hiring (still) sucks here…

sorry folks, nothing new to report here, but hiring still sucks big time in india. a small list of some situations we’ve encountered over the past month:

• interviewee, while being screened on the phone, decides to hang up abruptly to take another call (we could tell from that funny buzzing noise that speakers make when mobile phones ring). we call him back and ask him if he hung up on us to take another call. he responds “yes”
• interviewee does not show up at previously agreed upon time. we call him, only to learn that he’ll be coming 4 hours later. he shows up to the restated time 1 hour late, only to tell us he doesn’t feel well. he sits for the interview and doesn’t last more than 10 minutes
• we ask interviewee what his strength is, as we’ll focus our questioning only on his strengths. he says “ask me anything!” we encourage him to specifically state his strength, so that we can hear a well-thought out response, but again, defiantly, he seems to be einstein’s lost kin. we ask him a question, and he chokes up, unable to answer.

i don’t know about you guys, but when i was interviewing for jobs years ago, i made sure any angle of my self-projection was put together as best as possible, whether it was the way i looked, dressed, the manner in which i answered questions, my body language, the way i sat, etc. we’re a far cry away from that here in india. the job market here, especially within these “shallow skilled” jobs (bpo, junior level engineering, support, financial services, etc.) is way too forgiving. person x with a limited range of shallow skills can easily get (and will expect) a 20-30% pay increase no matter how long his tenure at his previous job. what the f*ck!? there are a few major issues with the candidates that we’re seeing coming through the door:

1. resume fabrication
2. shallow skill set/complete lack of depth
3. no interview etiquette

while this may (hopefully) be a medium-term issue for us small companies trying our best to hire best-of-breed talent, this also smells like an amazing business opportunity. there is talent out there, but you need to weed through this landfill of candidates before you can find a respectable, deep, passionate candidate. what is the best way to do that while minimizing the time that an entrepreneur has to spend meandering through some of the ridiculous situations listed above?

shiv sena v. orkut

the shiv sena are at it again. they’ve gone on a rampage in some neighborhoods of mumbai vandalizing and attacking cyber cafes for allowing access to orkut. the reason behind their ire is the multiple anti-shiv sena communities that have been formed by orkut users. apparently, shiv sainiks think these cyber cafes are the internet. the strategy apparently is to choke bandwidth to orkut across the country by going after the dinky neighborhood internet cafes and their super powerful 486s. brilliant. apparently the guy below is more pissed off because nobody writes him any scraps.

sequoia, incest, & india

you thought incest was only a problem in rural india? turns out sequoia’s most recent investment in india, social networking site minglebox, already had a pretty close connection with the reputable (err?) vc firm. the founder, kavita iyer, is married to sandeep singhal, one of sequoia’s main dudes leading indian investments. uhhh, yeaaaah…i’m sure the due diligence process on that one was a doozy, huh sequoia?

valleywag reports more here.

shitty indian movie names

creativity has never really been a strong suit of hindi cinema (better known as ‘bollywood’). agreed that most story lines and music from the films are completely ripped off from some part of the world, no matter how much the producers and directors may bullshit you. but now, the names of the movies themselves are really starting to suck, big time. today, while taking the bus to work, i saw a billboard for a movie called “fact: the reality” – what the fuck is that supposed to mean? what crap: the shit. a few more posters are shown below for your enjoyment…

tsa sucks

having traveled through some of our major airports over the course of the last 3 days, i’m convinced that tsa only hires retards. most of them are pretty dumb, lazy, and mean to old people – not quite the profile of the men and women i want guarding my country’s ports. let’s be real here – some people are going to “look” more suspicious than others, so scrutinize ‘em more. what’s the point grabbing some old caucasian guy’s balls to see if he’s hiding a stick of lip gloss under his package?

k.i.s.s.

keep it simple, stupid. that’s exactly how i feel about blog posts. within the general universe of blogging, nothing sucks more than long blog posts to labor through. i know there are a lot of smart people out there with a lot of shit to say, but if that is you, just do us a favor and write a book. i promise to keep my posts short and to the point.