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Lima Sehgal

We admit that the making of this 100th issue does make us proud.

We look for landmarks and milestones to have a few celebrations, and then get back to the day, and then another…but for the Jobnet team, this is certainly one of our commemorative moments.

A moment that calls for reflection.

This magazine certainly cannot be called just a pioneering job magazine. Nor is it just a platform for visibility for information on jobs. It has become much more in definition — shaped by needs, sharpened by demands and shined by use.

The credit for our survival, growth and success goes to just one person — YOU! And Thank-You.

Jobs are an intrinsic part of the fabric of our lives, and Jobnet realizes that what counts is not the mere dressing but the addressing of human needs.

Copyright © 2011, Jobnet magazine, issue 100

Posted under Articles by Lima Sehgal

Though the volume of jobs looks like it’s on the rise, any seasoned jobseeker knows that it is only the averages that count.

Lima Sehgal

Currently, optimism in the job market is as fluctuating as the weather. And just as unpredictable.

The complaints are justified. We would like to pin a reason to trends or seasons — knowing that nothing qualifies. Any one out job-hunting still feels the squeeze.

Though the volume of jobs looks like it’s on the rise, any seasoned jobseeker knows that it is only the averages that count. It is the duplication of vacancies that is the problem. It’s causing a quickening of pulse amongst placement firms. But more smoke than fire.

Jobseeking professionals who circulate get to know the ropes. They are aware that the websites, publications and placement firms are wooing the same clients and are bound to come up with the same offers. The end result is that the pipedream of exclusivity cannot withstand the daylight of competition. Also, one realises that only the time-tested counts, and post mortems qualify more than rainbows.

Yes, the Indian professional is getting street-smart. Whatever the market conditions are, one always has the option to sow a few beans to get a magic beanstalk.

So, I think we can all look forward to an unpredictably happy new year!

Copyright © 2011, Jobnet magazine, issue 96

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

How to find The Best Candidate for your Company

Vijaylakshmi D’Souza

Getting the right kind of employees is the biggest tension for any organization. Ultimately good employees are the key factor to increasing the productivity of any organization.Most companies have financial constraints and budgets which become the determining factor in hiring people.How does one find the best candidates without compromise ?

First step is to examine your perception of what is best for your organization.A good candidate for one organization may not be suitable for another. Many factors go into defining suitability.Define the type of person you need for the job. Skills and market expertise count but personality and people skills count equally.

Identify the best way to source candidates.Identify Placement Agencies firms who could help you.The Jobnet Directory of Placement Firms is a good resource for it. Contact the Placement Consultants and give them a background of your company and the nature of your business. Give a detailed briefing to the Placement Consultants on your requirement –what kind of candidate you are looking for, what kind of background and qualifications are needed.If it is headhunting that is needed give them a list of your competitors.Explain at length the skills and expertise you require from the person you need to hire.

A quick elimination round saves time.Many companies opt for a preliminary screening.. It gives an opportunity of having an informal discussion about the position before the actual interview. This takes very little time and can save a lot of time for you and the candidate.

courtesy:Jobnet magazine, issue 181

Re -publication or dissemination of the contents of this article are expressly prohibited without the written consent of the Author

Posted under Management Resources/ HR

Ask Sonali

Sonali says….

Crap has the same nutritional value as shit. As a professional you have to avoid it.

When it comes to job hunting, most of us are ruled by our phobias. Phobias are the mental crap that makes us fearful and clouds our perceptions. It paralysis our judgment and stunts our capacity for new learning. Worse it makes us smell bad to others.

But phobias have to have to be handled with respect. They serve as a thermometer for sensing our environment and give us the indicators on what medicine is needed.

For starters…

First, we need to admit to ourselves that if we are not able to find or get the job we want, blame is not going to cure the situation.

But that is what most of us tend to do – Pin the blame.   Do you think it was because I lost it to the better guy? Was it because of weak English? He paid a bribe to that government hiring officer? My father is a village farmer? I am 35? I am not as pretty as the other girl? They preferred boys for the job? …… No end to the blame list.

Once we fix the blame we look at it as the cause of the problem. We start believing that it has a basis in reality, rather than a basis in our imagination.

Then we proceed to cure the problem

“Should I use the blaster services of websites to send my resume everywhere – maybe the problem is the volume game?”

“My resume is lousily written – should I get a professional to write a snazzy one?”

“My interviewer had an American accent – should I join that English course to learn to talk with a foreign accent?”

“Should I forget about jobs and join that most popular computer course?”

All this will not help very much. What is most important is to examine that crap in our heads. Maybe an unpleasant task but it needs to be done.

The craps are listed below.

The salary level crap.

Most of us have no idea on what salary we can actually demand from the job market, but to have a rigid posture is disastrous.

Freshers tend to go by what they hear or what they are told to expect as the correct salary level by the placement counselors in their educational institutions – The more expensive the education the higher the salary expectations.

Similarly experienced professionals also go by what they know or hear about, without really doing much analysis.

What every jobseeker needs to do is to first sort out their ego problem – to realize that the issue here is about differentiating between – What I am getting, what I deserve and what I want. All this may not have a correlation to – what I can get.

Because what I can get is about availability and timing of a job offer. Rarely about having a basketful of job offers to choose from.

I have seen freshers idling at home for months rather than take up jobs that they believe are lowly in status or in salary. I have seen experienced professionals do it too – and worse — I have seen senior / top level professionals do the same. The reasons may be stated as protecting one’s market value but the ego problem is identical.

There are these aspects of salary that are important;

*Different companies may have different salary packages to offer but all jobs have to be also considered in relation to job satisfaction, growth and career enhancement.

*Job compromises are preferable to unemployment. At least they serve the purpose of providing some income and become a stepping stone to the next one. Or at least it can serve the important purpose of forcing you into introspection and self analysis.

*A job has to be also viewed in terms of its value as an investment in the job market. You may decide to take up a job purely for what new learning and experience it offers while compromising on every thing else.

If you decide that salary compromises are a strict No-No, you may get lucky and get away with it. But if you are practical it is always advisable to take into account that careers, like life, are subject to the storms and winds of change.

As an IT professional you can get hit by the visa policy of a country, for example. Or, as a medical transcriptionist you find that the job market prospects are shrinking. Or now, all those companies that you are applying in for senior positions are considering people younger than you. Did you top your college? Well, too bad; now they are looking for higher marks from a college that is currently ranking higher than yours.

Sure, salaries are very important, but jobs are not just about earning a good salary. They are a lifetime process that you need to navigate most carefully and to your advantage. If you cannot adapt to change effectively, your survival and growth suffers. Flexibility, be it in the form of compromise or a new learning or a change in career expectations, all count as much.

The status crap.

The status crap goes hand in hand with the ego problem about salary.

Designation is the most cherished aspiration. We all can clearly visualize our dream designation .Sometimes we even compromise on salary or the company to get that stamp on our resume.

If you are wise you will not confuse designation with status. If you get wiser you will find that designation, status and salary does not count in relation to job content.

I started my career as a sales representative for an organization. For years I used to dream about being the top boss, sitting on a swivel chair and ordering people around. Guess what, now I am the top boss of my organization, sitting on a swivel chair and ordering people around. But my job is still sales representative for my organization.

Job satisfaction is defined as the feeling you get when you have to get up in the morning and do your work.

Be always responsive to that feeling and use it as your most valuable a career guide.

Seniority Crap

As people get older and older, most tend to accumulate a lot of fuss about themselves. They actually begin to think that the wisdom and experience they have earned should automatically command special attention, and superior salary. The problem is not about the expectations but about how you go about getting what you want.

As we get older we also become more conscious about age vulnerably as a factor in the job market.

Fears abound …

“My friend at 38 is already vice president, I can’t catch up for at least a couple of years, and not unless I get a lucky break.”

“I am now sure that I will retire at the colonel rank only.”

“That kid is going to become my boss.”

“May be I am not going to get an extension.”

“I will be retiring in May, but I am sure there is plenty of demand for experienced people like me.(I hope).”

What is frequently visible in senior people is a pomposity behind which lurks the fear of not being in demand. After years of hard battling in the job market, one simply cannot accept being sidelined.

The ego protection mechanisms get hardened like strong armor.

Rather than face rejection, one avoids going into the battlefield and risk getting hurt. Instead of changing the strategies of job hunting, one continues with old tried and tested methods and, when it fails, we simply add it to our grudge list.

Also, the fear of experimenting and failing is strong. One simply refuses to compromise.

“I will not compromise on salary and position at my senior level.” But – Hey , what about the time at 28 you did just that when you get booted out of that job in the U.S.A.?

“I am a senior guy in Marketing, I will not get shunted into a new line like Retail which my company is forcing me to do. I would rather resign.” Why can’t old dogs learn new tricks? Or maybe the new sales targets look scarily unfamiliar and – higher? )

I deserve special treatment crap

This one borders on the comical.

Freshers are confused about the job hunting process. They get hypnotized by the marketing campaigns of educational institutions, especially those that seduce you by saying 100% placement guaranteed. Or those that say A school. Or those that say IMFE Just as heady as IMFL, but you get down to swigging it you discover that it is only Indian made foreign education.

The institutes are also quite dedicated to placing their students. Normally the exalted position of placement officer is given to some kid who is either a student or an ex student there. Or maybe to some grey haired teacher, or even a hot shot counselor. Then the process of inviting big names to your premises begins with great gusto. A few companies turn up. Some polite activity takes place. Some students get jobs. The institute offers some more jobs to their students to become teachers to the new freshers that safely can be counted to know less then their teachers ( the utterly foolproof formula adopted by all educational institutions from kindergarten to …)

While all this may make you feel like it did when mama lovingly baked your favorite birthday cake, one discovers that however special you are, or however great your educational degree, no one comes panting for you.

Most freshers have no education on how to find a job.

The reality is that job hunting is not about campus recruitment, mass mailing, applying to a few ads and then getting down to blaming it all on world recession.

But the surprising thing is that we don’t expect the wheel to turn around.

By the time we label ourselves as Senior or very Senior we sometimes also brainwash ourselves to believing that we are VVIPs. Then we think that everyone should now also agree with our opinions about ourselves.

Of course it is like being a fresher again, but now we know what not to do. But why do we do the same?

“I  can’t go to all and sundry placement firms. Only reputed ones — who understand and deserve me.

“I will not go to placement Firms. If I am so great they will headhunt me if they happen to be worthy of it.”

“I refuse to follow any recruitment process. I will attack a company directly, even at the expense of being impolite to the Receptionist or the Personnel Assistant.”

“I shall use the resume mass mailing system of some reputed international placement firm. Or post my resume for all to see in a famous job website that claims that all companies visit there.”

Maybe there exists the perfect fairy tale? Maybe that is the only thing that is not crap? Or maybe it is just a point of view?

How will it be for us?

Will I get a good Job? Will I get job satisfaction? Will I get money, status, designation? Will companies find me indispensable? Will I be proud of my career achievements? Will the people who matter to me admire my work?

Nobody knows. Careers are about journeys .Ultimately only your perception or even justification counts. Reality of life demands that you face your realities with honesty.

This one comes close to qualifying as a fairy tale.

I want to tell you this real story about this cousin of mine. Like many others at that time he was forced to do engineering by his family. After first year in college he dropped out and went to try his luck abroad. He lived in Berlin with his cousin, tried his hand at several trades then decided to give up and come home. In the passage of four years in Berlin he managed to pick up the German language. After settling in Guntoor in his ancestral home he discovered that the tables had turned. Parents still wanted their sons to go for Engineering, but now they wanted them to go for engineering abroad. The German universities were wooing Indian students to provide them an education and the banks were wooing them to provide educational loans. All the kids needed was to learn German. “Rajulu’s School of German” became the best place to go for those who only knew Telugu since birth.

Telegu – medium German education became the in – thing

Rajulu today is rich and successful, but I don’t know what happens to his students, but this is not about them, but him.

But according to Rajulu’s grandmother, every thing has worked out like a fairy tale. He was a college dropout who played his cards well because he was intelligent and knew how to take opportunities to rectify his career choices. She says that there is no right career path, only what you do with your opportunities.

That’s philosophy.

(She also says that she recently went to Berlin and thanks to her grandson, now everyone there speaks in Telugu ! )

Wow !

Regards

SONALI

Posted under Articles by Lima Sehgal

Keep Your Crown on Your Head

Most of the time we are always thinking about what people will say if we fail in our examinations; if we are badly dressed; if our hair is not combed well and so on.

What does one do? Well, nobody except ourselves can do much about it. Let me help you.

Visualise Ganeshjee. Ganeshjee has a crown, which as you know was part of our dress centuries ago…it was replaced by the turban, the hat, and so on. Well, it signifies self-respect. In today’s world, we must wear our own crown…be it of gold or of silver or of paper!

Never lose your self-respect because if you lose it, you have lost all. One who cannot respect himself, cannot expect to be respected by others.

For a wise man, failure is not falling down but staying down. Failure is not the end of dreams; it is only the beginning. Failure teaches success if you are open to new ideas and consider failures to be stepping-stones to success. A man can fail many times, but he is not a real failure until he begins to blame someone else.

There was one man in this world who believed in all that has been said above, and who has become a “light-house” for millions of people who followed him. His name was Abraham Lincoln and he became President of USA when he was 51, after a string of failures. His resume is as follows:

Age 22, failed in business
Age 23, ran for legislature and was defeated.
Age 24, failed again in business.
Age 25, elected to legislature.
Age 26, sweetheart died.
Age 27, had a nervous breakdown.
Age 29, lost in the election for speaker.
Age 31, lost in the election for elector.
Age 34 lost in the election to the Congress.
Age 37, elected to Congress.
Age 39, lost in the election to the Congress.
Age 46, lost in the election to the Senate.
Age 47, lost in the election for vice president.
Age 49, lost in the election to the senate.
Age 51, elected President of the United States of America.

Abraham Lincoln did not bother about what people said about him when he failed. Even when he became the President, people still criticized him but instead of becoming disheartened, he said, “No man is good enough to be President, but someone has to be.”

Lincoln would certainly have believed in the fact that a failure is an opportunity for a man who has kept his self respect intact. Thinking the Lincoln way and trying to be happy will give you happiness while you are going about achieving it. You do not have to worry about what others think about your failures; they are too busy thinking about their own failures! Each step towards success can give happiness if you try to do creatively. Never forget that happiness is always short-lived unless you can make it long-lived! Achieving your small goals by thinking innovatively leads to happiness, because you don’t have time to be too critical.

Creative thinking can be done when your self-esteem is intact. You can then face people as well as your other auditors in life. Your self-image is in your mind. Your self-image improves when you have good family relations, god moral standards, good friends, enough cash, when you love what you do for a living, follow the essentials of your religion, and so on.

Nurture your self-esteem by helping other people. Whenever you are rejected, it is not you who is rejected but it is your action or activity that is rejected. Analyse each rejection. I can, I can…will always improve your self-image. You cannot do it overnight; it is a very s-l-o-w process, but never give up. No one can make you feel inferior without your permission. There may be a hundred ways of improving your self-image and reducing your stress levels.

My self-esteem is very important to me. I make sure that I feel good about myself…most of the time. I achieve it by reminding myself of my own successes over the years and keeping a list of my successes handy!

I use a mood-o-metre all the time. It is a simple device which indicates moods going up (positive) or down (negative). You can prevent yourself from going down by refusing to entertain negative thoughts and seeking opportunities in adverse conditions.

I speak to myself. If I have nothing good to say about myself, I keep my mouth shut! It is not easy, but it is better that way!

Please remember that when you feel good about yourself, you improve your self-image and it is a fact that it reduces your stress. Why? Because you can hold only one thought in your mind at a particular time. Try! If you are thinking about the Taj Mahal, can you think of what Ramesh said to you tauntingly at lunch? Years ago, I took a motorcycle accident victim to Holy Family Hospital. Whenever I think about it, I feel happy to have done a good deed.

You too can do it by doing some social work in your neighborhood. It will work.

Years ago, my wife used to fret and fume about streetlights, the pigs on the street and the watchman. I encouraged her to become our lane’s block representative. On an average, she now spends an hour every day by making several calls to get things done. She has been able to reduce her stress by 30 per cent! She has that much les time to worry and to nag me and our daughters! Believe me, if you have a strong self image, your stress levels will be lower.

Do what you think is right.

Do not bother about what people will say…what the auditors will say…what colleagues will say…what neighbors will say. These are immobilizing thoughts. Remember the story of the father, the son and the donkey going to the market. They got so influenced by what people thought of them that neither of them could ride the donkey. Do what you think is right, what you think is proper. Remember, you find them to be wrong. On the other hand, if you do not take any decisions at all, how will you ever be able to improve your future decision-making?

- Pramod Batra, email: thinkinc@vsnl.com

management article, jobnet

Posted under Management Resources/ HR

Forget It
Lima Sehgal

Youth orientation is prominent in today’s scenario. I suppose it existed earlier, but the longer one is around, the more prominent the fact becomes.

From the commercial point of view is the premium on youth justifiable? Hard statistics show that youngsters are valued, because they have a competence for risk taking, and accepting positive change more readily. Every year’s survey shows that IIM, Ahmedabad graduates for example get starting salaries that are uncomfortably close to yours.

Gossip in companies brings to light the fact that the one factor that somehow does not digest well is the justification for such high salaries. Does the fact that some brand new MBA kid earns more than the boss of your company make sense?

What about work experience? What is its rateable value? If lack of experience is what the kids are being paid so well for, what becomes horrifying is the fact that it happens to be the one asset that you can no longer possess.

In a world where change is the essence, the past becomes a handicap. When conditions are constantly changing, the ability to ask the right questions becomes more important than knowing the right answers. Because In decision making, assumptions have to be current. The hard part is to let go what has worked in the past.

Henry Ford made the Ford car company very successful by sticking to the formula of only one colour for the cars he sold — black. His marketing philosophy was ” You can have any colour you want, as long as it’s black.” He did not feel the need to change his formula, and, when a new consumer class came up after World War I that demanded a choice of colours and styles, the Ford car company lost market share to General Motors.

Experience implies that we have found our shortcuts, figured out the opposition, and worked out the methodologies. That is precisely the problem. When assumptions change, so do the parameters of application. The exploratory spirit is an important one to preserve and older, more experienced people shy away from exploration.

Specialisation has reached a stage where it also has become detrimental to personal success. We have had to become experts. This narrows our perspective on the whole picture. Psychologist Abraham Maslow said, “People who are only good with hammers see every problem as a nail.”

The same applies to experience. It narrows our perspective, and also curtails our risk taking behaviour. Which in turn implies that as our knowledge gets outdated and we get obsolete with time we tend to stick to tried and tested paths. We become relics.

“Mr. J. XXXXXX (AVSM, PSM), Retd., MBA / LLB.”

We flaunt it on our visiting cards and pepper our conversations with anecdotes of our past achievements. But nothing really helps.

Are we what the world is looking for? We put in a lot of effort in polishing our resumes, but almost no effort in polishing our skills, in the hope that our past successes will compensate for our current shortcomings.

The worst part is seeing someone do something successfully, that you believed was impossible. . Once, Columbus asked the courtiers in the royal court of Spain, if they could get an egg to stand on its end. They tried, but could not stand it upright. Then, Columbus boiled the egg, and squashed it down upright. They said, “It’s not fair — you broke the rules.”

Columbus said, ” Everything is fair, once you’ve done it.”

And that’s the same thing that Kerry Packer said, when he revolutionized the gentlemanly game of cricket!

I guess that’s all that counts.

Posted under Articles by Lima Sehgal