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attitude towards learning

What is your attitude towards learning?

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On a few occasions, at the start of a training and learning workshop, I heard some very interesting comments from the participants which made me ponder over our attitude towards learning. Several years ago, I remember asking the participants a question (which was a wrong question to ask, as I realized later) – “why are you here? What do you expect out of this training workshop?” Some replied saying they wanted to learn; some said it was made mandatory, so they were there; some said they were sent by their managers. One person said he had nothing else meaningful to do and therefore he chose to come into the workshop. What an attitude towards learning! During another workshop – somewhat senior profile – I was about to start the workshop and many were busy on their blackberry and some were still catching up on their laptops. I requested them to keep those distractions aside so that we could get into some serious discussions. One of the participants came to me whispering that he was handling some crisis back at work and that he would be stepping in and out of the workshop. Where is the time to focus on learning? At times I heard participants saying that they could not come on the second day of the training program, as they did not realize that it was for two days. The reason for absence was that he was going on a holiday! And other reasons include guests at home, flight to catch, family function and so on. Ironically, many of them during their efforts to impress the interview panel would have mentioned ‘learning’ as their key strength. Some of their statements would include – “I am a quick learner”, “I am very curious learner”, “I am interested in any role that offers good learning opportunity” and so on… What happened to the learning aptitude over the years? What is making them give all kinds of excuses for not focusing on learning? Do they learn when there is an immediate urgency to learn? Let us discuss in detail in our next blog.  Article – “What is your attitude towards learning?”By: Dr.Raj, Published in HR Mirror, Hans India.Follow Dr.Raj on Twitter @drraj29

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Gearing Up For Placement Season

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“In many campuses, the format for the resume is standardised, leaving very little scope to be creative. Within the limitations, you can still make effort to differentiate yourself. You need to choose what to write in the limited space that will help you present your image better” Soon it is going to be placement season in most of the campuses. In many campuses, it starts in the next few months. Placement preparation among the outgoing students must have started already. Here are some important aspects that one may keep in mind to manage self during this placement season and fare well. What is the first step? Obviously many say that you will need a well-written resume’. I will say that even before you write a good resume, you need to ensure clarity of thought about your career.What you aspire to become in your career is important so that you can present your CV accordingly. In addition, what you write on the CV will resonate well with how you present yourself during the interview process. Writing your resume:  In many campuses, the format for the resume is standardised, leaving very little scope to be creative. Within the limitations, you can still make effort to differentiate yourself. You need to choose what to write in the limited space that will help you present your image better. One most important aspect is to check for yourself if you can stand by every word that you have written on your resume. You must be ready with your own examples, experiences to substantiate every statement that you make about yourself in the resume. Work on your physical and mental fitness:  The placement process is usually a short duration event, limited to a week. You need to be mentally and physically strong to cope with all the stress during this week. You might wonder why is it so stressful. Firstly, the tight schedules (sometimes stretching to the odd hours of the night) of the placement week do create physical stress. You need to be physically fit to cope with the strenuous process. More importantly, you need to work on your mental fitness. The selection process demands high degree of mental alertness. If you experience mental fatigue, it will surely affect your performance. Present yourself well:  Physical appearance is an important factor in creating high impact during a short interaction. Many students suddenly take to blazers and ties, which they were not used to earlier. When you are wearing something that is not your usual attire, it is common to feel uncomfortable and artificial. You will not know how to carry yourself in such formal dressing. It is better you start wearing formal wear much before the placement week and make yourself comfortable. Remember, a good dress adds to your confidence only if you are comfortable in it! Stay positive:  It is true that stakes are high during the placement week. You might consider this to be your gateway to realize career dreams. Such high stakes do create internal pressure and associated fears. What if I don’t get through a good company, what if the compensation is not good enough, what if I remain without a job? Such negative thoughts and fears will not help you in the process. Discipline your mind and keep your own expectations and fears under check. Develop thoughts that are more positive! Stay away from thinking too much about the consequences. Focus on your preparation and one interview at a time. Work on your confidence:  Your academic record and CV helps you in getting through the shortlisting. For the rest of the selection process, you need to carry a well-balanced confidence. Think of all the achievements that you have had so far in your life; keep telling yourself what you are good at; remember those challenges that you had successfully passed through. Such self-talk helps you in reinforcing confidence and self-belief. Your confidence will be seen in the way you walk, shake hands with the interview panel and the way you speak. Do not succumb to peer pressure: As you head closer to the placement week and more so during the placement process, you will see some of your peers coming out with flying colors. It is bound to mount pressure on you. If you succumb to the pressure, it will adversely affect your performance and may force you make wrong decisions of accepting offers that you never wanted to. Tell yourself ­ “my turn will come“! Finally, there is no better way than having a plan-B for your career. placement season should not be the end; there are opportunities beyond the week! This article was published in:  HR Mirror Hans India Follow us on Twitter @hrfootprints

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How to lay career foundations

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“When you are equipped with the clarity of your long-term goal along with the model behaviours, you are surely laying strong foundations to your career!”  Career and life planning are never easy. There is no one-way of going about it either! It is therefore interesting and intriguing to listen to varying perspectives about career foundations. Such diverse views naturally induce a sense of ambiguity leading to dilemmas as to what to do and not do. While there are many career dilemmas, let us discuss a few here. To plan career or not to plan: Some are of the view that career happens, you cannot make it. They believe that career is a series of opportunities that you choose to pick up as you pursue your journey. Such school of thought does not believe in setting long term goals and working towards them. Instead, they recommend constant vigil on the environment to spot every emerging opportunity and then assess if it is to your liking. For example, take the case of Dev who did his graduation in Biology, then moved over to do Chartered Accountancy and after a few years moved into HR role. It is hard to believe that all this was planned before. Dev kept constantly looking at what interests him at various stages of career and made the moves. Fortunately, all the moves worked for Dev. What if they didn’t? Concept of free will (the opportunity to decide at will what to do and take it as it comes by) sounds liberating in the first instance; however, it may end up as too much of trial and error which may derail career. As the popular saying goes, “If you don’t know where you want to go, you can take any road”. However, career and life are not so aimless, isn’t it? Such experimentation without a goal will not help in shaping the career. Let us revisit Dev’s case once again. After switching over to Chartered Accountancy from Biology, what if he did not succeed? Would it not be a waste of precious years? Several people are there who struggle to switch the tracks after initially starting somewhere. Some are able to do it successfully like Dev while many fail to make the switch. Therefore, it is prudent to think through as to what one wishes to do in the long-run and accordingly shape the career. The cynics may say that not all the plans will succeed. That is very true. However, that is not a good enough reason not to plan career at all. Here are the specific suggestions to resolve this dilemma: Believe that a long-term career goal is a good starting point. Remember that an appropriate career goal is one that should motivate you continuously; discover what drives you in your career. Develop a plan to work towards realizing the goal. One path may not take you to the goal; but that should not make you change your goal; pursue alternate paths. If the results do not seem to coming even after persistent efforts, be open to re-look at your goal. Seek external help if need be! To have a role model or not: Some achievers around us awe many of us. They inspire us so much so that we want to become like them. At the same time, there is a dilemma if one should have role models or one should evolve independently. Once again, the answer to this question is not a clear black and white. It is certainly good to identify a person or persons who inspire us. That will constantly motivate us. However, in my personal view, picking one person as the role model and wanting to become like him or her may not be desirable. Instead, look for the characteristics in them that you wish to emulate. In such a case, it is possible to have different people that you adore for different virtues. Instead of role models, you try capturing model behaviours. You will then emerge as an independent person with combined strength of all those characteristics. However, ensure that you emulate features that are beyond physical appearance. It is also important to ensure that the set of role models will guide you towards your long-term career goals. When you are equipped with the clarity of your long-term goal along with the model behaviours, you are surely laying strong foundations to your career! Article published in:  HR Mirror Hans India Follow us on Twitter @hrfootprints

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approaches to career

Many approaches and one career

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“While a job has so much of significance in our career and life, it is sometimes perplexing to see how people make career choices.” Everyone needs a job. Joblessness is unimaginable in our lives. Why do we need a job so badly? It could be due to the dire need to survive or to gain a social status to seek self-satisfaction. Those who are familiar with Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs can understand the human motivation and how it keeps a person aspiring different things at different levels. When a person is jobless, he or she is desperate to get some job to make a living. However, it will be interesting to watch the same person getting dissatisfied after sometime in the same job ­ despite making perhaps more money. That is because the nature of the need has changed from mere living to something else. Such is the un-saturating urge of the human being to search for something more than what one has. And job seems to be the vehicle to fulfill various needs and varying needs! While a job has so much of significance in our career and life, it is sometimes perplexing to see how people make career choices. There are many approaches to a career. Let me narrate the story of Ravindra, a person that I met recently. Ravindra completed an MCA (Master of Computer Applications) with no idea as to where it would land him in his career. It has been four years since he did that and to date, he is yet to get any break in career. With every passing year, his confidence is getting affected seriously. I asked him as to why he chose MCA and if had a liking to computer programming.  He replied, “People told me that MCA will get me a job“. My inquiry followed: “Then why are you still looking for your first job after four years? “ “I did some data entry job earlier, but didn’t like it. So I quit and joined another course“ “What was that?“ “Railway recruitment exam course, and other government jobs“ “Why did you change your track?“ “I thought a government job would be secure; but I could not crack it“ “So, urgently you need a job! Then why don’t you widen your choice to include any job beyond computers?“ “Since I did an MCA, it will be nice if I can have a computer job“ I understood how he was trapped in too many contradictions and made his career a complex affair. See below the different approaches to a person’s career. As you go through, you can see which approach Ravindra had adopted. Also, you may find an approach that you followed or likely to follow. You may then think of the pros and cons of your approach. Educational Approach: In this approach, people often follow a rule ­ “Because I did this course, I need to join such job“. They do not question if the course that they did is indeed the right one for their career. Enthusiasm Approach: Here, it is the energy and passion of the person that drives the career choice. If one can choose an employment that fulfills their passion, then it surely is a blessing. It may not be the most rewarding monetarily, yet can give you immense satisfaction. External environment Approach: At different times different industries become fashionable, offering employment opportunities. They may not last forever, but they create a buzz for a few years. Many tend to follow this buzz and make career choices. They may lose shine once the industry goes out of fashion. Envy Approach: Some people choose jobs with an idea of proving a point to someone. It might be a parent who challenged, it might be a friend who insulted or it might be someone who grew faster than you. They inspire career choices. Will the grit last longer? What happens once the envy wanes away? Emulation Approach: When you adore somebody and want to be like him or her, you may take up a job or profession that is similar to that of your hero or role model. The important question to consider here is “Will it fit your competence?“ Employment is for a living; but career is for fulfillment.  When you make a career choice, think of the long term! After all, switching careers is extremely challenging in our environment! Think about the aforementioned approaches when you are making the career choice. Also, remember that there are different perspectives to your career and what you achieve from it. This article was published in:  HR Mirror, Hans India  

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A Panorama of Gen Y

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This is a blog post shared by a Gen Y HR professional. At the request of the author, we are maintaining anonymity. How often have we come across people who are really difficult to deal with? As a Gen Y – I always thought that people are easy. Handling and dealing with people has got to be a cakewalk; until of course I had to deal with Gen X! I was just nineteen when I joined an MNC to work as an analyst – and I Dreamed! Dreamed Big! Dreamed to make it big in the corporate world. I still remember walking into my cubicle on the first day, trying to shift gears on my roundabout chair; opening my brand new company given laptop – and look around to find some really old looking people. My first encounter with a Gen X was when I walked up to my manager and started enquiring a lot about the project that I was assigned. He answered all my questions – in fact even asked me to refer a particular site to gain more info, but it was during that brief interval between my questions and his answers – that he nodded his head left to right and ‘oophed’; ‘You Gen Y….’ ; and I paused to look up at him – I dint know what Gen Y meant, and I definitely dint know that I was a Gen Y It took me a while to understand what Gen Y meant – and I personally took offence by my Manager’s comment, but I resolved to set it all right! I took up a key role in the project and worked on knowing its history and its current status – I was prepared for the upcoming meeting with the entire team; and when I got into the posh round table cabin – I was asked nothing, told nothing and do nothing. I went back to my seat wondering if I was supposed to be proactive and do some extra bit on the project – but then, this was a team project right? So I decided to approach a team member and find out what I can do about it.  He just looked at me head to toe and gave me a couple of Excel worksheets to work on – and I walked back to my cubicle – happy, that I managed to find some work – but that happiness lasted only until I realized those were time sheets – and I had to work on budgeted time of each individual. In the above case – I proactively researched and found a lot about the project I was going to work on – I was excited about playing a major role in the project – until of course I was given time sheets to work on.  Disappointed that I was, I still resolved to work on them and send it across – once I did; I had nothing to do but wait for people to give something to work on. Point here being – Gen Y might not have the patience to involve themselves in projects step by step – but we are capable of handling a huge project down from scratch. When we are under utilized and our potential is under cover – we get bogged down and look for other opportunities that can help us figure out the purpose behind our job. We are extremely ambitious, and we don’t believe in hard work – we believe in smart work; and we know that if we work smartly through – reaching the top is sure a cakewalk. More thoughts from the HR Geek the coming week; until then – my tip to Gen X – learn to unleash the potential in your Gen Y, better now before he quits to find an another job.

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