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• 24 May 2013

  Japan stocks rebound after big plunge

  Stocks in Japan traded higher on Friday, bouncing back from a deep plunge the day before.
  
  The Nikkei was up about 3% in morning trade.
  
  On Thursday, the index fell 7.3% -- the biggest one-day drop since the 2011 earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster shook Japan's economy.
  
  The sharp plunge this week spooked investors in China and Europe, leading to sizable stock market losses around the globe. In the United States, stocks clawed back from steep losses.
  
  Thursday's sell-off was triggered by weak economic data from China that showed manufacturing slowed for the first time in seven months, as well as mixed signals from the Federal Reserve about when it might start dialing down its bond-buying program.
  
  "What we have seen is investors taking profits off the table and reducing some of their exposures to protect their portfolio in case the move we [saw Thursday] is a precursor to a broader market correction," said Joshua Raymond, chief market strategist at City Index.
  
  Many market analysts had been saying for weeks that the Japanese market was due for a correction after running up more than 70% in less than 12 months.
  
  Central banks, including the Bank of Japan, have been a big driver of the bull market as they continue to promote loose monetary policy
  
  http://money.cnn.com/2013/05/23/investing/japan-markets/inde...
  

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• 24 May 2013

  A CEO's tips for new grads ... and everybody else

  FORTUNE -- No doubt about it, the current job market is no walk on the beach for anyone just graduating from college. Companies plan to hire just 2% more grads than last year, says the National Association of Colleges and Employers, a startling drop from the 13% increase those same employers projected last fall. And this year's fresh crop of degree holders will have to compete with the roughly 40% of the class of 2012 who are still underemployed or out of work.
  
  Even so, Joe Echevarria believes success is within reach of anyone who wants it badly enough. He speaks from experience: After growing up poor in a single-parent home in New York City's South Bronx, Echevarria, who is Puerto Rican, faced a tougher struggle than most. Since 2011, he has been CEO of global consulting and audit giant Deloitte, No. 47 on Fortune's list of the Best Companies to Work For. This year the company will hire about 9,000 new grads. In a recent conversation, Echevarria recalled the early years of his career and offered advice on getting ahead against long odds.
  
  Fortune: What was your first job out of college, and how did you get it?
  
  Echevarria: I went from being an auto mechanic during the summers in the Bronx to getting hired as an auditor at Haskins & Sells [which later merged with Deloitte] when I graduated from the University of Miami, where I had gone on a scholarship. Back then, to get an interview with a Big 8 firm — it's now the Big 4 — you were supposed to have a 3.5 GPA. But, because I went to a not-so-great school — it was nicknamed Suntan U. — I had to have a 3.8. So I did that. I was at the top of my class in accounting, so they couldn't find a reason not to interview me, in spite of my rough edges.
  
  MORE: A $100 million plan to save cities from the next Sandy
  
  What rough edges?
  
  I had a big mustache and bad hair. Also, I had two suits, one brown and the other green polyester. I had no social graces, either — I didn't know where the bread plate goes on a table, had never drunk coffee out of a cup with a saucer. It took me a long time to realize that these things matter in the corporate world. No one was willing to tell me.
  
  Eventually I noticed that everybody else had more than two suits, and nobody wore brown or polyester. But because of these things, however superficial they might seem, I kept getting evaluations that said I had "low potential." Nobody thought I would ever get promoted. Also, I was paid less than anybody else in the [auditor training program]. But I caught up.
  
  How did you do that?
  
  Well, first, I figured out what successful people in the firm were doing. I looked at them and analyzed how they got there, and I tried my best to do the same. Then, I worked very, very hard. I worked harder than everybody else. And third, I had a boss, a Hispanic woman, who gave me good advice. Right before I left on vacation, she said to me, "You're coming back without that mustache. You will never make it into management if you look like the Frito Bandito." I had never realized that was holding me back. She is still my mentor to this day. I've been at the firm 35 years, she's been here 40. I call her my "mom" in the company.
  
  What advice do you have for new grads now, or for anyone who wants to succeed at a big company?
  
  First, you have to outwork everyone else. If you don't, talent will not help you. In this difficult job market, new grads may even have to work for free for a little while, in order to get a foot in the door. Find somewhere you really want to work and prove yourself by working hard and doing a great job, and I guarantee you that they will find a way to hire you and pay you.
  
  I would also recommend reading a lot. Read everything you can get your hands on, because you'll always learn something you can use. One thing that helped me early on was a little book called It's Not How Good You Are, It's How Good You Want to Be [by British ad man Paul Arden]. It's really for salespeople, but you can apply a lot of the wisdom in it to yourself. I still pick it up and read it now and then.
  
  MORE: New York City's Christine Quinn wants no B.S.
  
  Third, find a mentor who will be honest with you about your shortcomings and show you your blind spots, because everyone has them. If you walk through my old neighborhood in the South Bronx even today, half the men have these big mustaches, so I just never thought twice about it until my "mom" told me to get rid of it.
  
  What does Deloitte look for in hiring new grads?
  
  Altogether, we hire about 18,000 people each year, about half new grads and half experienced professionals, and we go through about 500,000 resumes and applications every year to find those 18,000. Beyond the basic credentials and competencies, we're looking for people who stand out. If you are a passionate person, that will stand out. If you are positive and enthusiastic and other people want to be around you, that will stand out.
  
  And do you finish what you start? It sounds basic, but so many people start out strong on something and then don't follow through. We also look for people who care about people. Those qualities are the difference-makers, and they will always be the difference-makers, between an okay candidate and a great candidate.
  
  As a member of an ethnic minority, do you have any special advice for new grads who are also minorities?
  
  I would say this: Whatever disadvantages you may have faced up to now, because of your ethnicity, that is all about to change. The fact is that there are not enough talented minority managers, or management-track entry-level people, to reflect the changing demographics of the U.S. population, which by 2050 will be more than half "minorities." So you are in demand. Deloitte has been steadily increasing recruitment of black and Latino talent, because if we don't get our share of it now, we won't be in a good place in the years ahead.
  
  http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2013/05/14/tips-for-new-gr...
  

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• 24 May 2013

  The great expatriate hiring boom

  FORTUNE -- Kent Kedl knew he had big problems last year when he took the helm of the Asia practice of London-based management consulting firm Control Risks. In his first six months, Kedl sat in his Shanghai office and listened to the same story at least four times from top managers: A competitor offered to hire them away for three times their salary.
  
  All four people left the firm, handing Kedl the daunting task of filling those jobs with qualified leaders who had knowledge of the region. "These guys are getting calls every week by headhunters, and it's problem No. 1 on everyone's mind here," says Kedl.
  
  Hiring in the U.S may still be sluggish, but when it comes to finding and keeping top management in emerging markets like China, it's a sellers' market akin to pre-financial crisis America. Some 42% of company leaders say filling jobs with good people abroad is one of their toughest challenges, according to a 2011 survey of 992 C-level executives by Ernst & Young. In India, for instance, 67% of employers say they struggled to build effective management teams in that country, up from 16% in 2010, according to a different survey by global staffing organization ManPower.
  
  While India has benefited from impressive GDP growth and watched its IT sector blossom into a $100 billion industry in the past two decades, its focus on developing engineering talent has left the country dry of Indians with leadership and management skills, says Srini Kandula, vice president of human resources for iGATE, a Freemont, Calif.-based outsourced software developer with 28,000 employees and operations in Bangalore.
  
  "Everyone prefers leaders who are exposed to global business practices, and supply is limited," says Kandula, so companies across a broad array of industries compete for the same people.
  
  In Russia, Edward Mermelstein spent six months training and relocating top-level executives to run the Moscow office for Rheem Bell & Mermelstein, a corporate law firm based in New York. But in the past two years, local competitors poached two of his executives, offering them nearly double their salaries. Mermelstein says the same scenario is playing out with many of the firms' other big banking clients there.
  
  "The competition is cutthroat, and they don't give you two-week notices. If they leave, they just leave," says Mermelstein, the firm's principal.
  
  Confronted with these labor shortages, the typical response has been to parachute in expatriate executives, but that strategy is not always successful. Just 29% of executives surveyed by Ernst & Young said their companies effectively relocate employees without big disruption.
  
  Moving those expats can be even more challenging with the U.S. housing market still in a slump. It's a costly endeavor to buy -- and then sell -- an employee's home to send them abroad. And these execs are not always the ideal hire: Local management teams often have deep knowledge and understanding of national cultures, markets, and worker psychology that most companies need for long-term stability, says Mark Murphy, CEO of Leadership IQ, an Atlanta research and management consulting firm.
  
  Beer-maker Anheuser-Busch InBev (BUD) is hedging its bets for the future by recruiting promising leaders straight out of college, including foreign nationals while they are living outside their home countries. The company recently recruited two Chinese graduates from the University of Washington who joined the beer-maker's global management trainee program. Managers who perform well are put on a 10-year track for global C-level jobs. Three of the company's global division presidents and two C-executives came up this way. "It's proven to be successful," says Bieke Teerlinck, who oversees the company's trainee program.
  
  To ensure top Indian executives stay today, iGATE began to offer stock options, and the company has managed to keep its C-team in India for several years even while competitors offer executives jobs for two to three times the pay. iGATE has also placed an emphasis on identifying Indians within the company who could be groomed for top jobs, says Kandula.
  
  After losing four top people in China, Control Risks' Kedl started laying out a clear career path for new management hires, showing them the specific steps for more leadership opportunities, pay, and job descriptions. He also gives managers regular performance reviews and, when appropriate, offers them raises and promotions before they even ask. "The whole 'people are the most important assets' thing is not corporate bologna," he says. "That's the hard-core truth. You really learn that in a market like China."
  
  
  http://management.fortune.cnn.com/2013/05/15/hiring-emerging...
  

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