ApnaCircle, a leading social network, provides professionals and businesses with an avenue for networking, promoting, building contacts and getting leads. Its founder Yogesh Bansal provides an insight into job interviews.
Could you list some of the qualities that the industry expects from graduates?
Companies hire employees who have a sense of responsibility towards their organisation. Every organisation today looks at hiring people with good academics, professional qualifications and good industry updates.
Fluent communication is a pre-requisite for every industry and organisation. Being good at theory does not mean you are good at practical. Post-interviews, companies conduct a second round of screening or test the practical knowledge a fresher has. So, being a good presenter and proactive about your industry is also required.
What work does the candidate need to do apart from his academic routine to boost his profile? Could you provide tips to students?
Professional social networks are a great way to connect with peers and to gain information on your preferred interests.
In this digital era, being on a professional networking site helps you control your “online identity” and control what you want others to see about you. It not only helps you to understand the current market scenario, but you also gather a good understanding about the market requirement which will help you acquire the required skills. Apart from giving you information and suggestions, an online network helps you collect information about your prospective employers, interact with professionals and build the right industry contacts.
A few tips, when networking online:
- Give a professional headline, along with a professional picture of yours and let people recognise you by face.
- Set keywords that describe you the best. Always highlight your strengths and credentials. Be specific about the word usage as these words when searched for are the first link between you and someone that might be a prospective connection/employer.
- Import your entire Address book from Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo, etc. and add them to your professional network. This enables you to build network with the contacts of your contacts.
- Enrich your profile with interactive content like your blogs, presentations and engage with groups, read posts or comment if you have something interesting to say. Post your own questions or topics and connect with members of the group where there might be mutual benefit.
- Solicit recommendations. Reach out to former supervisors, colleagues, vendors or friends. Soliciting recommendations ensure a good chance of being picked by potential clients and employers.
- Never send a blank request, it displays partial interest. The “add a contact” request should always include a brief message addressing the contact or it should include your business card.
- Keep your profile updated — whether or not looking for a job.
What are the basic requirements expected by IT companies?
I strongly believe that success lies in not how big the brand name of your institute is, but how much talent you possess. IT in itself is growing and innovating with the passing minute, so being up to date is the most important thing. After getting your fundamentals right, keeping pace is something that is required along with traditional courses.
It is an age of digitisation, every organisation or company wants to digitise their content and this in turn is bringing huge opportunities for technically-qualified professionals. A lot of developments in the IT sector have opened up new job opportunities and careers. For example, the software companies that design apps indirectly created an additional 1, 00,000 jobs worldwide last year. So, students must have a sharp acumen as well as logical reasoning abilities.
