Dear IT Fresher :Chapter7: Do's and Dont's in Training

For previous chapters refer to
Previous Chapters

Internet Access:
  All Software It companies do have internet access. All companies have their own internet policy. Companies may restrict internet access based on grades and project needs. During the training days need for internet would be minimal as you would be busy in training and assignments. However to clear some doubts you may use the internet. Some companies do restrict internet access times and especially for trainees this need is not seen.
Use internet diligently, do not let your facebook and twitter access to overshadow the work at hand. Some people may get carried away with full unlimited internet access and leave the focus from training which could prove disastrous.
We would see internet access and policies in detail in a separate chapter later.

E-mail :
 Everyone will have an unique e-mail id created with <company>.com domain. The intention of this id is only for official purposes and the company has every right to inspect and review the mail box. Yes most companies do not mind using this for personal mail but one has to be aware that there is nothing personal in this mailbox. Any admin who has access to the server can read your mails and it is legally allowed.
Given this fact, unless and until something suspicious is happening no one will really sneak in to your inbox. However it is better to keep personal things private and official things official.

Intranet Forum Usage:
Most companies have common public forums within the company similar to many internet public forums. The forums could vary from totally junk items to very specific technical forums. The technical forums usually do not pose problems, even as a fresher you maybe welcome to post very basic queries and some nice techie guy would reply to you.  However it is not advisable to post your assignment here and ask for an answer.
The junk and general discussion forums usually needs some care in what you post. One is certainly not expected to post items favoring a political party or questioning a corporate policy.  However each company will have a policy to draw the lines and these forums are more actively monitored to identify trouble makers. There have been cases where people have been asked from posting apology letters to leaving the company.

Dear IT Fresher : Chapters

This is a collection of all chapters of "Dear IT Fresher" series. I will update this post as and when a new chapter is written

Preface
Introduction
The Agonizing Wait Time
Joining Day and Formalities
The Training Period -1
The Training Period -2
The Training Period - 3 

Dear IT Fresher: Chapter 6: The Training Period -3 - Do's and Don'ts

Well the training period is your first chance in to the corporate world. You are still not there yet, this is a first step in to it. However please remember that you already are a professional.
Well Congratulations but do remember to behave like one :)

The corporates are pretty much aware that they are taking a bunch of old teenagers in to their campus and hence would have their rule book ready. Most of which would be told or shown or incorporated in to you during orientation.

The first Do would be to follow the rules told clearly.

One very frequently broken rule would be Gaming. Well some companies are smart enough to prevent any form of media from entering their campuses and do not provide a chance to enter their PCs. Well I know some big companies feel it is a perk they give employees and care less.  They may feel as a big corporate it is responsible to allow people to relax and play a bit. You are lucky if you are in one of them but mostly it would be a strict No during training. It would be best advised to keep the Road Rash and Age of Empires away from the training period.  If you want to relax, take a walk, have  a nice cup of tea. Take a stroll to see if really those big pictures you see in media about the company are real.

Second Do would be make friends

This is probably easy for most people but for those who have more friends in facebook than in real life, maybe its time to find new ones. One can say that it depends on the person and one cannot be forced to make friends.
It has multiple benefits. First it helps to build the habit of making friends, since in a big company one would be changing projects frequently, on the average maybe once in a year or two. Hence it is very important to have a friends circle to know the knitty gritties of a project and the company as a whole.
Next, once you are a professional you spend most of your time awake at office. Hence it is important to enjoy and have a life at office apart from work. Besides it is these co-workers who would help you out on a rough day.
The most important benefit especially during training time is the benefit of exchanging notes/ code/ assignments. the concept of copying your friends notes from college may also extend to your training period as well.  For some assignments, it maybe needed that you just copy paste someone's code , rename the variables and submit :) Well it is not ethical, maybe your first unethical corporate act but it happens and it works.

PS: What I thought would be small topic is extending. Some more to come.

Dear IT Fresher: Chapter 5: The Training Period - 2

Preface
Introduction
The Agonizing Wait Time
Joining Day and Formalities
The Training Period -1


Every company spends lakhs of rupees to get you trained. Hence it is ensured that you get trained and get trained well. If you do not fit you are shown the door. This is also a period where companies try to test how you perform under pressure. It is very important to perform under pressure and not loose all hope. This is an essential character that one needs to display in the software industry.

The training period would vary from company to company but the content taught would be squeezed.
What content is taught during the training depends on the focus of the company and your background. The course for a computer science student would be different from that of a civil/Mechanical background person.

It may start from 'this is a keyboard, this is a mouse, MOUSE stands for ...' and it will end up in you designing/coding and delivering  a web page for a big company using flash, HTML and all latest languages and technologies - all in a span of 3 to 6 months.

Hence it is important to focus , the tests would be online and mostly multiple choice questions or programs to be written online. It is mostly not possible to copy, it is not possible if you remember the entire content of the material provided. It may not be enough if you manage to get previous questions from previous batches.

One has to understand the underlying concepts and apply them. One also has to be clear on the question, as in programming a small mistake would change the results (using = Vs ==) dramatically.

The training is neither a school nor a college nor a free for all. It takes the worst of all and combines them. Some companies take attendance 4 times a day during training period. If you do not believe read the first statement of this chapter again.

It is not difficult to clear the training , at the same time it is much much easier to fail. For some, this maybe the first time that someone encounters a failure in exams but one has to be bold enough as well to re write the test and clear it.

When you join a project later, your project manager may have full access to your score and this may affect the first impression he/she gets about you and it may stay for long.

Hence it is important to treat the training with importance. Yes there may be times when you can copy paste the answer or copy a program/project from earlier batches but ensure you get across the line.

The training period is the time where you would find the least support in a company and if you are lucky maybe the most difficult time of your career. Hence give it the due diligence and just get it over. Better days are waiting where things would be more in your control.

However if you do not clear please be assured that this is not the end of life.

Dear IT Fresher: Chapter 4: The Training Period-1

Preface
Introduction
The Agonizing Wait Time
Joining Day and Formalities


Nasscom says most of engineers coming out of colleges are not employable.  For this very reason most or all of IT companies train employees from 1 to 3 months or even more and then only deploy freshers on project. Again once inside the project there would be a training on specifics that we would see in later chapters.

If you feel that your studying is over and you have done a good job and have landed in a plush job and achieved life's goal and can relax and enjoy the money and freedom. THINK AGAIN.
Indian cricket team reached No1 ranking in tests in 2011 after a lot of hard work but came a cropper against England and Australia and were unable to maintain the ranking. This is exactly what could happen to you if you are complacent .

Personally I know people who have been kicked out of companies when they do not do well in the training period. As someone rightly said "DON'T LOVE YOUR COMPANY, YOUR COMPANY DOES NOT LOVE YOU". For the company it is business and if they find that you do not fit to professional environment then you don't fit here.

Every company has its own style of training program, which has evolved over the years based on feedback from various quarters (projects, engineers etc). You will receive your training plan and schedule as soon as you join probably on the first day itself. If you carefully observe the plan it maybe scheduled for 8 hours tightly but be prepared to spend extra 2 to 3 hours to complete your assignments. You will be given time to finish the assignments but be prepared to put extra effort if you could not finish on time.

A simple approach could be to switch off the fact that you are working and think you are in a High school/ Junior college. The treatment would be same. Ofcourse no one would question you for not doing an assignment or punish you but everything would reflect in the final marks scored per subject. The pass marks are usually very strict and if you fail you would be given a second chance but beyond a second chance, depends on companies policies.

Some companies conduct another interview or a viva, Some prefer to wait till you finish all courses and see if you are weak in only one subject or so . However in every training batch it is possible that 1 to 3% of people are sent back home/ asked to resign/ Terminated for non-performance. It must be your aim not to fall in this percentage.  It is very easy to fall in to this percentage if you treat this like a college and do not have prior knowledge on subjects.

Most big and medium companies have dedicated training centers with world class facilities and probably have hostels as well attached. There would be a library which would be well equipped with books for reference and with internet facilities. You would be allocated a system or need to share with someone a system. It may or may not have internet but would be well equipped with what you need to work.

It would be better to follow the KISS principle.(Keep It Simple Stupid).

You have crossed 14years of school, 4 years of engineering, it is not very difficult to cross 3 or 6 months of company training. All you need to do is do the basics right. It would be a bit difficult if you are from a  course that is not related to computers (civil, mech, chemical metallury etc). However the company that recruited you knows this well so the courses are designed in such a way that anyone with logical sense could understand an clear it.

It is not that difficult to get past this phase and then it is a different world altogether.
There are a few more things to note during training in the next chapter...

Dear IT Fresher: Chapter 3 - Joining Day and Formalities

Preface
Introduction
The Agonizing Wait Time

Once the joining date is finalized and you are ready to start your working career it is important to check a few things before starting your next phase in life.

1. Documentation :
Verify you have all documents the company needs on joining date. Any good company usually shares the list of things they would require you to bring on joining day (like marksheet, passport etc).
If you do not have any of it then it is better to intimate and check with your contact person in HR. Most likely it should not be a problem, remember you are entering corporate world and not a school so do not expect strict rules, however try to be professional in explaining your situation. For example if you don't have  a passport yet then it might be ok to show proof that you have applied for one.
Side Note: The jump to becoming a true professional is a journey and not an easy one. It varies from people to people, the aim of this book is to help everyone succeed this journey quickly.

2. Understand the dress Code:  
Some companies do not care and do not have a dress code. If you are joining one then you don't need to bother much but still at least in the initial days it would be good to dress in formals (unless it is frowned upon) to show you are trying to be professional. Especially when you are yet to make an impression with your work, it is better to have personal appearance good so that people don't make any negative impressions straight away.
If there is a dress code, it is better to follow it. Be it wearing a tie on a sunny hot day or wearing a belt even if the pant is so tight just do it. It is childish that some companies do have security check and impose a fine but it is better not to find yourself on wrong side than just adjust .

3. Other policies
If there are any other policies are guidelines any company is entitled to inform you of the same and it would be part of your documentation either before joining or at least with the joining set of documents the company would provide you. This may include anything from using public e-mail forums to sexual harassment. It is better to go through them with due diligence lest find yourself facing eviction. Yes companies are very strict with respect to ethics ( Internally they might be violating many) and would not think to show the door to someone found violating them. As a fresher one stands absolutely no chance when it comes violation of ethics.

4. Travel & Accommodation
If your home town and the city of work are different, usually the company arranges a week or two for your stay until you find your way in the city and rent an accommodation. If you are not sure check with HR and ensure you have necessary documents when you checkin to the hotel. Also make plans to reach the office if the company does not provide transport as well. Remember to be on time the first  day, plan well.  Start the habit of planning the night for the next day, this would take you places as you grow your career.

The training is an important part of a freshers entry to the IT world, this we would see in the next chapter.

Dear IT Fresher: Chapter 2 : The agonizing wait time

Preface
Introduction

Usually companies do some research on market conditions and then only recruit freshers but as people who run companies are also humans, they make mistakes and postpone the joining date.
Sometimes some companies have clear plans and sometimes it is just vague. However usually companies do honor the commitment, I am not going to go in companies that do not.

First it is foremost to understand why this happens. As in said in earlier chapter you have to be aware of market conditions and economic situation of the world. In 2000-2001, there was a recession especially after 9/11 attacks, dot com burst etc. In 2008 again there was a recession from which we have not yet recovered and people talk about a double dip recession etc.

Well leaving the economic jargons, let us see what is the issue. One has to understand first what is bench and why it is a necessary evil. A person in bench is someone who has undergone training and is ready to be deployed to any realtime project, however there are no such real time project for which this guy can be billed to the customer. Hence this person has to wait his turn for the company to get a project in which he could be deployed.

One can logically ask, then why don't the company recruit as and when there is a need. Well the problem is any fresher needs to be trained to be project ready which takes 3 to 6 months, based on company policy etc and also no customer would be ready for his project to start 3 or 6 months down the line. You see in this world anything could change in a matter of 3 to 6 months. In fact in a matter of few hours 9/11 attack happened and the world changed.

Hence all companies have bench to show the customers they have so many people ready to be deployed in their project. Hence it is necessary to recruit people. However 10% is a good number for bench is what some experts say, if this number goes higher and higher it is a problem for the company. They cannot pay you for nothing, hence they stop new people from joining this pool of benched people.

This is why even you have an offer from the company, your joining dates are not certain. This is mostly true only in troubled times where customers are cautious and do not want to over spend or start new projects.

As a fresher you can ask what can I do if my joining date is deferred, other than pinging the HR.
Well there are a few things one can do as it may help you say when you lookout for next job or even to sell yourself to a customer.

I can think of following items
1) Still look for a job, maybe you can work on another company till you join this company, or maybe you may find this job better and continue. Who knows. It is good not to have gaps in your resume, whoever sees your resume would question.

2) Join some course that would help you improve your skills or take a certification. It will give you an edge over others.

3) Basically do anything that would make you more employable

It may sound that I am talking of a rat race and one has to be first.Well the fact is IT IS.
Thousands of freshers join the industry every year, thousands could be joining along with you, the question is how are you going to stand out in the crowd. This must be the question that you have to think and act when you are waiting for that joining day

Dear IT Fresher: Chapter - 1 : Introduction

Congratulations on making it to the IT industry. Well not everyone makes it atleast that's what any company you join would make you believe. Your first day might be same as the scene in "3 Idiots" movie where the principal shows hundreds of applications rejected. The only difference would be you would be in a cozy auditorium with some middle or senior management HR guy telling you that you are one in a million to have made it to the company.

Well the reality always lies somewhere between the truth and false. Any case you can give yourself a pat in the back for making it to the IT industry. It may be you dream industry or your dream salary or dream company but hold on do some reality checks before you build castles in air.

It is not that difficult to get in to an IT company especially with large companies recruiting 20 to 30 thousand an year. Companies have become so desperate that they have reduced the strictness on joining criteria. I know of a company that once recruited freshers without even interviewing them, just based on a written test people were recruited. Companies that said only engineers would be recruited lowered their guard and started taking some science students. I sometimes felt some companies would hang board saying "Trespassers would be Recruited".

However the point is not to demean your achievement but to say that there are lots and lots of crowd at the same level as you are and joining companies as you are. Hence you have to think what makes you special.

NASSCOM says only 25% of IT graduates are employable. The question you have to ask yourself is am I within this 25% or not. This book is not to make you enter the 25% or an attempt to increase this to more than 25% . This book is only a reality check irrespective of where you belong.

All IT companies have trainings for freshers be it a large company or small be it a formal training or not. So one does not need to worry if he/she is employable but how soon one can become employable. The question one has to ask is how soon can I contribute to my own development as well as my company's.

The first thing to do is "Be Aware".

Being aware of many things would help you in making the right contributions at the right time and having right expectations in reaping rewards for your work.

The things will change as time progresses and hence one must always be aware of the following things

First thing to be aware is the size of your company.

Large Companies: The ones that have lakhs of employees world wide. Have multiple development centres(DC) world wide.

Medium Companies: Have Maximum around Ten thousand employees and have few development centres
Small companies: Have very few hundreds of employees and have only one or two DCs

It is easy to find this information from internet.
The size of your DC also matters.
There is a simple technique to identify this. Just think of your visibility to senior management. If your boss's boss doesn't know you even after working in the project for a few months. Chances are it is a large company. If there is decent visibility it is a medium company and high visibility like center head knowing you by name it is small company.


The growth of the company and your own growth also matters but it is necessary to be aware of this information.



Next is industry and market condition.

There are two things here, one is what the media says and other is what situation the company is in. If there is a recession, slowdown etc the chances are you will know it well before the media does. Just look for signs such as salary hike, promotions, new projects won, recruiting pattern of the company etc . These would indicate to you what situation the market and company are in.
As a fresher you may not have access to all this information but keep your eyes and ears open and there is nothing wrong in having a chit chat with some senior folks on understanding the situation.

Third is project situation . This we will deal in later chapters in detail.

Summary:
Start your ground work on knowing your working conditions and environment and as you grow in the organization, keep your eyes and ears open. Be aware so you can be prepared.

Dear IT Fresher: A guide for freshers in IT industry - Preface

I am planning to write a series (later hopefully convert to a book) for freshers entering the Information technology (IT) sector. From what I have seen people come with lot of dreams and finally end up being disappointed. From the outside it looks like a dream but for some it breaks down like a car with a leaky petrol tank.

Having the right expectations is the key. The media and people outside the industry have a very wrong notion that IT industry is full of money and enjoyment and nothing else. If you say you work in IT then they assume you have visited the USA atleast once, have a car and paying an EMI for a home. They also assume you work very late and party hard on weekends, have poor moral values. The reality is far from it . As any industry IT also has its good, bad and the ugly. As a fresher one has to know what to expect and when to expect it. No one as far as I know is sent onsite within one year of joining and I have never heard of weekend, late night parties with booze flowing :)
There could be exceptions but it is a fashion in India to perceive exceptions as normal and normal as exceptions.

Well on that note I would like to say that this is not going to be advice but guidelines on what to expect. I hope managers and so called leaders would also benefit in understanding the mindset of freshers and what to expect from them and what to communicate to them so that both are on same page.

One might question what authority do I have on this subject. A fair question. Well I have more than 10yrs experience in the industry worked in atleast more than one company and dealt with lot of freshers. However I do not claim, I am the best in dealing with freshers. It is just a journey that I am taking along with you in taking an outside perspective on this topic. It is more like an ant coming out of his hill and observing whats happening inside. I do not believe anyone with experience of 20+ years would be apt to talk on this topic as no senior management people deal with freshers as such.

Another important point I would like to make is that of generation gap. I read somewhere that every 5 years a new generation is born. I have personally seen a vast difference in behavior, attitude etc of freshers when I joined as one after 5 years and after 10 years. It takes a lot in understanding them as a group and as an individual.  So freshers and their managers lets start this journey and see where we get