Why some people just love HRD

I was about to write the second part of 'How to crack a job in 24 hours' when I read this in the morning newspaper (yes I do read newspaper at home):

The government has now ordered IITs to introduce - with "immediate effect" - quotas in the teaching for scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and OBCs.

Whoa! I mean is this to give company to the OBC/SC/ST students coming in the IITs? So that the parents of these 'unfortunate' students can accompany them to their classes, and in the mean time, teach other students too! Later on, there will be a rule that you are not allowed to 'award' (yes that is what they call it here) a fail grade to these 'unfortunate' kids so that their education does not suffer.

Well, in my humble opinion, this sucks! First the quota for students, then doubling the number of IITs and finally, since the faculty was already short and it was not possible to recruit good faculty, the HRD came up with an 'innovative' solution - introduce quota for the faculty too! I must say ... of late, I have seen that the new faculty that IIT is employing is already crappy. At least when compared to the existing faculty. And with this quota into effect, god only knows what will happen. It is pretty evident that the 'IIT' brand will be ruined, but how far will the HRD go is still not known. Maybe there will be a quota in the placements too .... I just hope not.

The day is not far, when people will start asking "Oh! So you are from which IIT?" - just to know whether you are from the Mohali/Patna IIT or from Mumbai/Delhi/Kanpur IIT. Moreover, they just might also ask you "And did you pass out before or after the faculty quota got implemented?". I just thank god that I just passed out ... before all these effects started showing.

May god bless the people in the 'general' category (as it is written in the admission form) , because other people are already blessed :D. Your comments are welcome on this. The whole news article is present here

And well, as far as the title is concerned, it is pretty clear why the people from the 'reserved' category love the HRD ....

Bhoothnath - I can relate to it

A little digression here ... not the usual job-fundae stuff in this post. So here goes....

It all started when the govt. decided to increase the quota to 49% ... people got greedy! Eventually people started trying to procure a SC/ST 'status' for their 'caste'/'social group' .... this is what we saw in the recent Gujjar agitation. Well, I had to come to Mumbai to meet my friends as I was getting (extremely) bored with nothing to do at home (just sitting and waiting for my joining, which got postponed to 15 Sep). So I booked a seat in 3A in the good ol Rajdhani Express and was hoping to have a nice trip. But then our good friends from Rajasthan came into picture and the trains had to take a detour. As a result, the poor Rajdhani got delayed by 10 1/2 hours!

Whew! Ofcourse I got pissed off. So, for the return journey, I canceled my booking in the Paschim Express (which by the way, was running 24 hours late - imagine now ... a train journey of 28 hours and you get delayed by 24 hours ... making it 52 hours in a train!) and booked a ticket in Kingfisher Airlines instead (YO!).

Now as I sat there staring at the pretty pretty air hostesses, I noticed that they were showing Boothnath on the small screens. Wow! I must say it is a nice movie. Juhi and that kid 'Banku' are very cute. Though you can spot some instances of over acting here and there, but then it is not an Amir-Khan-Movie. So this much is expected.

A point worth noting is that people usually tend to fly when they are falling from the stairs (and there are multiple instances of this in the movie, as if every actor is showing off his flying skills). The special effects created for the BhoothNath are good, at least by Indian standards.

But there are a few things that, well, don't feel very good. Like the dire consequences of going abroad ... the mother dies! I mean common! Also, Mr. Nath leaves his body lying there, dead, to stop his son from going ... reminds me of Prof. Cuthbert Binns from Harry Potter. Also, Amitabh's ghost (Bhoothnath) says at one time "Chahe mujhe 100 janam idhar kyun na bhatakna pade, mein is ghar ko chod ke nahi jaunga" ... just that, at least this is what I believe, ghosts don't have a life cycle ... do they? I mean 100 births of the same ghost?

And then comes the King Khan in his "Kal Ho Na Ho" style, making everyone senti ... or at least trying to do so :P. And well, this was the most hilarious part ... imagine Khan with a pony at the sradh of Mr. Amitabh :)). At the same sradh, while everyone is playing very sober, our dear 'Banku' is happy as ever ... as if its his own birthday :D.

All said and done, it is a nice, cute movie. Though I have never seen Swadesh and I am going abraod, I guess I got the message. Moreover, I can relate to this movie ... though the consequences will not be so dramatic I hope :).

And guess what? I have reasons to believe that it will have a sequel too...

How to crack a job in 24 hours - Part I

"We have never seen a person with such a profile applying for this position. You do not fit in the kind of profile we are looking for. Why are you here?"

- First sentence of the VP, Goldman Sachs when I entered the room.

And I got the job :)

So yeah the big question is how to prepare for the most adverse situations in the interview. The answer, in one word, is 'Confidence'. It is very important that you don't lose confidence when it is most needed - when you are facing the interviewer. If you don't feel confident, feign it. If you can't even do that, then you should seriously think whether you are made for that job or not.

But lets come to that later. Lets start with what you need to do one day before D-Day. Here are a few things you should keep in mind.

• You will have to prepare for the HR interview - no escaping that
• A little prep for stress interview is helpful - most people get knocked out in this (I did not, however :D)
• Try to feel confident (can't stress more on that)
• Prepare the file or the bag that you would be carrying with you
• NEVER EVER touch the books/notes for one final revision - the brain needs rest. With all the tension building up, you really need to think hard. Believe me!

Coming to these things in detail, one by one now. I believe that the preparation of the subject should be done long before the actual date of the interview. Also the resume should be prepared with proper formatting weeks before D-Day.

• HR: This was the toughest part for me to do. Here are the few things that you should try to prepare for:
  

• Why you are here/ Why do you want this job / Why Goldman Sachs (or the name of the company you are applying for): Don't say that you want it for money, though that might be, and usually is, true. For the answer to this, try to look for something that is unique for that company, like "Goldman Sachs is all about innovation" etc. You will have to do some research about the company for this. More often than not it can be made out from the home page of the concerned company. But you have to find it. Try to make the answer as convincing as possible. You really do want that job don't you? One word of caution - in case you are leaving one job and applying for another, then you should not (and this is exactly what is written on almost all the blogs which talk about interviews, and it is there for a reason :D) start blaming the previous employer. Gives a (very) bad impression.
• Tell me about yourself... This is the most dreaded question of all. But it is not very difficult to prepare, if you know how to. The person asking the question is not interested whether you have one brother who is helping your father in doing some dairy related business or not. They are interested in what you can do for them. How you will fit in the company. So keep this in mind. Note down the points that you think are important qualities for a person filling the post. You should cite instances (say one per head) which display each of these qualities ...
• Rest they will try to ask you your strengths and weaknesses - just give a thought to it. Regarding weaknesses, you should think of something that is a strength in disguise.... will not elaborate more on this here.
• Otherwise the HR interview is peace. Just keep your cool and enjoy the session!

I guess the post is getting very long. Will elaborate on the other points in next few posts :)