Blog: Day 3 - A week in my work life in 2025

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Day 3 - A week in my work life in 2025

Read how Alex's 3rd day unfolds in the year 2025
Day 3 - A week in my work life in 2025

 

10th December, 2025

I started my day early today. Got up at 5 am and went for a half an hour jog wearing my DODO health watch. It monitors my heart rate which helps keep track of my health and fitness. At 39, I think it’s necessary for me to take care of my health. After all, ‘Health is wealth’. I know it’s a clichéd cheeky phrase but that is the truth! 

I feel really positive in the mornings. I tried an app that a friend recommended which helps me meditate. I know guided meditation is a thing of past, but this app has some telepathic sensors that can map brain waves. All I need to do is wear my special earphones which have electrodes installed in it, open this app, listen to the guided meditation steps and start meditating. The app automatically guides my mind reach a state of nirvana while mapping my brain waves. This app records the optimum level of frequency, an average mind can achieve. This makes the user reach the nirvana state as the app automatically guides the mind reach that recorded ‘optimum level’. It gives me a lot of positivity, energy and limitless power. 

In our office now, communities of various kinds are forming, breaking and reforming almost every few weeks, but the meditation community has stayed steady for a while. Many employees and managers believe that their productivity, health and happiness can be significantly improved with practices that enhance mindfulness. Our company even started a ‘mindfulness’ component to our benefits to ensure that people remained focused, given the distractions these days. You can enroll yourselves in any activity that improves mindfulness and the fee gets reimbursed by the company. I have also enrolled to a Tai-chi class, paid for by the company. Ha Ha!

In the office today, I got to meet many people from diverse backgrounds. But the catch is, I did not ‘meet’ them! Everything happened virtually. Half my day was packed just for recruitment. I took many interviews today. There are 20 IT related vacancies at ProductsForU ranging from- visualizers to designers to project managers and so on but no coders—coding is for freelancers. 40 candidates were to go through recruitment process today.

These days we get candidates with a wide variety of backgrounds. The one I am really curious to talk to is an anthropologist from South Africa. He has learnt visualization techniques by studying nature over the last few years. Should be an interesting candidate for our design department. He wants to come and live in India for a couple of years to “see even more color”, as he explained in his online video resume.

The memory is vivid- when I started my career, teams of 4 to 5 recruiters would go to campuses for recruitment. We would carry assessment tools, stationery, banners and what not. We spent more time on handling logistics, than on actually assessing candidates.

The shift to telephonic interviews was followed by interviews via skype or video conferencing. Now we conduct end to end interviews virtually, and we don’t need any special equipment. Just log in from our handsets into the other person’s call room. The latest smart handsets make it feel as if we are almost face to face. The best part is that the video and chip based resumes give all the information well before the ‘so called interview’. Only in rare cases do we meet candidates face to face. 

The global references database provides us data about candidates from colleges, past employers, customers, past peers, managers and subordinates. Even a few years back, I never imagined that this data would be so easily and openly available. Government databases helped with health and credit rating data, but that came later, once the candidate would give us permission to access that.

These 40 candidates simultaneously took the first round of assessment. This round included an ability assessment, technical knowledge assessment and a psychometric assessment. Our test software randomly generated and shared a unique ID and Password for each candidate. While candidates started these tests, I ran the ‘Big Eye’ software that was launched in 2020. With the use of ‘Big Eye’ I could remotely track every mouse click and iris movement of test-taking candidates. My automated test screen tracked faraway candidates via webcams and screen sharing using 6G. Apart from live tracking, along with the test results, we also got an ‘authenticity score’. This helps us maintain ethics of assessment and reduces opportunities for candidates to fudge. Over the years, tools like Big Eye have made online assessments more reliable, and helped recruiters find more qualified candidates as well. 

The test was followed by a 7-minute interaction with each candidate. I wore my ‘virtual reality headset’, talked to each candidate and informed them about next steps followed by a small discussion based on their test results. With each candidate, on the click of the button from my end, they could also see their test scores and details. This made the process transparent and seamless. 

Post lunch, our librarian (actually, he is now called our IP keeper) asked me to order a few technology e-books. These days, we just buy the e-license, not the actual book. A single license copy allows 10 users. I had a list but ordering had been delayed at my end. Some of the new employees needed the books urgently. I immediately phoned ‘Ramazon’ and enquired if we could get the e-books delivered to our server in an hour. The customer support executive informed me of a new delivery option ‘2-minute delivery’. Book licenses would be activated on an existing customer’s server in 2 minutes. I was elated hearing this. I used my corporate credit card, another minute went in providing company ID and relevant details, and Voila, and our librarian (read IP Keeper) received the licenses for distribution online, right in 2 minutes. 

My afternoon was packed too; had a meeting with our VP Human Resources, Bonobo about the ongoing recruitment. Each lost day meant a few hundred thousand dollars of lost business. The meeting was automatically recorded (visual and audio) in our system for future use. Bonobo operates out of Spain, and our team of 5 had to wear the ‘virtual reality headsets’ to attend the meeting. During the meeting, Bonobo showed us his new cabin. Thanks to VR headset, we felt as if we were sitting in his beautiful cabin. Post meeting, the recording was available to all of us through our handsets, for us to take relevant action steps. 

My day was almost over and I headed to the ‘Wellness Club’. Had a relaxing evening swim followed by high fiber meal. Wow…. What a day! Headed back home, watched the latest (read interactive) Star Wars movie. 

My day has been really good today. Time to sleep. Good night!

Also read:

A week in my work life in 2025 – Day 1

A week in my work life in 2025 – Day 2

A week in my work life in 2025 – Day 4

 

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Topics: Watercooler, Life @ Work

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