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I find a lot of people starting out in their early twenties and none of them seem to have the drive to excel. The objective seems to be rather to provide quality that just about makes the mark and get paid as much as possible. In most cases, there's a lot of going back and forth before the quality is acceptable to me...until I think I might as well do the job myself, considering the amount of time it takes up coordinating. I give people the sort of opportunities I would have killed for, less than ten years ago and many don't take advantage of them.
I'm in India, BTW.
I find aspiring writers who can't name three books they've read and don't read newspapers, designers who get their portfolios done by someone else. I get dozens of unsolicited resumes every week and on a closer look, they contain lots of fake claims. Many are littered with brand names. If you intern for an ad agency, what good does it do to mention 30 brands which the ad agency promotes?
Occasionally I've found someone who's talented and looking to excel and it has worked well.
It's not about the money in case you're wondering. I'm more than willing to match the going rate but they can't meet even average standards, irrespective of money. Money is rather an alibi for poor quality, sometimes.
When I consider that major call centers hire people in tens of thousands, that seems possible because most processes are so mechanical and automated, that there's no room for discretion at all. The moment there's some thinking required, there are not many people who can make it, atleast in these parts.
In software development, most IT companies like Infosys and TCS spend a year and about $4000-$5000 training people fresh out of school and if you read the finance pages you'll realise India is mostly doing low-end work in software development.
Candidates I deal with have simple answers to not knowing things - that they haven't been 'trained' for this task. I'm talking about areas which require common sense. How much intelligence do you really need to give indicative file names so you don't have to deal with doc1.doc new_doc1.doc and doc2.doc when you're searching for a file? Google Desktop has been a life saver in this area but there are so many others! I can't give a 500 page tome to a new employee like some of these software companies, one of which has a page devoted to 'How to sharpen your pencil'.
When I visit coffee shops and a young kid goofs up, there's barely an apology. All you usually get is 'I'm new'. In other words - I'm expected to blunder because I'm new. Don't complain!
I see people starting out in their careers, in a great rush to make lots of money doing virtually nothing. It's like the world owes them a living or somethin'. When I started my career, my approach and that of my peers was so different.
I must be getting older :)
[edited by: King_Fisher at 7:26 am (utc) on Oct. 27, 2007]
[edited by: engine at 11:10 am (utc) on Oct. 27, 2007]
[edit reason] formatting [/edit]
When I went out into the workforce and I had a lot of drive, motivation and good work ethic.
The first company I worked for in my early 20's I put it in many extra hours and work to the best of my ability, after the first review came I excelled in all my review points, I asked for a pay-rise and they said they would review it in 6 months time. I started looking for other work while not performing to the best of my ability and become very slack, they found out I was looking for work and gave a pay rise almost immediately, but my work ethic changed completely I felt resentful continued to work at the same poor efficiency, I did not stay there long.
I have passed my mid 20's and although I am at a place where my abilities are acknowledged and rewarded, I still do not have the same zeal and motivation as I had when I first entered the work force.
This is not the teachers' fault: we have a national curriculum which forces teachers to teach to the syllabus, so they don't have much room to maneouvre beyond teaching "for the grade".
Eventually you get masses of school leavers who don't care about what they've been learning for the last seven years, only that the grade they got in their exams at the end of it all was sufficient to propel them into their next position (whether work or university). When "doing just enough to get by" and not really engaging with the matter at hand is inculcated as not only an acceptable way to do things but the standard way to do things, it's really not surprising that we end up with a significant proportion of the workforce which does not know how to apply itself.
That said, in defence of those same workers, I have found in the past that working in senseless office regimes where one is treated like an idiot and gets poorly renumerated has never done anything but totally crush my motivation. Working for myself, by contrast, has led me to be more motivated than at any time during my working life.
