Friday, August 8, 2008

Shocking interview


(Image from timesjob)


Many job interviews are normally conducted on the phone if the candidate resides in a different location. Initially I guess people must have had there skepticism about the reliability of the process. I sure did. But, after a few telephonic interviews, I developed faith in this means of hiring, until last week, when to my surprise, the interviewee actually cheated !!

A senior colleague and I were scheduled to take a telephonic interview of a candidate with 6 years of experience in the industry. In order not to reveal any information about the candidate, we shall assume it was a female named 'A'. There was a lot of disturbance on the phone, as A was outside the office. The communication appeared broken. As always, it started with us wanting to find out about her previous job roles, projects, etc. We were not quite pleased with the answers as her knowledge appeared flaky. Nevertheless, we continued to probe. During the entire time, we not even in our dreams suspected foul play. We blamed her repeating the questions after us, he broken answers, her confused thoughts, her switching from one line of thought to another, etc, etc. to the poor communication link.

The interview was not going on well. Then came our final question. Which, as before, she repeated. And then, we heard a voice in the background that had some key words from the question. Fortunately, I could catch that in no time. We immediately put the phone on mute and exchanged glances. We knew what was going on. There was a pause for a while. And then started saying something, which was again quite abrupt. And now suspecting something amiss, we fired some more questions and she was a little confused. She took her own time to answer. And to our surprise, she went from one direction to another, 180 degrees apart. It was quite apparent that she had no clue what she was talking about. Just to confirm, we asked her a couple of more questions. And we found that there were uniform pauses after every question was asked and there were no complete sentences in her answers.

Clearly, after this, it was evident that there was someone who was prompting her the answers. She was repeating the questions to convey the same to him. The person must be writing the answers in broken sentences on a piece of paper. And in the hurry to answer, she must be just reading it out and not being able to form complete sentences. Also, since was not using her mind, she had no clue what she was saying (which was of course quite shocking considering her immense experience).

It is true that even if she was successful and did get a job offer, whether or not she is ultimately able to manage with the work, her resume could say that she worked in the company. However, this is so incorrect! What good would it be ?? Will she ever get the job satisfaction ? Will she ever be able to enjoy work ?? What about her career growth ? Well, to each his own! Quite unfortunate however.

Thursday, August 7, 2008

Uncertainty!

I hate being in uncertain circumstances. Life's hell when everything around you is uncertain...your future, personal life and even the house you are staying in! And in order to avoid this, I spent quite a lot of time last year and good part of this year to figure out exactly what it is that I want from life, so that I do not have to face with uncertainty...I had all the details figured out, of every aspect of my life ! But, alas, life never turns out the way you want it to (Ok nothing new...everyone knows it). As Randy Pausche mentioned, you will always be faced with obstacles- "WALLS". There is a saying, "If you want something very badly, the entire universe will conspire to give it to you". If this is true, and you are not getting what you think you want badly, it implies that in reality you do not want it badly! Now, the thing I do not understand is that "very badly" is quite an objective phrase. You could say that very badly here could mean that "something you will die without" ? Well, need not necessarily be true in all cases, for example, I will not die if I don't get a chance to pursue my higher studies...but I know I want to do it badly!!!

While, I have always believed in "whatever happens, happens for the good", but there are times, when you think - "why didnt that happen..am so unlucky! what happens next? I am in a mess". And thats when you start thinking about why is it happening only to you...why YOU alone ? At that very moment, you are unable to see what is good in all that is going on..and lose the steam to wait for the real good thing to happen.

I wonder if there is anything one can do to avoid having to live in uncertainty. Maybe yes, not to just have one plan ,but also plan for alternatives, have buffers, etc etc..all the management fundaes. However, am not quite sure how much of it you can really apply here. This requires a bit more thought.

And the most irritating thing about uncertainty is that if it has been brought upon you because of the way society functions or your being of a particular gender..ie, due to things that are not under your control! Ofcourse there are things one can do even in those circumstances, face it and fight it..they are the real heores. I would love to fight it out...but fight whom? Society..no problem! But family and friends ? They are the lifeline. Tough to be happy after making them unhappy. And thus its a difficult decision to make. One can't be selfish. Thus you are very often told to let go...sacrifice!

Ok the above are all jumbled up thoughts in my head. And come to think of it, it all sounds like the words/thoughts of a loser! But maybe its just a passing phase..hope its the later ;-)

Sunday, August 3, 2008

Happy Friendship Day!


Its great to walk with a friend


Fantastic to do silly things together!


I have been very lucky when it comes to friends. Been blessed with some really really fantastic bunch of friends...each of whom has been there for me when I most needed them. A very Happy Friendship Day to the smaller MOFFIA and ofcourse the bigger JANTA :-) You guys have been wonderful !!!

I got the above pics as a forward from a close friend. Rather cute...

Friday, August 1, 2008

My new cell

My friends find me a weird character...not only coz I dont go to movie theaters, but also because I don't use cell phones...Ok I know you are probably surprised at reading this (not if you know me). I used a cell phone for two months when at college and found it to be a nuisance. Somehow, started using it again a couple of months back. But note, I still had not given my cell number to a majority of my friends. I would always leave it in my bag, and carry it around only sometimes..ppl would call me and I would not answer! However, I still had it. Then, on a not_so_fine_day, I managed to lose it. Thankfully it was a 6 yr old piece :-)

Now I was without my cell. And that is when I realized that no matter I was not using it as much as people around me do, I had actually got used to it. In the back of my mind I knew that if I needed, I could get in touch with anybody anytime ! And now without it, I felt quite disconnected. I felt the need to have it back. And lo...I actually went out to pick up a new one for myself! (I really can't believe that I did that). I set the budget low...I got a Nokia 6805 (I guess once a Nokia, always a Nokia..ok am not really serious about that one!).





Its a nice one..though a little bulky..but a good feature set for the money I paid for it! Found the reception to be pretty good..besides that, has a basic camera, speaker phone, fm radio, mp3 player, bluetooth support, front panel display, wide screen. The keys are also nice and easy to work with. The UI is pretty decent as well. But what I didn't like is that if I have to disconnect a call, I can't do that very easily. The moment I flip the phone open, the call is answered !! I am not quite sure about it yet as I have not done much finding out...but if it is true, its rather weird.