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Listening - A psychological and philosophical tool to be happy

   [A] Introduction / Background:  90% of communication is listening. Not too wrong. Listening forms a formidable part of the process of communication. Listening, some say, is a skill of communication. While I cannot disagree with that at all, I’d like to add that listening is more like an attribute of personality. Or, to say the least, more of a habit and less of a skill. The good listeners are generally reasonably good communicators. Not implying that how you convey your thoughts is not important. But yes, good listeners shall always enjoy a special status in the area of communication! Please remember that listening is equally important in email writing and can make or break email communications as well. [B] Types/Levels/Classification of Listening: Listening works at many levels. These levels or types, are mere concepts. In reality, it is very difficult to brand anyone as belonging to a particular type of listener. It depends. One can be an active listener in some cases, and can be
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Frequently Asked Questions of MS-Excel and Finance (MBA Freshers)

#pv_diaries Dear all, if you have any comments or additions, or deletions or suggestions for this post, please do feel free to comment and add value. That may help me and many more. ========================================= The most frequently asked MS-Excel related questions to freshers MBAs in the job interviews (HR Round), in the companies like S&P Global: 0. Introduce yourself / tell me something about yourself. 1. Explain VLOOKUP (XLOOKUP is not still very popular) 2. What is a pivot table? 3. What is SQL? 4. What a Macro? In the companies, that are in the trading of chemicals (domestic as well as international): 1. What is e-way bill? Who needs to carry it? At What time? (Domain: GST) 2. Do you know tally? Basic functions related to tally 3. Basic MS-Excel functions, especially related to Finance like NPV, PMT, XIRR etc.? 4. What is Discounted Cash Flow? You may be asked to calculate PV, based on FV. And you may be asked to assume the discounting rate (At that time, you are e
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CTC and Bond in Jobs: Some Pros and Cons

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  [A] Introduction:   I have come across two burning issues, as far as the recruitment and selection are concerned in India. There are a lot of opinions (misconceptions) and strong emotions associated with the areas or practices like CTC, take home salary, bond in the jobs, regarding the morality and legality of the same. In this blog post, I will try to create an awareness regarding these practices, and hopefully, will empower the reader to arrive at his/her own conclusion. [B] What is CTC?:   CTC stands for Cost to the Company. It includes all the direct and indirect expenditures, that a company incurs on a particular employee. For example, basic salary, various allowances etc. Here is one example from Wikipedia: In other simple words, it is the total amount that an employer spends on an employee. Ideally, it includes everything, something as small as, the bill of a cup of tea, that an employee will receive, while traveling as a part of the job.  Some companies also include the perfo
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Tips to young start-ups for selecting the right candidates

    if you are a young start up, here are some inputs for selecting candidates These are long term measures. Hire good consultants if you can't manage. 1. Thoroughly check background. Talk to the company where the student did internships in UG/PG. 2. Thoroughly check Instagram and LinkedIn profiles and dig out things likes comments, posts, photographs etc. 3. Try to talk to the placement team of college for each identified candidate. 4. Use a lot of behavioral questions in an interview. They are good at digging out the hidden aspects of candidate's real job behavior. 5. Not easy, but check credit history, if possible. 6. Enter the name of the student in Google and see what comes out. 7. Position your company as one of the best companies to work for in campuses of your choice. 8. Selecting a candidate is like investment. You take risk and hope he will perform well. But, there is always a risk reward ratio at play. So avoid taking blind risk i.e. only considering his talent will
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The Middle Ground: A Story (Dilemma) of a 'Win-Win' Decision

 Once upon a time, there was a company. It was a very good company and was flourishing well. The employees were happy in general. Mitresh was an officer level employee in this company. He was with the company for more than a decade. His performance record was good. His boss was also very happy with his attitude and performance.  But then every good story gets a twist. A twist in the tale. Mitresh was trying for a PR of a foreign company. He got it! But the condition to convert that offer for PR into actual PR was that Mritesh was required to fly to that country the very next month, along with his family, which, in his case, included his 5 month old pregnant wife.  The problem in front of Mitreh was that he had not informed his employer about this. And, as per the terms of the service, he was required to serve three years' bond before leaving the job. Or, he would have to pay three years' salary, which was unaffordable to him. Mritesh was really in a big trouble. He decided to a
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Career Counseling: Learning from the job interviews that could not be cracked

   [A] Introduction: It is not possible to succeed in everything one does. The same applies to the employment / job interviews. And as we already know, the failures contribution to our learning is immense. Fundamentally, it is a tacit form of learning. The successful people convert it into the explicitly form of learning. This article gives out some tricks and tips, that you help the job seekers (primarily freshers) can use to learn from their mistakes in GD/PI. [B] The steps to learn from the interviews you could not crack: 1. Write down everything right after the interview: The first thing you need to do is to write down everything right after the interview. The memory is generally fresh on the day of interview and it is important to put the whole experience, like how you entered the room, how you greeted the panel, what types of questions were asked, and what types of answers you gave, what dress did you wear, how was your body language (in your own eyes) etc. Make sure to write EVE
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Moonlighting

  [A] Moonlighting - What is this?, What is it NOT? It is nothing but doing many jobs. But, the primary employers do not know about it. Even before Covid19, many employers, particularly in IT industry, would be working for two employers. But, in those days, most employees would disclose this to their primary employer. And the primary employer would not mind it, as long as the concerned employee were using his or her own resources to do that second job, including time and laptop. Plus, of course, there should be no conflict of interest in that. But, with work from home becoming a new normal, the employees started working for two more more employers, during the same working hours, using the same laptop. And, this is where, the problem is. A lot of employers like Wipro and Infosys view it as the practice, that leads to conflict of interest.  Moonlighting is NOT side hustle or a side gig. While moon lighting is generally about full time or a part time job for another employer during the ni
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