It all begins with the résumé. And, more pertinently,
ensuring that said résumé is crammed full of qualifications, which should ideally begin
stacking up from birth. From the moment that blue line appears indicating a
positive pregnancy result, most Indian mothers are preparing themselves to
ensure that their child will be competitively placed in the great scrum that is
the Indian Workforce. It is hardly
surprising that competition is so fierce – slacking off, or failing to secure
an acceptable monthly wage can mean that families literally starve. Unlike the
majority of western countries, where social security systems (or at the very
least subsidies) exist to cushion those who fall into financial difficulty, India
has no such luxury. The daily sight of families eking out a living on the crowded,
filthy streets of most of the major towns and cities in India is a stark
reminder that there are only a very few degrees of separation between failing
to hold on to a job, and setting up home on the pavement. And so, the fight to secure
a place on the “ladder” starts early on.
The Indian résumé is generally a long affair,
usually running to a few pages, and replete with glowing descriptions of awards
gained, extra curricular activities, exam results, degrees, post graduate
degrees and MBAs as well as a detailed and invariably hyper ambitious “career
objective.” In India, it seems as though
an MBA is an absolute requirement for anyone with an iota of ambition. Back in
the UK, MBAs and even postgraduate degrees for that matter, are generally
reserved for the “nerds”, the swotty types, those who don’t really know what to
do with their lives or who want to postpone having to earn a living for as long
as possible. Here in India, anyone without a postgraduate degree is considered
a complete idiot, and is virtually unhireable. Fortunately a new and enlightened
breed of managers are emerging who believe, as I do, that while an MBA might be
a fantastic addition to a person’s core skills and knowledge, it is not
necessarily the be all and end all. I am a great believer in practical
experience. Nothing can beat throwing yourself into the world of work and learning
through doing it yourself. I do believe that an MBA can be a brilliant addition
to that, but as a positive choice, a few years into a career. I lose count of
the number of young people I have interviewed who proudly display their MBA on
their résumé, yet
who can barely string a sentence together and clearly have no common sense or
ability whatsoever.
Whenever I receive a résumé, either solicited or unsolicited,
which is only one or two pages long, I heave a sigh of relief. The concept of
“less is more” is not easily understood, when it comes to creating a CV in
India. The actual fact of the matter though is that a résumé is supposed to be a succinct
career summary, not a novel. It is intended to list relevant skills and
experiences, allowing an experienced interviewer to probe at will and build on
the bare bones presented in the document. Unfortunately, many candidates don’t
even get shortlisted for an interview, as their resume is just too long.
Imagine yourself in a situation where you receive on average fifteen or twenty
unsolicited résumés a day, and a further fifty to one hundred applications for a
particular job posted. Now imagine yourself reading past page three of a résumé to
get to the nitty gritty. Nope, it’s not going to happen.
At the other end of the extreme lies the “creative résumé”. These range from the obscure (a bunch of fuzzy
visuals and unfinished sentences) to résumés which are trying to be just
too damn clever. There’s nothing wrong with making a résumé look great. Or wanting it to
stand out in a sea of monochrome. But résumés which hurt the eyes or which
contain links to heavy files which won’t open, or those which use cutesy metaphors
to bring your “oh so creative” personality to life, generally fall at the first
hurdle, ending up flung in the bin or dragged to the recycle icon.
Then there are those who believe that their application would
benefit from a few endorsements. While it is always helpful to include references,
attaching letters of recommendation from previous employers, particularly those
stretching back a decade or more, may be a bit much. I recently interviewed an
enthusiastic candidate who proudly showed me a fat bunch of e mails he had
printed out from his previous clients, bosses, co-workers, subordinates and
even college professors. The stack was at least an inch thick, and most of the
endorsements seemed to refer to fairly rudimentary achievements, such as organising
office parties and representing his college on an international trip. I could
have understood it if a fresh graduate was sitting before me, keen to impress
and without recourse to a great deal of work experience, but this particular
candidate had been working for sixteen long years, and was applying for a job
as a New Business Director. He didn’t
get the job.
