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Worried About Job Security Amidst COVID-19? Here’s How To Weather The Storm

Posted on May 15, 2020May 15, 2020 by temp

Along with a serious threat to public health, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought with it a deep sense of risk to social and economic stability across the world. A lot of jobs are suddenly at stake with many even deemed as non-essential. While several global companies have taken a public stance to not lay-off their employees, this is likely an unexpected nightmare many of us are living today.

So should you be concerned about job security? Yes. Isn’t it always better to be prepared? Not to alarm you, but preparing for an unexpected future is a prudent strategy to follow throughout your career. But before you start to panic, here are some things you can internalize and practice to future-proof your career.

Be Proactive, Not Reactive

Think ahead and look at things from a career management lens instead of a transactional jump from your current job to the next. You are likely going to spend over 42 hours a week at work throughout your employable adult life. And, managing your career effectively is essential if you want to maximize your happiness and success at work and life. Start by defining your career goals, list your competencies, and chart out a broad action plan to achieve your goals. Refocusing from a response-to-stimulus strategy to a long-term action-oriented strategy will help you take charge and instill a sense of confidence and fulfillment.

Develop Your Personal Brand

We all have a very valid reason to be anxious right now and it may not seem like the best time for career management. But in reality, it is. Because of our changed routines, we now have a few more hours to spare each day. Take the time for some soul-searching and determine ‘your’ value proposition, your strengths, passions, and skills. Ask yourself, your friends, and colleagues what you are known for. Build a compelling CV and ensure it accurately defines you. Personal branding is essential for anyone who wants to advance in their career. It builds credibility, authenticity, and commands respect.

Create An Engaging Community

What’s a brand if no one knows about it? The same goes for your personal brand too. Engage with others and create a community of professionals in the same field around you. Networking will not just help you stay on top of skills but can also be an excellent platform to meet potential clients, mentors, or even employers. Start small by engaging with professionals online. Say you find a Linkedin post insightful, you can like it and leave a comment if you have anything more to share. You will be recognized as a person who has something valuable to share.

Stay Relevant

As software engineers, nothing rings truer than: change is the only constant. It is imperative for all of us to keep up with the frantic adoption rate of new technologies and market trends. Even if you have no experience, you can start by dedicating time to routinely self assess, read up, and identify skills that are most sought after and how they fit in your long-term plan. Mentorship programs, online tutorials, webinars, and podcasts are all great examples of ways to pick up new skills and stay relevant.

The MacArthur genius, psychologist and author of Grit – Angela Duckworth said, “Enthusiasm is common. Endurance is rare.” Endurance can help you overcome any situation. All successful people have one thing in common: they endured failures and obstacles. Endure and stay calm & future-focused in these trying times.

Bonus: Here are a few quick wins that will help you feel secure during the downtime.
– Staying at home need not be unproductive. Use your time to upskill.
– Embellish your resume and portfolio
– This is a paradigm shift. Be open to opportunities in new fields.
– Strengthen existing relationships. Connect with people within your network to see if they can refer you.

If your job search is urgent, consider Talent500 , a career accelerator & talent discovery platform with over 800 current openings. Sign up here and get discovered by Fortune 500 companies!

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This article originally appeared in People Matters on 12th May, 2020.

How Artificial Intelligence is transforming HR processes

Posted on April 18, 2020May 6, 2020 by temp

The challenge of finding the right talent remains, just as much as it did two decades ago. The task of identifying and building the right workforce remains largely on the shoulders of recruiting professionals, who rely on their experience and manual intervention to find the diamond in the rough!

All of us who have been through job interviews know how anxious we can get during this entire process. Multiple rounds of interviews, technical assessments, and back-and-forth HR rounds. This could be because of the fact that information can sometimes get lost in the manual processes, further leading to inefficient outputs. This is where AI is making a big impact.

In that context, Artificial Intelligence is taking the recruitment world by storm. Although the very basic form of AI was founded in 1950, its applications in Human Resource Management have only picked up in the past decade. Today, more and more companies are seeking out AI-based solutions to transform a rather ‘hit or miss’ process of recruitment to that which is more efficient and effortless. Empowering HR decision-makers with quality data enables organizations to attract and retain top talent efficiently.

At a very rudimentary level, AI can help in automating low-value, repetitive tasks like administrative workload, and thus provide decision-makers with the bandwidth to focus on strategic decisions, and reduce operational cost in the long run.

Let’s delve deeper into ways Artificial Intelligence is impacting HR decisions across the globe.
The most prominent use of AI in HR is Talent Acquisition. From sourcing and screening to better engagement with candidates, it reduces the time and effort spent on tasks.

Sourcing the right candidates

Up until very recently boolean search (combining keywords with modifiers like ‘and’, ‘or’, ‘not’ to broaden or limit the search, eg: ‘Java developer’ and ‘Pune’) was considered to be the most efficient way to source from a large pool of candidates. However, AI sourcing allows recruiters to analyze millions of data points and quickly identify talented candidates. Additionally, while boolean searches can only be applied to databases individually, AI solutions can scour through all available unstructured data to source the right match, saving recruiters manual labor. Fitment and multi-source outreach algorithms are helping put the best possible candidates (active and passive) within the reach. One of the most lucrative opportunities for recruiters is the ability to effectively and efficiently identify passive candidates. Taking this a step further, automated sourcing mechanisms can also help recruiters engage automatically with interested candidates by sending personalized messages.

Effective screening process

Many recruiters would agree that screening of applicants is the toughest part of recruitment. But thanks to AI, based on parameters like location, previous experience, salary expectations, and active-passive status, screening algorithms can assist in filtering the best candidates. Artificial intelligence has emerged as a powerful tool for building impartial mechanisms and processes that influence human cognition and decision making. HR managers are using algorithms embedded in machine learning tools to select candidates and interview panels. The selection is fair and devoid of human biases. As a result, companies with a diverse workforce are time and again proven to perform better financially than their less diverse counterparts.

Candidate engagement & management

Lack of contact with a worthy candidate can prove to be a disaster for companies. Recruiters can creatively achieve the tough task of keeping top-level candidates warm, engaged and excited to join with systems that can engage in verbal dialogue. These systems can be trained to identify keywords from communication with candidates and keep track of their status. With AI, companies are now in a position to analyze millions of data points that provide insight on a candidate’s persona and construct content that engages them much more efficiently.

Once the candidate has joined, onboarding and the employee journey plays a vital role in employee Retention rates.

Performance Management

In a traditional scenario of rating and reviewing, an HR manager would measure a resource’s productivity based on their manager’s feedback alone. With the help of AI, productivity and efficiency of resources and teams can be assessed & managed by simply allowing people to list tasks completed accurately, the time taken to complete them, their achievements, etc. Companies can assess candidates against a customized baseline score and rank them in the order of weightage and priority.

Enabling learning

Companies can leverage AI-based systematic learning plans to identify the gap in an individual’s skills and the company’s requirements. In an ever-changing market scenario, with innovative ideas conceived every day, it becomes imperative for employers to train resources with skills relevant to their domains. Smart algorithms can assess the employees’ skills, performance levels over the years, and recommend learning material to help them learn new skills and up-skill existing ones. Some companies also use AI to conduct 360-degree feedback for leadership by assessing remarks shared by team members and further using insights to arrive at a coaching module that helps leaders hone their management skills.

Candidates gravitate towards companies that have embraced compelling mission statements. Remuneration and pay packages are not the only reasons to join any company. Thus, employee experience needs to be improved and highlighted throughout the employee journey. Human resources departments across the industry can step up their game with Artifical intelligence-based solutions and deliver positive outcomes to their companies.

At Talent500 by ANSR, we are redefining job searching for India’s best software engineers. We represent Fortune 500 companies who are looking for the top 10% talent. Our dynamic skill assessments and machine learning algorithms match talent to the right opportunities.
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This article originally appeared in IndianRetailer.com on 24 March, 2020.

5 Highly Effective Tips to Adjust to a New Job

Posted on March 26, 2020July 16, 2020 by temp

Getting a new job as a software engineer can be pretty challenging. There are so many things to consider—creating an impressive CV, applying to a million jobs, following up—and as if that wasn’t enough, there’s this elaborate process of interviews, etc. It’s just really harrowing. Trust us, we know the feeling!

But let’s say you’re through and you’ve finally accepted a job offer. Now there’s a whole new problem: finding your place in this new environment.

You’ll probably ask yourself all kinds of questions. Do I have to start coding right away? Do they use a language I’m not familiar with? How do I get up to speed with the codebase? What are the priorities around here? Is it easy to get along with the team I have to work in?

Before you work yourself into a panic, let us tell you, it’s not that bad! These are the five tips we will discuss in this article on starting a new job:

Get Your Personal Affairs in Order

It might seem weird to start with your personal life but here’s why it’s critical:

To be able to focus on your professional career, you need your personal life to be sorted out. If your personal life is chaotic, it will interfere with your work and have you unnecessarily stressed. So, ensure that you have no pending errands when you join a new workplace.

Further, make sure you get all your documents in place before you step into your new office. Most companies have a long onboarding process and it’ll help speed up the process if you have everything you need.

Be Helpful

New employees are not usually rushed into projects or work in their first few days. So, use this time to get to know your peers and build a rapport with them. One very effective way to do this is to offer help. It’s a win-win no matter their response. If they take your help, you get to learn the ropes; if they decline, you’re still in their good books and they may turn to you at a later point.

Given that a large part of your job will involve coordinating with the people around you, building a rapport will help you a great deal in the future.

Be Politely Assertive

The balance between being nice and getting things done is something people usually struggle with at the beginning of a new job. Being too goal-oriented may make you fall out of favour with your colleagues. Similarly, if you’re too polite, you may come off as a pushover. Assertiveness is a great middle path between the two.

Being assertive is only possible when you know your SWOT, i.e. your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.

Be Patient with Yourself

When it comes to getting used to the workload, accept that it’s going to take time. You will need to understand how projects are handled to know how to manage your time accordingly. Expect to take a month or longer to get this straightened out.

Don’t get frustrated or stressed out if work doesn’t go as smoothly as you plan. Take a breather and be patient.

Pro tip here, though:
Do not confuse patience and laziness. It is not okay to take an inordinate amount of time to figure things out. You will know in your gut if you’re taking too long. If and when you get that feeling, be sure to ask your colleagues for help. Hesitating might make you look bad, especially if you’re clearly struggling within the first couple of weeks. It’s better to ask for help than wait for things to go wrong.

Be honest with how much you can handle at the beginning and increase your workload gradually. It’ll help your performance improve constantly.

Be Honest and Realistic

It is critical to set the correct expectations. Don’t beat yourself up trying to outdo everyone and impress your superiors in the first month. The pace of work you set in your first few weeks will tell everyone at the new workplace what to expect from you on a regular basis. So, make sure what you do in this time is sustainable.

Accept a manageable workload and increase it only after you’re comfortable with what’s already on your plate. If you overdo it in the initial weeks, it will make you look really bad when your productivity inevitably dips later on.

In conclusion, just remember that all the good things in life take time; adjusting to a new job is no different. Be mentally prepared to take things as they come to you. The less you think about what may happen, the more you can focus on what’s actually going on around you.

So, take a deep breath every time you find yourself losing your calm. Remember the five tips we’ve discussed in this article, and you will be just fine!

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Remote Working During The Coronavirus Pandemic

Posted on March 16, 2020July 22, 2020 by temp

What is readily available in a gathering of two or more people these days? Masks, sanitizers, and conversations related to the new Corona Virus Strain: CoVid-19. WHO has characterized the ongoing issue as a pandemic. Offline and online banter has catalyzed the need to know all about this Virus and the necessary preventive measures. We’ve seen how quickly the virus can spread and how Social Distancing is the most important preventive measure today. Due to this, most public gatherings susceptible to the spread have been asked to shut down or have been postponed. Schools, malls, theatres, clubs have been closed and most companies have issued a work from home policy for their employees.

Companies have to be extra careful to have effective systems in place. They have to advise their employees on how to best deal with the negative aspects that can follow in this crucial period. In this article, we’ll discuss how to maximize the efficiency of remotely working from home.

Maintain your Workflow

Those who’ve previously worked from home know the processes involved and the methodologies applied but for those of you doing it for the first time its important to convey all your issues to your team leaders/ managers/ higher authorities. You should promptly try and resolve issues that can be resolved on a personal level so as to minimize the load that will have to be taken by others given this situation.

Practice Coherent, Effective Communication

Working with people directly in their presence avoids a lot of unnecessary misunderstandings and enables easy execution of tasks as compared to working from home. Make sure you avoid any unnecessary confusion by keeping your communication crisp, precise and to the point.

Share hacks to increase productivity

You may come across struggles while working from home. However, if you have found hacks to increase your productivity during that time, do share that vital information with your teams so they too can benefit from these hacks.

Have backups for unexpected events

Internet and phones will provide the basic infrastructure for communication and electricity will enable or disable your work. Make sure your internet & electricity bills are paid so that you have enough amount of data and a backup internet connection on your phone. Have an emergency location that you can visit to resolve any such issues should they arise.

Stay focused

The work you have to do is the same, it’s just that the place is different. At home, sleep comes easy, books may be plenty, beds are right next to your working desk, lots to munch on, lots to see, distractions are many and there’s no one to monitor you. In the escapade of distractions, the passing of time is relatively fast. You can easily lose hours in the game that the internet plays with us and that can make it hard to fall back on tasks that have to be marked done.

Practice preventive measures and stay informed

The reason why you’ve been given work from home is so that you can be safe without contracting the virus from someone who is carrying it. So avoid going out at any cost. Stock up your fridge, get all the groceries and other things you’ll need to survive in the coming days and more importantly, order them online. Avoid partying outdoors in public spaces or travel. Make sure you read accurate information rather than falling for false or incomplete information on social media. Everything you need to know is available on the WHO website. You can get reported cases and other information pertaining to the Indian Subcontinent on the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare website.

Use this time to reconnect with family and self

This phase may continue for a bit until it all settles down. Use the extra time that you have on your hands to do things that you may have wanted to do in the past but were unable to. Spend quality time with your family and with your own self. Engage in discussions, make people around laugh, cook some good food and make the best of this situation. Lastly, find the best ways to balance your work & personal-life equilibrium.

Discovering new job opportunities is another productive task you can take up actively in these troubled times. Fortune 500 companies are always hiring top talent in software engineering. They offer higher-than-market compensation, full-loaded benefits and the opportunity to solve critical problems using cutting-edge technologies. Talent500 helps you get selected without leaving the comforts of your home-office.

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How to Handle Workplace Conflicts Effectively?

Posted on March 13, 2020April 21, 2020 by temp

One of the things that is bound to occur in a workspace that two or more people occupy is a workplace conflict. So, the question isn’t whether you’ve had a dispute at your workplace, it is when and how you’ve handled it.

Software engineers and developers typically work in teams to complete projects on very tight schedules. This creates a rather stressful environment. Working in a team with similar skills but different attitudes for 8-10 hours a day will inevitably create conflict.

If not handled with care, workplace conflicts can lead to long-term stress and affect your ability to perform at your best. In this article, we will discuss:

How to Prevent Workplace Conflicts
Avoiding Conflicts
How to Manage Workplace Conflicts

How to Prevent Workplace Conflicts

There are some measures you can take to prevent conflicts and disputes in your team. These measures include:

Effective Project Planning – Inattentive project planning will lead to disagreements within the software team. Assess potential risks and prioritise tasks.
Set Clear Goals and Roles – Set goals and targets when you plan out the project and delegate roles according to each colleague’s strength. This is especially for managers and team leaders.
Communicate – Effective communication is key to any team sport; your software team is no different.

When to Completely Avoid Conflicts

When a workplace conflict arises, people most often think that they have only 2 options: confront it or avoid it. There are instances when avoiding a fight is absolutely necessary. These instances are:

When a disagreement begins to turn into personal attacks.
The argument becomes so heated that the possibility of a physical attack becomes likely.
When the issue is not really important and won’t negatively impact the project.

It may be incredibly challenging to do this but walking away from a situation like any of these can be critical. Don’t worry about looking like a coward; odds are that you will be seen as the bigger person instead. In any case, public image shouldn’t be your main concern in times like these. Remember that you need to work with the person you’re having a conflict with. Do what it takes with the long-term picture in mind.

We do understand, however, that this may not always be possible. That brings us to our next section.

How to Handle Workplace Conflicts

Suppose you can’t prevent a dispute from arising and you can’t even avoid it when it happens—you can definitely still try your best to handle it effectively. Here’s how:

Communication – Mentioned earlier, this is crucial when handling conflicts or disputes. Fights occur because of misunderstandings or a lack of communication between colleagues. Listen to facts, listen to the other person’s opinions and views, and just talk it out. Do not get aggressive or get personal, always keep it professional.
Attack the problem, not the person – Always identify the root of the dispute and place more importance on attacking that instead of the person. This will help your team in the long run.
Assess the situation and come to a compromise – Summarize the agreements and disagreements, assess the situation with the other person, pick out the best bits from the arguments and see which will solve your problem and come to an understanding.
Admit when you’re wrong– This is very important when it comes to solving issues and maintaining a positive professional relationship with your colleagues.
Get a mediator to step in – When the issue goes out of hand and there seems to be no answer in sight, get help and advice from your managers or your team leaders or anyone who is in a position to help resolve the issue at hand.

Conclusion

In this article, we have avoided being too specific because of how subjective workplace conflicts can be. However, following these basic guidelines should help resolve no matter what situation you’re in.

Remember that maintaining a healthy work-life balance is essential to keeping things pleasant at work. Check out our tips to manage workplace stress too, following these tips can make a world of a difference when it comes to avoiding workplace conflicts altogether!

At Talent500 by ANSR, we are redefining job searching for India’s best software engineers. We represent Fortune 500 companies who are looking for the top 10% talent. Our dynamic skill assessments and machine learning algorithms match talent to the right opportunities.
Sign up, beat the relevant assessment test and get discovered by the world’s leading brands.

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Tricky Interview Questions and Answers – How to Handle Tough Interview Questions

Posted on March 4, 2020July 22, 2020 by temp

Do you remember the last tricky interview question you had thrown at you during a job interview? Chances are that it completely caught you off-guard. Recruiters use such curveballs during job interviews to test your responsiveness. They want to see how you respond when you’re caught off-guard because that’s likely to happen as a part of your job.

As a rule, it’s safe to assume that you can’t be prepared for what you cannot anticipate. Curveball questions are designed to take you by surprise, so don’t try rehearsing stereotypical answers to some pre-compiled list of “tricky interview questions you MUST prepare for!”

Instead, stay on top of your game by doing the eight things we will discuss in this article:

1. Carry Your WITfolio

We’re sure you know enough about job interviews to carry your portfolio along but don’t leave your WITfolio behind! One of the greatest marks of an impressionable person is their ability to find humour in even the most nerve-racking situations. Being witty in an interview could earn you those much-needed brownie points from your interviewer.

Initiating friendly and humourous banter with your interviewer leaves a lasting impression on the interviewer. It makes you stand out from most other applicants who tend to be very formal and stressed. As a matter of fact, being witty can help break the ice and make you feel more confident and comfortable, too.

So, the next time tricky interview questions are thrown at you, try getting witty with your response. Oftentimes, the best answers come to you when you’re in a stress-free and relaxed state of mind.

2. Listen Carefully

Nervousness is an expected part of a job interview. No matter how many times you’ve faced job interviews before, a bit of anxiousness is bound to be there. It makes you overthink everything, which is why you may try to fill in gaps of silence without really having something of value to say.

Worse yet, if you’re nervous, you may end up rambling, talking too fast, and cutting the recruiter off midway. If you don’t let the recruiter finish what they’re trying to say or ask, chances are that whatever you say will be unrelated and irrelevant. It may also be interpreted as a lack of knowledge in the particular subject. You need to be attentive and wait until the recruiter has finished their question.

This can help you respond appropriately and impressively to what’s being said.

3. Don’t know the answer? Don’t Panic!

A lot of the times, recruiters only throw tricky interview questions at you to assess how well you formulate your thoughts. So, the point is not whether you answer it correctly. If you’re unnerved, formulating good answers can be very challenging. In fact, the more you panic, the less sensible you’re likely to sound. By remaining calm and composed in the face of sudden curveballs, you give your mind the space to handle them tactfully.

4. Stay Calm and Focused

However qualified you may be, a wrong answer to any question can change the recruiter’s mind and they may reconsider your fit. Similarly, however good your answer may be, if you aren’t calm and composed, the interviewer may take note of your nervous tick rather than your answer itself. So, take a deep breath and stay focused. That should help you make a pretty good impression.

5. Engage and Ask Questions for Clarity

Sometimes, your answer could be a personal take on the matter and not the answer the recruiter was expecting. Since your answer provided a different opinion on the same question, it could be refreshing to the recruiter so long as it’s befitting the question. But on the other hand, if you’ve misunderstood the question, you might end up saying something completely unrelated to the question.

In such a case, the recruiter may be swift to spot the gap in communication and this will work against you. That’s why it is important to ensure that you’ve understood the question completely before answering. Feel free to ask a question or two to make sure you get exactly what you’re asked.

6. Take Time to Think

We’ve already established that staying calm and present helps to formulate better answers. While this is true, it’s slightly different from what we mean when we say, ‘take time to think’.

Being calm and present doesn’t mean you have to answer the question immediately after you’ve understood it. It’s perfectly acceptable to tell the recruiter if you need a moment to think about what you’d like to say. Doing this is much better than coming up with a spontaneous answer that’s weird and unrelated.

7Let Your Individuality Shine!

This is the last but most important one on the list. There is always a reason why an interviewer throws a curveball question. It isn’t a question they ask just for the sake of fun and interaction. If you’re asked something like, “if you could be an animal, what would you choose to be?” Or, “if tomorrow is your last day on earth, what would you do?” it’s possible that the interviewer is trying to understand your personality, and judging whether you’d be a good fit in the company. Take your time, but let your individuality stand out by being honest in your answer.

Conclusion

Recruiters have to scout through thousands of applications every day, and each company has its own recruiting process. In the light of that, interviews can sometimes be daunting and in some cases have tougher processes.

Knowing what skills your recruiter is looking for and understanding the nature of the sudden curveball thrown at you, can go a long way in acing that job interview. Staying objective under pressure will help your brain develop that much needed optimism, and help you focus your energy on positive thoughts. Take sufficient time to process every question, and you’ll be surprised at how the answers come to you.

If you’re preparing for job interviews, check out these 10 interview mistakes you should never make.

At Talent500 by ANSR, we are redefining job searching for India’s best software engineers. We represent Fortune 500 companies who are looking for the top 10% talent. Our dynamic skill assessments and machine learning algorithms match talent to the right opportunities.
Sign up, beat the relevant assessment test and get discovered by the world’s leading brands.

Get started now