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

I was thinking the topic for my next post. Going through the usual forum posts at Zumbeel regarding job hunts I could not stop my self from smiling. After all I had found out something to write upon.

Sitting in this MSc of my company after exhaustive 14 hour activity my mind is going down memory lane. Just some months ago I was also going through the same uncertainty, extreme sense of despair and those canny moments of depression, ultimately leading to a negative mindset all together. Life could not have been much bad. It was 3 months since I have graduated and to land a job seems like reaching the moon. Scanning newspaper, dropping resumes on the website and going office to office to drop the CV simply looked waste of time, energy and resource. I used to wonder what will happen? Will I ever get a job? Is telecom really that saturated? And god knows what type of ifs, buts and coulds.

Then from absolutely nowhere sanity struck my mind. I took this situation as a challenge knowing the universal fact that the stars shine when it gets the darkest I started the hunt with a new resolve knowing not to never ever give up because the only person that can stop me is I alone and no one else. I prioritized things and tried to figure out that what I really wanted to achieve.

I was lucky to have found a mentor (name not mentioned on request) who really helped me focus and tried to help me find a direction. A lot of my career achievements I attribute to him, for the way he helped me in some of my craziest and ajeeb o ghareeb time.

Till to this date I wonder how luck usually plays around. From 5^th semester onwards I was fascinated by Mobilink and I always dreamt of starting my career with such a company. After completing my bachelors my very first interview was at one of the leading ISP (internet service provider) for their LDI operations. The team lead there took my first interview, followed by the manager. I cleared both the interviews and was offered a job. On 28^th December I was called for contract signing but due to the events that unfolded on 27^th December, the Malaysian management of that company went back to KL, thus my hiring was delayed indefinitely. I couldn’t believe it nor could I could have done anything in this regard.

It was second week of January when out of nowhere I got a call from the person who took my first interview at that ISP. He told me that he has switched to Mobilink WiMAX department (now known as Mobilink Infinity) and he wants me to be a part of his operations team here. I was literally shell shocked. Even in my wildest dreams I hadn’t imagined of such things to happen. So happily i gave the joining.

Bottom line is “you must knock on doors until your knuckles bleed.
Doors will slam in your face. You must pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and knock again. It’s the only way to achieve your goals in life.” (by anonymous).

Just weeks down the road a lot of fresh graduates will pass out with dreams and a lot of anticipation. Some will be lucky and will instantly get on board while others will have to go through a lot of tough time to land a job. Many guys will hear a lot about people getting hired on reference. I have already touched upon the types of references in my last post. Like any other thing reference is neither good nor bad, it the way it is used that lead people giving a judgment.

I would like to end by sharing the following:

“My favorite animal is the turtle. The reason is that in order for the turtle to move, it has to stick its neck out. There are going to be times in your life when you’re going to have to stick your neck out. There will be challenges and instead of hiding in a shell, you have to go out and meet them” (by anonymous).

Until next time,

Haris