Guest Post: Kiran Karbhajan

Kiran is one of Chris' Summer 2010 Professional Speaking students. Here he writes about finding the right company for you and getting an interview call.

A few days back I came across an old Chinese proverb while browsing a quotes site, http://www.indianchild.com/quotations_on_happiness.htm, which goes something like..

If you want to be happy for an hour, have a beer … if you want to be happy for a day, go on a date

If you want to be happy for a week, take a vacation…if you want to be happy for a month, get married;

But if you want to be happy for life, LOVE your work!

Like most of you, it made me have a good laugh at first, but then I thought, "Hang on, that does make sense!" Indeed, our work is such a significant but not a “carefully planned” part of our lives. Most of us work for the premium years of our lives and well, our job description pretty much defines who we are to an extent. (Of course work life balance is important I know! But in this blog I would like to discuss work…) Interestingly you might have come across a lot of people around us who, maybe unknowingly, are somewhat casual while choosing the right career or the right place to work! That's what I have observed in my friend circle as well as professional circle . (This is just a personal experience and not meant to be interpreted in any other way.)

So I decided to do a little research on the web and collected some pointers on what you should have on your mind while looking for the right company to work for you. Because remember, it’s a place where you will spend most of your day time, make a lot of personal and professional contacts, earn a living and become a better person. So you sure want to know what you are doing while choosing a company right? Some of the points I could compile were –

• Find the company best suited for you – This is first stage of any job hunt. There are a million companies out there but you want “the” right place for you which would benefit you in a lot of ways. So start with asking yourself a few questions like –

o What companies operate in your area of interest? – This information can be gathered over the internet easily. You can also register with a few job search engines like http://www.jobsearchusa.org.

o Which companies have job openings that match your skill set? – Visit the company website and look for sections named “jobs” or “careers,” e.g. Career opportunities in Deloitte are listed here - http://careers.deloitte.com/gateway.aspx. Usually companies will post all the job openings under these sections. Go through it and see if anything relevant comes up. Also spend some time on thinking if this is the job profile you really want and where it will take you in the near future.

o What is the overall organizational and salary structure? - This is very important. Your choice of a dream company may very well be based on this point. Make sure you understand at least on a higher level how the company (or the concerned department) operates. Find out the company’s plans for the future and if they are on the right track of growth. Understand the salary structure so that you have an idea of what kind of compensation is involved.

Great! Now that you have an idea about the company you want to work for, or at least you have short listed a few, the next step is to work towards approaching the company and get an interview call or a personal meeting with company personnel scheduled. Plan your efforts in some basic steps like -

• Know the company - You've got to know the company you want to work for. Your must be well aware of history and the market position of the company. Good old ways of doing this are to visit the company website and also the reviews about company’s profile and performance in economic newspapers or journals. Interviewers want to know if you are really interested in the job offer and your knowledge about the company tells them that.

• Find suitable contacts – Get in touch with people who can make a decision about the hiring process - say HR or hiring managers. Drop them an email with your resume or give them a call straight away explaining your case and how you are interested in having a personal meeting. Also drop your resume to the “contact us” email ids mentioned on company websites.

• Employee referral – If there are any people you happen to know (or you can get in touch with somehow), get in touch with them right away. These guys can forward your resumes to the key people and give you a good idea about the selection process.

• Attending social business events – Companies usually hold events where people can walk in and get interviewed or simply make contacts. Keep an eye on such events through newspapers, magazines and online media. You never know some contact may really click for you!

I personally followed an approach like this when I was doing my job search and I did manage to land a job with Infosys Technologies Ltd as a software engineer. And yes, there are a lot of ways to do your preparation for a job search. These are just some helping guidelines (hope you found them useful). You can also visit websites like http://www.greatplacetowork.com – these are great sources of information. I hope this article helped you at least chalk out an outline for your job search process – so the key points are: find out what you really want, which company can offer that, and what do you need to do to get a interview call from them.

All the best!