Small Talk - Blog by Houratious Albert

In this post, I talk about my experience and learnings from volunteering at the MyRoad program run by Beacon foundation . The program aims at providing career guidance opportunities for high school students in remote schools all around Australia with a focus on female students in particular. The aim of the program as I understand it is to provide exposure to the world of regular jobs; what can be expected in a working environment and to encourage students to continue further education. I was introduced to the program via my current employer, Readify. There are a few highlights that I found from my participation. 1. Structured mentor preparation The mentor training materials itself makes this volunteering program worth attending. The materials provided include very good guidance on working with young children, being mindful of cultural differences, etc. 2. Structured delivery for consistency The mentors are given a script that they can follow. This is carefully crafted t...

Days 5,6,7 (Working Day 3,4,5) since I am free. Never thought that jobless days would be as busy or even more busy than a regular day at office. With the number of calls and emails being answered, it is quite a tough time to catch up with everything. While overall the prospects are looking good, it is definitely a period of apprehension. The motivation to keep going is the good feedback that I am getting from my Interviews. I finally stopped all job hunt on Friday and decided not to continue with it until Monday. Some things that I did to focus on the search are 1) Configure outlook so that my emailing has an office feel to it (and also to get rid of the Yahoo blue indentation while replying or forwarding emails 2) Configure Google calendar to sync with my Android mobile phone. Gets me organised with tasks and meetings. The plus point is that SMS alerts can be set for the meetings and I will get the location and reminder by SMS even if I have turned of mobile d...

Day 4 (Working Day 2) since I am free. Had an exhausting, but productive day with 2 interviews and two meet ups. More questions and more evaluations. One was with a new recruitment agency for a role that was not probably a good fit in terms of my expectations, but it was really just an opportunity to meet with a recruitment agency representative for them to get to know more about you and the kind of opportunities that you are looking for. This gave me a chance as well to get to know the agency and its operations. I was doing some research on laws in Australia for independent contractors and understood that there is a fair bit of paperwork to be taken care of. I found out about payroll or contractor management company and met up with CXC Global in Brisbane. ( www.cxcglobal.com.au ) Understood their high level operating model and it was quite reasonable, hence I signed up so that I do not miss out on any short term contract opportunities. And I am happy to source that paper w...

Does lack of paid work make one less busy? I guess it depends on personal nature, choices and circumstances. Day 3 (Working day 1) since I'm free. Had my first meet up with a potential employer who did not have a set role in mind which they were trying to fill. The reason was that I contacted them to check if they have any vacancies and though they did not have an advertised position, kept an open mind to talk to me and find out about what I can offer them for anything that might come up as potential opportunities. Because they had no present vacancy, for once the questions were about my abilities and finding the right place where I would fit in or the places I could be utilized. I guess it was a good start for my full time job search period because such open questions initiate is more of an introspection than a session to implement the art of responding to interview questions. This is because I knew that they were not trying to tick off a checklist and so I did not have to...

Situations in life make creatures long for their desires, the longevity of these builds up the intensity of the feeling and soon the universe feels your pain. It then intercedes to end that suffering. It feels like Day 6. Feels like a clay model staring out of stone eyes, longing for that breath of life from the Almighty. - Written on a Blessed Day

The most influential human abilities are imagination and emotions. History itself was shaped and perceived by imagination and emotions. Those who built their thoughts over history and facts and expressed it through various means paved the way where the world stands today. This in itself is a topic for much elaboration. Every field of science and literature has its own gardeners. Fiction, specifically Science Fiction is one field, be it from literature or science where these two elements of human ability combine to produce a profound and powerful influence as it appeals both to the intellect and to the heart. I can easily get lost in the world of (science) fiction which I can easily relate to. I get very much affected by books and their authors who expand my horizon of thoughts. And when some events of my simple but rip-current life connect with a book, there comes an explosion of thoughts which I cannot help but channel to a paper. This article is not a review. It is just to e...

Enterprise Information Technology is facing new challenges every day. There is a call for better utilization of funds, shrinking margins and immediate results. The main driving force behind upgrading systems is an increasing demand for Automation, increasing costs of support for obsolete products and fast changing technology Trends. The other possible factors that compel the need for change are poor usability or little knowledge about in-house systems, inefficient integration of various enterprise systems, lack of a long standing and visionary IT support staff. Every decision making is influenced to a large extent by the people involved. Similar is the case for IT system upgrades. By system I refer to the technology and not the underlying hardware. IT managers favor systems/ platforms that they themselves or their workforce is familiar with. IT service providers push for the most cost effective solution to the given problem at hand. The limited budgets, competitive market...