My interview with a career advice blog - and "Survive a Year"!

Keeping with my goal of keeping a career advice/suggestions approach to my blog, here is a podcast I did with my friend Kevin Gao over at Management Consulted. Do check out his site and see the pearls of wisdom he has accumulated!

On related news, I was reflecting on my old work colleagues in Houston at my prior employer and where they have all ended up and it's quite tremendous to see the breadth. I'll tell you my old tales over a coffee someday if you ask me nicely =)

Dear existent or virtual readers, a very happy new year to you and I leave you with a gorgeous image my friend Vikram sent me -


Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

Success factors in the Energy Sector -especially for MBA/Engineers

From my two years in the consulting area for energy, I have occasionally tried to apply my limited experiences to advising fellow students/friends who might have questions/thoughts. While I certainly am no expert, this is better than nothing (assuming it's not nonsense).


The success factors in energy especially at bp/shell/something is a appreciation of learning from a system and understanding nuances and relationships, not being too radical unless necessary -especially being very "outwardly looking" slow or dumb. 


Sometimes, to to a layman, work at BP or Exxon as an engineer or business person is slow and all about risk mitigation and safety while doing your work but its bloody amazing when you step back and see the impact.

Some, myself included, do not (or sometimes did not) always have the patience/dedication to succeed in an environment like that - but for those that do, there is no sector that can appreciate this skill-set more.

backup of backup of...

Redundancy in life is key for me:
I am not one to take a massive risk without a fall-back or failsafe.
Here was my heirarchy for post-high school: US top tier, UK top tier, US tier 2, UK tier 2, India tier 2, India tier 3, redo!
Then it got refined after 3.5 years at UT Austin to become (for graduation)
post graduation plans (business- consulting=#1... engineering consulting #2, backup grad school #2.5(if top tier) Engineering general #3, Boring Engineering #4, backup extra sem in school #5, backup extra year out of school searching for job #6, backup grad school #7 (rank 5-15) , + back up Singapore work #8, back up India - school/work #9)

Then now, as the H-1 B visa junk starts to show up,
If for some reason, I don't get it:
best case, i work in UK at the office there,
2nd, i might go work in Bahrain,
3rd might go to some other country with same firm
4th off to some other country with different firm....
5th just go to grad school after chilling at home for a while.
6th start something entrepreneurial.
Phew... enough redundancy?
;)
I wonder if others do the same with their lives?