Wednesday, January 05, 2005

Interview prep!

Many favorable events in the past few days!

First - The ex-boss I mentioned earlier asks me to inform him before I take the plunge because 'something is brewing' at his end 'that I may be interested in'. Well hope that something is really a good job offer.

Second - I got calls from a 3 placement agencies telling me that they have the job that I am looking for. The companies they talked abt include some well known technology companies. One is among top five. Lets see how it goes.

Three - My interview prep went on really well. It was a great experience to think through my past and list down what I learnt and what I achieved... very similar to the experience I had during my isb apps time. Only this time it is more structured i guess.

I will share a framework that will help both prepare for interviews and write your resume.

What your interviewers (ur prospective employers) will be looking for is a combination of your
- smartness
- domain knowledge
- leadership
- initiative
- execution
- drive and energy
- presence

and to add to that amount of responsibility you handled and ur customer centric approach

Think through your experience and categorize all your experiences and achievements into the above heads.
For your resume - figure out a likely combination of above skills/attributes a prospective employer or a school will be looking for and try and reflect those attributes in your resume.

For your Interview - Once you have your experiences categorized, it will be easier (in an interview) to recollect your experiences in the interview (e.g. tell me an instance you exibited initiative, leadership, blah blah...)

Hope this framework is useful. I learnt this in a workshop that mckinsey guys did for us.

Thats it for today. Enjoy!
- Chanakya
P.S. Another good thing that happened - Markets fell by 200 points :) and I pumped some money in... I was waiting for markets to crash for some time now. It just went up and up while I waited. Hope my money grows and hope I did not sink it today!!!!

1 comment:

Indian Blogger said...

This is neat stuff.Will help me. I have my ISB interview in the next 2 days.