IBM or Accenture

IBM or Accenture? TCS or Infy or Wipro? Satyam or Patni or CTS?

Many of us would face this problem. All these are big brands in India (or world) today. They cannot be compared on the basis of brand value. Though globally Accenture is into pure consulting and IBM is more into technology services, in India both carry out the same work as Infy or TCS. We will rule out the brand option completely though you can stick to Indian brands, which are well known names in Stock Market. Your would be father-in-law must have heard about Infy or Satyam, I mean getting a good bride/dowry may be easier for a Infy guy

Coming to Salary more or less they are equal and when it comes to salary the bigger question is location, money wise Infosys in Hyderabad would be a better option than
IBM in Banglore.

Visit our new siteJobSamiksha.com for updated salaries

Brand or Job profile

What do you look for in a Job? Would you work as a back office worker in McKinsey or Lehman just because it has a big brand or go for a small company where you get more responsibilities.

Remember the old Hindi song “Kuch to log kehege, logon ka kaam hain kehna”, never base your decision on what people say. If you are confident of your abilities and believe in yourself you should definitely go where you get better work and if you want to show off to others or job is just a part of your life you can pick a big brand. A cool job at a billion dollar company may earn you appreciation from your relatives or friends but create a hole in your job satisfaction.

Some of these outsourced jobs (from biggies) could be good ones, but most of these companies only carry off their backend IT operations in India.

Read what a pagalguy newbie had to say about Lehman’s Mumbai Operation

“Sometime back, Lehman opened an outsourcing hub in mumbai. They are now opening a front office to carry out front end operations and they’ve recruited people from the iits for the same purpose. I’ve been hired by the exotic derivatives pricing group and i’ll be working as an analyst. The HR in charge and the Lehman london guy who flew down to iitm told me that they are looking at developing good teams here. Lehman wants the mumbai office to grow and be on par with tokyo,london and ny. The mumbai guys will not however be working on the indian stock market. Lehman tokyo has also recruited 3 ppl from iit madras. Pay:100,000 us dollars per annum. They are supposedly disillusioned with the performance of iim grads. They have been recruiting from the iims for this particular job profile.”

And also read a nice article by S.Anand on his interview at Lehman Brothers( This one is for International Operations)

What matters for selection at Lehman Brothers.
The resume matters a lot. I filled mine with what looks ‘impressive’, and was shortlisted for both I-Banking and STR.
Lehman’s shortlisting parameters are: a good academic record, work experience in a reputed firm, and extra-curriculars — strictly in that order.
It helps to have a senior in the panel. (Manoj is from the IITs too.)
I think my work experience and prior travel to Japan worked in my favour too.
Read the full article at link

Confessions of a bond-breaker

A guy was asked in his interview with TCS whether having a bond of Rs. 50000 helps in retaining employees, his answer was straight forward “jisko jaana hain woh to jayega hi, having a bond or not doesn’t matter”. The guy was rejected in the interview; perhaps he did a good to himself by not joining a company which forces employees to stay using threat means like bond. But the case for having a employee bond cannot be ruled out completely, if there are employers who believe in exploiting employees there are disloyal employees too. It is fair for companies, which invest a lot in training to have a moral bond. But in no case it should be used as a means to torture employees, if you have a bond with your employer but you are not getting any work (on bench) or you are not happy with your work, it makes sense to leave. If you cant work/live happily with your present employer, your productivity would be low any way, making your employer unhappy.
I don’t recommend breaking a bond but in extreme cases if you wish to, understand the pros and cons well. There are several pros and cons, which are related to breaking bond:

Cons:
1) The employer may chase you to court, I have heard Satyam doing so, Infy has quite good policies in this regard, and they may not trouble you much. Indian law does not permit Bonded Labor; the case can be fought on the basis of money spent on training by employer. Companies, which have big training batches, can go to court, they may lose the case, but it can cost your time and energy. Be careful, as some employers have started viewing breaking bond as a serious offense. It does put a question mark on your resume.
2) You may require experience letter and relieving letter, which you may not get if you break a bond. You can require experience certificate when applying for VISA, MBA or admission to any foreign university. If you go for a job it may not be required, but if a company asks for reference from your old company, whom will look for? If you broke the bond, you cannot have good relations with them.
3) Third reason is more of ethical issues/professional behavior, you get back what you give, if you chose to break the bond today, tomorrow when you start your own company, your first employee may do the same (you have already set an example for him). And it is better to have good relations with everyone, you never know what help you may need in future.
Pros:
1) You can break free from something you never wanted to do, you don’t have to work just because you have a bond, all this can act as positive boost. Very similar to what happens after divorce.
2) Your new company may be prove to be your dream company.
3) Be careful and preserve your offer letter and pay slips, it can come handy when you are asked to prove your experience, imagine during an interview you are asked why the gap is there in your resume.

Last but not the least, please read the review of the company you are going to join at http://www.jobsamiksha.com.

Old Interview Tricks

This is one of the old articles i had written about interviews, we are going to come up with more MYTHBUSTERS

Are interviews a complete farce?

Every time i have been through a campus placement or walkin interview process, the feeling i had been led into was “interview results/process are arbitrary”. But they are not! What is wrong is the perception with which job interviews are seen. Atleast that is the case for software jobs.
Myth 1: Job selection process takes in the candidate having best knowledge/ability/other skills.
Fact: Companies never look for exceptionally talented employees. A good employee is one who likes his work, is sincere and a pleasure to work with. A employee will stick with the company not for money, but if he likes/enjoys the work he does. Job retention is very important for a software company so they will settle for a below average guy rather than a person who wants to go for MBA/MS.
Myth 2: The company with toughest technical round will give you the best technical/quality work you can get.
Fact: Technical interviews are there to know the level of your knowledge, but that is not important what is important here is “if you like a particular programming language you will have good knowledge of that language”. Only if you like C programming you will know the nuances of C language. Technical interviews are there to check your dedication to the work you do, which will be there only if you like the work.
Myth 3: If you have Comp Sc degree/B.Tech from IIT you hold a advantage over others.
Fact: This is completely false unless and until the company has a policy which binds it to take only Comp. Sc./IITians. The bottom line is if a company is allowing you to take the written test , it will take you regardless of your background. Some companies might require or recruit only grads from the big league colleges but that is more of pure HR policy than anything else.
Myth 4: You should a strong reason when you are going for a job shift
Fact: When you are leaving one company and going to another it is a disaster to the give the following reasons:
“I don’t like my BOSS”
“I don’t like the company culture”
“I don’t like the salary”
“I don’t like the city i am staying in”
“I don’t like to work with non-IITians”
“I don’t like to wear tie to office”
“I want to earn more money”
“I don’t like to work in a manufacturing sector”
“I don’t like to work in shifts”
“I need better work as i am intelligent”
“I don’t want to work in support projects”
It is better not to give any reasons for changing job rather than giving the above reasons.
The only reason why a company will take you is if it feels “you have the energy but you cannot utilize all your skills and potential in your present job”.
This is true when you are making a shift from non-comp sc. background to software industry. Never ever curse your previous employer/your branch of study/your department or anyone for that matter.
All this was DON’T now coming to DO:
1) Resume- Your resume speaks a lot about you. If it just mentions your educational background, it gives a impression you just want to get a job. If it is gives information about your career interests/objectives it shows what you want to do. Everyone wants to have a employee who is clear with his goals/career and what he wants to do. If you are not clear with what you want to do with your life spend some time in introspection. Just add these two sections to your resume if you don’t have.
Career Interest: To work in Enterprise Application development projects/ To work in development of editors/compilers.
Career Objective: To use my skills/work in challenging product development projects/To use my debugging skills to deliver world class products/To work in a challenging environment where my skills are used.
It could be anything but definitely something you want to do and something in which you have genuine interest. So that if they ask you questions you can easily prove your skills. NEVER LIE anywhere nor in resume nor interview. Try to include all the things you think would be important for a software company, that is quantitative/analytical skills.
2) Written Test- This is the easiest part as it is easy to get idea about written test from various sources.
3) Technical Interview- There is no shortcut to this stage. You will have to work on improving technical skills. If you like programming you will definitely do it and if you don’t like programming no point in going to software industry. You should mention something you know very well in your resume to avoid rejection in technical rounds. You must know about the project you are working on.
4) HR Interview -Getting rejected at this stage means something is wrong with your attitude/behavior or something else which you need to work on. You should tell what you want to do with your career in next 5 years. And how that matches with the company you are applying to.
DISCLAIMER:
Girls don’t need to do all this they can get any job anywhere.
I might have missed some points which are pretty obvious.
You can turn to me for any specific questions.