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^^When you say customer, yes the senior leadership taking the outsourcing decision do understand. If I use the banking terms, MD, Director level. The gripe is at the VP level and they comment of Ferrari at Indica prices is for them. The directors prevail over them and they grudgingly accept. During a beer with them they will bring the good old days.
While I no contention in what you state, my point is people also have to understand that the markets for Indica itself will eventually saturate and the *growth* will slow down amidst getting the quality of work at 18USD/hour at acceptable margins is also getting difficult due to the labour pool issues that Sachin mentioned in his post.
There is also some focus on these companies to get into the Ferrari market not for the scale but for the high margin business. It is fine to move up the value chain but you cannot graduate without the investments and time. It is like screwdriver OFB tech to manufacturing latest gen engines without the investments and time for the competency to improve. We joke around in our company that we want to get people with wall street experience but pay them Ranganathan street rates
Just to let you know that I am no way demeaning the work of the IT services companies as I belong to one and proud of the value we deliver at the cost. Some time we deliver much more than what we get paid for. Few years back, our team took over ADM work for a legacy complicated back office trade processing platform for a tier 1 investment bank. The average team experience was 4 years in the Industry and we replaced people who had spent 15-20 years in the same system. When we transitioned, the team did not even know the technology but the investment bank gave the job to us because of our company's demostrated capability in taking up systems on which there were no competency. We were slaughtered during the initial days and within 3 years in the system, the senior EDs in the system admitted that you guys know the system much much better than their retained group with 25 years experience. Eventually 4 years back, they started taking the area back to them since they felt that we had too much domain knowledge and IP. Have been several such experience in my career as well.
1/ Business Planning and General Management
2/ Subject Matter Expertise
3/ Business Development
4/ Methodology and Quality Assurance
5/ Work Force Management, Supervision and Mentoring
6/ Conflict Resolution (Aprastuta Prasangi)
7/ Business Ethics (Nishiddhakshara)
and finally
8/ Keeping one's focus on one's Goals (Dharana)
1/ Business Planning and General Management
2/ Subject Matter Expertise
3/ Business Development
4/ Methodology and Quality Assurance
5/ Work Force Management, Supervision and Mentoring
6/ Conflict Resolution (Aprastuta Prasangi)
7/ Business Ethics (Nishiddhakshara)
and finally
8/ Keeping one's focus on one's Goals (Dharana)
IBM is coming with a new science call as Service Science. This is similar to the lines of Computer Science which evolved from Computer Engineering
IBM predicts a global growth of Service worldwide which will anchor the global economy in another few decades.
went in for an interview to a uber payment specialist company interview. Had prepared well. 3 data structures programming questions where I wrote source code and also gave alternative possible approaches, all intermediate to complex core Java questions answered. First round done.
Expected to go in for second round given what I THOUGHT was a good first round I am told that the feedback was negative as my answers were not "optimal". They tell me that given my performance they can put me into some other "coordination" role which wont involve coding and will necessitate "being on call". I told the HR I will think about it and let him know.
I don't know why but this for some reason I am devastated. If they had just told me that they would get back to me I would have felt better but instead being told of not being "optimal" and then being offered a watered down role given that I have attended and cleared several Java architect interviews before hasnt gone down well with me.
Any suggestions/tips on how to overcome such experiences, any gyan on offer by the folks here?
Yogi_G wrote:went in for an interview to a uber payment specialist company interview. Had prepared well. 3 data structures programming questions where I wrote source code and also gave alternative possible approaches, all intermediate to complex core Java questions answered. First round done.
Expected to go in for second round given what I THOUGHT was a good first round I am told that the feedback was negative as my answers were not "optimal". They tell me that given my performance they can put me into some other "coordination" role which wont involve coding and will necessitate "being on call". I told the HR I will think about it and let him know.
I don't know why but this for some reason I am devastated. If they had just told me that they would get back to me I would have felt better but instead being told of not being "optimal" and then being offered a watered down role given that I have attended and cleared several Java architect interviews before hasnt gone down well with me.
Any suggestions/tips on how to overcome such experiences, any gyan on offer by the folks here?
Don't worry man, it looks like they have already decided who to hire, most likely internal or referral. They interview others just for show. Happens all the time. Don't give up, keep trying.
Bangalore, June 9:
India’s second largest software services company, Infosys, has served a notice on three newspapers asking them to “cease and desist’’ from defaming the company.
A spokesperson for Infosys told BusinessLine that the media houses were served the notice today. Infosys has served a notice on the Times of India, the Economic Times and the Financial Express to cease and desist from defaming the company.
“The notice speaks for itself and we will act on it,” the spokesperson said in an email response. The notice, according to sources in the company, follows a series of articles written by these newspapers about the exodus of senior executives from Infosys since the return of co-founder NR Narayana Murthy as executive chairman.
At least 12 top executives, including president BG Srinivas, board member V Balakrishnan, and head of US operations Ashok Vemuri, have quit the company during this period. Infosys itself has faced increasing flak from analysts claiming that the company has under-performed for some time.
Yogi_G wrote:They tell me that given my performance they can put me into some other "coordination" role which wont involve coding and will necessitate "being on call". I told the HR I will think about it and let him know.
Guess there original requirement was for a Service Manager with some technical know-how. This "coordination" and "being on call" etc. is just euphemisms to say that you are to be available 24/7 and the work coming your way is to chase multiple folks (in a matrix environment) who may not have any mandate to help you and your team. More of an expeditor as I see it; with very much watered down responsibilities.
Gurus, my sister son has done ME in Mech (CAD/CAM) about two years back. Since BE days he has to work as lecturer in Eng college in Hyderabad and is now working in Vijayawada. Both are top colleges. He has done PG Dip in Patent Law also and has published many papers. I do not know details because I hardly know anything about the software things.
Now he wants a job in the industry or software side. Do you know any consultants or opportunities he can make use?
If you are in a position to help him let me know at rlnarayanarao at the rate gmail dot com.
Speculations on a business channel that Nandan Nilekani may join back Infosys.
Without any connections with the the company I will stick out my neck to say that something is deeply rotten there. What is this defamation notices to newspapers?
Will some of the western media who toasted this pack of entrepreneurs explore and report some interesting bits? Indian media have been silenced.
Narayana Rao wrote:Gurus, my sister son has done ME in Mech (CAD/CAM) about two years back. Since BE days he has to work as lecturer in Eng college in Hyderabad and is now working in Vijayawada. Both are top colleges. He has done PG Dip in Patent Law also and has published many papers. I do not know details because I hardly know anything about the software things.
Now he wants a job in the industry or software side. Do you know any consultants or opportunities he can make use?
If you are in a position to help him let me know at rlnarayanarao at the rate gmail dot com.
Narayana Rao ji, IIRC now-e-din companies recruit freshers who are not immediate pass-outs also, in other words 2012 pass outs can take up fresher openings in 2014 also. There is also the lateral route of doing some certifications/trainings through some institute and getting software company placements through them.
Yogi_G wrote:wExpected to go in for second round given what I THOUGHT was a good first round I am told that the feedback was negative as my answers were not "optimal". They tell me that given my performance they can put me into some other "coordination" role which wont involve coding and will necessitate "being on call". I told the HR I will think about it and let him know.
You are the best judge of your own abilities what others say is BS , period. If you have no other compulsions show these chootiy@s a middle finger .
Although I cannot claim to know about all the machinations of our industry the response on the lines of "your solution was non optimal" sounds like straight out of some PPT deck or from chap who considers anything outside the text-book as non optimal solution reason being if this was indeed the case the chap on otherside of the call would have 9 out of 10 times quizzed you further on your solution (most well meaning interviewers do that ) , to claim someone's solution is non optimal without giving him an opportunity to defend one's solution is outright pakiness.
And today was an even more interesting experience.
After 1.5 hours of non stop grilling on design, architecture, clustering and design patters I am asked to write a piece of code when I am totally exhausted. WTF!! Would it have been right on my part to refuse to take up the coding exercise given that I had been through 1.5 hours of grilling and was tired? 1.5 hours of standing, constantly talking explaining things on a board can be exhausting. The chap should have done the coding exercises first, determined if I was worth the effort and then proceeded to grill me for 1.5 hours.
And what explains a chap constantly laughing at your answers? I mean a mocking kind of expression on face even when my answer was bang on right! This Kasparov-esque kind of lack of respect towards an interviewee is a fashion now and is hardly professional.
I remember experiencing this int he late 90s in the US also, we hated getting interviewed by desis because most of them were a-holes who looked down upon other desis. I interviewed with Toshiba America in Milpitas I think, and there was a tam fellow who would laugh at anything I would say. He did not even shake my hand when I extended it before the interview. I still remember that fellow's name.
On that note I do remember one interview I had in a Desi product company after I R2Ied.
The interviewer was very warm, professional and courteous. He hit me with one question after another and I was lost in most cases having forgotten the specifics or ityadi. He finally gave me a very difficult scenario which involved intricate knowledge of threading concepts. I was able to provide an answer to this one. I thought I had definitely failed that interview. The HR told me that I had received good feedback!!!!
I met him after I joined the company and told him of my surprise. He told me that I impressed him with my solution to the practical scenario based problem and that alone sufficed. The syntaxes, algorithms etc can be googled/borrowed but having presence of mind and ability to think through the initial stages was more important than anything.
During my days with a FinSvc company some 5-6 years ago, I applied for an internal position in Lead in a Java dev group. The fellow was asking me the syntax of struts-config.xml file. I told him I used WSAD IDE for the configuration and there was no need to manually mess with the file, but he was intent on showing off his knowledge of the options in the xml file. I did not get the job.
KJoishy wrote:During my days with a FinSvc company some 5-6 years ago, I applied for an internal position in Lead in a Java dev group. The fellow was asking me the syntax of struts-config.xml file. I told him I used WSAD IDE for the configuration and there was no need to manually mess with the file, but he was intent on showing off his knowledge of the options in the xml file. I did not get the job.
Yes, you had mentioned this earlier. It looks like the guys want to show that they are somehow better than the interviewee and abuse their position. Third rate egos at that.
Yogi sir what I can tell form experience is if the guy who has the position under him is responsible for the deliverable and he himself interviews a candidate most of the times the questions are relevant and practical for he/she will be very specific about what skills he needs in his team, the issue is in Indian IT setup if the organization is big (in terms of hierarchy and manpower) then chances are the Lead might have 20-50 reports under him in such cases he/she might delegate the interviewing job to someone in the team who might be technically sound but not aware of 1) Interviewing process as such (it only comes via experience no PPT can teach you what to ask for a xyz position ) 2) he/she might not have exact knowledge about the job profile which they are supposed to interview "Yaar Java architect ka interview hai , ek candidate hai uska interview le lo" is the usual refrain.
Once your desired package is met by the prospective employer I think most important thing is to choose your Boss carefully for latter is the difference between a good and a bad employer . If he/she do not show much interest in you then it indicates that company is just interviewing candidates for increasing their bench strength and not for a specific task, random questions on new technology/framework or unrelated areas are give away signs of above. Insist on talking to the Lead/hiring Manager before you even start with the technical interview process and ask them about exact responsibilities which the candidate should have you will know at that very instant itself if the job is for you or not and yes talking about this to the HR does not cut it for they have a target number to meet , they are handed out job profile templates prepared years ago and are of little use.
Last edited by negi on 12 Jun 2014 09:24, edited 1 time in total.
negi wrote:Yogi sir what I can tell form experience is if the guy who has the position under him and is responsible for the deliverable interviews a candidate most of the times the questions are relevant and practical for he/she will be very specific about what skills does he need in his team, the issue is in Indian IT setup if the organization is big (in terms of hierarchy and manpower) then chances are the Lead might have 20-50 reports under him in such cases he/she might delegate the interviewing job to someone in the team who might be technically sound but not aware of 1) Interviewing process as such (it only comes via experience no PPT can teach you what to ask for a xyz position ) 2) he/she might not have exact knowledge about the job profile which they are supposed to interview "Yaar Java architect ka interview hai , ek candidate hai uska interview le lo" is the usual refrain.
Once your desired package is met by the prospective employer I think most important thing is to choose your Boss carefully for latter is the difference between a good and a bad employer . If he/she do not show much interest in you then it indicates that company is just interviewing candidates for increasing their bench strength and not for a specific task, random questions on new technology/framework or unrelated areas are give away signs of above. Insist on talking to the Lead/hiring Manager before you even start with the technical interview process and ask them about exact responsibilities which the candidate should have you will know at that very instant itself if the job is for you or not.
Negi saar, till date I have noticed, (except for one top notch product company which adds great weight to my resume), not one company has entertained my request to meet my future manager. They just skirt this question and when confronted with it firmly they just say a plain no as they don't do it for any other candidate.
negi wrote:Yogi sir what I can tell form experience is if the guy who has the position under him is responsible for the deliverable and he himself interviews a candidate most of the times the questions are relevant and practical for he/she will be very specific about what skills he needs in his team, the issue is in Indian IT setup if the organization is big (in terms of hierarchy and manpower) then chances are the Lead might have 20-50 reports under him in such cases he/she might delegate the interviewing job to someone in the team who might be technically sound but not aware of 1) Interviewing process as such (it only comes via experience no PPT can teach you what to ask for a xyz position ) 2) he/she might not have exact knowledge about the job profile which they are supposed to interview "Yaar Java architect ka interview hai , ek candidate hai uska interview le lo" is the usual refrain..
Here in Deutschland Gorilla one has to go through a training program on interviewing techniques and evaluations skills. After that they are required to attend one campus round before they are deemed qualified to interview experienced candidates.
HR maintains list of such interviewers.
Bullies, braggarts and egomaniacs have no business judging others.
KJoishy wrote:Executive chairman NR Narayana Murthy and his son Rohan Murty will leave the company by October, almost four years ahead of Murthy's designated term.
Any idea whether NRN and Jr. would remain as share holders? Or are they just "fading away"? I guess it is interesting times for the Most Admired Co.
On the topic of interviews, we are actively recruiting for the last couple months and I have had to take quite a bit of interviews. There was this one guy, (currently in TCS Analytics practice) easily one of the worst guy that I ever interviewed, in attitude.His resume had this funny flow where in he had every single analytical model that he built. There was no explanation on why the said model was chosen, just a block of text on models, looked like a condensed guide. We started talking about the domain, and questioned him on why a certain model was used; he started questioning back at us. The panel, me and my colleague have about 14 years each in our domain, we both worked in the industry as business consultants (not just IT). We were so irritated with the attitude and wanted to disconnect the call, but it was Friday 3PM and had Thalapakatti biriyani for lunch, so we just prolonged our/his misery by asking some random stuff in his resume and made him go in circles for about a hour. It is not always the interviewer's fault, I just get irritated when they start spouting things that questions my intelligence.
WTF, three months notice period? Attrocious. Thats a trapping mechanism. I am putting my foot down and having it changed to two months or less. Three months is not ethical by any means.
Javee wrote:On the topic of interviews, we are actively recruiting for the last couple months and I have had to take quite a bit of interviews. There was this one guy, (currently in TCS Analytics practice) easily one of the worst guy that I ever interviewed, in attitude.His resume had this funny flow where in he had every single analytical model that he built. There was no explanation on why the said model was chosen, just a block of text on models, looked like a condensed guide. We started talking about the domain, and questioned him on why a certain model was used; he started questioning back at us. The panel, me and my colleague have about 14 years each in our domain, we both worked in the industry as business consultants (not just IT). We were so irritated with the attitude and wanted to disconnect the call, but it was Friday 3PM and had Thalapakatti biriyani for lunch, so we just prolonged our/his misery by asking some random stuff in his resume and made him go in circles for about a hour. It is not always the interviewer's fault, I just get irritated when they start spouting things that questions my intelligence.
Why did you waste your time with this chap? Attitude problem is immediate red flag for me and I immediately discontinue the interview after informing the candidate. I have conducted some 300-400 interviews thus far and I have run into such candidates at least some 10-15% of the time.
Many years ago, I interviewed an gora engineer from a very chi chi school and he came by and began to behave like a frat boy. I took him to lunch and he began to hit on the waitress and pass lewd comments. Then he began to tell me his sexcapades. I began to wonder if he really was trying to get the job.
Yogi_G wrote:WTF, three months notice period? Attrocious. Thats a trapping mechanism. I am putting my foot down and having it changed to two months or less. Three months is not ethical by any means.
Use your accumulated leaves. This is what many do.
Or apply for leave encashment if policy allows.
Most sane people, both parties, take the middle of the road approach. Fore go leaves and the HR adjust the same with final settlement with early release.
IIRC, the snake oil company is the fountainhead of this 3 month policy.
I told him I used WSAD IDE for the configuration and there was no need to manually mess with the file, but he was intent on showing off his knowledge of the options in the xml file. I did not get the job.
Then he began to tell me his sexcapades. I began to wonder if he really was trying to get the job.