The pursuit of Happiness

Recently watched this great movie The pursuit of Happines Starring Will Smith and his son. 

This movie is based on the true Life story of Chris Gardener who faced a tough time personally and professionally bringing up his son and holding on to his job.You can click here for the movie details.

The reason I felt it why I felt it relevant to mention in this blog is that one can learn a lot from the fighting spirit displayed by Chris in real life.His acceptance of the situation and just going ahead and giving whatever he has got. He has faced tremendous challenges in life to go on and achieve his current standing.

Coming from a poor background, being abused as a child, a black to top it all and he goes on to succeed in a Leading Brokerage firm - the very pundits of Finance.

In our search for the right job and while building a career in a good or bad economy - we might have to face a lot of challenges.Not every time will there be a reward at the end of performance, but one just has to keep slogging - giving it the best to be able to come out successfully.We go through life assuming that if we do this much we we are entitled to so much of earnings or incentives etc.But, real life is so different. Sometimes the rewards just dry up and that is when nature seperates the men from the boys & the women from the girls.So, Prepare yourself there are going to be tough times.

Definitely watch the film - its a huge inspiration.

Some Recruiter Posts

Bill Martineau has made post on approaching job search in a down market.Titled chasing your tail it mentions - a structured approach and a clear understanding of your skills to ensure that you don't waste time chasing the wrong jobs while the ones where you have true fit get missed.Click here for the post

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Solar Energy

Solar Energy seems to be picking up in India. aggressive expansion being undertaken by some companies.

Manmohan Singh

Today the Newspaper headlines mentions our Prime Minister requesting the Industry not to go for Cuts. Individual reasons for Job Cuts might vary but problem with the Industry is that most players tend to sway enmasse. While adding people they overdo - why not add a few more - what if some people leave - in the process increasing the bench strength. And now when few industries are facing a slowdown there is a ripple effect across the board. Here is the chance why not sack a few more and send a message that non performance will not be tolerated.

Good time to target some eye sores and pains in the wrong end.

I remember an HR friend of mine mentioning that there was one employer of hers who used to throw people out if he didn't like their face. No, questions asked - face no like - thats it - out you go. And my friend used to play the part of the reluctant hangman.

Coming back to the scenario - I read somewhere that 1 out of 7 listed companies in India are officially in recession.That is 15% approx. What about the remaining 6 - have they stopped growing. Cant be . Maybe they are growing at a slower rate.

Now Indian GDP is expected to grow at 7% this is official.Maybe 5-6% actually.

So growth is happening. The Brouhaha is because 99% of the media is now focussed on the approx 15%( 1 of 7)of the total industry sector which is in recession.And they are churning out pages and pages of info to psyche people out.

And people who are psyched out read more of the same that had psyched them out in the first place. This cycle will go on till the marginal utility of placing another recessionistic article becomes = zero. This can happen in 3-6 months time . And then suddenly we will see only headlines of companies that bet recession and made 100% growth rates.

Thats my reading of the situation.Very simplistic but truthful nevertheless.

what say u?

Crash Weddings ?

Came across this post on an HR Blog by evil HR Lady.

Well, has nothing to do with HR or recruitment - chk it out.

Job Search Fundas

Success in Job Search is a function of these parameters.

Contacts: You increase your chances of bagging a job by making more contacts/meeting more people.Contacts are broadly two types:

Personal – Family, friends, acquaintances, teachers, church anybody whom you have interacted with or interact with. Get in touch and sound them out about your search.Get in touch with as many people whom you know or think you know and ask them for referrals.
The ego can be locked and kept in a trunk.

Generated: In your search the contacts you generate. Obviously the more people you contact the more you increase your chances. The luckier you get. The how to of increasing you contacts will be featured in another post. You make contacts as you respond to online ads, recruiters , make cold calls any person you come in contact with as part of the applying process.
Make cold calls to target companies.Get in touch with recruiters.


Preparation : Preparation impacts all aspects of your search primarily.The level of preparation decides the result.


Job Targetting : What companies you want to work for - list them out. Create a task list. Gather as much info you can about these firms. Addresses, contact persons etc. From whatever Media you can think. You can take the help of your personal contacts; any body who can take you a step closer to the right person. They say every person in the world is connected to every other person at the seventh degree.
Job targeting helps you to fine-tune where to apply.

Interview Preparation:

Learn to speak about yourself fluently for 1 minute – This is the elevator pitch. Requires a bit of practice. It needs to be short and will give a brief sketch of yourselves. Try writing your Bio in 50 words or less and mugging it. As practice try saying this pitch in front of a mirror.

Answering interview questions: Prepare for the routine interview questions. There are some 10-12 interview questions that are routinely asked in any interview – prepare answers for those and practice telling those answers to someone.Take feedback and improvise.Make the preparation as close to the real. Take help from anybody who is willing.

Grooming: Be neat. Keep resume copies in a folder. Copies of your certificates. Ironed shirt/shoes / tie is optional. Nails cut. Hair trimmed. Have a bath before going for the interview.
That should do.

Resume: Write a brief 1 or 2 page resume. With just enough details – flesh it out during the interview. Use neat fonts. Memorize what is on your resume.

Covering Letter : If you are sending resumes to a hundred people see to it that atleast 50 of them are addressed directly to the person by name and is tuned to the job being applied for. The remaining can be blind. If addressed directly and with respect to a particular job you increase you response possibilities manifold.

These are the fundamentals. As you increase the iterations your chances multiply. Work at it in a time bound manner. Make changes as you go along. Keep small targets – of 10 resumes per day to be sent. And stick to this target for a few weeks or at least a couple of months. Success will follow.

More on interview etiquette.

Typical Interview Questions

Another routine question which is a standard in most interviews is "Why do you want this job?/what you like about this job? / Why are you interested in this job?"

Try to be specific.Vague or general answers might not fetch you a "buy in" from the interviewer.Here is an opportunity for you to show that you have an understanding about the job and you have an understanding of how that job fits your inclinations.

For that you should have gone through the job specs or spoke to your recruiter in depth about the job role.

Basically the issue revolves around your understanding of the job details.Take some time to get into the job details. Perhaps try listing them out one by one and see which facet of the jib really catches your eye. Develop on that - maybe enough to speak for a minute or two. Thats just about it - the interviewer will be satisfied that you have done your homework and you get a small confidence boost to handle the more tougher questions to follow.

checkout our open positions at www.ehirings.net

Interviews / Feedbacks

In most cases after an interview the first question a recruiter asks the candidate is how did it go? Meaning what is your take on the interview , are you happy with the way it went , were you able to answer most questions properly , did the interviewer sound satisfied with the responses.

In nearly 75% of the cases we can guess if the candidate is going through or not, from these responses. Some clear indicators are the answers to the question like - how long did the meeting last, and what was the closing statement. If an interview lasts less than 1/2 hour we can place a safe bet that its a no-no. If after a couple of rounds the HR informs that - "we will revert in a weeks time" or " we are in the process of  meeting other candidates ..... " or " the consultant/recruiter will be kept informed" ...  one should get the drift , the interview has not gone too well.

Positive signs would be - a request for the current company salary slip or possibly dates for a final round of meeting with the MD/President or Director. 

A tricky situation happens when the interviews go well, the candidates fulfills most criteria but there is something which prevents the client from making an offer. Thats when we have something like - the "candidate on hold" situation. What do we tell the candidate. My experience of on hold situations are that - it does'nt go beyond that - the offer is never made - this happens in 80-90% of the cases . So its better to inform the candidate about his candidature being on hold & possible explain the ramifications of being on hold - just incase if the candidate has not been able to get over the euphoria of a good interview(from his perspective) 

checkout our open positions in manufacturing on www.ehirings.net

Recruitment Trends

Career Builder a jobsite in the US has come out with the survey results of hiring trends for 2008. Some Noteworthy trends are:

Flexible work arrangements are on the rise.
Sixty percent of employers offer flexible work plans now — usually alternative schedules (shifted start and quit times), condensed work weeks or telecommuting, while 39 percent expect to offer some form of flex-time in '08.

Online candidate screening slated to grow, and not only the use of qualifying pre-application questions, but full-blown searching of social networking sites and search engine checks.

This is very interesting - Retiree rehiring will increase as companies remain pressured from the loss of more experienced workers. Makes sense as there are some very knowledgeable and employable people who due to being statisticaly on the wrong side of age criteria are forced to sit at home.

For reading the complete report visit : http://img.icbdr.com/images/aboutus/pressroom/2008Q1forecastUSA.pdf

Cows and Magnetic allignment

Google earth's mapping has thrown up an info. Researchers noted that Cattle shown to align north-south while grazing. This seems to be applicable to certain other species like deer etc.
The conjucture being that the earths magnetic field is being used for this subconscious alignement.
Does that mean that magnetic fields have an effect on the Human Beings also.
Well we are not cattle ... but then is there any harm in having such an attribute.
As per vaastu our sleeping position should be North South - maybe there is some strength in that. So our ancestors have also observed some relationship.

About recruiting

Desperately wanted to start a recruiting blog. Spent over a week selecting a title - nothing seemed to fit. Did'nt want another blog having "recruiter" in its title so here we are . "pfrex" came from my initials combined with a very shortened nice sounding version of recruiter( sounded good to me) .
So now I have a podium from where I can shout out my views on recruitment, throw tips/advice at unsuspecting gullible candidates, get back at candidates who short change us, otherwise try to be normal recruiter plying my trade.