One week of decision, indecision and associated mental stress…
Moments of courage to leave the offer and to say…”Let’s call it quits…”
Periods of determination to prepare for unexpected interview opportunity…
Days of awakening of mind…enrichment of my soul…
I have become more capable of treating events independant of each other…that’s biggest take away for me…and I feel like a much improved human being…

I have accepted the offer that I originally got. Things were clarified from other end and it was convincing…As expected, there was some communication gap…Anyway, I am happy with the offer that I have in hand. Comprises of decent role, good pay package, decent career growth and high visibility in the organization…

I had my last interview experience yesterday….with that, I officially hang up my suit! I am out of placement process now…Around 40 odd people remain, who are still searching for their matching jobs…I fear that they might not get their kind of jobs if they search through ISB. They need to go out on their own….I am sure they will….and I am sure they will find their jobs…It’s just a matter of time!

Got in touch with S, to get a broad understanding of Product design, development, marketing and challenges.

Got in touch with S, to get a broad understanding of what to expect in Advisory firms, what kind of Technology roles are available in Advisory firms, and on how to prepare for such roles.

Got in touch with R, to get a broad understanding on Solutions, Telecom billing etc.,

Got hold of R and S to get a broad understanding of one Advisory firm. One worked their before and one got job their now.

A suggested me quite a few matrices, articles on Information risk mitigation.

“Extend your arms, help comes”….I am already witnessing the powerful network of ISBians…Not exaggeration….absolute reality…This network IS THE TAKEAWAY in any B-school….It will follow you for the rest of your life….Professional advice, Business partnerships, Knowing about opportunities, Strong friendship, Influential contacts…are some of the many benefits of the network…

Moreover it feels very nice when you see that people around are wanting you to succeed and willing to help you in whatever way they can….I will definitely repay them as and when I get opportunity….

On Friday, one mid-sized software firm, having ODC’s in chennai and bangalore, offered very good salary for Business Consultants and Delivery manager positions.

As far as placements are concerned…There are some interesting trends that I am observing here:

1. Lot of people who have worked in a specific firm are not recruited by the same firm after MBA. This goes to show that firms don’t give any importance for your past relationships with them. Having said that, there are some exceptions too…But overall, it’s pure business and no loyalty/sentiments…”you contribute, we pay you”…

2. Companies with good brand (especially IT companies) are paying very less salary. Companies of lesser known brand are offering 40-50% higher salaries. Brand vs salary trade-off in action.

3. One who has strong vertical knowledge/horizontal knowledge has good chance to get an offer than a person who has spread his legs on multiple verticals/horizontals (in IT)

4. For mass-recruiters, Academics/Grade is a big elimination factor. For a selective recruiter, experience matters and only experience matters…

Today, one Media company, which has one very-well known and respected person known to ISBians on its board, made excellent offers. Salary was decent. But the roles were all tailor-made on the spot. Involves challenging responsibilities. You can see “Head - XXX” on many offers!

Few big names are in pipeline. They have requirements for excellent roles. I believe one of these offers will catch the attention of media soon…Let’s see…

The placement tempo has stabilized…Slowly people are taking things in their stride…

Will update my placement scenario after things are confirmed…

In 2 days, Term 8 begins…Looking forward to my last academic term (possibly in my life)…

Life is interesting and full of lessons….provided one has the eyes to survey the landscape and ears to keenly listen the surroundings.

I was genuinely interested in the firm that I got offer with. But looks like HR perceives me as someone who is in desparation…and trying to play games. The designation promised and CTC Promised (still it is better than other IT salaries) doesn’t match what is printed on the offer letter that I received…So, the element of trust is broken. Even if he comes back and upgrades the offer, in all probabilities I would not take it up…unless the circumstances has been the culprit…

I am not in desparation. I will go on without a job even for months…until I find the job where I will be happy with. Mostly it will be Technology firm, preferably product firm! I will wait…In no B-school does placement happen in a week or 10-days time…It takes time…Especially for a school like ISB, which boasts huge number of experienced candidates, it does take time to satisfy everyones needs…So, there is no need to take any pressure…It’s better to rather wait than to take a job that you don’t like out of pressure and compulsion…There might be short-term pleasure but definitely there will be long-term regret. I know good number of very nice people who are still waiting for their number to turn, patiently and pleasantly…

Since there were not a single firm that were lined-up interested me, I volunteered for placement session on Thursday. It was my turn to pay back all my colleagues who were patiently volunteering the whole day, bearing the heat and boredom. This also gave me an opportunity to sit with HR of one particular recruiting firm as coordinator. She was very friendly and shared a lot of information. She told why candidates are being rejected? Why candidates are being shortlisted? Which parts of Resume will be keenly looked at? What kind of evaluation will be done in interviews? Why having an attitude is bad? etc., Was quite valuable for me atleast. Next time I walk into the interview panel, I will keep her simple suggestions in mind…I realized that I naturally come across as a credible person, provided I am relaxed…so next time, will try to maintain cool…

One interesting situation….

There were 7 candidates sitting in the hall…including the candidate who just finished his interview. The HR came to the hall and announced looking at the particular candidate, “I am sorry…you are rejected…you may leave!”…The candidate silently left the room with his head down…I felt bit awkward about the situation….

Being a coordinator, I went upto her after sometime and said politely…”You might as well invite the candidate inside your room and announce the decision instead of openly announcing in the middle of the hall…It will hardly take 1-2 mins”…She replied…”I don’t want to go into details…but everyone has to face rejection…otherwise you guys will not grow up…you should have maturity to accept rejection…One should understand that the rejection doesn’t mean anything about his/her qualities. It is just that there is no mutual fit between company, needs and candidate.”…There was a little friendly argument that followed…Since in between the interviews she was free, she was chatting with me…I liked her statement about rejection…even though I knew it internally and disliked her tone!

After some time, she came to the hall for announcing the next decision…This time she called the candidate,”X, can you please come inside for a moment?”…Shortly after that the candidate left the room, for reasons of rejection…Hmm…I respected her view…she respected my view!

Among all the hullabaloo, there was one smart lady…She was meticulously getting an appointment with HRs of all the company and personally getting leads for a job opening matching her requirements, either during the lunch or during HR’s free time…She is even open to HR positions…She did it professionally without creating any turbulences! If the HR was not fine with the request, she would not bother further…Hmm…where there is a will, there is a way

Today the highest domestic salary record and highest international salary record was broken…So, the philosophy that…”One who exhibits patience succeeds!” is justified…still.

Negotiated with relevant person. I made some trade-offs (Like moving minor portion of salary towards the end of the year as a lumpsum payment. This is apart from the variable pay)…He made some trade-offs (like giving me 3 more days to accept the offer). May 2nd will be my joining date. Location would be hyderabad. Will disclose the company and role in few days. Definitely not big Consulting/Banking. Mid-sized Software/BPO firm.

Now, I have only few more roles that interests me…Will go for gold with those roles…with absolute confidence…

Two companies I wanted to join…but they didn’t find me fitting with them. Two other companies were interested in me, but I wasn’t interested….Today one company was interested in me and I was interested in them…but for Salary portion…We sort of agreed to a fair sum. Towards the evening, it seems(through indirect sources) they got a dilemma on the fair salary and have put me on hold until they make up their mind! I am talking with relevant guys…Will know the result soon….

In the afternoon, after a successful negotiation, I said to myself…”I need not appear for any interviews tomorrow…” But life is full of twists and turns…interesting…For now, I will be wearing my suit for 6th consecutive day! There are still a significant portion of people who haven’t got a job yet…partly because they are choosy…Even the ones who got the job, many of them are not happy with what they got…

Some major dilemmas going through my mind. One side is not allowing me to undersell…But the other side is pushing me to have an offer in hand…So far, the first side has won…but the battle between the two sides is growing intense…

But boy, far the past 2 days, having an upper hand in the interviews has given me some confidence…So, my heart says…”Keep looking…”!

If the first day was a perfect yorker, second day saw me handling the ball myself and getting out! Yeah, I was not so keen about this firm…I was ready to take their position if I receive better salary or location…Both didn’t match up…so, didn’t show any interest in interviews…

I would like to say something about one particular panel from the same firm(Had two interviews). Absolutely unprofessional. If they have made up their minds and filled their quota, they need not treat the remaining candidates like dolls!

16:00 - Welcome…introduction…formalities…
16:02 - Mobile rings…Interviewer excuses himself…
16:05 - Enters again…”Where were we?”…Again, mobile rings, excuses himself…
16:09 - Enters again….Mobile rings…This time continues talking inside the room itself…”I am in the middle of interview…but I can talk with you…Yeah, X is good…he is very good..we will take him…Y and Z are also good…they are shortlisted for further interviews…”…My self-respect took a jolt…but stayed quiet…
16:12 - Another interviewer enters…talks with the first interviewer…Then they say looking at me…”We are keeping our interviewee waiting…”!
16:20 - Finally…interview gets on…Another 2 disturbances happen afterwards…
16:25 - Tea comes…So, I have to continue speaking as server keep watching…(!!!)
16:35 - Ask me some useless questions…Really had no clue…”Suppose you have ten line paragraph…how would you use a single slide to convey the message?..would you use bullet points or paragraph…”. I said, “You can take 3 key messages, including the central message.. and use bullet points…Even better would be pictorial representation…As a picture is worth 1000 words(!)…or if the para is small, you can paste the para as such!”…”Ok, any other ways…??”…Silence for next few minutes…
Finally completed the round after facing few more such useless questions….

Absolutely needless for me to face them…

As my journey continues, lot of good news in the campus. Consulting firms and Financial firms have made good offers…100+ offers so far made in just 2 days…Almost 50% of the jobs has been accepted as a backup by people…(Less salary, but an offer in hand gives confidence..that’s the philosophy)…I will wait for 2 more days to follow that approach…

Today, I gave one more interview…Went with a free mindset, played the ball on merit…few good balls and few good shots…overall, I think went above average…but fingers crossed…If I get this job, will take it up…

I have been going for some sort of interview for last 4 days…getting up, wearing the suit and tie has become a ritual …Boy, will miss it once I get an offer…

Every coin has two sides…while life has been smooth and lucky for some people here, it’s been tough and not so friendly for few…I seem to be some kind of niche product who will fit in only very few roles…Still searching for my matching piece to complete the jigsaw puzzle…Few days back, I said my test of positive attitude will come under pressure…Now is the opportunity to develop it and prove it …Many opportunities and jobs in pipeline…Kuch tho mil jayega!

PS: I respect the opinions and comments a lot.. sometimes, even overwhelmed…but, excuse me for disabling the comments section for the post…

Rejected for Program manager position after 3 rounds of interview. Reason quoted was lack of sufficient fit with the position! Superficial feedback, but still is of some importance to me…Significant number of hours of work was invested from my side to prepare for Microsoft. An effort which started month ago and which finally gathered momentum 3 days ago…

I was surprised that even some really sharp people were rejected for lack of fit…Hmm, throughout my 3 interviews, I was asked only puzzles, algorithms and design problems (Stress interview! can’t believe Microsoft employs stress tactics, as it is clearly not their philoshophy). Anyway, whatever happens is for good…

It took some time for me to accept the reality…Then, the first thing that I did after hearing the news was to reach room and catch some sleep…so that I am in decent shape for tomorrow’s interview…

The first ball has been disaster and taken my middle stump for wheeling!..Now, I am ready to face the next ball…Different bowler, different pitch…Mood: Charged up more than before…

PS: M/S finally offered just 2 program manager positions. The selected candidates have significant Product design and development background.

Life is kind on me….atleast it has shortlisted me for 4 of the 12 positions I applied for. My tryst with M$ is still on…Cognizant, Infy, Dell are other companies that I am shortlisted for. Waiting for Virtusa, KPMG, Amazon….TCS, Wipro, and other software companies have announced their job postings recently..so need to take a call on that soon…was dinged by BT and BP.

M$ is coming on 17th! That is, one day before the planned date…Now, all the M$ related books have found its way to my study table…around 5 in total!!!

Was disappointed that two of my M$ focus group members couldn’t penetrate the M$ wall. A and K. A had such a reputation that he will be selected by M$ by default…But as he says, his relatively low experience might have played against him and K. I only wish they both keep their hunt going on…and not let this deter them from their pursuit…

Among all the Business Development roles & Sales-and-marketing roles, I spotted a strange looking offer. It read as “Senior Java Architect”…Yeah, you got it right…Java architect recruitment in B-school? Hmm..ISB is also building up a parallel reputation of Technology school

Smile is infectious….Positive attitude and behaviour is infectious….That’s what people around love to see/feel/experience!

Slowly I am inculcating the positive attitude with in me True test of the positive attitude will come when I hear/experience disappointing news. Let me see, If I truly possess positive attitude…

Other attributes that I would like to inculcate/nurture…Some of them I feel I possess in minute amounts..so, need not develop from scratch…
- Ruthless determination, focus, will power and courage of Lance armstrong.
- Effervescence and positive attitude
- Serenity (Inner calm and outer calm)
- Humility and simplicity
- Charm (nothing one can do about this..but Inner beauty radiates outside through clean smile)
- Level-headedness and not getting carried away
- Unshakeable moral courage
- Clear thinking and clutter free mind

The list never ends…but these are some of the top of mind attributes that came out…

How to break into the supreme slotting process that has been almost finalized? Well, there’s an easy way…Offer international placements. Companies that are willing to offer international placements command premium in this part of the B-school…for obvious reasons…$$$

Yesterday, there was a job posting from a Tier-2 (or Tier -3) private software firm, for around 30 odd positions, with abroad promise and decent salary. With only 24 hours given for deciding whether you want to apply, many people applied. The shortlisting was done in flat 8 hours past the deadline. Interview is planned for today….Things happened like a whirlwind….

I too applied…but, have been thinking since then about why I applied? So far I have applied only to 12 positions. This is in stark contrast with few people who have completed their quota of 25 slots and couldn’t apply for firms like Accenture Consulting!

Fortunately or Unfortunately, I am not shortlisted for this company…and this didn’t bother me a bit….I am expecting calls from certain list of companies..I will be worried only if I don’t receive calls from those companies…Many shortlists will be announced in couple of days…

Now, IT people are seriously worried. With 100-150 applications for each position, chances are that only 20% (max) will be shortlisted. And all the shortlists are coming in a single go….So, there is a high chance of overlap and some may never figure in any of the shortlist (God forbid)!

Going back to international placements, there is a catch. With H1-B Visa applications invited and processed only in the later part of the year (around october), chances are that one has to work in Indian division till that time…What will be the salary paid till that time? What will be the work one will do till that time? Once you begin to think, lot of questions pop up…Clarifying these during the interview becomes imperative….

4 days to Day 1….

BTW, wish everyone a very happy valentine day….and special wishes to couples in campus…both married and about-to-be-married

‘Rang de Basanti’ was a good experience. Going to city, watching movie and subsequent shopping in the evening was relaxing…I was locked within ISB campus for around 2 months!

I am far from being sincere towards placement preparations. Even though I am doing some sort of preparations all day, I feel like I am not doing much! I can feel a huge ‘void’ in my preparation, though I am not sure what it is…I just hope I don’t fall inside that!

Yesterday, I accompanied one of my good friend for shopping. His parents also accompanied us. The reaction of all parents towards our [guys in our age group] shopping patterns is same My dad use to say “For this Rs.800, I can buy good quality clothes and stich 3-4 shirts”. Sometimes, even I wonder if I am paying too much for my laziness…if I am blindly paying for the brand…Actually, If I spend some quality time doing “Search comparison”, I can definitely find a good deal..But who has the time for all these? We end up paying more in the name of convenience…

Subsequent to that, we took an auto for reaching a restaurant…We negotiated Rs.20 for the ride. The auto-wala had to travel little extra to reach the destination…So my friend’s dad gave him Rs.5 more and was mentioning me, “We pay without even thinking 800, 1000 rupees for brand in good-looking shops, but we think twice for paying to poor auto-rickshaws…”. I agreed, atleast to this particular case.

We have a tendency to enforce our power only upon people who are less influential/powerful than us..or people whom you take for granted…

PS: I saw the quote somewhere today. I used to have this quote as my signature in office.

“For the world you are someone. But for someone you are the world”!

Very good….isn’t it…If I am able to make the life of atleast one individual in the world better, then I can say I achieved success…

okie…back to placement prep!

Hi Everyone,

- ISB Admin.

Initiative well-timed! and the ticket is on the house!!

Slept 7 hours in the past 72 hours. Woke up 3 consecutive nights…Kept away from the blog forecefully for 2 days…

All the assignments, projects and presentations are over today!….Starting tomorrow I can concentrate COMPLETELY on placement efforts. That would be 8 days of effort. Come Saturday (February 18th), the placement begins. The slotting of the companies are done. So, we now know which companies would come on which day…Most of the companies that I am applying to, are coming in Day 1, Day 3 and Day 5. Day 3 features 4 companies that I am applying for. If I am shortlisted for all 4, then it would be one hell of fun and drama

I didn’t apply to some companies after some thought. For companies like Diamond cluster and Trilogy which has 2-3 and 3-5 positions respectively, there would be 150+ applications filed!! That’s the level of competition Moreover there is a clear indication of what companies are looking for. Diamond Clusters is looking for its India operations and specifically looking for people with Telecom background. Trilogy on the other hand is giving importance to people from Automobile background….

British Telecom came up with a shortlist of 30 candidates (Market information) out of 200(?) odd applications…Already some people were interviewed through telephone for a pre-liminary evaluation.

Till last week, CAS was sending out the shortlist for each companies to everyone in the batch. But now, they are sending the shortlist details only to the relevant person. This is more to my liking…Why should everyone be updated about every other person’s shortlisting details?…and this confidentiality reduces the peer pressure BTW!

8 days to PLACEMENT MAYHEM…..

Ramki’s blog has some highly relevent stuff on Telecom Industry. He has done a great job in writing those summaries…

I wanted my personality to be reflected in my blog(Bharani’s blog)…and not my blog to reflect as my personality (like being called as Blog Bharani or people remembering about blog as soon as they see me!) I fear that the latter is becoming a reality….I am not sure if this is an area of concern…but definitely in the long run I would like the former to happen….This is a dilemma every blogger goes through…how do other bloggers feel about this? any opinions?

Abstraction of my learnings:

You belong to a community. You find many good things and a few bad things about the community. Overall, you are very much satisfied, so you have something ‘nice’ to say about the community to others. And you share the ‘bad’ things with your community so that they think about it and do something constructive about it. They take positive actions to eliminate the imperfections, and you are more satisfied and everything ends up in a positive cycle.

You belong to a community. You find good things and bad things. You bitch about the community to the outerworld. You praise about the community to community members. Basically, you do good neither to the outer world nor to the community. It is nothing less than back-biting! Definitely not good in a long-run…

First scenario is ‘constructive’, second scenario is ‘destructive’!

Open question… Is ‘not saying things’ same as ‘lying’?

3rd Feb, Friday

18:00 p.m: I check the Airdeccan ticket prices from Hyderabad to Chennai on April 9th. It shows Rs.500/=. Call my parents to confirm if they will join me for graduation day and if I can go ahead and book the tickets.

18:30 p.m.: My parents get back to me and ask me to hold for some more time for getting a confirmation from my brother. I refresh the page, the price this time shows Rs. 771! I urge them saying that prices have changed and that I am going ahead with the booking.

18:40 p.m.: I Get a confirmation. But, Network becomes very slow. After some moments, manage to get the reservation page. This time the price shows Rs. 980/=. Not willing to take more risk, I booked the tickets.

18:45 p.m.: I check back the prices for curiosity and the price this time shows as Rs.1829!!!!

We received an email from ISB saying that everyone should positively vacate the campus by April 9th, 2:00 p.m.. There are quite a few chennaites in campus. Probably they are driving the demand? Anyway, I was able to witness the ‘dynamic’ nature of ‘dynafare’ in action today!

Anyway, the title is bit far-fetched…;)

Prof. Krishna B Kumar won the “Best Professor the year - Core terms” for the second consecutive year. Great job! He deserves the honour for the way he won the hearts and minds of the students…

Recently, we had a student poll to identify the “Best Professor the year - Core terms 2006″. It was a tough call to single out one professor for most of us, considering the quality of professors we had during the core terms.

The following was my initial shortlist:

1. Mark Finn (Financial Accounting)

2. Richard Waterman and Robert Stine (Statistics)

3. Jagmohan Raju (Marketing Decision making)

4. Anjani Jain (Decision models and optimization)

5. Krishna Kumar (Global Economics)

6. Subramanyam A (Investment Analysis)

Narrowed down to two choices between Anjani Jain and Krishna Kumar. I finally voted to Krishna Kumar. Hearty congratulations to him…Another polling is due for “Elective terms” which will see the likes of Nirmal Gupta, Sreenivas Kamma, Dishan Kamdar compete for the crown…

Yesterday we received an email regarding Graduation day details, logistic details regarding accomodation for visitors, last day to evacuate(!) the campus et al….Hmm…Time is flying so fast….Hardly 60 days remaining…

We had a very fruitful placement practice session, except for last few moments. Something happened that was very funny! Very funny!…It is long time since I laughed so much…that my stomach ached and face blushed so much! When I listened to the recording, the laughing has magnified…:)

Microsoft is coming on Day 1(Feb 18th). That’s a change from the original plan of February 21st (Day 4). So need to make some changes in my plans.

What would be my ideal slotting? I wouldn’t like all my preferred companies to come on the same day. I would like to see that the competition to my dream company is minimum when it comes to campus (Dean’s listers don’t apply!). In order for that to happen, it’s beneficial for me if my dream company comes as late as possible so that all dean’s listers would have been placed. But there is a problem. If my dream company comes as lates as possible, and if I get shortlisted and selected for my lesser preferred companies before that date, then I am in trouble, as there is a cap on number of offers one can accept. Tricky situation…but not impossible to handle! Need some level of maturity to make trade-offs from our side and bit of ’smartness’

Anyone are eligible for applying to IT companies. Even the operations guys and finance guys are in heavy demand for functional consulting jobs. So everyone can theoretically compete for IT companies. That makes the competition for us little ‘larger’!

Constraints facing us:

1. Number of job positions one can apply for.
2. Number of offers one can ‘acknowledge’ at any point of time. (When a company ‘offers’ you a role and you ‘acknowledge’ it, then it is officially recorded by CAS. Company will give a time frame to ‘accept’ the offer. Could be a week or could be a month. Depends on the company. Needless to say, it is beneficial to us if there is more time to ‘accept’. Once you accept/confirm the offer you are out of the placement)
3. Number of offers one can ‘accept’ finally.
4. Number of companies that can visit the campus per day

So, as you can see, this is not the time to ‘experiment’. This is the time to be ‘focussed’. Making an educated choice is important. Making a safe set of choices is also important (Backup offers).

Everyone here understands that ISB-Brand will come with them for the lifetime and that job immediately after the MBA is not be-all and end-all. But everyone wants to get a ‘job’ which will meet their ‘expectations’, so that ‘peace of mind’ will prevail when he/she leave campus

The BCG Shortlist was announced today. Almost 75% of the McKinsey Shortlists figure in BCG Shortlist too. There are some additions and deletions. Overall, the list gives an indication that BCG is more academically inclined than McKinsey! A made it to the BCG list…Good…

Irrespective of how much the consulting firms downplay the importance of grades during the placement talks, the shortlisting is always predominantly done based on grades. History is the best evidence. The recent shortlists strengthen the claim.

There is an apparent disconnect among the people who deliver presentations, who design compensation structures, who evaluate applications, who interview the candidates and who finally work with you in the firm. This disconnect is the reason for mismatch between what’s being said and what’s being done. What’s surprising to me is how strongly few alums pushed us to apply even if one does not have attractive grades. Let me hear from someone who wants to defend that “Grades are not important for Consulting/I-Banking firms”. This is India. The examination-based mindset is still the most reliable method for top firms. I don’t see a change in the trend for long time to come!

Going to IT services firms, some firms are quoting low starting salary, expecting the students to bargain. I personally thing that’s unfair. Relatively new and medium-sized firms are giving more salaries than established and top firms. Top firms use the “onsite opportunity” as a negotiation weapon.

Slotting of the companies will be finalized in couple of days. The major concern seems to be same set of people getting shortlisted in each company. Whole lot of game theory is going on to reduce this shortlist overlap!

Next 10 days will be very busy. The end-term projects for all the subjects are due next week. Companies have already started inviting applications, so we have to spend quality time in writing good EOIs and Resumes. On top of this, we have to keep our placement preparations running….

The running continues….