4 Mistakes to avoid during campus interviews

Its been close to an year that I had given a couple of interviews during campus placements ( Well more than a couple infact). In retrospect, I can see that there are couple of mistakes which I had repeatedly done in multiple interviews which I should have avoided ..........

So the following post is a summary of those mistakes. Since these are what I perceive to be mistakes which may not actually be , take the advice with a big teaspoon full of salt :)

• Too much rambling:  Everyone would appreciate short and sweet conversations. But nervousness during interviews can make one ramble too much , in other words beating around the bush. Doing this shows that either one is not prepared enough or not confident enough

• Being too rigid: Last year there are couple of interviews where I mentioned that I am very much interested in Industrial Relations and would love to start my career in that area. Though I have taken caution in ensuring that I said this point in those companies with IR profiles, I now think that not many would be interested in taking a person who is hell bent on one area. A rather better answer would have shown my inclination towards IR , but at the same time open to other areas

• Missing out on areas mentioned as favourite/Interest:  In one of the interviews I mentioned a particular project I had done in one of the fieldworks is of much interest to me, but as luck would have it, I have not gone through the project before the interview and did not remember some of the factual basics from the project. My interview went on downward spiral from that point on wards ....In another interview , I have stated upfront that I am interested in IR and that's my strong area. For the best part of the interview , panel tried to prove it wrong and they were quite successful at it :)

• Leaving out the behavioural questions: This should have been a no brainer ,because most of the interviews start with the question "Tell me about yourself" . Unless answer for this is prepared well in advance there is a good chance of rambling stuff...There are other questions "strengths, weakness etc" which should be prepared well in advance

Some last words of advice : Since its a final placement, most companies would like to hire some one who will fit well into the culture of the organization. So its a good idea to have a word about work culture ( whether its an aggressive organization, kind of work done , how people interact etc) . Last but not the least, when some one asks whether one would be flexible with relocation, answer isalways expected to be YES ( unless there are genuine concerns with location)

So best of luck to every one sitting for placements  :) :)

 

7 Things to do while at TISS

Its just close to 4 months that I have passed out of college and started working. In retrospect, I don't have any qualms on how I spent my 2 years at TISS. Some areas I have done well and in other areas I would have loved to spend a little more time

It also doesn't mean that no one ever told us these things when we were at TISS, most of our alumni are kind enough to share the wisdom but I never put it into practice.

So my list of things in no particular order

(1) Learn Stats: If there is only one subject if you want to study in the entire 2 years, that is usage of stats and statistical tools. Data has absolute power and interpretations from data is much more powerful than hi-fi theories or frameworks. I never really understood stats, but planning to start learning it again from scratch. So when time is still there make the best use of it

(2) Powerpoint presentations : Though many would become pro in this aspect having done absolute awesome presentation in plain 10 minutes time, its one area spending some time on. Ability to express oneself clearly in minimal possible words is an art in itself and its worth practising

(3) EXCEL: Excellence in excel helps you almost every single day. we constantly deal with data and mastery over different functions of excel will help u in the long run

(4)Fieldworks: Though we (Tissians) always pride ourselves about how our course curriculum is so relevant to industry with 4 Fieldworks and 1 summer internship, the real importance I could realise only when I am on the job.
Most of the activities we take up in organizations are either done by us in our fieldwork organizations or atleast one of our friends could have worked on them.

(5)Downloads: This is one area where I have serious regrets. Instead of downloading 100's of GBs of movies ( I know movie download is now banned in TISS....Sarcastic smiley :) ) , I should have spent the same time in downloading research articles . Each article priced any where above $30 is not some thing you would like to buy in personal capacity. So it would be very prudent to have a data base of research topics on all areas of interest.

Need to reiterate Mulla sir's words here: If u are not reading atleast one research paper a day, u would soon be obsolete. Though not a paper every day, we should be in touch with latest happenings...My batchmates and seniors would agree on this

(6)Usage of facilities: I used to stay in hostel 3 which is right next to gym and indoor badminton courts. Though I had spent some time in both these places, having to cough up so much money to avail the same facilities outside now, I think I should have spend some more time in them. Its not an exaggeration when I say that there are people who passed out of TISS with out ever visiting these places

(7) store the data: It doesn't matter whether you have taken the subject or not. Its always better to keep a proper record of all the copies shared by faculty. I have not taken T&D as an optional in college but then my first area has much to do on training and palo madam's articles are of much help

That's it as of now. I have initially named the post as 10 things but as of now cannot think more..I have not included the fun aspects as that's some thing every one is damn good at ;) and HR parties always carried that aura in college




 

A leisurely stroll on Jakarta streets

I am not the one to be explorer kind and its on very rare occasions that I venture out and definitely not to shopping malls or theatres. I am more of a walker and would prefer walking hours at a stretch with no particular destination ( my friends who naively accompanied me for a short walk would vouch for that :P ).

So when my driver asked whether I would be interested to come for a walk on sunday morning , I am more than happy to accept despite the fact that I need to wake up at 6 Am. It would be the first time I would get to explore the city apart from every day visit to Ambassoder and ITC Kuningan malls which I do almost every day and also get lost every day trying to find the exit ( would save that for another post).

I slept at around 1 Am yesterday night having spent the entire day watching TV and thought may be the driver might have asked it as a formality and he might not actually turn up. But there he is ,at 6:30 waiting at entrance to take me to the Sudhirman street .

Jakarta roads on weekdays are very crowdy and it would be a feet if one manages to cross the street. They even convinced me that our Mumbai traffic is not as much as we think it is ....and Jakarta roads are walkers night mare. Though all the roads which I have travelled so far are pretty good , there are hardly any pavements any where making it very unsafe for pedestrians.

But the same is not true on sunday. The roads are comparatively free and best part is that one of the important streets "sudhirman street" stretching around 5 kms is off limits for motor vehicles. I call it an important street for presidential house, office and other minister's offices and other high rise commercial office buildings were present in the same street.

I reached the place by 7 Am and pleasantly surprised that entire place is quite crowded. Its pleasant because there is space for every one . Seems today there is a 10KMs run planned and entire area looked quite colourful with Indonesian flags flying every where. There is a park ( not sure of the name--National park it seems) right next to presidential house and its quite huge .

we ( me and Dasavan, a very good friend and driver with our company) started our walk . I didn't even remotely think cycling is taken seriously at Jakarta considering the kind of traffic here , but I am wrong , There are Giants, Bianchis of cycling world racing with each other on sudhirman street. There are atleast a few hundred cyclists if not thousands having a fun sunday ride.

The participation to the 10K run should be a few thousand people and entire area looks quite cheerful. The only sour point is that I have not taken my camera to capture few moments. You don't feel out of place while walking on Indonesian streets as know one particularly stares at u , at max all u get is a few cheerful smiles when u look at them

After walking for 6 kms , what actually looked like a short walk , I returned to my hotel with a promise that I would visit the place again next week with  a camera 

Travel Diaries ....Trip to Indonesia

I read some where that " life is what happens when u are busy making plans". Not that I am complaining but that's what exactly happened in my case. I am all set to take delivery of my cycle on 14th Aug and I got a call asking me to pack my bags and leave for Jakarta by 19th Aug for 3 months duration. So the same day I need to take delivery, I had to cancel my order :(   ( the cycle showroom guy is too good that he returned my advance with out complaining and with out me asking about it)

Now for some one who is wondering that his passport do not have a single stamp even after 7 years of issue, going abroad is a big issue ( doesn't matter whether it is USA or Indonesia). It also came as quite a relief for my parents who never understood why I declined going to US after giving GRE and instead chose to join Infy. Even after doing my MBA from TISS, this fact still haunts them when ever they go for some marriage in the family . ok, enough of digress

For some one who take years to finalize a purchase let it be a cycle or a simple t-shirt, getting every thing in place in 4 days is a mammoth task. I was on a shopping spree for full 3 days and even amused me by the quickness in purchases I made

Did go through a couple of websites to know more about the place and things necessary there. There is a wealth of info ( but some can be misleading like the info on rains, who ever said its rains torrentially during months of Aug-Nov, its hot as hell )

Any how , would write a post on things which are of use here and those that don't in another post

Finally I have boarded a Malaysian Airlines flight to Jakarta with a 2 hour stop at Kaula lampur. Its all together a different story that I had spent the best part of those 2 hours searching for the gate, as I had interpreted display signs wrongly :( ( Lesson: An arrow indicating up means straight ahead and not meant to go to first floor)

Its another story that I spent another 30 mins dragging my luggage from one end of airport to other end at Jakarta, as I couldn't find the driver who is supposed to pick me up and I couldn't call from my mobile ....there are no. of international departure gates at Jakarta

To have a happy ending, I am given accommodation at Hotel Manhattan which is owned by an Indian, and for what ever reason, u find familiar faces and conversations ...

For now enjoying the beautiful view from my 27th Floor hotel room
 

Cycling it is part 1

Well...its been quite some time i am out of college and honestly i am feeling the void the moment i come home from office. While i was at Infy, MBA prep had kept me occupied quite a good deal and now i miss it ...Living in a new city with not many friends didn't help either ...
so that's when i seriously started looking for activities to do ....My first stop is the Yoga classes ( not that i am interested , but too much of parental pressure ..can't help whether u are 2 or 26 :P )....but my office timings doesn't suit them....I very much know jogging is not sustainable ...planned to join french classes , but didnt feel good spending a good 12K on learning some foreign language when i have many to learn here ....thats when i came across "Baroda Cyclist Club"- An active cycling club in Baroda ...and all the old time cycling memories were back . 
Unlike most other kids, i got my first cycle when i was no longer a kid (16 it is) . Its a second hand Hercules bought for Rs 700 ....I rode it till my second year Engineering and in a way i should vow my selection at Infy to cycling as i so passionately explained how i would go for rides in my infosys campus interview ......

coming to the present day , once i decided to buy a cycle , i decided to have a modest budget of 5K to buy a gearless bike which serves my purpose  ( not yet heard the term "cadence" :p ). But the more i read about cycling ( read religiously about cycle components , models for 20 odd days ..and brands like Btwin, Fuji, Trek had become quite familiar)
But the models out there are so many and it damn confusing to pick one

Ok..i know this entry is now becoming too long , but if some one is seriously looking at buying a cycle  ( its a good thought ...even though how much fun ur friends make ) ..here is a list of suggestions which seems to be universally true  ( most experienced cyclists agree on)

• Dont go for Front or rear suspensions ...They are not at all required even on our potholed Indian roads ..They just make cycle heavier and u need to exert more effort to maintain the speed
• Hard sadle ( the seat) is good. You would get used to it in some time and good for your tail bone :) 
• Gears or no gears is a personal choice. But the advantage of having gears is that u can maintain a high cadence ( its no of rotations of pedal in a minute and u should aim for 80-90 for a good work out) . Gears help in maintaining cadence with out straining your knees ( again its a matter of choice, we all rode gearless bikes quite well years back)
• Any good brand cycles have gears by Shimano or SRAM . I dont know much about SRAM, but regarding shimano - they have a progressively sophisticated gears which makes shifting gears quite comfortable ( Tourney< Altus<Alivo ..read more ) .
• I Paid a good 3.5K more just to have a higher end gear 
• Rear gears are more imp than front gears ( so u might compromise on gears at front but not for the rear ones ...ya ya nowa days there are 24,27 gear bikes unlike 5-6 gear bikes we are used to )
• some good sites with wealth of info
• http://www.bikeszone.com/
• http://www.choosemybicycle.com/
• http://www.fitjog.com/

Its damn difficult to finalise a bike as many options are available. The best thing to do is to visit a couple of cycle showrooms and take a test ride ( yes , they do provide test ride for cycles ) 

Hmmm...this is what i had done in choosing my cycle ...by the way , i had increased my budget to 20K + by this time :) :)... I rode a couple of cycles ( Trek 3500, Fuji Traverse, Schwinn sporterra ) and fell in love with schwinn for its gear shifting. So here is the cycle i ordered. It costed me 26K ( MRP 29650) . Though it sounds crazy to spend such kind of money on cycle ( which doesnt even looks quite flashy) , i believe its worth to spend on . The rides which i plan should justify the cost. Its more than a week that i ordered my cycle and in a day or 2  would be getting it ....Eagerly waiting for it now :) :)...After all we all loved cycling as kids :D :D

Update: I had to put a brake on my cycling plans and cancel my purchase as I was asked to relocate to Indonesia for 3 months....more on that in the next post

Random ramblings

Its been quite some time that i wrote any thing. Not that i am busy with work ( would come to it later) but some how not motivated to sit and write  ( writer's block ;) ). But now and then one of my friends who happen to stumble upon my posts have a word or 2 good things to say about my writing ( they almost made me believe that i write interesting stuff :P ) ......but now i am actually a bit short of topics to write

Before joining TISS, i am quite excited to know about life @TISS and life after TISS but hardly found any blogs ( Babu Bhaskaran sir ,by any chance if u are reading this, i did read all ur blog entries :) )... and hence used to write about Life @ TISS and most of readers of the blog are TISS aspirants . Now being ceremoniusly kicked out of TISS with a degree in hand , i am fast becoming an obsolete student 

Unlike some of my gifted friends i am not even gifted with good english grammer , so won't attempt any thing closely related to poetry, story telling ( i can see the sense of relief on my friends faces who were lucky enough to listen me sing :P ). 

so here is what i am gonna write

(1) I recently decided that i would plunge full time into cycling . Did an intensive 20 days research on every thing related to cycle ( details would be part of my first post regarding cycling)

(2) here comes the interesting part .....In college there are consistently a small set of people ( quite small literally) who romance IR profile to the core ...who can be found flaunting PK PADHI ( well..for mortals, its a book on labour laws) and throwing widgets of labour laws to unsuspecting classmates ....so i would be writing of my experiences of actually working in a factory :) 

so lets see how it goes ......

Life in Gujju Land......Life at Baroda Part 1

Lot has happened over the last 2 months. I had officially became an Alumnus of TISS. In fact its exactly 1 month i joined in my job and 15 days in Baroda ( i know its called Vadodara, but there is still a charm in saying it Baroda)

As a day job  i manufacture quality bulbs and tube lights at affordable prices ( Actually i don't , but did shahjahan ever built taj mahal on his own?? :P)

I remember watching a telugu movie some time back, where the hero after a lot of drama announces the dawn of a new don by letting out a huge shout " Ab gangu ban gaya gangu bhai " ( to be echoed atleast 2-3 times). Thankfully i dont have to strain my vocal cords . One naturally becomes a Bhai as and when they enter gujarat. so now i am officially called Anvesh Bhai . In fact for most people here Bhai is incorporated as part of their name

Going a few days back to my induction days in CG, we (2 of the 3 who joined in HR function) were seriously hoping to get our posting in Goa but then its announced that i would be working with "Baroda Lighting Works" which is located some 40 Kms outside the city of Baroda. Info on Wiki says that it is one of the safest city in India and people are quite friendly and 15 days here i can corroborate for both the facts except for the discrimination shown towards non vegetarians .

The first condition you find in house hunting is that u can neither cook nor bring non veg home . ( yes, there is KFC in Baroda and by looks it seems to be the most profitable in India :P ). Ofcourse there are good no. of restaurents all over baroda .People here are quite outgoing and one can see all restaurents and shopping malls occpied all the time with families . There is one night market with eataries from which i came back a few minutes back and there are families with kids who are still coming there at 1 AM

Girls are damn good lucking in baroda ( Dare to call Gujarat  a dry state ;) and almost every one here understands Hindi which makes life quite easy to live by ( not for those who had to bear with my kichdi of Hindi and English 

will write more about the city and work as days pass by .........:)

Life in the last 2 years

Lot has happened in the last 2 years ..whether in terms of aspirations , priorities in life ..


When i started my preparation for MBA entrance exams , my objective is pretty clear. I want to land up in a job which pays me a Lakh per month and do some thing which is not technical ( some thing not related to programming, which i never got the hang of) and also for once study in a college of repute that i no longer need to explain the exact location of college for people to identify (@Vignan: i still love to say i studied in Vignan engineering college located near Duvvada railway station :P )

Now when i stand at this juncture almost at the end of my 2 years at TISS , where i achieved every thing i set out to do ,I am blank and clueless to say the least. Most probably this is my last formal education culminating when i am fast crossing 26 years . Ofcourse still there are plans of doing one more masters either in psychology/law/labour studies ...but nothing in immediate future

Placed with "Crompton Greaves" in final placements and hopefully and most probably will get a factory role ( which i had been romanticizing for quite some time) and so soon will come to know how much fun it is ...

One remarkable change i can observe over the last 2 years is the changing priorities with respect to life style and what kind of work i do ...Money has taken a backseat ( ofcourse still there are expectations but it is no longer a decision maker). I am sure of what kind of organizations i enjoy working with ( thanks to all the Fieldworks at TISS) and especially those i never want to work irrespective of what they pay 

Succesfully organized and concluded "Manthan" , been part of traditional senior-junior trek, danced for the first time in "Meghamudra", lived the dream of staying in a hostel ( Room no 17, Hostel 3 , Old campus..u will sure be missed ..), Made some really good friends, found true nature of some ..at the end i had grown ..hopefully more mature and confident than i started with 

Though this look like a farewell speech , there is still a long way to go : One NGO stint to complete, Research Thesis to be submitted and four exams to be cleared before i can proudly call myself an Alumnus of this great institute "TISS" which provided me more than what i achieved in 24 years of my life time

Chronicles of Life at TISS - 8

Some how today i feel like writing some thing in the blog  again and what better topic than happenings at TISS 

Last few days were few of the quite hectic days , we organised the first rounds for various events of Manthan(www.manthan2013.org) which is scheduled to happen from 25th to 27th Jan . Beyond that the heat of placements can be very much felt . 
Dinner conversations shifted quite comfortably to discussions on law and whereever 2-3 students meet , the discussion always surrounds around who has a chance of going to which company and dream companies :)

Tommorow marks an important day for the batch of 2011-13 as the next batch (2013-15) who are eager to oust us from the comfort of TISS campus and take our place :) are writing their written exam . best wishes for them 

Never realised how 2 years just went by .......hardly few days left for us in the campus but deadlines of research and the course on "Leadership" ( Mulla sir already shared a 800 page compendium beating his own record of ACB ;) ) sure gonna leave little time to feel nostalgic 

Now its all about placements for the next few days ...Situation looks quite optmistic and wish best things happen for the batch of 2011-13 :D