Q1. How do you find new employees?
Ans. More than 300,000 professionals, Engineers, CA's, MBA's and Graduates, are in touch with TMI Network for career advisory services. So whenever any of them seeks a change, they often enquire about the opportunities within the TMI Group and become our best employees. Hence, our primary source of talent is through networking, candidate reference and employee reference. This is supplemented by our advertisements in the job boards and newspapers.

Q2. What kind of people do you like to hire?
Ans. In every organisation there is a tussle as to which is more important - loyalty or performance. At TMI Group, we believe that employees must perform and also be loyal. The loyalty however, should be to excellence, to one's profession and to our customers. More importantly, we clearly value performance over loyalty. We believe that it is an employee's responsibility to perform and it is our responsibility to retain performers.

Q3. What trades and skills are required to perform in the TMI Group?
Ans. When it comes to selecting associates, we clearly look for performers. Two simple words "motivated" and "enthusiastic" tells about the mindset required to excel. People with high energy levels, open to learning and honest as well as logical thinkers with an ability to be a critic of their own work would flourish in the TMI Group.

Q4. How would a typical day be at TMI Group?
Ans. Usually, every employee at TMI is not a "time watcher". Words like 9 to 5 are unheard of in the TMI Group. The Group believes that every employee shall come into the office with a bit of anxiety to accomplish tasks and go home - stress free. A typical day at TMI would mean spending a lot of time with customers or working on customer centric solutions. Employees are expected to set their own agenda when they come to work in the morning including making a Things-To-Do-List. Each employee works on a computerised network, hence can organise his work schedule using the computers. As of now, employees spend minimal time on large meetings. Emphasis is on work in small teams and hence one would spend a lot of time with peer group. It is also typical for many employees to feel that the work is incomplete when they leave home because there is always more work left undone at the end of each day. So, employees are expected to stretch and therefore, they exceed time, varies from employee to employee, some work till 7pm, some till 10 pm. In short, each employee makes his or her own time schedule and tries to adhere to the same.

Q5. How is the performance measured at the TMI Group?
Ans. Currently, the TMI Group is moving into a Key Result Area(KRA) model of performance assessment. In the past, KRA's were not well defined, which we believe is not conducive to transparent organisation. Each employee is expected to work with his supervisor to finalise the KRA's while daily reviews are common to measure the task. Performance reviews with employees are encouraged to be done at least once a quarter. Also, annual incentives are based on performance reviews and are conducted to finalise increments/promotions. While the intention is to move towards self-appraisals, we still are in the process of moving into that goal.

Q6. What are the opportunities for career advancement?
Ans. Career advancement is not "given" in the TMI Group. Each employee must "earn" the same based on performance with superior knowledge. There are opportunities for lateral movements from Sales to Marketing, from one Business Group to another. Being a flat organisation, the no. of levels are very few. So, career advancement is more likely to happen through cross-functional, cross-SBU movements. Hence, each employee is not only expected to know his current job, but is also required to operate at one level higher than what he is paid for. This will help him or her to migrate to the higher level of responsibility seamlessly.

Q7. Does the organisation support for on-going training for the associates?
Ans. Yes, we do. But the way we do it is different. Training is not decided by the supervisor or by the HR Manager. Training is decided by the employee in consultation with his superiors and HR Manager. The group's philosophy is that the training must be driven by the employee and the Group can only provide resources. In addition, we also have a lot of On-going Training Programmes conducted in-house. Employees sometimes sacrifice their weekends to participate in the training programmes.

Q8. What ways has TMI been successful so far?
Ans. TMI Group has been a pioneer in areas such as Recruitment Advertising, Knowledge Management, E-Learning, Web Learning, Web based assessments etc. In fact, if we are measured by the variety of products and services that we have successfully deployed, then we could consider ourselves as super-successful organisation. But what we have accomplished till date is minuscule compared to our potential. Therefore, our emphasis now is to consolidate on a few products and service lines, where we can be the top 3 in India and in South East and Middle East Asia.

Q9. What according to you is the greatest challenge facing TMI Group?
Ans. Our greatest challenge is complacency, since we are pioneers in India in many fields, there is a tendency to be laidback. Therefore, the greatest challenge is to continuously evolve and benchmark us against global standards. The next major challenge is that we are a micro-organisation. Everybody has to pull their weight, everybody has to work as a team, and so the challenge is to create ownership among the employees, so that they run the race as if it is their own.

Q10. How much time the recruitment process takes?
Ans. We expect to close the complete process within 2 - 4 weeks from the time you submit the basic information.

Q11. Will I be informed even if I am not selected?
Ans. Yes. We believe that the prospective employees must get the feedback on their suitability. It is our belief that prospective employees "are not rejected candidates" because they can be suitable for some other positions at some other point of time. Our communication of non-suitability must not be treated as a rejection, but more as a feedback.

Q12. What if I want to leave?
Ans. As a caring organisation, we always feel disappointed when employees want to leave. At the same time, as a Career Advisory Group, we appreciate that employees may want to move on to greener pastures. We have two expectations from employees who want to leave:

They must leave with dignity and leave as per the terms mentioned in the appointment letter. For e.g. we consider notice period as sacrosanct. We ask employees to give sufficient notice so that we can find a replacement.

We expect from employees is that they serve at least 2 years with the organisation before seeking a change unless the parting is on account of extraordinary reasons. Two years is a good time to know each other and to contribute. That is why we have a special deal. Anyone wishing to leave us after two years after productive contribution can appoint TMI Network as their Career Consultancy and through TMI Network seek the next employer.

Q13. What key benefits are guaranteed if I work with you?
Ans. If you stay +2 years or more, your learning and exposure will be way beyond your expectations. See the farewell letters given by a few ex-employees.

If you stay for 2 or more years, you can ask India's leading consulting organisation -TMI Network to be your career advisor, who will assist in finding your next employer.

A highly demanding 24 x 7 work with flexible work options - full time, part time, work at home etc.

Q14. What about compensation?
Ans. We offer competitive and fair compensation based on the premise that "teams win" and "individuals don't."

And "performances and not loyalties drive compensation." The fixed pay is nowhere near what MNC's pay, but is much more than what companies of our size pay.

If compensation and life-style are your key motivators, we will not fit your bill.

Q15. What about peer group?
Ans. We are a young organisation - average age of employee is in the twenties.

The senior management is in the 40's and are from India's top schools and universities like JNU Delhi; IIT and IIM's. Women form over 40% of all employees. Close to 54% of our employees are qualified Engineers, CAs and MBAs while the rest are a good mix of varied Graduate and Post Graduate qualifications.

Q16. Areas of Organisational Improvement ?
Ans. We are still a medium sized group with start up attitude and processes. We are working on improving in the following areas: Developing a "world class quality" culture; Creating a large financial surplus to improve financial stability; In creating a process driven Organisation

Q17. Can I talk to some of your ex-employees and current employees before I sign up?
Ans. Surely. We believe that future employees know the "worst" about us before they join and discover the "best" after he/she joins. Please contact our HR team to get email Ids and phone numbers of a few of the ex and current employees.