How to Guide for Education and Career

There was a guy in my office, who has worked in the same company ever since he started working, let’s call him Ashok. This company was a startup and has been struggling to get on its feet for around five years now. The company has seen good times when it hired employees across all functions and pretty bad times too, when employees were asked to leave. But Ashok has survived it all. Ashok has been a part of this company since its inception and at one point of time he even managed a team of more than ten people. Read the rest of this entry »

Office party is one event where it is difficult to understand what kind of character you should display. Your boss is around so you can’t be too open but you are with your friends so you want to have a good time as well. Such conflicting situations in office parties tend to push people to really funny behavior. Here are some typical behaviors:

1. What happened to him (WHH) – There is a lone engineer who normally keeps to himself and speaks only when spoken to. In the office party you see him passing wise cracks and getting so excited that one would believe that he is going to date Gisele Bunchen. Read the rest of this entry »

Negotiating your salary when you get a  new job offers is an art which everybody should try to master. Since changing jobs is part of life learning this art can get you dream salary with new job offers. This article talks about negotiation skills which you must use for new job offers. If you keep few things in mind, salary negotiation in new job offers can become both easy and non embarrassing.

Step 1:

Don’t be ashamed to negotiate in new job offers. You need to be as objective and practical about negotiation in new job offers as you are when you discuss a Read the rest of this entry »

www.irctc.co.in is the site for booking railway tickets online. But most of the time this website is not working properly because of the high traffic it gets. But a simple trick will help you to book your tickets in two simple steps. Read on:

Step 1

Finding seat availability. First step of the booking is to find seat availability in a particular train on the date of travel. On www.irctc.co.in you need to do multiple availability searches to find the train which has available seats. But cleartrip.com has availability calendar where you just need to enter source, destination, class of travel and date range. It will give you back a list of trains and their availability status on different dates. Note down the train number of the train you want to travel in based on the availability. Read the rest of this entry »

Hello Aspirants

Let me start with an inspiring quote:

“So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable.” – Christopher Reeve, also famous for playing SUPERMAN

As promised, I am back to share some more admission related experience with you. And this time we dig right in. I had originally planned to talk about GMAT but since Round 1 deadlines for many US Business Schools are very close I thought of giving some quick pointers on “Essay Writing”. Read the rest of this entry »

Pros of distance learning MBA

• Students pursuing distance learning MBA can do it along with their jobs. So you can also keep earning while doing your distance learning MBA course
• Distance learning MBA courses are cheaper then full time MBA because full time MBA fees includes fees for food, hostel etc
• No loss of experience in distance learning MBA. If you do full time MBA you loose 2 year of work experience Read the rest of this entry »

Is top MBA degree from Ivy league college required to be successful in your career? A study by Wall Street Journal seems to support that you can be successful even if you do not have a top MBA degree. Here is the excerpt:

“Most CEOs of the biggest corporations didn’t attend Ivy League or other highly selective colleges. They went to state universities, big and small, or to less-known private colleges….
Some 10% of CEOs currently heading the top 500 companies received undergraduate degrees from Ivy League colleges, …” Read the rest of this entry »

MBA colleges in Pune offer excellent learning opportunities to students because of the educational atmosphere in Pune city. Also MBA colleges in Pune offer excellent career opportunities because of their proximity to various industries. If you want to pursue a good quality MBA, MBA colleges in Pune offer the best choice. Here is a list of MBA colleges in Pune with fees, placement, paid seat and other relevant information:

Read the rest of this entry »

Value of MBA degree is measured by two parameters, the return an MBA degree provides in terms of the salary post MBA and how much it costs to get an MBA degree. This value of MBA is also called the return on investment of MBA degree. Suppose your salary before MBA was X and it costed Y to do the MBA, then the immediate value of your MBA is (Y-X) divided by X, here (Y-X) is the increase in Read the rest of this entry »

Why do students do MBA? There are three primary reasons. First, to increase their salary, second, to change their industry, third, to get better role in the same industry. I think second and third reasons also boil down to increase in salary to a larger extent. But most students fail to question what is the average salary for MBA degree holders? Is the average salary after MBA so good that making an investment in MBA makes sense? Read the rest of this entry »

Most of us use linkedin to check other people’s professional profile but linkedin is also a powerfool tool to search jobs.

Scenario 1. You have a target company in mind
Do a ‘Search Companies’ to see a list of current and past employees of this company. For ex, if you search microsoft, you will the list of current and past employees of microsoft and how you are connected to them. Now ask your friend who is your connection to a microsoft employee to introduce you to latter. Read the rest of this entry »

Most of us dream of either working in a startup
or starting a company on our own. Working in a startup has associated risks and rewards which one should know beforehand. Read on:

Pros of working in a startup

Flexibility of role
Typically startup companies have limited number of people and there is always a lot of work which needs to be completed. So if you work in a startup you have the flexibility to expand your role and take up some tasks which may not be expected in your role. Nobody dislikes if you do more than what is expected in a startup. Read the rest of this entry »

In a professional work environment you will invariably come across a boss who is difficult to work with. This could be for several reasons, read on to know about how to handle a particular boss type

Boss Type A: Speaks about vague goals and wants you to accomplish them
Solution: When your meeting with your boss is coming to an end, you should explicity ask for the ‘Next Steps’. You can also summarize the meeting by saying that you will be doing X, Y, Z things as the next steps. This will let your boss know what are you planning to do next. He can correct you if you are going on the wrong course Read the rest of this entry »

Recently I came across a company which has been in business for last 3 years but calls itself a startup! So this got me thinking – what kind of company should call itself a startup? Here is how wiki defines startup – Read the rest of this entry »

I have come across a couple of people who have left their comfortable corporate jobs to start on their own. Though all of them had different personality traits but there were a couple of common traits as well. Here is the common minimal character set between all self appointed CEOs that I know.

Shameless at negotiations
In one of my earlier jobs I was trying to find a software vendor for an application we needed. In a short time I found the perfect software and ended up negotiating the asking price to get a discount of about 20%. When my entrepreneur boss / CEO saw the discounted price he asked for an additional 60% discount. I was shocked. I felt that it was not negotiation but stealing! However, my boss thought that it was his right to get this discount and he confidently argued with the vendor for about an hour to get this discount. That day I was truly amazed.

Energetic
Just try saying ‘Your business model has no substance’ to any entrepreneur and you will know what I mean by energetic. You will be bombarded with arguments, market data etc just to prove that the business has the potential to really kick a**. But you will get this reaction only if the entrepreneur in question considers you to be of any significance and thus tries to alter your opinion. Most likely you will end up getting either a shrug or a cold stare.

Perpetual optimism
You might doubt for a second whether earth really goes around the sun but under no circumstance a true entrepreneur doubts his business model, even for a second. Confidence in business model and never dying optimism are his second nature. The business may be suffering, employees may be leaving in hoards but an entrepreneur keeps a positive outlook. This helps to keep his and his employees’ morale high and, more importantly, investors’ confidence intact.

My brother works in a one of the top three IT companies in India as a engineer . He has a typical software engineer’s life. During weekdays he works late in the nights, gets up late in the morning and spends the majority of the weekends sleeping. Most of his waking hours are spent fiddling with his laptop or watching movies or just hanging out in the malls. Unlike some software engineers in his age group, 23 to 27 year old, he nurtures no ambitions of starting a company or working in a startup or making killer applications. He is happy with what he is currently doing and he just wants to stick to doing that. One would assume that since he is content with his professional life and does not plan to put any extra effort into it, he should move forward on the personal front like getting married, buying a house , etc. Read the rest of this entry »

CEOs in general have the innate ability to respond in such cryptic language that it leaves you wondering what the hell does it mean. Here is a quick list of typical CEO replies and also an explanation of what it actually means

Situation - Somebody, say an investor, points out to the CEO that he is trying to do too many things at the same time
CEO answer – We want to be a one stop solution in our domain
What does it really mean – Senior management has no idea what will eventually work so they want to try out a lot of different thing. Read the rest of this entry »

If you book a Kingfisher airticket on Yatra, you can get cashback of Rs 150 on Kingfisher Air Tickets on any sector. You can avail this discount for flying any time during the year. On a return Kingfisher air ticket you can get a discount of Rs 300.

Active Kingfisher Promotion Codes & Offers

• Get Rs 300 Discount on Kingfisher Airlines on Yatra

• Book 30 days in advance and get upto 60% discount on Yatra

Expired Kingfisher Promotion Codes and Offers

If you book a Kingfisher airticket on Cleartrip, you will get a promotion code. You can use this promotion code to claim your free personalised mug from zoomin.com. This offer has currently EXPIRED

When you book a Kingfisher airticket on Yatra, you will get a promotion code through SMS. You can use this promotion code to get Rs 1000 off on hotel bookings on Yatra. This offer has currently EXPIRED

Use the promotion code ‘YAHOOYATRA’ to get Rs 1000 off on international tickets, Rs 1000 off on domestic hotels, Rs 200 off on domestic flights on Yatra. This offer has currently EXPIRED.

Rahul Mahajan has chosen to marry Dimpy Ganguly in the realty show ‘Rahul Dulhania Le Jaayega’. Not only he selected Dimpy Ganguly as his bride but also headed straight away to get married. Rahul chose Dimpy over Harpreet and Nikunj Malik.

If you are planning to book an airticket on Indigo airlines you can use the Indigo promotion codes on the payment page to save anywhere between Rs 250-500 per person per ticket. This means if there are two passengers taking a Delhi to Bangalore flight on Indigo airlines and if the indigo discount code offers Rs 250 discount, the total saving in this case will be Rs 500. Similarly Rs 500 will be saved on the return ticket from Bangalore to Delhi, if it is being booked.

Currently there are no Indigo promotion codes active. However, you can try using IND250, IND300, IND350, IND500 as Indigo promotion codes. If you are lucky on of these will work. Try booking ticket on Yatra, Yatra is offering upto 60% discount on air tickets on all sectors, no hidden conditions.

Indigo Promotion Offer for HDFC Bank

You can use ‘FLYHDFC3‘ as Indigo promotion code and use a HDFC  bank credit/debit card for booking when you are booking your tickets on the Indigo website or Indigo call centre. You can get 15% discount on base fare by using this Indigo discount code. This offer is valid for air tickets booked done till 31st March 2010 and the travel date can be any time.

If you are tourist planning to visit Delhi during the Common Wealth Games 2010 there is good news for you. Hotels in Delhi have decided to offer special discounted rates to tourists coming in for Common Wealth Games. You can avail the best hotel deals by booking your hotel for the Common Wealth Games through Travelocity India.

You can get following best deals on Hotels in Delhi during the Common Wealth Games 2010 (October 3 – October 14, 2010) for a duration of 11 Nights

However, if you are budget traveler and looking to get the best hotel deals see the following offers:

• 30% off on Delhi hotels during Common Wealth Games 2010

• Best Hotel Deals in Delhi

On the eve of international women day, Jet airways has announced a special discounts for women travellers under the JetViva scheme. Starting from March 1 to March 10 all groups which have atleast one women traveller can get ten percent discount on domestic flights and five percent discount on international flights when they book their tickets through Jet Airways.
To avail these discounts for domestic tickets use the Jet promo code : JETVIVADOM
For international tickets use the Jet promo code : JETVIVAINT
Book 30 days in Advance & Save upto 60% on Yatra

Applicable terms and conditions:

• These discounts are available on the base fare only.
• To get these discounts ticket booking has to be done between  March 01, 2010 and March 31, 2010
• Travel date can be between March 01, 2010 and September 30, 2010

Before I delve into how to make your train travel interesting, let me summarize an important global event which has happened in the last few days:

Event : Sachin became the only man in the world to score 200 runs in a one day match. Sachin you are GOD.

This important event had already occurred when my wife and I started our train journey to Lucknow from Delhi. It was an early morning train, Lucknow Shatabdi, and having waked up in the middle of the night to catch the train both of us were half dead. Like all other Shatabdi trains this one too was a chair car and the cramped chairs provided no comfort for a guy with a large build like me to be able tosleep or to even read the newspaper in comfort. While my wife was comfortably dozing off, I had little to do. So I decided to devote my attention to the young couple sitting on the seat behind us. Let’s call them Dude and dudette. Dudette was extraordinarily chatty and had been talking without a pause since the time we got on the train. This is how their conversation went:

Dudette: The dog’s in my lane are normally very passive during the day but in the night they get really active, they started chasing me when I was starting in the morning to catch the train

Dude: Hmmm

Dudette: There is a guy in my office who blah blah blah

Dude: Hmmm

Dudette: blah blah blah…some more blah blah blah

Dude: Hmmm

Dudette (trying to get the Dude to participate in the conversation): Sachin achieved an awesome feat..scoring 200..

Dude: Yes, it was nice

Dudette: And he did it in all of 20 minutes

Dude (wanting to say ‘what the f’): NO, he did it in 147 balls, bowling so many balls cannot take less than hour and a half

Awkard silence followed and probably the dudette realized that she had been watching the highlights of Sachin’s batting.

I have decided, all I am going to do in future train journeys is to listen to people around me. No more sleeping, no more listening to music, trains have much better ‘in-train’ entertainment.

I had to book a flight from Delhi to Mumbai and I chose to book my ticket on Yatra. But as always I was determined to get the best deal on my air ticket even though I didn’t had Yatra Promotion Code. This lead me to explore the Yatra website in great detail and I also successfully managed to dig out all the possible deals which were available on Yatra.

Offer 1: If I book my airticket through SBI Credit Card on Yatra, I will get Rs 200 off. So if I booked a return ticket I will get Rs 400 off. Sounds good, and it was also easy to do. I had to just enter ‘SY’ followed by ‘first six digits of SBI Credit Card number’. But the only catch was that I didn’t had an SBI credit card. Though I had applied for it multiple times because IRCTC also offers discounts on SBI credit cards. But for some reason SBI never found me to be credit worthy and my application always got rejected

Offer 2: Rs 500 Cash back on all return tickets and Rs 250 Cash back for all oneway air tickets if I book a ticket on Paramount airways. In my opinion reputation of an airline is of ‘paramount’ importance and I had no idea about Paramount airlines. So decided to give it a skip.

Offer 3: Yatra was offering Rs 150 cashback on all Kingfisher Red and Kingfisher class flights. This means if I book a return ticket on Kingfisher through Yatra I will get Rs 300 cashback. Not bad. Kingfisher also has a great reputation in my mind with their dedicated terminal on Delhi airport, smartly dressed staff and mostly on time performance. So Kingfisher it was for me. Let the good times begin.

I had to fly to Bangalore from Delhi for a weekend get together with friends. Since it was a ‘just for fun’ trip, I wanted to book the cheapest possible flight from Delhi to Bangalore. Thus began my search for the cheapest Delhi Bangalore flight. My travel dates were flexible and I was ok with booking a flight that made a mid stop. Hence I thought that getting a good deal should not prove to be much difficult. But I was wrong. I faced many non anticipated hurdles in my quest for the cheapest ticket. But I will avoid going into details of the hurdles, my internet connection – Reliance broadband+ the biggest one, and directly jump to the best deals that I found online. Following is the summary:

• Travelocity is offering Rs 400 discount on all airlines for all destinations. This discount is applicable per booking. So my return Delhi Bangalore flight will cost me 800 less. Good, but not good enough

• I saw Yatra offering upto 60% discount for a flight which is booked 30 days in advance. I was beginning to get excited when I noticed the ‘upto’ appended before 60%. I checked the price for a Delhi Bangalore flight and it was 43% lower. Hmm..not bad. This deal would have been even better if I had a Yatra Promotion Code.

So I finally decided to book my ticket on Yatra since I was able to save Rs 60 more on Yatra as compared to Travelocity. I get it, you don’t have to say. I admit. I am a cheap man a proud one though.
Save upto 60% on Air Tickets