This was a letter i wrote to the students representatives of my college,Jindal Institute of Power Technology.They were the body formed to look after the progress of the placements of the students.I wrote the following letter or rather an article to suggest some activities to improve ourselves.
To
Students Representatives,JIPT
Guys I have a few suggestions and have written this rather long letter to list out the suggestions as well as to provide advantages of their implementation. I am more comfortable with the written form of communication,so this letter.Please take the time to read.
And I have written this in the manner of an article.Not exactly a letter.
So the 'You' here is addressed to nobody in particular.
For anybody to succeed in anything a person should first identify what he needs to accomplish.Let us take For example a person aspiring to become a good racer.The first and the most basic thing he needs to do is pass the driving license test.Here his goal is passing that test.At this point of time all his resources should be spent on preparing for the test.
Similarly when we think about becoming a Power plant engineer we need to first get a job in a power plant.And for that every company hires you on based on your performance in some certain tests.Now every company has its own set of exams.Some have a written test and then a group discussion and then an interview,while some have only written and then interview,while some others have only interview.The most common is the written and interview one.So now our aim or what i would like to call 'Clear and Present Goal' is to pass the written test and the interview.When it comes to written test again there are a number of patterns companies follow.Some have aptitude,some don't but every test has technical questions(obviously).Written test is pretty much straight forward.You have certain aptitude skill and certain technical skill.If what you have is greater that what the test is asking you pass the test.And if you don't, you won't pass the test.Nothing complex about it.
(From here let me remind you whatever i am going to write is purely my opinion.You are free to disagree.)
Interview
When it comes to interview so many people fail not because they don't have the required technical skills but because they lack in other equally important skills.My point of contention here is that not many people pay attention to things like communication and body language.These I believe are equally important in your chances of getting selected.What I am trying to say here is that we should pay attention to other details too, apart from technical stuff.
One more thing is that when you lack a certain thing in you or you have a problem with a certain thing.The first thing to do is ACKNOWLEDGE the problem! You have to identify the problem and then acknowledge that 'yes I have a problem with this and I need to solve this.Then comes the rectification part.Rectification part is easier than acknowledging part I tell you ! People are there to help you but unless you recognize the problem and tell someone the problem there's nothing you or the other people can about it.So the thing here is lets have some activities wherein we can improve our communications skill.Activities which involve talking and discussing.These things improve us in a whole manner.
As you know there are two kinds of,say, mind.One is the conscious mind and the other the sub conscious.
Conscious mind works when you prepare for the interview reading books,discussing etc.It gives you certain knowledge.But this knowledge while you take it out to show the person in front of you,you do it with the help of the Sub conscious mind.You talk in a certain manner,you gesture with your hands in a certain manner,you maintain your eye contact,the manner of your sitting,the posture etc.All this is governed by the sub conscious. This develops by not reading about it.It has to be
1-given importance
2- practiced
For some people it comes naturally they don't have to put in much effort in that area.But for some it gets really difficult to get going.But everyone has to practice it.Only then you can master it.
The kind of activities I mentioned above improve your communication skills,(the obvious one) some other things it will improve are
1-how to disagree politely with anyone
2-how to sit properly
3-when to maintain eye contact and when to break it.
4-how to answer a question.
Let me give you an example.when somebody asks you a question like
'how was the Ironman movie?' you don't answer him with 'that batman movie was awesome' neither will you answer by starting from the first frame in the movie and continue till the lst frame.By the time you consume 2 mins the listener will have lost interest.so keeping it relevant to the question and keeping it short is the mantra.This is one of the many things we can together learn when we get together for the activities.
1- Group Discussions
2- Talks
3- Ppts with simple pics and videos
4- Mock interviews among ourselves.
5- Sharing of expertise or let me say, knowledge. A person maybe good in a particular field or topic or area.We can tell that person to share it with the rest of us.Like,one time in front of a small group, a person talks about pumps,another talks about transformers yet another about communication skills,yet another about English etc.The person who is talking on the stage is not an expert in that area,but compared to the rest of us he has better knowledge in that particular area.
With my views and rather with this long letter I hope I made my points clear. Now the onus lies on you guys to decide if we go ahead with this.If you made it till here thanks for the patience! :-)
To
Students Representatives,JIPT
Guys I have a few suggestions and have written this rather long letter to list out the suggestions as well as to provide advantages of their implementation. I am more comfortable with the written form of communication,so this letter.Please take the time to read.
And I have written this in the manner of an article.Not exactly a letter.
So the 'You' here is addressed to nobody in particular.
For anybody to succeed in anything a person should first identify what he needs to accomplish.Let us take For example a person aspiring to become a good racer.The first and the most basic thing he needs to do is pass the driving license test.Here his goal is passing that test.At this point of time all his resources should be spent on preparing for the test.
Similarly when we think about becoming a Power plant engineer we need to first get a job in a power plant.And for that every company hires you on based on your performance in some certain tests.Now every company has its own set of exams.Some have a written test and then a group discussion and then an interview,while some have only written and then interview,while some others have only interview.The most common is the written and interview one.So now our aim or what i would like to call 'Clear and Present Goal' is to pass the written test and the interview.When it comes to written test again there are a number of patterns companies follow.Some have aptitude,some don't but every test has technical questions(obviously).Written test is pretty much straight forward.You have certain aptitude skill and certain technical skill.If what you have is greater that what the test is asking you pass the test.And if you don't, you won't pass the test.Nothing complex about it.
(From here let me remind you whatever i am going to write is purely my opinion.You are free to disagree.)
Interview
When it comes to interview so many people fail not because they don't have the required technical skills but because they lack in other equally important skills.My point of contention here is that not many people pay attention to things like communication and body language.These I believe are equally important in your chances of getting selected.What I am trying to say here is that we should pay attention to other details too, apart from technical stuff.
One more thing is that when you lack a certain thing in you or you have a problem with a certain thing.The first thing to do is ACKNOWLEDGE the problem! You have to identify the problem and then acknowledge that 'yes I have a problem with this and I need to solve this.Then comes the rectification part.Rectification part is easier than acknowledging part I tell you ! People are there to help you but unless you recognize the problem and tell someone the problem there's nothing you or the other people can about it.So the thing here is lets have some activities wherein we can improve our communications skill.Activities which involve talking and discussing.These things improve us in a whole manner.
As you know there are two kinds of,say, mind.One is the conscious mind and the other the sub conscious.
Conscious mind works when you prepare for the interview reading books,discussing etc.It gives you certain knowledge.But this knowledge while you take it out to show the person in front of you,you do it with the help of the Sub conscious mind.You talk in a certain manner,you gesture with your hands in a certain manner,you maintain your eye contact,the manner of your sitting,the posture etc.All this is governed by the sub conscious. This develops by not reading about it.It has to be
1-given importance
2- practiced
For some people it comes naturally they don't have to put in much effort in that area.But for some it gets really difficult to get going.But everyone has to practice it.Only then you can master it.
The kind of activities I mentioned above improve your communication skills,(the obvious one) some other things it will improve are
1-how to disagree politely with anyone
2-how to sit properly
3-when to maintain eye contact and when to break it.
4-how to answer a question.
Let me give you an example.when somebody asks you a question like
'how was the Ironman movie?' you don't answer him with 'that batman movie was awesome' neither will you answer by starting from the first frame in the movie and continue till the lst frame.By the time you consume 2 mins the listener will have lost interest.so keeping it relevant to the question and keeping it short is the mantra.This is one of the many things we can together learn when we get together for the activities.
1- Group Discussions
2- Talks
3- Ppts with simple pics and videos
4- Mock interviews among ourselves.
5- Sharing of expertise or let me say, knowledge. A person maybe good in a particular field or topic or area.We can tell that person to share it with the rest of us.Like,one time in front of a small group, a person talks about pumps,another talks about transformers yet another about communication skills,yet another about English etc.The person who is talking on the stage is not an expert in that area,but compared to the rest of us he has better knowledge in that particular area.
With my views and rather with this long letter I hope I made my points clear. Now the onus lies on you guys to decide if we go ahead with this.If you made it till here thanks for the patience! :-)
No comments:
Post a Comment