The Talent Bandwagon

Me introducing Ajay Kulkarni will be a little too much.

Some one who is from Nagpur and did his SSC/HSSC between years 1997-2000 might already know him as a meritorious student. His background and illustrious career so far speaks about his talent, knowledge and intelligence. If Ajay doesn’t start his own venture, I’m sure we are talking here to some one who’s gonna go very high up the corporate ladder. Enjoy your share of vision.

Somalwar. BITS Pilani. ST Micro. SP Jain school of Management. That looks like one hell of a journey. How has it been? What next?

Yeah, it has been an exciting and eventful journey full of learning from peers, seniors and from my own mistakes. The best part of this journey was BITS Pilani. Those were the years that groomed my personality and I am happy BITS happened to me. The most important part of getting into good schools and working at brand name companies is the kind of people you meet and the network you create. It is your asset which you can leverage at any point of time in life.

What next, well I am looking forward to working at a startup company into the upcoming field of digital marketing. Lets see how that works out…

Epicurean!

Kidakaka, or Prasad Ajinkya is known to me through CE. The title of this post is how he describes himself. He has kept his introduction on his blog relatively short. So even I’d not say too many things about him. Enjoy the interview… and do read his blog. It is interesting!

Q. Prasad, frankly I’m a bit scared of the IIT/IIM brand of people. I’m a little apprehensive of them and some how find them difficult to handle. However you have been a nice guy all through out. Tell me, how it feels like being an IIMite.

A. When I was a student, it used to be an exhilarating feeling … to be counted as the creme-de-la-creme of the nation’s talent. However, as time went by and with some years of experience – working with other IIM grads and even managing some of them, I realized that this identity of being an IIM grad can often manifest itself in the form of arrogance. That path can lead to some pretty unpleasant bends. I try not to tread this path.

Catty Eyed Dreamer!

Sapna Katti! Now I don’t know what I should write about this girl who I have never met. If I tell you exactly how we got introduced, it would sound as if I’m Shahrukh Khan. But let me tell you any way. It was June 2008 when I got my first fan mail. I was barely into a month of regular writing and a girl had already written to me, telling me how good my blog was. Frankly speaking this engineer who now works in an investment banking firm is a much better writer than me. Here’s Sapna Katti unplugged for you. Enjoy Season Two!

Testing Times

This post is on a very special request from Saandeep. Well, you know him by the name of Sandy on my blog, by the name of Raj on his blog and by a very unique name of English-Scared on CE. His real name is Saandeep Sreerambatla and he is from Hyderabad. And do you know why the special request to post it today came in? Because it is his birthday today. Happy Birthday Sandy! Enjoy!

Can you tell me why do most people from Southern India have long names?

Southern names are long, but coming to Andhra Pradesh they are a bit shorter. In Chennai the names are even long. Since we have a surname and 2 or 3 names.

Here goes the process of naming a kid, you have grand ma, grandfather etc etc… So the naming will be modern and yet mixing of all their names. For example, I have my cousin whose grandfather name is Venkateshwarlu , father’s name is RamanaRao, and his name is Venkata Ramana Veeraju , and he has a surname also

Interviewing Me?

Image by visual.dichotomy via Flickr

Some one sent me an email asking if he can interview me and post it on his blog. Wow! I’m so excited. My interview is going to be published on a popular blog.

Would you like to say that sentence above? Well, now you have a chance. I’ve been reading lot of blogs lately and had been talking to lot of people. And talking to people fascinates me. So I have decided to logically extend it to my blog. I’d like to interview (un)common people like you and me and publish the interviews here. Let me tell you that they are not going to be run of the mill interviews with ‘tell me about yourself’ type of questions. There will be specific questions, some direct, some wacky, some weird, some controversial and some very very personal questions. The idea will be to invoke an emotion (reaction), mostly laughter.

So if you are a reader of this blog (and I know it), you are already eligible for the interview. There is every chance that I will shortly get in touch with you. But just to ensure that I dont, please put in a comment here so that I can prioritise your name.  :-)

… And if you are NOT a reader of this blog and have come here for the first time, no worries. Good things happen to people a bit late. So let us start with YOU first. Would you like to be the YOU?

Me and telephonic interviews

I’m not an expert to tell you how well should you appear for an interview. However I’ve given and taken enough of them to list down things that you shouldn’t be doing in interviews. This post specifically refers to telephonic interviews.

Today morning I had a telephonic interview with the GM of Harbinger Group, Pune. I’m ashamed to tell that after a long time, I actually failed to impress a guy on a telephone. Taking a cue from there and also considering my small experience in grilling candidates on phone, I’m listing 5 basic but very valuable tips things. Read and enjoy.

1. Do not eat, drink or stand in a place that will invite enough noise disturbance. Your voice is your only weapon. So it needs to go fully into the ears of the interviewer. Munching, sipping will drive him away.
2. Do not narrate stories. Telephonic conversations are interesting only if they are with your loved ones. Keep your conversations short and to the point. If possible, try to make it interactive. Since you can’t see the person’s face, you can’t make out if the guy is enjoying, getting pissed off or even listening to you.
3. Do not go under prepared and panic. Telephonic round helps you to keep a reference copy handy (a printed document about the company, latest news and some information about the industry). Take full advantage. If you are being called on a mobile phone, use the hands free. (For technical interviews, you can keep your books and notes open.)
4. Discussing confidential information about previous employer (say clients, projects) is not advisable. Some companies record the calls for security and training purposes.
5. Avoid negotiating on the phone. (Salary, profile, location etc.) Its better to discuss this in person.

I hope the points were helpful. Good luck to all hopeful.

Addendum: I have posted the exact Harbinger interview on CE. Interested readers can click here to have a look.