Planning for a career change? Here is a constructive approach or career change advice.

An article published on www.huffingtonpost.com on Jul 1, 2013, based on a survey, stated that almost 80 percent of employees in their 20s want to change their careers, and the percentage is less than that of workers in their 30s and 40s. That read it could be guessed that a very small percentage of the younger lot were firm in their career plans while others were not aware of what they wanted to be and thus ended up changing their careers.

Shoot up to the present, the situation is not so different. With day-to-day technology up-gradation and the increase in required skills to cope with industry downturn, employees feel the same insecurity to continue with their current career. Without focusing much on their freedom to think so, what we advise them to follow is a constructive approach while planning for a career change to avoid future job inconsistencies. Our career change advice:

Assess

The reasons could be many while opting for a career change. Nevertheless, assessing all of them with a keen eye for practicality and possibility would be viable.

No promotions, insufficient income, no recognition, peer pressure, irregular work timings, current profession drawing a blank future, competition from just pass-outs; any of these could be worrisome and might force one to plan for an immediate career change. But let us question, how sure that the same will not happen in your next endeavor?

Have you assessed the reason behind career dissatisfaction? Assess the reason behind your resignation. Then it will be a cakewalk to go forth and accomplish the best suitable career that always dreamed of or at least which won’t challenge you as same as the current one.

           

Assure

Now that you have assessed why you need a career change and got to find out the best alternative career, try to gain some confidence to reach your goals that pique your aspirations. Try analyzing the skillset you possess and the expertise you have gained in the previous job and compare that with the requirements of your chosen career. Learn some insights. Assure yourself with a well-analysed career shift. E.g., a candidate having solid expertise in sales and marketing might fly high added he gets a good hold in SAP training.

Once the skillset assurance is done, later comes the money assurance. With a plan to career change, you might have to go through rigorous training to attain a competitive hand over required skills.

As you may have to leave the current job to master the required skills, give assurance to yourself, if not your family, at least. See that your pocket is enough stuffed and can promise your financial independence all through even if you are out of work for three consecutive months. In simple terms, brim up your bank account with funds that are sufficient for three months as a precaution. Doing that you could come of financial worries temporarily and can put your heart and soul into setting your next career track intact.

           

Beware

If you need wealth while out of a job, the situation may force you to choose short-term money gainers; or part-time jobs not related to your chosen field. Beware of such attractions, which may again leave you helpless in the future. Consider taking up part-time in the chosen field itself. An aspiring lawyer may join a well-settled advocate for practice, irrespective of remuneration, initially.

However, to go for part-time, one should say no to full-time vocational courses. Especially in countries like India, a part-time job during the night is still a taboo, and working in the daytime may lead one to end up less concentrating on knowledge improvement.  So keep your pocket stuffed before you opt for a career change.

Overall, career change is the best option to go forth when nothing is working in your way in the current career, but to make sure you will not end up at the foot of problems, assess what you need and assure yourself of what to do and beware that you won’t get caught up with short term attractions.

If at all, you are planning for your start-up kind of setup, you may wish to have a start-up must-have list. Our opinion may differ from yours. If yes, let us learn how it differs. Good luck with a career change.

Continuous Integration (CI), Develop l Integrate l Test l Deliver

An endeavour to cater valuable software services to clients in the quickest time possible had led to a movement called agile software development. Many a methodologies/practices have been introduced as part of this movement, which have not only enabled developers speed up and monitor the entire software development life cycle process but also improved interaction between teams (developers and testers to project managers)  in an organization thus to see the new application get released ahead of time with minimum risk to the business.

One such practice is Continuous Integration (CI), which automates the process of integration and testing and reports the test results as quick as possible.

In this practice, every small piece of code, written by the team members, is integrated frequently. With the integrations carried out several times a day, each stage goes through the automated build tests and the problems, if any, can be recognized early on reducing the risk of backtracking. Even if problems were recognized, there would be a chance that they are typically small and easily resolvable thus paving a way for successful build.

The basic goal of this practice is to provide rapid feedback to the developers: if at all the build fails in these automated tests it indicates that a defect has been introduced into the code base and it should be fixed as soon as possible giving a lot of scope for fixing the issues at the earliest.

In brief, Continuous Integration may refer to a process of applying quality control while the software is still in development stage instead of applying quality control just before the deployment.

How it works:

• -       Teams integrating code regularly
• -       Automated build verifying each integration
• -       Testing every change published
• -       Informing team in the event of test fails or broken build
• -       If any problem, teams can resolve it and reach the releasable baseline soon

Apart from being helpful in early and easy bug detection, Continuous Integration also stands beneficial to organizations, for its:

• -       Capability to put forth real-time feedback thus to minimize code breaks and backtrackings
• -       Ability to visualize or showcase where exactly the problem occurred and hence indicating the same to teams
• -       Tension free environment helping developers to focus more on developing new features rather than being stuck with bug finding

In order to make it beneficial, however, there are certain best practices suggested by renowned industry practitioners. Some of them:

• -       Maintaining a code source repository
• -       Automating the build tests
• -       Updating the code base frequently
• -       Ensuring transparency and accessibility among teams for the latest executable files

Development environment is entirely different from production environment; what if the deployed application performs badly in the production environment? Let us reserve this discussion for the next session. Keep tracking us.

How to combat Startup Workforce Worries with a Must-have-List in hand

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Shri Mr. Chandrababu Naidu’s green signal to a Startup Village, on lines of Kochi, might have left all the budding entrepreneurs in the coastal city, Vishakhapatnam, in a cheerful mood. But, so soon to be surfaced were the facts that only a handful of workforce is willing to take up a career with startups. A recent write up in top English daily also suggests that the same is the case with startups in Hyderabad, the joint capital of AP and Telangana.

So many engineers being qualified each year, and the State known to be a haven for techie younger generation and one among tops (before AP bifurcation) in processing many IT related activities, why on this earth all budding entrepreneurships left with a handful of workforce? The question seems reasonable.

With the growing numbers of younger lot turning to lavish packages of MNCs and already MNC-mesmerized working lot unwilling to come off their safe seats, burgeoning small setups finding it hard to build up the workforce while slogging to make their dream projects pace up.

What could be the possible reason for this workforce gap? As we tried examining:

Having gone through a simple google search of that of a startup, mentioned in that English Daily, what we found, to our surprise, was a no-face organization. Not even a single link in the result page was related to that of the company we were searching for. It had yielded nothing but a blank opinion on that company. – Apologies we said that.

That experienced, we think even startups should gear up for the market demands in order to attract qualitative workforce, i.e. they ought to have certain qualities at least to make their business searchable, if not to roping in a skilled workforce - experienced as well as just pass-out. For that, chalking out a ‘Must-have list’ would not be a bad idea at all.

Must-have list:

Quirky Idea

The idea should be really convincing and at the same time, it should have that unique factor to hold the younger hearts. With the world turning app side, most of the startups now are coming up with app developing ideas thus they could make the businesses get socialized and easily accessible across the world. But we guess that won’t work with every industry. App development for game/food/entertainment businesses is entirely different from that of healthcare sector, because the former industries give more scope to freedom of experimenting wherein the latter requires a bit of follow the line attitude. However, these days all industries are looking for that quirky idea which could gain them the publicity they needed. For e.g. an app of RTC showing up the information of busses like the time of next bus might attract the younger lot.

Optimized web front

Of course, your most effective face in this digital era is your web front. How effective is it depends on how well you optimize it and how stuffed you make it with insightful information and thought leadership materials. Whatever the case, you should have it, at the first hand, without which you cannot even imagine the plight of your business surviving the competition. Either to attract workforce or to promote your services, one should have a suave web front that not only promises the future with its content but also satisfies the gen-Z’s quick-to-be -searched attitude with its optimization. For e.g. showing up in the first page of google search results might increase the credibility of your company, which could help you to gain to-be-recruited’s confidence.

Surprisingly, as we said it earlier, google search of a startup, mentioned in that English daily, has surfaced nothing but irrelevant links like this:

A startup's struggle of being not shown up in Google Search Result Page

https://www.google.co.in/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=%22svaadh%22  (the link has been given basing on a research line, not to showcase that organization’s abilities)

Searching by that name showed up nothing related to that company. The link above itself is a self-explanative, which clears why a startup ought to have an optimized webfront.

Buzzy affair

Develop a buzzy brand, if not playing a conch. Your continuous participation in startups’ events matters for employees to find their heart in you. Show the younger lot that you are going places by creating buzz around. Try being on such buzzy platforms. Win some credentials and prove your mettle. There are many such to display your prowess, thus you could convey what you are up to. Who knows, you might even win some sponsors or industry mentors who could suggest you the path to build credibility.

One such platform is http://10000startups.com/, a better place for the startup likeminded.

In addition, you can participate in monthly events like #StartupSaturday. As the event sees many a working professionals and students turn up, there might be a chance that your idea might strike a chord with them leading to build a trustworthy image among and hence carving a niche place for you, as a potential employer.

However great they could promote themselves, budding entrepreneurs themselves cannot bring the change in the mind-set of younger lot while recruiting. But the growing experienced folk could also help bring the change, we feel. The experienced can educate the younger generation that it is all right to take up the opportunity with the startups and take risk in the initial stages of career. In addition, they could make the younger lot learn how they can grow up the ladder at a startup than that of an established organization.

On an endnote, there are no hard and fast rules for success. But following some set standards could help us at least try for what we wish to. No matter how effective is it, startups must have an up lifted face to attract younger lot is what our opinion is. It might differ with you. If it is, kindly help us learn more on this topic.

How in-between communication channels adulterating the essence of creative advertising?

The brief that we have received is not definite: Creative team

The inputs we have shared are all what we were given: Ad Sales Team

This is what the client gave and at present, they are unavailable for talk: Media Agency

It (the output) is exactly the opposite of what we are looking for: Client.

If not so often, most of the times we get to hear some of the above conversations go on between respective teams in advertising / media agencies. What could be the probable consequences: creative agencies juggling between multiple retakes; the perplexed creative team with loads of pressure and unclear communication as with what to be conveyed and at the tail end a vexed up account/client unsatisfied with output. In the entire process, the essence of advertising – the creativity would be at the risk of being adulterated.

For all this mess or confusion as we put it, the reason could be unreasonable increasing of communication channels or layered communication. 

For a single homepage takeover banner, in digital advertising platform, now the client has to go through multiple channels to reach out to creative team. And there comes many filters in between - media agencies, ad sales/account guys - through which the actual message has to pass on. As with every person has their own opinion on particular product, every team in this process has their own ideation, preposition, and thence their own version of briefing the team down the line. Although we could believe that even a peon can take part in the ideation process, how would it be to see the creative developed without creative team’s involvement?

Layered Communication Channels adulterating the essence of Advertising

Moreover, with growing ‘push it for more’ attitude, the actual requirement is being shown with added complexities making it difficult for the creative brains to crack a simple idea. To keep how the process is going at present, in simple terms:

• -       Client (let’s number him 1) conveys he is looking for X, to Media agency (2),
• -       The message reaching to the creative team (4) is that (1) is looking for XYZ+
• -       In between the media agency (2) and Ad Sales Team (3) stuff up the message with complexities

In anticipation to give an outstanding output, everyone in the process try to walk that extra mile putting up the pressure on the tail end, making it difficult to cum up with a creative campaign.That said, we could realize how the essence of advertising is being shadowed by the curse of layered communication.It shows the more the advertising industry is being sectioned, the more the communication is being adulterated. 

Now, having that depicted, it is clear with the growing communication channels or layered communication, the essence of advertising is being adulterated.

Many creative agencies, even now,wish to keep the client at a direct contact, but only if they had hit the right chord in their previous endeavours. Even the clients would want to work with creative team directly thus to minimalize the gap to save time and to convey clear communication. That is how we guess the idea of in-house branding and advertising had come up with which client himself could play a dual role and he holds the total responsibility of pushing the campaign into the market that too in given time communicating exactly what he wished to.

Creative communication, being an essence of advertising, undoubtedly needs its own pace and space apart from valid inputs. To safeguard it, it is better clients or agencies overlook the layered communication and they must see channels reduced to a few. Or else they should at least do clear job marking, thus each team could work as suggested and the brief could reach creative team without adulteration.

Our opinion on how the essence of advertising is being adulterated by layered communication might differ with you. If it is, kindly share your idea with us.

Mobile Phones distance those who are next to us rather than opposite

Early in this century, the telecommunication industry was given a push with the advent of mobile phones, which stormed every one of our lives, giving us the leisurely pleasure to communicate with our loved ones while on the go. As it continued to grow up as a necessary commodity, with more and more up-gradations and add-on features, it has raised some concerns among people. Some are claiming that it has been pushing its boundaries more into our personal lives distancing the persons next to us rather than the opposite. However, mobile phones, as part of telecommunication industry itself, accept it distances the opposite, in their physical absence; more than it distances the ones next to us is what some are arguing. What could be the mutual point?

Back in 2001, during the graduation days, I had a privilege to see one of my friends carrying the rock solid 8-inch long Nokia mobile phone. At that time, we had only one handheld among eight of us. We would utilize it only in emergencies, especially when we were out of home and rest all the time we preferred developing more a personal conversation with the persons we are clubbed with. The time has changed, so the usability of mobile phones.

A decade after, the mobile phone metamorphosed into a smartphone. Everybody has it, 3g/2g equipped. It has become a luxury and prestigious issue to carry one. So many operating systems, and many more supporting mobile applications, which, all are targeted to engage us, as a user. Across dining table, while on a stroll downtown, while commuting, and even on the bed, to name a few mobile applications, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Whatsapp, have gained much more momentum over face-to-face conversation. They are so engaging that we have ignored the importance of the persons next to us; their feelings, their conversations etc. We have denied the basic essences of human beings; emotional presence, sentiments et al., rather we have kept ourselves entertaining by texting the opposite. As a basic communicative tool, it brought in more cheers but its luxury aspect of seeing the world on fingertips has killed the emotional presence of its users, us; distanced the persons next to us like never before. To the worst of it, the phenomenon is increasing day by day.

On the contrary, the very need of tele communications itself suggests us that we, humans, are distanced more from the opposite persons (who are on the other side of the line) than the ones next to us. Thus, the invention took place. From telephones to mobile phones to smartphones, we have welcomed it as the need of the day to migrate to other places without losing the touch with our families, not physically but emotionally. As a necessary commodity, it was our requirement at that time. Even now, mobile phones as a basic tool of communication, especially in opposite person’s physical absence, distance us like ever, but not at the cost of next person’s emotions and needs. Only when it turns out to be luxurious commodity, as we tend to use it more often, at the personal level, it would be capable enough to hurt the persons next to us and thus distances them more than the opposite.

In conclusion, what we feel is that mobile phone in either ways, as a luxury and as a necessity, distances the human beings from one another, but it always depends on how we use it. The distance from the persons next to us is evitable, and the distance from the opposite is inevitable.

The opinion on mobile phones, a necessity or luxury and distance the persons next to us rather than opposite, might differ with you. If at all, kindly let me learn your opinion.

How it all happened: I was given this topic as a content writer interview topic. Later I found it to be in similar lines with GRE issue essay. Though it was all new experience, I am glad I could at least try it.