Bharath Gopalan

From Cherry-picking to Choosing a Career

an I have some time of yours, Sir? Rajesh barged into my office on a Saturday afternoon, when I was about to shut down my laptop and wind up for the day. Rajesh is a project intern from a B-school of repute. If it was someone else, I would have curtly evaded him with some excuse, lest I face the music back home. Though I generally do not brook interruptions, I dont turn away the B-schoolers who keep frequenting me either for some guidance on project work or for soliciting our companys participation in their placement process. I have some selfish reasons for that. When these young people meet me and seek my views on the current business scenario and contemporary HR challenges, my ego gets pampered and I

start airing them as if I were some sort of Dave Ulrich or T.V. Rao. That apart, such conversations make me realise where I am (read as how ignorant I am) and offer me an opportunity to learn a couple of new things each time. With such ulterior motives running in my mind, I asked, Yes, Rajesh, whatre you up to? Sir, my project work is getting over today and I thought I would ask you some personal questions that could help me in my career. I gloated with glee and said, Sure, shoot away. As I said that, I started to log into my favourite networking site. Ive discovered this trick helps not only to give a pseudo-busy posture as you engage in a talk, but also can come in

Emotional Intelligence represents an ability to reason something with emotions in order to enhance thoughts. Emotional Intelligence is being intelligent about emotions a different way of being smart

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handy when the questions you are asked get uncomfortable. You can pretend to have lost attention due to some more urgent item on your screen. Rajesh started shooting his bullets. Sir, it is said that many companies went in for cherry-picking during this downturn. Did you also use the opportunity to go for cherry-picking? I wondered where the hell these guys pick this jargon from. Though I try to keep track of what is happening in HR parlance, honestly, I did not understand the lingo he used. Like I do on such occasions, I attempted a response in seemingly good humour, I have not visited cherry orchards recently, though I dont mind eating them, if someone picked them for me. I could see some doubt cloud Rajeshs face as he continued, When many companies have downsized a lot of their manpower due to slow down, is it not wise to pick the talent from the pinkslipped lots? Not only you would be able to get them at lower costs, but you would also be able to buy their loyalty; because you helped them during times of distress? I got the point. I returned a poser to him, When you buy your shirts, would you prefer buying seconds at half the price, or the good ones that fits your needs? Taking his implied reply for granted, I continued, No company can afford to compromise on its hiring standards. I do not, for a moment, mean that the downsized employees lack quality. However, if one goes cherry picking, he or she has to exercise caution, since the down-turn probably was used by the companies to shed their deadwood quietly. To which would you give priority personal values or companys interests? I could sense the questions turning personal and I realised I needed to tread carefully. Personal values cannot come in the way of discharging ones duty. The interests of the company are to be given utmost priority, as long as they do not

contradict the universal principles. Next, he dropped the bomber, Are you a job-hopper, sir? Having an average span of four plus years per job in my over two and half decades of employment, I cannot straight away deny that. I gave my explanation. Gone are the days when people could anchor themselves to one job and retire from it. Today career planning is not the responsibility of your employer, its yours. We think of career growth in terms of pay and promotion. But what you need to look at is whether you are growing in your role. If I keep delivering the same thing as I have done in the previous years, then I do not think I deserve any rise. Would you buy today the same mobile phone - the same model with same features that you bought a year back and that too, at a higher price? Perhaps, you would not touch it even at half the price. Similarly, when it comes to employment, you need to rise in your role and increase your contributions, if you have to keep selling yourself. When you find that your job does not provide scope for that, you need to find a bigger pond in which to swim. I concluded saying The term role-riser is more appropriate a term than job-hopper. Rajesh was starting to look convinced. I threw a question back to him to trap him into a dialogue on my pet-peeve aspirations mapping, What would you look for in your job? His reply was on expected lines, good starting pay, a good designation to flaunt and of course, a big brand. This, I call as outside-in focus. That is you have started with, 1. What do I want to have? 2. To have that, what I should be doing? 3. What should I become by doing that? For instance, you want certain things in your life like good pay, status etc. You would start doing things that can get you these things and ultimately, you would become what you keep doing in your life. Suppose, you get a job that meets your criteria of good pay, good brand and good status, say the

CEOs chauffeur, you keep driving and get your needs and you become nothing but a driver. So what you want to have drives what you want to do, which in turn determines what you are. Inside-out focus is the other way round. You first try to find out what you are, what interests you innately, what are you passionate about, what have you discovered about yourself, what you want to keep doing and excel in it and eventually, what you want in your life will be achieved by itself. This is insideout approach and can work wonders for anyone. Take the example of any great man and you will know. For instance, Sachin Tendulkar discovered the cricketer in him quite early. The passion with which he pursued it is now history. We dont have to talk of what material ends he achieved. So your questions should be in the order of 1. What do I want to be? 2. If I am that, what do I want to do? 3. When I excel in what I do, will I get what I want to have? If not materially, it will certainly lead to a sense of purpose and fulfilment in life. Rajesh was looking at me curiously as though he had many more questions forming in his mind. But looking at the time on my watch, I quickly shut down my laptop and hurried home, lest I get something from my wife what I would never like to get.
Bharath Gopalan, DGM (Learning & Development) Madras Cements Ltd. E-mail: bharathg@columnist.com

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