I am so surprised to find lots of job requirements has never been taken off Linkedin job posts (same positions, same title, same companies for over a year sometimes) for a long long time. What does this mean?
(i) the company is just collect profiles and sitting on them?
(ii) company wants to make believe they are still recruiting when they are actually not?
(iii) Recruiters not able to close despite getting 200+ applications per requirement which means they do not know what they are looking out for? Even assuming 90% of profiles got were junk.. still from the 10% they must be able to make a closure.
(iv) a byproduct of (iii), they are looking for a 100% fit for a position in the history of talent recruitment has never been the case, or
(v) they have paid for the posting and they want to just post something there.
In any case, Linkedin has to check the validity of each requirement to ensure quality is maintained. Anyway, Linkedin looks like a good place to advertise and not necessarily to close. If the requirement does not have an actual recruiter name in it, it means they are hiding something and do not want to be contacted. Linkedin is or has lost its relevance when it comes to job postings now… what do you say? Any feedback? #linkedin #recruitment
Month: January 2021
Be Judicious while hiring
In the newspaper headlines today:” Companies would be cautious and judicious in hiring”. Interesting, I thought. Should it not be the normal behaviour? In India, where one’s power is ‘assumed’ based on the number of people you manage, and not by the impact or revenue your team brings to the table, should not being lean and mean and letting employees assume more responsibility be the order of the day? Always employ at 90% of need and let the gap be addressed by the employees to take one more work, with a careful balance on not to burn them.
It is time to Upskill
“Most of the shadows of this life are caused by standing in our own sunshine” – Ralph W Emerson.
How true! In this knowledge oriented skilled world, your shelf life in any particular job is getting lesser and lesser. Time to up-skill constantly, change the situations around you by understanding what is appropriate in any given time to work on, and start focusing in the right direction where technology takes us. One needs to be hell bent on learning new technologies and be passionate to create new things that makes other’s life better always. #technology #upskillyourself
Strategy is for CEO, Execution is for you
Lots of year planning and strategy sessions annually. But is it really for lower rungs of the organizations, or even the first level or middle level management? Answer is NO – they should be key to execution and achieving results. The CEO and his team has to worry about the strategy part(all these surveys and inputs from all employees may not materialize)- the long term planning is based on where you want to see yourself in the market and against competition and needs to translate to decisive steps to get you there. Hence Planning is the intermediate phase between strategy and tactical operations that is key to success of any organization. Execute flawlessly and consistently and you are still a force to reckon with in the market. Get to be one step ahead of others while strategizing and have a key differentiator that means what you deliver to the market. Plan well and execute should be the mantra for most of us within the organization, and leave the strategy and vision to the top big buck guys. Any thoughts? #leadership #strategytoexecution
LIC is Passe
Surprised to see the LIC Life insurance premiums are way too high compared to any others. Going through Offline agents is passe – still there are umpteen agents around. Offline premiums are about a half to a third higher than the online Tech Term premium by LIC itself and definitely twice or more than the other private players. I guess we are all paying for the added risks of all NPAs that LIC gets loaded with. Past only-play-in -town like LIC has to learn from competition now. Most of the time their premium calculators do not work in their website. Too many products in life insurance space to confuse customers and most of the agents are unaware of all of them, and sell only a handful. SBI and IndiaFirst (promoted by Bank of Baroda and UBI) are both having dismal to bad settlement rations of claims. MaxLife seems to be the winner on both accounts – both lower premium and claim settlement ratios but one needs to understand the riders better. #licofindia #MaxLife #SBI #Indiafirst
Hardware Design Services is a Niche area
How many big services company have got it right when it comes to Hardware Design? IMHO, I can name only one Indian company who started off from scratch in mid-80s with board design and invested in a few labs and testing. May be another also-ran Indian one but more into resource augmentation.
Any big professional services company who gets 99% of the revenue from the software business cannot crack the hardware game – HW is not a volume business, it is a niche business. Really hardware electronics engineers are needed -just using a few tools to assist in some designs is not proper services. Huge investment is needed – unlike software. One needs to have sufficient labs and testing facilities. Lots of eco system involvement is essential – like manufacturing, stringent testing requirements facilitated by different labs, etc.. hence project management is key in putting these together as dependencies can hit timelines badly.
Smaller stand-alone fabless design services company can do SoCs. There are few credible ones. Remember only a few semiconductor companies are present who may like to outsource only older designs for support, or ask for proper resources to augment their team on need basis. Having a software mindset and trying to venture into hardware services is suicide. License cost for a single tool would be in lakhs of Rupees and the CFO faints upon hearing there would be no RoI for quite some time. Training the folks in the tools is the first step, showcasing some pilot design is the next and that is how you grow up the value chain. I was asked once by a senior corporate leader in a big services company if I can build a $1B business in 3 years if he can recruit 25000+ engineers – I politely had to explain a few things to him. Lots of acquisitions have happened in this hardware services space over the past 3-4 years, but not sure if they materialize enough.
Calling oneself an embedded design services company or a PCB layout company is not enough – yes, it gives the feeling of specialization, but getting to know what the customer wants and doing end to end system design is the need of the hour. Design a SoC, do the board, develop the system, do the firmware, do the testing and product engineering and giving it back will have lots of takers. For these, today, I personally believe 5-6 vendors have to work together to make to happen. The dying field (meaning lack of proper engineers) outside of Defense based projects, which is RF design, is critical to any wireless design and getting the right folks here and miniaturizing these circuits along with analog ones is critical.
So, as summary, stick to what you can deliver based on what you specialize in, get the right projects to execute and always be a value adder to the customer – no point showing glitzy images in Microsoft Powerpoint and throwing big jargons at free will to woo customer as they would see straight through with some really pointed queries. And for big services company, trying to acquire smaller companies does not necessarily lead to bigger wins. Sometimes, it is better to stick to your core and not venture out. Hardware design services is left to passionate engineers who want to build something for the future, few steps at a time, in the automotive, wireless, media, computing and in the defense sectors.
The author is a Principal consultant in Business Intellects and comes with 25+ years of experience in hardware and software space.
Answer the Questions
” By doubting we are led to question; by questioning, we arrive at the truth. – Peter Abelard”
I do not understand why we Indians getting offended if someone asks too many (relevant) questions? I see lots of folks saying ” you are asking too many questions”. Just because lots of unknowns are there in the situation and one needs clarity the queries are being asked. What is known to you does not need to be known to me or others. We do not ask enough questions to the management as we just wag our tails and keep quiet. We do not question the Tempo driver for driving rashly seated in the company owned bus? Why? Why Not? A High intellect usually likes to answer all the questions, however stupid they are. It speaks a lot about you when you try to avoid questions and not question enough if there is a need. Do not close your eyes when something is happening around you that needs to be questioned (unless the ones surrounding you have big weapons!). “Effective questioning brings insight, which fuels curiosity, which cultivates wisdom. – Chip Bell” #questions
A Soldier wishes for ‘tomorrow’
The best gift for any soldier is “a tomorrow”. That is what they would want the most. First seek a tomorrow, and then a great tomorrow. Believe in the tomorrow and make a great day today so you deserve a greater day tomorrow. Yesterday is too late, today and tomorrow are your best bet – stay healthy and safe, and ensure you make something good out of any tomorrows.