A sack of salt

In less than a month if I am right, it would be placements time at the ISB. This post goes out to all those people from the current batch who visit my blog.

Guys, I know its the most important time. I know that everything that happens during that time matters, but this is not the end. In fact, I would go and say that for most of us, the placement season is not even a beginning.

You'd enter the print room inside the student village to get a print out and you'll accidentally see your batch mate's resume lying there. Simple curiosity would pressurize you to have a quick glance at the highlighted bullets AND THEN?

Few of them would claim stories about the Innovation Challenge. The fact of the matter would be true to a large extent, but they would have twisted the information in such a skillful manner that it would be hard to believe.

Then you'd have people claiming "chosen from the whole batch to do this and that" - well the point here would be that - the administration would have no choice than to get someone from the GSB because according to them, the GSB represents the batch. But for some, this is also a resume spike.

Then you'll have some more people talking about scoring highest marks during the core terms. Okay, agreed. They worked extremely hard and scored the highest marks. But how does it matter? For all you know, that course was so difficult that even the guy who scored 20 marks less also got an A. In the end, its the A that matters - not who scored highest.

Then you'll have all the directors and deputy directors of the professional clubs going gaa-gaa about their work, when most work would have been done - either by the club president alone, or business development team at the ISB, or sponsors themselves or the administration.

Non-professional clubs are not be left too. You'll have some more presidents claiming about having started some new talk series - all they would have done is called one person to talk. after that no one would have had time to do anything. but the claim would continue.

And many many more...

That's why I am telling you that this is not the end. Its just a beginning. The world outside has at least another 1500 more of such people.

Not even 3 months and all of you will be out in the open trying to find a place for yourselves to settle down.

The time that is remaining is the best time guys. Make use of every minute. This is the time to make more friends - meet all those people who you haven't met all this while on campus. Get to know them. You don't know how long it will be before you meet them again. At that time, you don't want to be introducing yourself to your own batch mate.

And seriously, its quite impossible to keep in touch with everyone regularly. So make a list of 20 friends, if that is too small, then 30, with whom you'd want to be in touch with for the rest of your life. Spend quality time with them. Go out for dinners. Talk about stuff other than life inside campus. Get to know them well. I am telling you - this would help a lot. Not in the next one year. Much later. But sow the seeds right now. Its for mutual benefit.

Your friends on campus, whom you talk to everyday would need your support during the next month or so. Jobs wouldn't happen for everyone on day one or day two. After your first job, don't really bother about your second job. You'll get it. Stay with your friends and encourage them. The placement week is not just about you. Its about everybody around you. You'll be known for what you are.

Take everything that you see around you with a bag of salt. Reality is yet to come - it would strike around 6 months from when you join your first job. When you join work is when you'll realize that the company you thought to be excellent before signing the LoI is totally disgusting. The best of the jobs aren't always made on campus. A lot of it is made outside.

Bottomline: If you missed all the fun till now, there is still time. Don't miss the opportunity.

Term 8 starts tomorrow

I don't know in what state of mind I decided to take up 4 courses on a single day in Term 8. This term is supposedly the term where no student talks about classes, coursework and grades. They don't come to class. The whole batch makes sure that they use the "you can miss 2 classes per course" policy. And here I am, with 4 classes, 8 hours of class on Mondays and Wednesdays, but on the contrary, yippee hoo, no class on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So my weekend starts on Wednesday evening. So, there is always a better side. I just have to keep waiting for Wednesday evening every week.

The last 5 days have been so tiring. I was at the Control Desk of the placement cell all day and helping out with the placement process. Mixed emotions were flowing through groups of people. Some of them were frustrated that the shortlists weren't justified. Some were unhappy about offers, well most of them were. Especially the kids from the IT Industry with 2-3 years of experience. They have this feeling that they are the nations next best managers. You must see the kind of expectations they have about their salaries. Its effin crazy and baseless. Finally they had to settle for something they weren't too happy about, but thats the reality. If they hadn't done that, they would be jobless.

All said and done, as of Friday, I think we had less than 2% of the batch that had not been placed. I haven't been to the placement office today. I am quite sure that the remaining would have got placed in the last two days. Its just amazing to see that 400+ students have been placed in the last 5 days. I truly appreciate the efforts of some of my friends in the current batch. They stayed around. They tracked all the people who were getting dinged and tried to push their resumes to other recruiters. This way, they ensured that everyone had one offer atleast.

Anecdotes to make you smile before I write something else. During one of the interviews, the recruiter gives the offer letter and asks the candidate to write a salary figure on her own. She writes 15 Lacs. Then he says - "Our minimum offer is 20 lacs and I hope you will write a figure above that". Same recruiter makes another offer of 20 to another person. The candidate is not sure whether to sign or not. Within few minutes the offer goes up to 25. The candidate is shocked. He leaves the room asking for a break. Comes back within 5 minutes and still says that he is undecided. Recruiter immediately says 30. Candidate is literally dumbstruck and runs out frantically.

A new BPO that is setting up operations in the north recruits for its whole team in ISB starting from the directors in the top management. One guy got the job for one of the director roles bang on day one. And on day 5, he declined the offer as he wasn't too sure whether he was making the right decision. The company's CEO calls up the placement director in ISB in the next hour and immediately asks whether he can get a replacement director as he cannot start the company without these guys. Howzaaat?

During the last two days of placements, there were more recruiters on campus than the number of students. We were literally spamming the whole batch asking students to participate in the placement process. People had just taken off to Goa and other places. Yesterday, we had 10 students who were interviewing with all the firms on campus. So the recruiters were actually waiting for students to come and meet them. I know its disheartening and not a good practice to do this, but what can we do. Maybe this is a cue for the next year students to think about.

How to keep the last day recruiters happy? This might be one of the challenges that you can try to address.

The heat is on

Reporting live from Day Zero happenings here at the ISB. Its been a great day I guess. I did not have any interviews. The big names from the consulting world have already setup their camp here. There's people running in suits every nook and corner of the academic center. Shortlists for the way forward are out once in few hours. Its just crazy. Some of them have had more than three rounds of interviews and I hear that some of them have got offers verbally. Although official declarations will be made tomorrow evening.

Some of the big private Indian banks are here too. And I like this new dictionary feature in blogger. its cool. anyway, apart from case interviews and HR interviews for consulting firms, GDs have also started. Interviews are expected to run till pretty later today. Some junta have received their shortlist in the afternoon and interviews have been scheduled in the evening.

The heat is really on! I haven't had my interviews, yet I am having the "butterflies in the stomach" feeling. I can imagine how it would be for the people who have given more than three interviews today for three different firms. there are no words to write about their state of mind.

I don't think I can write anything more. There isn't enough juice to write about anything. But for the first time it seems like the number of consulting offers are being aimed at expanding the pie. I hope some of you can understand what it means. I can't really explain the whole damn thing. Its not complicated but at the same time it cannot be publicized.

Go for it - Class of 2007. Let's Rock!!!