Sigmund Freud the father of psychology said that mind is landscaped. Like a landscape, mind has a structure and each structure has function of its own to play. In Freud’s model of mind the conscious mind (everything that we see and are aware of) is seen as the tip of the iceberg of our unconscious mind. Our unconscious mind is like a storehouse of our primitive wishes, ideas, and impulse which are kept at bay and mediated by the preconscious area. According to Freud the structure of the unconscious mind is like a large metal pot ‘cauldron’. So all that we desire but are scared to speak of and some events which have left lasting effect on us of which we are unable to speak because of fright are locked away in the unconscious mind. The ‘locking away’ process happens through suppression/repression. Sigmund Freud emphasized the importance of the unconscious mind; he stated that to a great extent it governs behavior of people. And, the objective of psychoanalysis is to make the unconscious conscious (aware).

In 1923, Freud developed a more structural model of the mind comprising of id, ego and superego. These are not physical areas within the brain, but rather hypothetical conceptualizations of important mental functions.

Freud said that the id expresses pleasures which comprises of two kinds of biological instincts or drives which Freud labeled as Eros and Thanatos. Eros helps the individual to survive; it expresses life-sustaining activities such as respiration, eating and sex. The energy created by the life instincts is known as libido. In contrast, Thanatos is viewed as a set of destructive forces present in all human beings such as hostility, aggression and destruction. Freud believed that Eros is stronger than Thanatos, thus enabling people to survive rather than self-destruct.

The ego develops from the id during infancy. The ego’s goal is to satisfy the demands of the id in a safe manner which is socially accepted and does not harm others.  In contrast to the id the ego follows the reality principle as it operates from both the conscious and unconscious mind.

The superego develops during early childhood when the child identifies with the same sex parent and is responsible for setting moral standards to be followed. The superego operates on the ethics and morality principle and motivates us to behave socially in a responsible and acceptable manner. The superego makes us self-governed; we feel ashamed for cheating others or harming others and feel guilty if rules are not followed by us. When there is conflict between the objectives of the id and superego the ego acts as a referee and arbitrates the conflict. The ego can thus organize various defense mechanisms to prevent it from becoming overwhelmed by anxiety.

Freud has explained that our brain guards us from disturbing thoughts and memories by holding back them and he believed that we are almost entirely driven by unconscious sexual desire. So Freud used to say that our dreams are a secret outlet for these repressed desires. Sigmund Freud used dream analysis to interpret the fundamental language of dreams; it is very different from normal conscious thinking. Freud intelligently used id, ego and super-ego to support his research on dreams.

The study of dreaming is called Oneirology; its psychoanalysis runs through neuroscience, psychology, and literature. Do you know, till today the plain fact why we dream is still unexplained. But that hasn’t stopped scientists from coming up with some pretty fascinating premise; each study has come out with variety of reasoning.

Dreaming allows wish fulfillment: After examining and analyzing dreams of hundreds of his patients, Freud came up with a presumption that dreams are wish-fulfillments. Any dream, no matter how terrifying, can be looked at as a way of getting something that you want, either literally or symbolically. If you dream of falling from height, which is the most common dream, the dream suggests that you may have lost control over a particular situation in your life. The situation can possibly be linked to job, work, and school assignment, home or even in your relationship. Falling dreams are usually vivid ones that you can recall them quite easily and are able to remember most of the symbols.

Dreaming is storing an idea in memory: Famous psychiatrist Jie Zhang said that dreams are not just randomly-generated stories caused by neural impulses. Perhaps, there are also more reasons for dreaming them. He said that our brain is always storing memories regardless of whether we are awake or asleep. Dreams are a kind of “temporary storage” area of realization, a spot where we hold memories before we move them from short-term to long-term storage. A dream flashes through our mind before it is filed in our memory.

Dream often cleanses our mind: In our dreams we get rid of undesirable connections and associations that build up in our brains throughout the day. Basically, dreams are garbage collection mechanisms, clearing our minds of useless thoughts and making way for better ones. Essentially, we dream in order to forget the bad actions and deeds. Dreams help us get rid of the information overload of daily life and retain only the most important data. Yes, that’s the truth.

Strengthening what we learn: One theory suggests that we actually dream to remember rather than forget. It’s based on a number of studies that show people remember what they’ve learned better if they dream after learning it.  It supports Jie Zhang’s theory about long-term memory storage; our dreams help us retain what we’ve learned.

Psychiatrists suggest that we should keep people awake and talk to them for hours if they have experienced a trauma. The theory is reinforced by recent studies on trauma, which suggest that when people go to sleep right after a traumatic experience, they are more likely to remember and be haunted by the trauma.

Preparation for threats: Neuroscientist Antti Revonusuo of Finland suggested that dreams play a biological function often to replicate threatening events which prepare us to face it. People who have threatening kinds of dreams are better able to face threats in their waking hours, because they’ve already run through these in their dreams. Harvard medical researcher Deirdre Barrett suggests that dreams are a kind of theatre in which we are able to solve problems more effectively than when we are awake. This happens partly because the dreaming mind makes connections more quickly than the waking mind does. This idea is based in part on experiments she did where people were asked to solve problems while “sleeping on them.” The problem-solving outcomes were better for the candidates who dreamt.

Processing painful emotions with symbolic associations: solving problems in our sleep is itself a kind of Darwinian process. Basically, dreams are natural selection for ideas and this can broaden to the level of emotions, too. One group of researchers suggests that dreams are places where we run through situations and try to select the most useful emotional reactions to them. Psychologist Richart Coutts suggests that this is the best way to react to those situations emotionally. And, we often feel better about painful issues the next morning after a night of dreams. While a Darwinian model of dreaming suggests that we aggressively transform our ideas to weed out problematic and awkward emotions, a new model of dreaming suggests that the process is more like therapy. We don’t aggressively select for the most adaptive idea or emotion, we just run through those ideas and emotions and place them in a broader psychological context. Often, the brain does this by associating an emotion with a symbol.

So friends, dreams play an important role in our emotional, psychological and physical health. We have the romantic, terrifying, emotional, funny, awkward, loving, uniting, separating and weird dreams. What we may not realize is that these dreams are common across cultures and their seemingly wacky content is both important and meaningful. We spend an average of eight hours a night sleeping, which is basically a third of our life. About a quarter of our sleep is spent dreaming, which in an average lifetime represents about six full years of dreaming. Most of the researchers conclude that dreams play a central role in our emotional health, our memory, our learning and to help us to find solutions to our problems.

Industry analysis is a strategic tool designed for market assessment to provide a business with an idea about complexity of a particular industry. The industry analysis involves reviewing the economic, political and market factors that influence the way the industry has developed and is performing.  Major factors include the power exerted by buyers and suppliers, how competitive the market is and the likelihood of new entrants. Small as well as big businesses often spend a large chunk of time planning their firm’s operations. Majority of that time is spent planning initial operations and expected financial returns. Once the business is in progress, business owners continue the planning process to ensure their venture remains profitable. Industry analysis is an important part of a business planning. This analysis often looks at the external factors that can affect a company.

Industry analysis enables a company to develop competitive strategies to survive in a market and using the forces in its favor. The key to developing a competitive strategy is to understand the sources of the competitive forces. By developing an understanding of these competitive forces, the company can:

• Emphasize on its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT).
• Elevate its position in the industry.
• Clarify areas where strategic changes will result in the greatest payoffs.
• Emphasize areas where industry trends indicate the greatest significance as either opportunities or threats.
• Trim down weaknesses and threats by using competitive advantages.

Everything that goes on in the industry and the external factors affect the businesses existing businesses. Therefore a better understanding of the industry helps a business survive better. More understanding of the industry highlights chances of prosperity for a business as it has more advantage and protection. While preparing a business plan the general industry economics, participants, distribution patterns, factors in the competition is described to portray the survival and growth of a business. The internet has created an enormous impact on the state of industry information. Finding information isn’t really a problem anymore. Today at click of button, loads of information is accessed by anybody. The Internet has brought in a lot of transparency. Two decades back, dealing with information was more of a problem of sorting through it all than of finding raw data. Today, there are websites for business analysis, financial statistics, demographics, government policies, trade associations, suppliers, buyers, supply chain managers – you name it and just about everything and you will have access to all that is required for making a business plan and industry analysis.

For making an accurate industry analysis you must know:

Industry participants: You should know who else sells in your market. You can’t easily describe a type of business without describing the nature of the participants. There is a huge difference, for example, between an industry like broadband television services, in which there are only a few huge companies in most of the countries, and one like dry cleaning, in which there are tens of thousands of smaller participants. The participants in the industry have their own style of running their businesses. The leaders in the industry call the shots. The procedures in the industry can change suddenly, which in turn can challenge operations of many smaller companies.  Today we see that the fast food business is composed of a few international brands participating in thousands of branded outlets, many of them are franchised. We have a gamut of local, national and multi-national chains evolved and the scenario which looks very competitive.

Economists talk of consolidation as an encouraging economic parameter; we see smaller participants disappearing from the market and a few large players emerging. In accounting, the majority of the world’s auditing services are performed by only four accounting firms. Known as the ‘Big 4’, these firms completely dominate the industry, auditing more than 80 percent of all US public companies. In addition, these mammoth organizations advise on tax and offer a wide range of management and assurance services. They are Deloitte LLP, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Ernst & Young and KPMG.

The last major change to the fortunes of the global accounting firms followed the collapse of the Enron Corporation which was audited by Arthur Anderson. In the outcome of the collapse, the accounts company was found guilty of criminal charges relating to its business practices. Although the conviction was eventually overturned, the damage to its reputation meant Arthur Andersen was unable to recover and eventually sold most of its business to members of what would come to be known as the Big 4.

Distribution Pattern: Products and services can follow many paths between suppliers and users. One needs to know how distribution works in an industry. Each sector has its distribution pattern set. One needs to see whether in a particular industry retailers are supported by regional distributors, as is the case for computer products, magazines, or auto parts. Does an industry depend on direct sales to large industrial customers? Do manufacturers support their own direct sales forces, or do they work with product representatives? Brilliant marketing logistics covers physical distribution plus managing marketing channels. The importance of transportation to economic growth and productivity is undisputed. Transportation confers place-utility and time-utility to products and services.  At the macro level, progressive transportation modes contribute handsomely to the national economy. At the micro level, techniques have been developed and refined for determining the economic impact of transportation programs and projects. It has been observed that there is a shift in hiring services of contracted and third party transporters by many organizations.

Some products are almost always sold through retail stores to consumers, and sometimes these are distributed by distribution companies that buy from manufacturers. In other cases, the products are sold directly from manufacturers to stores. Some products are sold directly from the manufacturer to the final consumer through mail campaigns, national advertising, or other promotional means.

In many product categories there are several alternatives, and distribution choices are strategic. Encyclopedias and vacuum cleaners are traditionally sold door-to-door, but are also sold in stores and direct from manufacturer to consumer through radio and television ads.

Technology can change the patterns of distribution in an industry or product category. The internet, for example, changed options for software distribution, books, music, and other products. Cable communication is changing the options for distributing video products and video games. Distribution patterns may not be as critical to most service companies, because distribution is normally about physical distribution of specific physical products such as a restaurant, graphic artist, professional services practice, or architect.

So far the pharmaceutical companies used to sell medicine stocks directly to 5000 odd stockiest and distributors, they in turn sell the products to 10000 wholesalers and the wholesalers then sell them to six lakh retailers. This trade practice has been existed in the industry for several years and All India Organization of Chemists & Druggists (AIOCD) was directly controlling this arrangement disliked by many pharma companies and patient community.

Industry sources said that the new order in the pharmaceutical trade is going to be in place in Maharashtra to start with. The representatives of the pharma trade and industry had a meeting with the Commissioner of Food & Drug Administration last week and he is understood to have told the industry and trade that no wholesaler should be denied direct supplies of drugs by the manufacturer. Denial of drug supply to any wholesaler would amount to restrictive trade practice and will be in violation of the Drug Price Control Order and Competition Act attracting penal action. The new distribution system will be enforced by other states also shortly. Drug manufacturers are not however happy with the new distribution system as they may have to deal with a large number of wholesalers now onwards and that may add to additional costs.

Competition: It is essential to understand the nature of competition in your industry. This is still in the general area of describing the industry or type of business. Explain the general nature of competition in this business, and how the customers seem to choose one provider over another. What are the keys to success? What buying factors make the most difference? Is it price? Product features? Is it service? Support, training, delivery schedules what is it? Are brand names important in the market? Which are the leading brands, why are they leading? What positioning strategies have been used by the marketers? So you see there is so much to find out about the competition.

The market is determined by supply and demand. Creating and maintaining relationship with customers is become an inseparable part of business. The concept of CRM is viewed differently in different sectors of business. Customer relationship or customer care is not just being polite to them – it is looking at the entire customer experience – or walking in the shoes of the customers. This journey starts before you even meet your customer, the trick is to forget all that you know or think you know about the market. Start thinking why your customers would want to buy your product? How it would solve their problems? How the substitute product would satisfy their needs? How you product reaches them in time? With companies offering technology-based solutions for everything, customer care has become more important than ever before. Sales literature and indeed entire campaigns are based on describing the technology, usage, power of the product, marketing channel details, price points etc.

In the computer business, for example, competition might depend on reputation and trends in one part of the market, and on channels of distribution and advertising in another. In many business-to-business industries, the nature of competition depends on direct selling, because channels are impractical. Price is vital in products competing with each other on retail shelves, but delivery and reliability might be much more important for materials used by manufacturers in volume, for which a shortage can affect an entire production line.

Market leaders: The market leader is dominant in its industry and has substantial market share. If you want to lead the market, you must be the industry leader in establishing an innovation friendly organization, developing new business models and new products or services. The market leaders usually have the cutting edge technologies. They offer superior solutions to the customer’s problems. And, most importantly their products are well differentiated. Market ledgers have an edge over the other players in the market. They make the strategic changes and changes in the policies.  The following graph shows strengths and challenges in the construction sector of India.

India is on the verge of witnessing a sustained growth in infrastructure build up. The construction industry has been witness to a strong growth wave powered by large spends on housing, road, ports, water supply, and rail transport and airport development. While the construction sector’s growth has fallen as compared to the pre-2008 period, it has picked up in the recent past. Its share as a percentage of GDP has increased considerably as compared to the last decade. To put things in perspective, the total investment in infrastructure – which in this case also includes roads, railways, ports, airports, electricity, telecommunications, oil gas pipelines and irrigation – is estimated to have increased from 5.7% of GDP in 2007 to around 8.0% by 2012. The Planning Commission of India has proposed an investment of around US$ 1 trillion in the Twelfth five-year plan (2012-2017), which is double of that in the Eleventh five-year plan.

Besides Indian Railway Construction Limited (IRCON), National Buildings Construction Corporation (NBCC), Rail India Transportation and Engineering Services (RITES), Engineers India Limited (EIL), in private sector M N Dastur and Co, Hindustan Construction Company (HCC), L&T and GVK are leaders.

Industry reports are prepared by the following:

Government Agencies: They prepare and compile various industry reports to judge the overall economic health of the nation. Examples of these are reports by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Research Firms: These firms conduct market surveys and compile different industry reports and sell them to companies and government organizations. These reports are purchased to facilitate decision making. Firms such as PWC, Ernst & Young, IMBR are famous for preparing industry analysis reports.

Individual Companies: Different companies in an industry prepare industry reports for their own use in order to facilitate decision marking and internal management. These industry reports are generally not available to outsiders.

An Industry report consists of the following elements:

Industry definition: An industry report includes a comprehensive definition of the industry, mentioning what the industry includes and what comes outside its purview.

Major industry players: It mentions the names and other relevant information about major companies that generate the largest revenue in the industry.

Market share: The report presents a breakdown of the different markets of the industry and its share in each market.

Historical and current trends: These trends include the facts and figures (such as revenue, sales and profits) of various companies in the industry. Historical trends in the industry are generally presented for five to ten years and the current trend pertaining to the prior financial year.

Employment statistics: It includes an account of the total employment figures and distribution in different companies within the industry. Key statistics also include the composition of men and women in the labor force.

SWOT analysis: This is an overall analysis of the industry in terms of its strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

Achievements: It mentions the significant milestones and achievements of the industry. This could include new innovations in the industry or the industry’s contribution to social-economic development.

Outlook: The report includes the prospects of the existing companies in the industry as well as the scope for new players.

An industry report contains graphs, charts and tables, generally supported by written commentary. This enables even non-professionals to get an understanding of the industry.

Some important insights such as low cost production structure (compared to the industry cost structure) could be through economies of scale or other operational efficiencies, strong technology capability, location to customers (if close, time to deliver to market will be relatively fast and shipping costs will be low) and sustainability of the business if taken into account in analyzing the industry will be of great help.

It is critical that you understand what an industry’s key success factors are; the only way to discover them is to do a thorough industry analysis.

Rarely do we see resumes tailored to fit a job. Sure, many of the background and academic details tend to remain the same but in a good resumes the tone and accent changes. Rarely does peole pay attention to while writing their resume. You remain the same person, but your description, narrative changes with a new perspective depending on the job you are applying for. It is therefore advisable to constantly re-examine and refine your CV. A CV speaks volumes about us in absentia.

Over some time and with experience, while looking at your CV your presentation skill and technique for language will improve. Couple this to the natural self-confidence you develop during spells of employment and your CV should for sure reflect that. It’s all about refining what you say and how you say it in the most concise way, and you’ll be surprised how your perceptions evolve on different dimensions in CV.

Yes, your CV speaks volumes about who you are, how you think, your strengths and weaknesses – though we do not present our weaknesses. It gives an image of your finesse, your capability, your background, your skills, intelligence etc. Your CV should be confident. Employers not only want to hear about your appropriate successes but also why and how you’ve achieved them. This confidence however should not be presented in an over-stating manner. Nobody can ever be great without any substance. Avoid wordy jargon, exaggeration or buzzwords. Let your CV stand out by giving the helpful facts and figures. Give those hard evidences those which are self-explanatory.  Don’t clutter your CV with too many things about yourself. Don’t lose the purpose in the midst of it. A good CV remains sharp and snappy for quick reference. Adopt the right tone throughout the CV.

Avoid pessimism: If you have had to face adversities, mention it with words such as “challenge”, faced. Also, do not shy to mention how you faced them. Avoid words such as “hate”, “quit”, or “disagreed” Alternative suitable phrases would be “overcame”, “influenced”, or “re-approached.”

If you are applying for a journalist’s job then your skills such as editing, writing, fluency over languages, your grasp to understand things, an eye for detail etc should be highlighted. Remember, one size doesn’t fit all; you will need different versions of your CV depending on whom it is aimed at. I often suggest people to avoid using standard templates. Instead, write it uniquely.  Focus on relevant experience and transferable skills from previous jobs which you have learnt.

The HR manager looks out for some of these traits in your CV: they are enthusiasm, because enthusiasm drives employee engagement and innovation.  Communication skills – no organization is able to compromise on importance communication in today’s globalized marketing environment.  Next is creativity. Organizations crave for creative people. Thinking out of the box is an extraordinary quality. If you have it, write it foremost in your CV.  In today’s age of entitlement and instant gratification, the critical concept of commitment stands out in a CV. Do present it in good words. Team spirit is very important in any field of life because it binds people together of different temperaments, different attitudes. If you can lead and activate people in group, trust me you have again an extra ordinary quality. Highlight it. HR managers look for another quality and that is openness to new ideas, new processes, and new people and so on. As corporations are ever changing entities, your ability to change with it is crucial. Your CV must speak how you adapted in the past and how you can do it again, if required.

One most important advice is keeping your research on; examine not only the work you want to do but where you want to work. When you find a job that you want to do and feel qualified to do, investigate the company, its culture as well as what is said and left unsaid about the company. Be sure about the work culture of the company. You should not land in soup.

And, also one of the hallmarks of your personality is emotional Intelligence. It is your ability to match the communication style with the organization through your CV, on email, on mobile or social media. Pay attention to not only the key words being used by the company in describing a position you are applying for but also how they have placed those words. Match their style so that you can spoon-feed them about your brilliance by helping them to see that you have the qualification, talent and experience they need.

So, let your CV have the following:

Contact details: It’s important to provide a range of up-to-date contact options including your home address, your main phone number and your email address to make it easy for employers to get in touch with you.

Employment history: Include the jobs that are relevant to the position you are applying for. If you haven’t had much applicable experience, be honest about it. However, you may express your interest by stating your grasping and learning abilities or you may want to include your entire work history.

Education and qualifications: Your education and qualifications may not be directly related to the job you are applying for, but they’re still important achievements that any employer will want to see. These days’ organizations are not too obsessed with educational qualifications. They prefer practicality of an individual.

Skills and strengths: Strength is something you’re naturally good at. A skill is something you acquire with education and experience. Make sure to express how your skills and strengths will help you to do well in the job.

References: Give references of people who know you fairly well and those who will speak on your behalf.  You don’t have to include references in your CV and leaving them out will save you space, but make sure to state at the end of your CV that they are available on request.

If your CV is shortlisted and you are called for an interview, the interviewer might ask you to “walk him/her through your resume.”  When you are asked to do so – you should be able to talk about each section of your resume in a linear, lucid, and enthusiastic fashion. Do not go too much in-depth into any one item. Do not bore the interviewer and do not remain superficial either. Touch on your academic, professional, leadership, technical, and personal qualifications, concluding with a statement about why these experiences are important for your industry.

 Lastly, use a good simple format. Check and re-check spelling and punctuation. Keep sentences short to avoid confused punctuation and, if you can, give it to a friend to check it over. Spell check should be the very last thing you do before sending it off.

If you are not applying for some time now for a new job, take some time off and work on your CV – it’s worth it.