Sunday 16 June 2013

How to prepare for your first job interview – 10 tips that matter



For all those students who are reading this and think that they can take 1 day pill to crack the interview. I am sorry; this is not going to happen. You learn how to crack interviews by facing rejection in couple of them (sometimes many). So, if you face rejections in couple of them, think it of as you are getting prepared for the interview.  To help you with your first job interview, here are 10 tips from our side:-

    1)      Improve your spoken English. You must have heard about improving it from hell lot of people.  But how you can improve it. First read a lot in English. Reading one newspaper editorial on daily basis will help and will improve your general knowledge too. Secondly, listen a lot in English (listen to BBC news daily for half an hour). And finally conversing in English with your friends. You can create group of friends to practice this. I know it sounds bit awkward to do it, but do it for your job.   
     2)      Prepare for “Tell me something about yourself” well. Let me give you an example. 
Rachin has just finished his graduation from Hindu College and going to attend his first interview. He has done his higher secondary (10+2) and matriculation (10th) from CBSE board, while studying at D.P.S school Delhi. His hobbies include playing cricket and reading books. He stood second in college and participated in all extracurricular activities held in his college. This is how he should answer “Tell me something about yourself” question:-
                Hello, this is Rachin. I have done my graduation this year from Hindu college, Delhi. I have done my higher secondary and matriculation under CBSE from D.P.S. Delhi. I achieved second rank in my graduation and have participated in all the extra-curricular activities held in my college. I enjoy playing cricket and reading books.
So as you can see here, Rachin’s answer basically includes his graduation first, and then move towards other educational details in decreasing order. And then it includes the achievements of his student life so far. And at last, it includes his hobbies and area of interest. This much is enough. This question is generally asked to start the interview conversation. But it also gives you an opportunity to sell yourself. Make sure that you are honest about what you are telling. Write down this answer and practice it. So your answer should include:-
A)     Your educational details(start with latest)
B)      Your achievements
C)      Your hobbies or area of other interest.
    3)      Make sure whatever extracurricular interest/hobbies you have shown in your CV, you are actually interested in that.
This happens to one of my friends. He mentioned in his CV that he is interested in Lawn Tennis. And the first question in the interview was how long the tennis court is? He was not able to answer that. Now what perception does it gives to the interviewer about my friend. That he is not serious about what he likes and want to do.
   4)      Learn as many skills as you can when in student life
I have seen many students start looking for a specific kind of Job after coming out of college. This way you restrict yourself from other opportunities available. You should learn as many skills as you can.  This will first help you to identify what kind of work you enjoy. Secondly, in these market conditions, getting a job is important. Once you get a job, then you can start looking for options on how you can get into the profile or the kind of work that is as per your strength.
   5)      Know the company for which you are attending interview
Many students ignore this part. Know the company for which you are giving interview. Know what kind of products they are into. Know there various Lines of business. Know when they are established and how they have grown in all those years.
   6)      Take care of your body language on the day of interview
Avoid too many face gestures, hand and head movement when giving interview. Sit firmly, but also comfortably. Take a deep breath when entering into the interview room.
    7)      Be generally aware of what is happening around the world
Sometimes interviewer asks about your views on what is happening around the world or latest on  TV news channels. This is asked to know about your general awareness.
    8)      Brush up your technical skills before the interview
First of all, interviewer knows that you are a student. Thus they are not expecting in-depth detail knowledge about the skills which you have learned and required for that kind of job, what they want to know is ‘Are your basics right or not’.
    9)      Dress formally
This shows that you are serious about the job.
    10)   Don’t give wrong answers, accept what you don’t know.
Many students end up giving wrong answers to questions, because they don’t know the answer to question asked. This lower down the chances of getting selected. Thus accept whatever you don’t know gracefully.

Wednesday 12 June 2013

Why money is not important at early stage of your career



During our career engineering program that we offer to educational institutions, we get an opportunity to interact with so many students. Most of them are more bothered about getting a fat paycheck as soon as they start their career rather than learning.

Let me share a real world story about Rachin, who passed his engineering and started looking for a job.  He was not bothered about learning new things that could improve his employability while doing his graduation, but had always dreamt of getting a high paying job once he completes his engineering. After months of struggle, Rachin did get opportunities to work with a small company. But he rejected to work with them, because this company was paying very less as compared to what he was expecting. Soon months passed and Rachin again got an opportunity to work with a mid size company. This time paycheck which company had offered was at bit higher end, but Rachin again rejected the offer, because salary was not up to his expectation and also the Job profile was not that good. Year passed, Rachin started getting frustrated while sitting idle at home. And he was still waiting for the right kind of job profile which will pay high. After months of frustration, he agreed to work in a small company at a lesser salary, but now he was not getting that  job too. Why, because companies are now preferring recently passed out students.

      Like Rachin, there are many students who are expecting a higher pay package but don’t want to invest in the learning. See, expecting a higher salary is not bad, but NOT investing in learning is bad. The whole focus at the early stage of the career should be to invest in learning. When studying in college invest as much time as you can in gaining skills that improve the possibility of getting the Job. Prefer Job which gives you more learning rather than money. Become an expert in one skill, but don’t forget to get exposure to different areas of work. Money will eventually come, definitely.


Lessons Learned 
1.       Learning should be the focus at early stage of  your career, NOT money. 
2.       Look for a job profile , which gives you more learning
3.       Don’t wait for the right kind of Job from your dream company, grab whatever job opportunity comes your way. And eventually improve your skills and then target your dream company.

Tuesday 11 June 2013

10 Inspirational Tips from Most Successful People

1. "Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice." – Steve Jobs

2. "Bring your whole self to work. I don't believe we have a professional self Monday through Friday and a real self the rest of the time. It is all professional, and it is all personal." -  Sheryl Sandberg - Facebook's chief operating officer

3. "Whether you fear it or not, disappointment will come. The beauty is that through disappointment you can gain clarity, and with clarity comes conviction and true originality."  Conan O'Brien – Famous American television host

4. "Don't wait for perfection. Life isn't perfect. Do the best you can and ship. Real people ship, and then they test and then they ship again. Then you wake up one day and you have something insanely great." - Guy Kawasaki, the renowned author, investor and entrepreneur.

5. "If you find something that feels right but doesn't seem to fit into your master plan, take a chance, and commit to it by working hard. You shouldn't be afraid to let passion get behind the wheel. You might really love where you end up." -  Jerry Yang Yahoo co-founder 

6. "I was set free because my greatest fear was realized. Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well have not lived at all, in which case you fail by default." -  J.K. Rowling - author of the popular Harry Potter series

7. "Success…is no longer a simple ascension of steps. You need to climb sideways and sometimes down, and sometimes you need to swing from the jungle gym and establish your own turf somewhere else on the playground." - Reid Hoffman LinkedIn co-founder 

8. "There is an opportunity to create a new vision. A new vision that says achieving balance in your life is more important than the balance in your checking account…A new vision that says what you do does not define who you are." - Chris Gardner, American entrepreneur, investor, stockbroker, motivational speaker

9. "Let excellence be your brand… When you are excellent, you become unforgettable. Doing the right thing, even when nobody knows you're doing the right thing will always bring the right thing to you." - Oprah Winfrey, founder of the OWN network

 10. "Find a way to say 'yes' to things, even if it's outside of your comfort zone. 'Yes' lets you stand out in a crowd. 'Yes' is a very tiny word that allows you to do very big things. Say it often." - Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google

Friday 26 April 2013

Interview with Business Analyst of Leading Online Shopping Company

Recently, we interviewed Manu Gupta, working with Amazon in various roles in Luxembourg. Following are the excerpts from the interview:

PracLabs: Tell us about the company in which you work and various job roles in your company?
Manu: Amazon is the Hub for online shopping which provides a place for customer to shop vast category of products online. There are many job roles in Amazon like Technical program manager, Business Analyst, Supply Chain Planning, Transportation are the major ones.

 
PracLabs What day to day activities do you perform at your work?
Manu: Technical support, supply chain analysis, project management & coordination, requirement gathering.

 
PracLabs:  What kind of challenges do you face at your work?
Manu: Challenges - communicating with multiple teams sitting all over the world, sometimes it is difficult to have everyone available in a single meeting due to different timezones and working hours.

PracLabs:  Which skills should a student learn to work in your company and specifically in your job role?
Manu: To be a Business Analyst, one must possess SQL, Excel reporting, business analysis and for Technical it depends, we have Ruby on Rails, Java majorly in technical jobs.

 
PracLabs: Which subjects do you feel you should have learned better when you were studying atcollege/university?
Manu:  At college Level, we should really have a subject that teaches business analysis. This is very interesting and extremely useful for career growth. Also, there should be some effective writing and communication skill subject as well.

PracLabs: Which skills do you feel student should always learn to become successful in corporate world?
Manu: Business Analysis and Analytical skills play an important part to become successful in corporate world.

 
PracLabs: Which book you are reading right now? And which books you will suggest students must read?
Manu: BABOK (Business Analysis Body of Knowledge) - It's a great book to learn business analysis. It is a must read.

Monday 15 April 2013

Interview with Chief Technology officer of Product Development Company

Recently we have interviewed Anirudh Gupta, he is working as a CTO for a product based company in Bangalore. Following are the extracts of the interview:-


PracLabs: Tell us about the company in which you work and various job roles in your company?
Anirudh :A product based company based on Microsoft stack. Working as CTO and lead architect of the product

PracLabs What day to day activities do you perform at your work?
Anirudh: While in sprint I do development
Otherwise presales, roadmap, representation for the organization in events etc. related tasks

PracLabs:  What kind of challenges do you face at your work?
Anirudh: Implementation, Scarcity of skilled resources. People who want to learn are not really needed but actually resources who can have short learning period and then actually write quality code to deliver the functionality

PracLabs:  Which skills should a student learn to work in your company and specifically in your job role?
Anirudh: SharePoint, jQuery, HTML5, javascript

PracLabs: Which subjects do you feel you should have learned better when you were studying atcollege/university?
Anirudh: Needed practical knowledge. More onus of implementation related innovation rather than just theory.

PracLabs: Which skills do you feel student should always learn to become successful in corporate world?
Anirudh: This is too subjective!! More practical & logical skill set rather than theory

PracLabs: Which book you are reading right now? And which books you will suggest students must read?
Anirudh: Not into books so not the right person to advocate about reading books. I can suggest students to try and break the code to atom level to understand how things work rather than just following someone else code !!!

Friday 12 April 2013

Interview with Operations Manager working with HCL Technologies

Vinci Dhir is working as an Operations Manager working with HCL Technology- Infrastructure division . She has a vast experiencing of working with MNC's like Oracle, IBM and now HCL. PracLabs has interviewed her to help students understand what all goes on in Infrastructure management company  like HCL comnet. For those student who don't know what "Infrastructure management" is , in simple words it means managing the servers and database(taking backups or installing and setting up new servers). Though there are much more in then just managing servers and Database)


PracLabs: Tell us about the company in which you work and various job roles you perform in your company?
Vinci : Operations Manager, HCL Technologies –Infrastructure Division ie HCL Comnet
People Manager, Technical Lead

PracLabs: What day to day activities do you perform at your work?
Vinci
a. People Management
b. Escalation Management :- where I have to assign the cirtical issues to concern teammebers and get them solved within given timelines.
c. Set Delivery Standards
d. Plan, Create, Review, Present Performance Reports of servers and database.
e. Lead/Participate Operations Service Improvement Projects

PracLabs: What kind of challenges do you face at your work?
Vinci Operations and Projects are two important aspects of Infrastructure Management wherein operations focus on providing day to day services and projects focus on providing specialized service by highly skilled and experienced professionals.
Aligning right human resources with the appropriate requirement is a common challenge. 
AS technology advances at a very fast pace, finding people with the right skills is a major challenge faced. 
Hiring new people and bringing them on-board in shortest possible duration is another challenge.

PracLabs: Which skills should a student learn to work in your company and specifically in your job role?
Vinci
a. Infrastructure Engg.
b. Operating System Admin
c. Application Server and Middleware Technologies Adminsitration
d. Database Administration
e. Industry Specific tool Administration
f. Email Etiquettes
g. Professionalism and Understanding Diversified Culture 
h.

PracLabs: Which subjects do you feel you should have learned better when you were studying at college/university?
Vinci
a. Operating Systems
b. Programming Language and Data-Structure
c. Application Servers, Middleware, Web Sites Management are not taught in college

PracLabs: Which skills do you feel student should always learn to become successful in corporate world?
Vinci
a. Good Learner
b. Effective Communication Skills

PracLabs: Which book you are reading right now? And which books you will suggest students must read?
Vinci Am neither a follower of a specific author nor I have an Idol. Would suggest to 
read Biographies of Leaders , Successful and successfully failed people. Behind every success story and behind every failure there are lessons learned. 

Wednesday 10 April 2013

Interview with Senior Strategy Consultant working at IBM India pvt Ltd

In an effort to help students understand how things work in corporate world, we interview top performing employees in different organizations. In this part of series, we have interviewed Vishesh Sethi, who is working with IBM India Ltd. He has previously worked with Microsoft, and has done his MBA from ISB Hyderabad.

PracLabs: Tell us about the company in which you work and various job roles in your company?

Vishesh: I am working for IBM India Pvt Ltd. I am working as a Strategy Consultant. Apart from 
consulting there are various roles in Sales, HR, Finance, Service Delivery, Marketing , IT 
departments etc.

PracLabs: What day to day activities do you perform at your work?

Vishesh: We have various offerings such as Technology Strategy, Business Process Redesign, Market Entry Strategies etc for which we provide consulting services to client


PracLabs: What kind of challenges do you face at your work?

Vishesh: We deal with new people, new geographies, and new clients very frequently as our typical consulting assignments are for 4-8 weeks. Working in such as dynamic environment keeps us on our toes all the time. Consistent learning, short project timelines, and adjusting in new business and cultural environment are some of the challenges of my job.

PracLabs: Which skills should a student learn to work in your company and specifically in your job role?

Vishesh: Problem Solving, Communication and Presentation are the key skills required for my job.

PracLabs: Tell us how your job at IBM now is different from the one at Microsoft?

Vishesh: My job at IBM is consulting whereas as at Microsoft it was Product development. Both the jobs have their own challenges. At Microsoft I use to develop tools and softwares to test the quality of Windows Code whereas in IBM we design Processes for organizations so that they can operate efficiently, make technology and business strategies for them so that they can achieve their long term goals and missions


PracLabs: Which subjects do you feel you should have learned better when you were studying at college/university?

Vishesh: Schools generally teach us tools and frameworks to understand and solve business problems. With time constraints at hand they have prioritized to teach fundamentals of disciplines such as business or technology to students. I believe understanding of business sectors and application of technology to those sectors is something I should have learnt better during my graduation and post graduation.


PracLabs: Which skills do you feel student should always learn to become successful in corporate world?

Vishesh: Business environments are very dynamic in the corporate world. Strategies , Technologies , macro environments etc keep changing very frequently so students should always keep learning new advancements in their fields and keep working on their problem solving and communication skills.

PracLabs: Which book you are reading right now? And which books you will suggest students must read?

Vishesh: I am reading “ The Quants” by Scott Patterson. The book talks about how a new breed of Math Whizzes Conquered Wall Street and nearly destroyed It. I suggest students to read books related to their fields and some generic books that can provide them a 50,000 foot view about the world and how various disciplines such as economics, mathematics, arts etc are shaping it in a way it is now. Few books that come to my mind are: The world is flat, The Lexus and Olive tree, Men of Mathematics etc.