How to crack a job interview

People make a lot of mistakes while giving a job interview, and by the time realisation come it is too late.

Rosemary Haefner, vice president of human resources for CareerBuilder, said a successful interview is a presentation that marries the job-seeker's personality and professional experience to the needs of the hiring manager and the company. She recommends the following interview tips:

Do your research: Before the interview, research the company online by looking at their press room for recent company news, the "About Us" section for information about the company culture, and the list of products and services so you are familiar with all they do, Live Science reported.

Keep it upbeat: During the interview, stay positive and avoid bad-mouthing previous employers.

Prepare examples and ideas: Bring your resume to life by practicing specific anecdotes that highlight your accomplishments and the ways in which you dealt with challenges in your past roles. Be prepared to share ideas of what you would bring to the position.

The research was based on surveys of more than 3,000 hiring managers and human resources professionals.

Source : DC

UP to have 1cr unemployed youth by 2017: National Sample Survey Organization

For the Akhilesh Yadav government, the burgeoning unemployment problem comes as a daunting challenge. The 66th round of the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) report puts the projection of unemployed youth in Uttar Pradesh in the age group of 15-35 at whopping 1 crore by the end of the ongoing 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17). They will be in addition to the backlog of around 32 lakh unemployed, who are already in the queue awaiting their chance.

The grim reality urgently calls for a drastic shift in planning and development approach before it becomes unmanageable. The spiralling problem may snowball into widespread social unrest and dejection with far-reaching political repercussions. Chief minister Akhilesh Yadav represents a generational change and owes much to the youth, who voted him to power. So the change for youth largely depends on the government's ability to address the problem of unemployment, which remains the core issue for job-seeking young population.

What comes as a real shock is the decline of agriculture workers at an alarming pace. There was a net decline of 49 lakh agriculture workers in the last five years in Uttar Pradesh. The NSSO report shows that the number of total agriculture workers went down from 403 lakh in 2004-05 to 369 lakh in 2009-10 and 354 lakh in 2011-12.

So, at present, only 52.41% of the total workers are now engaged in the UP's agriculture sector. Earlier it used to be as high as 78%. There has been a constant decline in the number of agriculture workers, but the drop in their number was rapid in the last five years. The declining trend continues and this is expected to dwindle further by 5% in the current financial year.

This indicates the poor performance of the agriculture sector, which is the mainstay of the state's economy. The sector has grown at the rate of 3-4%, which is much below the overall potential of the state.

Reasons for this are many. The major contributory factor is that agriculture has become far more unproductive due to rising cost of inputs, particularly fertilisers and seeds, besides unpredictable weather conditions like floods and droughts. Adding to this are the small land holdings, which are shrinking every passing year. The result is that there are too many small and marginal farmers who are living below subsistence level. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) is another factor that has driven agriculture labourers towards construction work. However, those engaged with the scheme are also not deemed better-paid and thus most of them are forced to survive on meager income.

Analysing the trend, former director of Giri Institute of Development Studies, AK Singh, says: "The shift of labourers from agriculture is a good sign, provided the workers are paid well and lead a decent life." But this is not the case in most conditions as the decent work is available to only a minority of 9.72% workers. Incidentally, since 2004-05 their number has shown a marginal increase from 9% to 9.72%. On the other hand, the number of casual labourers has risen from 100 lakh to 160 lakh, which shows a sharp increase from 16.9% to 24%.

The dismal situation of job availability in UP is further evident by the fact findings of the NSSO. It states that the work participation rate in UP remains at 33.3%, while the total number of workers has gone up from 667 lakh in 2004-05 to 675 in 2011-12. Thus it shows that 67% workers either have to go without any work or have to fend themselves on pecuniary wages. They are not bracketed in decent job conditions that contain security covers like medical or other risk insurance.

The employment scenario further makes a depressing reading. The manufacturing sector, considered the corner stone of the economy, has grown at snail's pace of 1.64%. The number of workers employed in this sector has risen from 84 lakh in 2004-05 to just 86 lakh in 2011-12. However, if the base year is taken as 2009-10, then the sector shows a sharp increase from 72 lakh to 86 lakh in 2011-12. As against the total workers, the sector employs 12.75%.

Construction sector shows a continued increase but at a lower rate. It accounts for 12.64% of total work force. The numbers rose from 37 lakh in 2004-05 to 79 lakh in 2009-10 and to 85 lakh in 2011-12. Incidentally, this was the period was when the state witnessed a large number of construction activities like dalit memorials and parks under the Mayawati regime.

So, the structure of workforce in UP is undergoing a change in favour of non-agricultural sector. The proportion of workers employed in agriculture sector dropped to 11.5 percentage points during 1999-2012. The proportion of workers in manufacturing sector has shown a small increase of 1.64% points. Construction sector, however, recorded impressive gain of 8.8 percentage points in its share in workers. Services also show a modest gain. Thus it is only low paid informal sector employment which has been increasing in the state.

Ironically, the issue of unemployment remains a matter of misplaced priority. The growth pattern adopted is also not employment-oriented. The best example of this is of the agriculture, which has witnessed a sharp mechanisation. Industries are not coming and the emphasis is only large industries rather than small and medium scale, which have more job potential. The allied sectors of agriculture like horticulture, food processing, fisheries, dairy and poultry farming are just in infancy in the state despite having huge potential. In the face of the prevailing situation, unemployment dole makes no answer to the vexed problem of job crunch.

Source : TOI

OPPORTUNITY TO STUDY MBA IN DUBAI - PART TIME & WORK FULL TIME. ADMISSION OPEN FOR BBA, BTECH & B ARCH.

Study in one of the top  Universities

AMITY UNIVERSITY SPOT ADMISSION on Saturday, 20 July2013

Time: 11 am - 3 pm

Venue: Admission Overseas, 601,Topaz Building, Amrutha Hills, Panjagutta, Hyderabad.

Click Here & Register for the Event

CALL 8008422573 or 9959292323


Dubai campus:
Amity Dubai is offering to all the Indian Students 25% scholarship on the First year Tuition Fee for September 2013 Intake
Also to Continue the Scholarship, If the student maintains the CGPA 6.0 every year becomes eligible for another year 25% Scholarship
Amity has acquired 70000 sq. ft. space and is coming up with the much bigger campus in years time accommodating 5000 students (Press Release attached)
Please find attached MBA first Batch Concluding ceremony

You can also highlight the following for our Campuses like:

London
Centrally Located at London
Diploma & Extended Diploma awarded by ABP(Students enrolling for September 2013 intake gets 20% scholarship
Prestigious Degree awarded by Anglia Ruskin University (United Kingdom)
Affordable Tuition Fee
Free Laptop (Degree Students)

Singapore
Prestigious Degree awarded by Anglia Ruskin University (United Kingdom)
Cheapest MBA provider in Singapore
Student Placement record (Attached)
Free Laptop (Degree Students)

Mauritius
At Present in Mauritius there are 3 Universities and hundreds of college, Amity is One of the University out of three
Awarding Amity Institute of Higher Education Degree
Degree  & University is fully recognized by Tertiary Education Commission, Government of Mauritius
Bachelor (Full 3 Year Tuition fee: USD 5000)
Master’s (Full 2 Year Tuition Fee: USD 5000)
Free Laptop (Degree Students)
Students allowed to work Part time (20 Hours Per week)
No Visa Fee
No Transportation fee for student’s to use local transport system, once they are in Mauritius with the  Student ID Card
Very low Cost of Living (Rs. 13500-Rs. 17500) per month
Easy to get full time job on successful completion of the course

Ways to build-up your career from college days

Bunking college? Highly recommended! But only if you are using that time to do some learning outside the classroom…

On one of the TEDx talks, Sir Ken Robinson, a leading educational reformist, made a significant remark about the “linearity” of the current educational system: “… it starts here; you go through a track, and if you do everything right, you will end up set for the rest of your life.” This linearity is the most likely reason that you are in the college and the stream you are in right now.

Did you ever have a dream? Were you passionate about designing cars? Have you always dreamt of making a BIG social impact? When you were young, did you have amazing writing skills? You probably did. But, somehow, you landed up in an engineering college and your dreams have become a mere hobby, if not fully extinguished.

If you want a career in what you love doing, here's help. Your curriculum helps a little, even assuming you ended up in the right stream. Today, learning is more than just about concepts and curriculum. It is about keeping pace with trends, networking with the right people, and building your knowledge and skills in your area of interest. No better time than college to do this. Here are some pointers to get you back on the right track...

Network: Professional networking during college is a critical aspect of learning that most students miss out on! Building the right professional contacts during college makes it easy to get internships, find mentors and get a job in the field you love.

Events and conferences: Keep tabs on relevant events in your city and ensure you attend as many as possible. Apart from gaining new insights, events are the best place for you get to meet new people from diverse professions. Look out for TEDx events in your city. Chennai Open Coffee Club is a group where entrepreneurs and wannabe entrepreneurs meet every month.

Check out conferencealerts.com/india.htm which post updates on events and conferences regularly. Participating in the right groups on Linkedin and following newspapers will ensure you don't miss important ones. Make sure you meet at least five new people at every event you attend.

Five quick steps to network in a conference:

1) Introduce yourself.

2) Start a conversation with a smart question or a pre-prepared pitch.

3) Have a quick meaningful conversation.

4) Ask for their business card.

5) Be sure to follow up via e-mail.

Guest lectures in colleges: You have scores of guest lecturers and industry experts addressing you in college. Ensure you connect with them once their talk is over. Take notes during the talk if required, but ensure you have some feedback and questions when you approach them.

You've got to network like crazy! Make it a point to start a relationship with at least one new person every week and I don't mean dating!

Internships: Internships are the best way for you to gain practical exposure. The best part: 65 per cent of companies offer you a full-time job based on your performance during your internship. It also adds immense value to your profile. The important thing is to use internships as an experimenting platform. So, don't restrict yourself to internships in just one field. Look to do at least four internships through your college. With many companies offering virtual internships (work from home), you can do internships even when your college is not on vacation! Consider doing at least one internship in a start-up, the learning is immense.

Tips to get an internship:

Tap professional network: This is the best way. If you have built a good rapport with relevant professionals, check with them for possible internship opportunities.

Career section: Many companies list internship openings in the careers section on their site. For instance, Amazon has interesting internships for developers; find market research internships at Frost and Sullivan based on your stream.

Through portals: There are several portals that make it easier for you to get internships. You can check Twenty19.com, internshala.com and AIESEC (International internships)

Keep up with trends, build your knowledge: A curriculum can never keep up with the rate of change happening today. For an electronics engineering student, the best textbook may have information about the new technologies applied in iPhone 4, which it doesn't. Even if it did, it will be outdated. Keeping up with current trends and building your knowledge and skills around it will be extremely beneficial when you get out of college.

Subscribe to experts' blogs and sites: Experts in different areas maintain regularly updated blogs, which are a great source of valuable insights. For example, if you are interested in marketing and business, subscribe to Seth Godin's blog and MarketingProfs' newsletter. Check out Mashable and Techcrunch if you're a tech and social media is your cup of tea!

Linkedin Today: With this feature on linkedin.com, you get to read the most popular stories and articles from the leading news sources based on your interest. This is a fantastic tool to keep up with trends, build knowledge and gain perspective. You can subscribe for feeds based on the industry of your interest whether it is automobiles or fashion. You'll get the best stories from the most relevant and top-rated sources.

Twitter: Twitter is like the ultimate university where you can get the best insights and knowledge on any subject.The best way to make use of twitter is by following the right people and lists. Science geeks should follow Andrew Maynard (@2020science), a scientist who tweets about all the good stuff on his blog !

Tip: To find the right people and lists to follow on Twitter based on your interest, go to Listorious.com

Web Learning: Bored of listening to your professors? Access course lectures at IITs (nptel.iitm.ac.in) and international universities like MIT (www.ocwconsortium.org) for free. You can learn anything under the sun on the web. Codeacademy.com and W3Schools.com are great for learning how to code and for web development. Udemy.com and skillshare.com are platforms where anybody in the world can learn and teach.

Initiatives

Spend more time with meaningful initiatives. The best part is they will pay off in a BIG way! Here are couple of highly recommended ones:

Blogs: Maintain your own professional blog where you write articles related to your career passion. Write about latest trends, comment on articles you have read, your ideas and insights... Ensure you bring in your perspective in atleast some part of every blog entry that you make.

Volunteer: Volunteer for a cause that you believe in. NGOs are always on the lookout for reliable volunteers!

Bottomline: The amount of time you spend learning outside of your curriculum is directly proportional to how awesome your career will be!

************************************************** ***

Curriculum is always a few years, if not decades, out of date. Only by getting out can you get knowledge and skills that are current and useful. For example, I did the Google Summer of Code (internship) with mediawiki last year, and am an employee of the Wikimedia Foundation, where I help run Wikipedia, an amazing job with a huge impact. Would've never happened if I stuck to my “curriculum”. - YUVARAJ PANDIAN (He has now dropped out of college )

Most of what you learn at college is not what you apply in the corporate world. Focusing too much on studying things in the curriculum and not on learning things that help you in the real world would be a bad bet. I worked on a couple of projects for the visually challenged people during my second and third year of college and presented them in research conferences in the U.S. and Singapore. During my fourth year, I built a web app called Extragram, which now has users from more than 102 countries! These initiatives taught me a lot of lessons, which I apply as I build my start-up company. - KEVIN WILLIAM DAVID, Sairam College of Engineering

Internship programmes undoubtedly accelerate students' career paths. As a student, I interned with L&T where I built a TCP/IP stack ground up for their Patient Monitoring System. When I began applying what I had been studying till then, it led to a shift in perspective. I began taking my course more seriously. It changed everything; I began applying myself better in everything I did. - KISHORE A.K., Co-founder and CEO, Althea Systems

************************************************** ***

What employers want…

Signing up to be part of industry associations and forums is a great way to understand recent developments; it also gives you the opportunity to network. Students eventually work in an organisation where skills such as leadership, planning and a certain amount of risk-taking are essential. The best way to acquire these is to venture beyond textbooks and take part in activities such as industry forums, sports, technical and cultural challenges or be a part of associations where you have the opportunity to manage projects. - ABHAY SINGH, Director HR, Applied Materials India.

Learning through experiences and internships is often more engaging, relevant to current industry practices and gives students access to better resources. Most importantly, students get to be part of a realistic work environment and get a sense of working with a team, meeting pecific goals and deadlines and are encouraged to explore multiple avenues to arrive at a solution. They learn how to innovate in a lean, entrepreneurial and start-up environment. They learn how to work closely with customers and solve problems as well. - VIJAY ANAND, Vice President, India Development Center, Intuit

The Indian education system relies heavily on the marks in tests/exams. However, as an organisation, we look for attitude, passion, integrity, team spirit and a hunger to learn. These are not reflected in the marksheet. Organisations also use various methods to evaluate a candidate. Psychometric tests and behavioural models are some tools to better understand a candidate or employee's role fit in the organisation. Recently we were interviewing a candidate, a fresher, who was exceptionally smart and fit our requirements. When the interview ended, she was keen to show us her academic records. We said “no”. Marksheets do not tell us what we want to know about the candidate. Of course, they may be required later by HR for reference checks and other documentation formalities. - SHEKHAR SANYAL, Country Head, IET India

Source : Hindu

What keeps India's engineers unemployed

Somewhere between a fifth to a third of the million students graduating out of India's engineering colleges run the risk of being unemployed. Others will take jobs well below their technical qualifications in a market where there are few jobs for India's overflowing technical talent pool. Beset by a flood of institutes (offering a varying degree of education) and a shrinking market for their skills, India's engineers are struggling to subsist in an extremely challenging market.

According to multiple estimates, India trains around 1.5 million engineers, which is more than the US and China combined. However, two key industries hiring these engineers -- information technology and manufacturing -- are actually hiring fewer people than before.

For example, India's IT industry, a sponge for 50-75% of these engineers will hire 50,000 fewer people this year, according to Nasscom. Manufacturing, too, is facing a similar stasis, say HR consultants and skills evaluation firms.

According to data from AICTE, the regulator for technical education in India, there were 1,511 engineering colleges across India, graduating over 550,000 students back in 2006-07. Fuelled by fast growth, especially in the $110 billion outsourcing market, a raft of new colleges sprung up -- since then, the number of colleges and graduates have doubled.

Job problems...
Jobs have, however, failed to keep pace. "The entire ecosystem has been built around feeding the IT industry," says Kamal Karanth, managing director of Kelly Services, a global HR consultancy.

"But, the business model of IT companies has changed...customers are asking for more. The crisis is very real today." Placement numbers across institutes -- including tier-I colleges such as IIT Bombay -- have mirrored these struggles.

In 2012-13, in IIT Bombay, a total of 1,501 students opted to go through the placement process. At the time of writing, only 1,005 had been placed (placements are currently underway in the institute).

In 2011-12, 1,060 of the 1,389 students were placed. Further down the pecking order, at the Amity School of Engineering and Technology, placements are muted. The number of companies visiting is down from 86 last year to 67 in 2013 at the time of writing (placements are currently underway).

Batch sizes have reduced drastically at its Noida campus this year, with 365 students placed so far in a batch size of 459, compared to 1,032 being placed in a batch size of 1,160 last year.

"Some companies have delayed the joining dates of students who passed out last year and they are still waiting to be placed," says Ajay Rana, director, Amity Technical Placement Centre. "We can expect joining dates of students who passed out this year to be deferred by a minimum of six months."

...Trickle down
This muddled equation is now showing signs of social and economic strain across the country. Frustrated engineers are taking jobs for which they are overqualified and, therefore, underpaid.

A few exceptions have even turned to crime. According to media reports, Manjunath Reddy, a civil engineer, turned to chain snatching in Thane, a suburb of Mumbai, to support his young family. While he used some money to buy a small flat in peripheral Mumbai, his failure to net a job drove him to crime, he told the police when caught.

Like him, another engineer in Aurangabad turned to car lifting as a route to easy money. "The social aspect of this massive under-employment and unemployment will soon be witnessed," warns Pratik Kumar, HR chief of Wipro and chief executive of its infrastructure engineering unit.

Hiring is slowing down because recruiters are changing their strategy. "An engineering degree is a poor proxy for your education and employment skills," says Manish Sabharwal, chairman of TeamLease, a temp staffing firm.

"The world of work is evolving... employers increasingly don't care what you know, they focus on what you can do with that knowledge." While dozens of new institutes have been established in the past six or eight years, he claims that over a third of them are empty and perhaps they are "worth more dead (for the real estate they sit on) than alive."

A global economic slowdown may have only worsened what is already a bad problem, say others such as Amit Bansal, co-founder of Purple Leap, a skills assessment firm, which routinely gauges the capabilities of students across these institutes.

"Even without this slowdown, there are a large number of students who won't get a job," he says. Bansal estimates that, at best, there are 150,000-200,000 jobs generated annually in the Indian economy and far too many engineers attacking this labour pool.

What's more, India's technical talent pool is also warped, with almost the same number of engineers as technical graduates from institutes such as ITI. "In developed markets, there is usually one engineer for every ten," says Bansal. This skew is only compounding the woes of engineers in India.

Source: TOI

Fraud job syndicates target Reliance, Tata groups

Two of the country's biggest business conglomerates -- Cyrus Mistry-led Tatas and Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Group -- have become the target of fake job syndicates making fraudulent employment offers to gullible jobseekers in lieu of money.

After coming across several instances of such fraudulent job offers being made in their name, both the groups have warned of initiating strict civil and criminal actions against these fraudsters and have also issued separate public notices in this regard.

According to senior executives at some leading human resource consultants, they have been also approached by certain people claiming to be representatives of these groups and had asked them to arrange for potential candidates for numerous vacancies.

However, they got suspicious after they got to know that certain cash deposits were being demanded from the job applicants and they directly approached the internal HR departments of the respective groups, said head of a leading HR consultancy.

Subsequently, it was discovered that the job offers were being made by some fake employment syndicates looking to make quick bucks by promising lucrative postings at leading business groups like Reliance and Tatas, he said, while adding that the HR consultants have now become more vigilant for such frauds.

Previously, mostly IT companies have been hit by such frauds, which seek to take advantage of the people desperately looking for job offers.

Salt-to-software conglomerate Tata group, which has more than 4.5 lakh employees across its about 100 companies, said in its public notice that it has already lodged a complaint with the Delhi Police and Mumbai Police about such fraudulent actions.

Reliance Industries, which had a total workforce of 23,519 employees and 29,462 temporary as per its annual report, casual or contractual staff as on March 31, also said it would take possible civil and criminal actions "against such persons who indulge in such illegal activities and are responsible for causing such disrepute to RIL and its group companies".

The notice, issued by by RIL's HR Head, said that Reliance Industries and its group companies have come to know about some unauthorised persons making false and frivolous job offers at RIL and its group firms by demanding cash deposits in specified bank accounts.

The group said that such offers are "purportedly made to bring disrepute to RIL and its group companies" and asked the job seekers not to be misled by them.

At the same time, the RIL group also made a disclaimer that "RIL and its group companies shall not be responsible or liable for any loss that may be caused to any member of the public on account of their indulging into any sort of actions with such unscrupulous persons".

Tatas, in their notice, said that Tata Sons and other Tata companies have deployed a merit-based employee selection practice.

"We do not charge/accept any amount or security deposit from job seekers during the selection process or while inviting candidates for an interview.

"We have noticed that fake job offers in the name of companies like Tata Motors, Tata Consultancy Services and Tata AutoComp Systems and certain other Tata companies as well as fictitious entities like 'Tata Groups Limited', 'Tata India Limited' have been circulated by some unauthorised persons/fraudsters.

"Some fraudsters are using the names of Tata companies to solicit job applications and require the job seekers/ applicants to pay processing fees or deposit amount by sending false e-mails or by making fraudulent telephone calls."

Tatas also asked the jobseekers not to respond to any unsolicited or fraudulent job offers against payment of money.

"We shall not accept any liability towards the representation made in any fraudulent communication or its consequences and such fraudulent communication shall not be treated as any kind of offer or representation by any Tata company," Tata group said.

Suggesting some precautionary measures, Tatas said: "On receipt of an interview call for any job in any Tata company, the candidate may take some measures such as visiting the official web site of the concerned Tata company to get the contact details and enquire with the human resources department of such company about the interview details and other relevant information."

In another notice, Tatas said they have also come across instances of spam e-mails are being sent in the name of Tata Sons and other Tata companies with the intention of committing fraud and illegally obtaining confidential information and/or money from people.

Source : ET

  New visa restrictions of AUS to hurt Indian IT companies

Australia has followed the United States and Canada in tightening up its work visa programme, hurting Indian IT firms who now cannot place workers using the visas at client sites and must advertise in Australia to prove there is a genuine skill shortage.

Nomura expects the new rules to affect Indian IT companies' time and materials contracts and increase the amount of planning and time taken to obtain a visa. The companies will have to justify the number the number of visas required and provide workers on the visas with employment terms and conditions similar to those offered to Australian workers.

Infosys and Satyam, owned by Tech Mahindra, have the highest exposure to Australia, with about 8-9% of invoices coming from the continent, Nomura analyst Ashwin Mehta said in a note to clients.

Tata Consultancy Services has also been dragged into a visa row in Australia. A former employee was quoted by a local TV channel ABC as saying that TCS abused that country's work-visa scheme by not making an honest attempt to hire qualified local citizens, and instead bringing in Indian engineers on visa. TCS said those allegations were "completely false and inaccurate" and that it was fully compliant with the visa rules.

Australia moves mimic similar steps in Canada. The Canadian government also requires employers to pay employees on work visas at similar levels to Canadian employees and suspended the fast-track visa approval programme in April.

The Canadian government also increased its authority to suspend or revoke work permits and significantly increased visa fees.

US-headquartered IT servicing firm iGate, which receives 12% of its revenues from the Royal Bank of Canada, will be hit by the rule changes, Nomura said.

But those visa rule changes are a small matter compared to massive overhaul being contemplated in the Indian IT firms' largest market. Last week, the United States Senate approved several provisions that could completely change the IT firms' business models and slash their margins. IT firms have been hoping that the US House of Representatives version omits those provisions banning outplacement and sharply higher visa costs.

Nomura, which has a "reduce" target on Infosys and TCS, said it does not see the stocks pricing the rising risks from the US bill into their valuations.

The brokerage said it prefers HCL Technologies, Cognizant and Wipro on greater revenue and margins surety, less severe impact from the immigration bill and more reasonable valuations.

Things what Infosys, NIIT are doing to retain talent

The tough macroeconomic environment has prompted companies to enhance their focus on people in an attempt to retain and engage top talent. Companies like Citi India, Infosys, Maruti Suzuki, Essar Group, RPG, and NIIT, among others, have focused increasingly on innovative rewards and recognition, talent development, workplace bonding initiatives and family connect programmes to tide over the uncertainty and boost employee morale.

Citi India has redesigned its performance management strategies, in addition to introducing new career planning interventions and employee assistance programmes. Besides assessments of regular training sessions and workshops for managers, Citi made their online training programmes more robust.

It also introduced initiatives like 'career week' and a 'leader-teach-leader' series whereby senior executives coach employees through experiential learning exercises.

"We continued to invest in our leadership curriculum and also have created a reward strategy based on long-term goal achievements," says Anuranjita Kumar, country human resources officer, Citi India.

Last year, Infosys introduced an initiative called Pathfinder Next, an internal internship programme. Employees work on internal assignments that enable them to have access to opportunities across technology, business domains, service lines and support functions, choose opportunities that suit their career interests and have a platform to innovate and build new skills.

"The focus was on enhancing resource efficiencies and bridging skill gaps," says Richard Lobo, AVP and head - employee relations at Infosys. The re-skilling of employees has enabled companies to reduce cost and dependency on external hiring. Companies have implemented most of these measures over the past one to two years, even though the strategising has taken place over aperiod of time to address needs emerging out of the prolonged slowdown that started in 2008.

"The rigour in framing these policies and managing people went up manifold during the period starting 2009, because the penalty of making a mistake was much higher compared with the gain in being successful," says Nischae Suri, head, people and change practice, KPMG India.

Companies like Essar have consciously started using mentoring and reverse mentoring to address the needs of a multi-generation workforce of the future. "Creating a burning desire in minds of the young where they believe they have something significant remaining to be achieved, really makes people go for their goals," says Adil Malia, group president (HR), Essar Group.

Maruti went in for a change in strategy and decentralised its HR function, with dedicated HR teams attached to individual verticals. "This speeds up decision making, helps in evolving customised solutions and ensures faster feedback," says SY Siddiqui, chief operating officer, administration. Last year, the company enhanced focus on a programme called 'Parivaar Milan' where family members of employees visit their factories in groups, mostly on a Saturday.

Employees are invited to accompany their families during the day, wherein they show off their workplaces. Later, the heads of manufacturing, HR and other areas talk to the families about the company's plans and achievements in an informal setting.

RPG looked at organisational structure and head count for some of their key businesses through an internal taskforce, and made changes that resulted in a better economy for the company.

In one of its engineering businesses which was not doing well, for instance, the company set up a task force that suggested a complete overhaul of strategy. This included a look at new business areas, customer segment to target, and even the entire structure of the organisation (the HR aspect), says Arvind Agrawal, president - corporate development & HR, RPG Enterprises. Accordingly, certain divisions were merged and people were moved to where they were required and the roles they suited best in the new structure besides training people in new areas of expertise and hiring people wherever required.

The implementation has taken place over the past four to five months, and yielded a 15% to 20% reduction in people cost.

NIIT brought in the concept of Learning Cliniques, which includes handholding participants to help them make positive change in behaviour based on classroom learnings. Greater focus on leadership development has also been brought in, and talent mobility within the organisation became an important area of focus. It took up internal job postings on a war footing.

"We leveraged the multi-business nature of NIIT and were able to show long-term career paths to most NIITians within the company itself," says Shampi Venkatesh, chief people officer. The company also facilitated senior leadership connect and conversations with teams.

Source : TOI

  Defence ministry's new rule may hurt IT companies

A new defence ministry rule could slam the door shut on contracts worth billions of dollars between software companies and global arms manufacturers. Worried by the prospect, information technology firms are lobbying with the government to limit the damage that could be caused by the rule, which was introduced in May.

Ostensibly, the new rule was conceived after a defence procurement scandal allegedly involved funnelling kickbacks through fake contracts with software companies. Investigators in Italy and India claim that nearly Rs 400 crore in bribes were routed through IDS Infotech and Aeromatrix under the pretext of mandatory contracts that foreign defence suppliers must award to Indian firms. The main deal involved the Indian purchase of $600 million (Rs 3,600 crore) worth of AgustaWestland helicopters from a subsidiary of Italian company Finmeccanica.

"We fully understand the government's concerns that there is a need to track value addition in software because services are by nature intangible," said Som Mittal, the president of software industry grouping Nasscom. "We are working with the authorities to set up processes to track value-addition within software and services." On May 23, the defence ministry issued a memo holding all services-related offset in abeyance.

The defence ministry memo prevented companies from counting research and design, software testing and training as part of their offset requirement. The memo is apparently also aimed at promoting the indigenous Indian defence industry. It applies not just to software but all services.

The Indian IT industry could feel the pain severely because of tepid demand in its major markets — the US and Europe. "It's going to have a huge impact on Indian IT and engineering companies. Providing software and engineering services is really where India has made significant progress in the research and development value chain," said Dhiraj Mathur, executive director at consultancy Pricewaterhouse-Coopers. Mathur, who considered the memo a "bad idea" and "overkill", said it will take out the high end of the value chain from work that is eligible to be counted as a mandatory offset contract.

According to offset rules, any foreign company winning a defence contract over $60 million must spend at least 30 per cent of the contract value in procuring services or supplies from India as a means of encouraging transfer of critical technology to the country's fledgling defence sector. For companies such as Wipro, Tata Consultancy Services, HCL Technologies, Infotech Enterprises and Rolta, this represents an opportunity of about $10 billion (Rs 60,000 crore) this year, according Deloitte. It is forecast to increase to $18 billion by 2020.

While the controversial memo places all services-related offsets in abeyance, IT services companies said they have been assured that it affects only select contracts and not future deals. "Our understanding is that only contracts signed in 2011 will be in abeyance, and that contracts signed this year will not be affected," said BVR Mohan Reddy, chief executive officer at Hyderabad-based Infotech Enterprises, whose clients include Boeing.

Infotech is in talks with Dassault to become a technology partner for engineering, defencerelated business processes and IT services. The French company's Rafale jet has been chosen as the frontline combat aircraft for Indian Air Force. Reddy, who said Nasscom executives met defence ministry officials to present their case, hoped the issue would be resolved "in the next few months". Mittal, the president of Nasscom, declined comment on the meeting.

Defence ministry officials did not answer phone calls and emailed requests for views. Reddy said the ministry is looking at ways to monitor and value services that form part of the offset contracts. "Currently, firms only need to give an invoice. But they (the ministry) are looking at asking companies to provide more documentation of the work done. So you have to back up the invoice with proof of work."

A senior executive at HCL Technologies said the new regulation would have a negative impact on dealmaking. "In this kind of market, every bit counts."

Source : TOI