Patrick: Sunil, maybe first you could just introduce yourself a little bit so Rajesh can know a little bit about you.

Sunil: Okay. My name is Sunil Kanderi and I am an IT professional. I basically manage Oracle databases. I am an Oracle database administrator. I also manage enterprise resource planning applications like PeopleSoft. I am also a PeopleSoft administrator. I’ve been in IT for the last seven years. That about sums it up about me.

Patrick: That’s fantastic. So, now as we go forward, I’m just going to open up the floor for both of you. So Sunil, if you have your questions ready and/or whatever you’d like to discuss with Rajesh, feel free.

Sunil: Okay.

Rajesh: Let me just make an opening comment. So basically, Sunil, you did something really good. After you won this mentoring session, you also contacted me and gave me a bit of a background on where you are, what’s happening in your life so far, and all those things.

Sunil: Yes.

Rajesh: Which is a very good thing, so now I have a background of who you are, and what you want to do. So you can ask me some questions. I am prepared for this. I have gone through – even five minutes ago, I went through your email and I have a good understanding of what I am going to say, but I would like to hear what questions you have so that we can make this more useful to you.

Sunil: Thank you very much Raj. I appreciate your going through those emails. Initially I did not realize that this was going to be a call that was going to be recorded so I did give a lot of personal information, but I’m going to – I think in this session I’m going to keep it a little more generic if you don’t mind?

Patrick: One thing Sunil is that we can always edit whatever you don’t want to be made public.

Sunil: Okay.

Patrick: We can be sure to make that transcript available to you before anything is published.

Sunil: Okay.

Rajesh: Actually, don’t worry about it being recorded. Don’t think about it being recorded, because I am used to recorded conversations. So I am actually perfectly fine with it. For you, assume that it’s not being recorded and let’s just have a conversation.

Sunil: Okay, that sounds wonderful. I did prepare a few questions that are more generic, but that’s fine. How should the format be? Should I just ask you some questions and then we can go from there?

Rajesh: Yes. We’ll just start asking the questions and of course we’ll see where this conversation takes us.

Sunil: Okay, sounds good. Thank you. The first question I had was, in your mind, what would a technology professional be like, that has differentiated himself from the commodity crowd? What are the three main characteristics of a technology professional that has differentiated himself?

Rajesh: That is a very good question. I am always very fascinated by the need to distinguish oneself, especially for a technology professional right now. Especially because, you know, if not today, if any commodity job will get transferred to or outsourced to – or whatever country, now it’s South America and eastern European countries – all those things. Today, think about it this way, if – let’s say a manager introduces you to someone, right? Let’s say “This is Sunil and he is our DBA.” Right? The moment he says that, it’s already commoditized. Because it’s almost like he could have told that this is Peter and he is our DBA The moment they box you into something that can be transferred to somebody else without a loss of quality of work, it’s gone. Even if you are the best DBA, it’s still – there is a threat – somebody else could easily take over your job.

Sunil: Yep, that’s true.

Rajesh: So the simple way to look at it is you being there and you being not there;<