Hire ‘em right!

Let me begin with few questions here. How many of us think that we are unfit for the job we are currently engaged with? Or how many of us really think, ‘I am the right person for this job’? Whatever may be the answer, but I am very certain that all of us would’ve thought about it and inquired within ourselves ‘Am I the right person?’

Well, that’s one way (self) of looking at it. There is the other way of what does your organization or boss thinks about you? Or if you are an employer or a manager, how would you think? You might ask yourself – is he/she the right person for this? Or did we hire ‘em right?

The reason for my questions and thinking beyond the subject is because of my latest saga of hiring a right person for the school. With all the extraordinary efforts, unimaginable thinking and a different approach, we went on and on and on. We were not looking for just a faculty, but a RIGHT faculty. A person who gets attracted to what our eyes were dreaming and who will override us with a character. An Alchemist! Who would shape up our new ideas!

Even though I expected it to be uneventful, given the abundant availability of human talents in the Knowledge Capital – Bengaluru, we struggled throughout the process. Too many breakdowns and too little energy to handle them strong; a very few supporting hands as well. And we had no choice, but to get on with it. It was a commitment to be delivered.

We had plenty of time to begin with and we tried sourcing them through the known contacts. We failed. And then we had to give out an Ad in the news papers. We received quite a lot of applications and I performed my old recruiter’s job. It was the time for face-to-face encounter. I had to prepare myself to hire the right person and to set our expectations right. The process took several attempts as described under:

First attempt:

I had informed the school that I would be conducting the interviews on Saturday. And I had scheduled interviews for about 10 applicants who had prior working experience. It was scheduled at 9 Am and I had to do it alone. Because the school is located amidst a very beautiful forest like campus, I thought of going there early and spend some time. It would also help me to organize the interview room and chairs for the expected. I reached the campus at 7.45 Am which looked remarkably beautiful. I thought of doing the bird watching for about 30 minutes and then go to the school. I spotted around 7-8 species of birds and I was completely lost in the nature. I had kept my bag far away and so as my mobile phone. I along with my camera were lost in the nature like crazy. I returned back to the place where I had kept my bag and noticed that the time was 10 minutes to 9. I ran towards the school and saw the gate closed. The security guard said ‘today is a holiday Sir and school is closed’. I said to myself, I am screwed!

With all the adventure and a little amount of craziness, I managed to complete all the interviews sitting under a tree! (May be the time spent during bird watching helped me to handle the situation well). ‘It was a great experience’ – said one of the applicants who got excited to discuss under a tree. It was an amazing experience for me too; as I got to know what kind of people apply for these jobs. And was wondering where the passion is and how to hire it? (It was no surprise to know that people land up here just because they cannot get the job that they really want).

Second attempt:

Because we did not get the RIGHT person (and passionate) during the interview, we had to try our next attempt. This time we wanted to save some money and hence did not go for an Ad. Instead I went through the same database that I had created from the first Ad and also sourced through some references. I scheduled the interviews and luckily my friend confirmed that he would accompany me. So it was two of us, waiting for the candidates to arrive at the school at 9 am. We waited until 11 am and no human being entered the school campus. It was a total failure.  

Third attempt:

This time, I had scheduled only five interviews and we were hoping to get it done soon. After waiting for a long time, we got to interact with only two candidates. Luckily both were good and we decided to get on with them. So, we were ecstatic that the interviews were done. We thought we found the RIGHT people. I mean RIGHT!

Last week they both were supposed to report to the school and we finalized on their compensation and letters that needs to be handed over to them. Among the two, one was a lady and the other guy was junior to her. While she agreed to the offer we made, the other guy took a lot of time to confirm us. In fact we had given him a 40% hike compared to his previous job and we were hoping he would join us. He took a lot of time to confirm us and eventually he did confirm us that he will join. The next day, I was talking to him over the phone as to when can he collect his offer and resign from his current job; all of a sudden, he said ‘no sir, I don’t think I will join your school’. When I asked why, he said he wants to do his Master’s degree and he cannot join.  That was a disappointing end to our third attempt. Anyway, looking at the way he was behaving, I thought, he is not the RIGHT person we are looking for.

Fourth Attempt

There begins the fourth attempt. This time we were short of candidates in our database and we had no options but to go for an Ad. With a lot of negotiations, we bargained at a cheaper rate for the Ad. We received only a few applications since it’s almost the school opening time and most of them would’ve got appointed by then. However, we were happy for those few applications and we expected more at the venue because we had placed for a walk-in Ad. Well, as it turned out, we were lucky that we got a very good person who is much better than the guy who had turned down our offer. We felt even better when that person said ‘this is the kind of job even I was looking for and none of the schools think like the way you are thinking!’

Wow! I said to myself and zeroed down on her.

While we have our Alchemist aboard, we are still awaiting the second person who is yet to report to the school because of some unforeseen problems at her end. None of the activity can be uneventful I guess.

And from what I have experienced so far, I think it is very difficult to hire the RIGHT person during the interview. Perhaps! The RIGHT person is the one who evolves along with the time and with an opportunity of being RIGHT. Till then, what seems RIGHT could be an illusion that can become a reality in the future.

Srik

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I contributed to…

Hold on! Before you even think of me contributing to a charity or for some fund raiser, let me clear that first. It wasn't my contribution at all. Or perhaps! yes. I think even i contributed my bit to the same.

If someone tells me that I have improved on some aspect when compared to my past, I feel a bit guilty saying did I delay it for this long. At the same time, I also feel that there is someone who is tracking me for my own good. Well, I need that badly. But at the same time, improving over what I am is what we all need to look forward to in this competitive world. And when I hear, ‘you need to improve on this, much more’, I feel I am being challenged. Everything, in a way, is good for me and my environment around.

Alright! Let me explain what I am trying to share. Today, after much expectation and delays, we had our annual ‘Future Leaders’ competition at our Prasiddhi School. Like every year, we give some interesting topic for the 7^th, 8^th, 9^th and 10^th standard students asking them to prepare a power point presentation to present in front of us. The whole objective is not just to assess them on their knowledge, but to develop their presentation skills, creativity, lateral thinking, and team spirits and bring them up to the acceptable standards. Students were supposed to present about the interesting topics given to them in a specified period of time under the specified criteria. Based on their performance, we select the two best teams and give away prizes (usually books).

I used to hear from one of my colleague that her son, being in the 1^st standard, but in a very good residential ‘international’ school, participates in debates on topics like IT, corruption, politics etc. I am still unable to digest over the fact that a 1^st standard kid can talk about such serious issues and able to give presentations. So, while assigning the topics at Prasiddhi School, I had this in mind and decided on some tough topics like, Influence of IT in Bangalore Traffic Management; Role of IT in reducing Corruption, Use of IT knowledge in Political campaigns and the like. I was not really sure about how students approach towards such challenges. They were divided into groups of 6 students each and asked to work on a power point presentation with a given deadline.

Now, I was really not sure on how they will collect the content for the presentation but we were sure of the students taking their parents help. As per the dead line, all of them had submitted their presentations to our faculty and were getting geared to present it in front of us. We had scheduled the presentations for all the classes today. And we started with the 7^th standard and continued with all others.

Today, my intention was not to focus on the content much as we were very sure that the contents would’ve come from many sources including their parents. So what we were concerned was to look at the attitude of the students compared to their competitions in the previous academic year. I always feel like talking before they start their presentation. So I tried to crack some jokes in front of them and kept them occupied with some silly questions that I always ask. By then Sup was getting ready with the machine and the marks sheet.

It was one of the touchy and moving experiences for me and Sup today; specifically with the 8^th standard students. Before they started their presentation, I asked them few questions based on their previous year’s presentation. I asked them who won the competition, a few hands showed up on air and then I asked why others didn’t win. They came up with their own analysis. And then I asked what were the learning from previous experience and how will it be useful to adopt the same here. I was surprised to hear the responses that I never expected and was dumbstruck. One by one, they answered these points:

1. Participation is what is important and we win because we participate
2. We have more knowledge compared to the previous year and hence we can do much better this year.
3. We also know how to work on collecting the information better.
4. We were not good at preparing presentations last year and now we are better.
5. We are more creative in presenting the data this time.
6. We have improved compared to our previous year presentations.
7. We will do much better this time.
8. We all are winners because we all are participating in this.

Wow! After listening to such strong bullet firing over my thoughts, I was feeling proud and thankful to our own little act of conducting the competition every year. And it is very hard to believe that they delivered on their promise much beyond our expectations. They did not make much noise while others were presenting and they respected all the team members. And we did not get the same feeling with other class presentations. 8th standard students were on high today I guess.

My name is Chirag and I am from the team ‘Jaago re’, I am going to present about the “role of IT in …” and my contribution to the presentation is ‘I helped the team with formatting text’. Every student was very confident and to the point and introduced themselves in the way I have written and they had the perfect eye contact with us and the audience and delivered their speeches. Some of the analysis and suggestions they came up with were truly outstanding. It can be directly implemented by BBMP and the BMTC without even thinking. They all came up with real facts and workable ideas. For an hour or so, we felt like we are in a serious discussion with the government about the ‘Traffic problems in Bengaluru’.

My point again is not the content, but their attitude. They learned from their past experience and they improved themselves on certain aspects and delivered their best by contributing their bit. They made our job complicated as we had to give them the scores and chose the best two teams for the class. We were delighted by their presentations and it also made me believe that it is not difficult to talk over any of such topics. 1^st standard kid can do wonders if given an opportunity.

It was a mixture of cute smiles, anxious faces, fearful gestures, confident looks, funny presenting styles, futuristic thoughts, dedication for the community and the unimaginable competitiveness of these students made our day. They are our future leaders who can and will ‘contribute to’ the society and developments for sure.

Srik

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Battlefield of Education

“What is your name?” I heard a sweet voice from behind. I was cleaning my camera lens with the used cotton that I had kept it in my camera bag. I turned and was about to smile, “What is your name?” heard it again. This time it was not the sweet voice but a bit rough voice. “My name is Srikanth” I said. I smiled as my eyes met with 4 eyes of two faces that looked as if they are ready to meet with enlightenment soon. They smiled back. They started staring at me like the way they would stare at an alien. I was in my dirt smeared shorts, sticky tees, waist camera pouch and my shooter in the neck. “What is your name?” they asked me again. Very patiently (first time ever in my life showed that much patience) I answered “My name is Srikanth”. They looked thrilled listening to my answer. For that matter, even I was surprised as these village boys were talking to me in ‘English’. I was about to ask them their names, they opened their mouth and uttered “What is your name?” again. I answered with a loud and strong voice “My name is Srikanth, I am from Bengaluru”. I then said “Now tell me your names”. They did not open their mouth. They kept looking at each others’ faces like something strange happened to them all of a sudden. Then I asked “What happened?” Then I discovered that they did not understand my question properly. They did not care much about my question to them. The sweet voice again pierced my ears asking “What is your name?” For a moment I was shocked. This time I was not patient and was not violent either. My adrenaline pumped faster and felt something heavy hitting my head with the use of ‘English’ that I did not know. Yes I did not know; that they knew only that much to talk in ‘English’. I had to face the two faces with an artificial smile before tears rolled out of my eyes.

It was a village well-known and is in the history books of India. This was the place where the great ‘Battle of Talikot’ or the ‘Battle of Rakkasa-Tangadi’ was fought in the year 1565. Now the village is just called as Tangadgi which is on the north Shore of Krishna River. After three continuous days of touring in Hampi, Badami and Pattadakal; fourth day, we decided to visit Aihole during the first half of the day and then visit this small village. We wanted to visit this historic battle site since many years to perform a solemn ceremony that should be performed by every one of us. Harish, TS and I dropped our 33 drops of blood on the 33 stones lined up in 3 lines of 11 stones each. The meaning of this ceremony is that we mingled our blood with the blood of dead to express our gratitude for the fallen who made ultimate sacrifice for all of us to live our fortune. The number thirty-three is the size of one platoon in formation in army troops.

After our blood donation kind of activity, we were heading back towards our jeep parked at the entrance of the village. One of my friend had to attend to the nature call so he went behind the bushes. TS and I decided to wait for him while the rest of our gang headed towards the jeep. While we were waiting, TS had to get water from the jeep, so he left and I started taking some clicks from my shooter. As I clicked and taking care of my camera lens, I met these two bright faces. Somashekara was on his bicycle and Seetharama – the short guy was behind him. They did not know how to talk in ‘English’ except for that question repeated infinite times at me. Somashekara was in his 10th standard and Seetharama in his 7^th. They both and all the children of that village were studying at the government high school in their village. I felt a little relieved when I heard that there is a high school in the village. While I was talking to them, they were not completely listening to me; they started staring at my lens and then at my round cap and then my sun glasses and then finally Seetharama opened his mouth and asked me to show him my camera. Somashekara being senior to Seetharama asked me the cost of the camera. I had to disclose in a very unwillingly low voice thinking of my credit card bills, “twenty-five-thousand-rupees”. They both wide opened their mouth and showed me their inner tongue as if they wanted me to click the photograph of the wild life inside their mouth. Somashekara kept asking questions at his level and Seetharama kept staring and listening to both of us.

“Nimmornage rokka na en anthirri?” he asked. Meaning: “what do you call for money in Bengaluru?” Then I wondered how good their teachers must be in their school. And hesitantly I answered both of them that it is called the same rupee as they call it here. Somashekara did not believe. He said “my father has got some bigger rupee note that is available only in Bengaluru”; he also said his father has kept it in the showcase frame. I then took a great time in convincing them that it is the same and had to open my wallet to show them a few rupees. They finally got convinced and were feeling proud that they have seen what I have in my wallet.

For a few minutes, they did not speak to me, they kept talking to each other about 1 rupee, 2 rupee notes that they had at home. I interrupted them and asked them what is it that they would like to do after their schooling. They had no answer. I asked who their role model is. They had no answer. I asked them why are they even studying. They had no answer. Finally I had to make them understand what I am trying to ask them giving an example of a ‘Doctor’. “Ah… hmmm…I do not know” Somashekara said. Being a senior to Seetharama, he did not know the answer. Seetharama told me that he would not like to answer in front of Somashekara. Then I had to bend down and give my ears to him. He made some ‘…sssss’ noise in my ears and I finally got what he wanted to say. He said he would like to become a Policeman. I asked him loudly, “how will you become a Policeman?” Firstly I disclosed about it in front of Somashekara and he was embarrassed and feeling shy for that. Second, he did not know the answer. But he said if he goes to Hunugunda which is a bus ride away from the village, he can become a Policeman. I wondered what kind of basic education these bright kids are getting in the government school. In my mind our proposal for vocational training centre took a deep breath saying ‘let me take care of these guys’.

Finally, Seetharama could not resist. He asked me to show him my camera again. I took his picture and showed him his bright eyes captured in my lens. He was jumping out of joy that without looking into a mirror he could see himself so neat. He started shouting that made the other children in the village move towards the place we were standing. A team of small kids ranging from 3 years to 10 years assembled and started posing to my camera. TS came and stood as one among them while I was clicking a photograph of all the girls. I think TS felt shy realizing he joined the girls’ team and he left the scene to assist my other friend. Even those girls could not stop blushing after posing for a photo with TS. After that I made them dance, jump and play in front of me to take some good shots. They did all that I made them do. Every photo I clicked, they surrounded me to show the picture to them so that they feel good about it. I played like this for some time until my friend was ready to go and kept thinking of the divide that exists in most of the rural parts of India. Without basic education, basic foundation for livelihood, no one knows what their future is.

Seetharama made me click a number of photographs including a bullock cart and a man with two cows walking into the village. He noticed that I was giving some lecture to these kids and he came near us. In his harsh-regional-style-language, he told them not to become a slave like him in the future and showed me by telling them “if you study well, you will be like him”. For a moment I thought this is the closest divide which is not much of difference. The meaning remains the same that a man working as a slave in the village and us working in this IT industry as slaves. Except that our lifestyle is a bit different. Everywhere ‘Divide and Rule’ is dominant, but in a different context. I could not resist laughing at it myself thinking ours is a ‘Digital divide and digital rule’. But I encouraged both Somashekara and Seetharama to study well. And I told them “if any other alien like me walks into the village, they should talk to him in ‘English’ and they have to prepare for that moment from now on”.

Feeling proud, they both gave me stiff handshake. Like their question to me in the beginning, they gave me a minimum of 25 handshakes each. I then told good bye and gave handshake to all the kids asking them to tell their names one by one. Kalavathi, Shilpa, Soma, Bhavya, Munirathna, Kaveramma, Seetharama, Somashekara…and many millions of children are in the same helpless state in our country. Bridging this divide is a greater challenge in itself. Somewhere it has started, but not enough.

Is this the state of affairs with our education system?Any of the authorities listening? Those who are ruling the state listening? Can anyone help these kids to know what they want to become in future?

Srik

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