Sign in to follow 's advice will appear in your account when you log in. Follow specific Community Members and never miss out on their views and insights. Build a group of Members who you want to listen to.

Email: Password:

Don't have SiliconIndia account? Sign up Forgot your password? Reset

Ask Gaurav Mahendru for Advice

If your advice request is relevant to other Community members, our Editorial team may choose to send this request to all Experts to attract a wider range of answers and share them with the Community. Rest Assured, we will protect your privacy (unless you recommend otherwise).

Advice Request

Submit Cancel

Gaurav Mahendru

Next Member >>

Gaurav Mahendru

Network Engineer at Aricent

Aricent

Qualities require to be successful

I have already moved to the role of Network Engineer and I believe the two sets of skills required are the technical skills and also the soft skills , which can broadly be categorised under leadership, teamwork, people skills , ability to learn and assimilate new technology and communication skills and also skills like empathy, emotional intelligence.

Handling risky decision

Yes, all people have a certain amount of risk taking capacity and I have also taken many decisions during different times in my life and due to own flaws as a person I could not complete the ambitious tasks I set for myself and had to abandon them or sometimes I did not get the benefit I was expecting from the completion of the task that I chose, looking back I see that I did not calculate the dependencies properly therefore I could not make a realistic estimate of possible benefits if any from any given task. In the end I lost all the time and effort put into those tasks but more importantly people lost faith in me and that is something that takes ages to build. As a person grows, we realise that risks should be taken after careful consideration as it can have far reaching consequences not just in the immediate aftermath of the failure but in the near future, which we most of the times cannot see. The best course of action is to move on and prepare for the next assignment.

My thought on education system in India

India does not have an education system, it has a schooling system. Every society around the world has felt the need to preserve and disseminate knowledge. Another need is to perpetuate its beliefs, convictions, way of life, prejudices to the next generation. But very few cultures have managed to understand that apart from the above two needs, it is very important to ensure that the young men and women are taught the key skills like taking initiative, stand up for themselves, understand the difference between right and wrong etc. Also, the freedom to put forth one's own ideas as well as put up reasonable resistance to any person or idea if it does not appeal to you or if you have a better option is also a basic skill that an education system should impart. Unfortunately, Indian schooling system never had the above qualities. In recent years some policy changes have made it more reasonable, however, it is still far from providing quality input to the children and the youth.

Couple of years from now

Hopefully, married with a kid and working as an independent filmmaker, who knows I could still be single and be working as a writer and still struggling to become an independent film maker. but i will keep trying for sure. Somewhere in the long run I want to try my hand at politics but that would depend upon two key factors, the right opportunity and the hope that with time I will be able to make a significant and constructive contribution considering that our nation is a mess.

Upcoming trends

keeping in mind my long term goals of becoming a writer/film maker I am currently keeping abreast with latest technology in video editing, tools to write screenplay and online market place to find work and collaborate with people who are engaged in similar activities. Other areas include Videography, photography, lenses, audio recording equipment and other equipment used while shooting video and editing it. this includes software like adobe premiere and final cut pro.

Initiative taken by professionals to develop a country

I read somewhere that one man is strongest when he is all alone, can't recall at the time of writing this as to where I read that, but on a more practical note, I believe after a certain point one needs to build a team specially considering a country like india. having said that I would say the youth should join politics or at least the young people should join judiciary, police, IAS in large numbers and cleanse the system form within. but a better way would be to join politics and work with people of the country who are already struggling so that we can keep pushing for the archaic system to fall down under its own weight and then we can build a more efficient and just system in its place. desperate times need desperate measures. and the way things are radical changes are needed, the current situation is not fit for homeopathy rather it needs chemotherapy.

My Strongest Skill

My Core Competencies are Writing, Network Engineering - Firewall, Cooking, Photography, Customer Support and my knowledge of computers in general. But by no means am I a master in any one of these, in fact I continue to work on them. I current job as a Network Engineer is helping me build up my technical prowess on the ASA/PIX/CSC/SSM modules and at the same time I am actively seeking more work as a writer and as a photographer and of course continue to hold an interest in cooking as well.

Influenced by

At different times in my lives I have been influenced by different people. Currently, I believe Narendra Modi comes across as a beacon of hope against a backdrop of individuals and organisations both political and apolitical who continue to perpetuate a politically correct scheme of things as no one has the courage to call a spade a spade. My elder brother is another person who continues to be a influence. In some ways some of my senior colleagues and my cousin sister have influenced my life in more than one way.

More about myself

Like any other human being I have my areas of improvement and I continue to work on them.

Avoiding mistake and connecting right dots

my rule for leadership is - good leaders also follow. it means one should only lead if one is able to connect all the dots. otherwise i would rather that someone who knows what direction is best should be allowed to be in the driver's seat. most people have inflated ego's and are unable to see this. in my younger years I myself have been guilty of continuing to chart the same course despite corrections available although in my defence i must say that people who i do not share a good degree of trust trust, i have found that i have been filtering their advise to a very large degree which i feel is quite normal as trust is a key ingredient in facilitating course correction. So I would say that as far as leaders are concerned i prefer to listen, be flexible and not judge someone too soon. Although, it would seem that one needs to be rigid to some extent in the times that we live in. i prefer a more humane approach while taking decision on basis of merit, reason, logic and common sense.

Important decision taken

Choosing writing as my final career with the final aim of choosing to be an independent film maker is my best decision till date and I am deriving lot of satisfaction over the work that i have got published and eager to work more and learn more.

Current Job Description

I am working as a Network Engineer - N2 with Aricent and my job profile is to support customer mainly in North America via phone/email/remote tools to understand the issues they are facing and helping isolate the root cause and provide resolution in a timely manner while adhering to the SLA. It also includes proper documentation as well. A large part of the job requires one to be eager to learn and assimilate knowledge quickly and think out of the box and apply knowledge as required. We handle specific keywords for example ASA 5500/PIX/CSC/SSM modules, failover, dhcp, tftp, QOS, phone proxy, ZBF on IOS firewall etc to name a few. Another aspect is knowledge sharing and being there for your team when needed.

My achievements

due to my compassionate nature i donate to cry and plan. my cisco certification and post grad diploma from doeacc, my short sting at the stock markets and my being able to straddle a night shift job while studying in the day and growing slowly and steadily towards my goals are some of my achievements that i can think of on top my my head at the moment. hopefully more beautiful moments are waiting to happen.

My advice to professionals

I would tell him to ask me specific questions with example and I will try to answer his questions as much as possible. Apart from that I would advice him/her to be careful as to whose advice they take.