Tag Archives: job change

8 priorities that shape your career decision

Backstory: My decision to leave L&T was reactive. While I evaluated it using some criteria, the move itself wasn’t planned. This framework is what I used when starting with Landmark in Dubai, and it also served my move to Babbel.

This is an overwhelming, topic but its important to get started! Here’s how to plan start planning your career:

Start with a slightly long-term vision. A 4-6 year horizon intertwining your personal & professional aspiration – fueling the purpose that’ll fuel your passion.
Broken down to define short-term milestones (next 2 years). Enhancing your toolkit: skills, business, tech acumen, or just leadership skills – towards mastery.
An action plan. E.g. Update your resume

Basing career decisions on intuition is a bad idea 👎🏼 Whether you’re kicking off search or accepting an offer, start with figuring what you’re optimizing for.

Basically kicking yourself out of your comfort zone! In this post, we’ll get started thinking what’s important to you. Everyone has needs. Being honest with yourself and prioritizing what’s important to you will not only help decide but also trade-off between opportunity cost and risk.

Its personal. But steering life is important. Its scary and exciting. Sound boarding this with a mentor is always a good idea.

The list below is how I look at choices – not necessarily in that order. You might need to tweak it for yourself – ⬇️ download or ➡️ view the spreadsheet online.

1. Opportunity & Toolkit

Enhances your toolkit?
Offers challenges, opportunities to learn?
Novelty*? A new domain / technology / vertical / market
Gives access to good mentors & a network?
Opens new avenues in the future**?
Offers better title***? Consider position in the organization hierarchy, competition
Offers a better role? Influence v/s Authority, Leadership
* Novelty alone shouldn’t be a driver
** Don’t overrate future prospects when starting your career
*** Opt for a rationalized, industry-wide title

2. Goals & Passion

Makes best use of your passion?
Gets you a step closer to a future goal?
Aligns with personal interests – wealth, network, travel?
Gives a meaning, purpose to your life?

3. Risks

Leaving your comfort zone?
Chances of failing in the new role?
Relocating to a new country/city?
Could this be short-term? Changing jobs too often?
Employment contract? Notice period?
Is your gut sounding an alarm?
* Answering No means low risk, high score
** Taking no action also has its own risk

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Human Capital, Tips & Tricks

A 1-page resume design that speaks to your hiring manager 🏆

24 Sep, 14 Prasad 10 Comments

The last time I redesigned (not updated) my resume was 2009. Since then, my understanding of ease-of-use, information architecture & win-loss has grown several fold. Late last year I realized that my resume looks archaic and needs a revamp.

The need was to create something that was:

information rich yet not cluttered
comprehensible yet not funky
likely to get past through the recruiter’s clutter.

Several opinions & tweaks later, I finally published a release candidate that I wanted to share. Yes, sharing definitely looses the competitive advantage at a PM opening, but what use is creativity that’s kept to yourself. I hope this bit on the design rationale helps all.

📰 The importance of Page 1

It’s a no-brainer how crucial the first page is to recruiters, considering their daily swim in the resume swarm. The key was to summarize everything that mattered to them on Page 1, while deferring details to following pages. More importantly, it also acts as a printable summary to save some paper.

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Human Capital, Tips & Tricks

Things to carry when you quit your job

03 Nov, 13 Prasad 3 Comments

There is so much talk about how to go about quitting your job, but there is such little focus on what you should take with you after you’ve quit your job. I’m not asking you to violate policies or steal data; but just reminding you to carry stuff that belongs to you which is going to come handy in the future.

From the payroll system:

Copies of last 6 salary slips
If HR/Admin co-operates, get them stamped with the company seal. This helps if you’re still looking for a job. You should also look for any Loss-of-Pay (LOP) days in there (see below).
Form 16s for the years you’ve been with the company
This has to be on your file! It is mandatory to process loans, and also required for visas and insurance at times. If not available in your online HRMS, Finance or HR will surely have a copy.
Copy of the Tax slip for the current year
This highlights the heads under which you were paid and how much tax was deducted. This will be a life-saver when filing returns (if your old company delays/denies you a Form-16) in the following year, because your CA has to access salaries received from both companies.

From the leave & attendance system:

Snapshot of leave balance in each leave category
This will allow you to reconcile the balance days you’ve been paid for in the F&F (full & final) statement.
Track of Loss-of-pay days
Whatever your company calls it: leave-without-pay or loss-of-pay, keep track of these days by going over salary slips for the past months. If possible, regularize these days, get them approved and reconcile in your F&F.

From Finance/HR:

PF account number/office OR PF deposit slips
Good news! In India, your PF account is now online on the EPFO website; all you need is your PF account number & office/zone to keep track of the balance. You can get this info from your HR/Finance department. They would also have a deposit slip for each year Continue reading Things to carry when you quit your job →

Human Capital

May Day! Confused comparing job offers?

05 May, 12 Prasad 1 Comment

Today my dad bought the first set of mangoes this season. If asked to relate a couple of things to May, my answer would be mangoes, and ever since I started working: appraisals & attrition. While material – screenshot showing the baseline version on tissue – dates back to 2009, this post has remained queued for several months. Just like mangoes taste best in May, a post on choosing jobs has to wait for its own season to deliver maximum value. With appraisals around the corner and attrition already kicking-in, I thought this could help those switching to resolve their dilemma between their current job and offers in hand!

Just to set the expectations right, this is a simple decision matrix that allows you to weigh options against a few well-defined criteria.

Download Now! (Free)

I know huge links like that could seem fishy, but this one is clean. It might just make more sense to those employed in India. HR folks, if you’re downloading – this is how we look at an offer!

Here a couple of other things that could help you take the right decision Continue reading May Day! Confused comparing job offers? →