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THE INDIAN WORK ETHOS

Lima Sehgal

The herd instinct is so deeply entrenched in us that we always look for some one to follow. Our shepherds come in various avatars- daddies, schoolteachers, yuppies, best friends, gurus, neighbours etc.

No doubt there is a practical goodness about being a follower. When things backfire we have the luxury of blaming it on someone – like our ruling political party, our parents, the lousy economy, unfair competition, the Americans … and we continue to remain untainted.

The moment our babies learn to walk and get toilet trained we don’t waste a moment in getting them into a system. The one that promises to herd us into a direction that leads to what we believe is greener pastures.

First, it is the playschool which gives an education on how to play. Then it is the schooling system that gives an education on how not to play. Main stream schooling becomes a serious business of tutorials and achievement of good scholastic marks.

The Indian scholastic system is wonderful in its ability to produce conformists who join the workforce. It may perhaps be a great asset for employers to have employees who only ‘Do’ but never think (great for bosses), but for the individual it remains questionable.

Conformity results in the problem that the Indian professional faces, which is an inability to adapt to the demands of change- And worse, an inability to face the demands of our extremely volatile job – market.

We are focused on a system of education which is supposed to lead us to getting a job. But nobody actually goes beyond a point to reassess their value in context of the job market realities.Golden promises? Much of it is excluded from reality.

Let us take a few examples.

I have come across Engineers with good work experience aspiring for a job in a foreign country, who can’t converse in English or anything apart from their local regional lingo, so how do they expect to communicate? I regularly meet fresh MBA’s who expect to get hired as managers with salaries of CEO’s. I also know quite a few senior professionals who refuse to study advanced professional courses (because it is not needed at their age), and then complain about these new fangled kids who take over.

This inability to take charge and harness change to one’s advantage is sadly lacking in the majority of Indian professionals. The ability to change course, to admit mistakes in career choices or even to simply reassess tried and tested job market related methodologies is alien for the majority.

Get a job, keep a job, save and retire, no longer rings true as reality. All those years of fuss – what did it amount to? Jobs are not for keeps, job hunting methods are changing by the minute, and our educational systems do not create much enthusiasm in the global job market. So what is the new formula that can be followed?

Can we think? After so many years of habit of compromise and conformity the quality of our thinking becomes questionable.

There seems to be a new viral in the air. Jobs are no longer about getting them. For quite a few years with the march of time our prized jobs for engineers, doctors, chartered accountants, IT professionals etc has undergone so much redefinition in the job market, that we hardly know what sense to make of the flotsam and jetsam of the wreckage. Suddenly looking back the system of reaching one’s destination or following a methodology of education looks meaningless.

Copyright © 2011, Jobnet magazine, issue 170

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 Bindass Indian Job Seeker

Lima Sehgal

This is the era of the bold and (is?) beautiful, and the Indian Jobseeker has gone Bindass!

It seemed only like yesterday when I last went job hunting. Today, I know that all my systems are obsolete. There is a new generation out there job hunting like I never did.

For starters, some of us may recall that there was a time when jobseekers said “ Confidentiality is my birthright.”

Now flaunting seems to be our birthright.

The mass approach that the advent of the internet has made possible has inspired the jobseeker to throw caution to the winds. With all our networking possibilities expanded infinitely, going hunting has been replaced by getting found.

Now the issue to be faced is not really being seriously addressed by Jobseekers which is – Being found by whom?

While we email and upload with cheerful nonchalance, it may be worthwhile to examine the fact that what we believe is confidential may not be so. The internet is a public place. Mass reach and mass circulation have advantages but exposure can come with its own karma of disadvantages.

And karma as all of us know for sure cannot be deleted by the undo button on your computer!

ISSUE 181 Jobnet Magazine
Copyright © 2010, 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

Much as we would like to pin the blame on global recession, Mr. Laden or even our old friends Rahu and Ketu, the finger still points at — home.
The psyche of the Indian job seeking professional is in the throes of change. The apathy is due to the unpleasant realisation that there are few takers and the fact that there are over a billion out there competing even for the air we breathe, let alone jobs.
But being short-rationed doesn’t necessarily translate to being shot-out. What gave us the impression otherwise? What divides the haves from the have-nots in the the job market is not their superior ability to get but their capacity to adapt.
The passive approach is still prevalant. For example, everyday, hundreds of people post their resumes on websites with hope of getting found. On the www, how can anyone hope to get found? There are other areas where we are getting missed, by not getting headhunted, or being called in response to an advertisement in print.
This attitude of mass reach of ones’ resume has a passivity that reflects an inherent fatalistic belief in the law of probability. A post invites a person, not a massmailed resume. But tailormade resumes are hard work. usually complicated, especially if it has been around for years.
Till last year, cut and paste was the ‘in-thing’ for resumes. According to current trends, I’m told paste is out and cut is in.
I also managed to learn how to make the best resume. Cut it to pieces, and put it in a salad bowl, and continously toss it around. If done long enough, someone around is bound to get hungry by just watching. It’s guaranteed to work.

Copyright © 2009, 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, Job Hunting Tips