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Prem Panicker is pissed off with the terror attacks like everyone else. Here is a rant post that he wrote asking for comments. Since you need to register to comment on his site, instead I am choosing to write my comment here. So here it goes.

What pisses me off most is:

"The talk" - any kind; including the one in his blog and the comment I am writing in this post.

No matter how intelligent a debate is, it doesn't solve any problem. I hope for people (all of us) to get into the mode of "Stop talking, Start doing" (those who are already doing it, thank you and keep going) and doing whatever we can without any self promotion or any show of self righteousness.

After Obama's landslide victory much of which is attributed to his oratory skills, debating would be lauded even more. It always appears, you are right only if you can prove it, which is the point of any debate. But when it comes to real results, a lot of decisions that may be inexplicable or lot of people who won't be great at explaining stuff will prove far more useful than the windbags. Having said that, there is no other way than to debate for weighing the options of a decision but the ability to explain should not become paramount. People will end up providing "explainable" solutions not the best solutions. We may end up with just talkers everywhere.

Now that the decision is made, let’s move to the next step in the job change process which is to identify a target profile (company and role).

The two factors are: the company and the role.

Kind of Company: Here are some factors I found important while making a selection. Figure out which of these are important for you and how.

- Compensation Philosophy
- Kind of Work of the company does. It is important to see if you are getting into company's main line of business or support operation.
- Growth Path
- On Site Chances
- Brand: This is good especially you are at the start of your career. Having proven yourself in reputed firms will sit pretty in your resume.
- Temporary Relocation: Is this company open to let you stay in some other place if need arises. It can be another city in the country or may be abroad. The company should have enough offices to take care of this.
- Hiring Process (Exclusivity): This has direct bearing on the kind of people you would be working with.
- Work Life Balance
- Benefits/Asides: Some companies have perquisites which cannot be compensated monetarily, like having a door to door cab service. Having a cafeteria seems an extremely important factor to me and so is for lot of people who cannot carry lunch from home.
- Company Performance: If going is good, everyone behaves nicely, but as Joker said - "when chips are down...". So be careful if the company isn't doing well, unless you plan to go and turn things around and get credit for it
- Hierarchy: This sounds unimportant, but please make sure you understand all the claims made by the potential employers. It is usually fashionable to say that the company follows a flat hierarchy. Two points here, a- Having a flat hierarchy may not necessarily be a great thing. b - While everyone claims hierarchy is flat, it may not be so.

Kind of Roles
Don't confuse roles with titles. Depending on how a company is structured there can be wide disparity between the two. Make sure you know which one is more important for you and decide accordingly.

Scouting Channels:

Job sites are good (naukri.com, monster.com are the ones I have personal experience with). However, the job results they email you are not really useful because of exceptionally poor filtering done to provide you a job that suits your profile. But out of the piles of useless results will lie some good ones that you need to find out. The day you open your resume, take a day off work. I received more than 25 calls the day I opened it and then the number kept going down.

Referrals are very effective. You will have a much better idea of what you are getting yourself into. You also have a ready made contact in the organization to see you through the teething period.

So that concludes my thoughts on selection of your next job. I will come back with my thoughts on preparation in future.

As India is reeling under the impact of terror attacks and all those involved in rescue operations are trying their best, the last thing anyone would want is a painful, non-cooperative, intrusive and complaining media. For a change, the reporting has been uncharacteristically mature on all the major news channels. It seemed completely sensible until Shobha De and Barkha Dutt, two ladies who sensationalize everything, came on the screen chatting on phone. All the cliched talks of taxes and government apathy were repeated. One moment Ms De was not happy as there wasn't enough political presence on the scene, next moment she felt Manmohan Singh and Advani flying there was meaningless and then urged all the politicians to stay away. I am appalled at the logic and more so at the timing of these rants. Well, I guess I will end my meta-rant with this.

Citigroup gets ready to cut 52,000 jobs