Good luck.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Reporting Relationship:

Operational Report : Senior Director & General Manager

Functional Reporting: Quality Manager

Job coverage:

1. Factories : Hong Kong, China, Malaysia, Philippines
2. Subcontracted manufacturing : China, Philippines, Malaysia
3. Key BOM Suppliers

Key Areas of responsibility:

1. Collaborate with Corporate and Business Unit Quality Departments to develop and enhance comprehensive quality strategy, policies and programs, key metrics, reporting methods and standards, processes, goal setting, organizational approaches and customer satisfaction.

2. Complete ownership and bottom line accountability for the entire quality function within the organization.

3. Define key metrics for reporting, monitoring and management of quality related initiatives throughout the company.

4. Identify and make recommendations for processes and organizational changes, related to quality control that lead to measurable improvements in quality, cost, and other variables.

5. Work with internal stake holders to drive continual improvement.

6. Implements policies, procedures, processes and corrective actions that define and guide quality assurance of products produced at subcontracted facilities and by external suppliers.

7. Set quality standards and ensure that end control processes are in place through functional leadership of different site quality teams.

8. Oversee various quality audits including certification, key BOM suppliers and customer audits , customer complaints, quality documentation, processes etc to ensure compliance initiatives and requirements are achieved.

Personnel Specifications:

1. Malaysian

2. University education or above in an engineering science.

3. Not less than 10 years in a senior level, quality focused position in an industrial manufacturing or related environment context. Semiconductor industry is preferred but not essential. Can be considered as Senior Manager for the candidate with less working experience.

4. Must be familiar with and have demonstrated success in leading a quality organisation in a multi-culture environment

5. Exhibits character with positive attitudes, strong leadership skills as well as an outstanding communicator.

6. Have proven track record of effectively working with customers and partners relating to all aspects of the manufacturing process and product quality.

My fellow Toastmasters & Guest,

Projected in 2009 the unemployment rate in Malaysia will reach above 4% from the average of 3% annually. Basically, about 400 thousand people will be aggressively looking for a job in Malaysia. Out of that as per Ministry of Higher Education statistics, there will be about 230 thousand students from local & private universities & colleges excluding overseas graduates will be entering into the job market in 2009. However, based on the reported job vacancies as per Ministry of Human Resource statistics in Mar 2009, there are only 91 thousand vacancies available in Malaysia. Regardless if the statistic is accurate and showing the true picture, obviously these statistics are showing that the job market in Malaysia is too small for everyone to secure a job comfortably. The job market is like a “war zone” for the job seekers. Only the fittest and the luckiest will win.

Let me put these statistics aside and now focus on the main intention of my speech. As a manager for the past 4 years, the main triggering point for me to start a hiring process is when I need the right solution to a problem in my organization. Obviously, that person that I will be hiring will need to provide me the right solution to my problem.

So for the next couple of minutes I will be sharing simple steps on how to increase your winning chance to secure a job in this highly competitive job market.

The steps are ASK, TELL, FOLLOW UP & TELL AGAIN.

Let me start with ASK. What I really mean by ASK is basically ask yourself what solution you can provide to your future employer to solve their problem. Definitely, you will need to do some research about your future employer through the internet or if possible talk to them directly. For instance, if you read in the internet that your future employer is going to setup a new manufacturing plant in your area, then definitely they will need someone with knowledge and experience in setting up a manufacturing plant. If you have that experience & knowledge, then you have the right solution that your future employer needs.

Next you will need to TELL your future employer that you have that solution. One of the most common ways to TELL them is by writing a resume with a cover letter and send them in. In your resume you should TELL your future employer that you have that particular experience & knowledge and share your achievements. One of the most common mistakes done in a resume is lack of focus on your achievements but rather more focus on your job responsibilities.  Ensure your cover letter is written to support your achievements and also TELL how you can solve their problem.

Once you have TELL your future employer, then now it is time to FOLLOW UP with them. Remember that the job market is getting more competitive hence you will need to do something different from your competitors. Based on my survey found that 99% of job seekers never FOLLOW UP after submitting their resume just because there are too shy or afraid to disturb their future employer. Just ask yourself if this is true or not. Anyway by just FOLLOW UP with your future employer to enquire when you will be called in for an interview, you have created the competitive advantage for you to win in the job market.

Finally, your have to TELL AGAIN during your interview session how you can provide the right solution to your future employer’s problem. Use this opportunity to convince your future employer that you have the right solution.

Before I end my speech I would like to share what Stephen Covey, famous for his bestseller book, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People mentioned in his 90/10 Principle that 10% of whatever happens in your life is already set as your destiny; you can’t change it but you still have the control on the balance 90%.

The economic downturn we are facing nowadays is the thing we can’t control but we can still control on how to make ourselves marketable by ASK, TELL, FOLLOW UP & TELL AGAIN.

Thank you.

Based on the book “To Find A Job….Start A New Career” by Marvin Rafal, PhD, there are 4 types of common career objectives which are categorized as Job Enrichment, Upward Movement, Job Exploration and Sideways Movement.

Let me briefly elaborate what does each of these categories mean:

Job Enrichment

Your career objective is to remain in your current job type but at the same time build your knowledge, skill & experience by taking more challenging responsibilities. In Job Enrichment, you will most likely be looking for a job in the same company but in a different department or entirely in a different company but doing the same type of job. Basically your career objective is to be better & skillful (become expert) in what you are currently doing to make yourself marketable for future career growth or personal ambition.

Upward Movement

Typically, once you have gone through the Job Enrichment stage, you will want an Upward Movement career objective. This is the time where you are looking for a career growth opportunity to improve your status, income and take on higher level job responsibilities. You will need to have some period of working experience with established accomplishments and at the same time possess  leadership skills to lead and manage a bigger organization.

Job Exploration

If you are a fresh graduate or you are not really sure which job type to pursue in but wanted to explore different job type before finding a suitable one then this career objective will be suitable for you. Even though you do not have a specific job type to focus on but you must at least know how to generalize your career objective to fit into the organization that you would like to join. However, you will need to be very careful not to leave an impression that you are just on trial basis and will leave if found not suitable for you. You will need to have a competitive advantage (special skills, knowledge, experience & ability to contribute) as a win-win deal with your future employer.

Sideways Movement

Specifically Sideways Movement career objective is for you if you are looking for a lateral direction career movement in the same company and wanted to learn new skills including meeting new people. With this career objective, your personality is is a sociability type and at the same time you are successful in your current position and has the ability to contribute successfully in other department in the company. The acquired skills & knowledge will help to build a good foundation for your career growth.

Now, you have 4 categories to choose your suitable career objective. Based on these brief explanation as above, you are highly recommended to do the following before finalizing your career objective:

• Learn to know yourself better. Find a realistic options worth to pursue based on your personality as a guide but not as the ultimatum.
• Asses your ability (skill, knowledge, experience, education & etc) to fit into your choice of career objective. Talk to those who has experience in the same field; ask the right question to the right people.
• If you have some thoughts about your career objective in mind, spend some time to assess the suitability by discussing with your family & friends. Take their inputs into consideration.
• Reflect on your past experience especially on what has been working well for you and what is not. Focus on your bad experience and avoid making the same mistake.
• Never choose your career objective based on the financial reward only. Consider holistically especially on the non-financial reward (health, time, family, skill, knowledge, experience).
• Get expert advice from career counselor who is able to propose some options and at the same time remind you on the consequence of the given options. Remember that even the career counselor is the best in the world but it does not mean he/she knows you better than yourself. The final decision still lies on you.

Give it a try and once your have firm up your career objective, you will find that your job search will be more effective since you are more focus and know where you want to be.

Good luck.

Now, moving forward in my next articles about “Looking for a job”, I would like to share on how to apply the result from your personality assessment to achieve the following:

• Identifying appropriate job
• Getting to where you want to be

In today’s article; Part 1, I’ll start with “Identifying appropriate job”.

Assuming by now, you should have the result of your personality test. To ease the discussion, let me take my personality test result (using MBTI) as a case study.

Based on the result, I’m a ISTJ person which are Introverted, Sensing, Thinking & Judgement.

As what I have shared in my previous article, MBTI categorized personality into attitude, perceiving, judgement & lifestyle (brief description are shown below).

Attitude
I = Introverted – thinking oriented attitude

Perceiving
S = Sensing – data oriented person

Judgement
T = Thinking – logical oriented person

Lifestyle
J = Judging -thinking or feeling lifestyle

How do I use this result to identify the appropriate job for me?

Based on a book “To find a job. Start a new career. The career and job change toolbox” by Marvin Rafal, PhD, there are 3 types of jobs which are:

People occupational – most of the time and effort is spent interacting with people. Common activities to these type of jobs are managing, consulting, counseling, influencing, teaching, negotiating, facilitating, calling, announcing, discussing & listening. Some of the characteristics of people jobs are ability to get along with variety of personalities, well developed oral & written skills, genuine interest in others and their opinions, feeling of satisfaction when sharing & working with others.

Data occupational – majority of the time & effort is spent working with facts & documentation by analyzing, interpreting, researching, computing, grouping and sorting to find the relevant data. The person in this type of job must has a systematic approach to get the job done, use logic in problem solving, accountable and has the ability & passion to search out answers.

Idea occupational – time & effort spent generating alternatives, finding new ways to do things and even find new things to do. Most of the time, a person in this job will be designing, problem solving, networking, exploring, testing, discussing, trying things out, bouncing ideas around, thinking outside of the box and planning a timeline. Major characteristic of this person is creativity, excitement, innovation, interest in the future, ability to see trends early, natural curiosity, and see things differently.

Based on my ISTJ personality, I’m responsible, loyal and hard working. I have an acute sense of right and wrong and work hard at preserving established norms and traditions. Because of my deep sense of duty I’m dedicated to everything I do and are very dependable. I also care deeply for those closest to me. Hence with this personality, I’m suitable for people & data occupational. But I can not conclude yet on what I actually want until I’ve completed the part 2: Getting to where you want to be. I’ll share on how to do that in my next article.

If you want to try this same activity as what I have done in part 1, please leave your comments or e-mail me at career_advisor@resumeweassist.com. I’m more that willing to help you attain your career goals!

You can do the following:

Know your future employer’s current financial health

If your future employer is a public listed company, the financial information about the company is widely available in the internet. As a start, you can visit the company’s website to download or read about the company profit & loss (P&L) account, balance sheet and cashflow account. For those who are not familiar with these financial jargons, I’ll briefly explain them here in layman term:

• Profit & loss (P&L) account: From the P&L, you will know how much revenue was generated either quarterly or yearly and how much of that revenue was spent as company expenses. The bottom line in the P&L is how much profit was generated from the revenue.
• Balance sheet: You will know how much money was spent on assets and where the money was generated to buy the assets. From the name itself, the money generated must be the same as the money spent on the assets i.e. the money transaction must be balaced.
• Cash flow: The most important financial report where you will know how much of the profit that was generated from the P&L is actually available in cash to sustain the company’s operation for the coming future. 

In summary, these financial reports will give you an idea on the financial health of the company. If the company is not generated much cash from their business, then it is a clear indication that the company will not be able to sustain their operation for a certain period of time. So you might want to consider to reject the offer but discuss with the hiring manager before you finalize the decision. You can ask about the future actions that the company is taking to generate more cash either by increasing revenue or reducing the expenses. You can also ask about the projected order trend for the next 3-6 months. This will give you some idea on the projected sales and revenue that will be generated. On top of that, if you know someone else that you can trust currently working in that company, you can also ask that person about the insider information about the company. Make sure you have sufficient information before making the decision to accept or reject the job offer.

Understand your benefits as an employee

I wrote this article in Oct last year about assessing the benefits with your needs. In this article you will be able to find some guidelines on how to assess your needs with the benefits that your future employer will give if you decided to accept the job offer. 

In addition to that, in today’s article, I would like to share about termination benefit. With reference to Malaysia’s labour law, employer is responsible to provide termination benefit if the employer terminates the service contract of an employee for whatever reason except termination due to misconduct, retirement & voluntary resignation. The minimum amount of the termination benefits depend on the duration of the employee’s service as follow:

• 10 days wages for each year of service if employed less than 2 years.
• 15 days wages for each year of service if employed less than 5 years but more than 2 years.
• 20 days wages for each year of service if employed more than 5 years.
• For those have served less than a year, the benefit will be based on pro rate to the nearest month.

The payment must be made within 7 days after the termination date. The details of the benefits must be in written and copies must be given to the effected employee.

With this knowledge, if the unavoidable happens, then you already know your rights on what you deserved. But I hope this will not happen to you.   

Please share your thoughts about this article especially from your experience in the comments below. Feel free to share this article with friend or family who are lucky enough to get a job offer during this economy uncertainty.

Regards

Yusoff

Read: Part 1

JOB DESCRIPTION

Do your career goals aim at R&D with the leading edge wireless technology? Want to go further by seeing how your innovation is put to use by customers? Here is where you take the next step to work with a young, dynamic team in Penang, Malaysia in developing world-leading wireless telecommunications test solutions.

The incumbent become a member of the Wireless Systems Solution R&D Department in developing the Standard Design verification, Conformance, Application SW and new Test platform for the Wireless test & measurement market.

He or She will be responsible in developing the Test System, the application SW and Test Executive comply to Product Life Cycle requirement

He or She will liaise with the NPI team to ensure all R&D project are released and ramped up meeting the schedule.

He or She will be responsible to employ their software experience to design 2/3G and LTE Conformance test solutions in compliance with 3GPP 34.121 and 36.521 RF conformance specifications.

He or She interfaces with customers and suppliers on technically related matters.

JOB REQUIREMENT

BSEE or equivalent combination of education and experience.

Ability to work as part of a team to develop and implement successful strategies focusing on the Wireless industry.

High degree of creative ability, strong interpersonal skills, strong written and oral communication skills,

Minimum 5-yrs experience.

Experience in measurement instruments applications.

Experience in software development for test instruments (Spectrum Analyzer, Signal Source, Wireless Test Set) and system automation.

Experience in software development for telecommunication system, GSM/GPRS/EGPRS, CDMA/1xEVDO, WCDMA/HSDPA would be an added advantage.

Strong programming skills in Visual Basic, C++, C# or .net.

Familiarity with Microsoft Windows, Microsoft.net technologies.

Experience in telecommunication protocol knowledge (WCDMA, GSM/GPRS) would be an added advantage

Written and Oral English Skills

If you are interested to apply for this job, please send me your resume to career_advisor@resumeweassist.com. We will work with your future employer to assess your suitability for an interview.

Good luck!

First of all congratulation to all these lucky jobseekers and I’m sure they are pleased with their job offer. Even though I’m glad to see there are industries seeing some light at the end of the tunnel hence they require human resources to support their industry but I’m still sceptical on their job security as a newcomer.

Let me start by sharing these following facts based on the economic data collected in the US. (These data were taken from AP -Associated Press)

• The December Purchasing Manager’s Index for manufacturing was down nearly five percent to 32.4 (anything below 50 for these indexes represent contraction, while numbers above 50 show expansion). This marks the fifth consecutive month of decline, and, according to the Institute of Supply Management who publishes the report, the economy has contracted for the third consecutive months.

• Employment levels were down 4.3 percent, which is obviously negative, but the rate of decrease has slowed, so the bottom from which to rebound might be closer than some projections. Also reported that while the number of individuals collecting unemployment benefits is at its highest level since 1982, the number of recently laid-off workers signing up for the unemployment benefits fell sharply in the final week of 2008. Latest recorded in December 2008, the employment rate increased to 7.2%, the highest in the past 16 years.

• After nudging slightly over $50/barrel, oil prices sit at $48.58 as of press time. This is still up over $5 from three weeks ago. As you could imagine, this has impacted prices at the pump. Although still comfortably under $2/gallon, average regular unleaded gas in the U.S. sits at $1.71, up 10 cents from a week ago.

Locally in Malaysia, in the Smart Investor (Malaysian edition) magazine – January 2009, I found the following:

      ·     The Malaysian Institute of Economic Research or MIER has

           forecast the Malaysian unemployment level to hit 4.5% in 2009

           up from 3.5% in 2008. This would be the highest level in a

           decade.

      ·     Malaysian GDP in the 3^rd quarter of 2008 is 4.7% and it was

   projected to close in between 3.5% to 4.5% in the final quarter

   of 2008. Malaysian economy will begin contracting after Q4’08

   where 2009 GDP projection is currently between 1.1% to 0%.

      ·    Kuala Lumpur Composite Index (KLCI) is at 838.28 points in

  December 2008, slightly above the 4 ½ year low of 801.27

  points. Projected to go below 800 points if the economy gets

  worst in 2009.

With the above data in mind, overall in 2009 will be a bad year financially for many of us including giant companies such as Nokia, Sony, Toyota and many more. Currently many companies are taking precaution or unavoidable actions to cushion the impact of 2009 economic recession. Some are taken actions to freeze hiring and also annual salary increment. Others are also forcing their employee for compulsory time off or unpaid leave, while the some are resorting towards voluntary or force retrenchment. Worst, there are some companies such as Nortel, a Canadian giant telecom & networking company has filled a Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Believe me or not, there is a risk of accepting a job offer during economic instability. As a newcomer, the tendency for you to loss your job will be relative higher compared to the old timer in terms of the retrenchment cost (Last In, First Out – LIFO). Except if you have a critical skill that is important for the company to leverage from, then LIFO might not work on you.

In my coming article, I’ll be sharing on how to mitigate the risk of losing your job as a newcomer.

Till then, if you have your own experience to share as a newcomer, feel free to drop your comments or share this article with your friends and family.

Thanks

Regards

Yusoff

So from today onwards, I’ll be sharing some tips for you to consider before accepting or rejecting a job offer.

As I mentioned in my last article, in CMS, you are actually marketing yourself and to effectively make a wise choice on your job offer, you can consider these 3 points:

1)     Your career goal

2)     The company’s

       vision & direction

3)     Compensation

In this article, I’ll explain  point 1); your career goal.

Let us step back to the past and firstly recalled your intention when you started to look for a job. You might want to become an engineer, a doctor, an accountant or even a administrative clerk or whatever you want to become, everyone may have their own unique intention and it is very important for you to really understand your own intention before making the decision to accept or reject a job offer. If the job offer fits your intention, then the decision for you to make will be much easier but don’t finalize the decision yet before considering the points 2) & 3).

Conflict will only pop out when the job offer you received does not fit your intention but you are desperate for a job. There are some cases where the job offer is not the same as the one you applied or interviewed. Maybe your future employer thinks that you are not suitable for the job you have applied for but your skill or experience fit another job vacancy that is available in the company. To resolve this conflict, you have 2 options:

• You can just consider points 2) & 3) and make a rational decision or
• Just blankly reject the job offer.

Yes, you have the right to reject it but before doing that, you must know points 2) & 3) well enough. Maybe there is a blessing in disguise, so it is worth considering them. I’ll be sharing points 2) & 3) next week.

Till then, take care.

Regards

Yusoff

Now we have reached to the best part in CMS. After the hard work of writing a “masterpiece” resume and had gone through a strenuous couple of hours of interview, finally the job offer comes it. I dare to bet, majority of you will just grab the offer and start asking how much is the pay and when can I start?

So the question now is, why are you rushing? Remember whatever you are doing in CMS is actually you are marketing yourself. You will need to understand what marketing means to gain a win-win situation between you and your future employer.

Adapted from the book “Trump University, Marketing 101” by Don Sexton, marketing is defined as follows:

• marketing is about what people want
• marketing is about targeting the correct customer
• marketing is about positioning the benefit to customer
• marketing is about advertisement, pricing, promotion & distribution

So in CMS, you have the advantage where the customer is actually yourself and you are the only one who understands what you really want. You will need to sit down and spend some time to strategically position yourself to get the best out of your future employer

For me, by just grabbing the job offer without thinking what do you really want or benefit from as a customer is a bit foolish.

Even if you are desperate for a job, you still need to consider what is the benefit before making the decision.

In tomorrow’s article, I’ll be starting a series of tips on what do you can or have the right to do when you received a job offer.

Till then, take care.

Keep leaving your comments for our knowledge sharing.

Thanks

Regards

Yusoff

Weigh your job offer- Part 1