eLitmus: Jump Start Your Career

Geekonnet successfully walks, a step forward on the way to popularise Indian startups over the internet. This time we had a long interactive session with a visionary in the recruitment field. With a vision to make everybody find his right job. Elitmus is moving ahead on the principle of "Let the thirsty meet the well ". The days of 'Dream Job' is now over. It's the time when you start looking the Right Job for you. Similarly companies around the globe are now looking for Right person for them. Elitmus serves as a medium which helps the company end and the job seekers end, find each other through their innovative and appropriate techniques.

eLitmus is a first-of-its-kind service in the world. Since it was launched in 2005, eLitmus has been redefining how fresher and entry-level recruitment is done in India. Their proprietary pH Test evaluates job seekers based on a variety of parameters, and grades them nationwide using an advanced statistical model, resulting in a pH Score for each candidate. An extensive range of online tools that they provide help recruiters to easily screen and select candidates based on this and dozens of other parameters.

Aseem Marwaha   

Director, Corporate Business

Aseem did his undergraduate studies at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. After a brief stint in the paper industry, he moved to IT. He worked with Infosys and iFlex, where he developed custom software in the banking and enterprise domains. After that, he served as an advisor in recruitment strategy to companies like Synectics (now Logica), eCredit and Quidnunc. Last, he founded Browse Consulting, a highly successful recruitment firm in the software industry.

Today eLitmus is the largest independent evaluation body in Indian IT industry.

We(the Geeks): Do share your journey of last 3 years with our readers.

Aseem: When we started out, the existing players were operating on time & material model. The primary reason of outsourcing was logistics management rather than good evaluation. For example if anemployer needed to do recruitment at entry level, it could easily expect applications in thousands. It requires very low­end skills to process applications and administer tests on short­listed candidates. This was the key driver for companies to outsource.

The evaluation piece being outsourced was incidental, which came bundled with core need of logistics management. The other reason why a relevant and researched evaluation was never sought was talent crunch. A right evaluation would disqualify most of the job seekers and the companies would end up not meeting their target number of hires.

       In such a situation we took a very difficult call. We decided to focus on evaluation and bid time. We were confident that once the party was over in the economy, companies would look for smaller number of candidates and the ones who can perform. So we are suddenly in a sweet spot where in none of our competitors tests are as predictive as ours. In slow down companies are jumping for this value. 

We(the Geeks): So tell us more about your evaluation. What is the pH Test about? 
Aseem: Unlike time & material based solution providers in evaluation industry, we have a standardised test. This standardised test is called the pH Test that is potential to hire test. All our customers use this test as a first level filter.

        The good thing of pH Test is that the interpretation of this test is customer dependent. To explain lets take an example of CAT (common aptitude test of IIMs). At the end of the test you get a score. It does not tell you what kind of questions you answered. I could have answered more out of box thinking questions and scored lower marks than a person who has solved more perseverance questions. This is a problem. To understand the problem, lets say we need to hire domestic helps – driver, cooks and cleaning staff. Lets assume drivers earn more than cook who in turn earn more than cleaning staff. We give them a common test. Lets say the candidate scoring highest marks has scored very well in cooking and cleaning questions but poor in driving questions. As an employer if I only see overall marks, I will obviously hire the highest scorer. Needless to say that is a wrong choice. Hence our interpretation of score is dependent on skills being sought by customers rather than absolute.

         This company based customisation has helped us reduce percentage of under performers by more than 90% with most of our customers.

We(the Geeks): Do you visit individual colleges to administer pH Test? 

Aseem: Yes we do visit colleges when invited. Besides students take test outside of college as well. pH Test is conducted in various cities once every 3 weeks. The students can come to a location convenient to them and take the test. 

We(the Geeks): When and why should students take the pH Test? 

Aseem: Ideal time for students to take pH Test is 7th semester of their engineering. In case their college is a partner college of eLitmus, then they should take the pH Test in 6th semester. Customers of eLitmus visit partner colleges for campus recruitment. We keep churning the list of our partner colleges based on performance of their students with our customers in previous year.

The biggest reason why a student should take pH Test is to determine if s/he should make a career in IT industry. IT industry will keep undergoing recessions every few years. The average performers even with lot of experience will be laid off in such situations. Our significant focus is on testing raw ability of a student. If the student fares poorly in the test, s/he should look beyond IT industry rather than live with threat of being fired every few years.

The next reason why students should take our test is that over 100 employers today ask for pH Scores. So a single test opens the doors to multiple employers.

If you have any queries for eLitmus please do mail us. We will forward your questions to the company. Also we value your feedbacks regarding how to make these interviews more useful for our readers. Please feel free to comment or mail us at:

ranjeet@geekonnet.com
deepak@geekonnet.com

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Vote For GeekOnNet

It’s time to vote for the "Best Mumbai Blog" .  Vote for my weblog (GeekOnNet.com). Voting will take only few seconds. 

For Voting:

1. Step1 :  Go to http://www.mumbaibloggers.net/wp-login.php?action=register . Write your username and email ID. You will get a password in your mail inbox.
2. Step2: using that password, Login here (http://www.mumbaibloggers.net/wp-login.php )
3. Step3: go to http://www.mumbaibloggers.net/vote-for-the-best-blog and vote for me (geekonnet.com).

For those who already voted for my weblog "thanks a lot". :)

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100 Blog Tips, I Learnt in 2008 Part-I

Sorry folks for the delay in post. I am very much busy now a days with some geeky stuffs. The second interview of an extremely successful entrepreneur is ready, will publish it very soon. :)

I prepared a list of 100 blog tips, I have learnt in 2008. These tips actually work. Using the basic tip of blogging "Post shouldn't be too long" I am going to post this list in two parts, 50 tips in each post. Here are first top 50 tips:-

1. Final year of your Engineering, start blogging today

2. Write about something that you love a lot, I like internet surfing

3. If you are serious about blogging buy your own domain

4. Make sure your domain name resembles with blog topic

5. Use short and easy to remember domain name

6. Use BlogSpot

7. Use BlogSpot widget

8. Use simple and attractive template

9. Customize your blog template

10. Choose a specific topic for blog

11. Content is king

12. Blog with consistency

13. Write at least 3-5 posts a week

14. Proof read

15. Interact with other bloggers

16. leave meaningful comments

17. Backup your blog

18. Participate in online forums and communities

19. Put a link of blog on your signature (:P)

20. Use trackbacks

21. Use social bookmarks

22. Join various type of blog networks. Eg. I am the member of Mumbai Bloggers group

23. Use all type of social networking websites to publicize your blog

24. Put URL of your recent post as your IM’s status

25. Write “Top 10″ lists

26. Use Shout box

27. Write “How to” articles

28. Write about Startups

29. Write interviews of successful entrepreneurs

30. list your blog on directories

31. Ask questions to your readers

32. Use Feedburner

33. Use sense of humor

34. Encourage readers to subscribe

35. Link exchange with other bloggers

36. Have some spare posts for emergencies

37. Encourage readers to digg your posts

38. Stumble your post

39. Put an RSS subscription icon on every single page

40. Use “series” of posts

41. Return comments

42. Write about how to increase blog traffic

43. Write about How to blog

44. Use readable fonts

45. Break long posts in more parts

46. Experiment with different revenue sources like adsence, bidvertiser, chitika

47. Use Google Analytics

48. Have an "About Me" page

49. Create your own "Advertise with me" page

50. Read as many blogs as possible

Remaining 50 tips will be coming in next post. Write your views and suggestions. It encourages me. :)

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Multiple Inboxes, gmail's new feature

Ok, this is the latest buzz from every one’s favorite gmail. Google announced another very useful feature for gmail. Gmail Labs added a new Multiple Inboxes feature. This feature will help us to keep an eye on multiple buckets once while we are viewing our Inbox.

How to add Multiple Inboxes feature? Its very easy, go to gmail’s settings -> labs and enable multiple inboxes feature.

Here's how my inbox looks like after enabling multiple inboxes feature:

The new lists of threads can be lebels, your starred messages, draft or any search you want, configurable under Settings.

 The only question that remains .....  
When is Gmail coming out of Beta ?? I think google doesn't want to take any responsibility or risk. That's  why gmail is still in Beta version. Use gmail on your own risk. So, google wont release final version of gmail. What do you think about it? Write your views as comment to this post.

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How to survive in this Recession

It was the mid of 2007 when the genie of RECESSION came out of the ‘Chiraag’. Originated from US, the plague has rapidly gone global. Nowadays, recession is the most horrible word for Students, Employees, Companies and Countries as a whole. India is one of the major sufferers. Consequently, Geekonnet team is also suffering from this word. But still its recession only which made us learn a lot about how to survive in this era. Geekonnet team is going to tell you some tips to save your career and your family from recession.So, here we have some tips.

1)      Make a specific plan: I’m not talking about making a wish list which, like New Year’s resolutions, will be forgotten by the third week of January. You want a plan that has specific goals for your job (what’s the best role for you next?) and your income (exactly how much would you like to be making by the end of 2009?). Writing down your plans makes them concrete, and it's more likely you will attain them. 

2)      SWOT yourself: Be honest with yourself. Review your strengths -- like what you’ve got that can move you ahead; weaknesses like those things you have or do that are holding you back; opportunities -- things you can pursue at the company or in the industry; and threats -- things that can derail you or sabotage your efforts to move ahead.

3)      Update your skills: Keep on updating your career skills. Be a fast learner and adopt new technology. Just learn whatever you can learn. Don’t stick with old technology or old business strategy. Increase your productivity and efficiency.

4)      Update your Resume: Too many job cuts have taken place in last 6 months. So, freshers now have to compete with experienced guys. If you are applying for any job be sure your resume should be according to the job profile. As I mentioned above keep on learning new technology, sharpen your skill, increase your productivity and efficiency.

5)      Be honest with your company: If you don’t want to get fired from your job then please be honest with your company and with your job.

6)      Money: Start spending money smartly. Always have some cash money with you as your savings. Improve your personal balance sheet.

7)      Self promote: It’s not only important to do your job these days. It’s important to do and show your job. The decision makers should know you and what you are doing. Have regular meetings with your boss or send regular e-mails to update those in charge about your contributions. Even if they don’t want to.

8)      Stay hungry, Don’t stay foolish: Once Mr. Steve Jobs said “Stay hungry, stay foolish”. But we (Geekonnet team) modified it a little bit for current situation. Now it is “Stay hungry, Don’t stay foolish”.

9)      Patience: Have patience and don’t loose your nerves in the last overs. The match is between your job and global market liquidity. Give it a nail biting finish with you coming out as a winner.

10)  Look after your loved ones: In this era you may get yourself over involved in protecting your career. As 2009 ends you still will be here and you are going to want to be with your near and dear ones. DON’T NEGLECT those who make life more worthwhile.

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