Lokesh Sharma

Not a guru, just someone who's spent 15+ years around HR & hiring. Honest notes on resumes, interviews and the job search.

[Lokesh Sharma @ItsLokeshSharma]

An interview that runs long feels like a great sign.
Half the time it just means the interviewer likes talking.

What actually tells you they're keen:

#Hiring #JobInterview #Recruitment #InterviewTips

[Lokesh Sharma @ItsLokeshSharma]

'Overqualified' on a scorecard usually means two things. They think you'll leave inside a year, and they can't pay you.

Answer the first one out loud. 'I know this is a step sideways, here's why I want it.' The money part you can't fix with words.

[Lokesh Sharma @ItsLokeshSharma]

Strong point, with one caution. Belief gets people in the door, but it does not survive contact with a hard quarter on its own.

What makes it durable is pairing conviction with clarity. What we are building, what the next 12 months look like, and how their equity and role actually work. Belief plus honest specifics is retention. Belief alone is churn in month nine.

Hire for conviction, then earn it back every quarter.

[Lokesh Sharma @ItsLokeshSharma]

Great lesson, and I would add one nuance. "I don't have time" usually means "I have not chosen," and owning that is genuinely freeing.

But after three 16 hour days, the real answer is often that everything was labeled a priority, which means nothing was. That is a leadership problem as much as a personal one.

The version I use now: instead of saying I lack time, I say what I will deprioritize to make room, and ask my manager to confirm the trade. Same accountability, better outcome, no burnout tax.

[Lokesh Sharma @ItsLokeshSharma]

@Nitaj333 23 rejections in 6 weeks and you still landed it. That is persistence, and it is worth naming.

Congrats on the offer.

[Lokesh Sharma @ItsLokeshSharma]

Sharp point. Great work does not speak for itself. Someone has to be able to describe it, and if you never do, nobody else can either.

The lightest habit that fixes this: a short weekly note to your manager on what you shipped and what it changed. Not bragging, just visibility.

Come review season, you are not scrambling to remember. The record is already there.

[Lokesh Sharma @ItsLokeshSharma]

Thank you for saying this plainly. Burnout rarely arrives loudly. It shows up as cynicism about work you used to love, and by then recovery takes far longer than prevention would have.

Rest helps, but it is not the whole fix. Workload, control over your day, and whether the effort feels recognised matter just as much.

Protect the recovery time before you need it, not after.

[Lokesh Sharma @ItsLokeshSharma]

Very real. The feed is built to keep the same issue alive long past the point where following it changes anything you can actually do.

What helped me was separating consuming from creating. Open the app with a purpose, post or reply, then leave. The hours mostly disappear in the passive scrolling between the two, and cutting that back returns a surprising amount of the day.

[Lokesh Sharma @ItsLokeshSharma]

Love this, and the last line is the one that matters most. Passion alone can stay self focused. Passion aimed at solving a real problem for real people is what turns work into meaning.

Often the love follows the contribution too. You get good, people benefit, and that feedback deepens the commitment.

Start with who you want to help, and the work usually finds its own energy.

[Lokesh Sharma @ItsLokeshSharma]

Sharp point. Overthinking mimics progress because it feels effortful, but effort without contact with reality just generates better looking guesses.

What helps me is asking whether the next loop of thinking will actually give me new information. If the answer is no, the only way forward is a small action that does.

[Lokesh Sharma @ItsLokeshSharma]

The honesty in admitting you slip sometimes is what makes this land. Kindness is not a personality trait you either have or do not, it is a choice you keep making on the days you are tired and stretched.

And you are right about what lasts. People forget the deadlines and the titles, but they remember exactly how they felt around you.

[Lokesh Sharma @ItsLokeshSharma]

Partly fair, and worth reframing. HR protects the company, and a well run HR function knows that mistreating employees is itself a company risk. That overlap is where real support happens.

So use it well. Document facts, ask for the policy in writing, and be clear about the outcome you want. Vague venting rarely moves anything.

Where interests genuinely diverge, HR is not your advocate. Where they align, and that is more often than people assume, it can be your fastest route to a fix.

[Lokesh Sharma @ItsLokeshSharma]

Agreed, output should be the scoreboard. Dress codes often measure conformity, not capability, and the strongest teams I have seen judge people on what they shipped and how they treated others while doing it.

The fair middle is context. Clean and appropriate for the audience matters when you are client facing, but beyond that it should never carry more weight than the quality of the work itself.

[Lokesh Sharma @ItsLokeshSharma]

Well said. Fear is often just a signal that something you care about is at stake, which makes it a compass more than a warning.

The trick is telling the two apart. Danger says stop. Growth says you are about to stretch. One deserves caution, the other deserves a step forward.

Almost nothing worth having sits inside the comfortable zone anyway.

[Lokesh Sharma @ItsLokeshSharma]

Mostly the quiet years, but with one thing added: being useful to people who are already ahead of you. Rooms open up when you bring something they need, not just when you get better in private.

Skills get you invited, character keeps you there, and money usually shows up as a byproduct rather than the entry ticket.

[Lokesh Sharma @ItsLokeshSharma]

True, and the wait is rarely about permission. It is about wanting certainty before starting, which the work itself is the only way to get.

Clarity is a result of action, not a prerequisite for it. The first version is supposed to be rough. That is what makes the second one good.

Start small enough that you cannot talk yourself out of it, then let momentum do the rest.

[Lokesh Sharma @ItsLokeshSharma]

The "move the important part to the top" rule alone would fix most work emails. People bury the ask in paragraph four and then wonder why nothing happened.

The step that makes the rest easy is writing the ugly version first, then editing it. Trying to be clear and concise in the first draft is what makes people ramble.

[Lokesh Sharma @ItsLokeshSharma]

True! Clarity almost always arrives late, and demanding it in the middle of something hard just adds a second layer of pressure on top of the first.

Looking back, the chapters that made no sense at the time are usually the ones that explain the most later. Living through it well is enough for now, the meaning tends to catch up on its own.

[Lokesh Sharma @ItsLokeshSharma]

Learn first: writing clearly. It quietly decides how your work gets understood, funded and remembered, and it improves everything else you do.

Ignore: chasing every new tool and certification. Depth in one area plus strong communication opens more doors than a long list of half learned skills ever did.

[Lokesh Sharma @ItsLokeshSharma]

Auto-apply tools pushed application volume up about 93% in a year.

Recruiters responded the only way they could, with more knockout questions and more screening before a human sees anything.

The shortcut everyone took narrowed the door.

#AI #Hiring

[Lokesh Sharma @ItsLokeshSharma]

Your CV dates and your LinkedIn dates get compared. Not by software. By a person with both tabs open.

A job that's two years in one place and fourteen months in the other becomes a question, usually at the worst possible moment.