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Lima Sehgal

It is essential to grow up.

The archaic  attitude towards job-hunting is still rampant. We can’t carry our hide-&-seek skills of the playground into adulthood and relabel it as professionalism.

Take it at grassroot level. Freshers are turned into the mainstream job market day after day, without the ghost of an idea of how job hunting is done. Pushing a baby in a swimming pool all alone is not the wisest method to teach swimming.

The job hunt is specialised. One must know where exactly to reach to find.For example, out of the hundreds of placement agencies, one needs to work out the statistics of how many to use to get the right hit rate. Not too many, and not too few. And no guessing games for grown-ups.

And the ABCs of how to read vacancy advertisements between the lines should not be relegated to middle age.

Unfortunately, shortcuts are not a sign of being smart. Nor do gimmicks work and certainly neither do trial and errors.

Successful hunting does not lie in just the shotgun — whether it has one shot or two or three. Rather, it is knowing when to take the shot.

Copyright © 2011, Jobnet magazine, issue 114

Republication or dissemination of the contents of this article are expressly prohibited without the written consent of the publishers of Jobnet magazine

Posted under Articles by Lima Sehgal

Lima Sehgal

All other things being in place, winning is usually a mind business.

In the Indian psyche, successful job hunting still remains a game of compromise.Or worse, a whim of probability.

It is reflected in why we agree to stand so stoically in an unending queue to get an interview application form. Or, get herded like cattle in a job fair (or even go to one, for that matter). Why do we wait out an afternoon with patience in a reception room when the appointment for an interview has long been missed?

For all our belligerence, protests and indignation over the system, we still haven’t figured out a game plan for our individual job hunting.

How can we, when we don’t even know what the game is? We are still playing slingshots in our backyard, when the game has gone global.

We are repetitive about our success patterns, and fatalistic about our failures. It is no wonder that, in the competitive job market, we tend to lose our edge completely.

Winning is about catching the moment. Instead, we believe that selling umbrellas is a success formula, just because it covers both rain and sunshine. Such standardized attitudes simply don’t work.

In the job market, there is no such thing as an amateur professional. It is only about winning. Nothing else counts.

Copyright © 2011, Jobnet magazine, issue 108

Republication or dissemination of the contents of this article are expressly prohibited without the written consent of the publishers of Jobnet magazine

Posted under Articles by Lima Sehgal

The Sexual Olympiads!

Lima Sehgal

Sex I am told was invented only around two billion years ago. Before that we had to depend on the slow process of genetic instructions being carried out letter by letter and on the accumulation of random mutations.

Every new generation has improved this exchange process of DNA with great enthusiasm. That is because the new young entrants are genetically tuned to short – cuts. It is important to realize this fact so that we can stop spending good research money in analyzing why our children respond to us in monosyllables .

Abridged is the DNA revolution. (With rather pleasant consequences).

If sex was our shortcut to genetic information exchange, why can’t we invent another equally magnificent one for non-genetic exchange?

Why do we insist that learning must be so tedious? And why do we believe that developmental abilities are directly correlated to the amount of nonsense one has to wade through to get to the point?

Take this example of elementary mathematics. (Quote from Mathematics for class VI by NCERT India.) . Problem – “ In a morning walk, three persons step off together. Their steps measure 80 cm 85 cm and 90 cm, respectively. What is the minimum distance each should walk so that all can cover the distance in equal steps”. The same can be used as an exercise in grammatical mistakes but we will ignore that).This is mathematics, the same that we learnt as The Profound philosophy of the LCM and the HCF. (Kids are careful to delete it from their systems the moment the exams are over That with the other stuff that we insist is good for them)

Shakespeare would be no less sweet if Romeo got to the point faster. And apples would still fall the same whether Isaac Newton explained in one word or a whole branch of science.

Education has a point, but the ones who are getting educated rarely get to see it.

So how did this happen to us? When we were smart enough to invent sex how did we land up with such complexities that are forced down through our educational system?

Its simple once we see the motives in broad daylight instead hiding under a bushel. Even simpler if we unwrap the wraps!

Ultimately all roads led to Rome, in the olden days and in modern times they lead, home. But to be precise the purpose of all education according to the modern educational experts is aimed in attracting a mate. Just like it always was since time immemorial.

Which was never easy. Only the nature of hurdles keep changing. The caveman needed only his brute force So did the cavewoman, So probably the matter of impressing a mate could be decided nicely, by just flexing the muscle in question. Today, choosing a mate involves different parameters. Its more hi tech and global.

But then how does one make a choice? The brawn definitely counts, but when competition steps in the brain can be just as crucial . Definitely I would choose the man who is smart – The educated one . The one who knows that the big bang theory of the cosmos is not about sex …Or I would be really impressed by his control over the bull and the bears of the stock market. Or …

Knowledge becomes a major factor in choosing a mate for both men as well as women.

This is the kind of conversation one would expect between two educated like minded man and woman :

Man : Would you like me to invite you to my apartment to examine my Hypotenuse?

For those of you who belong to the under educated masses, the hypotenuse of a right triangle is the triangle’s longest side, i.e., the side opposite the right angle. The word derives from the Greek hypo- (“under”) and teinein (“to stretch”).

And the educated woman would say :Of course. As long as my catheti or cathetus if you please, remains Gegenkathete.

Reference for the under educated A leg of a right triangle (i.e., a side adjacent the right angle) is also known as a cathetus (plural: catheti). While this usage is rather rare in English, the terms Ankathete (on-cathetus) and Gegenkathete (opposite-cathetus) are in common usage, is German to denote the legs adjacent to and opposite the (non-right) angle in question, respectively.

In general, a cathetus is a line falling perpendicularly on a surface or another line. In particular, this branch of mathematical reasoning can be rather titillating.

Viva la Education!

Our education is our trade secret of impressing the opposite sex. But there are other good uses for it. A good complex educational system also keeps the competition at bay by keeping them busy and confused..

Yes, we are smart. We know that competition always comes from behind (And I am not only talking about gays!). All our educational systems are aimed at keeping our younger generation ,our virulent competitors in the sexual arena busy with a focus furtherest away from the nether regions.

The animal kingdom accepts and respects a young adult as a competitor. We on the other hand wish to control our competition by prolonging the developmental phase. We must recognize our aggressive urges for control. Zoologist Desmond Morris says “if we are to understand the nature of our aggressive urges, we must see them against the background of our animal origins.”

Ever notice how the educational demands increase with age and become overwhelming exactly during adolescence? Exactly the time when a kid becomes a competitor in the sexual arena. So it does make sense if they are preoccupied with memorising about the origin of life thru the Ordovician, Silurian , Jurassic periods while we do a HA, HA, HA on them because we know exactly how many minutes it takes with a partner in bed !

However exciting the game, to win one must look beyond the marathon and definitely beyond the line and length. Oops that’s about cricket, a different ball game altogether.

And that does not mean that I will ever go back to school again. You see now I am much more smarter than you think!

Copyright © 2011, Jobnet magazine, issue 108

Republication or dissemination of the contents of this article are expressly prohibited without the written consent of the publishers of Jobnet magazine

Posted under Articles by Lima Sehgal

Lack of English proficiency remains the most serious handicap for Indian Job seekers

Lima Sehgal

The fundamental issue is not being addressed.

English.

English is still a universal platform (in spite of misguided political debate), for the job market. Today it is the language of the Internet and that makes it an essential skill for the jobseeker.

The fact that our schooling systems are producing people handicapped for competing in the job market by not adhering to higher standards of proficiency in written and spoken English is not bothering anyone.

The jobseeker is bindaas too .The Internet is mastered as mechanically as a textbook. Emails go with spelling mistakes and grammatical errors. But what is really worrisome is that many cannot read and understand what forms they are filling but do so anyway. Mass mailing has become a way of life for those, for whom a whole paragraph on a site resembles a bewildering Shakespearean drama text.

What is sad is that by the time a jobseeker realises the importance of English language proficiency, it becomes too late to go back to kindergarten.

The job market has gone global and no one will come to our backyard with a translator for our local lingo, however much we feel we deserve it. With competition so fierce, it is time that the Indian Jobseekers concentrated on their P’s and Q’s as much as on their www’s…

ISSUE 167 Jobnet magazine

Copyright © 2011, Jobnet magazine
Republication or dissemination of the contents of this article are expressly prohibited without the written consent of the publishers of Jobnet magazine

Posted under Articles by Lima Sehgal

Lima Sehgal

We need to check not only our ability to adapt to the demands of the Job market but also our speed of adaptation.

Remember, when the postage stamp became a relic?

It got replaced by the mouse. Who would have guessed, that something that never left our table would get our resume everywhere.

Today most of us can praise ourselves about how quickly we learnt to use the internet for surfing, posting, filing emailing…and all the other stuff that we did manually in the past. But what about graduating beyond…

In the world of job hunting there is no resting on laurels but new challenges to be mastered, without respite. If mastering keyword littering on your resume was tough imagine what else could be tougher. If public relations with a few placement firms was easy, imagine what marketing yourself to a million of them will be.

So far this has been a game of being alert and doing what needs to be done to handle the tidal waves of change. But it is not enough. We have to figure out the future trends.

Today, what we need to do is to anticipate rather than wait.  Because what is new today is just a brick in the structure of our tomorrow.

Copyright © 2011, Jobnet magazine

Republication or dissemination of the contents of this article are expressly prohibited without the written consent of the publishers of Jobnet magazine.

Posted under Articles by Lima Sehgal

Freshers in India are unaware of the realities of the jobmarket

Lima Sehgal

Every year, year after year, I get utterly hit by the fresher season. Nothing has changed over the years. They remain as lost.

Have we forgotten that job hunting for freshers comprises of decision making at a gun point?

From a world where marks are the ultimate decision maker of choice, we push them into choosing career paths that the majority cannot translate into a picture of reality. Why do they have to learn the hard way?

Reality is about asking what, how and why? But where are the answers to be found?

I go to some of these career orientation programmes in schools. And I wonder who is going to tell them that travel jobs are not about traveling, nor hotel jobs about food, and neither are IT jobs about green cards!

And if you want to believe that it is all crap, I suggest you go to a career counselor who deals in foreign education. Well, then you get to know the reality after paying some good money not only to them, but to some foreign Government.

If you cannot translate reality into a career environment then the old fashioned way of trial and error may be more practical. It may take time to learn but is definitely cheaper and you have the luxury of wasting time to realize that all career choices are reversible or at least convertible.

And what about the girls who are still wondering about the perfect choice – one that combines bread winning with marriage and kids?

Well, you tell her there is no such thing! I really don’t have the guts.

ISSUE 168 Jobnet magazine

Copyright © 2011, Jobnet magazine
Republication or dissemination of the contents of this article are expressly prohibited without the written consent of the publishers of Jobnet magazine

Posted under Articles by Lima Sehgal