You probably don't know me and have somehow reached this page because a friend sent you the link, or you queried something related and Google offered this page up to you as a possibility. Whatever be the reason you are here, the point is that you are here and I thank you for it.
As the title of this post suggests, this is a rant against my current situation - unemployed! After having worked in various industries, businesses, cities and countries for over 18 years, finding yourself unemployed can be a huge shock to the system and a major reality check/wake up call. Over the past few months I have been through the wringer. Having relocated back to India, leaving behind a successful career, I returned to the land of my birth filled with hope and confidence. After all, India is now seen as an emerging economic superpower, filled with potential opportunities for growth and empowerment. If the stock market is an indicator of economic well being, the outlook should have been positively rosy. As a hub for IT services, India was already the next big thing, with every major IT player setting up shop in the country and even attracting graduates from the west (read developed world), who could see the importance of having work experience in India as a major box checked in their resumes. If you can be a success in India, they said, you can succeed anywhere.
Kudos to the PR department of India Inc. for having done such an amazing job.
With eighteen years of work experience and a track record that speaks for itself, I was full of hope and determination as I set out on my job hunt. I revamped my CV, populated it with keywords associated with modern business practices, updated my skill set, reached out to head hunters, friends and colleagues, even sought professional help in streamlining my resume to satisfy the most stringent requirements. I signed up on popular job sites like naukri and monster, and sent out my resume everywhere.Then began the process of waiting. It takes time, they said, so I waited. And waited. And waited. And when I got tired of waiting I waited some more. The result? Not a single call-back, not a single response. Nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Error code 404.
This cannot be, I told myself. Perhaps I am doing something wrong. Maybe I need to do some more research on the companies I would like to work with, and study their hiring policies, so I can be better prepared when the call finally does come.
Since my expertise lies in Business Development in the IT domain, I decided to target two of the world's most attractive companies to work for - Microsoft and Google. I went on to their websites, read through their stated hiring policies and came away hopeful once again. After all, their stated hiring policies are an applicants dream. I compared their hiring criteria against my resume. Experience - check. Passion - check. Diversity - check. Qualifications - check. Market knowledge - check. An article I came across on the Sydney Morning Herald (http://www.smh.com.au) carried an interview of the Senior VP of people operations in Google. The article was by Thomas L. Friedman (who knows a bit about modern business practices). In this interview the Google Senior VP stated that Google had determined that academic results weren't very important, while espousing various other criteria that were far more critical while appraising an applicant for a potential opening in Google. This is excellent, I thought to myself. At last someone who can appreciate my skills and expertise without reducing it to a bland GPA. Finally a company that tries to see beyond mere words on a CV. A company that actually wants to implement its vision and values in the real word, and not consign them to paper alone.
Hope, however fleeting is a beautiful thing. The harsh reality is that idealistic rhetoric as stated in any company website or by its senior management rarely percolates down to the level of actual HR and Recruitment divisions while implementing in the real world. I have come across job listings that suit me to the T - I know I have the specific experience required, can do the job as stated and be very successful at it, but sadly this view does not seem to be shared by the HR recruiter at the other end of my application. I can try and understand their position I suppose. Given the deluge of resumes they must be receiving for positions in their companies, they have the unenviable task of sifting through tons of CV's before shortlisting a few for the first round of interviews. Obviously they have to maintain strict parameters while doing this sifting, otherwise the sheer enormity of the task at hand may get quite overwhelming even for the best. Unfortunately this does not help me in landing a job. As long as HR departments, head hunters and recruiters are unable to see beyond mere words on a CV page, the challenge will remain, for me at least, to convince someone, anyone, that I have the required skills and experience to bring value to their company and perform beyond expectations.
The struggle continues. I still send applications everyday. I still try and overcome the challenges someone in my boat faces everyday. I still hope that someone somewhere will recognise the latent potential that I possess (however pompous that may sound). Hope, however fleeting, is what the world survives on. So, I hope and strive and move forward. And Hope.
I am now working on a musical resume, involving a guitar, iambic pentameter and youtube. Not very sure on how I should dress for this though. Any suggestions?
As the title of this post suggests, this is a rant against my current situation - unemployed! After having worked in various industries, businesses, cities and countries for over 18 years, finding yourself unemployed can be a huge shock to the system and a major reality check/wake up call. Over the past few months I have been through the wringer. Having relocated back to India, leaving behind a successful career, I returned to the land of my birth filled with hope and confidence. After all, India is now seen as an emerging economic superpower, filled with potential opportunities for growth and empowerment. If the stock market is an indicator of economic well being, the outlook should have been positively rosy. As a hub for IT services, India was already the next big thing, with every major IT player setting up shop in the country and even attracting graduates from the west (read developed world), who could see the importance of having work experience in India as a major box checked in their resumes. If you can be a success in India, they said, you can succeed anywhere.
Kudos to the PR department of India Inc. for having done such an amazing job.
With eighteen years of work experience and a track record that speaks for itself, I was full of hope and determination as I set out on my job hunt. I revamped my CV, populated it with keywords associated with modern business practices, updated my skill set, reached out to head hunters, friends and colleagues, even sought professional help in streamlining my resume to satisfy the most stringent requirements. I signed up on popular job sites like naukri and monster, and sent out my resume everywhere.Then began the process of waiting. It takes time, they said, so I waited. And waited. And waited. And when I got tired of waiting I waited some more. The result? Not a single call-back, not a single response. Nothing. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Error code 404.
This cannot be, I told myself. Perhaps I am doing something wrong. Maybe I need to do some more research on the companies I would like to work with, and study their hiring policies, so I can be better prepared when the call finally does come.
Since my expertise lies in Business Development in the IT domain, I decided to target two of the world's most attractive companies to work for - Microsoft and Google. I went on to their websites, read through their stated hiring policies and came away hopeful once again. After all, their stated hiring policies are an applicants dream. I compared their hiring criteria against my resume. Experience - check. Passion - check. Diversity - check. Qualifications - check. Market knowledge - check. An article I came across on the Sydney Morning Herald (http://www.smh.com.au) carried an interview of the Senior VP of people operations in Google. The article was by Thomas L. Friedman (who knows a bit about modern business practices). In this interview the Google Senior VP stated that Google had determined that academic results weren't very important, while espousing various other criteria that were far more critical while appraising an applicant for a potential opening in Google. This is excellent, I thought to myself. At last someone who can appreciate my skills and expertise without reducing it to a bland GPA. Finally a company that tries to see beyond mere words on a CV. A company that actually wants to implement its vision and values in the real word, and not consign them to paper alone.
Hope, however fleeting is a beautiful thing. The harsh reality is that idealistic rhetoric as stated in any company website or by its senior management rarely percolates down to the level of actual HR and Recruitment divisions while implementing in the real world. I have come across job listings that suit me to the T - I know I have the specific experience required, can do the job as stated and be very successful at it, but sadly this view does not seem to be shared by the HR recruiter at the other end of my application. I can try and understand their position I suppose. Given the deluge of resumes they must be receiving for positions in their companies, they have the unenviable task of sifting through tons of CV's before shortlisting a few for the first round of interviews. Obviously they have to maintain strict parameters while doing this sifting, otherwise the sheer enormity of the task at hand may get quite overwhelming even for the best. Unfortunately this does not help me in landing a job. As long as HR departments, head hunters and recruiters are unable to see beyond mere words on a CV page, the challenge will remain, for me at least, to convince someone, anyone, that I have the required skills and experience to bring value to their company and perform beyond expectations.
The struggle continues. I still send applications everyday. I still try and overcome the challenges someone in my boat faces everyday. I still hope that someone somewhere will recognise the latent potential that I possess (however pompous that may sound). Hope, however fleeting, is what the world survives on. So, I hope and strive and move forward. And Hope.
I am now working on a musical resume, involving a guitar, iambic pentameter and youtube. Not very sure on how I should dress for this though. Any suggestions?
