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Hafiz Sajjad Ahmad

In Person Drop (A good learning)

On 8th of August, i found an advertisement on the Daily newspaper. This was about the opening of opportunities at a well known company i.e. Quaid e Azam Thermal Power Private Limited through the Energy department and this company is owned by the Punjab government. The scope of work of this company is in general to develop the renewable energy power plants and in particular thermal power plants in Pakistan in order to overcome the energy crisis in Pakistan. This advertisement was related to hiring of Research Associate and i felt attracted to it all at once due to the competent team and the involvement and dedication in projects as per triple constraint. I decided to go an extra mile to go and drop my resume in person and for that i searched their location and did not have to invest much time in it. There head office was located in Gulberg, Lahore. I updated my resume and cover letter as per Job description, invested some time in doing research about the company and felt very confident after that to go for an in person meeting with HR Manager i.e. Khalid Parvaiz. I tried to have his email, but could not. However, i found him at LinkedIn after a little struggle. I sent him the message and showed my interest in meeting him for to drop my resume. I could not get reply from him. Then i decided to go to the Head office thinking that he might not be able to find my text due to many messages in her inbox. It was Friday morning, i tried to call my colleague to handle the work at office and i will be a little late. Then i started my journey towards the head office of the above mentioned company.

Here are some of the team members of the competent team of the subject company.

Mr Ahad Khan Cheema (CEO)

Khalid Pervaiz (GM Administration & HR)

Syed Salman Hassan (Company Secretary)

Waseem ur rehman (GM Technical)

Iqra Ashraf (AM Technical)

Daniyal Ahmad (Research associate)

I reached at the company head office and requested the guard that i want to meet Khalid sb. , He was like, who is Khalid sb? I replied in confident his position and his other belongings which i searched on His LinkedIn profile. And there it was, he permitted me to go in side to receptionist and that was enough from his side. Miss Sara was there at reception, i again told her about the purpose of my visit and requested her to please somehow let me give only 5–10 minutes to talk to Sir Khalid Parvaiz. She asked me to wait and went to the GM HR. On her return, she said to me that you have to wait for 30–40 min as Sir is busy right now. I waited for almost 1 hour and then all at once Sir came out of office. He was looking in some hurry, may be going some where. I recognized him as i have seen his profile already. I rushed to him and introduced myself. I was walking with him as he was going to attend a meeting at the energy department, GOP. Along with there was Sir Wasim ur Rehman, GM technical. I presented my resume and cover letter to Sir Khalid, he looked at it and then handed over to Sir Waseem to submit it. After that he was gone.

After he has left, i requested Sir Waseem, can i take his 5–10 min? He was a very kind person. He took me to his office and said i have your resume. What else you want to ask? What is your qualification and experience? I introduced myself in detail and he was nodding his head continuously. I requested for the email of him and he gave me his company email id. I thanked him and left as there were some colleagues with him waiting to have a discussion on some project.

Following lessons i learnt during this personal drop:

  1. Doing research about HR makes you prominent and interested in the company as well as in the person.
  2. Showing kindness can make it easy for you.
  3. Some times you have to present yourself smarter in order to get in the company (through guard)
  4. You should know the name of the assistant to the HR as well, it helps if HR is not present or busy.
  5. Talking to the present research associate at the company, i.e. the position you are applying for, can give you much information, you might want to get.

By next time, i will try to work out more on doing research regarding the office timing i.e. may be calling to receptionist and asking if the HR manager is having any meeting today or some other routine. It was a good experience for me and i am hopeful that i will definitely get a call for interview, meanwhile i am also planning to send a followup email to Sir Waseem in order to show my passion and to remind me about my meeting with him for in person drop.