Aug.25

Wanna Get Hired?

CAUTION! The following article contains high level of ‘Sarcasm’ and reader may require aggressive therapy afterwards. Keep out of reach of children, especially the ones seeking admissions in universities this year.

The time is near when, if you get lucky enough to be shortlisted for a job interview, you may expect such questions;

“We understand you can tell us the time by your watch or smartphone but we require at least ‘World Time Association’ Time Telling certificate V 7.0.2 or equivalent”.

You may have a university degree in the required discipline where you spend thousands of dollars, but that’s not enough. Don’t get me wrong, you need the degree to qualify for a job but it’s just a prerequisite. Whatever you studied in the university is not relevant unless you spend thousands of dollars more, to get individual certifications of most of the major subjects of your degree. And don’t forget to pay to get certified from the company who has already sold millions of dollars of equipment or solution to your potential employer. And apart from your core competencies you must have expertise in all other trades. Like I was going through Job Description for a Telecommunication Engineer required by a company and it went like;

“Other than all off-the-shelf certifications of networking, project management, quality assurance, health & safety, first aid, successful candidates must have at least 6 years of experience in telecom sector including but not limited to; 24/7 Operations, deployment, planning and project & account management. Applicant should have hands on experience in Fiber communication, Satellite Communication, Microwave transmission Data Networks, Cloud Computing & Database administration. Candidate must have a successful track record of getting successful business leads and successful telco sales. You must be able to bring us clients, which we as a company haven’t thought of bringing in yet”.

Just imagine you get hired for this job, you must go to work wearing a suit with a huge suitcase having your laptop, spectrum analyzer, toolkit, 1st aid kit, work boots and a helmet. It’s just like a hospital hiring a doctor with specialization in neurology, cardiology, surgery and pathology with extensive experience of patients record keeping, pharmacy and supplying the admitted patients with food at meal times. So, to get a job you must be Hulk having Loki’s brain wearing an Iron Man suit with Captain America’s shield in one hand and Thor’s hammer in the other.

Gone are the golden days of team work. If you see a job posting requiring a team player, than infer you have to be that team alone. Multitasking is an excellent thing but in such cases you have to perform multiple tasks of totally different specialties. Now you can stop wondering why the team of eleven players of Filed Hockey gets a single Gold Medal after winning the finals in Summer Olympics.

Remember the 90’s when we had all the different objects to perform special tasks like computer, video camera, phone, tape recorder, Photo camera, DVD player etc. Now they all are integrated in one easy to carry smartphone, which is seldom used for its core purpose to serve as a phone. You don’t buy a smartphone based on its performance as a phone rather it’s other attributes like camera, display, memory and applications. Likewise is the case with your job application, your degree is a must to apply for but they won’t weight your application which courses you took in your degree but the additional certificates matter more.

In the end it’s your journey as you are the one who owns The Ring. You have to be both Frodo and Samwise Gamgee at the same time. You have to overcome your fears and walk into Mordor. Once you throw the ring then ‘May be’ your recruiter (Gandalf in this case) send an Eagle (Job offer) to air lift and hand over you to your potential employer (Elves of course). Story doesn’t end here but a new chapter of constant struggle will begin. And there is no shortcut to happiness unless you get admissions in Performing Arts in university with Acting as major and take Politics as a career. And if you want to end up owning a matte black Lamborghini Aventador in shortest spam of time play GTA-V (not online).

Telecom

Aug.13

Unsung Heroes!

We live in the era where we celebrate different days dedicated to our families, friends, loved ones, teachers and doctors. We owe much of our lives to them as they have direct impact on our life. Being a social animal we are bound to respect our families, friends and professionals like doctors, soldiers, policemen, firefighters, journalists for saving our lives, keeping us aware and protecting us. Yet there is a breed of unsung heroes making our life so much comfortable without demanding any recognition.

You face an emergency situation and without hesitation you pick up your cellular phone and make an SOS call and within a few moments Emergency Response units are at your exact location. Your area is hit by a natural disaster, but within a few hours all the lifesaving organizations are on a well-coordinated mission to save people. Not only this, news channels start broadcasting live from the location keeping everyone around the globe aware of the situation. Your family is in New York and you are on a business trip to Hong Kong and it’s your daughter’s birthday, no worries, you just pick up your smart phone and make her day with a video call. Going on a vacation to Bahamas! book your flights, reserve hotel room and rent a car just by sitting on your office desk. When you reach your destination you drive the rented car right from the airport and using GPS you roam about in the city you had never been to like you lived there for decades. You can climb the summits of Everest or K2 without any hesitation even though there is no cellular coverage but you have your satellite phone with you, nothing beats tweeting from top of the world.

Can we imagine going back even a couple of decades? Internet and cellular communication has become a basic need of our lives. We easily browse Wikipedia for anything we need to know or we simply Google it from anywhere in the world. Just take out a moment and think that there are thousands of people at the back making it the way it is. Yes my friend the professionals of telecommunication technology working round the clock to make our lives easier moment by moment. They are the scientists, researchers, engineers, technicians and riggers working to develop gadgets, software, rolling out & connecting networks and keeping them operational 24×7 sacrificing their own personal and social lives. They are always there to spread your smiles and wipe your tears. Take a moment and imagine a world without internet, audio/video calling, online video streaming, live news and sports broadcasts, ATM, online shopping, Google, twitter, Facebook.

Uncategorized,Telecom