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India Employment Trends and Outlook – 2012

rajat@getsetresumes.com (Rajat) — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 12:38:40 +0000

According to the 2012 Employment Survey by well-known HR Services firm Ma Fio Randstad, the sectors publishing most jobs in the country in 2012 are Healthcare, Hospitality and IT/ITeS. These three sectors will together create more than 7.31 lakh new jobs in the country, out of the total 1.6 million new jobs estimated to be created in the organized sector this year.

The exact breakup of the top 3 sectors is as follows: Healthcare (273,571 jobs), Hospitality (230,213 jobs) and IT/ITES (227,328 jobs).

Apart from these, the other sectors optimistic about hiring in the year 2012 are Non-machinery Manufacturing (such as food and beverages, basic metal, fabricated metal, textiles, wood products, chemicals and rubber) and Media & entertainment. In terms of number of jobs expected to be created Manufacturing (non-machinery products), Media & entertainment and Real estate & construction sectors expect to add more than 1 lakh jobs each.

Designing the Perfect Resume - A Case

rajat@getsetresumes.com (Rajat) — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 19:49:34 +0000

Design: verb (used with object) - to plan and fashion artistically or skilfully.

Why we emphasise on the word designing rather than writing is because only a well-crafted resume will open up the gates to your potential employer. Almost 50% candidates are rejected for a job they deserve at the resume processing stage itself, because the resume is unable to highlight the true potential of the candidate. Of the 50% who go through to the interviews, 20% are those who the employer has almost selected in their minds based on the excellence reflected in the resume. The rest 80% (of the 50%) are grinded.

So when I talk about designing a resume, I mean planning carefully and crafting it so that every single piece of information is put where it should be and where an employer will come looking for. If you do that perfectly even in the worst of formats, your first round of interview will almost always be cleared.

Video Resumes in India

rajat@getsetresumes.com (Rajat) — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 20:53:53 +0000

I was recently approached with the idea of Video Resume implementation in India. Now this concept has gained a lot of ground in the western countries, especially the US and people are beginning to explore this new form of resume. But when it comes to India, I have my doubts. Below I have tried to put down some points which struck me while I was pondering over the thought of venturing into it. Some of them were discussed with HRs in leading organizations.

But first of all, what is a video resume? A video resume is your resume recorded on camera. Instead of your accomplishments on paper, in a video resume a candidate would dress up formally, sit/stand in front of a camera and begin a verbal essay on herself, who she is and why she is the best person for the job listing all her accomplishments, education and experiences in a 1-2 min video. You can make it as a very formal speech or you can include some parts of flash animation into it. Of course it should not be like Barney Stinson’s in How I Met Your Mother !

So, now we come to what I was talking about. What are the pros and cons of a video resume in India?

Control your Interview

rajat@getsetresumes.com (Rajat) — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 21:37:59 +0000

While your resume will surely get you your much anticipated interview call, how you conduct yourself in front of your interviewer is the key to getting yourself selected as an employee. A standard interview panel will generally be a single person from the very team you are going to work for; at times there may be two. The interview can be approached in two ways – aggressively or defensively.

A defensive approach would be to sit and wait for each question and reply to what is asked. If you are well versed with your subjects and you think you know the answers to all the questions being put forth, then being defensive is the better way to go. Easy to follow and no compulsive mistakes, just like a good obedient student.

An aggressive approach on the other hand would be to guide the interview, to drive it in the direction you wish to. You will need to be an active participant in such an interview rather than a passive interviewee. Because you will not only be answering the questions rather be engaging with the interviewer in solving his problem, the interview will take the form of a discussion rather than an interview. That is when the employer would have hired you in his mind already!

So, how do you give an aggressive interview?

Writing a good Statement of Purpose

rajat@getsetresumes.com (Rajat) — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 13:20:30 +0000

The question you should ask yourself before you begin writing your SOP or Essay is, “What is your college looking for”? More specifically, how is the admission committee going to select some and reject other candidates on the basis of this essay! From the hundreds of applications received, only a few will make through to the actual course. These few will comprise an elite mix of students who come from varied backgrounds and bring some form of talent to the class. Then, the main purpose of your essay becomes to portray yourself as a unique individual with some kind of innate flair which could benefit the whole class.

Each of the items in your application – relevant work experience, recommendations, extra-curricular achievements add an additional facet to your candidature. Your essay or SOP brings it to life by connecting all these pieces together. It, therefore, becomes your best chance of impressing the admissions panel and securing that coveted seat. In fact the college realizes its importance and that is why each essay is read by two to often four or five people before a decision is finally taken on whom to select and whom not.

So what are the main things you need to keep in mind when you write your Essay application or SOP? Read on…

Statement of Purpose

rajat@getsetresumes.com (Rajat) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:43:08 +0000

Recently we had the opportunity of assisting some professionals with their essays and SOPs for applying to some foreign universities. Needless to say, it was a great learning experience. I had written my own SOP when I applied to FMS in 2006 and then later in 2009 but writing an SOP on which your final admission depends, that too for someone else is completely different.

An SOP does strange things to you. You write a draft at night and sleep over it. Read it the next morning and everything looks absolutely silly. With my own SOP, there was a stark difference between the 2 versions (2006 and 2009), one was a long 600 word essay while the other a very crisp 300 word describing my ambitions. In both cases, my aspirations and goals were same but both looked equally trivial at this time in 2012!

So we closed my versions and wrote the new essays with a fresh mind. We wrote 7 essays in a span of around 10 days for 3 clients and got an above average (3.5-4/5) rating for all of them. Needless to say, we were satisfied and happy with our work. Now, I am no way an expert in this field, but from my experience, I’ll just share a few points on writing a decent SOP or essay for any college that you wish to apply for higher studies.

Questions for your Interviewer

rajat@getsetresumes.com (Rajat) — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 11:02:19 +0000

How serious you are for a job can be best gauged by your level of curiosity for it. This is understandable as when one seriously pursues something, be it a car or a girl, the first step is taken in the direction of knowing everything about it, i.e. the curiosity. For a job it is no different. Almost always, you will come across the question by the employer asking you “Do you have any questions for me?” Answering in the negative will in all probability be taken undesirably and may result in no further communication from the employer.

How to apply to Anonymous and Confidential Job Postings

rajat@getsetresumes.com (Rajat) — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 20:23:36 +0000

If have a profile at Naukri.com, Shine.com or TimesJobs or similar sites, you would know that hundreds of employers post job openings on these websites daily. Also, most of the job descriptions suggested for you fit your skill set perfectly. However many times it happens that employers post jobs anonymously. This not just creates a confusion your mind but also poses a hazard.

India Employment Trends - 2011

rajat@getsetresumes.com (Rajat) — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 10:36:17 +0000

55 Million Jobs by 2015

For those who are not aware, only 39 people out of every 100 in India is employed. If we take the rate at which population is rising, we would need at least 55 million more jobs to maintain only that ratio by 2015! These are the findings of CRISIL, a known house in the field of research. The study is based on a recently released National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) data on employment in India. Total employment includes jobs as well as self-employment.

Key Points of the survey

Make your LinkedIn Profile work for you

rajat@getsetresumes.com (Rajat) — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 19:54:33 +0000

As its population increases, LinkedIn will, not far from now, become the best place to source talent from.

You surely cannot afford to miss the LinkedIn bus and even when you catch it, you need to make sure you stand out. The question now is how to make this technology work for you. And the first step towards that is to have good looking and easily searchable (or SE Optimized) LinkedIn profile. Read on...

Indian HR Space and LinkedIn

rajat@getsetresumes.com (Rajat) — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 18:05:56 +0000

It will still take some time to come to terms with the effect Twitter is having in the Indian social networking sphere and whether the newly launched Google+ is actually capable of uprooting the loyalty of Facebook, but one thing I HAVE come to terms with is the effect LinkedIn is having in the Indian professional networking and Human Resource sphere!

LinkedIn boasts of 115.8 million users worldwide (August 2011) and in June 2011, LinkedIn had 33.9 million unique visitors, up 63% from last year. LinkedIn recently (July 2011) also became the 2nd largest US Social Networking site in the US, toppling MySpace. In India, LinkedIn has over 10 million users (June 2011) and this user base seems to be growing at a fast pace. 10 million is enough to kick start any new professional network and Indian companies surely are in no mood to miss this large talent pool.

Employment Outlook 2011

rajat@getsetresumes.com (Rajat) — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 10:36:43 +0000

The employment market shows signs of stability in Q2 of 2011-2012, according to a recent survey by a known HR Services Company in India. The report says that the July-September 2011 business quarter will see moderation or settling down as compared to rapid growth during the earlier quarters.

Qualification vs. Experience

rajat@getsetresumes.com (Rajat) — Mon, 18 Jul 2011 19:36:36 +0000

Open any newspaper and count the type of advertisements you find inside the most? Or just notice what industry do supplements circulated the maximum number of times along with newspapers, cater to? It’s higher education. As more and more students are ‘being pushed’ for higher education (in India or abroad), it is essential to understand the role of higher education vis-à-vis experience in creating a successful career growth path.

Cool Resumes vs. LinkedIn Profiles vs. Resumes that Sell

rajat@getsetresumes.com (Rajat) — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 11:04:44 +0000

Getting that job is undoubtedly the single most important thing in the mind of any professional looking for a change. How (s)he gets it, is the least important. Candidates today are much bolder in their approach towards employers and employment offers and at times do not flinch when posting their creative applications for jobs.

As I browse the internet, I see many articles being written on the use of creative resumes and linked in applications. Let’s try to understand how each of these approaches present your case for candidature to any employer.