The ONLY question to be asked in an interview!

As an interviewer how many of us have felt "How many more should I need to ask to be sure I have asked enough?"

As an applicant how many of us have felt "How many more questions/rounds am I going to be subjected to before they make a decision?"

ஒரு பானை சோத்துக்கு ஒரு சோறு பதம்

Tamil Proverb

It suffices to check one grain to ascertain the quality of the entire pot.

If you have been on this rocking boat on either side of the table then here's a guide to making life simpler. Interviewers can just 'use' the template question while applicants can be 'prepared' for it. Sit tight and let's get going.

To a fresher

Q: Could you detail your thought process, approach & experience in writing your resume?

P.S. Hire the one who responds to this with utmost conviction, everything else can be trained.

To a founder seeking investment

Q: Please help to explain your engagement with your repeat / long-time customer(s)?

P.S. This could save the pitching, vetting time to a great extent for all parties involved.

To an architect

Q: Can you explain your domain of expertise to me like I am a 5-year-old?

P.S. The one who can do this can architect something that does not need their support after architecting it, even to simply understand it.

To an HR professional

Q: Could you list out the top 3 qualities you look for in a potential hire and substantiate it?

P.S. This gives insights on what is near and dear to the person and how they would treat the people in the organization if hired.

To a Program Manager

Q: Can you show me a screenshot of your email client's folder-pane?

P.S. If you can see that organized and managed, the person is worth the salt in the management skills.

To a Software Developer

Q: Apart from googling, name the top three forums you reach out to and for what reasons?

P.S. The devil is in the detail ;-)

To a QC Professional

Q: Name one issue with your phone that is a definite no-go for production?

P.S. The devil is in the detail ;-)

To a Scrum Master

Q: Can you explain the difference between what's in theory and in practice of this role?

P.S. The quality lies in the understanding of the real world of what scrum masters do.

To a person wanting to move from technical to a management role

Q: How would you respond to the question "Why you want to make a move from technical stream to a management role when you don't have any real reason whatsoever"?

P.S. Hire the one who is convincing yet with conviction.

To a customer support executive

Q: What's the percentage of idiots have you interacted with, in your experience?

P.S. Look for empathy quotient.

What's your checklist that makes or breaks an interview?

Ten+ Years of Work Experience? Here's a must take survey!

     I was once a part of a corporate celebration at my workplace and one of the senior colleague (who was used to being witness to my spamming his inbox with my blog posts) started a conversation with me on doing a survey. I wondered what it was all about and it started as something plain and simple. What transpired later startled me. 

     Currently almost all of us would have heard about the uncertainty of work life for a fresher aka a newbie with little experience and slowly that tides away for most people once they begin to 'settle'. However this senior of mine brought me to perspective of a second tide of uncertainty and ambiguity in work life of people who have more than 10 years of experience. I was skeptical on why or how a person who makes 'big bucks' as well as having a better say in the organization and presumably being a part of complete family and with planned investments on assets, be uncertain on their career?

      The following little survey of 10 questions is an attempt to categorically understand the pulse of those who have more than a decade of experience and put to perspective about it in an elaborate manner in a later post.

      This survey is not just for the folks in IT or ITES but to everybody. The survey would be kept open for a whole month. Please feel free to pass this to everyone you know and help a bit in collating this.

     If you are working currently & with less than 10 years of experience, you can also have a look at the survey and if you feel you already have a perspective on the questions please go ahead and survey it out and indicate your experience in the last question!

Take Survey

Job Openings

Requirements

Age: No bar

Qualification: Not Important.

Experience: Excellent skills in quality product delivery to the customer, on time.

Location: In and around Chennai where lots of Engineers work.

Remuneration: On par or even better than those of most of the customers.

Are you game for it??? If so,

Reach us at: tea-kadai-entrepreneurs@next-big-thing.org

Why not be a terrorist?

                With the economic crunch being felt heavily all over the world for the past year or so, people are finding it really tough to get a job. At this juncture, looking at the day to day incidents happening in the world, here's one avenue that is always booming and recruiting. 

• Here's where firing in the true sense that takes place and that's a part of your job.
• There are no non understandable HR policies, Team Leads or Managers.
• You will not need your passport, proof of residence, not even your real name, but just the spirit and passion to join.
• Those with experience on Project IGI, Counter Strike genre of games are given higher preference.
• After the training, your put up "on-site" for sure, sometimes the training too is "on-site".
• Hands-on experience, on world's advanced technologies.
• Just a hint of information on your organization's activity will be a heartthrob for News media houses worldwide and will be the top priority on their broadcasts.
• However its just your luck or rather fate how long you survive depending on various factors such the area of posting, job description etc.
• Guess what, certain countries offer top class treatment, facilities, free food and shelter, healthcare,  world-wide media publicity and what not, you name it and you got it.
• Of course, in this job too there are one or two dream workplaces where, even if you get caught red-handed by the Police, you would be given everything as mentioned previously,under their protection and one can live longer.
• Surprisingly this is one the few jobs which guarantee you a long virtual life after your death because you might appear often on History Channel, for years.
• Depending on your "at-work skills", Wikipedia may even dedicate an exclusive page on your name with information right from about the first cloth that wiped your a** to the last cloth that covered your face, for the world to know.

With so many perks which no common man can imagine in their regular lives, no wonder its not a surprise that many, world-wide are silently realizing this potential avenue and preparing  themselves to be a part of it. Who knows, maybe in near future there will be universities offering degrees to master the pure art of terrorism.

"SOFT"ware Industry Practices

      ".......Ram : Hey buddy how's your work going about  ?

            Ravan : It's really on my nerves man, had to work at least 12 hours a day and on most weekends as well...this is ridiculous and initially I thought it was because of some project deadline......I'm not that stupid to still believe that eight months down the lane...but what to do....got used to it man!!!

              Ram : Yeah....same story with me as well man...I thought at least you would've something different and happy to say about it......"

            Does this conversation sound familiar?? Are you just one amongst the few in the software industry having experienced or have heard of such a situation ?? If your answer is  YES to any of these questions then welcome to this industry.

            Here are some industry practices which can be found quite familiar at many corporates in the software industry.

• Desktops, Laptops, Meeting rooms, White boards, Projectors and Engineers are all collectively called as RESOURCES.
• All the RESOURCES are taken for granted to be available for work, 24x7.
• RESOURCES asking questions citing the HR policies of the company are often marked.
• RESOURCES who are slogging throughout without questioning whatsoever are quoted as examples of VALUABLE resources and are eye-washed by being given appraisals (which should have normally been given as remuneration to all who clock extra hours at work).
• RESOURCES who speak of the facts and raise the relevant questions pertaining to project planning are considered to have attitude problems and team compatibility issues.
• Redundancy of doing the same work is termed as Quality check.
• Freshers are entitled to have training on umpteen technologies irrespective of whether they're going to work on it or not.
• The training period for the freshers will extend indefinitely until the company decides to  make them permanent.
• Switching from one company to another at any level of designation is a frequent affair and some even call it a necessity for career growth.
• Some RESOURCES take advantage of the various work policies like work from home or flexible timings etc to the worst extent (burying all work ethics) that the HRs would by no other choice curb those polices and put in place some stringent ones, making a deep impact (unpleasant of course) in the work environment paving a way for higher attrition rates even.

 The above list will be updated as more views and inputs flow in.