Toastmasters Project 1: Discovering Me, Myself and Sagar
Mr. Toastmaster, Fellow members of the Buona Vista Toastmasters club and dear guests – A warm good evening to you. When I found out that my first project would be to introduce myself I was immediately reminded of the many interviews I have taken as an interviewer as well as those I have given as in interviewee. Interviews are all about self-reflection – they say you learn a lot about yourself in an interview than the other person does. Today I will introduce myself through some oft asked interview questions. I like to surprise myself and hope I discover something about myself today as I do that.
Let us start with
what I call the ‘ice-breaking-no-consequence” question – “Tell me something
about yourself”. Most of the times, the question is used to buy time so the
interviewer can prepare for the real questions he/she wants to ask. Let me take
a shot at answering this one.
I am a Biotechnologist-turned-MBA-turned power point slide churning management consultant. An average Indian with a below average EQ and above average career expectations, I thought I should do something cool in my life. As a child I wanted to be a dentist. Well that did not materialize but I did end up marrying one (more on that offline). At the time I was exploring options for my engineering degree, Biotechnology was the next big thing – a solution to the world’s pressing problems. After feeding bacteria and fruit flies in the lab for 5 years, I decided I was not cut out for a career in research especially when the next test organism would likely have been a mouse. Somehow I thought I would be a better fit to management and took up a job as a consultant before finally going to B-school. My greatest value add from B-school has been learning ‘jargon’. Suddenly I was transformed into a professional whose core competency was to add value by creating a buy in for paradigm shift in the way business is driven and people are engaged and empowered. Post MBA, management consulting found me yet again, and to date I have been playing along. From sequencing DNA to churning slides by the dozen - it has indeed been quite a personal journey!
Let us move to the next common interview
question which I call as the ‘courtesy question before the real question’- What
are your strengths? And of course you can guess the question which follows
this. Nevertheless let me take a shot at answering this one
Well, there are 3 strengths I would like to share (in consulting there are always three points to any answer):
1. An average person would think in blocks,
categories, models and so on. I can think in power point slides. I have a slide
for almost everything – Slide on how to motivate myself after a mindless
discussion with my boss, slide on 101 ways to be happy, flow chart slide on having
an argument with your wife (we know where that one ends), slide on how to
create a slide. You get the idea
2. I am a creative person so you can count on me
for all the wild ideas on the table. Have been into painting, writing poems,
theatre, elocution and dancing (salsa dancing)
3. I have the unique ability to sell you your own
idea (more of a professional hazard being a consultant else it can be quite a demanding
job)
Let me pick one last commonly asked interview question - Why should we hire you? I typically have 3 versions of the answer but let me give you version 3 which I use when all else fails and I want to make a desperate attempt to shock and awe the interviewer.
My association with an organization has a direct correlation with its longevity and success. And this is statistically proven. My undergraduate college celebrated its 50 years when I was there, my B-school 25, my first employer 25 and my current employer, The Boston Consulting group 50 years. So much so that Singapore is also indebted to me for its development. The year I was destined to move here from India, Singapore celebrated its 50th independence anniversary.
So you see, you can really flip the odds of success in your organization’s favour by simply hiring me!
As I mentioned earlier interviews are a lot about self-discovery. For instance today I learnt that maybe I am not all the bad at putting a smile on someone’s face. I am glad to be part of the Buona Vista community club and hope have shared a few things about me which help you get to know me better. Before I sign off would like to share a few lines from my poem which quite mirrors my attitude towards life– It is called ‘Yearn’
I have castles to build,
I have dreams to gild,
Places to go,
And people to know,
To scale my fears,
To fight the jeers,
To undo the done,
To be second to none,
It is all about wanting what is due,
'Coz if you didnt get it, you never wanted to!
posted by sagaRedefined @ 10:55 AM
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