Unfortunately today our nation is so full of the American MBA bullshit
ideology that people
no longer look at technology and engineering as being viable and
honorable options to
do well in life.
Although a majority of Califorinian Silicon Valley successes are
engineered by our gene pool
people still in India, to make money and do well in life one ought to
be not so technical.
The "not so technical" types I come across often here turn out to also
not respect engineers and
engineering talent.
However if you are of a different bent of mind and if you enjoy
technology, programming and
knowledge in general then this mail may interest you.
Good software companies which are very few worldwide look for certain
characteristics in
engineers.
What are they?
The first thing is talent. A sound academic track record is good.
Since this is all about knowledge and
brain power, how well you have done in life and what habits you have
to focus and do things
in a disciplined way is proven by good academics.
However it is a fact that most people who do well in life are very
poor at scoring grades.
If you are a topper the odds are stacked against you to do well. This
is largely due to the fact that
life is not a straight forward affair of merit and living in one's
comfort zone.
One needs a lot of adaptation skills in particular dealing with
failure gracefully , maturity and wisdom.
We get to the second point now.
Engineers companies look for have to have the willingness to
constantly learn, try out new things,
expand beyond their comfort zone and horizons and rise up to the
changing needs of the business.
Then you need people who are mature enough not to write everything
from scratch, who can tolerate
other people well and who can patiently work and wait for rewards in
the form of salary raises or
promotions.
All this growing up takes time. With experience you get all that.
In an interview if you ask for high salary that is acceptable but your
goal in life should not be only money.
HR people are somewhat cranky and they usually have personality
defects; they may have a disdain for
the high salaries that engineers make; so you have to be bit careful
in dealing with them.
Don't sound arrogant and confident. It is a tough game. You have to
play it right.
Now getting a job is a lot more than qualities.
It is also politics. But we can't change that.
What we can change is the attitude part.
In general good English skills are necessary to grow up in any sector
not just IT.
I repeatedly find excellent language skills in all the higher echelons
of companies.
Moreover for companies like mine this is a must since I am very
particular about correctness being
a programmer myself. I cannot tolerate silly grammatical errors and
spelling mistakes.
And we are mostly dealing with Westerners here who have very little
patience with English errors.
So you should focus on improving your written and spoken English skills.
Ability to deliver work is another factor. But this is largely s
subjective issue.
How you work and how quickly you can handle change and adapt to
situations is what matters.
Overall the quality that people look for can be summed up as
competence. Which is a little bit
of all of the above.
-Girish
--
Gayatri Hitech
http://gayatri-hitech.com