Sudipta's Life

 A lot of my friends keep asking me for a referral in my company. However, the chances of getting hired depends a lot on not just their skills or their resume, but also on how many people the resume reaches, even if the job requirements are remotely related. While people often talk about going through your connections and network to get the best referrals and positions, you have to make the process of forwarding your resume as smooth as possible.  The purpose of this post is two-fold. The first is that I cannot repeat this to everyone who sends me a resume. Secondly (and more importantly), the topic is delicate for anyone who really wants a job, but I cannot tell them that you are screwing your own chances by just sending a resume. Consider this anonymous feedback for public good. 1. Make a better resume As oft-repeated as this is, there cannot be a simpler tip to implement. Please take a look at Gayle's resume tips here:  http://www.careercup.com/resume . No obje...

Disclaimer:  I don't work for Yahoo, nor should the following be taken up as a commentary about my company's work-from-home policies. These are just my opinion about working remotely in general. TL;DR : If you want to stop work-from-home policies, let there be absolutely no work done after 5 pm. No late night email exchanges, no after-hours conference calls, etc. The latest brouhaha over Yahoo's no-work-from-home policy has its fair share of support as well as opponents. Working mothers are up in arms against this policy, and so are some parents who don't want to miss their kids' school plays or just stay at home one day to attend to their sick child. But as some people admit, the policy is abused more often that not. You can get your afternoon siesta, run errands, and literally run a side job/startup while putting in minimal effort for the stuff that you actually get paid for. I would personally prefer a little more flexible policy. This makes sense: No ...

Warning: this post contains "adult" diagrams and innuendos which may not be suitable for minors. If you believe you can be offended by such, please stop reading now! Hah - I know now that you are DEFINITELY going to read this, aren't you? :D In the comments of all the previous guides which I have released, including the Desi Juliet Guide and the Desi Tourists' Guide to Desi Tourists (DTGDT), there have been requests for photographs to accompany the descriptions. While I wish I could pander to your voyeuristic guilty pleasures, taking photographs in a men's restroom with the explicit purpose of posting them online is not in the best interests of my health. Instead, I have volunteered the artwork featured in this post myself. As the final note of disclaimer, in spite of the point of exit of the fluid from the human body being clearly visible in the diagrams, the length of the exhaust mechanism (or the absence of one, for that matter) does not necessarily imply a...

 I grew up in an industrial town. The steel plant was the major driver of the economy there, since most other businesses, schools, hospitals, etc flourished due to the scores of workers at the plant. As a kid, I would always be amazed by the huge chimneys spewing white smoke or the conveyor belts carrying coal to the furnaces, or even the electromagnets carrying scrap metal for re-use. I think the image of the skyline for the town was pretty much an outline of the chimneys and the tall furnace building. The ensuing pollution and all -- well, that is a completely different story.  So one day I was headed homeward on a local mini-bus and happened to sit beside a bunch of middle-aged people who got in at the stop in front of the steel plant gate. Typically at these older industrial plants, the concept of a weekly team meeting is non-existent. Therefore, as anyone who has had a close family member work at such places will know, time off from work where they meet a colleague soci...

The home-office transit time in Mumbai, when I was working, was a full hour door-to-door. The company provided shuttle buses, with the standard three-seat two-seat combination. Unfortunately, like most "non"-luxury buses, the seat for three actually had space for two (and a half, if you insist); and the two-seater was best suited for one person. This made the commute kind of, shall we say, 'stuffy'. I know what you're thinking: "If you want to get yourself to the office on a Volvo bus, dude, you're in the wrong job!". I knew that, even then (yeah, imagine the genius). But my roommate and I devised some strategies to ensure that we retained our three-seater to the two of us for as long as possible. Yes, the same Mr. Q , of Dubai fame. So if you are one of those lonely souls traveling to your office on the company bus in Mumbai every day, and want to catch up your uninterrupted beauty nap early in the morning, read on... this one is for you! Initiall...

The placement season is around the corner for many people, a few juniors have been asking me whether it is better to go into the software industry and join a consulting company or a core product development company. While answering this question in itself is not possible, my experience in working for both a consulting as well as a core product development company might be able to give a few pointers about what to expect in these respective organizations. In a consulting company, the first thing you learn is that the customer takes the highest priority over anything else. If you promise the client that you will be able to resolve a bug in the next 24 hours, you better do it within those 24 hours. Your word, either on a telephone conference call or via email, will become the law. The brand image that is built for a a company is based on these aspects of its individual employees: and thus what will be drilled into you is the professionalism expected out of everyone. On one hand you will g...

This post is actually an article published in the college magazine this week, which I decided to post here, after all permissions from the editor :) So here is the gyaan: Every year, as you step into the final year of engineering, you gear up for that all-important placement. You go through loads of books on aptitude, puzzles, wordlists… and of course, your own course textbooks. After a long agonizing wait, you clear the written test, the group discussions, the interview, and finally your name appears on the list of the select few --- the chosen ones. And you think that finally all that (hard work?) paid off. You are wrong: the story just begins when you think it ends. Before I trail off into the gyaan that I so much love to dish out, let me introduce myself and what this article will be about. My name is Sudipta Chatterjee, and I am a passout from your college, Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology, Surat. I received official confirmation of my bachelorhood in Computer ...

Yups... onsite!! *Claps, dances about, does a jig on the polished floor, tumbles because he cannot control himself, squeals and shouts 'Yay-yay-yayyyy'!!* Yes, dear reader, yours truly is going onsite to Scotland, Edinburgh. Prerona , if you are reading this, please check your hotmail and gmail mailboxes and let me know when you will be back. I am scheduled to fly on the night of the 18th of January (yes, it is that close), British Airways. This assignment is supposed to last till the end of March, and so I hope to taste a very cold UK Winter in the 2-3 months in the time that I am there. While I am all kicked about going there, let me tell you what has been happening here in the past few weeks. After I was asked to submit my passport's and other information, the sudden feeling of "Yess!! I'm going onsite" grabbed me. Initially, 6 people were asked to submit the documents and we were told that any one or two people would be sent. So, all of us here were a bit ...

I am a poster boy!! The next time Accenture India visits your campus for recruitment, you will see one slide in the PPT which will be the same as the one you see above. As you can see, the handsome dashing dude is me, and yes, believe me, the quote is also my own. I am, in fact, one among the four people chosen across India, one representative of each end of the map. There is one guy from NIT Surathkal, one lady from BIT Mesra, one dude from IIT Roorkee, and finally me, from NIT Surat. I represent the West... now, didn't I tell you that I am a true western dude?? Ok, ok... I know that was a long braggadocio. But couldn't help it. After all, it is not everyday that you get a chance to brag like that... kya karoon, control nahi hota . Never mind, if you get to meet me, you will be the one gushing about me. Hee-hee, I know what comments are coming. About the quote: well, although that might seem like a big ad campaign, trust me it is true. Right now, I know a thousand ways how not...

You might have heard of lost chances and grabbing things with both hands, going for it, etc... but here is something that happened in real life. This incident occured when I had gone along with friends for recruitment to Bangalore. I know that going from Surat to Bangalore 'just to get placed' is definitely going to raise eyebrows of some readers here, but rest assured when you have not been able to trick some comapnies into recruiting you, you are quite desperate to pull it off on the next one in the line. That is a different story... some other time, maybe. Well, on the day itself, after reaching the UVCE campus, I got separated from my group. Maybe I was just plain concentrating, drinking water or something, but during the PPT, in the large hall, I found myself sitting in a very different bench from my buddies from the college. It was ok, kind-of, but then missing your milieu at such a time was a bit disconcerting. Once the PPT got over, I saw the HR people asking something ...

Hi all, Instead of pasting gyaan here all the time, I though I could, for a change, tell about the hep and happening cultural evening we celebrated, called myAccenture day. Right after India rolled over Pakistan, we had buses from in and around Mumbai that took us to the Andheri Sports Complex, the venue. Although scheduled to start at 6:00 p.m., IST (Indian Stretchable Time) played its role and we were gladly cheering Utkarsh and his band (the 5-day band) from about 7:00 in the evening. Later there was the sizzling Malaika, anchoring the entire show. A hilarious skit, a nice fashion show and some nice melodies sung by our own people really lighted up the show. Personally, I felt that the dance troupe that performed in the end was the icing on the cake. It really looked like a professional job! Oh.. for the record, the food was good, too!