Tell us about yourself
What are your strengths and weaknesses?
Why are you leaving your current job?
How much salary do you expect?
Why do you want to work for my company?

Tell us about yourself:

Here, it is important to quickly differentiate yourself from others. You must do this in an insightful way. Do not just list a bunch of good qualities about yourself. Do not just start listing your academic qualifications or other statistics from your CV.

Say something interesting about you and then state an example. If you don’t have an example, you need to pick another quality. No interviewer will remember what you said unless you give them an example.

So, let’s say you tell your interviewer “I have a good personality and work well in teams.”

You need to then link this quality back to an example of a work or academic experience: “For example, in my last job I was always able to help resolve differences in my group and find ways for everyone to get along. My superiors used to refer to me as the ‘core of the group’. I enjoy working with people and believe results can be achieved through teamwork.”

Now, your interviewer has learned something interesting about your personality and also something about your past work experience. You should have a few of these examples ready before walking in to any interview.

What are your strengths and weaknesses?

The key to acing this question is to make sure your strengths and weaknesses link together.

For instance, an example, let’s say your strengths are that you are hardworking and personable (friendly). Your weaknesses should relate to these strengths. In this case then, you could say your weaknesses are that you are overly critical and are easily trusting. Notice, how being overly critical is similar to being hardworking, and easily trusting people can be a side-effect of being very friendly. Notice that while you have listed attributes that can in fact be seen as weaknesses, they do not actually make you look bad; instead they make your strengths sound even stronger.

It is also important that while you state your strengths and weaknesses you give real-life examples to justify them. That will make it clear to your interviewer that you are not lying and have really introspected to come to these conclusions.

Why are you leaving your current job?

It is always best to be positive about the place you work even if you are unhappy there. Explain what you have learned in your current job, how you have grown (stick to the positives), and then move on to saying why you are looking for a change. It is perfectly okay to want to change jobs or careers. You just must think of positive reasons for doing this. Wanting to learn more, grow intellectually, take on greater responsibility, etc, are all good reasons for wanting to leave one’s current job.

Do not start talking about issues you have with your boss or colleagues. No one likes people who complain.

How much salary do you expect?

This is a tricky question. To answer this, you must do research and understand what the average salary is for the industry and job profile you are interviewing for.

You can try saying something like “that depends on what salaries are in this company” or “what salaries do others in this department earn?” If you get a response to these questions, you will be in a better position to answer.

If not, you can tell them the salary you were earning in your last company. They will most likely know you are looking for at least a 10% pay hike from that. If you know what salary you expect, and it is much higher than you were last receiving, then tell them that and justify it with why you deserve it.

Make sure you don’t come off sounding too greedy.

Why do you want to work for my company?

Be sure you have good answers for why you want to work in that particular company and what you can bring to the table professionally. To do this, you must have researched the company and the position you are applying for properly.

You can research by going to the company webpage, by looking up press releases or news articles on the internet, by looking up annual reports, by researching trade sites like NASSCOM or CII. You will be amazed how much you can find on the internet on any given company (public or private). Just doing a simple google search with the company name or the name of the company CEO/Managing Director can result in all kinds of useful information. You can also ask around if you know anyone who works at the company.

Second, you should know about the job you are interviewing for. You should know what the job entails and WHY YOU would be good at it. You need to bring up why you would be a good fit for the position during the interview.

Third, you should know about yourself. This may seem stupid, but most of us don’t actually spend very much time introspecting and thinking about what is interesting about ourselves and our experiences. What is interesting about yourself may be certain decisions you have made in the past, your accomplishments, or skills that you have developed. For you to really shine during an interview, it is important that you have spent time just thinking of these things and have examples in your academic and professional life to back these qualities up. Remember, examples are crucial.

Many people feel nervous before interviews. The best way to reduce nervousness is to prepare well so you are confident before you go. Start with mastering the above questions I have given. Second, start realizing that not getting a particular job is not the end of the world. If you do this, you will begin to enjoy your interviews. The more you look forward to going to an interview, the better you will do. In my next article, I will give tips on how to perform during telephonic interviews.

Regards,

Amit Karnani
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What do you expect in this Budget for the Industry in which you are associated or you are working in?

Feet free to comment here so that i can make a presentation and forward it to you and many others:

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Regards,
Amit Karnani
(Management Student at IPS Business School, Jaipur)
http://twitter.com/amitkarnani
http://in.linkedin.com/in/amitkarnani

"The fiscal sustainability problem is going to be one of the biggest, maybe the biggest problem for the coming… several years," Strauss-Kahn told the World Economic Forum in Davos.

"We’ll have to deal with this for five, six or seven years, depending on the country," he said.

Strauss-Kahn’s comments came as worries over Greece’s debt woes clouded the Davos forum, where Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou has been trying to reassure markets that his country will act to beat its debt crisis.

Many other developed countries also have major budget deficits as they pump in extraordinary sums to stimulate their economies during the global slowdown.

The bourses will open for trade at 9:00 am instead of the usual 9:55 am and will close at the usual time of 3:30 pm.

The BSE, on Wednesday, announced advancement of trade timing to 9:45 am. Reacting to this unilateral decision, NSE said it would start trade at 9:00 am.

Many brokers were worried about the operational aspects, in addition to the strain that it will put on their daily routine. "Arranging for margin (funds) early on in the day will be a problem since banks don’t open that early,” said Nikhil Jalan of Kamal Kumar Jalan Securities. “If the exchanges are keen on extended hours, why not ensure that other systems too are in place. And by extending trade timings by an hour, you can’t really snatch volumes from the Singapore exchange, because that market will still open ahead of us and people wanting to trade there will continue to do so,” he said.

Some of the brokers who spoke to ET, on condition of anonymity, said that the regulator/exchanges should have conducted a proper poll before increasing the trading timings.

BSE’s move to steal a march on NSE provoked a much stronger reaction than what Asia’s oldest bourse had expected. The BSE was learnt to have been opposed to the idea of extended trading hours all along. Yet, it went ahead and advanced trade timing by 10 minutes, in the hope that it would improve liquidity.

Incidentally, surveys conducted by the Association of National Exchange Members of India (ANMI) and the BSE Brokers Forum a few weeks ago, showed that the majority of brokers were opposed to the extension of trading hours.

The market closing time will remain same at 3.30 pm," an NSE official told PTI. The trading hours have been extended from the earlier 9.55 am to 3.30 pm. "With the change in market timings by other exchanges our participants were left with no choice but to extend the timing," NSE Managing Director Ravi Narain told a private TV news channel.

Yesterday the Asia”s oldest bourse Bombay Stock Exchange had increased the trading time by 10 minutes to 9:45 am from Friday in the equity, equity derivatives and block deal segments in order to leverage from the pre-lunch trading sessions in the Singapore and Hong Kong Stock Exchange. "We would closely coordinate with the BSE regarding the change of timing," Narain said.

In October market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) approved extension of the trading timings by up to two-and-a-half hours from 9 am to 5 pm. PTI JD.

GREEN BUSINESS

UN talks in the Danish capital, meant to agree the outline of a new climate treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, are stuck on splitting the bill to cut carbon emissions and prepare for more droughts, floods and rising seas.

Soros said developed countries could invest a portion of their $283 billion IMF special drawing rights in carbon-cutting projects in developing nations.

The projects themselves would pay the interest on the proposed $100 billion to be spent over the next decade, and IMF gold reserves would guarantee the principle and interest.

Soros acknowledged a series of obstacles to his proposal, including US Congress approval, IMF director approval and a global carbon price.

"Our list is a mix of giant, established companies- this year that list includes Australian miner BHP Billiton, Hong Kong conglomerate Noble Group and Indian oil andgas heavyweight Reliance Industries – and smaller outfits such as Agile property Holdings, Anhui Conch Cement and digital China Holdings," Forbes Asia said in a statement.

In the Forbes list, there are four Indian entities – Reliance Industries, Bharti Airtel, Infosys Technologies and Tata Consultancy Services – among the top ten firms in terms of marketvalue, while Reliance Industries and Tata Steel feature in the top ten league in terms of sales.

Other than RIL, Infosys and Tata Steel, the other Indian firms that have made it to the prestigious list include – Adani Enterprise, Axis Bank, Bharat Heavy Electricals, Bharti Airtel, HDFC bank, Jindal Steel & Power, Larsen and Toubro, Mahindra & Mahindra, Tata Consultancy Services and Wipro.

The Indian league had four newcomers this year – Adani Enterprises, Axis Bank, Jindal Steel & Power and Tata Consultancy Services – and among the Indian firms returning to the list include Bharat Heavy Electricals, Larsen & Toubro and Reliance Industries.

China has again outdone the rest of the Asia Pacific with the most number of firms (16) represented in the league, followed by India with 13 entities.

"The mainland firms together with five from Taiwan and three from Hong Kong account for almost half of the entries, giving Greater China the biggest regional representation on the list," Forbes said.

Taiwan moved up the ranking this year and is in the third place with five companies on the list, all of which are from the technology sector. Japan and Australia share the fourth place with four companies each on the list.

The list included companies that have revenue and market capitalisation of at least $3 billion and a five year record of operating profitability and return on equity.

The other criteria for being in the list include long term profitability, sales and earnings growth, stock price appreciation, projects earnings, quality of management and entrepreneurial skills.

“Our position on this is very clear. In the first week of September, I had met the South African finance minister on the sidelines of the G-20 finance ministers’ summit in London, and told him that we are in favour of the deal,” Mukherjee said in Kolkata. “As far as dual listing is concerned, that is linked with full (capital account) convertibility. This has legal aspects, which we are looking into.”

On whether India would alter legislation to allow the record $24 billion (Rs1.15 trillion) deal, the finance minister said: “We welcome the deal but in the context of the law of land. There are some legal implications, which are being looked into.”

Bharti shares, rocked by changes in takeover rules, dropped 3.43%, or Rs14.7, to close at Rs413.4 on the Bombay Stock Exchange. The benchmark Sensex index dropped 0.99%, or 166.93 points, to close at 16,719.5.

On Tuesday, capital market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India amended takeover rules, saying that an investor that acquires 15% of an Indian firm through American depository receipts or global depository receipts (GDRs) with voting rights needs to make a mandatory offer for a further 20%. The jury is still out as to whether this move would facilitate or hamper the proposed merger.

Some analysts believe the revision may help the deal, or at least assist the two telecom firms in choosing an alternative structure for the merger without hurting shareholder interest.

“The amendment may not impact the potential Bharti-MTN deal… as MTN would acquire an economic interest in Bharti,” Rajiv Sharma, analyst at HSBC Securities and Capital Markets (India) Pvt. Ltd, and Tucker Grinnan of HSBC Ltd, wrote in a report.

In May, the Sunil Mittal-promoted Bharti Airtel announced its intention to acquire a 49% stake in MTN. In turn, MTN would receive a 36% ownership stake in Bharti—25% through offshore GDRs and 11% through cash.

A Bloomberg report, however, later suggested that Bharti had sweetened its bid to buy 49% in MTN by increasing the cash portion of its $14 billion offer.

The equity-cum-cash merger deal will create a $23 billion telecom services company with at least 200 million customers in 23 nations.

MTN may have to pay around Rs32,000 crore ($6.6 billion) based on current prices to buy an additional 20% stake in Bharti Airtel if it has to make an open offer to Indian shareholders.

The “probability of an open offer is very low and the Sebi decision is unlikely to be a deal breaker,” said a research report on the deal by Anand Rathi Financial Services Ltd. “A possible way to obviate an open offer is that if MTN does not insist on voting rights for all GDRs. Then Bharti can make a preferential GDR allotment (25% economic interest), of which only 14.99% come with voting rights and the rest do not. This would be in MTN’s interest, in our view, given potential open offer financing issues.”

Bharti Airtel’s current market capitalization is Rs1.62 trillion.

“If MTN wants voting rights for all GDRs, then post-acquisition of a 15% stake in Bharti, MTN would be required to make an open offer for additional 20% stake, which may take its holding up to 35% in Bharti,” said the Anand Rathi report.

Voting rights may not be involved in the deal.

“The Bharti media release issued on 25 May mentioned clearly that MTN would acquire only an economic interest in Bharti, which…suggests that GDRs issued to MTN do not carry voting rights. Given this, we believe that the recent amendment may have no impact on the Bharti-MTN share-swap transaction,” wrote HSBC’s Sharma and Grinnan.

A Reuters report said the two firms may not have approached the finance ministry for approval. The report quoted unnamed government officials.

Earlier in July this year, Sebi had said that MTN need not make an open offer to Bharti Airtel shareholders in India as its holding would be through GDRs.

On Tuesday, Mittal is said to have met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and understood to have discussed issues such as dual listing.

Reuters reported that Singapore Telecommunications Ltd (SingTel) could maintain a 25% stake in the combined entity, citing a Morgan Stanley report.

“Indeed, if the Bharti-MTN transaction goes through and SingTel increases its stake in the new entity using debt (which is very likely), we see room for slight EPS (earnings per share) enhancement,” the Morgan Stanley report said.

Singtel owns owns about 30.4% of Bharti Airtel.

As fighting raged, most foreign investment avoided Lanka and hence there is very little competition across the business spectrum.

Colombo, is ready market ready to be tapped fully, the infrastructure and consumer economy are already there, but the war kept away many providers of goods and services, but now the scenario has been turned positive.

Capital is expensive in Sri Lanka so they need cheaper capital from outside, President Mahindra Rajaska is offering a 15 year tax holiday for investment in the north and east, he is keen to get foreign investment and has dispatched his ministers to various countries to pitch.

China and India are likely to play a major role.

"China ,being a large country, is putting a lot of money here. Also politically they are not bothered. With India, there were some political issues. But all that is getting cleaned," says Chandra Lal De Alwis, president of the National Chamber of Commerce of Sri Lanka.

India has already started pumping hundreds of dollars into Sri Lanka for the re-habitation of 280,000 internally displaced persons living in government camps.

The NTPC, Power Grid Corporation, L&T and IOC are said to play a vital role.

Ashok Layland, Hero Honda, Asian Paints and Bharti Airtel are already there and planning to further penetrate the market.

Calamander Group, by Roman Scott, Singapore based British Private Equity manager, has launched the world’s first PE fund exclusively focused on Sri Lanka, with a likely corpus of $50-75 million.

Will presidnt Rajaska will be able to restructure Sri Lanka?

What you are looking for, go ahead with Sri Lanka?

What do you think, "Is Sri Lanka a most compelling investment destination in the world, now?

Finquity India.