* Making a new can from scratch uses the uses the energy equal to half a can of gasoline.

* If you throw away 2 aluminum cans, you waste more energy than 1,000,000,000 (one billion) of the world’s poorest people use a day.

* About one third of what an average American throws out is packaging.

* More than 1,000,000,000 (one billion) trees are used to make disposable diapers every year.

* In one minute, 50 acres of rainforest are destroyed.

* Some rain has a pH of 3 or 4. (which is pretty acidic, considering 7 is neutral, not acidic, and battery acid has a pH of

*Some fish, such as lake trout and smallmouth bass, have trouble reproducing at a pH of 6, which is only slightly acidic. Some clams and snails can’t survive at all. Most crayfish are dead at a pH of 5. You can see how bad this is for the environment.

* On average, a person in the US uses energy two times more than a person in Japan or West Germany does, and 50 times more than a person in India.

* About 90% of the energy used in lighting a standard (incandescent) light bulb is lost as heat.

* Air conditioning uses 10 times more energy than a fan, therefore, it creates 10 times the pollutants.

* It takes half the output of the Alaskan pipeline to heat the air that escapes from all the homes in the US during a year.

* Cars and pick-up trucks are responsible for about 20% of the carbon dioxide released into the air.

* There are about 500 million automobiles on the planet, burning an average of 2 gallons of fuel a day. Each gallon releases 20 pounds of carbon dioxide into the air.

* About 80% of our trash goes to landfills, 10% is incinerated, and 10% is recycled.

* Since there is little oxygen underground, where we bury our garbage, to help bacteria eat the garbage, almost nothing happens to it. Scientists have dug into landfills and found ears of corn still intact after 20 years, and newspapers still readable after 30.

* The average American makes about 3.5 pounds of trash a day.

* In a year, the average American uses as much wood in the form of paper as the average resident of the developing world burns as fuel.

26 things we can do to help:

1. Turn off lights when not in use.

2. Turn off other electric things, like TVs, stereos, and radios when not in use.

3. Use rechargeable batteries.

4. Do things manually instead of electrically, like open cans by hand.

5. Use fans instead of air conditioners.

6. In winter, wear a sweater instead of turning up your thermostat.

7. Insulate your home so you won’t be cold in winter.

8. Use less hot water.

9. Whenever possible, use a bus or subway, or ride your bike or walk.

10. Try to buy organic fruits and vegetables if you’re concerned about pesticides. (Organic food is grown without man- made fertilizers and/or pesticides).

11. Don’t waste products made from forest materials.

12. Use recycled paper and/or recycle it. Reuse old papers.

13. Don’t buy products that may have been made at the expense of the rain forest.

14. Support products that are harvested from the rain forest but have not cut down trees to get it.

15. Plant trees, especially if you have cut one down.

16. Get other people to help you in your cause. Make and/or join an organization.

17. Avoid products that are used once, and then thrown away.

18. Buy products with little or no packaging.

19. Encourage your grocery store sell environmentally friendly cloth bags for people to use when they shop, or bring your own.

20. REDUCE, REUSE, & RECYCLE.

21. Compost.

22. Buy recycled products.

23. Don’t buy pets taken from the wild.

24. If you have a good zoo nearby, (if the animals are healthy and the zoo takes care of them), support it! Especially if they help breed endangered animals.

25. Don’t buy products if animals were killed to make it.

A dynamic business environment needs people in key positions to be well equipped in terms of skills- functional, managerial as well as personal; to handle high pressure and deliver under any situation. While it is routine for HR professionals to utilize various tools from credential checks to skills assessments and interviews to identify potential performers, employee recruitment and career management decisions require a lot more. It is imperative that an individual’s personality is evaluated before critical decisions can be taken which can harshly impact productivity.

Organizations are now turning to psychometrics for evaluating candidates in terms of their personality characteristics, interpersonal style and job-specific aptitudes to maximize job success and minimize the chances of untoward hiring or promotion decisions. There has been a steady increase in the deployment of psychometric assessments, including various personality, aptitude and vocational interest tests, in addition to traditional screening procedures, to get a 360-degree picture of the individual that is being hired or promoted. Organizations that have integrated effective psychometric assessment procedures into their recruitment processes have come to regard this methodology as an indispensable guard against the potentially expensive outcomes of even a few erroneous hiring or promotion decisions.

Recruitment is not the only area where psychometric assessments are used, although it is the most common and almost certainly where a majority of people first come into contact with this kind of assessment. Other frequent uses are for:

>> Career and management development

>> Team building

>> Internal promotion

>> Training needs analysis

>> Counseling

For the success of any psychometric assessment the tool needs to adhere to certain best practices. Analysis of the score and its usage also form a key part in the success or failure of such a tool. The interpretation of the score has to be done by a certified psychologist and the report generated should be in a friendly format. The report from most personality tools acts as a great interview input which can be used to structure interviews and gauge candidates minutely through focused questioning. It is important to note that personality assessment tools Do Not provide select or reject answers as the measurement is only subjective. Personality assessments are evaluators of the inclination of subjects on defined parameters and select or reject decisions can be taken on the specific requirements of a job role and company.

So how do these psychometric assessments benefit an organisation? By allowing meaningful comparison between candidates on relevant competencies employers can make sure that different backgrounds or experience levels do not overly affect the selection process. Personality is one of the most important elements of individual role fitment and one of the hardest to judge - at an interview people will generally put forward the image that they want you to see. By using well-established measures, employers can gain an extra insight into an individual. These can also provide pertinent issues for conversation in subsequent interviews that are relevant to the specific candidate, rather than being general standard questions.

Undertaking meaningful decisions in most recruitment/promotion situations can be an onerous task and taking calls on the intrinsic personality can often be fraught with danger. But these are calls which managers necessarily have to take and any tool bringing a modicum of insights into the matter will be a huge help to companies.

When 27-year old Sarathbabu graduated from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, he created quite a stir by refusing a job that offered him a huge salary. He preferred to start his own enterprise — Foodking Catering Service — in Ahmedabad.

He was inspired by his mother who once sold idlis on the pavements of Chennai, to educate him and his siblings. It was a dream come true, when Infosys co-founder N R Narayana Murthy lit the traditional lamp and inaugurated Sarathbabu’s enterprise.

Sarathbabu was in Chennai, his hometown, a few days ago, to explore the possibility of starting a Foodking unit in the city and also to distribute the Ullas Trust Scholarships instituted by the IT firm Polaris to 2,000 poor students in corporation schools.

Sarathbabu describes his rise from a Chennai slum to his journey to the nation’s premier management institute to becoming a successful entrepreneur. This is his story, in his own words.
Childhood in a slum

I was born and brought up in a slum in Madipakkam in Chennai. I have two elder sisters and two younger brothers and my mother was the sole breadwinner of the family. It was really tough for her to bring up five kids on her meagre salary.

As she had studied till the tenth standard, she got a job under the mid-day meal scheme of the Tamil Nadu government in a school at a salary of Rs 30 a month. She made just one rupee a day for six people.

So, she sold idlis in the mornings. She would then work for the mid-day meal at the school during daytime. In the evenings, she taught at the adult education programme of the Indian government.

She, thus, did three different jobs to bring us up and educate us. Although she didn’t say explicitly that we should study well, we knew she was struggling hard to send us to school. I was determined that her hard work should not go in vain.

I was a topper throughout my school days. In the mornings, we went out to sell idlis because people in slums did not come out of their homes to buy idlis. For kids living in a slum, idlis for breakfast is something very special.

My mother was not aware of institutions like the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, or the Indian Institutes of Technology. She only wanted to educate us so that we got a good job. I didn’t know what I wanted to do at that time because in my friend-circle, nobody talked about higher education or preparing for the IIT-JEE.

When you constantly worry about the next square meal, you do not dream of becoming a doctor or an engineer. The only thing that was on my mind was to get a good job because my mother was struggling a lot.

I got very good marks in the 10th standard exam. It was the most critical moment of my life. Till the 10th, there was no special fee but for the 11th and the 12th, the fees were Rs 2,000-3,000.

I did book-binding work during the summer vacation and accumulated money for my school fees. When I got plenty of work, I employed 20 other children and all of us did the work together. That was my first real job as an entrepreneur. Once I saw the opportunity, I continued with the work.
Life at BITS, Pilani

A classmate of mine told me about BITS, Pilani. He was confident that I would get admission, as I was the topper. He also told me that on completion (of studies at Pilani), I will definitely get a job.

When I got the admission, I had mixed feelings. On one hand I was excited that for the first time I was going out of Chennai, but there was also a sense of uncertainty.

The fees alone were around Rs 28,000, and I had to get around Rs 42,000. It was huge, huge money for us. And there was no one to help us. Just my mother and sisters. One of my sisters — they were all married by then — pawned her jewellery and that’s how I paid for the first semester.

My mother then found out about an Indian government scholarship scheme. She sent me the application forms, I applied for the scholarship, and I was successful. So, after the first semester, it was the scholarship that helped me through.

It also helped me to pay my debt (to the sister who had pawned her jewellery). I then borrowed money from my other sister and repaid her when the next scholarship came.

The scholarship, however, covered only the tuition fees. What about the hostel fees and food? Even small things like a washing soap or a toothbrush or a tube of toothpaste was a burden. So, I borrowed more at high rates of interest. The debt grew to a substantial amount by the time I reached the fourth year.
First year at BITS, Pilani

To put it mildly, I was absolutely shocked. Till then, I had moved only with students from poor families. At Pilani, all the students were from the upper class or upper middle class families. Their lifestyle was totally different from mine. The topics they discussed were alien to me. They would talk about the good times they had in school.

On the other hand, my school years were a big struggle. There was this communication problem also as I was not conversant in English then.

I just kept quiet and observed them. I concentrated only on my studies because back home so many people had sacrificed for me. And, it took a really long time — till the end of the first year — to make friends.
The second year

I became a little more confident and started opening up. I had worked really hard for the engineering exhibition during the first year. I did a lot of labour-intensive work like welding and cutting, though my subject was chemical engineering. My seniors appreciated me.

In my second year also, I worked really hard for the engineering exhibition. This time, my juniors appreciated me, and they became my close friends, so close that they would be at my beck and call.

In the third year, when there was an election for the post of the co-ordinator for the exhibition, my juniors wanted me to contest. Thanks to their efforts I was unanimously elected. That was my first experience of being in the limelight. It was also quite an experience to handle around 100 students.

Seeing my work, slowly my batch mates also came to the fold. All of them said I lead the team very well.

They also told me that I could be a good manager and asked me to do MBA. That was the first time I heard about something called MBA. I asked them about the best institution in India. They said, the Indian Institutes of Management. Then, I decided if I was going to study MBA, it should be at one of the IIMs, and nowhere else.
Inspiration to be an entrepreneur

It was while preparing for the Common Admission Test that I read in the papers that 30 per cent of India’s population does not get two meals a day. I know how it feels to be hungry. What should be done to help them, I wondered.

I also read about Infosys and Narayana Murthy, Reliance and Ambani. Reliance employed 20,000-25,000 people at that time, and Infosys, around 15,000. When a single entrepreneur like Ambani employed 25,000 people, he was supporting the family, of four or five, of each employee. So he was taking care of 100,000 people indirectly. I felt I, too, should become an entrepreneur.

But, my mother was waiting for her engineer son to get a job, pay all the debts, build a pucca house and take care of her. And here I was dreaming about starting my own enterprise. I decided to go for a campus interview, and got a job with Polaris. I also sat for CAT but I failed to clear it in my first attempt.

I worked for 30 months at Polaris. By then, I could pay off all the debts but I hadn’t built a proper house for my mother. But I decided to pursue my dream. When I took CAT for the third time, I cleared it and got calls from all the six IIMs. I got admission at IIM, Ahmedabad.
Life at IIM, Ahmedabad

My college helped me get a scholarship for the two years that I was at IIM. Unlike in BITS, I was more confident and life at IIM was fantastic. I took up a lot of responsibilities in the college. I was in the mess committee in the first year and in the second year; I was elected the mess secretary.
Becoming an entrepreneur

By the end of the second year, there were many lucrative job offers coming our way, but in my mind I was determined to start something on my own. But back home, I didn’t have a house. It was a difficult decision to say ‘no’ to offers that gave you Rs 800,000 a year. But I was clear in my mind even while I knew the hard realities back home.

Yes, my mother had been an entrepreneur, and subconsciously, she must have inspired me. My inspirations were also (Dhirubhai) Ambani and Narayana Murthy. I knew I was not aiming at something unachievable. I got the courage from them to start my own enterprise.

Nobody at my institute discouraged me. In fact, at least 30-40 students at the IIM wanted to be entrepreneurs. And we used to discuss about ideas all the time. My last option was to take up a job.
Foodking Catering Services Pvt Ltd

My mother is my first inspiration to start a food business. Remember I started my life selling idlis in my slum. Then of course, my experience as the mess secretary at IIM-A was the second inspiration. I must have handled at least a thousand complaints and a thousand suggestions at that time. Every time I solved a problem, they thanked me.

I also felt there is a good opportunity in the food business. If you notice, a lot of people who work in the food business come from the weaker sections of the society.

My friends helped me with registering the company with a capital of Rs 100,000. Because of the IIM brand and also because of the media attention, I could take a loan from the bank without any problem.

I set up an office and employed three persons. The first order was from a software company in Ahmedabad. They wanted us to supply tea, coffee and snacks. We transported the items in an auto.

When I got the order from IIM, Ahmedabad, I took a loan of Rs 11 lakhs (Rs 1.1 million) and started a kitchen. So, my initial capital was Rs 11.75 lakhs (Rs 1.17 million).

Three months have passed, and now we have forty employees and four clients — IIM Ahmedabad, Darpana Academy, Gujarat Energy Research Management Institute and System Plus.

In the first month of our operation, we earned around Rs 35,000. Now, the turnover is around Rs 250,000. The Chennai operations will start in another three months’ time.
Ambition

I want to employ as many people as I can, and improve their quality of life. In the first year, I want to employ around 200-500 people. In the next five years, I hope to increase it by 15,000. I am sure it is possible.

I want to cover all the major cities in India, and later, I want to go around the world too.

I have seen people from all walks of life — from the slums to the elite in the country. That is why luxuries like a car or a bungalow do not matter to me. Even money doesn’t matter to me. I feel bad if I have to have food in a five star hotel. I feel guilty.

Personally, I have no ambition but I want to give a house and a car to my mother.
Appreciation

I did not expect this kind of exposure by the media for my venture or appreciation from people like my director at the IIM or Narayana Murthy. I was just doing what I wanted to do. But the exposure really helped me get orders, finance, everything.

The best compliments I received were from Narayana Murthy and my director at IIM, Ahmedabad. When I told him (IIM-A director) about my decision to start a company, he hugged me and wished me luck. They have seen life, they have seen thousands and thousands of students and if they say it is a good decision, I am sure it is a good decision.

“An investor needs to do very few things right as long as he or she avoids big mistakes.” Warren Buffett

One of the world’s most successful investors, Warren Buffett is the richest man on earth. Chairman of the Berkshire Hathaway, Buffett’s wealth jumped by $10 billion to hit $62 billion during 2007. Buffett’s life is an encouragement for investors across the globe.

So what makes the world’s wealthiest man so rich? Buffett believes that successful investing is about having common sense, patience and independent research.

A look into Buffett’s simple, yet intelligent mantras for investing and minting millions.

1. Focus on not losing money rather than making it. Don’t own any stock for 10 minutes that you wouldn’t own for 10 years.

2. A frugal billionaire Buffett believes in straightforwardness. He advises investors to take easy decisions. Never buy when you are doubtful. Invest only if you understand the businesses well.

3. A proponent of value investing, he believes that one must take decisions on his own. He doesn’t believe in listening to analysts or brokers. The best investing decisions come from oneself.

It is not necessary to do extraordinary things to get extraordinary results.

4. Buffett advises to invest in ‘old economy’ businesses, companies, which have been around for fifty years and will continue to have a long innings.

5. We have often heard of people suffering heart attacks when markets crash. Well, Buffett advocates a sound temperament for stock market success.

6. You don’t need to be a genius to succeed in the stock markets. People who can stay cool will succeed in the long run. Always keep in mind the hidden costs, from commissions on active stock trading to high mutual fund fees.

7. Buffett always looks at businesses he can understand; look at the profits in the past, long-term potential of the company, good top level management of the company and companies that have a good value proposition. The strategy is to think about the business in the long term.

“You are neither right nor wrong because the crowd disagrees with you. You are right because your data and reasoning are right.”

8. Invest in businesses with great management. Always keep a track of the management of the company. The top decision makers have a lot to do with the company’s performance.

9. One of Buffet’s biggest strengths is independent thinking. Many people go by what the experts says or what others do but belief in one’s own judgement is the key to stock market success.

10. Patience pays, says Buffet. He says one must not worry too much about the price of the stocks. What’s more important is the nature of business of the company, earnings capability and its future potential.

Good investors never rush to make money. They give time, thought and work on investment decisions. The mistakes that others make should be a lesson for you.

Your CV is your advertising pamphlet through which you try to sell a commodity, ie your skills to the potential buyer i.e. the prospective employer. The sole purpose of your CV is to fetch you an interview call. Nothing more, nothing less.

However, creating a CV isn’t as simple as just using flowery language and pretty fonts. There are certain things that put recruiters off and if you want to make a good impression, make sure you do not commit these mistakes in what is arguably the most valuable document of your job hunt.

While the rules listed are well-founded, they are not carved in stone. At times you will need to break the rules. If you want to add these things knowingly and purposefully to your CV we advise you to do that.

The points mentioned here are not listed in the order of priority; instead they are listed in the sequence in which they usually appear on a CV.

~ Colorful or glossy paper and flashy fonts

Your CV is a formal, official document. Keep it simple.

~ Resume or CV at the top

Many people tend to add headings to their CV. The usual are CV, Curriculum Vitae and Resume. Do not do this.

~ Photographs until asked

Do not add your photo to the CV until you have been asked for it. Photographs are required only for certain types of positions like models, actors etc.

~ Usage of ‘I’, ‘My’, ‘He’, ‘She’

Do not use these in your CV. Many candidates write, ‘I worked as Team Leader for XYZ Company’ or ‘He was awarded Best Employee for the year 2007′. Instead use bullet points to list out your qualifications/ experience like: Team leader for XYZ Company from 2006-2007.

~ Spelling mistakes and grammatical errors

Proofread your CV until you are confident that it doesn’t have any spelling mistakes or grammatical errors. These are big put-offs for the recruiters. Moreover, sometimes these mistakes might land you in an embarrassing situation.

A candidate who submitted his CV without proofreading it committed the mistake of wrongly spelling ‘ask’ as ‘ass’. Now you can imagine the type of embarrassment he must have faced during the interview, when the interviewer pointed it out. These mistakes tend to convey a lazy and careless attitude to the interviewer.

~ Lies about your candidature

Do not lie about your past jobs or qualifications or anything which might have an impact on the job. You may be able to secure a job with these lies today but tomorrow you may lose it as well.

~ Abbreviations or jargon that is difficult to understand

People screening your resume usually belong to the HR department. If they do not understand what the abbreviations and jargon mean, they will simply dump your CV in the trash can. Avoid over-using such terms as far as possible.

~ Reasons for leaving last job

Leave these reasons to be discussed during the personal interview. For example, some candidates write: Reason for leaving the last job: Made redundant. Avoid making such statements in your CV, they add no value. Besides, if you do get an interview call, chances are the interviewer will address the issue.

~ Past failures or health problems

Mentioning these immediately slash your chances of getting an interview call.

For instance, you have a gap in your employment because you started your own business which did not do well. Some candidates might write — Reason for gap in employment: Started own business which failed. Do not do this type of injustice with your job hunt at this stage of writing the CV.

~ Current or expected salary

Leave it to be discussed while negotiating the salary.

~ Irrelevant details

Leave out the details like marital status, sex, passport number, number of kids, age of kids. These are usually irrelevant for most interviewers but at times could be used as a basis for discrimination.

~ References

Do not include them until asked. In fact, it is not even required to mention the line ‘Reference available on request’. If the recruiter requires a reference, he/she will ask you to bring it along for the interview.

Now that you have run through the list, take a fresh look at your CV and prune away unnecessary details and unaffordable blunders that could have cost you your dream job.