My friend forwarded the following article in the morning. I am reproducing it as is. I am unsure of the author. If you are the one, do write to me

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Some, rather most organizations reject his CV today because he has changed jobs frequently (10 in 14 years). My friend, the ˜job hopper™ (referred here as Mr. JH), does not mind it. Well he does not need to mind it at all. Having worked full-time with 10 employer companies in just 14 years gives Mr.. JH the relaxing edge that most of the ˜company loyal™ employees are struggling for today. Today, Mr. JH too is laid off like some other 14-15 year experienced guys “ the difference being the latter have just worked in 2-3 organizations in the same number of years. Here are the excerpts of an interview with Mr. JH:

Q: Why have you changed 10 jobs in 14 years?
A: To get financially sound and stable before getting laid off the second time.

Q: So you knew you would be laid off in the year 2009?
A: Well I was laid off first in the year 2002 due to the first global economic slowdown. I had not got a full-time job before January 2003 when the economy started looking up; so I had struggled for almost a year without job and with compromises.

Q: Which number of job was that?
A: That was my third job.

Q: So from Jan 2003 to Jan 2009, in 6 years, you have changed 8 jobs to make the count as 10 jobs in 14 years?
A: I had no other option. In my first 8 years of professional life, I had worked only for 2 organizations thinking that jobs are deserved after lot of hard work and one should stay with an employer company to justify the saying ˜employer loyalty™. But I was an idiot.

Q: Why do you say so?
A: My salary in the first 8 years went up only marginally. I could not save enough and also, I had thought that I had a ˜permanent™ job, so I need not worry about ˜what will I do if I lose my job™. I could never imagine losing a job because of economic slowdown and not because of my performance. That was January 2002.

Q: Can you brief on what happened between January 2003 and 2009.
A: Well, I had learnt my lessons of being ˜company loyal™ and not ˜money earning and saving loyal™. But then you can save enough only when you earn enough. So I shifted my loyalty towards money making and saving “ I changed 8 jobs in 6 years assuring all my interviewers about my stability.

Q: So you lied to your interviewers; you had already planned to change the job for which you were being interviewed on a particular day?
A: Yes, you can change jobs only when the market is up and companies are hiring. You tell me “ can I get a job now because of the slowdown? No. So one should change jobs for higher salaries only when the market is up because that is the only time when companies hire and can afford the expected salaries.

Q: What have you gained by doing such things?
A: That’s the question I was waiting for. In Jan 2003, I had a fixed salary (without variables) of say Rs. X p.a. In January 2009, my salary was 8X. So assuming my salary was Rs.3 lakh p.a. In Jan 2003, my last drawn salary in Jan 2009 was Rs.24 lakh p.a. (without variable). I never bothered about variable as I had no intention to stay for 1 year and go through the appraisal process to wait for the company to give me a hike.

Q: So you decided on your own hike?
A: Yes, in 2003, I could see the slowdown coming again in future like it had happened in 2001-02. Though I was not sure by when the next slowdown would come, I was pretty sure I wanted a ˜debt-free™ life before being laid off again. So I planned my hike targets on a yearly basis without waiting for the year to complete.

Q: So are you debt-free now?
A: Yes, I earned so much by virtue of job changes for money and spent so little that today I have a loan free 2 BR flat (1200 sq.. Feet) plus a loan free big car without bothering about any EMIs. I am laid off too but I do not complain at all. If I have laid off companies for money, it is OK if a company lays me off because of lack of money.

Q: Who is complaining?
A: All those guys who are not getting a job to pay their EMIs off are complaining. They had made fun of me saying I am a job hopper and do not have any company loyalty. Now I ask them what they gained by their company loyalty; they too are laid off like me and pass comments to me “ why will you bother about us, you are already debt-free. They were still in the bracket of 12-14 lakh p.a. when they were laid off.

Q: What is your advice to professionals?
A: Like Narayan Murthy had said “ love your job and not your company because you never know when your company will stop loving you. In the same lines, love yourself and your family needs more than the company’s needs. Companies can keep coming and going; family will always remain the same. Make money for yourself first and simultaneously make money for the company, not the other way around.

Q: What is your biggest pain point with companies?
A: When a company does well, its CEO will address the entire company saying, ˜well done guys, it is YOUR company, keep up the hard work, I am with you. But when the slowdown happens and the company does not do so well, the same CEO will say, It is MY company and to save the company, I have to take tough decisions including asking people to go. So think about your financial stability first; when you get laid off, your kids will complain to you and not your boss.

As the job sections in newspapers are getting size-able and the e-mails contents in the inbox from various job sites meatier, one can hear the gong ringing loud for the interview season.

I assume you have audited your resume well and edited the gaffes. The call from the Human Resource department acknowledges that you have passed the initial scrutiny. This means that there is certainly a correlation between what you have mentioned in your CV and what the requirement of the job is. Good communication, polished shoes, creased shirts and a charming smile may have eased the process, yet I know of people who don’t find themselves comfortable with the interview process or who do not find it easy to clear the interview, however qualified they may be.

The most stressful part of job interview is to get stuck in those questions which seem easy when asked but difficult when you start thinking of an answer. General questions send the candidates in a tizzy, resulting in their beginning the interview session on a wrong note. For example: When one is asked ‘tell us about yourself’, it does not necessarily mean that the recruiter is asking about your schooling, hobbies or work experience etc. All this can be found stated by you in the resume already. When putting up this question, the recruiter wants to know about your skill sets, strengths and achievements in the past and how equipped you are to answer those.

Keeping this in mind I have collated three common questions and acceptable answers to them that should help you sail through an interview:

About your work

This is typically an ice breaker kind of question, because the candidate thinks that it is his domain to answer about his past experience and should be easy. It is an expected question as far the candidate’s pre-interview thought process is concerned. But the interviewer is keen to know about your skillsets, how you are using them at your work and what has been the quantum contribution to the overall success of your position.

Post his interview with a logistics company, I asked my friend Sidharth Trehan for his answer to the same question. He mentioned his experience in generating leads, meeting prospective clients, making presentations, follow ups, networking etc.

The answer may sound familiar and convincing. However from an interviewer’s perspective, they are looking to quantify person’s responsibilities at work. The hiring company wants to correlate your past successes with what you may contribute in the new role. Interviews are mostly a numbers game and it helps to be ready from the word go.

After interacting with the recruiting fraternity, I have come to the conclusion that, mentioning a percentage increase in the client base, percentage of target met for the last quarters, number of trainings and/or awards received is a good quantifiable indicator of a person’s capability.

Your contribution to a situation

Usually these questions sound like a conversation, but the interviewer is gathering facts about skills, knowledge and behaviour. The questions are in the form of “tell us of a situation when….. and your contribution in it”.

These set of questions reveal the attitude and the enthusiasm level of the candidate and how he views his peers and his customers. It is to see how positive, organized and orderly you are in handling your work. This method known as the Behavioral Event interview.

Sandhydeep Puri, Lead consultant, Mahindra Satyam, swears by this technique. She believes asking such penetrating questions helps quantify ones contribution to a project, situation and learning’s there from.

As a candidate, it is a good idea to explain a realistic situation that you were part of. It will be a good chance for you to demonstrate leadership/ problem solving skills etc. at the workplace. That does not mean you cannot discuss the difficulties you faced and how you overcame them. However, if you try to ‘create’ a situation you will not be able to last long in the interview.

Your salary

If you have reached the ’salary expectation’ question in an interview, most of the battle is won. An interviewer must be satisfied with your credentials and approaches at the workplace, and unleashes the next set of tricky questions.

A seasoned interviewer establishes the candidate’s expectations and tries to assess the candidate by asking about the current CTC, the increments over the past 5 years and also while switching jobs, what kind of salary raise has the candidate got.

These set of questions help the interviewer establish the trend of the candidate’s current salary. Have the increments over the years (within the company/due to job switch) been in accordance to the market? Or have they been high or lower than the market. The interviewer definitely tries to correct the salary expectations if required, depending on the candidate’s skill sets, experience and past salary records.

It is always advisable to study the pattern of your own salary increments over the years before appearing for an interview. You may have been just doing fine or a little less than the market average. However, this knowledge and how you can contribute to the interviewing company’s growth will help you justify your expectations in front of the interviewer and create a positive image about yourself.

Apart from the above questions, you will face some more situational questions. Some would be directly related to your work and some about your own goals in life. It always pays to be calm while answering any questions and be realistic about your claims.

There is a popular saying - “what gets measured, gets reviewed and what gets reviewed, gets improved and rewarded”. Applied at the workplace, it means that to get rewarded, your work should get measured first and noticed too. At the end of the day we all want recognition of our hard work. Recognition comes when you are able to promote your skills and worth to other co-workers. There is a need to show to your colleagues and seniors about your skills and the reason why you exist in the company - whether it’s a large organization or small. You need to enhance your visibility to get more responsibility and recognition.

There could be many ways to get noticed at workplace. A few ideas are:

1. Take time out to stroll: Do you know who make your cheques? Who advises your boss about your leaves/appraisal and other issues. There are many other departments in your organization apart from your own. It’s good to know people from your department but it’s always useful to gel with other people also. So don’t hesitate in exchanging ‘hellos’ with members of different teams and processes.

2. Spread the word: While I agree that ‘actions speak louder than words’ but nowadays this statement seems less applicable. These days actions and words seem to be speaking with the same force. So spread your words. Participate constructively in meetings. Write regularly in company newsletter. Appreciate colleagues for good work done. Reply with qualitative suggestions/solutions in group emails.

3. Extend a helping hand: There are always a few employees in an organisation, who are always ready to help. This not only sharpens the employee’s skill but also makes him popular among the people. There is usually an impression that this person can be counted upon, whenever required. So interesting things like mentoring new joinees, sharing some business tricks with colleagues/reportees. Helping people preparing presentation or using a new software/tool etc. will surely go a long way.

4. Step up: Its all about taking initiative as people always remember who did the things first; no one remembers the second one. Be the first to raise your hand high when you think that you can work on a particular task. Genuine effort always gets noticed and helps build a positive reputation at the workplace.

I fully agree that there is no replacement to hard work. However if you remember not to shy away from self promoting activity and PR at workplace it will surely help to create a positive image and help  you to get ahead at your workplace.

The photograph is attributed to

In conversation with Dr. Jagdish Sheth and Shereen Bhan

I always find one of my friends grumbling about the amount of work he does. He always keeps on complaining that he has lots of work to do -  work long hours in the office to finish the work; spend lots of time in answering e-mails; handle tonnes of files and papers. And most importantly, in handling these things he always forgets about some important meeting or misses deadlines of projects.

It’s true that some people work well in the stress but most of the people are efficient and productive when they really can control their life. They feel comfortable when they are top of the things.

Here are the few tips that can keep you on top of your work:

Take only as much work as you can do: If you always have lots of work to do it could mean that you may be inefficient or really overworked.

Priority is the key here. Before taking any new assignment, doing a favour to colleague, volunteering any activity or task think about the other priorities you have at the work.

Coping with meetings: Don’t be a ‘meeting-man’. All the meetings all the time are not necessary to attend. You may have to attend several meetings a day but decide which all are really important to attend and which all can be managed by just going through the ‘minutes of meeting’.

Follow your To-Do list: I am sure we all make to do list on the day before or at the start of the day. But the important part is to follow that.

Analyze/update your To-Do list regularly to look it fresh (you sure can include time for gossiping and coffee :-)).

Quality Focus time: You must have noticed a sharp increase in your efficiency during some specific time like just before a project deadline or when you want to leave early for the day (when you look less at twitter or facebook). Use that level of focus and efficiency quite consistently.

Keep a check on E-mail checking frequency: We generally spend much more time in checking e-mail than it requires. Most of the time we don’t need to read and respond those immediately. Instead we can fix some specific time to check e-mails.

Delegate: t has been said that delegation is an art. You can save much of your valuable time by delegating the right kind of work to your colleagues or juniors.

I am sure the above mentioned tips can sure help us to organize the work and time balance, which will increase our  productivity .

Please share your own productivity tips that have helped you in the past and keep your feedback coming!!!

 The pic is attributed to

“Did you hear that the new Team Lead is flirting with the boss? ”; “Oh! he is getting divorced!”; “Her wallet got wacked from her bag!!” .W ho doesn’t like the juicy gossips and if it’s at the work place, the more the merrier! There were few people in my previous office, who were also known as ‘Mr. Know It All’ as they knew everthing about the workplace and people. However, office gossip is always regarded as vicious and hurting for the employees. People believe that it can hamper the productivity and can create physical and mental problems for the victims.

On the other hand we feel there definitely is a brighter side to office gossip.  Gossip can be a great source of information (apart from fun and humour!). You can get useful pieces of information from gossip about hints of lay-offs, impending policy changes, who is doing what, strategies for the customers, growth prospects, promotions in the team, news about clients and business etc. So don’t be uncomfortable with the idea of gossip, in fact consider it as a positive, informal communication system.

Workplace gossip can be healthy and beneficial for your career. Just remember to follow a few simple rules, listed below:

1. Filter: Being the silent listener helps. Extract the useful information and filter out the rest. You may not be interested in knowing about personal history of a colleague, but who is preparing the promotion list and on what basis, can be useful information for you.

2. Utilize: You can use the information in many useful ways. Like if you got to know that your boss likes doing social work a lot then you also can discuss your ideas and experience on the same. So that you could be in the good books of your boss.

3. Promote: At informal team meetings, smoke breaks with the boss, or at other conventional gossip places you can make people aware about your achievement or your efficiency at work that might have gone unnoticed otherwise.

4. Trust: In a professional work environment, you may not get the chance to know and understand your colleagues. By spending some informal time with them, you can mingle with your peers, understand them and build a constructive relationship.

5. Unwind: In a competitive and stress inducing work environment if you can enjoy a light moment with your peers, it will refresh you.

I feel, nothing is really bad or harmful; it depends on how we act upon it. We need to see from a positive viewpoint. We should know that even useless junk can be useful in building a castle!

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Got this gem from the web worth sharing

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A well known speaker started off his seminar by holding up a $20 bill. In the room of 200, he asked, “Who would like this $20 bill?”

Hands started going up.

He said, “I am going to give this $20 to one of you but first, let me do this.” He proceeded to crumple the dollar bill up.

He then asked, “Who still wants it?”

Still the hands were up in the air.

“Well,” he replied, “What if I do this?” And he dropped it on the ground and started to grind it into the floor with his shoe.

He picked it up, now all crumpled and dirty. “Now who still wants it?” Still the hands went into the air.

“My friends, you have all learned a very valuable lesson. No matter what I did to the money, you still wanted it because it did not decrease in value. It was still worth $20.

Many times in our lives, we are dropped, crumpled, and ground into the dirt by the decisions we make and the circumstances that come our way.

We feel as though we are worthless. But no matter what has happened or what will happen, you will never lose your value. You are special - Don’t ever forget it!

In these times of slow economic recovery, many of us are finding it difficult to hold on to our respective jobs. Work pressures, stretched working hours, stringent quality checks and - clubbed with all this - workplace politics. Ethically speaking, just how desperate are we to save our job?

You need to be aware when someone is gunning after you. After all you don’t want to loose your credibility, a promotion or your job. You need to identify and fight back the people who indulge in workplace politics. A few signs that you should keep a lookout for, are:

1. Your mistakes and weaknesses are exaggerated in front of others.
2. You find yourself caught in the playing the blame game.
3. Meetings are conducted without you being invited or informed.
4. You don’t get the information which you should be normally be getting directly.
5. Your private information becomes public knowledge.

If 3 out of the 5 mentioned situations seem familiar to you, you may be getting dragged in politics at workplace. So how does one survive? Below are a few things that one should keep in mind:

1. Keep your cool. Being too emotional works against you.
2. List all situations. Prepare a note of all such incidents where you think your colleague is playing mischief.
3. Introspect. Review each of the incidents objectively. Do you see any logic? If you are confused, it is always advisable to speak to your confidante at work or a senior (a person who is removed from the situation and would be able to guide you). This helps you in seeing the correct picture.
4. Discuss with your boss. You have your list of incidents, viewpoints and patience with you. Share your fears with your boss. The boss may call in for a dialogue with you and your colleague. Be prepared.
5. Face your adversary. Prepare yourself, choose the right assertive attitude and share your observations and ask for an explanation.

It is most likely that the person will back off and will be careful about their behaviour after the meeting. And trust me, your boss/ colleagues will respect you for that.

It has been observed that  when we stop, think and act on a situation we are likely to win. So go ahead, face and resolve workplace politics and make the workplace a reason to look forward to and not sulk. Growl

image courtesy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonyong/

A brilliant story, recently forwarded by my friend on my email. I am presenting it as is for our valued readers. Some of you may have read this before but worth reading again.

The take away from the story is, about how to keep your goal in mind till you achieve it. You will never realize how far or near you are in achieving your goal, till you are there. So keep your spirits high and aim for your goal.

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The Catalina  Island is twenty-one miles away from the coast of California, and many people have taken the challenge to  swim across it.

On July 4th 1952, Florence Chadwick stepped into the water off Catalina  Island  to swim across to the California  coast. She started well and on course, but later fatigue set in, and the weather  became cold.

She persisted, but fifteen hours later, numb and cold, she  asked to be taken out of the water.

After she recovered, she was told  that she had been pulled out only half a mile away from the coast. She commented  that she could have made it, if the fog had not affected her vision and she  would have just seen the land.

She promised that this would be the only time  that she would ever quit.

She went back to her rigorous training. And two  months later she swam that same channel. The same thing happened. The fatigue  set in, and the fog obscured her view, but this time she swam with faith and vision of the land in her mind. She knew that somewhere behind the fog was land.

She succeeded and became the first woman to swim the Catalina  Channel. She  even broke the men’s record by two hours.

SUCCESS  PRINCIPLES

When you set your goal, keep pressing on even when you are  tired, physically and mentally, and even though there are many challenges ahead.

Keep the vision of your goal crystal clear before you and never, never, never…  give up!

See the reaching, commit to it, and you will surely see your goal  realized.

It depresses me when I meet some smart talented youth, without a job. Scratch their surface and I am surprised with the findings. The observation is that many of them really do not even know what is the kind of job they are looking for!!! I have come across many a candidate who have not yet decided on a goal/area of interest. They have no idea as to which field/industry they want to work in, or which profile they think is suitable. For them the idea is just to get a “job”.

I reproduce below the lines from my childhood storybook “Alice in wonderland” , as I write todays post:

“Would you tell me which way I ought to go from here?” asked Alice.
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get,” said the Cat.
“I really don’t care where” replied Alice.
“Then it doesn’t much matter which way you go,” said the Cat.

Job search is exactly that. My advice to everyone is to form a plan of action. Decide what profile/industry excites you and then research on your field/industry. Look for the opportunities available.

Once done with identifying the targeted profile/industry the rest falls in place. Research is a key element here. Research, research and research some more. Know more about the industry, the prospective employer, the desired skill sets etc. Examine your own skill set and see if you fit in the role. Identify the gaps between the desired skills and the skills that you possess. It would be ideal if there is a perfect match, but in cases where there is not, then don’t loose heart. You can always bridge these gaps through:

• Researching on the net
• Doing short/mid term courses
• Reading books
• Interactions with experts
• Volunteer for projects in the desired area on an apprenticeship basis. Being an apprentice has its other merits too.  You might meet people who will be giving you your next job

The difficult tasks out of the way namely identifying the plan of action and addressing the desired skill issue, the rest is fairly easy. All you have to do is to update your resume (keep in mind the top ten resume mistakes) and (re)apply with confidence and a smile.

Goodluck with your interview.