To & Fro Expenses – Face-to-Face Interview

In these recession times, getting an interview call is a big achievement. Normally companies conduct telecom before they go for a face-to-face interview with the candidate. Earlier, most of the companies used to pay to and fro charges for all the outstation candidates. Sometimes, in earlier days, depending up on the position and urgency of the job vacancy to be filled, companies used to book flight tickets for the prospective candidates; but those days were gone. In these times of recession, if a company responds to your resume and calls you for an interview, that itself is a big achievement.

Nowadays, companies are not declaring to outstation candidates that if they want to attend the interview, then they have to do it at their own cost. The company is not going to pay anything from its pocket toward the to and fro charges of the candidate. Actually, the candidate who is looking for a job is not in a position to pay the expenses. This is the time the company should come forward and shoulder the expenses. Nevertheless, this is not the case. In good olden days (read pre-recession days), every company worth its salt used to pay all the charges including relocation to the selected candidate. But, in these times of recession, where people lost their jobs and are unable to pay their own expenses to attend the interview though talented, are not getting help from the interview-calling company. This situation is too bad.

In summary, companies have to think humanely. If they feel that a candidate is worth to do a job with them they should come forward to pay the expenses incurred by the candidate for attending the interview. That is what is called "Gentlemen mentality"; companies, which are mean and do not have the Gentlemen mentality, just tells their prospective jobseeker that you are selected for face-to-face interview, but if you are willing to pay your own expenses, you can attend the interview otherwise no, because we are not paying you single penny toward your interview expenses.

The Y-Chromosome Extinction

The Y chromosome, which differentiates a boy from a girl, is set for extinction within the next 5 million years, as per a renowned scientist who did a lot of research on the human chromosomes. Now, the interesting question is what will happen then. Does it mean that the human species timeline is over? No, the scientist says; as per her recent observations, there is a possibility that a new human species will develop in the future, which will extend the timeline of human species further.

If you look from Gay Rights movement angle, the Y chromosome extinction factor has more relevancies nowadays. After 5 million years, if the world is devoid of Y chromosome, then there will be no males. This situation resembles like a Spielberg's Hollywood movie in its wildest imagination. Nevertheless, if this becomes true and a new human species evolve during the next 5 million years that does not have a Y chromosome but with some other chromosome or whatever, the whole world goes for a change spin. This kind of change in the chromosomes will have impact on our genes and genetic disorders. Moreover, there are chances that a new set of health-related problems, which require new medical solutions, come into picture. This is so crazy to think about such kind of stuff so ear ly!

In summary, this is an interesting finding, which has deep repercussions in terms of both genes and human race. Meanwhile, if you are male, guess what happens to your precious lineage after the next 5 million years!

The Mind and New Challenges

Recently, there has been an article in a very popular magazine saying that people living in a place other than their own are good at creativity. The article talks about people who have been living abroad for so many years. When a test has been conducted between the locals and foreigners, the latter found to be more creative in answering the test compared to the former. This is an interesting result.

Frankly, even before the test has been conducted, most of us know and feel that whenever we stay in a foreign place, psychologically, we feel that our mind is so alert and it does not let you sleep peacefully until it knows and understands the new surroundings better. A new place creates a new learning opportunity to our mind. Moreover, the mind won't settle for less until it knows everything it has in its view. While learning, the mind exhibits extra capabilities, shows more enthusiasm, and alertness in learning new stuff. Because of the extra alertness and new networking between the grey cells, the functionality of the brain improves like never before. All this activity is a response to the challenge that the new surroundings presents to the mind.

In summary, new challenges always poses great challenge to our minds while understanding them. The challenge itself provides a new opportunity to let footloose your mind and explore new hitherto unknown things.

DOMESTIC OR MNC – WHICH COMPANY TO JOIN?

Hey guys! Because of the ongoing recession, there have been a number of employee lay offs. Moreover, the employees who have been laid off by the companies are struggling to get new jobs in this bleak market for their survival. It is heartening to see that the talent, which this world direly needs, for its future growth and survival is not cared during this time and has been left to survive on its own as if there is no need for it to the market neither in the present nor in the future.

Whatever it may be, once you were laid off, it is time to start searching for a new job. Since you are one of that talented stuff the companies want to hire, getting a new job even in this bleak market is not a problem for you. Nevertheless, the question is, this time, how not to make mistakes in choosing a right company. Your earlier company was an MNC and had given you huge perquisites. However, it laid you off at that moment when you direly need a job; the reason may be the recession or whatever. Now, the question is that if you get an opportunity to join in either an MNC or a domestic company, which one you chose.

If your job is dependent on some outsourced domain, then obviously you need to go for an MNC. Nevertheless, if your talent has demand in domestic market as well, this blog suggests you to opt for domestic company though it pays you less. There are so many reasons to support this statement. Since India is one of those least-recession hit countries besides with huge domestic demand to cater for, it is easy for India to come out of this mess easily within a short a period (give or take a few months). MNCs are hugely dependent on outsourced market. Their markets are specifically targeted to a few developed countries like Americ a and a few European countries.

Although an MNC offers you a job during these times, it may be possible tomorrow that it may lay off you, again, because they could not able to get that project, which they have been waiting for all these months desperately because of these recession times. But, chances of similar kind of thing happening with a domestic company is near-to-nil if the Indian government's time-by-time fiscal boosting efforts and the encouragement it has been giving to different sectors to boost the domestic demand is taken into account.

In summary, this blog suggests you to grab an opportunity to work with a domestic company, which caters needs for the domestic clients, mainly. In one way, it also gives a new boost to your resume in opening a plethora of new domestic opportunities to work for.

ENERGY MANAGEMENT – ACHIEVING SMART PLANET DREAM

India needs huge power generation capacity within the next 20 years. Already, we have been maintaining a huge deficit gap when it comes to power generation and consumption. The conventional power generation resources are in scarce now, throughout the world. All the developed countries, including US, are struggling for the development of non-conventional power generation resources like wind, solar, hydel, etc. The technology that has been developed so far to utilize these non-conventional resources is not up to the mark. Although as a symbol of positive note, the world has decided to move and build huge capacities in terms of non-conventional power generation resources, so far the growth in this area is not that much significant as expected. The present recession has given a huge financial setback to the non-conventional sectors R&D efforts. Power saved is equivalent to power generated. – Time has come for everyone to take a serious look at these slogans and put effort to implement the same. If you cannot generate power why unnecessarily waste it? Someone else can use it in a most significant and productive manner, if the power is saved. This planet needs energy for development. Without energy, the so-called "Smart Planet" dream will remain as such. In this time of crisis, Energy Management is one of the areas where the governments all over the world have to sit and look at seriously. The transmission and distribution (T&D) losses, if taken in to consideration, are so huge and inefficient management of the same is no longer good for the development of this planet. The nuclear power is not such a kind of power-generating source that every country can depend upon. It comes with its own problems baggage of storage and security. The world still remembers the Chernobyl incident and the problems it had created. Power, when generated with clean non-conventional energy resources, is good for development of the planet Earth. Efficient "Energy Management" techniques with latest and sophisticated management technologies, will definitely serve the purpose.

The Cat is Out of the Bag

The beloved Satyam company is in news again! Yes, this time, it is about redundant employees. Everybody knows that Tech Mahindra had acquired Satyam company (bought a majority share at a whopping 20.99 billion INR). At the time of acquisition, like every new acquirer, Tech Mahindra has said that the company won't lay off employees. They want the talent to grow in their acquired company, Tech Mahindra declared. The Satyam employees were also happy regarding the Tech Mahindra's acquisition of Satyam because the former is an Indian company, which is capable of understanding Indian employee sentiments.

However, it seems that all these mutual understandings had gone in vain. Now, though the company is not talking about the lay offs directly but its statements are indicating something like that and the number of employees that are going to be effected is approximately 1/4th of the existing Satyam staff. If this number of talented employees comes in to the job market during this recession time, just imagine the period during which they can get a new job that suits their talent and perks. How long will it take the existing job market to absorb this huge talent figure? As per this blog estimate, it will nearly take at least 1 year if all other things remain status quo.

India has started feeling the recession heat since 2009 February. Although the whole world has started feeling the recession heat since 2008 October, India could able to stay away from the recession heat due to the monetary and fiscal policies adapted by the country. Regarding the domestic job market, the country has been announcing stupendous financial support time-by-time to boost the domestic demand so that it can save millions of domestic jobs. However, the IT sector and its related job market, which is mainly dependent on the outsourced projects, are at the mercy of the revival of the world economy. One can see hope rising in the IT sector only the day when the American economy bounces back.

Until then, the IT sector journeys in the dark only!

LTTE Has Become History

Now the fighting in Sri Lanka is over to its President Rajpakse's satisfaction. The Sri Lankan military has delivered a crushing blow on LTTE and the result is that Sri Lanka is now free of extremist LTTE. The Tamils living in the LTTE captured areas were given a safe passage before the final confrontation. Prabhakaran, the LTTE Chief Supremo, along with his aides died in the battle to the relief of Sri Lankan government. Rajpaksa has given a freehand to the military to defeat LTTE. There were so many human casualties during the war, but all were ignored. The human rights groups have reported nearly 6000 human casualties during the war.

Sri Lankan government has declared a nation-wide holiday to commemorate the end of LTTE. The war with LTTE has been going on for the past 25 years without any positive outcome. Now, the Sri Lankan army has brought the war to its logical conclusion. India helped and supported Sri Lanka in so many ways to defeat LTTE. Prabhakaran's aides killed Rajiv Gandhi, the ex-PM of India, because he has sent help to Sri Lankan government to defeat LTTE. Since then, India has been hunting for Prabhakaran; the main aim is to try him under Indian law for his drastic actions against Rajiv Gandhi.

Finally, the end of war with LTTE has once again proved that nothing can be accomplished through violence.

Common Man – The Kingmaker

Now the elections are over and the much-awaited results are out. All the political parties are shocked and surprised at the results. The so-called leaders have not grasped the intelligence of the Common Man and played the same game as usual, as they used to play in olden days. They have not understood that the gadget using population of India can make a difference through their votes even after listening to their gullible long speeches for hours. Even the Netas tracked the Indian population using every communication channel including the modern Net and made sure that the target population should have seen their vote-request advertisements. The leaders left no stone unturned but they lost in guessing right; why?

It is because of the overconfidence factor that they have projected in their speeches, blatantly drastic acts they did in their constituencies during their regimes, and the underestimation of the intelligence of the Common Man. They insulted Common Man through their ridiculous offers like free money, free power, etc, which are not possible to do so in reality. Even a child has the knowledge nowadays to understand and question the vague promises of the so-called Netas about how they could give when the State itself has been reeling under debt.

The election results indicate that Indians, this time, favored dynasty rule as they did many times before. Although the dynasty point is there but this time they voted for Congress keeping the professional veterans like Manmohan, Chidambaram, etc, in mind hoping that they can deliver what they had promised during their election campaigns.

Let's hope that the so-called professional veterans take India to the next stage where it can be reckoned as one of the potential forces both financially and militarily.

The Salary Bargaining Power

During interviews, it is common that the respective HR of the concerned company asks you to tell him/her how much you want as remuneration/CTC to work for their company. Moreover, everybody faces this toughest interview question irrespective of his or her domain.

If the employee is already a laid off one, then by default, s/he loses the bargaining power. If the employee is still working in a company but wants to come out of it quickly because they are planning to shutdown the company, and conceded the same to the target company HR, then again s/he loses the bargaining power. If the employee is forcefully pushed out of the company, means terminated, then obviously getting a job itself will become so difficult for the employee; therefore, forget about salary negotiations.

Only those employees who have considerable experience in their respective domain, knowledge in their field, created considerable impact during the interview on the interview panel, and currently holding a job can negotiate and demand salary face-to-face with the HR of the target company. Otherwise, just forget about that during these recession times. If you don’t fall into the above category, no matter whatever logic you use, it does not hold much water from the target company HR point of view.

That’s why, if you are willing to move out of your present company, irrespective of any reasons it is better to start searching instead of sitting until your present company lays off you.

Formula: Effort X Patience = Job

Yes, this is true that the two strong factors, which work, in getting you a job are effort and patience. Effort in terms of number of attempts you apply for a job, number of interview calls attended, etc. Patience in terms of the time you took to get a job without getting wavering to other distractions. If you have enough patience to give so many efforts, then the chances of getting a job are more in your case.

In pre-recession times (read good times), there were so many vacancies available and companies used to chase potential candidates like anything. Those were the days where potential candidates used to get whatever they ask for as remuneration and sometimes more also. The IT field has transformed the job culture in India like never before. Actually, it has created its impact on other domains also in relation to the hire and fire aspects. Now, during these recession times, things have changed drastically. Those heavy recruitment days were history now. Hardly, companies are going for recruiting nowadays. The number of candidate screenings has increased now and only a few out of thousands are lucky enough to get a job. The salar y levels have come down drastically and the recruiting companies are forcing potential candidates to accept a cut in their CTC to get the new job. Frankly speaking, since there is no other way to get a job nowadays, it is better to accept a pay cut rather than staying unemployed.

Nobody exactly knows how long this recession will stay. The so-called experts (read good for nothing) are good at projecting colorful graphs and redundant analysis based on what happened. They are neither equipped with expert knowledge nor capable enough to suggest correct remedies to their respective governments in order to come out of the present recession clutches.

Biometrics – A Nascent Technology

Nowadays, most of the companies all over the world started using Biometrics either for Time & Attendance purpose, to maintain a note of who is visiting their respective establishments, or for nabbing trespassers who try to sneak-in. Although there are various types (facial, iris, thermal, etc) of biometric products suitable for various purposes on offer, the most marketed biometric type so far in the domestic market (in India) is the Fingerprint biometrics.

From corporates to small start-ups, everybody is using these fingerprint biometric scanners hoping that they can provide some sort of additional security compared to the regular manual security. But this falls under the category of interceptive biometrics where the user needs to spend sometime to get authorized by the machine. Using facial biometrics, which falls under non-interceptive category, has become a new trend nowadays.

Marketing biometric products is always a tricky one. Although biometric industry has grown by leaps and bounds due to the recent terrorist attacks, the technology behind these products is still nascent. The technology has not yet attained the maturity stage so that it can provide foolproof security wherever it is deployed. Having known this fact, marketers are trying different ways to push biometric products in the market using all sorts of flashy advertising to hide the shortcomings of the technology behind the product.

Biometrics falls under the security products category, which concentrate heavily on safety, security, and protection. The only marketing strategy that works for Biometrics is the emotional marketing strategy rather than other flashy marketing strategies. Since the technology behind the biometric products is still in the nascent stage and the customer relies on the product for the security reasons, it is always better to let the customer know "what to expect" and "what not" from the product in terms of functionality.

Alertness, Stress, and New Tasks

If life is full of work then living becomes dull and boring. Since work is unavoidable in life, people invent new strategies to overcome boring during work time in the workplace by listening to songs, taking short-breaks, and talking to their colleagues. These short breaks definitely have the potential to rejuvenate your senses and relax your mind. Taking short breaks in strategic way increases workplace productivity like never before. But, there are people who want to do multitasking like listening to songs, playing computer games, etc, while doing their main core job activity. For some people, this kind of multitasking definitely creates problem in completing their work within deadline.

The problem lies in the human mind. Human mind does serial processing, not parallel processing like today's computer chips. Multitasking is possible with parallel processing but not serial processing. The mind, using serial processing strategy, processes the things to be done one after another. Therefore, if you try to do a few new critical tasks at the same time, no matter how efficient you are, but your mind will definitely bound to fail you. On the other hand redundant tasks, where the mind is already habituated to accomplish the task in record time without asking for your alertness, encourages multitasking.

Therefore knowing this difference, always concentrate on the single task at hand, if it is new, critical, and needs your presence of mind. Don't try to do multitasking, if you are attempting new critical tasks. You can always listen to your favorite songs once your mind is habituated to the new task in hand.

Getting a New Job

During these recession times, if somebody holds a job (even low paying!), it is great! The present time is quite different from previous boom-bust periods. The remarkable characteristic of the present times is job scarcity. If there are no jobs in the market, then as an employee how can you apply for a new job? At the same time, the market has not promised you that there will be a galore of jobs everywhere and every time whenever you need one! Right?

Getting a new job is quite difficult these days. The first difficult thing is to identify a genuine vacancy. Since it has become a fashion nowadays for companies to give recruitment ads just for the sake of publicity and not for real recruitment purpose, it is becoming quite difficult for the jobseeker to identify the real recruitment job ad from the fake one.

After identifying the genuine job ad, the next step lies in applying for the same. Since we are all reeling under recession times, you are not expected to demand high salary but to accept what the company considers and offers as part of their policies. The offered salary may be low compared to what you had got in your previous employment, but still if you want a job in these troubled times, don't hesitate but go for it.

The third step lies in adapting to the new situations and demands; this again is really a testing point. To overcome this obstacle, you need to be flexible in your mindset.

In summary, to survive in these recession times, you need to be flexible in your salary, relocation, and work stress demands.

This is the time to be flexible but not to flex your muscles!

Jobsites Have Become Advertisement Selling Sites

In these recession times, once you are laid off, it is not easy to get
a new job. Although the jobsites are overflowing with jobs but most of
the companies giving ads/ notifications in these jobsites are
interested in neither recruiting like earlier times nor chasing the
candidates like never before. The question is why these companies are
giving notifications in these jobsites.

The reason is nothing but to gain cheap publicity among the jobseekers
by paying little amount to the popular jobsites; that's all. There are
a few companies, which have been giving same job notification for the
past 6 months but not recruited a single candidate, in these jobsites;
this kind of activity is nothing but cheating the innocent jobseeker
who applies for the said job and waits indefinitely for the company to
respond wasting his/her precious time.

Popular jobsites should identify these companies and block them giving
priority to the interests of the jobseekers. Everybody knows that
recession is silently taking away all our jobs but it is happening
throughout the world. However, companies, for the sake of cheap
publicity try to cheat the innocent jobseeker by giving cheap hollow
job notifications in popular jobsites, is something very bad that
should not be allowed.

Jobseekers! Beware of these hollow job notifications and immediately
alert the jobsite about these companies who looks after noting but
their own publicity.

Talent Retaining Methods - Indian IT

Indian IT companies are coming out with various options without
resorting to blunt lay off their precious talent. Yes, it is true that
a few companies, including bigheads, have been resorting to lay offs.
However, there are a few companies, which are doing some
brainstorming, coming out with innovative and practically alternative
innovative solutions instead of opting for lay off in the first step
itself.

Following are some of the new ideas practically implemented by a few
innovative companies:

1. Allowing employees to go on a sabbatical while they are paid a
small percentage of their current salary
2. Create a policy where employees would work for only a few days in a
month (30 days) and take a certain percentage of their salary
3. Counseling employees about the ongoing recession and making them
accept to cut a certain percentage of their overall salary
4. Cutting a certain percentage of their variable pay without
effecting the entire salary
5. Identifying weak performance employees, conducting training
sessions for them to improve, while giving them a small portion of
their salary

Like this, every company though lately, started innovating a new way
to retain their talent. Unfortunately, there are still some big
companies, who want to get rid of their excess flab in the name of
non-performance.

Part-time Job Comes as a Succor These Days

Yes, most of you who might have lost your job due to recession would
immediately understand what this blog is saying right now. In these
intolerable and vulnerable days, having full-time jobs is a luxury.
Most of the jobless workers nowadays are scouting for part-time jobs.
It is better to get at least something in the form of a salary rather
than getting absolutely nothing. One way, it is good also. The so far
full-timers have to change their mindset to adjust to the present
scenario. However, do not think that this is what going to be your
life forever. Remember Eminem's favorite phrase in the song - I am not
in love ... it is just a phase I am passing through – and apply the
same to your present job style.

Frankly speaking, first, someone has to have a doable work to give it
to others. In these days of recession, work is scarce. Moreover, the
effected people have to undergo a forced holiday, which they are not
interested in. Let us all hope that the present turbulent times will
end as soon as possible and the citizens of this world will again lead
a good old life of their own.

Ever Experienced "Brownout"!

You must have heard about Blackouts (when power goes off and the night
surrounds you suddenly for long periods!) and have experienced it
whenever there is a grid failure in your neighborhood. However, going
Brownout is something different. This term is related to Internet.
Going Brownout means your internet-connected system goes offline for
several minutes before getting connected to the Net again.
Nevertheless, why like that? Congestion is the answer.

Yes, the number of internet users has grown rapidly so far. People
have found the advantages of using Net and they started developing new
interest in it. Even recession failed to grab Net away from users.
Instead, most of the new users joined the internet bandwagon during
this recession period. Because the demand and supply of bandwidth are
not growing proportionally, it is predicted that Brownouts will start
happening in the nearby future.

Therefore, use Net judiciously!