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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

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

The net savvy Jobseekers in India need to reevaluate the platforms on the internet available for job hunting.

Lima Sehgal

Ever since the PC became an integral part of the job hunting process, a certain element of sloppiness has crept in.

Look at the care we take to camouflage our resume in the brief-case. In contrast, it is with such a devil may care attitude that we flaunt it on the www worldwide. How indignantly we demand the headhunter’s client list before giving him our resume, but not care two hoots about hosting it on every available job website. And oops! The trail blaze of cc’s (carbon copies for the uninitiated) that some of us do…

There is an urgent need to define the actual utility value of the internet in the job hunting process to make it truly useful.

Perhaps addressing needs is a better beginning than trial and error. The job websites are waiting for a cue. Are they supposed to be an information base for jobs available, or an advertising platform for resumes, or an electronic placement service? Today, it is a rudimentary service trying to survive by the strength of its hit counter, knowing, that the day the hit counter becomes an obsolete measurement of utility, it would be a beginning to leading somewhere.

The net savvy job seeker must use the same spit and polish that goes to shining shoes. Just because the PC offers the option of job hunting (only) in your underwear, that is no reason to discard the outerwear. The only dilemma being whether to keep (the) Windows open or shut (pun intended).

But watch out – the virtual world is getting real.

Copyright © 2011, Jobnet magazine, issue 84

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

One must catch on to the fact that the Indian job seeker should not only be viewed as an encashable asset for Placement Consultants but as the nucleus of all business activity.

Lima Sehgal

Ever since the job hunting process has become a full time job, one wonders how any job seeker with a job would ever manage to get another!

In spite of the electronic hi-tech and print media offering vacancy information on a platter, the hard work involved in the job hunting process has stayed as tedious. Added to the melee of complaints is the one about vacancy duplication on all platforms, including placement firms. Now, one requires to possess a talent for reading between the lines.

For all the hard work we put in, the pay-in is much less than the pay-out — buying all those newspapers, magazines, placement directories, and trade yellow pages; wading through all those job portals, subscribing to various resume blasters and resume writing services…and follow-ups and reminders to placement firms to keep ones’ visibility alive is a long story of expenses.

Job seeking professionals desperately need authentic help.

Placement firms are just as overworked. Whoever can ponder over truckloads of emailed resumes everyday, file them or even try to remember just a few — the delete button, though used with much guilt, is the quickest remedy to the problem.

The commercial job sites remain a passive platform for their advertisers, and a mass distribution system for job seeking professionals — most sites being also placement firms which compete with all others including their own clients. Unfortunately, they are indifferent to the individual job seekers’ needs.

The solutions lie not in pointing fingers, but realizing that all support systems of the job market must ultimately support the job seeker.

One must catch on to the fact that the job seeker should not only be viewed as a cashable asset, but as the nucleus of all business activity.

Copyright © 2011, Jobnet magazine, issue 104

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

Courtesy Jobnet’s Directory of Placement Firms

Posted under Articles by Lima Sehgal

Today, the job seeker’s fear is focused not just on finding jobs, but more on missing out on one.

Lima Sehgal

The intrinsic nature of the job market is chaos. But that’s no assurance for someone who is trying to maintain balance with a surfboard on a tidal wave.

And we worry about how savvy we can get?

We’ve learnt to look for jobs world-wide on the internet with easy elan, but we continue to be as unplugged as ever. And yes, we can juggle hundreds of placement firms with confidence. But it doesn’t mean that they have a fish to catch.

One squeak and there are a million hands to help. What with the proliferation of placement firms and other services that promise to polish, groom and sell you, and those that promise to zap, zoom and shoot your resume to every corner under the stratosphere.

Today, the job seeker’s fear is focused not just on finding jobs, but more on missing out on one.

Though their neon lights can be quite bewildering, definitely the support systems for job seekers are useful. We must grow up enough to know whom to blame for not getting job offers. It’s may not be faulty resumes, defective personality packaging or ineffective mass resume distribution — there just might be no vacancies.

Déjà vu? Of course it’s the same old problem. Only, since the last generation, the paper has been replaced by Power Point.

Try and try again isn’t applicable only in Kindergarten.

Copyright © 2011, Jobnet magazine, issue 103

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

Courtesy Jobnet’s Directory of Placement Firms

Posted under Articles by Lima Sehgal

Never before has a placement firm been so heavily bombarded by jobseekers — literally, physically and virtually.

Lima Sehgal

The public focus is usually on the job seeker rather than the placement industry that goes hand in glove. So, one wonders about these times, when the issue of the future prospects of the placement industry is being raised.

One wonders why, when the placement service is not just a support service, but the marrow of the job market.

Perhaps, the enormous volume of pressure from job seeking candidates is taking its toll. Never before has a placement firm been so heavily bombarded by jobseekers — literally, physically and virtually.

One is getting to hear from jobseekers, with alarming frequency, about the de-personalization in handling an individual. On the flip side, the very existence of thousands of agencies in itself has become the icon of hope for jobseekers. What feeds them?

That thought provokes the scramble to try them all out. Which in turn has resulted in a mass circulation of candidates on an unprecedented scale. Compounded by the bombardment by the job-sites, the effect has been bewildering.

With the result that, today, even simple patience and PR with jobseekers requires time and infrastructure. A business issue that has to be wrestled with by individual placement consultants.

One wonders if, in the near future, individual response will still be in vogue.

Copyright © 2011, Jobnet magazine, issue 102

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

Courtesy Jobnet’s Directory of Placement Firms

Posted under Articles by Lima Sehgal