Daily Archives: November 28, 2005
The cascading falls
The lovely Ettpotala falls. I couldn’t find a night pic where the falls get colored lighting!
Saachi turns 4!
How time flies.
Saachi has turned four.
We celebrated the occasion by visiting the lovely Nagarjuna Sagar dam and the cascading Ettipotala falls. The drive was a hectic one totalling 400 km over a period of 2 days.
I’m not unemployed, I’m a Consultant
That was a T shirt I saw an OD Consultant wear.
Some times however, jokes can turn true, and can be funny and sad at the same time ! Scott Adams talks about a wannabe consultant’s perfect job.
What NOT to do in a resume
My last week was primarily involved in screening about 150 resumes that we recieved as part of an employee referral drive.
Some thoughts:
- When you give your contact email in a resume, please don’t provide email ids like casinogirl@example.com or kooldude_kartik@example.com. An email is also a way to get your personality across, and ids like these do not potray a very professional image. If necessary make a mail id specifically for organizations to get in touch with you, but do not call it jobsforsreeni@example.com
) ! A name with a number (in case you don’t get a mail id with your exact name) would do very well. - It is not necessary to have a “hobbies” section in a resume. For fresh graduates however, it can be an important way to get your skills and abilities across. However, and I can’t stress this enough, “hanging out” and “watching movies” do not classify as hobbies, not even if you are applying for the job of a movie critic. A hobby should be given on a resume if it adds to your overall employability (and that holds true for all the words you put into your resume!)
- If you change your mobile number, please update the resume with the details. Provide at least one contact number where any message can be left to be passed on to you.
I learnt a lot in the process too.
- Sometimes resumes that read great are not so great on the phone.
- Sometimes information on the resume is not enough to prepare you to getting a good candidate.
- It’s tough to say no to an overqualified candidate even if he/she is willing to take a cut and work just because she/he has been unemployed for a while.
Open Space and other LSIP
The Slacker Manager says how pleased he was with an Open Space retreat. I think he got the reason for it right. It works because it lets the participants set their own agenda. And it lets them set their own time boundaries and levels of engagement. That’s the essence of making Open Space work. Of course, one might get the feeling that why do you need a facilitator for this retreat, but a facilitator for Open Space is a true facilitator, not a trainer with a fancy name 
I haven’t been lucky enough to get invited to an Open Space intervention (except this one, which I sadly could not make it to!)(typically it’s great for issues that impact people across silos)
Another great Large Scale Interactive Process that I have some working knowledge of is the Appreciative Inquiry which is also a great intervention if you want to energise people by helping them focus on the positives of the context.
