INDUCT FIRST, INSTRUCT NEXT

Two weeks back, in one of the farthest suburbs of Mumbai, in the conference room of an otherwise pretentious but swanky office, I was asked a question by a stranger – How good are you with your interpersonal skills?

I hadn’t ever met this person before in my life. I hadn’t heard about him or read about him. I might have read about his agency’s name in the list of instantly mushrooming so called ‘digital’ agencies but, I never seriously considered meeting him in person.

The necessity to reply him didn’t seem of vital importance to me. In this scenario, I was neither a desperate seeker nor a desperate browser; I was just meeting up for some other purpose. His question left me miffed. In the past few years, I’ve been asked many such questions and I’ve also been party to people doubting my capability, my capacity and my calibre. So be it! But I need to ask one question – Why aren’t any of the recent organizations (in my knowledge) conducting induction programmes? I am not asking this question independently but this is a unanimous concern, which needs to be addressed by the so called thinking community of today’s changing advertising, digital or any tom-dick-harry culture in India. So I ask again, “Why aren’t any of the recent organizations (in my knowledge) conducting induction programmes?”

Every time, I’ve asked this question, I’ve met with failure or a long lull (almost mute). To be honest, none of the organizations are encouraging induction. The hiring culture has grown worse than ever. This is how the entire process takes place; this is with regards to the hiring marathon, appointment thereafter in most of the recent advertising and digital agencies:

An HR Manager calls up after reading the first few lines of your profile. In most cases, keywords like #CreativeBackground #Copywriter #Scripting #Experience #CampaignDevelopment seem to be enough for the HR girl or guy (I am saying girl and guy because serious individuals have left this space and jumped into the valley of invisibility) to dial your number and invite you for an interview.

• The first round of the interview is necessarily with the HR Manager. In some cases, the HR Managers are well read about the background, a candidate hails from. But, at times, I’ve been personally saddened to come across some hiring executives, who don’t know a thing about advertising or even the age of digital communication in India. I’ve met someone who thought Facebook is 20 years old in India. Shit, why wasn’t I on Facebook then? What a shame for me!
  
  
• The second round is usually conducted by someone who is loosely or tightly associated with the job profile that you might get appointed to. Now this girl or guy comes with his/her own excess baggage. The deadpan look on their faces tells you that they have been forced to conduct this interview. Secondly they are very upset about the candidate they had met last week and had eagerly desired to be appointed to the position, now under negotiation. Since the deciding committee hadn’t selected his/her desired candidate, this interview will be considered an additional burden. Your resume will be not scanned or read in this second round. You will be asked silly questions about yourself, your best campaign, your knowledge of a brand and some more extra queries (about which you might not have any inkling).
  
  
• The third round of your interview will be a rapid fire round with a person, who usually hangs around three departments; the Managing Director’s Cabin, The HR Manager’s Cabin and the Cabin of the Second Round Interviewer. This person might be a relative or a good friend of someone already working in the office and will come to you either with a sheet of paper or loads of attitude around him. The certain task in his or her hand – Ah, here is this product, create a campaign around it.
  
  
• The fourth round will be a negotiation round, which necessarily focuses on underestimating your talent. No matter, the years of experience you possess, you will still be made to realize that you are nowhere. 

Having cleared all the rounds, you are in the Bingo Zone. You are happily handed over an offer letter, an appointment letter, a bunch documents comprising illogical rules and regulations and yes you are told, “Our incoming times are fixed 9:30 AM but, we are very weak at outgoings.”

On the first day (in the event of you deciding to join on a demotivating, lazy Monday), you are hurriedly pushed into a conference room, which smells of neither a room freshener nor food but rather stinks with the pesticide sprayed over the weekend. The HR Manager from the first round makes a Godly appearance and promises to introduce you to everyone in the office. On your first day, you are made many promises and none of them are true. On the second day itself, you are put on task by the two people from the second and third rounds. They start acting like a boss to you. When you gather the courage to ask for some time to think over it, pat comes the reply, “Time is what, we are running against my friend. You better pull up your socks.”

The moral of the story – On the first day when a candidate is misled into an organization, the chances are thin for him/her to continue even for the first six months.

Therefore whey is induction necessary?

• A newly appointed candidate might come from the same sector that your organization operates in but the functioning might be different.
  
  
• Your organization might be following the theory of chaos to win accounts, lose accounts, adjust accounts or sustain accounts; the newly appointed candidate might like to do things in an organized manner.
  
  
• Some people in your organization might not be aware (either deliberately or unknowingly) about the appointment of a new candidate; wouldn’t it be nice to organize a 10 minute get together to help the new candidate break the ice?
  
  
• The hierarchies might be different in your organization; what if a junior talks to a senior like a boss or what if the candidate is dragged into some important pitch presentation, about which he has no knowledge at all.
  
  
• Every organization, every agency has a certain DNA of operating; are you sure the newly appointed candidate will come to know of it on the first day of his/her joining?
  
  
• Hold back your set of instructions before gauging if the candidate has found a proper place to sit in our office. If he/her hasn’t yet been shown the place to settle down, you seriously need a reality check. 

Hoping that I haven’t kicked off a controversy, I would sign off saying - INDUCT FIRST, INSTRUCT NEXT.

-Virtuous Vociferous 

END OF A RELATIONSHIP – Hindustan Times and I are no more on reading terms

When it debuted in Mumbai, on a monsoon-pregnant day of 2005, I wanted to grab the first copy and retain it as a symbol of my fascination. Prior to that I had to heavily rely on those who traveled between Mumbai and Delhi regularly; requesting them to carry along a copy of it and make it available to me for a mouthful of reading. Thereafter during my innumerable trips to Delhi, I never missed the chance of carrying a copy back home.

The arrival of Hindustan Times (HT) in Mumbai seemed like a fresh breath of journalistic air in the clutter endorsed culture of The Times of India and DNA. Every edition of HT came well packaged with its own set of cliché defying reportage. What was more striking was the absence of advertisement deluge in the newspaper. Being from an advertising background, I do understand the value, every media house attaches with ad releases. But then the noise was too less, with regards to HT. It appeared like a newspaper, which I definitely wanted to wake up to read every day.

Since reading HT was full of pleasure, I opted for a marathon subscription of almost five or seven years in a row, which finally ended on March 17, 2015. But I am relieved by the breakup. HT’s personality had changed, ever since I renewed the subscription, two years back. It was an unwilling move on my behalf; had it not been for the humble sales guy who came pleading at my doorstep, I had made up my mind to strangulate the relationship.

The ties had started weakening from the time HT decided to discontinue supplying THE BRUNCH (a special supplement with Sunday edition), beyond the city limits of Thane. Was it then our fault to be residents of a destination, roughly 36 kilometers away from the central suburb of Mumbai! Then too my friend Prashant and I continued revering the internet edition. In fact I have still retained some of its old printed versions, which carries my name in the letters section. The issues of THE BRUNCH were fresh, awe inspiring and indulging.

But good times don’t last for long. I won’t say I am, in particular, angry with HT alone. But I am definitely annoyed by the repetitive style of reporting issues of all newspapers, which disturb our mornings, spoil our afternoons and leave us feeling anxious during nights. Incidents definitely are to be reported. But the language is strictly uncourteous. Secondly the heinous typo errors in the print as well as e-version kept putting my mind off. Sometimes names, places, events and personalities were misrepresented or misprinted. Finally when the subscription manager of our area called to ask, if I am ready to upgrade my renewal further, I straight away put down the request. This time I was in no mood to heed to their humility or honesty. I knew I had lost interest in HT.

This might seem like an end of the road for my experience of newspaper reading. Well not exactly. I am already hooked to HT Mint Lounge series, published on every Saturday. And I am gradually mending my mind to adapt to the journalistic mannerisms of THE INDIAN EXPRESS. Secondly I have for a long time stayed away from magazine reading. Maybe I will catch up with a couple of them. Apart from everything else, there is always the good company of books I enjoy.

I am not trying to build a negative opinion against HT, which still continues to be one of my favorites. But I clearly remember the day, I chose to not continue being its fan for a long time. On the third or fifth page of the edition, I came across a filthy ad. This advertisement was of someone wishing birthday to a wealthy chap. I believe that was the last nail, to pierce the abyss of the coffin.

Today HT and I are no more on reading terms. The only link between us is the HT Mint Lounge, which comes my way, every Saturday. I am not repenting over this disassociation. Instead, I am moving ahead to a better world of reading the ones, I haven’t tried till now. Maybe it is high time that my collection starts comprising TIME, The New Yorker and The Economist for a change.

The end of a relationship is actually the beginning of a brand new relationship. It also marks the commencement of happy reading, twice upon a time with reloaded energy.

-vociferous