Podcast transcript: Preeti: Hello, welcome back to Sabre Souvernirs. I hope you all are doing well. And you were able to listen to our last podcast where Jayath Jayan took us all through his non-linear career path and success tips. Today, we have with us, our Talent Acquisition Head, Vijay Aloysius. And in today’s episode, we will take you through some practical tips, right from the horse’s mouth that can help you secure better career opportunities in the future. So without further ado, let me welcome Vijay to our show. Hello, Vijay. Hope you are doing great. Vijay: Hi Preeti. Preeti: So Vijay, why don’t you take our audience through your background and tell us a bit about your current role. Vijay: Sure, thanks, Preeti. So, I’m an MBA with about 15 years of experience and you know, the whole experience has been in recruiting and, mostly worked in product and tech engineering companies and hired for software engineering, sales consulting, kind of roles. And my current role, I head talent acquisition for Sabre in India. Preeti: Wow. So you have varied experience in technology for various roles, right? Vijay: Yep. Preeti: Okay. So during your career, what are some of the lessons that helped you grow as a professional? Vijay: So, this question makes me think back you know, way back from where I started. So, when you enter an organization, there are a few things which, , you know, you need to do, to start with. One is, you know, first of all, you understand the organization and the role better. And,you know, there are different ways to do that. What worked for me is what I’m trying to explain here. There are two things which I have done first is, to network with my own team and, people in the peer teams as well. So that one, you get a good circle of network to understand and know things about the company as well, as on the role you’re working on. And they become your point of contact, your first point of contact in case you have anything to discuss on, or something which you thought you need to know and where to find that, so those kinds of things can be done very easily with that. Secondly, I think it is important to stay in touch with the market and know what’s happening in the industry as well. So what I used to do is to, apart from reading your regular news articles and magazines and stuff like that, it is important to go and subscribe to newsletters and journals, which are very relevant to your scope of work. Right? So there are industry experts who talk about what is happening, what’s going to come, what’s new in the market, what to expect. So it gives you a big set of information available for you and keeps your mind thinking about what’s going to happen next. There’s also another thing, which will help, is to look for a mentor. And when I say mentor, it doesn’t really have to be in your scope of work. It can be someone who knows the organization better, or someone is slightly senior who can give you advice, sometime help you navigate, uh, sometimes counsel you and get you back on the right track. So having a mentor is useful and helpful. So that kind of helped me in a big way, I should say. And lastly, I think it’s important to stay curious. Don’t get comfortable in what you’re doing. Always have this question in mind. Can I do it better? Can I do it simpler?, Can I do it faster?. These things should play in your mind all the time to make you better at what you’re doing. So that’s what I think helps. Preeti: Ah, great. So, in short, you’re saying read, discuss, research network, network, and network, and maybe if possible, find a mentor. Awesome tips, Vijay. Moving on to the next question, why don’t you share some advice for the job seekers on how they can hone their skills for the interviews. Vijay: Sure. So let me take it a little, in a broader scope here, because it’s important for people to know what companies look for, when they start hiring a candidate. Number one, a professional degree in your area of work definitely helps us. And once you have that, and then you’re looking for a job, there are a few things which you need to know when you’re making your own resume, right? Number one, your resume should be simple, but informative. What a recruiter really looks for in a resume to make the first cut is, to have certain details available, it should be catchy to read and understand. You should have your educational details and your experience as a background very prominently mentioned in your CV, so that it’s easier to read. Okay, mention your relevant skills. I’ve seen the resumes, which listed about 55-60 odd skills. Mention the ones, maybe the top five, you know, that should be the ones that you’re best at. So mention the relevant skills, very prominently. And in case you have done any certifications to help you on your job, mentioned that as well and provide it as relevant to the job. Right. And what you should definitely avoid in the resume is avoid paragraphs. Don’t write essays about the job, about the role. That is not very relevant. So keep it simple. Bullet points really helps. And in my opinion, an ideal resume should not be more than two pages. Preeti: Okay, awesome. Got it. Vijay: Moving on to interviews. There are 2-3 phases on how to crack the interview. Number one is first of all, you need to know what the role is. So you need to read the JD, if it is available for you, read it up, make notes. And usually once you get a JD, you will also have a call with a recruiter to understand the role better. Number 2, use that discussion to have your questions clarified, uh, to get the role and understanding better. Also ask the question around what is success in this role? What are the things the company expects from the candidate coming into that role? Right. And we are also in a well network and a social media savvy market here. So I think you should go through LinkedIn and Glassdoor to understand the company better in terms of the product services, etc. So it gives you a good understanding about, what is the role, what is the company and what am I expected to do? So once you have this information, I think you’re a little bit more prepared for the interview. When you have to sit and prepare yourself for the interview, these are few things I would say, which is important. One is, understand what are the roles and skills, which I think you would have made a note Once you went to the JD, secondly, backtrack yourself and look at your career and experience and look at where you gain these skills and knowledge and write it down so that it’s easier for you to explain. So make note of that. And the last one, which is a very important one is to know when you did what, like for example, there could be places where the interviewer could ask you a question saying, have you ever come across the situation? Explain that a little bit. Which means that you need to be prepared with examples. Which means that when you prepare, make note of these examples as well. So how you did what you did and what brought you to a success is what you need to know. Right? Following that, when you start the actual interview, you’re sitting in front of the interviewer, what are the few things which would help you? Number one, is be confident. So, once you’re confident, the way your body language changes, the way you attempt and answer the question changes. So it’s very important to be very confident. Stick to the topic, which means that answer the question in the right format. Don’t go on into unnecessary details, stick to the topic, but give enough details for the question to be answered completely. That’s very important. Use of experience in terms of quoting examples is very important at this point of time and where there is a need or where ever possible. If there’s a possibility for you to share some data that also helps you to bring the story in a very good fashion to the interviewer. When you talk about scenarios, be very clear, make sure that it is crisp and not overelaborate. And, to answer certain questions or scenarios, show some examples of where you acted as a leader and where you were solution oriented, rather than saying I was in this situation, it was very difficult to handle for me. Instead, you, you need to look at yourself as a leader there and how do you bring that situation under control and how you turned it into success is what the interview would like to hear. Preeti:  Wow, that’s great. Okay. That’s a great insight Vijay. So you’ve actually covered right from, how to get your resume noticed, to how to prepare for an interview and how to actually give an interview. So I’m hoping this helps a lot of our audience to figure out what they possibly need to go ahead and do if they are looking for their dream job. Thanks so much! Now, talking a little bit about your personal side, why don’t you share what you do beyond work, share your hobbies, your passions? Vijay: Definitely. Definitely. I love music, so I’m big time into Spotify and apple music right now. Following that, I would say, this is mostly rock, pop and a few regional music, which I like. Preeti: Oh, cool. Sorry, go ahead. Vijay: No problem. So I also, I love to ride my bike, this used to be my weekend escape, but then, considering situation right now, riding the bike has become cleaning the bike. Preeti: Okay. That was good. Vijay: Yeah. I also love watching movies. So a big Netflix buff at this point. And I also like cooking. Cooking has become my stress buster right now. So, you know, whenever, you don’t know what to do or whenever you want to think something, I tend to use cooking as a medium to  get into thoughts and explore what kind of solutions I can come up with. Preeti: Oh. So you’re looking at cooking as therapy. Vijay: Yep. Preeti: That’s good. So you have a varied set of interest. What message. Do you have candidates and others coping with the current pandemic situation? You just talked about the fact that because of COVID you had to change, , like, you know relook at the passions and, uh, work around it. So if there’s a message that you’d possibly like to leave our audience with, let us know. Vijay:  Sure definitely. I think it’s important to stay positive right now, being positive and having a lot of hope is what I think is required to cope up with this new scenario we are faced with at this point of time. It is also a good time to look at what skills you want to update, because a lot of us feel that there is some kind of stagnation, some kind of growth which is missing. So those kind of thoughts, I think this is your time to look at your skills, engage yourself with some learning and development kind of an activity. A lot of online courses are available. So look at a list of things which you want to do at this point of time. You can also network and spread the information about career opportunities to people whom you know, who are in need. This will help a lot of people who are looking out for jobs and opportunity at this point of time. I think a good use of networking portals, I would say is LinkedIn. You can understand what’s going on in the market. You can also help a bunch of folks who are looking out, so try and see where you can help people who are in need. And if you’re looking for a job and once you land an interview, what you need to do, I’ve already explained. So, prepare well.  Be honest about the impact of the pandemic on you in case you lost your job or something like that during this period. Be prepared to speak about what you did during the break as well because, as interviewers, people tend to like to hear about what you did with your time off and how did you, you got to terms with that. Also be prepared with the answer for why you are the right fit for the role because that is also very important. To sum it up, I think we need to be positive and be hopeful that things will change, things will improve. We’ll get back to normal very soon. Preeti: Thank you for a beautiful message where you essentially in Natchez saying, make yourself useful, stay curious, and positive. Vijay: Absolutely. Preeti: Thank you so much for your time Vijay. I hope our listeners will take note of the different depths that you have shared with us on this podcast today. And it will help them stay positive as well as, get relevant and better jobs and even find new roles as well. We will keep coming back with more stories in our upcoming podcast. The link to our podcast will be updated on our website as in when they happen. So a request to our listeners, don’t forget to keep visiting our YouTube channel and other social media channels for more such stories and we’ll keep coming back with more tips from experts in Sabre. Thank you for your time, Vijay. Have a great day ahead.