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THE EMPLOYABILITY
QUOTIENT DECODED
THE EMPLOYABILITY
QUOTIENT DECODED
‘An all-round approach to build progressive careers from campus to corporate’
by Piyush Sandhane
The Employability Quotient Decoded Piyush Sandhane
www.whitefalconpublishing.com All rights reserved First Edition, 2018 © Piyush Sandhane, 2018 Cover Design & Illustrations: Nikita Sinari
[email protected] No part of this publication may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by means of electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without prior written permission from the author. Requests for permission should be addressed to
[email protected] ISBN - 978-93-88459-51-8
“We all have two lives. The second one begins when we realize we have only one” -Dalai Lama
Dedications To my father Mr Pradip Sandhane who taught me ‘You reap what you sow! Keep sowing because you don’t know which tree will bear the best fruit’ & my mother Mrs Suchitra Sandhane who taught me ‘Smile and be strong within by being humble and a continual learner’
Acknowledgements
A
t every stage of my life, whether I succeeded or failed, there were moments when I learned immensely from each of my experiences. For most of the times, I have been a good son to my parents, a supportive brother to my sister, an understanding husband to my wife and honing the newly acquired role of a father to our beautiful daughter. But it’s not been so simple. Having faced many uncertainties, problems and other challenges in and around me, I had some people around who played a pivotal role in my making. Acknowledging all the people who played a part in sculpting me to what I am today is tough but I will still try to make their mentions. There have been many who were the catalyst of change in my life journey. Let me start with the most important people in my life, my mom and dad. They have been an immense source of inspiration and always been my support system during my downfalls. Never once did they push or force me into doing things which I did not like. They taught me important lessons of how to choose and make decisions piyush sandhane«ix»
in life, how to be ethical and how to strive to make a difference. I am thankful to my younger sister Esha for sharing a bond which can never be broken no matter how many fun times we’ve already had or how much we’ve fought (and still keep fighting) like true siblings. I am blessed to have met my wife, Swati, who has stood strong by me in the best and the worst of my times and versions of me. She believed in me more than myself and always encouraged me to take up writing my thoughts so that I could reach out to many people. I owe a lot to her in the making of this book and bringing it to existence. We welcomed our daughter Maahira this year, and this just added to my motivation. She will soon grow up to become a student. I hope this book reaches her at the right time for the right purpose to bring that little right meaning in her personal and professional journey. I wish to share my gratitude filled thanks to my immediate circle of Swati’s family; her mom, dad, her brothers Amit and Venkatesh. This opportunity is also to share my happiness and thank all my relatives who never questioned my choices; even with my parents and my very close friends who stuck around for letting me be me. A heartfelt thanks to all my teachers and mentors who have made me who I am today and helped me gain knowledge, maturity and balance in what I am today professionally. A big thank you to my entire work circle which includes all my previous employers, clients, business «x»
the employability quotient decoded
associates and partners who saw the spark in me and gave me the opportunity to take risks, experiment and provided the right stimulus to come up with unique ideas and approaches to many challenges. I am grateful to you for keeping me away from professional monotony. I also must thank all the failures I had. These made me think more and beyond the regular and ultimately gave me the abilities like solo brainstorming, ideation and problem-solving. How can I forget all the students that I interacted with? This book is a compilation of all the challenges that we jointly addressed in the interactions I kept having with them. So thank you for accepting me and my thoughts, learning and also teaching me in return. Heartfelt thanks to Nikita Sinari who helped me get the perfect cover design and illustrations for my book. You will definitely like her work. A special mention to the place that provided me with the much-required peacetime to expand and collate my thoughts and up-word my writing efforts. A lovely café in a perfectly quiet and natural setting called London Muffin. I thank the owners Mr Seuongjin Lee and Mrs Mijeong Lee for making table space for my long writing sessions and also the staff for being cooperative and bringing amazing coffee to my company. A big thank you in advance to all the readers who connected with my book and have shown interest and invested in themselves in building a brand called ‘YOU’. piyush sandhane«xi»
Preface
T
his book is the outcome of all the initiatives that I have taken to stay young at heart and my constant wish to make a small change in the younger generation by sharing my experiences with them. It also accounts my own experience which I had directly or indirectly and changed the way I thought about the true meaning of being employable. My entire academic and working (professional) journey has been a roller coaster ride. To share a little about me; I was a bright and brilliant student in school and scored well in my board exams. I used to be a part of many creative and cultural activities and was also good with cricket (learnt the sport from a professional coach). But most of the decisions and where one fits in were based on the marks scored at every level of education. So the higher-percentage students went into science followed by commerce and arts. As a regular student and with the good percentage I chose science and elected Electronics & Telecommunication as my bi-focal subject (no interest in biology). After completing my 12th grade the obvious choice was engineering. Engineers and doctors were 2 main piyush sandhane«xiii»
professions in the limelight and no other vocational or additional courses were available at a young age (though times have changed today). Having scored an average percentage I could not get into a premium college. But my dad still found the most advanced (by syllabus design) and modern institute for me to study the same (he never forced me to; it was my choice in the end). I think that phase was a big change-maker in the education policies. While securing admissions we never looked into the accreditation bodies in detail and the government announced to close all the institutes without government body accreditations. Mine was one of it. I was in my third year of engineering and everything just went blank in front of me. No other institute accepted us as lateral entrants and asked us to start again from the very beginning. I did not know what next. Just imagine all your friends will finish their graduation (3 years) and I would be pushed back like in the game of snakes and ladders. I could not digest it. What did I do next? From the strong upbringing that I had and both my parents believing in me and my decisions they supported and guided every aspect of my journey ahead. The only thing on my mind was not to fall back in time and plan something which does not make me look like a rookie while my friends as thorough professionals. While all of them selected a post-graduation course (mostly management) after their graduation, I decided to do a «xiv»
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business degree and simultaneously work to build my professional expertise and experience. I also started a small business in performing arts (a dance class) where I taught freestyle dancing to small children and adults. While kids wanted to learn the art there were adults who wanted to just enjoy and express themselves through it. This gave me a sense of running my business and also learning more about the audience. I always loved interacting with people and wanted to touch their lives in some way or the other. I still remember my first interview as a 12th pass and getting the news that I was selected for a significant role in a newly formed company. Here I got my chance to interact with clients from an international background very early in life. This helped me learn about various professional approaches, cultures and also different corporates from different parts of the world. I had an on-job-training in communication, client servicing, marketing, brand positioning and also situational problem solving for folks who were new to the country on short and long stay work assignments with their respective companies. So how did I get through my interview? Well, I had only one thing on my mind - to get that job by sharing what I could and contribute to the company with my skills. I had only prepared what I could offer professionally through my skills and matched them to the expectations of the company. After a point in time, piyush sandhane«xv»
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