All posts in May 2019

Employment Background Screening

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About fifty years back, hiring a person was a simple process. All you had to do after receiving the application was a quick cross reference with previous employers and hire the person. In many cases, even that was not done; people were hired simply because a neighbor or a friend had something good to say about them. Hiring was a matter of gut instinct.

Not any longer. Today, this casual attitude towards hiring your employees could cost you billions of dollars in lost lawsuits.

A security agency had to pay $3 million after their guard had stolen from a client. Subsequent checks revealed that the employee had a colorful criminal record. ?A sales firm had to pay $175,000 in negligent hiring lawsuits when its sales representative was caught forging signatures.

Many companies have lost millions of dollars in negligent hiring lawsuits because they did not uncover vital information through employment background screening.

The Society for Human Resource Management says that 95% of HR professionals in charge of hiring employees conduct employment background screening before they hire. This is a whopping 35% increase from the 60% who used to screen employees in the 1990s. There seems to be a reason for this sudden jump: more than 40% of job applications submitted in the US contain false or fabricated data. More than 9% of the employees who have agreed to get their backgrounds checked are hiding criminal histories. Thus, it is obvious that hiring is contingent on successful employment background screening.

A thorough employment background screening exposes information that was intentionally withheld or mistakenly omitted. Often, employees embellish the truth, particularly when it comes to educational qualification, expertise or experience. Such hidden information may have serious repercussions if it is discovered in a tricky situation. Needless to say, access to such data will stop you from hiring antisocial elements.

Employment background screening consists of a number of checks: background checks, drug tests and psychometric testing. This helps employers ascertain claims regarding qualification, education, previous employment and criminal history. It also helps them uncover any blemished in the person’s character.

Background searching services are offered by a large number of online services and private investigators. When choosing the right company, select a company that has access to a wide network of information. Most screening companies retrieve data from a common pool of data stored with government agencies. They then dig further for criminal history, credit data, sexual offense registration information and other sensitive material. All the data collected on the potential employee is then compiled into a single background check report. The company you employ must be able to give you quick results, because you obviously don’t want to lose a good employee to your competition.

Whether you conduct an in-house background screening or employ the services of a background screening company, it is necessary to go through the claims of your potential employee with a fine-toothed comb. Companies that fail to perform their due diligence before hiring may have to close shop if the worst happens.

The leather jacket in popular culture

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Leather jackets occupy a unique place in fashion history. Theyre one of the few items of clothing that almost never go out of style, even though they do experience phases in their popularity.

This is partly because of the special place leather jackets occupy in popular culture, particularly in films. If youre wondering how the leather jacket became so cool, heres a quick introduction.

The history of the leather jacket

Leather jackets are commonly thought to have been popularised by the military and pilots in the early 20th century. Indeed, some of the most iconic images of leather jackets are from World War Two, when they were nicknamed “bomber jackets” since they were worn by fighter pilots. During the war, leather jackets were reinforced with thick insulation, to protect pilots from cold weather while flying. However, leather jackets were also said to be popular in Russia with the Bolsheviks, and the exact origins are often disputed.

The popularity of leather jackets in the immediate post-war period is often attributed to a combination of their wartime importance and their appearance on film. David Niven, for instance, glamorously sported a bomber jacket in the film A Matter of Life and Death (1946), in which he played a RAF pilot. Actor Jimmy Stewart a real-life US bomb squadron leader during the war also wore one in the 1957 film Night Passage, as did Marlon Brando in The Wild One (1953).

But the most famous wearer of leather biker jackets in the 1950s was James Dean. His iconic turns in films like Rebel Without a Cause, coupled with his tragic death, only helped to boost the stylishness of the fashion item.

Leather jackets after the 1950s

Punk bands like the Ramones kept leather jackets fresh in the 1970s, as did films like Grease and the TV series Happy Days. And Tom Cruises fleece-collared leather jacket in Top Gun sparked a new trend in the 1980s. Leather jackets are still popular today, though they have largely lost the associations with the military. And since they are generally quite warm, leather jackets have become a practical choice as well as a stylish one with many people across the UK.

Traditionally, leather jackets are made from animal hide. Today, leather jackets may be made from this material, but are more likely to consist of an imitation material like PVC or polyurethane. As a result, theyre usually vegan friendly and often cheaper than those made from real animal hide.

Prize Bonds Investment And Interesting Facts

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Our family (including Late Father) has been investing in prize bonds for last thirty years when there were 5, 10 and 11 rupees prize bonds. I was a little boy at that time. My father won two big prizes but I never won any big prize. I request Pakistani government to eliminate 10 percent tax on the national prize bonds prizes. We hardly win few prizes and pay huge tax on it.
We are invigorating Pakistani government by our prize bonds investment but government never encouraged us. After all it is our own obsession since government did not force us to purchase prize bonds. Can you believe it that I did not win a single prize on my Rs. 750 prize bonds draw despite having 800 prize bonds? There looks manipulation in these draws. Government should generate random computerized numbers lists instead of using these Heavy Mechanical Complex mechanical machines.

I am not claiming it due to any grudge. It is scientifically proved. Go to the URL http://www.savings.gov.pk/draws.asp and download lists and see how badly skewed many of the lists are. Statistical dispersion is high. Ask any statisticians and check all lists. Such skewed lists indicate corruption. People can fix many prizes in limited numbers. Computer can generate evenly distributed random numbers
I am loser on my investments with Pakistani government. I earned very little return on prize bonds investment during last twenty years. However, our loss is nothing in comparison with our loss in Bahria Town (Pvt.) and stock exchange investments. Anyhow, I am in the process of changing prize bonds with government securities which gives fix return.

I learnt strange thing about prize bonds today. On April 16, 2012, I checked my 47 prize bonds of Rs. 750. There was no prize but these bonds did not win any prize for last 13 since the time they were issued during 1999 to 2003. Are these any blocked numbers? Many of them were of series 097900+. Government issue many bonds of same numerical numbers with different alphabetical serials. So see how much they could save if they block serials which they issue. I am not sure but it is my apprehension. We often take prize bonds from State Bank, Lahore. Less chance of prize may be due to huge serial of 1,000,000 (a million). In the past total numbers of bonds were 100,000. By the way Pakistani government sometimes cannot pay employees salaries how they will pay profit.

Next Generation India – beyond servicing, drive the world with innovation…Where is Odisha’s share

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India, as a nation, is going through a transformative stage during the past 2 decades. On the IT-related business front, India has made great strides by creating software giants like Wipro, Infosys, Mindtree, TCS, Cognizant etc., and many more smaller companies sprung across the country of more than 1.2billion people. The entire world respects India for her leadership in services industry – means doing more with less than the rest of the world can do.

How did India get there? It is because India’s educated graduates with good English speaking skills substantially contributed to the revenue of the country – from a foreign currency deficit country to foreign currency surplus country. But as world becomes flat, doing services business in other parts of the globe like Africa, China and Russia becomes competitive, and things move to those countries too. So what is next for India? How can India go to the next level? Let us take the special note that it is just the education system of the India has contributed to where India is now, but to go to the next level, we need to change the way we educate our kids now. When can a country of 1.2billion people step up to architect and develop world-class products instead of servicing to the successful manufacture of somebody else’s product? When can the universities in India germinate companies like Google, Facebook and Yahoo. This is not an easy task – it comes from the way the minds are cultured.

So how do we culture such minds to innovate? It is a long nurturing process – a combination of the society around us, the education system around us. Is our society business friendly? Does our parents encourage us working for ourselves or working for somebody else? Does the environment around us encourage to take my passion to the next level? Probably not.

Based on the Kaufmann foundation, America’s non-profit promoting entrepreneurship, 500,000 people started companies in America in 2009 alone in the midst of global recession. The venture funding has created 35 million jobs in America during the past 35 years until 2005. Based on a recent Survey, young people between the age of 8 through 24 likes to start companies, thus contribute to the community. This age group believes that better community is built with the quality of people plus the small businesses in the area – not by the government and not be the mega companies. This itself speaks something about the way education happens in America. Most parents encourage their children to take up high profile government jobs like administrative services etc. and private jobs in large so-called multinational firms. The job security is still a curse in disguise around the country. The education system tells us what has happened, but not how and why certain things happened.

An concerted effort needs to be built to inform people, educate people, and tell them that what see around them is not the whole world. Demonstrate them how to make money, how to make investments, go by examples. The government may consider starting a course on entrepreneurship and social values at the high school level. This is where the global organized effort is required, and so global organizations – InvestBhubaneswar and TiE Bhubaneswar are required.

In contrast, if we look at major US universities like Stanford and Harvard, the culture is different. There is no bureaucracy, and everybody is called by their first name, and everybody commands respect by the capabilities. The professor position is not a permanent position until the professor demonstrates his/her capabilities during the first several years of the career to get tenure. Being in Silicon Valley, in the midst of world class startups who have made it big to create billion-dollar companies creating employment for best-minds around the world, I must say that it is the society and education that matters. The Stanford University in Silicon Valley fosters an environment for the minds to bring out the best. The university strives to attract the best minds around the world – not limited to home country, and then have the best minds around the world interact in one environment conducive to innovate. When innovation happens, this gets translated into business. That is how CISCO, Yahoo, Google and several others started. It is to be noted that Stanford University is not supported by government, but is a private university that lives off of endowments from its long list of patrons and tuition fees.

How long will a country of more than a billion people only be driven by the world by providing services instead of driving the world with class products proudly saying – Made in India? Why cannot India create the conducive atmosphere to attract the best minds of the world even leave their mother country to immigrate to India, and help innovate? I think India can do this, and it is the private sector, who could more efficiently do this than government. As long as governments sets policies right, clears hurdles fast as they come, treats and cares for the businesses with dignity, it will work. Currently, India is trying to get innovation universities around the country, but does the country have the right mind-set – even if policies exist, to create innovation universities like Stanford University in the current context. Probably the answer is no. When IIT kind of elite institutions are marred by irregularities, how can we expect them to innovate? In several cases, the top decision makers of such institution does not have the vision and capability to make the right call for key positions. When you approach such schools to innovate, first item on the agenda that comes up is the money that you can put on the table for your activities, and then talk about innovation with the industry. This comes from people who do not have any intention to do any good for the society at the end of the day, no respect for innovation, and no motive to innovate. When innovation university comes up, most likely such people become the heads of innovation universities, and so you can imagine what is next. Just to put in context, why are private institutions like Indian School of Business in Hyderabad and Great Lakes Institutes of Management, Chennai doing better than government-run IIMs. It is the vision and passion of the people behind such institutions to only create the best. And it comes with a price, which is worth it. As a matter of fact, Government cannot create such institutes of excellence in the modern era. By the time Government springs into action taking its own time, several processes may be already obsolete.

In India context, the proposed Vedanta University, with the large endowment from one of the world’s billionaires, has the vision and the financial strength to create the best in class university similar to Stanford and Harvard in US. Looking by the vision plan of the university, it seems conclusive that this is an opportunity of a lifetime for the local people in India to get bestowed upon such a world-class university. The university has the layout to attract the best minds – both students and faculties to the university, and the preserved nature of greenery and rivers, and ocean is key to free-flowing of the minds to dream and innovate. The self-contained campus ensures everything in a striking distance conducive for a 24×7 research environment, providing safety and atmosphere to the staff and their families. Just imagine, when innovation happens, businesses shape up around it, and thus creating high-paying jobs in the area, and in return creating several support downstream jobs.

Currently, it is Puri, the coastal town of Odisha is lucky to have been chosen for the university. Living in silicon valley for decades close to the Stanford University do realize what it takes to build a university of Stanford’s stature, and happy to learn that a similar university, Vedanta University, is coming up in Puri, Odisha. It is up to the local people to realize themselves the benefits of such an university in their city, co-operate only to expedite the set up of this university, create world-class employments in their city, and thus helping to shape up the future of Puri like Silicon Valley in California, USA.

Purna Mohanty is a member of the Invest Bhubaneswar effort to globally brand Odisha as a business destination, an entrepreneur and semiconductor professional based in Silicon Valley, CA.
This initiative by- Invest Bhubaneswar is supported by SEO service provider AuroIN LLC.

Knowing Internal Interface Testing

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Everywhere you look, there is competition. The software business is not any different. It is very competitive. Business that are part of the trading industry are constantly looking for ways to come up with products and services that can lure the customers to their companies. Getting the best software developer is a strategy that companies use in order to achieve their goal. This is why Internal Interface Testing is a process that they invest in.

Internal Interface Testing is a very important method for all developers. This is because they test the product that they are going to introduce the market with it. The whole point behind the testing is that they can figure out the possible errors if they go on with the product. At least they can already predict whether the item that they are selling is worth introducing to the market or not. If, however, the Internal Interface Testing requires positive results then this means that the business needs to improve its performance. By using the software effectively, the company can make the most out of the interface testing.

Software tests have evolved throughout the years. It is possible that some applications have to undergo different testing process. The main goal is that it can be perfected. The more comprehensive the internal interface testing, the better the web interface testing can do for the company. This is why software engineers require the user interface testing for any company.

Internal interface testing is composed of images, features, commands, and messages that bridge the gap of the product to the end user. In the user interface testing for the business, there are revisions based on the feedback of the user. This very method is said to be effective when it comes to perfecting the program because of the users participation in the whole application. It is very important to note that the program is saleable because it is user-friendly. Therefore, the input of the user is quite an essential data which developers use.

On the other hand, internal interface testing can be used in two ways. The first is through the main function of the whole user interface testing. In this method, developers conduct the tests that show the function of the program to come up with the errors of the actual business. The second is the internal components of the internal interface testing. Through this, the software engineers develop the tests that check the internal operations that should be carried out by the software.

Finally, black box testing is always relative to the internal interface testing that are performed on the interface of the program. It not only uncovers the errors, it also shows whether the functions of the programs applications are doing its job or not. In other words, the web interface testing is correctly accepted and corresponds with the output that is produced. This testing examines the fundamental components of the application.

In conclusion to this, all the software firms adopt the web interface testing to develop the different approaches needed for the company to have the testing methods for the business.