Soft Skills

Having mastered every art under the sun except the one your employer expects is futile. On the other hand, how would you know what he wants out of you? The key to this hassle is to treat employment as a dear relationship. It is synonymous to any other relationship in everyday life. If you stay true and don’t cheat, it is more likely to be reciprocated. This holds good in organizations too. With that being said,  what you would expect out of a relationship is just what your employer expects from you; Honesty/Integrity!

You might be very open-hearted and treat everyone with the same degree of affection. But you surely will hold a very few close to your heart. These are the few who get to know your darkest secrets and deepest sorrows, no matter what. What in them pushes you to such an extent of trusting them so much? It is “Integrity” that they exhibit. They are trustworthy, and they have proved it to you. This is exactly what any employer would anticipate from a job-seeker.

So, what’s the big deal about honesty? Why not technical expertise? It is simply because expertise can be developed without compromising on anything, but if Integrity is compromised, all is lost. That’s why!

Everyone knows which is good and which is not. Then why do we falter? The consequences of any act will surely influence your decision. But if you ask, “Do we think of the after-effects before we act?”, then the answer would be a “No” most of the time. Practically speaking, whatever you say is true until you get caught. But what if? What if you are caught? Take a moment away from reality to foresee. That should put you back on the path you should rightfully be treading.

Do what it takes for your employer to say you are dependable to such an extent that you don’t have to be watched. Integrity is not much about being true when your boss is around. It is much about how true you are behind his back. If he doesn’t see me being true, how is it going to help in getting a pay-hike, you might ask. Trust us, it works!

Spellbinder
Editorial Team
GSG

]]> http://www.getsetgrow.org/2010/08/why-honesty-pays-more/feed/ 0 http://www.getsetgrow.org/2010/07/10-tips-for-effective-time-management/ http://www.getsetgrow.org/2010/07/10-tips-for-effective-time-management/#comments Thu, 29 Jul 2010 07:42:47 +0000 Admin http://www.getsetgrow.org/?p=1203

“Today, be aware of how you are spending your 1, 440 beautiful moments and spend them wisely.”
- Anonymous.

Imagine going to bed at night with the thought of having completed all tasks that you had planned in the last 1440 seconds, how will that make you feel? Needless to say, it would give you another reason for a sound sleep. Unfortunately, in real life most of us might not get so lucky, given the multitude of activities in the day we run into. For sure, you might have already tagged your boss or supervisor as “A Poor Time Manager”. But have you ever given a thought about your time management skills?

Self Assessment to know if you are suffering from time management problems:

a.       Are you always on time for most of your work e.g. – going to college or office, completing assignments, attending meetings?
b.       Do you always complete 100% of your work or you always have a bit pending?
c.       Can you find everything you need quickly?
d.       Do you start your work on time and leave work too on time?
e.       Do you have time to do what you really want to do, for example –going trekking, fishing, travel?

If the answer to most of these is “no”, then this article is for you.

80/20 Principle: Pareto law: Do you know that 20% of your time produces 80% of your work, or that 20% of your work achieves 80% of results, or that 20% managers do 80% of the work? We can find examples of this everywhere. This also means that 80% of your time you should be productive and the remaining time can be for low priority work.

Here comes the ten tips.

1. Your daily activities need to be prioritized based on your goals and personal values.

2.  Maintain your Time Balance Sheet Everyday:

Example:

It will be a good idea to monitor your Time Balance Sheet Every week and reduce your “Deviated hours”

3. Set target for your time for all tasks:

• It is recommended to make a daily “To do” list and set target for each activity in your “To Do” list.
• You may even consider doing two things at a time wherever possible. However, make sure you don’t end up doing neither of the two.
• For complex and tedious tasks it may be a good idea to break tasks into minutes of ten.
• Leave time for correction, review and collation at the end.
• Learn to say “No” before committing to a task if needed.

4. Use Time Management tools: Setting alarms in Mobile Organizer, diary planner, Calendar etc. It may be a good idea to use checklist and split up jobs into “important”, “urgent”, etc. Despite all planning, sometime we may come under critical situations. In such cases we need to be clear and know what is at stake and change our plan accordingly.

5. Make use of transition time

What is a transition time? Transition time is the time between end of one activity and beginning of another. Example could be – waiting time for a doctor with whom you have an appointment, waiting time for a friend at the bus stop, etc. In our everyday life we may come across several such transition times. We may use the transition time to do other pending work like making a call to an important client, or replying to some email.

6. Concentration is the key! It is better to be alone for tasks that are complex and require complete attention.

7. Conquer procrastination! Remember, if you do not start, then you do not finish.

Self assessment to check if you suffer from procrastination syndrome:

a.       Do you start only when deadlines are near?
b.       Do you find it hard to get started?
c.       Are you always short of time for getting things started?
d.       Does the thought of trying to complete anything make you nervous?
e.       Have you done lots of things to be done that have been carried over from previous week?

8. Use proper space management!

It is estimated that 20% of a person’s daily time in a month are wasted for searching, rearranging and filing things. Do you recall how much time you spent in searching for “that email” from your supervisor? Try to reduce paper work and duplications wherever possible. Keep your working table or study table organized. It is better to keep things most important nearby and keep a log of location of critical files.

9. Avoid information overload, Remember too much information is “overkill”. Better to focus on limited information at any point of time.

10. Last but not the least; remember to apply your common sense at all times.

“Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.” – Buddha

Author
Rajat Pal
Editorial Team GSG & Project Manager in a reputed software company.

Fear is humane! Especially when you allow a job interview to decide the next five years (hopefully more) of your life, fear is one acceptable attribute. What more, it is the fear of failure that keeps many of us rebels going, doesn’t it? Here is to the ones who think job interviews are come-true nightmares.

Pulling off an interview can be made very simple. It all depends on how you look at it. Broadly classifying the notion of candidates,

a) Lethargic
b) Life or death

Taken in order, if you are one of those spoilt heirs and this job means nothing to you, then you perfectly fit into the first category. Life or death: typically middle class and you know this job is going to make a huge difference to your career and family. The first kind may do well without reading this. For the latter, this article will be very useful.  Interview patterns vary from technology to technology, profession to profession and company to company. Below are a generic set of guidelines for a personal interview. You may customize them based on suitability. We have given our views which are likely to be correct because we have gone through this not very long ago.

You could memorize them, that’s all about it. There are only certain questions and certain ways to ask them. But if you start studying for the interview, you will be tired long before you get hired. Provided that you want this job very dearly, here is a checklist that, if followed, would be an advantage. Interviews are so predictable, hence controllable.

1) Resume standards

A resume is the first impression the interviewer gets; They see it before they see you. An ideal resume has no complex words. Don’t use words which you are not familiar with. Avoid grammar and spelling mistakes which are surely bound to let you down. Too much capitalization and crowd of data will make your resume look like rags: avoid that too.

Read in detail about our resume/cv preparation guide.

2) Don’t be timid.

In an interview, always hold your head up high. It is your confidence in yourself that you should exhibit and not your weakness. Don’t let the interviewer take advantage of your desperation for this job. The only way to avoid this would be not being desperate. You know you need this job very much, but you don’t have to go down on your knees for that. Don’t try to gain his sympathy. Most employers themselves will not appreciate that.

3) Be confident, not arrogant.

It is widely misunderstood that being polite and being unassertive are the same. Likewise, arrogance and confidence too. If you stand for what you think is right, that is arrogance. Doing so without disrupting the interviewer’s point of view is confidence. Defend yourself with a smile, which should do the trick.

4) Show them you are capable:

Don’t oversell by boasting what you can do. Don’t undersell either, by failing to emphasize the fact that you have related skills.

5) Integrity/ Honesty

Here is the best part! Would you believe if I said I got hired because I said “I don’t know” to most of the questions? You would not, I wouldn’t either. What if I say “I don’t know, but I am willing to learn”? The point here is not only the willingness to learn, but accepting the fact that you don’t know something. Don’t waste the interviewer’s time by drooling over a question you can never answer. Tell him that and get over with it. If you are asked an awkward question, stick to the truth. Do not, at any cost, tamper the truth. You might end up screwing your opportunity.

6) Body Language

Body language is equally important as verbal communication; perhaps more. You might be watched even before you enter the room. A few tips to look good are:

Sit/stand/walk upright. Be relaxed with a neutral expression. Handshake should neither be a dead-man’s handshake nor a bone-crusher. It should be firm and vertical which denotes neither domination nor suppression, but respect. Most significantly, do not initiate the handshake. Wait for the interviewer.

Don’t clench your fist or teeth. You do that only at a battle, not at an interview. Wear clean, simple and pleasantly colored clothes. Don’t be too conscious about your tie if you are wearing one. If you know you will not be comfortable with a tie, don’t wear one at all.

Don’t have that cheeky and intriguing smile spread at all times. That can be very annoying. When speaking, lean slightly forward to say you are involved in the conversation, but do not rest your hands on the table. Remember that the table is put up only for the interviewer.

8 ) Enthusiasm

Enthusiasm is all about spreading your vibration to all around you. Certainly, it does not mean you should be jumping around holding hands, NO. You speak with genuine interest that your intonations send out the positive vibrations. If the interviewer is weak enough to raise his eyebrows, then you know you have impressed him. It is very easy to get carried away when you have a natural interest. Ensure at all times that you are speaking and not yelling.

9)Be Spontaneous

Spontaneity comes naturally with experience. It is not something you memorize and you can’t be spontaneous just by having all the answers at the tip of your tongue. Not worrying too much about it, and not stammering when you go wrong somewhere is more than enough to start with. Non-verbally, when you come in eye-contact with a person of the opposite sex too, don’t tend to turn away hastily. Don’t give them an impression that you are staring at them either. Turn away gracefully with a mild smile.

We strongly believe this will be of help in handling interview stress. I am sure you will have your own share of experiences. Do share them for the benefit of other readers. Don’t hesitate to ask any questions you might have. GSG team will be happy to answer them and help you in your career journey.

Spellbinder
Editorial Team,
GSG

It is the time of the year, yet again, when college dusks dawns on carefree minds. After high school, “What next?” is the unanswered question, year after year. We, at GSG, thought it would be thoughtful of us to share with this year’s baton holders, what we learned in our yesteryears. Here, we review the factors which we thought should be considered when choosing a college and course.

1) Assess your interests & Abilities
2) List courses & suitable colleges matching your interests
3) Sort them based on criteria:
i) Facilities
ii) Tuition Fee
iii) Exposure
4) Explore and evaluate the filtered results.
5) Implement

1) Assess:

What most of us do not understand is that the course currently not so in demand in terms of job openings, might not be the same by the time you complete the course. Here is where foresight comes into play. Analyze how the market would be, four years down the road than jumping to conclusions. Another mighty reason to choose a particular course should be your passion, and not because someone else was successful in that field. Mostly, it is the path less taken that might lead to great treasure.

For a list of different career options after 10th or +2

Refer Educational Institution stats for Top 10 colleges in Various streams

2010 Best Colleges in various streams by India Today survey

2) Narrow down:

People fall for this illusion that the prestige of the college will get them a job in the clouds. For a fact, the reputation of a college can only create more opportunities through campus interviews. It means that you can concentrate more on getting through these interviews than having to look for them. Recruiting companies too give these colleges priority, which adds to the advantage.

3) Sort them based on criteria:

i) Facilities:

Academics alone being of high standards, but physical and basic requirements not being up to the mark is of little value. This includes lab and equipment, playground, library and reference resources, internet, the quality of food, accommodation, sanitary and other health factors for residents. We live in a world that is highly aroused by the impact of media, and it becomes essential to look into the health of both, body and soul. Availability of sports and other recreation is mandatory to divert the stress productively.

ii) Tuition fee:

Most of the time, the famous college and highly demanded courses can be very hard on your budget. Some others re-order the priorities with the fees topping the rest. It is always good to look for the best you can get for what you can afford. Spending way beyond your capacity to get admitted to any college would be a pointless exercise because the opportunities can be created even otherwise.

iii) Exposure:

Though exposure and facilities go hand in hand, they are controversial at the same time too. The locality of the college influences many into choosing it. In reality, there are equal distractions as there is positive exposure. Getting along with others and cultivating a people managing capability can go a long way than education alone. Attitude is molded here, and that is what most employers are looking for, primarily, in a candidate. If that is set to the right note, rest can be acquired without much pain.

4) Explore and evaluate:

People fall for this illusion that the prestige of the college will get them a job in the skies. For a fact, the reputation of a college can only create more opportunities through campus interviews. Getting through the interview solely depends on how well you carry out yourself. So, if you have to miss out on a branded, five-star rated college due to some reason, don’t worry too much about it. You can do just as well without it. Focus on getting the most out of what you can afford, and with a touch of right attitude and perseverance, all will be well.

5) Implement:

In all the counseling wow that is under way, it is very easy to get lost. Keep in mind that no college will satisfy you in all ways. It is the impact of the shortfalls that matter most. You might have to compromise on certain aspects, which is natural, but it shouldn’t come down hard on you in the long run. To be focused on your decision, one of the best things to do would be to visit the college in person. Speak to the students there and get to know what it is really like. Don’t be too surprised if the website is nowhere near reality. After all, college websites and brochures are mainly for promoting the brighter side. At the end of the day, what real time experience you gain matters way more than what you hear (and barely remember) in the sophisticated classrooms. The priorities might not be the same for all, but how you approach each of the above factors remains the same. However your vision might be, don’t be a football of others’ opinions.

GSG wishes all its student readers, and even others too, whatever is best for them. Do post your comments and questions.

Spellbinder
Editorial Team,
GSG

Most of us are not familiar with the term “Software Testing“. We always think developers are the only people responsible for successful software. How many of us know that the software developed by developers is of little worth unless it is tested and proved error free? This very essential phase is called “Testing”, which involves “Verification” and “Validation” of the product.

The first barrier to a successful career in software testing is our attitude towards this field: we feel it is inferior. “What is testing, but playing with software?” is what even most developers think. Truth be told, there is nothing so inferior about testing to developing.

The testing team is technically called Q.A. ie; Quality Assurance. As the name says it all, it is these people who deliver the product, quality assured. Why this field is challenging than developing is because you will have to spot the area developers overlooked. As a matter of hard fact, developing primarily focuses on the brighter side of the project. They don’t deviate from their regular path of glory which they relive for years together, which is why developers don’t make good testers.

The very essential characteristics of a good tester would be:

–> understand customer perspective

–> Out of the box thinking

–> Domain knowledge

–> Basic manual testing strategies

Two basic testing methodologies are:

1) Manual Testing
2) Automated testing

Manual testing suggests testing without any tools involved. It is entirely manual, as the name says. Unlike in manual testing, some of the major tools used in automated testing are listed below.

1) QTP (Quick Test Professional)
2) Load Runner
3) Win Runner
4) QC

LIFE CYCLE OF SOFTWARE TESTING:

* Requirement gathering: Includes collecting requirements, functional specifications, and other necessary           documents.

* Obtain end dates for completion of testing.

* Identify resources and their responsibilities, required standards and processes.

* Identify application’s high risk area, prioritize testing, and determine scope and assumptions of testing

* Determine test strategy and types of testing to be used – Smoke, System, Performance etc

* Determine hardware and software requirements

* Determine test data requirements

* Divide the testing into various tasks

* Schedule testing process

* Create test cases: A test case is a document that describes an input, action, or event and an expected response, to determine if a feature of an application is working correctly.

* Review the test cases

* Finalize test environment and test data. Make sure the test environment is separated from development environment.

* Get and install software deliveries (basically the developed application)

* Perform tests using the test cases available

* Analyze and inform results

* The defect needs to be informed and assigned to programmers who can fix those.

* Track reported defects till closure

* Perform another cycle/s if needed : After the defects is fixed, the program needs to be re-tested, for the fix done and also to confirm that defect fixing has not injected some other defect.

* Update test cases, test environment, and test data through life cycle as per the change in requirements, if any.

What should a fresher do if he is impressed by testing?

1) Gain wide-spread knowledge on testing methodologies
2) Study blogs and websites which provide plenty of information for free.
3) Possibly get certified by an institute.

What are the recommended certifications?

1) Certified Associate in Software Testing (CAST)
2) Certified Associate in Software Quality (CASQ)

As the IT industry becomes more competitive, the ability for management to distinguish professional and skilled individuals in the field becomes mandatory. CAST Certification demonstrates a foundation-level understanding of quality testing principles and practices.

Acquiring the designation of CAST and CASQ indicate a professional level of competence in the principles and practices of software testing in the IT profession. Certified candidates become members of an acclaimed professional group, receiving recognition of their competence by business and professional associates, and are potentially prone to a more rapid career advancement.

Prerequisites checklist for CAST and CASQ:

To qualify for candidacy, each applicant must meet one of three prerequisites:

1. A 3-year degree or 4-year degree from an accredited college-level institution
2. A 2 year degree from an accredited college-level institution and 1 years experience in the information services field
3. Three years experience in the information services field

3) Certified Software Quality Analyst (CSQA)

Prerequisites:

To qualify for candidacy, each applicant must meet one of four prerequisites:

1. A 4 year degree from an accredited college-level institution and 2 years experience in the information services field
2. A 3 year degree from an accredited college-level institution and 3 years experience in the information services field
3. A 2 year degree from an accredited college-level institution and 4 years experience in the information services field
4. Six years experience in the information services field

4) Certified Software Tester (CSTE)

To qualify for candidacy, each applicant must meet one of four prerequisites:

1. A 4 year degree from an accredited college-level institution and 2 years experience in the information services field
2. A 3 year degree from an accredited college-level institution and 3 years experience in the information services field
3. A 2 year degree from an accredited college-level institution and 4 years experience in the information services field
4. Six years experience in the information services field

and Currently working, or having worked at any time within the past 18 months in the field covered by the certification.

Author
C.Vignesh

Vignesh is a Testing Engineer working in a reputed company at Chennai. He has years of experience in Software testing and development.

After we had a overwhelming response for the CLAT preparation post now this year we want to give you more inputs and help you in a better way. As a part of that we will publish questions from current affairs, GK etc that will help you a lot for your CLAT 2010 preparation. These Questions are compiled by Aditya Singh who is CLAT 2008 All India Rank 76 holder

Here is this week’s GK and Current Affairs 2 Quiz  with 5 questions.

We will keep posting more questions every week.  Keep visiting. Happy Quizzing!

Sridhar Vembu, CEO,  Zoho Corporation.

Forbes quoted him as “Smartest Unknown Indian Entrepreneur”. He is unorthodox: it is pretty common to be so. He is frugal: typically Indian middle class. He is both, which might be why Marc Benioff is afraid of him and Mike Moritz wants to invest in him. By turning them down, he has proved his passion to be unbound. He was quoted saying “Freedom is delicious”, and rightly said too. We are certain most of you would not have heard of Sridhar, but you will surely be influenced once you start reading, just as we did. He is, yet another successful entrepreneur in his chosen, less trodden path.

GSG Team had an exclusive interview with Sridhar Vembu, CEO, Zoho Corporation. Zoho Corp formerly AdventNet is an Indian start-up was started in 1996. It has three divisions Web NMS, ManageEngine, and Zoho.com. Zoho is the online collaborative and productivity applications suite which competes with Google Docs, Microsoft Office, Salesforce.com and a lot of biggies in the market. ManageEngine is the IT Management Software division which is trusted by IBM, Infosys, NASA, US Army and many more. Web NMS, the first product of Zoho Corp, has had its impact on networking giant CISCO, NOKIA, Sony-Ericsson, Motorola and quite some others.

GSG team had the privilege of interviewing Sridhar. He talks about his childhood, college life, his mentors, Zoho and it’s future.

1. We have not heard much about your family background and childhood days.  What was your state of mind, dream and primary goal as a student?

I was born in a small village called Umayalpuram, which is in Tanjavur district in Tamil Nadu, India. It was the custom at that time (and still the custom in most rural areas in India), I was born in the home of my maternal grandparents.  My parents were from a rural background, and had moved to Chennai a few years before I was born. I grew up in Chennai but spent every summer and many major holidays in my father’s village, so I had an early exposure to both urban and rural India.  I attended fairly modest free government-supported schools in Chennai, was educated in Tamil medium until my 10th standard, with English as the second language. Until I reached 8th standard, we used to sit on the floor, because our school could not afford benches. I still see many such schools – in fact, my guess would be that majority of Indian kids attend such schools, so it was not unusual.

The best part about my schooling was that there was no homework – I never had homework through my entire school years. There were periodic tests, and I had the habit of studying just the night before the test, which was adequate because I had fairly good memory. This meant I had a lot of free time, which was devoted to reading and sports – I was an avid reader of Tamil magazines, novels and political commentary and I played a lot of street cricket. Even at a young age, I was well informed about Indian politics. For example, I hated the state of emergency that Indira Gandhi had imposed in 1975, and I remember passionately supporting the Janata Party in 1977 which came together to unseat her, to the extent of going around my village in a bicycle to campaign for them – I was 9 years old at that time.

When I was a school kid, I used to aspire to be a scientist some day, but that was some distant goal, not something I thought about much. More than any particular life goal, I had passionate views on things I witnessed as a kid – for example, un-touch ability, which was still practiced in rural areas, and the fact that Hindu widows were treated as second-class citizens. I felt those were fundamentally unfair and unjust. I could also feel the contradiction of our textbooks teaching us that un-touchability was evil, read about Mahatma Gandhi’s teachings, yet see this evil practiced.

Around 14, I started to ask a lot of questions about poverty. I remember pestering some school teachers with “Why do they say India is a very poor country? Why are we so poor?” The standard answer would be “Population” or “Lack of natural resources” or even “We need a communist revolution” (some of my teachers really believed a revolution was coming, this was around 1982), none of which really satisfied me. I remember challenging one of my revolution-is-coming teachers with “If the revolution makes us all government servants, which is what you say would happen, wouldn’t everything be as inefficient as government offices or the telephone department or Electricity Board or the Railways? So why would such a revolution be good?” He would give a vague answer like “We would develop a new socialist consciousness” or such thing. But he enjoyed debating with me, he did encourage me to think for myself, and not accept statements made by authority, which was a good early lesson in life.

As a result of my fairly good memory as a kid, I did really well academically, so I was a favorite of my teachers. One of my middle school teachers had a significant influence, because she took a special interest in me, and pushed me to work harder. I had a mixture of fear and respect for her, and sometimes would resent her for pushing me hard,  attempted to rebel a couple of times, but too afraid to carry it out. Being a favorite of teachers is not often fun! One of my neighbors took a special interest in me, and he would tell me I should aim to get the top rank in the 10th standard state-wide public examinations. He was the one who planted that idea, and in 10th standard I worked harder than my usual level to get to that goal; in the end I got to 4th rank, which was disappointing. I remember feeling down about it for some time, but then my parents, who never had big expectations, cheered me up.

During my 11th standard, my school attracted an influx of “good” or “serious” students (because my school got a state rank in the 10th standard exams!), and one of them challenged me with “If you are so good, you should attempt the IIT entrance exams, and I bet you won’t do as well as you did in the 10th exams.” I didn’t know what IIT was at that time, but feeling challenged, I enrolled in a coaching class along with some of those “serious” students who had joined my school. That was when I discovered that my education until that date wasn’t that great, because the mathematics and physics problems were so hard. I slowly made headway, and I ended up doing well in IIT JEE, getting admitted to IIT Madras. In IIT, I was mostly an unmotivated student, cramming just the night before exams, settling for a respectable grade, without having to work too hard. One reason I was fairly unmotivated as a student was that the faculty in IIT was worse than I thought, given its billing as the best institution in India and the system simply didn’t challenge the bright students it had taken. The best things I remember about IIT were political and philosophical debates with some very smart friends, and an article I wrote in the student newspaper asking if IITs were worth funding for the government because most of the faculty were not very good, most students were not very challenged, and most anyway went abroad, so why should the government subsidize all this when there were other pressing problems in India?

After IIT, I went to Princeton University to get a PhD in Electrical Engineering, with the intention of becoming a Professor eventually. My Princeton years were fairly boring and sometimes lonely (new country, new culture), other than meeting my soon-to-be wife, which was the most enjoyable part of it! I came to Princeton with a dream of becoming a Professor, but during the course of my work, discovered that I had serious differences of opinion with the state of academic research in my area, as well as broader academia. When I was finally done with my PhD, which was highly abstract and theoretical (and increasingly out of touch with reality), I resolved to myself to seek employment as an engineer, and do something practically useful.

2. Who,  would you say, influenced you in defending your dreams and pushing your limits further?

I had many influences, starting with my middle school teacher who pushed me hard, my high school communist teacher who I vigorously debated. In IIT, I remember hitting the library to read authors like Bertrand Russel, George Orwell and Ayn Rand, none of which were part of any syllabus or official course of course, which meant it was really interesting! I spent more time with such books than any official text book in Electrical Engineering. The one benefit of all that eclectic reading was that I learned the habit of thinking clearly about a problem.

After finishing my PhD, I joined Qualcomm in 1994, which proved be a very stimulating environment. I enjoyed working with many outstanding engineers, whose talents impressed me, inspired me. and often humbled me. I felt challenged, and worked hard to learn. I stayed only 2 years in Qualcomm, but I learned more in those 2 years than I had in the previous 5 years of academia.

One of my big inspirations is Dr. Andrew Viterbi, a co-founder of Qualcomm, who has had an outstanding career as a professor, technologist, inventor and businessman.

3. What motivated you to become an Entrepreneur?

My brother Kumar joined Qualcomm as a software engineer in late 1994, because he wanted to be close to me, and because I told him Qualcomm was a great place to work. He had worked in India as a software engineer, and around 1995, we would discuss ways to do something in India.  After achieving some degree of personal prosperity – I was always frugal, so my needs were fairly modest – I remember feeling “My destiny is not to live the good life now, I have to do something in India.” It always bothered me that we are so poor in India, and by 1995, I had a good idea that business and enterprise were the key to prosperity. While I had a really good job, and enjoyed the work, this gnawing feeling about India made me take the plunge, rather than keep thinking about it.

4. What are your suggestions for students who are caught between onsite opportunity and Higher Education?

I don’t know why these two are the only choices! There are other choices too – like working in a good company, starting your own thing etc. A lot of “onsite opportunity”, unfortunately, is fairly boring outsourced work, so be careful what you aim for. On higher education, read my response to the next question!

5. Is Higher education(phd) a must to become an entrepreneur?

Absolutely not. Take the top entrepreneurs in technology: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, Michael Dell and Mark Zuckerburg. They are very different people who built very different companies, but one thing common among them is that none of them finished college.

6. What, in your life, would you say was a failure?

I consider my PhD to be a failure, though I published the requisite papers in the requisite prestigious journals, completed the dissertation and so on. One thing I learned early on was to think clearly and face reality head on rather than deny it to myself, and once I made a somewhat belated realization that my PhD was a failure, I resolved to not stay in academia as faculty (which was the natural and expected path until then), and changed my path. I consider that to be one of the best decisions I made in my life.

7. Tell us little about Zoho Corp and the story behind the name zoho?

Zoho Corp used to be known as AdventNet, which itself had its modest start in 1996. The two most important contributors to its early success were Tony Thomas and my brother Kumar; Tony had envisioned and implemented early product ideas that made us money, and Kumar set up our engineering organization in India which is the core of the company to this day. The Zoho name was suggested by Raju Vegesna, who serves as the Zoho evangelist. He persuaded me to purchase the domain for $5000 in 2003 in spite of my initial reluctance. Little did I realize at that time that we would end up changing our name to Zoho Corporation, which we did in 2009.

8. What are your dreams and plans in the future for Zoho?

We will continue our tradition of investing heavily in engineering R&D. We hope to introduce interesting new products, to address a variety of customer needs. With the continued growth of the company, I feel fortunate that we can attempt many interesting projects, which excites the engineer in me. One thing we don’t plan on doing is to take the company public, which I believe will destroy our freedom to do interesting things.

9. When we had an opportunity to talk with one of your employee, we asked what interests him to work in Zoho Corp? He said, ” We have an excellent work culture and environment which keeps us going. I can say, with no doubt, this is one of the best places to work.” What do you say about this?

Wow, I hope we are not brainwashing that much!

Seriously, I hope we can keep it that way. That is a challenge as we grow. That is one of the challenges that I worry about. It is all too easy to become a soulless bureaucracy.

10. We also heard some of your employees say, “More than an employer-employee relationship, Sridhar is very concerned about the welfare of every individual.” Is it because you personally feel a gentle human touch can make miracles than enforcing laws? How well is it working for the organization?

What is an organization? It is a community of people who come together for a common purpose. If we don’t have that community, if we don’t have a sense of belonging, it is merely a place we go to work. In such a place, there is no soul, no spirit, no passion, and as I like to say “God has left the temple.” We have to make a profit, because without it we will not survive as an organization, unless we expect deeply immoral actions like getting bailed out by tax papers. To make an honest profit, we have to serve customers. We have a commercial motive, because I consider commerce to be one of the key enablers of culture and civilization. By figuring out and serving a customer need, we become better people.

*****

It  was a great honour for GSG Team to write about him and we would like to seize this opportunity to, not only thank him for his time, but also to wish him and his organization a great and successful journey.

Geology is the scientific study of the Earth. The field of geology encompasses the study of the composition, structure, physical properties, dynamics, and history of Earth and the processes by which they are formed, moved, and changed. The field is a major academic discipline and is also important for mineral and hydrocarbon exploration and extraction, knowledge about and mitigation of natural hazards, some engineering fields, and understanding  past climates and environments.

The application  of geology is seen in everyday life. All around of us we see hills and valleys, rivers, seas and coastlines, rocks and soils . Geology tells why these things are there and how they are formed.

Some of the branches of Geology are:

Physical Geology (Study of Physical forms, physical processes of earth)

Mineralogy  (Study of Minerals)

Petrology (Study of Rocks)

Structural Geology  (Study of structure of the earth)

Palaeontology  ( Study of fossils)

Stratigraphy (Study of geological strata and establishing order of superposition)

Geochronology (Measurement of geological time)

Mining Geology

Petroleum Geology

Geochemistry

Geophysics

Hydrogeology (Study of ground water)

Seismology (Study of earthquakes)

Volcanolgy (Study of Volanoes)

Marine Geology

Specialisation can be done  in any of the above fields.

Now there is a scarcity for geologists. Recently the Secretary, Ministry of Mines, Government of India  stated that  there is a requirement of 300 geologists  a year but the availability is less than 100.  The Central Government has plans to introduce reforms in mining sector to attract huge investments. The job prospects for geologists in the private sector is going to increase  when the New National Mineral Policy  is implemented.     The Secretary General of Federation of Indian Mineral Industries  has stated that the shortage of geologists is not only in India but also world-wide. Hence there is good scope for geologists in the country as well as in other countries.

Job opportunities in Geology

Post Graduates (M Sc/M Tech) in Geology or Applied Geology have openings in Government Departments, Public Sector Undertakings, Universities and Private companies some of which are described below:

1. 1. Geological Survey of India, GSI,  (Under Ministry of Mines):

Recruits Geologists in the grade of Junior Geologist (Group A, Gazetted) and Assistant Geologist (Group B, Gazetted) through Geologist’s Exam conducted by UPSC.

1. 2. Central Ground Water Board, CGWB, (Under Ministry of Agriculture):

Recruits Hydrogeologists in the grade of Junior Hydrogeologist (Group A, Gazetted) and Assistant Hydrogeologist (Group B, Gazetted) through Geologist’s Exam conducted by UPSC.

1. 3. Atomic Minerals Division, AMD, (Under Department of Atomic Energy):

Recruits Geologists in the grade of Geologists (Group A, Gazetted) through their own recruitment examinations.

1. Postgraduates in Geo informatics  can be absorbed in  NRSA(National Remote Sensing Agency),   Hyderabad and Remote Sensing  Departments of State Governments.

1. Students with specialization in Marine Geology (MSc) can opt a career in NIO (National Institute of Oceanography), Goa.

Pay Scale: Group A posts carry the pay scale of Rs.15600-39100 with grade pay Rs.5400 (Pay band -3) at the entry level.

Group B posts carry the pay scale of Rs.9300-34800 with grade pay Rs.4800 (Pay band -2) in the beginning.

Government undertakings like ONGC, National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) and Coal India Limited (CIL) recruit Geologists through their own examinations.

Department of Mines and Geology and Ground Water departments of State Governments recruit Geologists / Hydro-geologists through State PSC examinations.

Private Companies engaged in mineral exploration, oil exploration and mining industry recruit geologists.

Geologists who are interested in environmental sciences can work  as consultants in the field of environmental compliance.

The students interested in teaching and research can join Universities or  IITs. A doctorate degree in Geology or Applied Geology is essential for teaching posts in Universities and IITs.

Author,
K.Kumaran
Director,
Marine & Coastal Surveys Division,
Geological Survey of India

Gayatri College of BioMedical Science, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India. conducts entrance examination(ASEE 2010) for Admission and Scholarship on 18th April, 2010 for Professional courses.

Eligibility Criteria

Courses of study &           Eligibility Criteria

M.Sc. Biotechnology

B.Sc. Biotech/CBZ or equivalent with   >=55% marks



M.Sc. Pharmaceutical Chemistry

B.Sc. CBZ/ PCM or equivalent with   >=50% marks



M.Sc. Microbiology

B.Sc. Microbiology/CBZ or equivalent   with >=50% marks



B.Sc. Biotechnology (with   CBZ)

10+2 with PCB with >=45% marks in   aggregate



*M.Sc. Chemistry
 *(Under Approval)

B.Sc. CBZ/ PCM or equivalent with   >=50% marks

Modes of getting Application form.

• By hand:
  Rs. 500/ General Candidate, Rs. 400/ forOBC/SC/ST candidates)
  At the college premises
  GAYATRI COLLEGE OF BIOMEDICAL SCIENCE
  GMS ROAD, BALLUPUR CHOWK,
  DEHRADUN-248001, UK, INDIA

• By post
  Candidates may also obtain the information bulletin & application form by sending a DD (inclusive of fee payable i.e. Rs. 550/ For General, Rs. 450/ for OBC/SC/ST candidates) of any nationalized bank in favor of “Director, Gayatri College of Biomedical Science, Dehradun” payable at Dehradun on or before Feb, 10, 2010. The information bulletin, prospectus and application form would be send to candidate by speed post from GCBMS office on Feb, 11, 2010. The application form should be filled carefully by the candidate and should send it to GCBMS office on or before Feb, 27,2010 through registered/ speed post.

• Download from website:
  Candidates may download the information bulletin & application form free of cost from their website http://www.gcbms.co.in.

Dates to remember:
Date of announcement = 05/01/2010, Friday.
Last Date of Form submission=27/02/2010, Saturday.
Date of Written Examination (ASEE-2010) = 18/04/2010, Sunday.
Result Declaration = 26/04/2010, Monday.
Counseling/ Registration starts from = 03/05/2010, Monday

Download the Information Bulletin

For more details visit www.gcbms.co.in