-: Made In Pakistan :-

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While filtering applicants at rozee.pk from a pool of hundreds of CVs we received for 2 of our recent jobs for SEO Interns and Snr. SEO Manger, I have realized that how a majority of applicants are possibly destroying their own careers by not reading the Job Description before hitting the ‘apply now’ button.

Despite of writing in the Job description that these posts are for only Lahore based candidates, we literally were swarmed by out of station candidates. There were almost equal amount of CVs of candidates from other cities and all of them without any cover letter. Cover letter is important too but that’s not the point I am going to make here. There were loads of CVs which were not relevant to the job at all still the ‘apply now’ button seemed attractive enough to them to try their luck. But excuse me, that’s the ‘bad luck’ you are in fact clicking. No, it does not really matter how juicy you are, if we are going to get apples, we would not settle for oranges. Did you ever realize how this supposedly ‘little’ action on your behalf, makes employers job more difficult which can very well cost you any relevant future employment opportunity in same company. I know it may seem hard to you but please do yourself and employer a favor of not getting into the temptation of spontaneously clicking the ‘apply now’ button. It is not a ‘lucky draw’ and NO, you are not increasing your ‘entries’ of winning a job this way.

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And man, I desperately wish to have an infraction  system with a ‘spam’ button at rozee.pk to report users who send their CVs without reading the Job Description. While thinking for a solution, thought to share this idea which really worked for one of my client in the past on moderating a large community. Hope you can make that work for you as well.

How about an infraction system, Monis? Where each spam report by employer would earn the candidate an infraction and upon reaching ‘x’ infractions, candidate’s ability to click ‘apply now’ for a job automatically gets restricted. (Passing on another line of revenue where you can actually milk some more cash from candidates as well by putting a cap on the number of jobs they can apply in a month.) So one way or the other, this can help reduce spontaneous applicants to a posted job resulting in better service for employer, professional grooming for candidates and less load on your servers.

What do you guys think?

TIECONPK 2010 Photo by Kamal Subhani

Ok, before you move forward, just want to make clear that it is not a writeup of the event. I am just talking about things which either inspired or bothered me at the event.

First of all, it was really ironic to see a government ‘chairperson’ as the chief guest for an event which is all about a ‘change’ in the current system, so to make sure that they never get to that chair again. But, since, it’s the government, and she was already being made a part of it, so we had to bear with her in the shape of one hour delay, typical of a Pakistani marriage, waiting for the bride to come from the parlor and everyone else desperately looking at the door, here she comes, here she comes. So the 8:30am event actually started on 9:45 am.

It started with recitation of the Holy Quran. After that Monis as President TIE Pakistan, inaugurated the event formally.

Honorable Mr Razaaq Dawood said that “entrepreneurship is not a trip it is a journey”. Well, I can relate to that definition but don’t you think all of the journeys end some where while entrepreneurship never ends? Or we may call it a ‘never ending journey’ to be more accurate? In my last 5 years being an entrepreneur myself, what I have realized is that entrepreneurship is a ‘disease’ with no known cure. Once the bug bits you, you are doomed for rest of your life to live with it, giving you a ‘lifestyle’ incomprehensible by 9to5 crowd and your family. This ‘lifystyle’ is very selfish and at times can cost you irrecoverable damages on your relationships. And did I mention that like every other disease, it has a toll on your health and on your wealth as well. With external pressures of adopting a normal lifestyle, it’s virus can some time gets into its hibernation mode but it never dies down as long as you are alive and can come back with even greater force by attending such an event or by just sharing some dialogues with another victim.

I was very distressed after listening to Mr. Razaq Dawood’s final comments regarding stage 3 of entrepreneurship where you have already lived to your dreams and achieved whatever you ever wanted to and yet there comes another journey of maintaining that successes within the family generations, something an aspiring wanna be like me can never think of. It was nice to know how one feels when you are up above the hill, having done that already but at the same time it was very disturbing to know that there is no rest, no peace on the other side. I started to think that may be the 9to5 crowd is better than us, not having to sacrifice so much and at peace at the end with the satisfaction that they were able to keep the balance between their work and life. But then again, I realized that once you have it in your blood, there is no escaping from it. There would be no satisfaction at the other end if you have not lived your dreams in the first place.

Then came along Mr. Amjad Saquib of Akhuwat, and only then I got introduced to an entirely new meanings of entrepreneurship. It is not about being selfish in pursuit of your dreams, its about taking care of your family. It is not about doing something extraordinary but doing something purposefully. It is not about winning, it is about surviving the tides. I congratulate you Mr. Saquib of playing a very important role for the change we desperately need and I salute you for being a real change agent of our society.

Like many other people I was eager to see what looks like to be our last hope for a change, Mr. Imran Khan of Pakistan Tehreek Insaf. But he was invited for being the Vice Chancellor of NAMAL University and was going to share his experience of establishing yet another of his legacy in the education sector as well. He came is his usual attire of Shalwar Qamees (really loved that). I hope once you get to chair the Government you keep on presenting the real Paksitani inside you with same appearance (and attitude) every where you go. In QA session, things got politically heated as one lady raised a question about the lack of team on behalf of PTI. Which Imrak Khan responded that “do you want to see same faces or need new ones” which takes time and that he is having a team who were there with him from the very start. (But very sorry to say, that I disagree with you here, in my city, some of the key posts of PTI are being given to people who have a history of corruption and lotaism in their family. And it was a nice blow to people like me to become less interested in PTI activities and raised a question in my mind that the change you always speak of is going to be a Top-to-bottom type of thing or from ground-to-up? Like do you think that a right kind of person at top can really make the difference? Even if he is surrounded by the same useless money hungry lot? In such a case, would not dictatorship be more appropriate as it comes with absolute power? And if you don’t believe in above then can you please explain why we can see some opportunistic shady characters as title bearers in your team?

Secondly, I raised a question but somehow the language barrier did not let me put it in the most suitable manner. So here it is again. Is there anyway we could bring this change without any involvement of government or without looking at them for any help? As if it was their priority, they would have been doing it in the first place. So do you think that these private social entrepreneurship initiatives by private sector are enough to bring the change we all very desperately need? And do these initiatives have the power to change the faces in politics at some point with sincere and honest leadership?

(Sorry to say but really disappointed on behalf of management that Imran Khan should have been given the QA time right after his speech as the very next person came had such a slow pace that he finished a 15 minute speech in almost an hour.)

Rest of the speakers had great stories to tell about their respective journeys and had lots of wisdom in their speeches.

I also met a few wonderful entrepreneurs there who was just bitten by the entrepreneurial bug, with limited resources but lots of energy to realize their dreams. One such guy is Farhan Riaz with his award winning, internationally acclaimed product Max99. I wish him all the best.

It would not be fair to not talk about Mr. Kamran Rizvi, know he does not care much, but as he was the only person who kept on waking people up time to time with his nice jolly wits. I only wish him to be moderating complete show and it would have been a much better experience for everyone.

This went on like that till the end where we finally had the Top3 of 25 brilliant case-studies from Pakistan as one of the management guy later put it very appropriately that “We have saved the best for last”. Among them, Mr. Kashif ul Haq from Corvit systems, opened some new horizons to understand success for other newly turned entrepreneurs. He explained my favorite quote on success that “it is how beneficial you have become on a social level and how happy you are on a personal level.”, saying success has two sides, on one side it is the measurement by the external elements about your achievements and on the other side it is about the level of satisfaction you have received from your ventures and amount of happiness you drive out of it.

So TIECON2010 PK was concluded for me with this understanding of success in my mind that if everyday, you wake up with a smile at morning, greet your family on your side, look forward to come to your office eagerly, meet your colleagues with a happy heart, face the daily challenges with a candid attitude, recharge your energies in friend’s company at evening, and prepare yourself to embark on yet another day in the comfort of your home at night with your family still on your side, know that you have succeeded in this never ending journey of entrepreneurship.

I encountered a few people after the event saying it was a dull, boring, long day, food quality was not good (as only they were there for it.), moderator was too serious to keep the crowd involved till the end and only a few handful of speakers were able to inspire, well, some of the arguments are quite valid and I agree that the event could have been a blast but hey see on the brighter side. See the ‘Half” which is ‘Full’. At the end of the day, there were so many new ideas born, so much energy being induced in some of the young entrepreneurs there and so many revivals of the dreams that makes every second spent on the event worth it. So hats off to the TIE Lahore Chapter for arranging such a wonderful event. I hope they will learn from their mistakes and it only will get better in the future.

Photo Courtesy Kamal Subhani

ess saal ki aakhri dhalti shaam key saath
teri yaddon key sooraj ko bhi alwida ker doon ga

ab key baad rat-jagoon ka yeh safar
chaand ko tanha hi taye kerna ho ga.

mein terey jhootey sachey lafzoon sey banney
kachey pakkey rishtun ki kamzoor doori ko
key jissey joortey joortey khud toot gya hoon
ussey khud hi toor daloon ga
key bohat jheel lia dard
teri majboorion key hijaboon ka
kissi kitab mein rakh key
bhooley hovey murjhaye gulaboon ka

yaqeee’N aur bey yaqeeni ki
aankh machooli sey bantey
taptey hovey siraboon ka

teri wapsi ki rah takti
pathrayee hoi aankhoon ki palkoon per
bikhrey hovey chand khawaboon ka
na khatam hooney waley azaaboon ka

ab ki baar khushion ki pehli kirn
merey dil mein phootey gi
aur naye saal ki pehli sehar
merey ander key sab aansoo nikaal ker
dharti ki goud shabnam sey bher dey gi

Touseef – Dec 16th, 2003, 03:20 PM

This is pretty old poem by me shared/appreciated on Gup Shup board. Just felt like sharing it on the new year on my blog too.

Well, imagine a few situations;

“You are driving in a very populated area where every minute some one is either trying to get under your car/bike or over your car/bike and all of a sudden your mobile phone beep starts. You think this must be the address you have been trying to reach from past one hour sent by your friend. You just push the break, escape a narrow accident and eagerly unlock your cell phone and read the message. To your utter surprise it is your carrier telling you that now you can download some new ringtones from their site.”

If that’s not enough, here is another scenario, Read more »

I have read a blog post on Pak alert a couple weeks back regarding a second 9/11 attack to implicate Pakistan.

http://pakalert.wordpress.com/2008/11/15/a-second-911/

Well,  I know another 9/11 has been speculated to great extent but I was thinking that although America want’s to disarm the only (declared) Muslim nuclear power from its nuclear assets in any case but can they really afford to have such kind of massacre on their own land, especially with the new party and supposedly liberal President in the white house? Read more »

Just wanted to share this poem on Ramadan I wrote few years back and have a little prayer for this upcoming Holy Month.

faqt ik qatra aanso Ramadan ki pyaas hey!

Mallal ki gharri ho,
sar uth jaye Khuda ki terf,
aankh mein kuch nammi tu aaye

Mehromiat ka ho ehsaas,
ik aah ban key dil mein dab jaye,
a’shk aik hi nikley, kuch aajzi tu aaye

Ya tashakur key hooN jazbaat
qadmoN mein us key gir jaye
Izhaar ki surat mein kuch bandgi tu aaye

na gunwana essey, bas essi ki hi aas hey
Tauba kerna ka tujhey kuch ehsaas hey?
faqt ik qatra aanso Ramadan ki pyaas hey! Read more »

National Response Center for Cyber Crimes (NR3C) is co-hosting the InfoSec 2008 – 4th International Conference on Information Security being held in Marriott Hotel, Islamabad on 27th August, 2008. Most important thing is that many distinguished Pakistani & International speakers will participate including Mr. Zahid Jameel of DNDRC fame. He will be speaking on cyber crimes and cyber prosecutions even his role has been very controversial on this subject. Well, I am concerned now. I don’t know how many cases have been resolved by NR3C so far and if they have played any role in the infamous djuice.pk case. But I really appreciate them for co-hosting such an event to help generate some awareness regarding IInformation Security.

On the contrary side, I do not see any professionalism (at least by looking at their website) at all. They look like typical Govt. employees who are least bothered Read more »

I don’t know if you are going to get it back ever but just in case, if you do get a chance, please, after being so much publicised, you should not be working as a Chief Justice of Pakistan. Your profession requires not to mingle so much with public so any relation developed may not interfere your judgment and corrosponding decision. You have been exposed to media to a great deal and great friendships being made as well. One can think that you may use your power to give the favor back to the “particular” community who have helped you in getting your seat back.

Here is a better course of action for you. Read more »

Pervez Musharaf has Resigned! yes you have heard it right. He has finally been forced to resign as President of Pakistan.

Well, it was a regime spanned on almost a decade. Now as he has left now, the most important thing is how we are going to deal with the impeachment process. Is their a deal been already made for a safe passage or he is going to face the court?

Considering our past record, no armed official has ever been put to Jail or faced trial in the 61 years of history. So I am pretty confidant to say that he will get a safe passage. Chapter closed.

Question is, who is going to be the next president of Pakistan? The real battle begins. Now we will start seeing all the tu-tu, mein-mein, chik-chik between the coalition parties every where. I am not a pro-Musharaf but the leadership we have is not any better than him. Infact, everything seemed alright before the incident of Lal Masjid and Chief Justice. The things I am going to be worried from now on are. Read more »

While debating on an anti-Muslim forum on Muslims social ethics, somehow, I came up with the following lines. There might be a few gramatic mistakes but the feeling is pure. I hope it will help you in some way.

Do you Thank Allah Everyday being a Muslim?

I thank God every day that when I was a kid I got the affection, love and care that I deserved from my family.

I thank God every day that I am being taught that your mother is your key to go to heaven. If you want to make your God happy then try to make happy your mother.

I thank God every day that I am being taught that husband and wife share a divine kind of love and companionship and know how to sacrifice for each other and how to see only the good in each other.

I thank God every day that I am being taught that if you are lucky enough to become parent of a daughter, treat them well and you will be a companion of Holy Prophet (PBUH) in heaven.

I thank God every day that I am being taught that the children should be raised by their own parents and not in a day care system. So that they may not grow up with some kind of love complex and with insecure feelings. Read more »