Emerio: Right Attitude Wins.

“From an interviewer’s perspective, we want to see whether the candidate is vivid in his or her thinking”.

Job interviews can be nerve wrecking moments, you never know what kind of questions the employers or Human Resource (HR) managers are going to pop at you. How smooth it goes usually depends on how prepared you are, and mostly, it is also about attitude as Emerio Malaysia Sdn Bhd’s Assistant Vice president for Recruitment, Jagadeesan (Jags) Narayanasamy revealed to JobsDB in an exclusive interview.

“To be honest most of the candidates don’t want to know about job functions or the roles and responsibilities,” he confessed. “They first want to know what the working hours are, how they are going to get to work, and whether they get the weekends off & of course, the pay.”

Certainly not what an interviewer would hope for. “From an HR point of view, I see that this approach is definitely not going to help the freshies (fresh graduates), or for those looking for opportunities because it shows the attitude of the person. I am not saying that they shouldn’t ask these questions, but they shouldn’t be the first questions,” said Jagadeesan, who is also the Head of Technical Consulting for the company.

He noted that interviewers would prefer if the first question would be - if given opportunity by employer – on the job responsibility and the role they play in the company. “That will definitely impress the hiring manager,” he added.

At the same time, the graduates concern on “getting there” is understood. Emerio is located in Cyberjaya, once frowned upon by jobseekers mainly for its distance from the city and other towns.

“I don’t see it (traveling) as hard because Malaysia has good transportation facilities,” Jagadeesan noted. “In Cyberjaya, we have good shuttle services. It was probably difficult a few years ago, but the transport system is good now.”

Jagadeesan himself, who stays in Bangsar drives every day to work. “Using the highway takes you about thirty to forty minutes to reach here. Infrastructure in Malaysia is really good,” he said.

As the location issue is no longer a problem, candidates should come prepared with knowledge about the company alongside a sense of their career direction.

“We have a candidate who quit in two days, saying that his interest was on something else.” Jagadeesan recounted, adding that the staff confessed that his parents forced him to take up that particular course he chose, as other courses were not available.

“They should guide the freshies before and after graduation on what they need to focus, but not force them. Educate them about the reality in practical life and leave them to decide what stream they are interested in,” he said.

A lot of companies, including Emerio, do not shy from hiring fresh graduates. And in hiring them, Jagadeesan said, they also want to know the candidates goals in two or five year’s time.

“But most of them are clueless,” he said. “If asked, I get answers like ‘I want a car’, or ‘a house’.”

Indeed a sad statement even at times of economic uncertainty. “From an interviewer’s perspective, we want to see whether the candidate is vivid in his or her thinking, related to his profession and where he would want to head professionally in future. Does he have a plan of action? Because that shows that he knows what he is getting into and he knows where he will be in two years or 5 years.”

Another factor always seemed to be missing is the lack of knowledge on the company the candidates are vying a position for. “Most of the time they are not prepared. In an interview, they should be very prepared, do the background work before they come for an interview. They should go online and do a search on the company, know the overall picture about the company, and that will really impress the hiring employers,” he said.

One particular detail Jagadeesan is concerned about is the information about the candidates’ previous place of employ. “Most HR managers don’t like to hear any negative comments about the previous employers,” he said. “If there are negative comments, they should be minimal and come with valid reasons. There should be no personal attacks.”

If they are promising as future employees, candidates in Emerio usually will have to go through a screening process, after which they will be recommended to the technical panel. Chosen candidates will be given appropriate training.

“We do provide training, but it’ll be good if they are groomed/ nurtured at institution level itself on communication, soft skills, attitude, long term professional vision and technical aspects. If you are going to hire a freshie, the employer has a short timeframe to train, as they (employees) have to be put into production soon,” said Jagadeesan.

Emerio, which focuses on Business Intelligence, Infrastructure Solutions, Managed Services, Professional Services, and Software Services among others, currently has over 1400 employees across the global and around 600 in Malaysia. The company has not stopped hiring, despite the global economic downturn & foresees growth this year.

“Most projects that come to Malaysia are outsourced; that is where revenue generation is happening. We support global customers (North America, Europe) as well as regional customers (Asia Pacific & Japan) so communication/soft skills play a major role,” he said.