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An impactful CV is the first step towards success because it is the deciding factor as to whether you would get to face the interviewer or not. It is not merely a piece of paper wherein you scribble your name, education and job experience. It is a professional document which gives the prospective employer a way to gauge your potentials remotely. So you should be extra cautious while preparing your CV so that it is error free and impressive. Here are few tips which can help you do so.

CV should be concise: Recruiters get tones of CV’s daily and don’t have the time or patience to dig through an incoherent document. Only a punchy CV can get you noticed in the first place. So keep it short and effective. Make it no more than two sides of A4 paper and save the real detail for your interview. The layout should be simple, uncluttered and in an easy-to-read font.

Avoid gaps in between jobs: Even if you were out of employment, you can develop soft skills such as communication, teamwork or project management. You should update your CV regularly, so that you don’t have to recall distant points in your career and there is no ambiguity in your CV.

Make sure it’s error free: One of the easiest ways for a recruiter to throw out a week resume is by scanning it for errors. If you fail to check your CV for basic spelling and grammatical mistakes, you are hammering your own chances of getting a call in the first place. Most errors can be detected by using PC’s spell-checker, but you should also ask someone else to read your CV and give you their opinion.

Be brief with your personal information: Putting in a lot of personal information is unnecessary and it only makes the CV lengthier than required without doing any value addition. Just include your name, contact details and nationality. The recruiter is more interested in knowing your skills and expertise in the field rather than knowing you personally through your CV.

Highlight on your career history and key skills: Your skill set and your career history are the two major things which the recruiter would be interested in. So pay special attention to these two areas. Be as specific and detailed as possible to avoid any ambiguity or confusion to your potential new employers. Give the dates that you started and finished the role, the job title, the company for which you worked and give a short one-line description of the company’s activities and its website. List your key achievements in the roles you mention.

Tags: Career, Career History, Concise CV, CV, Error Free, Gaps in Jobs, Good CV, impactful CV, Interview, Jobs, Key Skills, Personal Information, success, Tips

An interview is a magic wand which can get you a new job, change your present boring career into an exciting one, and get you a job that pays many times your current salary. It is something that can improve your career and make your life into a much better one. Successfully handling an interview has indeed become a necessity rather than a luxury! It is a place where one’s abilities are challenged to the greatest extent and his/her entire personality/attitude evaluated. It tests all your skills and can bring out certain facts about you, which you yourself wouldn’t have been aware of! However, with proper practice and effort, you can successfully face an interview.

Always be confident: your interviewer is certainly looking for a confident, calm and positive person for his company who can make mature and sensible decisions when need be. So walk in with a confident gait, greet the panel of interviewers pleasantly, and don’t let your tension or excitement show in your attitude.

Be well aware of the type of job: Most of the questions posed will be testing whether you understand the nature of the job and have the ability to handle it. If you are well versed with the requirements of the job, the interview is half done. Never attend an interview without having just an idea of the responsibilities required.

Know the company well: Nowadays almost all companies have their profile on the internet. Don’t neglect a thorough research of the firm before going for the interview. Know the key people associated with the firm. Think of a few suggestions that you feel can improve their product. This is a very likely question and you surely won’t have time and patience to sit and think over it at the interview table.

Know your subjects well for a technical interview: Tech interviews need a somewhat different type of preparation. You must have a very deep understanding of the subjects related to the job you are applying for. Know beforehand the technologies used by the company. Gather such information from books, online and people working in the same or similar firms. Know about the latest developments in the area you are applying for. Show qualities of teamwork since almost all tech jobs involve hundreds of people working on a single project. Team spirit is as important as the technical knowledge you possess.

Conduct a mock interview: Either ask yourself some questions in front of the mirror or take help of a friend or family in preparing you for your real interview. This makes you more comfortable with the interview environment and hence more confident.

Tags: Abilities, Career, Confident, Interview, Interview Tips, Job, Mock Interview, New Job

Few years back, India was basking in international recognition as a lucrative business destination for foreign companies. With more and more companies outsourcing their key business processes to India, the BPO industry saw an unparalleled boom. This created countless employment opportunities for young graduates and professionals. It became a great career option for numerous young, mid-career professionals to earn a competitive pay package and get acquainted to international work standards and cutting edge technology.

But with the financial meltdown in USA, the prospects of BPO industry look bleak now. With the crash of the major financial behemoths at the Wall Street, there is chaos, panic and despair in the entire IT and BPO industry in India. Almost 60% of the IT-BPO companies get their bread and butter from American financial institutions like Goldman Sachs, Washington Mutual, Citigroup, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and Lehman Brothers. The future of about 23 lakh people is in doldrums right now with layoffs being witnessed in all major firms. Leading global HR consulting firm Manpower has drastically downgraded hiring outlook for India. According to Manpower, hiring outlook (percentage of hiring that companies plan) dipped from 56% to 33% for quarter ending March 2009 for finance and insurance sectors. For IT-ITES, the outlook has declined from 58% to 47%. Companies are going to be badly hit, especially in the banking financial services & insurance (BFSI), IT and BPO, say experts. It is estimated that at least 5000-8000 people may have to search for other job options.

Meanwhile, at Lehman’s India unit, the fate of 2,500 employees is still uncertain. At a meeting in Hong Kong this week, the company decided that employees will get their September salary, but there was no word on their future.

Vikram Bhardwaj, CEO of Redileon, an executive HR firm said: “All hirings, especially of top management across sectors, is going to be badly hit in the ripple effect. From short-to-mid term, the scenario can only worsen, unless positive signals emerge from the US economy. Every new requirement for a hiring is being scrutinised heavily by the finance departments in IT companies.”

The ripple effect has lead to cost cutting in the IT and BPO industry in India. This has a direct impact on the recruitment and pay-packages offered to fresher’s.

Though Indian BPO industry is shaken by the global meltdown, there might still be some hope left. Nasscom has assured that the impact on Indian industry would be company specific and short term. Stating that the Indian IT-BPO sector is a part of the global financial system that has seen a lot of turbulence in the recent past, the apex body said ‘our preliminary analysis of the current situation indicates that the impact will be short term and company specific.

All we can do is wait and watch how the world-wide paranoia and crisis affects the Indian industry in the future. Let’s hope that there is a silver lining of optimism behind this cloud of disaster.

Tags: Bank of America, Banking Financial, BPO, BPO Industry, Career, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, HR, HR Consulting, India, IT and BPO, Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley, Outsourcing, Redileon, Ripple Effect, USA, Washington Mutual

Indian national people in Britain have the highest number of people employed among all social groups, a latest official publication said.

“The proportion of working-age people living in work less households in the UK was highest for the Chinese ethnic group, at 25%, and lowest for the Indian ethnic group, at 10%, while 11% of people in the white ethnic group lived in a work less household,” the 2008 edition of `Social Trends`, a publication released by the Office for National Statistics said on Tuesday.

The publication says that Indians constitute the largest group in Britain among the ethnic minorities. Asians constitute about 5% of total population while black constitutes 3% of the population. There are around 12,15,000 Indians in Britain.

`Social Trends` provides an up-to-date and comprehensive description of society in 2007. The study revealed that UK has become more ethnically diverse in the past few years as its population has grown from 56 million in 1986 to 60 million in 2006. But 90% of the population is still white, compared to 93% in 2001.

The publication reveals that UK residents made a record 45.3 million holiday trips abroad in 2006. Nearly 3% of these trips were to Asia, where common destinations were India and Thailand.

It also points that the number of people aged 65 and above in the UK is expected to exceed the number aged fewer than 16 in 2021.

The proportion of people living alone is also on rise.

Tags: Britain, Career, China, Employment, India, UK

One million fresh jobs have been predicted this year in India by a leading human resources consultancy firm. Maximum of which is supposed to be provided by Mumbai followed by Delhi, Chennai and Kolkata.

Ma Foi Employment Trends Survey (METS), conducted by Ma Foi, one of India’s largest HR consultancy firm has predicted a 3 % increase in employment in the current year, which promises to offer jobs for the freshers and other interested for a good change in their work.

According to the survey, maximum job opportunity jobs will come from hospitality sector which is presently at the top because if increasing tourism in the country. According to the survey, this sector is going to generate approximately 426,668 jobs. Next to it can be health sector with 295,829 jobs followed by education training and consultancy sector offering around 166,005 jobs.

“The boom in the tourism industry has had a cascading effect on the hospitality sector, which was a result of the increase in the occupancy ratios and average room rates. With the demand continuing to surge, many global hospitality majors have evinced a keen interest in the Indian hospitality sector,” says K Pandia Rajan, managing director, Ma Foi Management Consultants Ltd.

With an estimate, $11.41 billion is expected to be seen to be invested in the hospitality sector in the next two years. India is likely to have around 40 international hotel brands by 2011.

Economic growth rate may be moderate this year but employment growth is definitely going to be at a hike. While, information technology (IT) and information technology-enabled services (ITES) sectors continue with high growth in recruitment at 7.3 and 7.2 per cent, the health sector will show the highest growth in recruitment at 8.9 per cent.

According to the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, the healthcare industry has emerged as one of the most challenging sectors in India. As per industry reports, the Indian health services sector is estimated to be around Rs 75,000 crore (Rs 750 billion) and is expected to grow by 170 per cent by 2012.

The survey also said that the real estate and construction industry records the highest percentage of work outsourced with 19 % followed closely by hospitality at 18.5 per cent. Survey said that Energy generation and supply sector will experience the highest average salary increase of 16.8%. IT, real estate and construction, trade and hospitality are other sector with a considerable increase in salary.

The study is conducted on 22 different sectors across 2006 units spanning all major industry segments from all over the country for predicting future employment trends for this year.

Tags: Career, Chennai, India, Job, Jobs in India, Kolkata, Mumbai