My dad's friend met me at office today along with his son. His son was a tech graduate, fresh from college. They came to meet me to take some suggestions on his son's career. The father and son had a different opinion about the right technology to start with. Son wanted to specialize in Java (his friends are all into that and couple of them got placement last month after they completed Java training course) and the father wanted his son to get into Microsoft technologies (his friends children have done that and are in US now). Since I manage a technology company they wanted my opinion.

I have come across similar queries from many fresh graduates, asking which was better Java or Microsoft. Mainframe or Database administration. This or that.....

My answer was (and it would continue to be) discuss with your friends and take a decision.

When a fresher takes a decision after talking to his friends, it helps in the long way. Primarily, they are given an opportunity to decide their career and they have someone to assist them always. When this freedom is not provided (and they being forced), they take up some courses suggested by their parents, doing something different from what their friends are doing, it ends up in trouble when their friends who are doing other technology courses starts getting jobs and he is still looking for a job. It puts him/her into hardship and starts to feel that they had made a mistake.

I spoke the same with his father and he seemed to agree with me. I hope he allows his son to take his own decisions. Yes, his son requires his support but he has to draw a line somewhere and allow him to take his decision.

I hope I did the right thing, in saying that to a father about his son.

I came across this article here and just made me think of how better it would have been if the choices around us were few. The whole decision process would have been lot easier.

Anyways talking about Careers, I have a Job Opening for .NET programmers in my company and you can find the details here. Talk to your friends and tell them about this job opening, they may be interested.

I received this image from a friend. It just makes me feel proud. I am not sure if NASDAQ has featured the Indian Flag earlier but this time with the Indian economy growing strong this means a lot to many Indians living outside India.

The blogosphere has already started making comparisons between Shenzhen & Sriperumpudur here and in businessweek (requires free registration). Though India has a long way to become a manufacturing hub or an organized market, the next five years is going to see a very fast and interesting growth compared to the last 5 years.

At this moment, a good read would be Tom Friedman's - "The World is Flat". This is going to be the next book I am going to be reading.

I would like to know what others feel about the India growth, particularly Indians living outisde India.

The mesage at the bottom of the picture reads "NASDAQ decorated its headquarter with the tricolour flag as part of the the India's Independence Day celebrations. It was the biggest attraction in Times Square of New York on Tuesday".

How to get a Job? If you have been tracking blogs for more than 3-6 months regularly, you must have come across Guy Kawasaki, he is currently #50 in technorati rankings. His recent blog about, how to get a job in silicon valley details a list for the job seekers

key points:

1. know the organization & the competition
   
2. prepare your resume like this, this, this based on your profile and the job you are applying for
   
3. Prepare for the interview- technical as well general
4. go early to the interview
   
5. dress well
6. have a good start
7. know more about the organization from the first interviewer
8. be transparent
9. give good references
10. follow up

Software releases and version numbers are frequent in the schedules of developers. This blog and the comments (like many blogs the comment section is more interesting than the original blog) gives a differnet approach a software release can be made.