The Recruit

When one imagines whom an employer would want, we put ourselves in the recruiter’s shoes and imagine that he/she would like someone who does not bat an eyelid in the interview, excellent grades (which is in some way is indicative of how well you may perform at work) and someone who tops the HR tests provided.

The method of selection does seem absolutely foolproof; your academic record proves your consistency, your interview points to how well you can communicate and you aptitude tests will speak of your logical thinking capabilities.

Yet, in the long run, this procedure does facilitate a good selection, it does not guarantee one.
So what will and can guarantee a good selection?

What kind of people do we really need?

According to me, for each profile, a different kind of person is required. This is of course simple logic that every one knows, a doctor cannot do an engineers work and doctor can not do the work of strategist, and a strategist will find it difficult to do the work of clerk.
It is hence important for the employer to know and understand whom he/she wants and only then embark on the journey to look for a suitable candidate.

As the Global Financial Crisis has dawned, it struck me that so far people have been recruiting people who were thought to be intelligent (Engineers, Lawyers, and those that did well in academics). But the world is not in need to people who know what the book contains; it requires people who can think “out of the box”.

Today the world needs people who can strategize better, who can think beyond the book and in that don’t just follow the book in a crisis, because every crisis is not the same, and the conditions are also not the same. People who can imbibe what the text says and can adapt it to varied situations is an ideal strategist and a better employee.

(Saying this, I would like to explain that it is easy to learn guidelines and follow them, but the world today needs people who have the aptitude to apply what they learn, in that be able to bend the rules to adjust to the existing situation at hand.)

Such employees can do well rounded work and in the long run can also make reasonable and effective decisions. And today more people want people who can, not just dream but desire and have the strength to achieve in this overwhelming competitive world.

In such times, the Innovative capacity of an individual plays a key role in the development and appropriate application of the academic guidelines. The world has achieved primary targets , but if a recruit has the capability to think different and do the conventional work in different ways , he can then take solutions to a new level of certainty and that will make him/her the right choice of the recruiter.

Hence the ability to place things in perspective, in the 'right box' and be different in one's approach to it is something that needs to be looked at and is valued in today's world. And gradually that is what I think someone handling Human Resources would be wise to look for and for us to develop in ourselves.

(The article is a Point of View article)

Prolicy

The practice of prostitution has existed since time unknown. A part of the feminine gender condemns it, and a part of it uses it to earn a living; while the opposite gender sees it as an entertainment. The fact that it should or should not be done is beyond debate, because although many would stand against it in public light, they would still advocate it behind the doors of a brothel.

But the reason why it should be of concern are many, some of which I will try and assess in this essay. First and foremost it makes us wonder the value of women in our society, secondly, it makes many vulnerable to many diseases, and thirdly it facilitates the stigma attached to the practice itself and the person practicing it.

Today, the government and NGO’s have been trying to solve problems that revolve against prostitution most of all that of STD’s. Engaging in intercourse with a person who is infected with a certain STD’s makes the uninfected person a victim in a way. This has been the major concern if many countries worldwide that are trying to find ways to bring this practice under certain regulation.

Netherlands for this reason legalized brothels, however the problem they face today is of policing dilemmas, and thus the fact that sex trade has not stopped and diseases are still spreading. And once again in this cycle, the state is rendered ineffective in trying to achieve their motive.

The problem unfortunately does not only revolve around this trouble, prostitution engulfs in it certain illegal activities and other multiple crimes. The Dutch government tried to tackle this problem with trying to make buying and selling of sexual services a legal and freely undertaken transaction. However, this too has yet to turn useful and effective.

However the exploitation and the violence has not stopped. Women have been saddled with fictitious debts and threats women are made to entertain 20 clients in a day, and be subjected to any and everything the clients pays for, like their names tattooed on the.

A positive outcome has been seen from countries that have legalized sex trade, this has allowed sex workers to trade freely and be in a position to be more autonomous more over it has shown that the legal of 18 was followed. This too does not come without a drawback where then trade attracts more men and women.

On another plane of comparison to look at countries like Africa or India, either line of policy would have a negative effect. To legalize would mean to advocate and exploitation would multiply, not to forget that such a policy would be opposed by society itself. On the other hand banning it would push the victims into a dark zone of concealing the practice, not stopping it.

This issue requires a delicate balance in policy making wherein the goals to reduce exploitation, transmission of STD’s and the stigma of prostitution withers away with time. Hence more tactic needs to go into a policy that will allow policing (to reduce the chances of exploitation and illness) and freedom (to make the business respectable thus reduce the stereotype of a prostitute as a fallen person change) together.

THE GLOBAL FINANCIAL CRISIS- UNDERSTANDING THE PRESENT AND LOOKING AHEAD

The world as we know has begun treading downhill on the business cycle chart, and it is only a matter of time before the effects of the crumbling base of USA and Europe cause other relatively closed economies to slide into recession as well.
And in the time of globalization each country, sparing none, in one way or another are influenced by other countries. Hence the effects will spare none.

It all began with the Sub-Prime Crisis, when the cost of estate was over estimated and the regulations applied were not adequate and people were lending borrowed money in the hope of earning a profit. But when the borrowed/invested money turned toxic, the individual suffered and on a macro scale the large investment banks started to fail. There was gap that was created between debt, earnings and payments; this resulted in a deficit in cash, the recovery of which seemed close to impossible thanks to the toxic debts.

In my understanding the Global financial Crisis is still in its initial stages and the worst is yet to come, and the situation will only become dire when the effect of the crisis hits the developing economies that have depended on the developed nations for a large part of their exports. Once the developed nations will be rendered incapable to pay for/buy the respective exports, the income of the exporting economy will be cut, thus an impact of the buying capacity of the exporting company will be felt, reducing the imports it can afford. The cycle is vicious.

This kind of movement does surely causes people to panic, and when they hear that their investments and life savings are in danger they become scrupulous and miserly, which in the long run catalyzes the choking of financial pipelines as the liquidity starts to fall short.
And as the economy shows no signs of recovery, people have curbed their investment inputs and the stock markets as we see have begun to flounder also causing the companies to have no new liquidity to invest and therefore no new profits, as a result of which they seem to be stuck in a quicksand pit of toxic debts.

The adverse effects of the loss of liquidity, causes the trust in the economy and markets to reduce, as people fear an oncoming depression. With the only example of it being 1939, people tend to hold on to every penny left. Assets no longer hold eminent value and liquidity becomes the need of the day.
It is because of this line to thought that the USA Luxury Goods market has also begun to feel the pinch, as their customers don’t want to let go of their cash unless absolutely necessary.
Like this I think, gradually many more sectors will feel the effects of recession.
In the new, the automobile industry has begun to crumble, and have not received the bailout as yet.

In my guess, I feel the software industry and the green companies likely to feel the heat, as people will be unable to afford their green policies, causing the investment to go duff. (Hopefully the crisis will not reach that level.)

Further as the “Wall Street” was being damaged and though the rescue of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae brought some relief initially, the fate of Lehman Brothers as many economists believe evidently thwarted the trust of many.

And as companies world over struggle to survive the depleting liquidity in the market, they move to cut jobs, the latest being Citigroup, rendering many jobless and in the whirlpool of the oncoming depression.

Though many are keeping an optimistic outlook, to me it seems quite futile, especially since ‘people as a whole are not trying to over come this problem’. This statement may seem strange to the one who reads it, because one may wonder how one how people (common man) can make a difference. In order to see this, it is important to know and understand how this repression is soon going to catch up to the lower levels of the economic strata like SMB’s.

Small/Medium sized industries suffer as they do not get the required loans they need to sustain growth, and even if they get them, the investment turns toxic because all around liquidity is short. This short but fatal cycle causes many SMB’s to shut down resulting in the common man being affected adversely. This is already happening in the USA

The chain reaction will continue unless action is taken not to only boost liquidity available but to bring the levels of the world market down.

Man has elevated the global financial system to a mammoth level and because the middle of it was shaky, it is now crumbling. Hence it is not enough to pump liquidity and expect the financial system to recover. Collectively we need to bring financial levels to a stable low from which it can begin to build up again. And if we do not do this actively and voluntarily, a depression soon to come will break the global financial system.

Economists need to be broad minded and so do the company’s; they need to reduce their selling costs according to the decrease with the respective raw materials and only then will common man be able to sustain their consumption. And only then will the company be able to sustain production. This logic goes according to the supply and demand graph, but a little beyond it, and one must understand that things don’t always remain ceteres paribus; the conditions change because the world of man can be described as nothing less than ‘unpredictable’.

And though economies like Japan, China, and India are desperately trying to sustain the growth and survive the recession, they are not going to succeed unless the economy – micro and macro components, are made to comply with the needs of the hour. A single sided effort and narrow policy making isn’t going to arrest the recession that now seems to be sliding into a depression.

If this is not done the fate of many will be like that of Pakistan, Iceland and others that would soon follow, and the fundamental use of the IMF will be rendered inutile, as funds there too, will run out.

Dawn

By Kanica Soni

The Victory of Obama means a change in the core fiber of the American Psyche.
Facilitated by both economic circumstances and what he (Obama) had to offer as opposed to his Republican counterpart, what they had to offer and the past made by the them.

But for once one can see a strong sense of reason that has prevailed instead of the 'follow the sheep' practice

I now see America in new light!

A Rat Race

Quite inappropriately, nonetheless this is my second article on biases.

In my earlier article I discussed how a certain pattern of thinking established over a long period of time begins to act as a blinder.

From the time of conquests, and with the British growing and then the rise of Capitalism and the USA, a notion very conveniently adopted was that the White in an unknown way was/ is a superior colour and consequently a white skinned race is superior. With the power in the hands of the Whites this notion was accepted.

This is also as we know called the Non-Sequitur Fallacy, where a conclusion in derived from a certain premise without there being any logical connection.

Though we have come a long way from history, and in the present world we now accept all colours of skin as equal. The fallacy is still continues. This can been seen in the attitude of certain Europeans, more than that, I turn my and you attention to its existence in the USA.

When a paper writes “it is surprising to see that Obama has reached this level in the presidential election”. What is the sentence in essence saying?

Is it questioning is his capability plainly on one hand, or questioning his capability and candidacy on the basis of his skin color? Whatever anyone says, I think the later is a fact.

 

I read an article where the author was explaining how if they voted for Barack Obama it would mean questioning their own social constructs. Then ego comes in, how can a person who has believed so far in his life that an African American is inferior negate himself, thus destroying his own social construct or in a way identity. And according to the author, his friends as well had a hard time deciding who to vote for.

Is that to say that the American people are essentially Racists?

Fidel Castro said so (recently), and to follow him many more.

And now in an attempt to rationalize why Americans would not vote for the seemingly more credible candidate, Barack Obama, Is the social desirability effect, if applied to this situation implies that Mc Cain, looks like a more favourable candidate, because of his skin colour, and Obama falls into the construct of a Black-skinned person.

It has been proved in previous psychological tests that many whites have a presumption that dark skinned people are violent and have a tendency to be into drugs.

So is the presidential election of USA going to end up being a race between two individuals or two skin colours?

That is a question that will be answered in a few days.

But until then, I hope that the elections do not prove Americans racist, and yet they choose the more capable of leaders.

[And I hope this sort of analysis works as reverse psychology :)]