Successful career is a trinity of Interest, Skill and Values

As I recommend

Upon asking for career advice , I often hear people- parents and well wishers say " Go by u r interest , u will succeed". That is cliche and is too dangerous to heed. Interest after all is personal and has no social meaning. If interest were to make someone successful, then every kid going to cricket summer camp will end up in Indian national team or every student in a dancing school would become a dancing exponent.

A successful career needs at least three components: Interest, skill and value system. Interest of course is needed but sufficient. The best that interest can give u is "satisfaction". But skill is what gives social meaning, contribution and of course economic value to an individual. Skill also gives u the edge in time of competition. Finally value system that which makes the individual to enjoy if not tolerate the mundane part of the work. Unless NR Murthy had fully accepted the value of his work in building Infosys, he would not have enjoyed the otherwise boring - millions of miles of air travel.

So before u take up a career check the following

1. do have interest- gives u  satisfaction
2. do u have skills - makes u productive
3. do have value system- gives u  happiness to remember and relish

Opportunities are Plenty, Preparation is Empty

Placement is one of my recent responsibilities. When I took over this assignment, one of my feelings was that students are not getting enough opportunities because a good number of companies are not for campus hiring. 

When the placement activities started happening, I started getting new insights. One of the persistent objections by students is that " don't allow already selected students" for further campus hiring events. I went by the general wisdom that already selected students if allowed to appear for more companies, they are "snatching" jobs from others. To verify I did an experiment. For the last company that visited for campus hiring, I allowed only 80+ students who had not got single offer in previous events. In others words, this was chance to grab their first job. My thinking was that " since no selected student is in the race, many will get the job"

When the written results were announced, only 16 of 80 students who appeared for the test cleared it. What is more startling was that the cutoff percentage in written test was just 40% ( 16 out of 40 marks). The company actually wanted more people and had hoped to conduct interviews for two days. However they were disappointed because of the conversion.

The myth was busted. The real barrier for students not getting through is not the other "placed" students. Instead, it was their "ill" preparation. Who prevented them from scoring more than 40% in written test. It is time for students to make "real" preparation and  see that they can clear any written test. They should be bothered about other students- either already selected or not-  taking part in the selection process