Take A Walk Down Memory Lane

Some people wait for things to happen, some others make it happen!

Yesterday’s incident highlighted the latter statement. My college mate N had come down from US and she sent out emails to most of us settled in Bangalore. After a series of email exchanges, five of us decided to meet on Wednesday i.e yesterday.  N’s perseverance to find out about her batch mates in Bangalore, getting their email IDs and successfully accomplishing the get together is truly admirable. It is so ironic that she had to be the trigger to wake her batch mates up from hibernation and make them meet up, though they stayed within 1 km radius from one another.

Some of us were meeting after a decade, so catching was enamoring and enchanting. The photos taken were soon shared in the social networking group which received immense likes from other batch mates. Soon, N started a Whatsapp group and within half a day today, twenty of us across of the world were connected. Everyone was equally thrilled, nostalgic and soon many discussions followed.

Thanks to N, she took me back to good old days. She reminded me of a dialogue from an old Malayalam movie whose translation is “Why didn’t we think about it before!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9l5-L42mBmw

We are lucky to be in a generation which saw the transition from letters to phones to emails to mobiles to smart phones. We had innocence, we had values, we knew the limitations, we respected elders, and we valued time and money.  We enjoyed the rain, we enjoyed the scorching heat, and we enjoyed everything that was thrown at us. Years passed by, we saw immense changes in and around us but we haven’t lost ourselves, our core values which make us what we are today!

My View of an Interview

I have been interviewing for almost 10 yrs now. I have seen the candidates in various forms – the nervous ones, the confident ones, the showy ones, the earthy ones, I have seen them all. More than the candidates, what has attracted me is the mindset of the person taking the interview.

The interviewer needn’t be the person who knows it all, but he/she needs to know the answers to the questions he/she is asking. Having been a candidate myself and in many occasions, when I didn’t know the answer, I had in turn asked the interviewer for the answers.  It helped me a lot to understand where I need to improve and improvise.

Off late, I had a chance to take interviews with others and what baffled me was the kind of questions the candidates had to answer. Most of the topics that were asked weren’t even used during the day to day official work. Then why are the questions being asked? Is it because the interviewer wanted to show his/her skill set? Is it to enhance his/her ego?

Recently I was discussing about interviews with a friend of mine. He was telling me about the interviews he had attended lately wherein he was asked about skills which were not even mentioned in his resume. He had a valid argument which I found quite amusing. His argument -  “If I don’t  have a skill, say A, over a period of time, in the new job, I can acquire it. There are other skills which I am good at”.

Coming back to being an interviewer, I remember the day I was asked to take an interview. My manager had called my friend and me to his cabin. He asked us to prepare few questions which we will ask during the interview. My friend and I, being the first time interviewers, did an extensive googling and found the toughest questions. We went back to our manager and proudly presented our questions. Our manager made us realize that it was not the complicated or complex ones that make an interview tough, it is basically, the true basics of the subjects that the candidates claim to be the experts.  That realization continues to play a pivotal role when I don the interviewing hat.

Firstly, explain to the candidate about the job profile. In case, it doesn’t match with his long term career goals, you needn’t take an interview at all. So, SEEK OUT for the right candidate.

So, a good interviewer should skim through the candidates profile and ask the basic questions. In this era, where in we can solve complex problems but find it difficult to handle simple ones, one suggestion is to make the interview SIMPLE.  

Thirdly, check the profile for which the candidate is attending the interview for. Ask questions related to job profile as I have seen many candidates being disappointed once they take up the offer. They have claimed that “I was asked about X, Y and Z and nowhere it is being used!”  So, test the right SKILLS.

Fourthly, don’t make the interview quite long and elaborate. In the first few minutes, you get an idea about the candidate and most of the times, your initial judgment is right. So, make the interview SHORT.

Last but not the least, interviewer shouldn’t conduct an interview for boosting his/her morale. He/she is doing it to pick the right candidate so that his/her burden can be reduced as well. So, keep aside your SUPERIORITY complex. 

With right sets of “S” in place, make the interview easy and effective. Remember, you too were a candidate before and can be in the future too!

Wake Up Call

My day usually starts with Dad waking me up. He always have two questions to ask -  Did you have tea? What is there for breakfast? As of matter of fact, it is quite clear to him that I will definitely have something, but that doesn’t deter him from asking the same questions every other day. I can’t imagine a day when he stops asking me these questions. It has become a habit.

So today, like any other day, Dad woke me up. He starts with the usual questions and then tells me that he has some good news to share.  Early morning and good news,  I wondered. He told me that our driver’s daughter, who is currently pursuing her MBA, got a job. She has a good offer which includes a competent salary and a free accommodation.  It was indeed good news. I felt genuinely happy.

I always appreciated the driver for believing in his daughter and giving her right kind of education and support. He never differentiated between his daughter and son, normal behavioral pattern see in lower income group. Long back, I had met his daughter and had a healthy conversation with her.  What I really appreciate about her, is her will power and her clarity of thoughts.  I am pretty sure with that kind of attitude she is going to go places.

Speaking about habit, have you ever experienced relationship becoming a habit? And what happens when it go awry? Should it be rectified or left unattended? I know not! Everyone around me says time is the healer. But what time frames are being discussed here? In this era of multiple ways of communication, people are hesitant to pick up a damn phone and talk. Sometimes a call is all that is needed to heal the growing tensions. It gives you a perspective of others’ thoughts.  As a matter of fact, everyone is right in their own way.

Talking about perspective, the greatest asset of human being is their mind. In a fraction of second, lots of thoughts are getting processed. Mind leaves you in a dilemma about how to react, how to act etc. If you can control your mind, you have indeed attained Nirvana. It’s all about how good you can control the mind and reacts to situations in a favorable manner, I would rather say a win-win situation.

The new day has begun. I plan to doze off now, anticipating the wake up call…

New Year

New year promises resolutions that I will never follow
Equitable measures of happiness and moments of sorrow
A mind devoid of negativeness and thoughts which are shallow
Living each day with no worries of the past or tensions of tomorrow!