Are you looking for a change

When I was fired

2011-06-10T01:28:00.000-07:00

Yes, I have been fired, not once but twice. Not a proud moment to write about having been fired. Not many may want to write about bad news, bad news is semi-impersonal; it can appear in newspapers or other mass media only, for people to feel, oh, it’s not me, yet. Being fired has perhaps been less written about, if written, it has been with a lot of bitterness. Writing about being fired is not an easy thing to do, as it is no claim to fame being fired. Being fired in general is always taken as inefficiency of the person being fired. For a lot of us it still comes with a “Self disclaimer, oh, it’s not me, yet”.

There is no wrong or right being fired, many of us do not have control over being in the firing line. Rationality and logic fail to explain someone being fired. In both incidents, I had joined on my credentials, with back up of unparalleled domain knowledge, overseas experience in the field and history of excellent performance etc.

You could have left behind a good company, joined a new company thinking it is one great company, you want to work with. There will be sea of difference between what you know and what the actual scenario could be; Company may not have the depth of investments, may not have a sound business plan, and may not be paying proper taxes, levies as per the demand of the law of the land. As to many of ills, self inflicted or otherwise, cutting costs by firing employees is seen as a panacea. Some mergers, acquisitions, buy-over happen without employee control. At an individual level, the fired employee's reactions are listed below, these may not follow the listed sequence, but most frequently the fired employee goes through.

Why me?
The way in which it was done is not right
Life is unfair
How much time do I have?
Any alternatives?
What are my next options?

It has been a long time since I got fired; not that I wish that be closer. It can happen to anyone, anytime. At times like this, for many sensitive people the devil is within us, we could sulk, get negative, avoid people and many such things could happen. Some people can just move on. Yes, it took a lot of time for me to write my learning of the situation, these learning’s are not merely my own but a lot of other people who have been fired. I have also been audience to many of their narratives. These tales are nothing short of piece of action of a fiction movie or a novel. There is a sense of defeat, disgrace, “How can it happen to me”, “why didn’t I see it coming”, “Life’s not fair”, additionally there is pressure of insecurity, financial uncertainty and social obscurity. Where do I go tomorrow becomes a big question, you are used to going at a fixed time to office every morning and doing a certain things, all of a sudden that certainty is not there. My kids asked me, why am I not going to office, I had to fill in office address in a school form, in situations like these you feel very uncomfortable.

In both the companies that I was fired, I had the unique distinction of being envied by many of colleagues for the attention, recognition, my role, status, salary, travel and many more of the unique attractions of my job before being fired. I have also seen the softness of the employers when being lured into the same jobs that I was fired from. I was interviewed by many senior people, spoken to, tested, tried, sought, recommended before being hired and all these credentials seem to have lost value when being fired.

1. Not always you are wrong when you are fired; the company could also be, so stop blaming yourself.

2. Situation may be beyond control of someone who made the decision.

3. Someone is sacrificing you to show solidarity/efficiency/control.

4. Life seems unfair

5. Relationships that were close, thick, binding all seem lost in thin air

6. Once blue-eyed boy could look villainous

When I went through the aftershocks of being fired, I received some great support from some people. One of them is Wg.Cdr. Murthy, a fatherly figure. I met him, when I was completely down, at almost breaking point, he said, “No one has taken away anything from you, you still have your education, experience, intelligence, creativity and all the skills, only you lost your monthly income”.

These words changed my life; I started teaching at management and Media Institutes, did corporate training, did some unconventional things, I had a family to feed and needed some confidence boosting. I would have missed a lot of experiences if I had not been fired. Yes, I missed a few monthly salary packages, but received abundance of experience of greater value. In 2000, started a company called “Bask Media Technologies”, a company that would create solutions and services for Media and Entertainment companies. Those days, Media and Entertainment practice in technology services was at its infancy, too early, may be ahead of its time, few Indian IT companies had a practice dedicated to Media and Entertainment. I always believed that, every company is a media company; all companies have media assets to be reviewed, created, saved, retained, accessed, archived and put to reuse. Re-purposing of content has always been a kind of doctrine, I have nourished from my media days. I know a lot of people may not believe in luck, the company had 3 orders and the markets started recovering, my partner found a job in the US. With heavy heart, I had to wind up “Bask” with a lot of changes taking shape. This time, I had fired myself.

Murthy’s words were the best wisdom; I could receive amongst the dark clouds. I woke up, felt better, energized, never felt so good about myself anytime better. I have had the pleasure of working with the best employers, great managers, some not-so-great companies, and my learning on being fired are

Be Prepared, to be fired
Don’t blame yourself if you are fired
Not all relationships work well in your bad times
Save some money for a venture
Know where else, how you can use your skills
You can pursue career in a total different domain
You could be doing something you never done before
Be prepared for small, humble beginnings of income flow
Be prepared to work for remunerations against performance, it swells faster than you think
You may not be an expert at job search, get some understanding and help

TAP-Talent Acquisition Professional

2011-03-09T03:00:00.000-08:00

Last year around this time, I wrote about Birth of a Community, IT Recruiter, the article mentioned about how the community emerged over a period of time. With the increasing demand, recruitment has become refined and the refinement is visible with the evolving specializations of recruiters, like campus, channel, direct, senior, technology, tech-support, non-technology, Call center and many more. There are specialist recruiters for product companies, service companies and another set for captive units. Despite the developments in the field, recruitment is taught for 1-2 hours at MBA courses and as a process in the HRD function. In absence of a proper training either in-house or by external facilitators, recruiters have had their learning from being all over the place online with few requirements to managing the overall process to get the hired on board.

Organisations definitely need a proper perspective, understanding and learning of the talent acquisition as a system, as a process and as a business function. This coming season is a challenge for the recruiters, as there are a lot of open positions in the junior cadres and there are minimum slots for senior levels with specific and more demanding competencies. What it means is that at the junior levels there are in search, assess, selection mode and for senior levels they are elimination mode.

Talent Acquisition Professionals(TAPs) are always learning with every interaction.

Happy Recruiters Day

Citizen Elected Minister for Anti-Corruption in India.

2010-11-18T05:55:00.000-08:00

Let me take some time off, time for some illusion; Let me imagine that I am given the task of eradicating corruption in my country India. The mandate given to me by the most powerful person in India, "The Citizen".

What is Corruption?

Dictionary definition of Corruption “Giving or obtaining advantage through means which are illegitimate, immoral, and/or inconsistent with one's duty or the rights of others”

Listed below are the first 31 points for action, I request my fellow countrymen and women, children to add to the list of ways and means to eradicate corruption in India. Of the points noted below, some are observations, learnt, few copied, no claim of originality of the mentioned points here. As a Minster, Anti-Corruption, I have put these points here.

1. More Community based Projects: A World Bank official, while congratulating me on my appointment, mentioned that community based projects reduce corruption, in which case, are there ways to make everything like a project and involve community. This may be one of the ways we identify and classify, what are community based projects and the others not, the process of defining these projects should be defined.

2. Everyone should become honest: Another congratulation message came and just said, by becoming honest, (He meant, all citizens have to be honest), a tall order, it is easier said than done, we need to find ways in which we can encourage people become honest or honesty becomes a way of life, while in practice, it may be a tough proposition to convert the theory or wish to practice. Part of it can be achieved through religious leaders, as religion is where people find ways to make a change. Religious leaders would be bought under the request of the commission to practice and preach honesty.

3. Mistrust in Trusts: There is a lot of corruption in among, what we call as “Trusts”, the ones which are among the most mistrusted by IT (Income Tax)department of the country, how about IT department, how to make it corrupt free, perhaps, the other IT (Information Technology) will help. The accountability of trusts, their funds, ways and means by which the trusts have received, utilised, who is the final beneficiary, should be documented and be available for scrutiny.

4. Breaking Nexus: Whenever corruption is mentioned, Politicians are definitely mentioned, everyone knows all politicians are not corrupt, but one bad apple, can multiply. The issue comes to how are politicians elected, the election commission, the citizens come into the picture. The election commission has had some excellent reforms, if all of these are implemented, Corruption will be reduced, some will change forms, and some will change names. The nexus between politicians, police, criminals is discussed, when we talk of corruption, how do we break this nexus, some through accountability, some through transparency and some through stringent punishment for crime. That brings us to changing the legal systems, which means new laws, bills to be passed by the parliament in majority to become laws. So we are back to parliament and electorate. We need better politicians to enact laws, propose changes, and make the laws effective.

5. Funding of Political parties, election expenses is the basis for getting into corrupt practices. To get a ticket of a national party, you need influence of leaders, who then get bribed, then the system in turn encourages you to be corrupt but not get caught. The democratic practices have lost their validity and reason in the political parties selecting candidates for their symbol. The fact is the political parties are looking for winnable candidates. The winning in the system has become so important that the electorate or a section of the electorate has a golden opportunity every 5 years to encash by selling their votes. There are agents who have mastered the art of negotiating the deals between these sections and the politicians to assure a win. The agents then become power centers and play a dual role, the system that creates leaders of this system should be curbed by the activism of the voters. An awareness campaign needs to be well popularized to make every citizen caste their vote by choice and not by sale.

6. Criminal records will be of use to see, who eats lunch with whom, some one has to watch, we may need a citizen’s forum to be a watchdog for some of the aspects of who affiliates with whom.

7. Poverty, crime, politician link Why criminals become criminals will also be part of the answer that we seek, when we look at how the criminalization happens, our Bollywood has some flicks that tells us that upbringing or for lack of it creates criminals, which leads us to poverty, the bribe taking politician, officer seek support of might, which is crime supported, so the poverty, crime, politician link has to be mended to produce less criminals.

8. Education creates lesser criminals, awareness to be non-corrupt; the education also brings about things like RTI, which can reduce corruption. However, the education in India itself has got corrupted. The approval mechanisms of the boards, at state and central levels are known to be heavily corrupt. The cleansing is normally not done, the appointment to these boards is again a political issues, brings us to the transparency in such a process. Hence appointment to the boards of education in states and at the central level has to be totally transparent. The boards are already accountable under RTI, hence some amount of corruption will be reduced. The fees of the education institutions has to be reviewed, the project needs some time bound measure to cleanse the system. Increase Literacy rate.

9. Corruption-less education system If a government employee’s son has to study in the same school as a businessman’s school, the government employee has to get his money from other means other than his salary. How about creating a uniform system of education looks difficult and not practical, I will ask Kapil Sibal, my friend, who has been working overtime on education reforms; he may also help us with changes that bring about corruption-less education system.

10. The salaries of the government employees is always one good reason for corruption, If the reason is valid, appropriate amendment to made in performance assessment to be paid in accordance with performance. Getting a Government creates a lot of corruption, the transparency of the system is key to eradication of corruption in getting job in Government. Inflation and other parameters should be considered in arriving at government employee’s salary.

11. The issue of permissions, licences, grants, allotments, awards, penalties, NOCs, who gets, who did not, how, how much, why, why not, who decides, how do they decide, is the biggest corruption possibility. I will request the central and the state government departments to list out, all the issuances, the method of doing so, the public awareness to seek information, fees etc. Let there be opportunities to lobby, seek appropriate changes to rules, policies, as a legal way to create a possible better outcome. The objective of issuance of the permission or grant, allocation has to be defined along with criteria. Initially the whole process will have to be manual, then work-flow can be introduced, process experts brought in to simplify and then to mechanize the system. This will reduce corruption to a large extent.

12. Inter-departmental information exchange Non-possession of the licence creates issues, Can you operate without one, Let me think about a driving licence, hope it helps, If a policeman catches someone driving without a valid driving licence, he can on the spot fine the offender the prescribed fine and let him go, how does that person go, will he/she push the vehicle, he obviously drives it again. Instaed, how about a notice to the Transport Office that issues licences to bring the offender a licence within a week. Inter-departmental information exchange. That will make sure that the find and the licence revenues are in the state kitty. Some technology of SMS can also help.

13. We will also have to build an organizational arrangement to

a) Identify incidents of corruption through stakeholder participation

b) How to eradicate the incidents

c) How to sustain a system without corruption

d) Enact laws to investigate quickly and severely punish such incidents.

The concerned ministers, secretaries, will have the mandate to help us create this system, Regular anti-corruption audits to be carried out.

14. That brings us to the reforms; Information Technology will play a very important role in bringing reforms, the organization system has to accommodate the IT to minimize corruption or completely make it completely transparent.

15. Urban, rural divide is creating lot of opportunities for corruption. The local self governing bodies should generate their own employability programs, create rural engagement opportunities, the state and central government should give additional fiscal incentives for industries to be established in rural areas.

16. Industry, The single window schemes of the industry have created some transperancy but not accountability. My recent discussions with Mr.Ratan Tata and Mr. Rahul Bajaj came as shock, Mr.Tata has shown his patience with corruption, a way too much to his stature as an Industry leader. There has to be a common ground between Industry, Commerce, State Government’s industry policy, land acquisition for industry etc. Every district has an Industry Director, one of objectives will be bring about Zero corruption among the industries. The industry bodies have to be stronger in their right to be part of an economy that is bribe free.

17. International conglomerates need access to markets, the ones who have access need penetration into the markets. The intent to expand markets, find lower cost locations create opportunities to create friends in the political and bureaucratic circles. MNCs do business, they will engage local people to do the lobbying work and stay away from the corruption and hence the intent is served without soiling hands. The allocation of resources needs to be projected and be processed through a transparent system. The state resource allocation needs to match with the corporate's contribution in terms of taxes, generation of employment and fairness in their dealings with the state.

18. Few social aspects create enough opportunities for corruption, education, marriage, house/property are issues that tend to find personal favors and treated as a better and easier way to deal with it is to pay the bribe. The social acceptance of rich/poor, educated, status symbols are acquired by corrupt means without any ill feeling.

19. Some people I met mentioned positives about the concept launched by Shiv Khera. I will surely meet him and take his valuable inputs to eradicate Corruption.

20. The frustration among people regarding corruption has reached pinnacle, I will reach out to get their opinions, organizations, NGOs similar to Janagraha will be used to collect information, through their multiple initiatives like, “Ipaidbribe.com”

21. There are voices which talk about alternate forms of government like Military should take over the country, the government will be made aware of the people’s anger towards corruption and appropriate advantages of democracy to fight corruption will be highlighted. It must be brought to notice of people who are seeking an Armed Government, what is happening with our neighbors. Public discourse towards a serious issue like corruption has to be anticipated and ongoing communication of the possible reforms along with time lines will be communicated to the citizens.

22. UID project The unique ID project will perhaps help in tackling corruption to a great extent. Availability of information has always been the strength, how it is utilized, how practical to access, integration of data with all departments mainly, Education, elections, passport, driving licence, ration card, gas connection, telephone, blood group, healthcare access, Income tax, all of thses are challenges that I am sure my good old friend Mr. Nandan Nilekani would have considered. I will consult him and his team to see the help that originates from UID project to fight and eradicate corruption.

23. The press has played their role in exposing corrupt officials; there will be clear press and media policy and directives on how corruption cases should be monitored, exposed etc. The TV media has played to collect their revenues instead of serving as a source of information. While free media is essential for functioning of the democracy, the sensitization of issues affecting the nation should be briefed to the media.

24. Dr. Manmohan Singh, Mr. Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Mr.Chidambaram, Mr. Pranab Mukherjee and few others will be requested to spare one day in a month to discuss and work towards eradicating corruption. The agenda is only to eradicate corruption, there are no formalities, no press, no band baaza of the government machinery, they will sit together like family members and discuss one point “How can we eradicate Corruption from India”

25. The international implications of growth, slow down, GDP,international relations, currency changes, foreign exchange changes if any should be central monitored to ensure that we are able to absorb any shocks on account of eradication of corruption in the country.

26. Mr.Veerappa Moily or whoever is in incharge of bringing out administrative reforms, has to be more accountable in a way that it has impact on people, I will have a detailed talk with him. There has to be agenda and set timeline to achieve the desired results.

27. The defense ministry has been accused of corruption in buying armory, weapons, combat aircrafts etc, the budget should be appropriately reduced, the defense budget reduction is the job of defense and the External Affairs ministries. How can we have external ministry responsible for nothing. It is responsibility of the Ministry of External Affairs to minimize the defense budget, increase trade agreements. The Service Level agreements are to be signed with every minister, interdepartmental ministries and should be published. Progress should be reported to the Citizens.

28. Specific Export-Import, Duties, levies, cross-border movements of materials all should be monitored through surveillance cameras and recorded. The custom officials have a great bribe haven from the time they join service. Strict service guidelines to police, customs, officers at corruptible positions should have a separate collection targets and incentives to fill the state reserves. All taxes, levies, penalties, duties should be collected. Impact on such collection and effort to minimize trouble to citizens should be kept in mind.

29. Wherever there is a possibility of creating artificial scarcity, scared demand, such areas should be monitored and appropriate precautions to avoid corruption on account of these. Scarcity creates fear in the minds of the citizens and leads to frantic approaches. The real estate market is an example of how scarce resource has led to demand and laws have not been able to protect green belts. The tank areas in cities have led to various unauthorized occupancies by powerful people. There needs to be a law to curb these practices.

30. Income Tax, sales Tax, Service tax, banking transactions, large scale transactions of anyone, should create a network of integrated monitoring in such a way that, if there is black money, there should be an alert.

31. Last but not the least, all temples, churches, mosques, gurudwaras and all religious institutions should create a honest environment for every individual. These institutions can help in cleansing a system from every individual. It is a national drive, movement, religion can support this, that will be biggest contribution for their community and human kind.

Fire, shoot and Aim-Business Education

2010-10-29T04:30:00.000-07:00

When it comes to Business Education, it is like few blind men and an elephant; the description of each dependent on the part they are touched by. The stakeholders of business education are equally if not less, like the blind men. The students want placement at the end of the course, so the rush is to get into an institute that can provide opportunities for campus placements, the faculty realize that and have to really put together delivery mechanism that caters to the taste and also covers the statutory syllabus. The management of the private business schools are after better ranking, pure economics, ranking means increase in demand, the response to which you can either increase supply and/or increase pricing. The supply means you seek higher intake to create economies of scale and scope, use the infrastructure and the ranking to attract more intake and of course, better fees structure. The regulation of business education, has its own mechanism of how or how not to regulate. The standard rules and increased private participation is actually encouraged to bring quality into the business education system, while the outcome is divisions. So it is Fire, shoot and take aim.

Liberalization over the past two decades has seen the enterprise build in India, the private business got shot in the arm with changes in policy and system and broad measures to ease the way in which business is conducted. The business education now makes perfect sense, as for growth of an enterprise; we will need people with business understanding and knowledge.

Business education in the country hardly caters to the small and medium enterprises, which actually form the backbone of the economy. The business of business education is a subset of urban real estate. The MBA is an urban phenomenon, the colleges are mainly urban, hence migration to cities also will increase, and education becomes another reason for migration, which adds to increase in wage rates, when the wage rates increase, then the standards of employment, the overall growth of employment will all change.

The current state of business education with wide gap between premier, the B Grade, the foreign educated will bring concoction of what will be the business education in India, as we move forward.

Business education is turning out be a single species model in India, making it difficult to model sustainability. The international brand of education is here to stay, so also are the Indian brands. There are joint programs, there are twinning programs, and there are programs with one year here, another one there. International exchange is in student intake is big business. Collaborations of all kinds will be found. An university from another state operates more courses and has more students in other states than the state of origin. MBA is offered in morning, regular, evening, weekend, near distance, far distance, and postal, correspondence, offline and online, offered as certificate course, regular course, UG, PG and PGP, PDD and more D and P varieties.

Getting into a prestigious institution means placement, connecting with network of alumni, a lifelong reputation. With the combination of the factors, we have business education growing so rapidly in India, we have already fired the shots, let’s take aim to correct it.

MBAs should start to look for careers in politics, social entrepreneurship, government, SME segments. Our MPs will hopefully hire MBAs like their counterparts in the US as interns.

MUNNA-M(ba) B(Grade) B(usiness) S(chool)

2010-09-23T03:33:00.000-07:00

The global MBA curriculum has evolved and today has niche spaces, specialisations, institutions have built around their core subjects and embed specialisation. Finance companies needed smarter business educated graduates to manage their portfolios. Harvard has provided these specialists hired at fat salaries. In India, MNCs have recruited fresh PGDM graduates from IIMs again with fat salaries.

What about our MUNNA-MBA from B Grade Business School, where are his options, what kind of career prospects does he have. I will take Munna, a graduate from somewhere in some subject, pursuing his MBA, expecting a placement assistance from his Business School to which he has paid heavy fees.

By the end of two years of his study, will he be a transformed, skilled, knowledgeable and employable MBA?

The number of seats for MBAs are increasing, the quality is falling ,recently a report highlighted that only 10% of the fresh MBAs are employable. Where are we heading in Business Education with these standards where is India's Business Education headed.

Two instances require mention here, recently I was recruiting sales executives for my organisation, when I read resumes to recruit people for a sales jobs, most sales people want to project their resumes as marketing people rather than sales or sales with marketing knowhow and experience. A few sales people, with outright sales experience wanted to continue in sales, Good sales talent is not available in the market. The challenge was to get the talent and finally, we got the best. The best possible means to get the best sales talent was launched, several channels were put in motion to narrow down the best available.The whole identification, search and fulfillment revealed a great understanding of the underlying truth of the "Sales Job", MBAs we interviewed did not like sales jobs, lesser educated sales people wanted to pursue MBA to enhance their career paths to move away from sales. So much focus on marketing in MBA, Are there so many marketing jobs available, will the curriculum change to create something on sales and more intense.

Another instance, a well known MBA institution, I have been associated with increased their intake for MBA, the quality of intake suffered, hence the output. Average student has learnt words like strategy, objectives, planning, marketing, advertising and relates to names of some brands. The understanding is shallow, in conceptual framework or in terms of application to situations. Voice is louder, content poor, presentation means slides of powerpoint. All reading is screen based, bullet points and digital. The culture of academic writing remains at the premier institutions. Also the institution faces the challenge of finding placements for the unemployable.

May be the MBA institutions in India, need to keep their first 2-3 months in teaching/training soft skills, communication, reading, writing, referring information sources, articulation, confidence building measures, presentation skills, problem solving from a general perspective. These skills along with the academic studies will help. These can be incorporated in the time table and improvement targets set and progress monitored.

Another question that lingers is entrepreneurship training could be a better option, for two years, just focus on producing an entrepreneur. Work on the idea, strengthen it, evaluate the idea, revisit it, learning about it and incubating the idea is worthwhile for a business school. With an MBA student paying average fees of Rs. 5,00,000 per year, the starting salary expectation itself is a big barrier. I am not sure if a B grade Business School MBA will be able to produce the value to justify hiring.

Should there be a MBA in entrepreneurship, again, not just to beat the placement challenge but in the true spirit and value. MUNNA-All the best.

Higher Education, Everyone getting High on

2010-09-08T21:52:00.000-07:00

Sibal is one of the best you got, He means action. He knows controversy and can handle it very well. Probably if you were to evaluate the value that is going to be created from/through his decisions in the education ministry, he could be called Kuber (The king of Wealth). He is convincing. He is clever, bright, intelligent, smart, knowledgeable, quick, witty, brainy, he is on the ball, he is sharp, He is thick (Antonym). Clever is first and all other following words are researched Thesaurus words to describe Sibal including the antonym. There has never before been a breeze of change like this before in the education ministry and the sector.

That is the reason the education sector is the discussion of this blog “Are you looking for a change”.
India, with one of the highest percentage of young population in the world, Sibal has got a solid mandate on hand to play, long term, mid-term and short term. The policy changes that are made in the past few years and the ones that are going to made and implemented in the coming few years will shape, what a nation, we will be. Sibal unlike his predecessors has a clear mandate, broad understanding and the political will power and support. Unlikely that he will make too many enemies, all likely that few policies will favor friend or to whomsoever the policy favored become friends. Structural changes are a must.

There are tiers of education system each with its brand of issues. Sibal has his mandate clear for the primary and secondary education systems, has got few aces up his sleeves now armed with few research findings, privatization is one clear mandate, and he will bring about in the professional education set up, an approach that will benefit the education sectors and hopefully the students.

No examination is another area that Sibal is trying to adapt at various levels in secondary education, with a system of grading, may be an idea worth its time to be tried, observed. Standardization

Foreign Universities is his ace for Higher education without any business interests, kudos, the idea is great. The foreign universities have already been taking a lot of higher education students abroad, close to around 1 lakh students go abroad for their higher education, spending an average of 10lakhs per year, The arithmetic is large, let me look for a calculator, which can accommodate more zeroes.

Look at some of these,

1. There were around 5,00,000 students appearing for the IIT exams competing for 9500 seats at the IITs, It must be one of the fiercest battle for knowledge/talent supremacy that you may come across in the world. The market size of the coaching spend for the IIT/AIJEE is Rs. 2,500 crores, some put the figure to be even higher, If you to put an arithmetic to it, In the coaching costs we may be able to establish few more IITs in the country every year. At this rate, the most lucrative offer that an IIT graduate could have would be from a coaching institute, who trains for IIT, because, he has been there, done that and recently. The coaching classes would easily compete with a MNC for a placement of an IIT graduate. If the objective of the IITs is to generate more scientific inquiry, have more IPs, more research work done, none of these objectives are being met. After the all the tech study, the students prepare for IIMs, join them and then move to US to join a Lehman Brothers.

2. Over 1200 Business Schools, over 1,00,00 MBA passing out every year, Ranking of MBA institutions is another big thing in the higher education field today. Newspapers, magazines are ranking MBA institutions by their best devised methods, much akin to a movie review with rating stars. The published report and its subsequent reprints are of great interests to the institutions. There will definitely be increase in copy sales and in a competition like that MBA institutes are facing, their advertisements budgets are swollen and can accommodate advertisements with many newspapers and glossy magazine covers. Fair and square inches.

3. The state can also play a role in education, sometimes Sibal and his official bandwagon may be too much for someone to handle at the centre, play it safe, get an University it from state anyway, it’s easier to play boss with local politicians and officials.

4. Azim Premji transfers his shares worth US $ 2 Billion towards education.

Challenges of Talent for the Captive Unit

2010-06-15T02:53:00.000-07:00

“New talent, required is “As of yesterday” and relieving a resource is “3 Months from date of information”, that’s the way to move forward.” The project manager announced to the talent acquisition team. The new project manager came from an environment, where deployable talent pool was available, JIT (Just In Time) was always practiced from the COE (Center of Excellence). Another project manager came up with a request for promotion for a resource out of turn. A software engineer said in his exit interview mentioned “opportunity of onsite work” and “Opportunity for Growth” as reasons for his resignation.

Captive units have their daily diet of such instances and many more such Talent acquisition and other Human Resource challenges. Captive units have definitely confronted and dealt with different kind of challenges than that of their service cousins. The captive units have not looked as fancied compared to the overall talent related brand spending, policy making freedom, resource allocations and earning potential to that of the service companies. The captive units definitely have stood the test of time for the cycle of talent identification, acquisition, engagement, management and retention. The some of the captive units have evolved innovative methods to reach new channels for talent identification, process changes and adoption for attraction and acquisition, innovative and strategic in their approach to engagement and management. These strategies and practices now require consistent and coherent strides as to be built as a system for the unit as it matures.

Availability of talent in India was definitely one of the main reasons for the visible growth shown in the IT/ITES industry. The way in which talent acquisition has evolved over the last 15-20 years in India has put further enormous challenges to deliver, the models have changed, and captive units have had to deal with some of these obstacles and yet compete with the service companies for talent.

Connecting Policy and Operations: Captive units have had to deal with a lot of internal selling; brain storming that has to do with policy changes and operational concerns for the local captive unit. Most policy making and changes happen at the parent HQ, many a local management have taken these changes with a pinch of salt at the time of the initial build up and have had the patience to seek appropriate changes when growth happened. Many captive units have hence preferred to engage the top management who has worked in the parent company for a while before taking over such responsibility.

Increasing Value of the center: The captive center may not have the direct revenue targets like the services models, but it is also an outcome of the broad economic parameters, a decision to reduce overall costs and still retain control. Investments have to be committed upfront, the administrators and few top executives who would be the first few local hires, start to set up the center. The increased value for the center is progressively by migration of more work from the parent to the captive center.

Talent attraction: The local talent acquisition teams have to look at limited channels through which they can attract talent. The campus or the University relationship opportunities may not be available, as the talent they seek could be experienced.

Bench: Captive units cannot provide to have bench, as the overall headcount may have been budgeted and fixed, thereby forcing an elaborate mechanism of evaluation, which may cause delay in project uptake. Bench Strength: unlike service companies, captive units keep the resource requirements optimized and will recruit based on vacancy or a specific project requirement. In services there is always a pool of deployable resources available, as they would call JIT (Just in Time) inventory of trained resources through the COE (Center of Excellence).

Growth possibilities: All engaged talent looks for growth opportunities, in a market with service companies competing for talent, it will be tough for the captive units to meet the growth expectations of every engaged resource. Service companies could provide possibilities of lateral movements to another unit/project/domain, unlike the captive units.

Onsite opportunities: Many a captive units cannot provide as many onsite opportunities to their employees as much as their service counter parts, as their nature of business is totally different. At best, locations of onsite are fixed mostly Head Quarters.

Size does matter: Resources are attracted by brand image, larger the company, the attraction of talent, improving productivity becomes that much easier. Hence the scale of overall operations becomes very important to all aspects of talent.

Overall, Captive units face tough challenges towards talent attraction, acquisition, engagement, management and retention. These challenges have their own flavor when compared to the issues of other units like service companies. The changed way to look at how a captive unit manages the challenge to build a system to manage the whole cycle of talent to benefit the corporate, the country and society.

HIRE THE FIRE, FIRE THE HIRED

2010-05-04T10:10:00.000-07:00

On one side, the IPL got over, the world cup T20 started. Those are the good times for cricketers, broadcasters, advertisers, sponsors, administrators and many around them.

When Kerry Packer did the same, all the Cricket boards were against it. He added spice and glamor, introduced the color from none to change from the Bland British Gentleman's Sport to a colorful, entertaining spectacle. When the IMG chief spoke about Cricket and India, he spoke almost like Archmedes “Give me a lever long enough, a fulcrum strong......... Mark H. McCormack, was the founder of IMG and the author of "What they don't teach you at Harvard Business School". every sports person will respect what Mark did to their careers, brought value to Talent.

In our playing filed, hiring is back, increased pages of appointment advertisements in newspapers; number of online advertisements published on job portals is an indication. There is buzz of activity in the talent acquisition of most companies. Now the talent acquisition teams also get to a challenge of acceptance and getting the offered in. Initially, the offer released, to acceptance and the joinees ratio may look decent. Once the timelines after the offers are extended, then the thought process runs all over again.

The Talent Acquisition Teams feel the pressure to meet the commitment to the business. The team does keep its options open, invariable, for business, the one not available is the most suitable, everyone else is a negotiated option. These are hard pressed situations for talent acquisition teams when the economy gets better.

The best devised methods and processes have worked to produce better results than before. The engagement models, methods, routines procedures have been altered to reduce the attraction from elsewhere. Penalties, Rewards to channel partners, rewards and joining bonuses to candidates have been worked out and are working out.

Also fresh talent get into the market, graduates of engineering, science, business are all out there brimming with confidence with their newly acquired degrees, eager to show their resumes to a talent acquisition professional. Spot them, for you only know where are the diamonds.

May is a good time career decisions are made, the changes in job locations happen in May. While the spouse has made a decision in March/April to relocate, the joining time is now. Noticeably, there is also influx of new talent that gets added to the city’s workforce on account of these migrations. Houses get rented, flats get tenants, schools get students, parents get some holidays. There is more business activity, this goes till a good mid December, slowly pushing the numbers, sales people working out quarterly numbers. The best time is now—MAY, be.

These are changing and challenging times, in recruitment and talent acquisition terms, I would call it “HIRE THE FIRE, FIRE THE HIRED”

Engineering Graduates-Fresher Jobs

2010-04-09T10:32:00.000-07:00

During the final year of graduation, the young students and parents are concerned about the future that lie ahead upon completion of graduation. The anxiety felt by the final year students is difficult to explain can only be experienced. The pressure to get the best visible score at the final/terminal examination on the certificates, the possibilities of separation of well nourished, built friendships over the years, the final year's activities of the institutions, all of these throw up a good cocktail, adding a tinge to the kick of the challenges that lie ahead.

The current generation is well blessed with the advanced communication that eases the separation bit with the instant, anytime multiple "keep in touch" technologies available, the gang will find every opportunity to keep in touch. The events at the institutions will pass by therefore what remains is to find a job.

"Fresh graduates find it difficult to find a job" this statement perhaps was true few years back. With the surge in demand for talent and the supply not enough from the lateral hiring possibilities. Freshers come at a better price and the adaptability quotient is higher as compared to an experienced hire. The campus visits by recruiting companies has eased the pressure of finding jobs on their own. Good campuses(I am none to qualify/disqualify any) get recruiting companies visiting to interview students in the campus.

In some sectors the demand for talent has meant that fresh pool of talent is a must to keep the growth rate at a possible level. The challenge is finding the right quality of freshers.

In the last 10-15 years the IT sector has been attracting applications from fresh graduates from all streams of engineering be it mechanical, civil, electrical or the recent added streams of engineering study.

It is also in the past 5-8 years, the non-engineering graduates found opportunities within the IT/ITES sectors of the economy.

During the course of my work, I get many unsolicited mails from fresh graduates seeking job opportunities within the IT/ITES sectors. In guiding them, I have now standardized my approach and appropriate response which has worked very well and has helped many young/fresh graduates.

I first look at their language of approach, be it by telephone/mail/in person, the approach says a lot about the person, secondly, a good look at the overall structure and contents of resume/CV, then the specialisation, their scoring patterns over a period of time, project work details, mentioned special interests and hobbies.

Then I ask/speak to them more like a counsel rather than, someone with authority. I have found, some young graduates don't like this approach, their objective of coming to me is to get a direct reference/recommendation to a job. In such cases their resentment to get help/guidance is understandable.

In the recent years some of the engineering colleges are helping the students design their resumes. The exercise is to also present a positive image to the corporates coming for campus placements. These colleges have also initiated a career guidance programme, where in the students can get help to choose their right career path.

These are encouraging signs to ensure that by the time the students are completing their graduation, they get placed through the college. Not all will be lucky to get the placement through the campus placement. In my coming post, I will try and address the issue of how the institutes/colleges can do better at finding placements for their students. The solution can not be in preparing the last year students but to make structural changes in the way the students get placements.

The birth of a community, the IT Recruiter and a system

2010-03-02T09:05:00.000-08:00

Recruiter: The power behind the transactions to convert a CEO’s press release to truth.

This piece of writing may look like history now, not far behind, in less than 15 years, there was a birth of a new breed, a community called IT Recruiter and a system of IT Recruitment evolved. The progress has been so fast paced that the footprints don't seem to remain. To relive those moments, here is a solute to the great "IT RECRUITER". The young community of the talented hunters of the talented

Statements and interviews of the top executives declaring that the company will hire and make investments has always been the best form of PR to showcase the wellbeing and the health of the company. Newspapers have carried reports with projections of headcount for coming five years. Making these statements come true was the recruitment community preparing for a big growth. Beginning with the question “Are you looking for a change” the recruiters start their hunt.

It s not to take away the credit due to others in the organisation in making this happen. Recruitment teams have delivered in agreed timelines under trying conditions. I am amazed at how recruiters do their job. Recruiter community is very dear to me. The whole process of recruitment excites me. I have had the opportunity to work with some of the brightest recruiters, team leads, managers in recruitment. I have often tried to list down the qualities of a good recruiter, each time, I have noted a certain behavior that makes a good recruiter, I am drawn to admire that these are the very same skills and behaviors that are required to succeed in many career paths. The recruitment community of the company creates the new culture of the company with the additional recruits in the overall composition of employees.

Demand and Supply: It was a perfect match of demand and supply, at a point of time, 1995 onwards till around 2000, the demand for talented professionals was growing; the improved economy, impact of boom in engineering education of 1990s was now delivering new batches of engineers. The demand was coming from centers of IT more so from Bangalore. Everyone in the recruitment business seemed fully occupied.

Channels: There was also surge of new recruitment consultants who opened shop and did take on the established mighty. There was good demand for everyone who understood the business to make it good. There was a new breed of recruitment agencies, who had a better understanding of the raising demand and who could respond with the required speed. New hiring methods, new campaigns were needed to attract talent.

Advertising: There was need in the advertising world to write good copy for the recruitment advertisement. The erstwhile appointment advertisements were clearly for the mechanical and engineering positions especially for the Middle East and some local advertisements. The new recruitment advertisements were different, these had to sell the company, position, location and talk of better workplaces and also mention the technical skills required for the job. A different way to create different kind of demand, copy writers of the ad agencies learned a few smart technical terms, the recruitments advertisements turned potent flashed in colour in the ever increasing pages of appointment advertisement supplements. The world of recruitment started coming closer to planning schedule for advertisements, planned walk-ins, arrange people to conduct the evaluation. The economics of it all started to show up, the engagement rates started to increase, the overall demand for housing, transport and everything connected to increased consumption.

A new approach was needed: Back to the recruitment scenario, there seemed a need for proper system at all levels in recruitment within and outside organisations.

The talented professionals were in great demand, as the Y2K bug was bothering the US. Recruitment was not as easy and definitely not as comfortable as it is today. The candidates were at one end, the recruiters were at another, connecting one another was itself a major challenge. The subsequent growth of email registrations, use of mobile phones made the whole contact process easier. The available talent was mostly engaged some definitely looking for a change, new talent had to be found, contacted, evaluated and engaged.

As a system, most companies were not at all prepared for the number of people they were engaging. The recruiters did their job of getting to the candidates, the surge in demand and excess supply put the engaging managers of company’s evaluation skills to test. Typical engaging managers had no clue, how to evaluate, how to engage, any of the managers, did not even know how to interview candidates. The demand frenzy was such; all of this was alright, as long as talent was on board and could be engaged.

A new batch of smart recruiters actually came from the recruitment consultants, who were trained to fulfill, people with different qualifications were attracted to recruit. The bigger companies found it easier to pick these trained recruiters, who were actually, a lot smarter, who knew technologies, which companies worked in these areas and the way to contact the candidates.

The process of recruitment has evolved with the change in the way in which candidates make them selves available today. Earlier, the hard copies of the resumes prepared in the DTP centers were a norm. The DTP centers, photocopiers, made good business. Many switched to floppy disks, but never the floppy disks weathered the requirement for too long. These hard copies were circulated to different companies and recruitment consultants.

I will draw a lot of inspiration from your comments, my dear "IT RECRUITER". To be continued

Are you looking for a change

2010-02-14T22:52:00.000-08:00

“Are you looking for a change” the question, first of the series of questions that has changed many lives of a prospective candidate leading into a new employment opportunity. The question remains the first step towards the change, the answers often leading to a new career and a life style. The question is more often heard when the market for employment is looking good. The number of times this question is heard is perhaps a good measure of the employment market looking like the number of employment opportunities are increasing.

M.S.Rajagopalan, a friend curious about the changing employment scenario in India, in one of the discussions gauges the business of recruitment currently doing well; his understanding of the improving prospects in the recruitment industry by the number of pages in “Accent” of Times of India. He reflects his understanding by a simple yardstick of employment advertisement pages increasing issue after issue every week in a daily newspaper of India. .

The question “Are you looking for a change?” keeps ringing in my mind to seek answers not just from a perspective of a candidate seeking employment but extend this question or analogy to understand the employment scenario of the country. I began with this question in mind to seek and explore the broad economic scenario, the impact of globalization on the increasing the sectors employment has an impact on. To extend this question to the sectors of IT and media that I have been closely been associated if they have been looking for a change in the ways they employ people.

The organizations that employ people need to address the same question, whether “Are you looking for a change”, the context of change here applies to the core principles of the recruitment strategy, the channels that the organizations ways in which you employ people, how the skills to be employed are defined, the process to match skills with potential candidate, kind of people they employ. The connecting links of the industries who act as mediators between employers and the prospective employees. The smaller pieces that connect the two, recruiters the people who ask this question to everyday of their work life.

Primarily, with this question to explore the external and internal environment of the talent acquisition, beginning with the origin of demand till completion of he entire cycle.

The question on the other side of it also must a changed many a lives into making a great career in recruitment.
Although the title of this blog is “Are you looking for a change”, the question is actually an attempt to seeking answers from understanding at the international level, the national level economics of employment, country itself, the software industry which forms the frame of reference, software development organizations on one side.

The growth has certainly been the Government initiative to move towards liberalized economy from the erstwhile Soviet model of command economy. The opening up of the economy has created the large service sector.

• Employment in India
o The population
o Education
o Engineering education
• Engineering talent in India
• Employment in IT Industry
• Talent Shortage
Using “Are you looking for a change” question, I want to seek and understand and share about the issues that impact employment in the IT sector.