Posted on Friday 26th January 2007 by Alexis Leon
CONTENTS
Introduction
Selection Process
Technical Tests
Communications Skills
Presentation Skills
Suggested Reading
INTRODUCTION
This article contains a Plan of Action (POA) for finding a job. Getting your first job is not an easy task. But if you go about it methodically and persistently, you will succeed. You have the basic qualifications. You have the aptitude. At least, you think you have them. If you can convince your employer that you have the right qualifications and attitude, then you will have the job. But for doing that:
- You should know who your prospective employers are.
- You should know how to convince them.
Knowing which company could employ you is not an easy task. You may have to send in hundreds of resumes, before you get an interview call. But you have to start somewhere. The first step is preparing your resume. A good resume will get the first door open for you, or, in other words, it will get you past the initial screening. Then, you will have to use your technical and non-technical skills, personality, charm and whatever self-marketing abilities you have to get the job.
SELECTION PROCESS
Let us find out more about a typical selection process. You mail your resume to the organization(s). If you get past the initial screening, you are called in for the selection process. That is why a good resume is a very important weapon in your armory. A good resume is your self-advertisement campaign.
You have made an excellent resume. Now, the question is to whom to mail it. You should get a list of the addresses of the companies which could be your potential employers. The employment newsmagazines and newspapers will have job advertisements that match your profile and interests. You can get the company names from these sources and the can search the company web site for more details about the company. Get more details about companies like number of employees, software and hardware platforms used, recruitment processes and policies, etc. Take a ring binder and open a page for each company that you are interested in. Whenever some important news appears in the media about that company, add it to your file. Whenever you find a new company, add a new page in your file--which is why a ring-binder is useful. Arrange the companies in alphabetical order. If you do not have the right qualifications/experience for a particular company right now, but it seems to be a potential employer, mark it for the future and keep collecting information about it.
You can select the companies based on your areas of interest, regional preferences, etc. If you do not have excellent academic qualifications or exceptional track record, don’t choose the big companies, because most of the top companies, who recruit freshers, do it through campus interviews. Go to the organizations’ offices, meet the recruiting officers, hand in your resumes and hope for the best. Don’t get upset if you do not get a call letter in the first week or month. Be prepared for rejection. There will definitely be rejection, because you have got awesome competition to face. But never lose hope. Keep trying.
The Internet has a number of job sites, where you can submit your resume. But be selective in choosing the sites to which you submit your resume. We will discuss the use of Internet as a way to finding the job you want in another article.
Some companies conduct ‘Walk-in’ interviews. But, you will have to constantly read the newspapers to learn about these. Do attend them. Here, you will get a chance to prove your merit and aptitude, even if you don’t have good marks, or even if you haven’t qualified from a reputed institute. The basic aim of a ‘Walk-in’ interview is to discover talented people who could not be recruited through the usual channels. So, in a walk-in interview, you will be on your own, you won’t have your institution’s reputation to back you. You will be tested and judged on your merit and if you can convince them that you have ‘stuff’, you are in.
Now, we will see what are the different methods organizations employ to find out whether you are the person they want. These include:
- Aptitude tests
- Technical tests
- Group Discussions
- Presentations
- Technical and non-technical interviews
Most companies use if not all, a combination of these techniques. So, be prepared for all. How to prepare for the aptitude test is explained in the article Aptitude and Aptitude Tests. We will discuss how to attend an interview in another article. So that leaves us with Technical tests and Group Discussions (GDs).
TECHNICAL TESTS
Technical tests are conducted to find out the technical proficiency or the subject knowledge of the candidate in his field of expertise. There is only one way to do well in this test. Study well and know your subject well. You will have to show that you are current, up-to-date, and you know the subject... you know your stuff. If you have some contacts inside the company, find out what kind of technical tests they conduct. Are they objective or descriptive types or a combination? Find out the areas/subjects that are covered in the test, if you are not called for a test on a specific subject. For example, suppose you have applied for the position of a programmer in a software organization. Also suppose you are being tested for your knowledge in a specific skill, say ‘C programming’, concentrate on ‘C programming’, but also be prepared for questions on general topics like Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC), Software Engineering, RDBMS, etc. If you are not able to get any information about the nature of the test, be prepared for both objective and descriptive type questions. Most companies use the objective type questions to learn the range of your knowledge, and descriptive type to find out the depth of your knowledge. So, the initial portion will contain objective type multiple choice/fill-in the blanks/true or false, questions from every aspect of the subject and the latter part will have descriptive type questions like writing a program, or solving a problem, etc.
COMMUNICATIONS SKILLS
One of the important qualifications that you should have for a job in any profession is communication skills. You don’t have to be an orator who can speak like Mark Anthony or Martin Luther King Jr. But you should be able to put across your ideas comfortably. If you think you lack in communication, then work to improve it, because you won’t get a job without it. You may be a genius, but you have to make people realise that. For this, you need to communicate your ideas to them. So communication skills is a must. You can improve your communication skills by practice. Join a public speaking or effective communication course. Try to improve your vocabulary by reading good books. Talk to people. Don’t shy away from an opportunity to speak in public. Reading aloud, even though a simple technique can do wonders to your communication skills. So practice reading aloud for at least for 30 minutes a day.
GROUP DISCUSSIONS
Your communication skills and public speaking ability will come in very useful when you attend Group Discussions. Group Discussions (GDs) are of two types--controlled and uncontrolled. In the first version, that is, controlled GD, the candidates are divided into groups and given the subject for discussion. But you will be regulated by certain rules--everybody will be given a specific time for expressing his views and then there will be a common discussion and in the end each participant will be given a chance to summarize.
But in the uncontrolled version, there will be no such rules. You will be given a subject and will be asked to discuss it. Uncontrolled GDs, most of the times, resemble a battle. Everybody will be shouting at each other. Each person will be trying to get a chance to speak. The common misconception about GDs is that the person who make the most noise or shouts the loudest will win. This is definitely not the case; in a GD, there is no need to shout or fight. It is always better to remain calm. Initially, do not say anything. Watch the proceedings for sometime. Identify the noise makers and people who know something. Then take charge of the situation. Act as a moderator. Say something like ‘We will not reach a conclusion by shouting, why don’t we give him a chance.....’ Try to give your views in between.
Finally, make a concluding statement. But this won’t be easy. There will be others, who also want to do the same. So if your competition is too strong, don’t fight, but say something intelligent and relevant once in a while. This is better than shouting all the time. But never come out of a GD without saying something. Before going in for the actual GD, do a lot of mock sessions. It will do wonders for your confidence.
PRESENTATIONS
Both communication and presentation skills are essential for becoming successful in all professions. So, most of the companies include presentations as a part of their recruitment process. You will be asked to give a presentation on a subject of their choice or your preference. In most cases you can decide on the subject on which you want to make the presentation. The time allotted for the presentation will be between 5 to 10 minutes.
So before going for the interview you should be prepared for making presentations. Here also doing the homework is very important. Study and understand the subject that you are going to present, because you will have to answer questions at the end of the presentation. Rehearse a couple of time so that you get the hang of the subject and the time that you will take to complete the presentation. It should not be too lengthy or too short. Start with an introduction and end with a conclusion summarizing all the points that you have covered. Then you can ask the audience if they have any questions.
SUGGESTED READING
- The perfect presentation by Andrew Leigh and Michael Maynard (Arrow Business Books, 1993).
- Speak for yourself by John Campbell (BBC Books 1993).
- How to get your point across in 30 seconds - or less by Milo O. Frank (Simon & Schuster, 1986).
- The Public speaker’s Source book by Porchnow & Porchnow (Indus, 1977).
- Writing your own scripts and speeches by Suzan St Maur (McGraw Hill, 1991).
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