Unfortunately I work in Infosys / Wipro / TCS

Unfortunately I work in Infosys / Wipro / TCS

Oh yes, these are the common dialogues in any entrepreneur’s meet up these days.  I hear this atleast once in any of these meet ups.

I had been to couple of start-up meets and this is a common dialogue before anyone shares their idea on starting their own business. 

A decade back it was a proud factor to tell people around that “I am working in Infosys”, “I work at Wipro” or “I am an employee of TCS”.  Even parents would feel proud on the same.

In any gathering of retired fathers, their proud factor would have been that their son or daughter is working with these big companies.  Marriage market was pretty high if the guy is working in any of these companies ;-).

A decade back girl used to get excited if the proposal comes from guy who is working in Infy, TCS, Wipro, IBM, etc.  It was not just the girl but the whole family used to show that Aham attitude that the prospective guy is working in one of these companies.  Now if the same proposal comes, he would be a backup proposal.  First preference is going to Entrepreneurs or somebody working in a startup company or got acquired by giants of the industry.

A decade back weekend was busy with weekend drives I meant weekend interviews with these companies.

Now weekends are full of start-up festivals or start-up talks or a tea session with budding entrepreneurs.

A decade back if a recruiter calls a candidate for interview, the recruiter had some respect and would get a gentle response on their interest.

Now if a recruiter calls prospective candidate, on the face they cut the call as though you are calling them for a credit card or vacation or for some loan.  Else they say if this is the company then I would not be interested.  If they are hiring then please don’t bother me with calls.  Ultimate is - you also don’t work for this company as there are better companies to work for.

A decade back if a candidate don’t turn up for interview it would have been a grave mistake of recruiter that he / she has not followed up properly.

Now the interviews are planned with backup schedules for such no-shows.  Its an understood & accepted fact J.

I would really like to send a warning message to all the leadership team of bigger organization to drastically change their outlook; else you will not be able to attract the cream.  You may end up losing your best talent. 

If they can join a startup or start their own and make it successfully then why can’t this happen in your company?  What is stopping these bright minds to think outside of your company?  What is fundamentally wrong with your style of working?  Wake up else you will one day be acquired by your own engineers ;-) (little exaggeration but you never no……)

Dexter Gyan Session

Dexter Gyan Session

Decoding – The First Impression

Dear Candidate – do you know that a smart recruiter can assess your candidature within minutes?  Just one scan of yours and time spend of atleast 2 – 5 mnts will give the gut feeling whether you will clear the interview or not.

So it is essential to be prepared at each step.  When I say preparation I am talking about the soft skill behavior than your technical skills.  Most of the great companies have even hired candidates who are technically worst but have an amazing attitude. 

Here are few extracts for your reference on how to make a great first impression:-

• Enter the interview room confidently.  Take a deep breath.  Relax, think about nice things.  Smile without fail (A smile can brighten the darkest day).  Keep your back straight.  Re-align your body posture.  Enter straight & stiff.

• Hand Shake & Eye Contact.  Firm handshake (But be careful – once I had this experience where my hand became straight because of the candidates over-acting ;-).  I had no scope to bend my hand around the candidate’s as he was over firm rather stiff.).  Practice it.  A cool but little firm hand shake where the other person should feel the confidence in you when you shake your hand.  According to a psychological study, a proper eye contact clearly conveys to the opponent that you are an honest & open for feedback person.  So a proper eye contact is very essential.  (Again when I say proper eye contact, please don’t keep on staring the interviewer;-)) 

• Sitting: Sit straight, don’t slough. Comfortable clothing also adds on to your sitting posture.  Make yourself in a comfortable posture to answer better.  (In one of the campus interviews in Tamil Nadu during summer, I had come across students who were wearing full sleeve shirts with tie.  By the time their turn for interview came, they were exhausted / dehydrated) 

• Postures during discussion: Shaking legs / hands is a distraction to the interview discussions.  Have an open hand gestures, don’t fold your arms.  Folded harm means that you are a closed kind of person; don’t want to give away the information so easily.

• Listening: Listen to the questions completely.  Answer to the questions.  Go by interviewer.  If he/she is formal, you be formal.  If he / she is informal or fun kind you can be little casual.

Last but the never the least:-

Leave that wow impression with the interviewer.  You should be the best interviewee.

Best wishes to you all

Recruiter2014.....Part 1

Recruiter2014….(Part 1)

This blog is for both recruiters & hiring managers to know the emerging trends & tricks for recruiting.

Yeah I agree recruiting is not a rocket science, but it is surely a mix of science, psychology, technology, marketing & branding and much more.   So continuous learning is extremely important to keep in pace.

Intention of Recruiter2014 (1) is to share the recruiting knowledge for my dear fellow recruiters or hiring managers to think beyond the job portal?

Earlier an engineering degree or MBA was mandatory to get a job.  Now a simple understanding of coding or public speaking can still get a job and job of satisfaction.  Industry is changing.  World is evolving very fast.  If we the recruiters don’t update ourselves with the latest trends and tricks of hiring then we will lose the race.

Below is just a small share of information from my leaning for your reference.  Hope you take few points out of this for better hiring techniques. 

Recruiter2014 should remember one thing in mind before getting ready for the challenge i..e.

“If you are not in, you can’t win”

Do you know?????

www.alexa.com - Analytics engine for any website.  How is it useful for recruitment?  Yes very much.   Sitting in your base location, you can understand the top websites in other countries.  Example, you are in India, you want to hire resources in Germany.  Give search for top websites in Germany.  You will get the list.  Do your job posting in those websites.  Or search for profiles from those websites.

If you are planning to start a branch of your company in other location, then search for the top sites and get more details about the geography thru this site.  For all your first-hand information this is the place to go.

www.bullhornreach.com / www.bufferapp.com  – Place to post jobs at multiple sites.  Broadcast open jobs to your social networks and leading job boards with a single click. Automatically re-post until your jobs are filled. Reach will immediately surface a shortlist of social media connections who may be good matches for your open jobs.

www.followerwonk.com  – to search twitter bios.  It is Twitter’s analytics tool to find, Analyze, and Optimize for Social Growth.  Key tool in sourcing using twitter.  Just for your understanding as per the internet source there are close to 500 million users in twitter & around 200 million out of them are active users which is more than linkedin

www.linkedin.com – Most of you would be aware, but still few of my learnings for your reference.  If you want to brand your company, you may ask your employees to post their photos against the company’s image.  It is for the optimal use of your own employees as brand ambassadors.  Don’t just keep on posting your jobs, get involved in the discussion.  Understand the group needs first before posting your job.  Calculated use of linkedin will definitely yield better results.  Align your page to company’s employee value page to talk more about the culture of your company.

www.twitter.com -  Upload a photo of you & a small input on your profile – be a person, not a brand on twitter.   If your hiring is more specific to UK/Europe geography then twitter is the best.  As per industry analytics 80% of the mobile users are from UK.  As you know mobile is the talk of the town now.  Tweeting about jobs, topics, brands has better and faster reach than PC. 

Mobile Recruiting – As per the google search & research, email responses takes atleast 72 hours.  Average mobile response is less than 5 minutes. 

www.facebook.com – Interesting site rite?  Most of you must be great fan of this.  Do you know this can also be used for hiring or finding the right talent?  It is mostly recommended for branding and indirect hiring.  Facebook is known for cool stuffs.  So you need to talk on your companys cool stuff than jobs.  Use facebook to promote your values & foster your culture.  This is a free platform & branding tool. 

www.mailtester.com – Used to check the validity of mail.  It is one of the great tools for headhunting.  Think that you have full name and know the company where the candidate is working but just not able to reach out to him.  Then check the availability of his email id thru this website.  Example: John Joster working in abc company.  Then check for availability of mail id in this website by trying different options like john.joster@abc.com or john.joster@in.abc , etc

www.stackexchange.com - This website is for like-minded groups.  Something similar to yahoogroups or google groups, but a dedicated webpage for each user.  It has groups for every kind of people like UX, Sharepoint,Photography, movies, etc.

www.xing.com  – search tool to get more relevant responses.  Something similar to linkedin I feel.

www.cybercoders.com – This is mainly useful for recruiters or hiring managers in other geography than india.  Indian recruiters are yet to catch up with this website.

Keep in touch.....,more to come..........

Janaki Shantharam

SMAC – Social, Mobility, Analytics & Cloud - in a Layman's language

SMAC – Social, Mobility, Analytics & Cloud

 (OR ;-) Senses of Motions of world Available & Captured)

World is evolving quite fast.

When I realized the existence of a computer it was called PC – personal computer.  Only one in my whole family had it.  I was so excited to just watch it from far.

I started learning the subject by coding in DOS.

I was able to pass my exams by rehearsing  PASCAL / COBOL code.

Studied hard to write code to just to say “Hi buddy” in “C”.

Also learned that I can save all my contacts in Excel than on small book bought on street side at the beginning of every near.  Books were sold along with a free new-year calendar on those days.

I upgraded myself by learning Oracle.

I tried to refresh my knowledge with the then buzz word ERP

Later found that you have to connect different data to different models and analyse it.  So I understood the benefits of DWH (Data WareHouse).

However thanks to the internet, thanks to the connectivity, thanks to IT companies who send our brothers and sisters to different parts of the world, we are all provoked to find means & ways to reach out to them thru different applications.

All in all there is no limit.  This is also now proved by giving the name of Cloud to it.

Every news channel talks about SMAC.  Newspaper has one dedicated page to give us update on technologies like SMAC.  Companies are shifting to top gear and becoming aggressive on SMAC technologies.  Small companies are budding to tell the world that they are SMEs in SMAC.  Children aged anywhere between 10 – 17 years are coding to design games for SMAC.  My 1+ year old niece is an expert in iPad again part of SMAC.  My 5 & 6 year old niece & nephew are downloading their favorite games in my mobile themselves – SMAC?.  Recent addition is my technologically innocent parents who want to see their grandchildren, sister’s grandchildren, far away relatives in their cell phone – again SMAC?

I wondered then what is SMAC?  I am not a techie.  I know something but always my understanding was in Cloud ;-). 

As per my study and understanding, below is what SMAC is, mostly from a layman’s language.  Hope it gives some idea for all non-techies like me.

(I am open to learn.  So if any of my techie friends feel they can add or remove certain things I would be deeply gratified).

•     Foto uploading to Facebook
•     Telling the truth thru Twitter
•     Googling on friends with Google +
•     Linking the contacts thru Lindkedin
•     Pinning your interest thru Pinterest
•     Is all Social 

• Doing the same thru your handsend / mobile
• Need not have to go to office to reply to a mail
• Want to book movie tickets from whereever you are?
• Want to order cake online?
• Is done thru Mobile – Mobility

• Analyse the type of items your customers are looking in web.
• Note down the items they keep ordering for
• Track customer purchases from their web browser to mobile bookings to mall purchases
•  Get realtime suggestions on supply chain management thru these analysis
• Gap analysis on business that can be done thru mobile or web or on the brick & mortar store
• All these and more are done via Analytics

• You are doing marketing thru websites
• Your branding is done on mobile
• You party on a Friday with colleagues you want to take a photo and share with all
• You join cycling group and publicise it to the whole world of yours
• You want to sell your stuff just click, post and get the money transferred to your account
• For every occasion starting from your first Sandwich preparation to celebration of a festival to proposal to ditching to one more proposal etc - all on the net.
• You would have hardly spoken to a relative but would have liked the status update on social website hourly
• Typhoon Haiyan in Philippines gets aid from all over the world
• Voting of Super Singer is done from every corner of this universe
• Sachin’s farewell is a breaking news not just in Indian news channel but all over the world
• Literally all these information storage cannot be done on one PC or one room equivalent server.  You really need more than that.

That is Cloud – Companies specialised in providing storage and related service from any corner of the word which you would not have visited also

In Short,

SMAC is

Friends we need to be ready for the next buzz word.  It can move from SMAC to SWAC also (as big companies are moving to watches with android applications).  Instead of Mobile, we might start encountering these in Watches also J

Hey by the way don’t forget – Bo & Yana

Happy Knowledge Refreshing :-)

Hey Recruiter - Did you know this about you!!!!

Hey Recruiter - Did you know this about you!!!!

• You have capability to read a resume thoroughly. 

• You have strength to match the profile with requirement in less than a minute’s time.

• You can predict the right source for right requirements.

• You can sense the further suitability of a candidate for your requirements in just one call.

• You have the calibre to interview most of them irrespective of their background or your background.

• You understand market trends better than anybody else.

• You know which branding activity suits you best.

• Your eyes are strong enough to judge the candidate’s feedback even before their interview starts.

• Your common-sense is great enough to identify the right panel for the right candidate.

• Your knowledge on the requirement is so good that you easily predict the ageing of the requirement.

• You have the capability to feel what is running in candidates mind during interview process.

• You are not from technology background but still can gauge the technical understanding of your candidates.

• Your communication skills are so strong that you decide what to tell whom and when.

• You are obviously creative because of your creative way of reaching out to the right resource.

• You can easily point out the validity of information provided by your candidates.

• You know the salary structures of most of your target companies.

• You know which designation means what in each of the organizations.

• You can gauge the candidates joining in just one interaction with prospective.

• Your networking skills are so strong that your handset is filled with contact numbers from security guard to CEO.

• Your skills on technologies are so strong that you can easily be criticise the social website on their strengths and weaknesses.

• You are not master of all but definitely jack of all.

• You know the approximate take home salary of any offers.

You are the best and your profession is the ultimate.

Recruiter or Recruit-her ;-)................

Funny / Interesting situations in recruitment…..

(This is only for fun and not to be taken otherwise ;-))

Scene 1:

Recruiter: Hi Bheem, how are you? Can you tell me about yourself?

Bheem: “My name is Bheem, I am from ………………..”

It like “Basanti tera naam kya hai”……

Scene 2:

Recruiter: “How many siblings you have Mr.Bheem”

Bheem: “Two, one brother, one sister”

Recruiter:”What is your brother doing”

Bheem: “I don’t have brother”

Recruiter: “You said one brother and one sister about your siblings”

Bheem: “I am that one brother and my sister is house wife”

Scene 3:

Recruiter: “How much are you expecting”

Bheem: “25…”

Recruiter: “TWENTY FIVE??? THANK YOU FOR COMING. WE CANT PAY.  GOOD BYE”

Bheem : “25 percentage sir….”

Scene 4:

Recruiter: “What is your expectation interms of role?”

Bheem: “I want to move to CDO role”

Recruiter: “I will get in touch with you when my CDO resigns sir”

Bheem: “Moving to CDO is my long term aspiration, but here I am looking at Senior software engineer role”

Scene 5:

Recruiter: “Where are you working”

Bheem: “iGate”

Recruiter: “Where is iGate located” (in Bangalore)

Bheem: “It is next to Infosys” (for those who are not in Bangalore, iGate is in whitefield and Infosys is in Electronics city, two different corners)

Scene 6:

Recruiter: “Where are you working?”

Bheem: “Confidential”

Recruiter: “Who is your client”

Bheem: “Confidential”

Recruiter: “confidential? Ok. What is your name?”

Bheem: “Confidential”

Recruiter: “Uff, your result is also confidential.  You can leave for the day Mr.Confidential”

Scene 7:

Recruiter: “What is your salary expectation?”

Bheem: “I have an offer from MNC1 for 5 lacs, MNC 2 for 6 lacs, MNC 3 for 8 lacs”

Recruiter: “oh is it.  But my question was not on how many offers and what are they.  My question is what is your salary expectation from our company”

Bheem: “Company Standards”

Recruiter: “Our company standard is 4 lacs would you join”

Bheem: (Smiles) “That’s why I told you about all my offers”

Scene 8:

Recruiter: “What is your salary expectation”

Bheem: “My husband wants to talk to you”

Recruiter: “Hey I don’t want his salary expectation.  I am talking to you and I want your salary expectation”

Scene 9:

Recruiter: “Explain me about your onsite exposure”

Phone rings

Bheem: “Sorry for the phone, you delayed taking my interview and now I am having one more telephonic interview.  Please give me 20 minutes time I will come back after taking this interview”

Scene 10:

Recruiter: “Why should we offer you a job in our company”

Bheem: “I can contribute immensely in watching the organization grow”

Recruiter: “We want contributors and not spectators ;-)”

Scene 11:

A hefty Bheem comes to interview.  He would have weighed anywhere around 100 kgs….

Recruiter: “Why are you looking for change”

Hefty Bheem: “For personal growth sir”

Recruiter: “I personally suggest you not to grow beyond this ;-)”

Scene 12:

Bheem as a fresher in interview…..

Recruiter: “What do you know about this company?”

Fresher Bheem: “Company started in 1998, 200 employees, 30 clients, etc, etc, etc and it goes upto for 15 minutes”

Recruiter: “What about their USP”

Fresher Bheem: “Sorry sir, I don’t know”

Recruiter: “How can you come for interview without knowing much about the company?  We have to keep you on hold.  I advise you go through in detail about the company and then attend interview”

Bheem as a 2 year experienced in interview……

Recruiter: “What do you know about this company?”

Experienced Bheem: “I heard good about this company so applied”

Recruiter: “Good.  Yes you heard it right.  We are a growing company with …………..” (Goes on for 30 minutes)

Experienced Bheem: “Do share the salary breakup, I will think through and get back”

Scene 13:

Recruiter: “Bheem we like your candidature and would like to go ahead and make an offer”

Bheem: “Thank you recruiter.  I would accept but then why can’t you recruit-her too ;-)”

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