The 4th Dimension

It has been a quite a tough few months considering the overall situation of the world. We being ‘global engineers’ have also been hit with the global recession. It’s not pleasant hearing about your friend or senior being a victim of the economic meltdown across the globe. However it’s in such times that we need to regroup ourselves and focus on new alternatives.

Among many alternatives available, one of them is to focus on the online world in parallel with the offline counterpart. With each passing day job search is getting tough. Gone are the days when we all use to find the Sunday papers loaded with career opportunities. Opportunities are still there but they are very scarce. They might not be advertised in the newspaper but they still appear on the World Wide Web. As you cover all the offline formalities for job hunts (scanning newspaper, dropping CVs etc.) are you keeping track of the online formalities as well?

We have to keep in mind that we live in changing times. Conventional notions are being replaced with dot net values with our career being no exception. The advent of technology has brought in many changes. In this fastest of times it is very important that you are ready to make spot on decisions. Many recruiters and hiring agents nowadays keep track of potential employees through the web space.

Your online profile on notable websites can act as a catalyst for your job search. There might not be many local success stories of the online world but you might be the next in line? Your online profile is more or less like your CV/Resume. As a CV reflects your personality in the offline world, your profile does the same in the web space.

Do spare some time and give your online profile a trim. Try to make it a bit professional. Be it Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin etc the chances of your future manager going through it is always there. Take an example of your display picture. It’s fun to have all types of pictures on your social networking profile but for career related sites such as Linkedin, it is important that your display picture is as professional as possible. A picture can tell a thousand stories, so try to figure out that what your picture is portraying you as? I am sure you will not like that despite your great career achievements, your display picture is reflecting your personality as a non serious person.

Keeping this in mind you can now see the presence of Zumbeel on Linkedin. For a start you can find career related articles here. But we hope to evolve it with the passage of time. You are encouraged to join and also share your views.

In last few days I was fortunate enough to attend some of the pilot sessions of Zumbeel where I had the chance to meet some of Pakistan telecoms finest brains. Talking to one of the senior guys regarding job search strategy for fresh entrants he was of the following opinion:

Telecom Operators/Vendors are always on the lookout for good resources. The problem with most graduates is that although they write a lot of stuff on the CVs but when it comes to the interview, they are absolutely clueless. Another trend these days is blind CV submission through job site, majority of people we interview are blank when asked about their source of information about the position against which they have applied. This shows lack of seriousness on part of candidates and at least we make it a point not to hire such people even if they are competent enough for the job.

Contents and overall presentation of the CV also counts a lot. For example, my company would never shortlist a candidate if his contact email address (written at top of the CV) is anything like “cool_nomi1982@….”. A professional organization expects professionally written CVs.

Universities (barring few) are also part of the problem. The kind of stuff they are teaching in Engineering is useless when it comes to real life scenarios. We are still a long way from the kind of collaboration that should exist between universities and the market.

Many might not endorse the above views but still some of the things pointed out are facts. I myself have observed people coming for interviews and answering that WiMAX and GSM are two names of the same technology. Phew

But nothing is lost yet. It’s a new year which means a new beginning. As someone so rightly said

The old year has gone. Let the dead past bury its own dead. The New Year has taken possession of the clock of time. All hail the duties and possibilities of the coming twelve months!

Just to sum it up!

Every man should be born again on the first day of January.  Start with a fresh page.  Take up one hole more in the buckle if necessary, or let down one, according to circumstances; but on the first of January let every man gird himself once more, with his face to the front, and take no interest in the things that were and are past.

Cheers

Haris

N.B: The following is the URL for Zumbeel @ Linkedin

http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=94494&trk=hb_side_g