The paper 'you' and the real 'you'

At NIT Trichy, CV making was more of creating a 3 page "I did all these in life. Hopefully I would not have forgotten most. And yeah, I don't think adding deleting a few details here and there matter much" affair. I remember making my CV then in 6 minutes flat and never modified it even once. However, at an MBA institute, its an altogether different ball game. The reasons are obvious and I would not dwell upon it*. We end up spending too much time making the CV perfect.

However, this post in not on CV making. It is to do with how a person is in real life and how he comes across based on his CV. There have been many a times I have been surprised how those two don't match even remotely. I wonder how. I see really intelligent and smart people with very average CVs and I also see extremely average junta in real life having super CVs. Sometimes it makes me wonder is it the same person represented on paper? They are like split personalities in a sense.

The other aspect about CVs is that it does not tell anything about the 'person' as such. I mean, you can have a superb CV but can be a jerk to work with.

The reasons the above two became observations is that, during initial days, sometimes or many a times, junta here are judged based on their CVs i.e. based on shortlists etc during summers. But as days pass by, the impression one creates in the batch overshadows the information in CV by a large margin. The information asymmetry no longer exists within the batch and each is judged based on the real 'him' rather than the paper 'him'.

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*However, for the benefit of all, 2 reasons why they are more important in MBA instis:

1. There are no written tests. You get shortlisted for the interview based on CV for almost 100% of the jobs. Whereas in engineering, most companies had written tests and many did not even collect the CVs before that. Shortlisting was based purely on performance in written tests. And the interview is mostly technical and less to do with your CV.

2. The variability of pay packages and job profiles is pretty high in IIM A/B/C and hence the opportunity cost of making a bad CV is pretty high. In engineering colleges (non IITs) where there is not too much variability in job profiles and almost all land similar jobs (3-6 LPA for 80% of the batch). Hence the motivation is also pretty low.

4 stages of life

My post in Pagalguy.com

I made this post in PG.com loooong time back. At a point in time when I was depressed and bugged. It became some major thing and stayed so for quite sometime. I was extremely happy after making that post. Here it is.

Link

When I made that post, I had a different set of worries. I have a different set of worries now.

I wonder.

Guess there is some message in that.

Wondering...

There is one thing about me which I don't understand.

I had this innate love for competitive exams. Right from the JEE, TNPCEE days to the CAT ones.
But I never used to put the same efforts once I got into an insti after cracking the exam. Actually speaking, "never" is a strong word since I have actually experienced it only once and that was at NITT. But I developed the same feeling about my next 2 yrs at IIM B too.

Why should I feel so motivated to get into an institution but not motivated enough to put in hard work there?

Hmmm.. I think I know the answer.

A complicated world

I started reading a e-book called God's Debris by Scott Adams of Dilbert fame. Know more about it here.

Read this in the first few pages.

Quote:

My solution was to create smart-sounding answers using the skeptic’s creed:

The simplest explanation is usually right.

My experience tells me that in this complicated world the simplest explanation is usually dead wrong. But I’ve noticed that the simplest explanation usually sounds right and is far more convincing than any complicated explanation could hope to be. That’s good enough for my purposes here.

Unquote:

I sometimes thought simplification is very good in this complicated world. I am not sure how I developed that thought. To a certain extent it was because of the awe I had on people who could explain complicated concepts in a simple way. But I feel I did not understand many concepts in detail and in depth due to oversimplification of the concept. I guess there is a thin line of difference in explaining things "simply" and "extremely simply".

I was wondering why I had the urge to oversimplify certain concepts. The above quote in blue answered it.

Bias

I was thinking about the kind of biases we have against certain things.

1. Intelligence - A measure of how sharp a person's thinking is
2. Maturity level (Attitude in general) - A measure of how evolved, tolerant, understanding etc one is
3. Experience/Age/Work exp etc - Age or no. of years working in some organization etc

Bias 1: We assume at times that Intelligence ensures Good attitude, maturity etc

This bias started with the "Ramu is a very good boy. He always gets first rank in the class" dialogue, which used to be dropped whenever a group of middle aged junta (mostly the moms) interact.

This bias gets inbuilt and I would go as far as to say that majority of decisions made to select someone for something in the corporate world do not consider attitude/maturity level at all. Its assumed that it would be in place.

I am surprised that when my dad sent a mail to all his friends that I got admits from BLIK, so many assumed and wrote how perfect an attitude I must have or similar things like that. They did not even know me and some were hearing about me for the first time!

Bias 2: We assume at times that age or amount of experience ensures some level of maturity

I was affected by this bias. I thought that if someone joins an MBA with maybe 2-3 years of experience, he "must" be mature. Though these days I have corrected it to "he must have got an opportunity to become more mature", which I feel is right.

Why this blog?

I have been reading certain mails from people who seem to have excellent credentials, very intelligent and what not. But the mails and the thoughts in the same are so immature and they highlight an extremely offensive attitude with dollops of ego. I am frankly surprised. I somehow unconsciously have been biased, probably because of my upbringing or whatever. I am learning slowly.

That way, I should definitely say, I have been extremely lucky during my engineering days to have got the chance to interact with extra-ordinarily talented people who were down to earth, humble, mature and with the right attitude.

Which is better?

To exude extreme confidence to your seniors at work even when things are not going on well and get a good name that you are under control?

or

To go to a senior at your workplace only with your problems and don't necessarily highlight (or brag!) all the positive things you have done?

I am confused.

I was more like the latter though people are asking me to be more like the former.

Time will tell. To me, both are not correct at the face value of it.