeling positive towards their former companies.</s>CAMBRON: Number one, that the employees know that the company has done more than they are required by law. Individuals aren't impressed if they feel like, well, I was only given what the law requires the company to give. Typically, in this area of the world, it would be a month of salary for each year of service, and then if there is not a notification period, then they will also give them a month's additional salary.</s>PEK: Can they negotiate for more if they really wanted to? I mean, can people who are getting the axe -- or do they have power, have rights?</s>CAMBRON: Well, they can certainly go back to human resources in a company and say I don't feel like this is adequate or fair. But again, I will speak from our experience, that the companies have very much looked at the situation, they've looked at the market, what business practices are in this are, and at the very least they have met the general business practice and in many instances surpassed that.</s>PEK: So, people who are let go, what do they do to stay sane? I mean, do you suggest that they see job counselors?</s>CAMBRON: Well, basically, that's what we're all about, and it's a really different environment, particularly in the IT sector, where they've come from a number of years where employment was so available into an environment where employment is difficult. The key is for them to get focused and spend a lot of energy looking forward, not looking to the past. Attitude is critically important and they have to be able to deal with any negative feelings before they can move positively forward.</s>PEK: Still ahead on</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's still a very effective resource.</s>PEK: Is surfing the Web for a job everything it's cracked up to be? We check out the sites and speak to the experts, next.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They're pretty bad, but I have a feeling it's going to get better after the new year.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The job market is really bad right now.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All my friends are still looking for jobs.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: All my friends are out of work.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I don't think it's the right time to ask for a raise.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No bonuses this year.</s>PEK: The labor market has definitely seen better times. For thousands of people, the Web seems like a convenient way to go shopping for a job, but seekers beware: it's not a quick fix. The experts say you still have to do your homework, prepare a resume, devise a job- hunting strategy. So how do you know you're on the right online track? I sat down with Nancy Valiente, director of Classified Advertising at Hong Kong's "South China Morning Post," who helped me navigate the ClassifiedPost.com.</s>PEK: OK, so where do I start? How do I go about doing this? Step one?</s>NANCY VALIENTE, CLASSIFIED ADVERTISING DIR., "SCMP": The first thing you should do is to register as a classified first user. Click on "new user," which brings you to our registration page, and fill in all the required information. You could register for ClassifiedPost.com e-mail alert, which is a very useful tool, and you hit "submit."</s>PEK: It says the jobs e-mail alert is really -- I will be alerted as to what jobs are out there. I don't have to log on to the site. Is that right?</s>VALIENTE: Yes. So, if there are any jobs that match your selection criteria, then we will send an e-mail to whatever e-mail address you typed in and we will notify you if there is a job.</s>PEK: OK, so now that I'm registered, I suppose step two is I go looking for a job.</s>VALIENTE: We have several tools on our site to look for a job. The most commonly used one is a job search by category. You can do a broad job search or you can do a narrow search. To do a broad search, you can type in something like IT, which is the sector your interested in, and it will give you a listing of all the jobs in the IT sector by company and we also show you the date that it was posted. This is very important, because it tells you how current the jobs are on our site. As a matter of policy, we keep the jobs posted online for no more than 30 days.</s>PEK: So how do we go about filling out the resume page?</s>VALIENTE: OK, to go to the resume page, log in to go to the "my career" section and go to "my resume." ClassifiedPost.com gives you the option to attach as many as three versions of your resume, because you could have enough skill sets to position yourself for a marketing position, or a business development position, or maybe you want one version of your resume that's geared for corporate IT position and maybe another one for a financial institution, also in the IT sector.</s>PEK: So, different ways of sort of marketing yourself as such.</s>VALIENTE: Exactly. Exactly.</s>PEK: So, is there any way of actually standing out in terms of an online application?</s>VALIENTE: Don't attach pictures. Don't use fancy graphics and things. Try to keep your resume to one or two pages. I think on average an HR practitioner, looking at resume, will probably spend 10 to 20 second when you are screening.</s>PEK: How can a job seeker protect his or her privacy?</s>VALIENTE: They have to be very selective in which sites they submit their resumes to. I think at the end of the day they must trust the brand, they must trust the company behind it. They should also take the time to look at the privacy policy and read through it, and really understand how the resume is going to be used.</s>PEK: Job sites may be relatively easy to navigate, but their effectiveness is another matter altogether. I caught up with some job seekers to find out whether their online searches are really turning up that dream job.</s>KENNETH LEE, JOB SEEKER: Basically, I'm looking for jobs in Hong Kong, Shanghai and San Francisco. So, basically it makes more sense for me to, you know, look for it online, because I mean, I cannot ask someone to buy me a newspaper in San Francisco and, you know, Fed Ex it over here for me to read it, right?</s>PEK: While there are obvious advantages to casting your net on the Web, many job seekers are getting increasingly disenchanted with online searches.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I tried, but not successful.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not very effective at all, I'm afraid. It didn't give me the information I needed or the jobs I was looking for.</s>PEK: Another common complaint: dated postings, so you end up applying for jobs that have already been filled. While this isn't the case at one of Asia's leading portals, JobsDB.com, where ads are automatically dropped after one month, it's CEO, Samuel Sung, acknowledged that some unethical operators do engage in window dressing. That means they could be reposting old ads or copying dated ones from competitors.</s>SAMUEL SUNG, CEO, JOBSDB.COM: We have clients actually complain to us and say we are job seekers applying for a position through other networks, but we only had our posting on your site. And sure enough, these postings appeared on other competitors sites.</s>PEK: What's worse, some sites may window dress to attract your attention because they're building a lucrative database and trading your personal details.</s>SUNG: Let's say, if you provide the name of 1,000 candidates with a salary of $50,000 per month or more, it becomes a very valuable database to the credit card companies, or to insurance brokers for that matter.</s>PEK: But even if your prepared to risk Internet searches for the convenience and the potential rewards, there are no guarantees. In fact, according to a recent American survey, only 6 percent of company managers found jobs on Internet sites, compared with 61 percent who found work through networking. While there are no studies to say what the job hit rates are in Asia, employees do seem to think online recruitment makes their jobs far easier.</s>SUK CHIU, MONSTER.COM: The time to hire is less. The cost to hire is less. It's 24/7. It's efficient. It could be automatic. Or the information could be tracked.</s>PEK: But for job seekers like Kenneth Lee, however he goes about looking for a job right now is pretty much irrelevant.</s>LEE: Right now, I mean, the economy sucks so, you know, the response rate hasn't been that great. I mean, I don't think it's a problem with, you know, online job search or reading a newspaper. It's just a bad economy right now.</s>PEK: Coming up on EBIZASIA, what will it take to turn help desk hell into heaven? We'll explain next.</s>PEK: Navigating the mind field of tech support isn't always a pleasant experience, but some IT professionals are upgrading their service by paying more attention to the human touch. Kristie Lu Stout reports.</s>KRISTIE LU STOUT, CNN CORRESPONDENT, (voice-over): Jacked into a network killing zone, Jay Chen can play up to eight hours of Unreal Tournament at one go. But his game slipped the day his new PC arrived without a sound card.</s>JAY CHEN, ONLINE GAME PLAYER: These online games, if you can't listen, if you cannot hear the footsteps, you get killed. So, that was my difficulty. I was getting killed all the time.</s>STOUT: So he contacted the help desk and asked them to send over tech support.</s>CHEN: They were two hours late, so that we means, on a workday, we have to sit at home and wait for them. They come, they're not able to fix the problem and make an appointment, again. And so we're just talking about weeks of wasted time.</s>STOUT: The problem was eventually fixed, but it left a nasty mark.</s>CHEN: There's not enough memory available to run this program, and I have 768 megabytes in my machine.</s>STOUT: Chen can no longer log online without first shutting down his computer. (on camera): It's a classic tale of help desk hell; tech staffers with the best intentions failing to fix the problem, and sometimes making it worse. Symptoms of bad support include high staff turnover, poor response time; and when the team starts to call end-users losers, a major attitude problem. (voice-over): One net service's Web site features loser voice-mail from hell. One caller made the list for bungling the name of a popular e- mail program.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've had a problem turning the Eudoria (sic).</s>STOUT: Internet prank or not, it's still a slight to the less tech aware. Such unprofessional behavior has tarnished the sector. In fact, according to the Better Business Bureau, computer dealers have ranked among the top five sources of consumer complaints. But the IT community is beginning to take notice.</s>DANIEL LAI, PRESIDENT, HKCS: This is quite common, that our tech support doesn't seem to be a very important function within an organization. Daniel Lai is the president of the Hong Kong Computer Society, a nonprofit forum for local IT professionals that wants to maintain a code of professional conduct for its members. Conduct that includes technical expertise as well as the human touch.</s>LAI: It's not a competency or skill training. It's rather an attitude changing exercise. It's an exercise that would try to change the mentality of individuals so that they understand that why their job exists, it's because of the customer. It's because they are there to help the customer.</s>STOUT: In an idea world, tech support desks wouldn't exist. But in the real world, we must make do with disappointing devices and subpar service, even in an era when the customer is king. Despite his frustrating help desk episode, Jay Chen says he would buy from the same vendor again, convinced that there is no better alternative. But perhaps there is a hidden perk to owning a bungled box.</s>CHEN: My wife can't use this computer at all, so I have this computer to myself.</s>STOUT: Kristie Lu Stout, CNN, Hong Kong.</s>PEK: And that's EBIZASIA for this week. We hope you found this look at jobs and the Net useful. And if looking, good luck. Tell us what you think of our program. E-mail us at EBIZASIA@CNN.COM. Next week, we'll check out sports online, from adventure