Posts Tagged ‘HR’

Offshore Drilling Employment Your Cover Letter Must Have These 3 Elements

July 20, 2015

Both your cover letter and your resume are important when looking for offshore drilling employment. You need to get HR to read both, otherwise it’s all for nothing. First, you need to attract their attention. This is easy – your email (cover letter) subject just needs to state the job title (and code, if any) in the advertisement. Then your cover letter must make them read your resume. Finally, getting you the interview is the job of your resume. For your cover letter, here are three elements necessary to make it powerful…

1. Do You Have Any Relevant Job Experience?

If you had one working week to select 20 candidates out of 500 for interviews, and all you had to go on was their cover letters and resumes, how would you do it? Whether you start from the earliest job applications, or the latest, or randomly open the emails, you would not read every cover letter and resume in detail. When you open the email (cover letter), you’ll only have time to look at the first half-page. It must give you a reason to read on and open the candidate’s resume, otherwise you’ll just move the job application to your trash folder.

So what makes the HR staff decide whether or not to read the rest of your cover letter and resume? The most important factor is relevant job experience. Unless you are going in through the back door, or the company is desperate for workers, your previous job experience is critical to selection. That means you must quickly and concisely state the most relevant points in your job history and tie it to the scope and requirements stated in the job advertisement.

But what if you have never worked in the oil industry before? During the oil boom, experience didn’t matter. But that is not the case during a recession. However, there is still a chance if you can get some relevant training under your belt. Oil is of strategic importance to many nations, and governments have training programs in place to provide workers for the oil industry. While the actual training may take place in technical or community colleges, the syllabus is designed by the oil industry.

Training can be expensive, but the oil industry still pays very well, so it is worth it. Before you pay for your own training, though, you should check if qualify for any form of subsidy. For example, disadvantaged youths in the US may qualify for the JobCorps program, while ex-servicemen in Britain have special training programs to prepare them for offshore oil rig jobs.

2. Do You Have Any Outstanding Skills?

Besides meeting the scope and requirements of the advertised oil rig jobs, is there any other thing that might make you special? Do you exceed the requirements in any way? For example, if the advertised roustabout jobs say they need people with 2 years of working experience, do you have 5 years? If you can add this kind of depth, and successfully make your case in the cover letter, you’ll have a better chance of getting hired.

However, depth is not the only way. How about breadth? Do you have any extra skills? Let’s take that same roustabout job. Perhaps you have scaffolding experience? Then say so. Companies always want people with some extra skills, as long as they don’t have to pay for it. Every boss wants his workers to be able to back each other up. He cannot afford to have critical jobs left undone just because the only guy who can do it broke a leg or something like that.

3. Can You Start Work Immediately?

Being able to start work immediately is always a strong point in your favor. If you can start work immediately, you can sometimes trump a rival with better experience. However, this does not just mean not having a job right now. You need to clear a lot of red tape before you can work on an offshore oil rig. If you have already dealt with the necessary paperwork, this saves the human resource staff a lot of trouble and they will be more willing to call you up.

While they aren’t supposed to behave this way, they are also human. In any case, this is a list of government paperwork you often have to deal with:

Firefighting certificate

First aid certificate

Helicopter underwater escape training certificate

Offshore survival certificate

Vaccinations

Passport

Visa

Relevant local union membership(s)

There is no fixed format for a cover letter. Neither is there such a thing as a perfect cover letter for offshore drilling employment. However, one thing is clear – your cover letter must have the above three important elements to persuade HR to read your resume.

Benefits Of Hiring A 3rd Party Background Check Company

May 19, 2015

Pre-employment background checks are more than just a way of avoiding bad hires; they’re also corporations’ best bet for beating negligence court cases. This article reviews why more and more corporations are hiring third party employee background check companies, rather than conducting background checks in-house. Read on to discover the benefits corporations enjoy by outsourcing their employment background checks.

1. Increased applicant privacy.

If an internal employee does your employee background checks, workplace drama can ensue. New hires will be less likely to trust their co-workers charged with employment background screening duties. Third party background checks go a long way in preventing mistrust and gossip. Moreover, they show applicants and employees that you are dedicated to even-handed, fair treatment.

2. Less chance for expensive mistakes.

Did you know that some states require employees to provide applicants with a copy of their employment background screening, even if it’s not specifically requested? Or that it’s illegal to base a hiring decision on court cases that did not result in convictions? Your company could be sued if you fail to follow the letter of the law as far as employee background checks are concerned. Yet few HR managers have the time or legal expertise to avoid all potential background check lawsuits. For this reason, increasing numbers of companies are outsourcing their employment background screening to vendors who have spent decades focused on these issues. Doing so typically results in fewer costly hiring mistakes.

3. Legal protection.

Beyond preventing legal mistakes, outsourcing background screening also grants companies exemption from lawsuits. The federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) promises legal immunity for companies that choose to outsource their employment background checks. In other words, your company can avoid lawsuits citing hiring negligence, privacy invasion, and defamation if you outsource your background procedures.

Still, it’s notable that the FCRA still requires companies to notify candidates if they are investigating credit history. Therefore, it’s smart to ask your employee background screening vendor whether they offer forms for applicant notification.

4. Decreased costs.

It would likely take a full-time employee months to research how to legally, respectfully, thoroughly carry out employment background checks. Then, it might take them another few months to locate the investigative resources needed to methodically do employment background screening.

In contrast, third-party, professional background check companies have already developed the understanding and resources needed to effectively run employment background checks, so they can typically deliver the same (or improved) results at a lower cost.

5. More meticulous background checks.

Because professional background check companies specialize in labor investigations, they usually have excellent sources for examining individuals’ history. Having spent hundreds of hours perfecting their screening approach, professional background check companies can typically deliver more thorough investigations than can be achieved in-house.

6. Improved service.

Because they are investigative experts, background check companies offer extra features for their clients, such as adverse action letters. The law states that if you choose not to hire someone based on characteristics such as credit history, you must inform his or her in writing about your decision. An adverse action letter fulfills this duty. Many employment background vendors offer complimentary adverse action letters as part of their employee screening service, saving you time.

There are many reasons for outsourcing your employee background screening process, from lowered costs to improved legal immunity.

Employee Background Screening -2

April 8, 2015

Founded in 1993, Onicra has been a leader in the field of corporate consultancy and human resource services. Onicra has been dedicated to providing a viable commercial identity and human-resource related expertise to companies, commercial corporations and commercial institutions. At Onicra, the human resource services and consultations utilize powerful and accurate statistical tools to facilitate accurate analytical and inferential data, thus correctly rating and assessing potential for commercial growth and performance. To this date, some of Indias biggest and most respected companies like Mahindra & Mahindra, Volkswagen, HDFC Bank and Genpact form an illustrious resume of Onicras clientele.

Among its numerous consequential industry-oriented services, Onicra offers the services of Employee background screening. These are in the nature of extensive pre employment checks initiated by Onicra for a particular employee to assess his/her potential for growth, commercial aptitude and efficiency. Onicra goes through extensive personalized individual data, records, achievement statements, certificates and appraisals for each candidate to generate a unique rating, which is extremely accurate by industry standards. Onicra has developed its own system of ratings, using powerful analytical and statistical tools like the PRTS (Performance Rating and Tracking System), enabling an almost spot-on assessment of the potential and the job-worthiness of an employee.

The pre employment screening process facilitated by Onicra assists companies and commercial corporations identify and cultivate the best, most talented and efficient personnel as their workforce. To do this, Onicra maintains an extensive database that tracks and keeps tally of even the minutest relevant details of an employee that could affect or influence his professional career. By setting high standards for quality for the pre employment verification process, Onicra eliminates the possibilities of having wrong people at the wrong jobs, or possibilities of employee incompetence, ineligibility and incompatibility. The vast benefits of the extremely essential employee background screening processes directly accrue to the HR departments, who become free to direct their resources to training and honing employees.

The employee background screening procedures instituted and implemented by Onicra helps to maintain a level of trust between the employer and the employee. These protect companies against fraudulent employees, identity theft and dangers possibly arising from misrepresentation of vital information. The employment screening service offered by Onicra involves extensive checks and verification procedures on employees personal, social and academic background, legal reports and records and also records for substance abuse (if any). References and appraisals are also gathered and collated from previous employers, acquaintances, family members and colleagues.

The Employee Background Screening services offered by Onicra incorporate extensive verification procedures as stated below. Education Checks (verification of academic and professional qualifications) are used to determine the academic validity of a C.V to determine the eligibility of a potential employee. Pre employment checks are carried out to screen employment details pertaining to previously held designations, employment tenure, emoluments etc. Often, this acts as a reflective index of the employees temperament, aptitude and capability. Onicra also checks the applicants criminal records (if any) with law enforcement authorities and existing criminal records databases. A meticulous verification procedure is also done about the candidate with the person enlisted as his/her reference.

Onicra also implements rigorous checks for possible representations and corruption of data in the applicants C.V, substance and drug abuse records (if any) and checks for criminal litigations. Onicra ascertains the applicants identity as well, through checks for PAN Cards, driving licenses, licenses, Passports and other vital documentation. The verification process is implemented to be a perpetual, continuous process, accommodating possibilities for changes of results over courses of time. Thus, Onicra revolutionized background checks in India by appropriating a series of checks that are best suited locally.

Hr Policy Development Is Perfect For Running Organisation Smoothly

January 30, 2015

All companies have their HR policy development. These policies are very significant for because help in overriding all facets of employment within the orgamnisation. The company has to draft policy to deal with the issues like drug policy, workplace violence, records management, hiring, firing, disciplinary procedures, and many others.

In order to run the company, they plan HR strategies and policies, which are drafted according to law of the land where company where it is situated. The writer or drafters of structural review of HR policy and enterprises agreement they must write or draft some of the policies or strategies from global point of view but they must not forget local perspective must be considered while drafting and writing HR reporting.

These policies set effective guidelines for every facet of involvements within the organization which must match with the organizational vision and culture. These drafted policies need to review at regular interval of time in order to maintain alignment with basic laws of governing employment and to accommodate organizational changes.

In the recent years, HR organisation across the globe have become tech-savvy and HR staff is now free from irritating of repetitive and dull administrative to give more emphasis on human resource development programs which objective is to increase employee productivity, performance and retention. Now the most of the companies have increased the value of the most important assets that is employees. They have increased their skills, activities, and incentives with business objectives and strategies as well.
Some of the most important factors are competency, career development, recruitment, performance management and succession planning, which are very important for every organisation. Additionally, the right software, clean data and accurate execution are main responsible factors for success which are commonly often ignored. But one must always remember that these effective elements require the complete knowledge that changing technology alone will achieve little. Change management always begins delivering its value but is only possible when it is supported by and integrated with other components of the infrastructure, which are part of an explicit HR strategy.

The main function of change management programs is to allow organisation to assess and check the maximum use of updates and changes take place in software, operating systems or application platforms in the computer and networking systems of the organisation. Whatever changes taken place, it must be approved within an hour before they can be implemented. The management program is used for handling a robotic request to change (RFC) that prevent the IT department or management team from handling the issues case-by-case basis.

The HR strategy is to align the objective of HR to the goals or strategy of the organisation like recruitment, retention and termination are a small part of it. While developing or drafting HR strategies two main questions must be answered. First is to define that want kind of people require for managing and running business in order to meet the goal of organisation and other is what type of program should be designed, drafted and executed to attract, develop and retain the employee for competing effectively and successfully.

For answering these four important questions, four key features of organization must be remembered, which are flowing:

1)Culture: the beliefs, values, norms and managing style of the organization
2)Organization: the structure, job roles and reporting lines of the organization
3)Workforce: the skill levels, staff latent and management potential
4)Human resources systems: the people focused mechanisms which deliver the strategy – employee selection, communications, training, rewards, career development, etc.