Resume Forgery

Well, I didnt want to write this, but then I couldnt stop myself. More than a week back, I made a visit to the printer room in the Student Village to pick up my assignment and then I found a resume lying there. Our of curiosity, I picked it up and started reading it. To my surprise, there were some unwarranted claims.

These claims were part of this person's achievements during his time at the ISB. It was just shocking to me. I never expected this.

It was during Solstice that one of the Alumni gave a presentation on what all people would do and he also touched upon the resume aspect. He told that people would claim insane stuff and nobody can do anything about it. Its all dependant on personal integrity and honesty. he also gave an example where one person had worked with a finance firm on some Private Equit related excel sheets and then he wrote on his resume that he had started a Private Equity Centre of Excellence for the firm. Thats the extent to which people go. He ended that topic with a note - If you take your resume to your previous manager and show it, he should not have any problem. And he was sure that more than 90% of the batch cannot do it because they tend to make such claims.

Fine, sometimes resumes have to be written like that to impress recruiters. I am not worried about what you did in your previous job. I dont think I can validate whatever you claimed you did in your job. Its impossible. In fact, to be frank, I myself have used high frequency words to make my achievements sound great. So, in all probability I would fail that test too. But, then what about your claims while at ISB. Thats effin nonsense on so many resumes I have seen till now.

Lets take the Innovation Challenge that happened sometime back. I can take this example becos ISB had 42 teams participating and thats more than half the batch. Some people have quoted stuff like - winner among 440 schools worldwide, and then some more gas, while they had just qualified to being in the top 50 under a single category. Mind you, there were 5 categories and each category had 88 teams. only the top two teams from each category made it to the final. and in that 10, there were two ISB teams. So, ideally, only those people can claim to be finalists. Rest were all just people who qualified from the first round. And these are some things that happen right in front of you and stuff you can actually authenticate without asking anyone else.

Next is the Experiential Learning Programme which is like the summer project. a good number of people just applied to the project and got it without any interview. and then there were some who got their own projects. And these people claim stuff like - i got selected among 420 people for this project. thats totally ridiculous. nobody competed for your project. it was just your group that applied for the project and how can you say that you had a competition and you got selected through an elimination?

its so frustrating. i never knew that people would go to such an extent to get a fat paying job. they say that the recruiter can see through your resume and separate the truth and fart. i really dont think so.

but yes, you cannot blame the system or the recruiter for this one. what can they do. they are here for people and they believe that the resumes are genuine. its just us - the student community who is to be blamed. and i am writing all this after looking at less than 5 resumes. if i see another 50 then i'd probably pack my bags and get out of this place.

Solstice 2006

Last weekend was Solstice 2006 - reunion for our alumni. It was the long weekend and a good number of alums were here. Almost 200 I guess. The mood of Solstice was set in right from the beginning of the week with some of us preparing for informalz events. Then I did some shopping for the Christmas tree - I guess I have talked about it one of my previous posts. Students Life Council had already put up Christmas trees in all the student villages. We still had our tree to put up. Finally, we put up our tree in the dining hall, safe from the troublesome evening winds.

As people started trickling in, the students got busy catching every other alum who was free on campus to give resume tips. So, at any point of time, you always found a current student with an A4 sheet printed on one side - thats the resume guys, showing it to the alum, whoever it may be and asking for his opinion. That went on for the next two days I would say. It never stopped.

Friday evening and post dinner time - there was a small presentation by one of the alums on preparing for placements with the do's and dont's. although i dont remember a lot about the presentation, i am quite sure that it was an eye opener for a lot of people here. well, if you are a pragmatist, then it doesnt really bother you too much. but for a lot of wannabe consultants and i-bankers, the presentation really showed that they need to take everything ahead with a pinch of salt.

come saturday morning, we had the inaug. it went off quite well with senior members of the management addressing the founding batch. towards the end, i delivered the vote of thanks. as usual, my vote of thanks was as fast as i played the frisbee game. afternoon, we had the tug of war and the boat race. then we left everyone on their own to catch up with their friends and batchmates. this was a lot better than what had happened during the last time when they had melas and activities throughout the day. the alums liked the loosening up bit when they just had the time to laze around and get to talking with each other.

the evening party was perhaps the highlight. like it happens in every solstice. although we tried our hard to change the mindset of all the people who attend solstice - typically solstice is considered as an all booze party and people just get drunk and do nothing else. this time, we tried to change this attitude. but we werent a bit successful. during the evening party, it was free booze and alcohol was flowing all through. this party was perhaps the longest - it went on till 6.30AM.

nothing much happened on sunday. people were just bidding adieu and finding their ways back to the workplace grind.

so that was solstice for all the readers. there's still ISB Radio to talk about and perhaps many other things that just dont strike my mind right now.

PS: I got totally drunk during Solstice Party - free booze, so why not. They had this SHOTS Counter. It was something new. The Students had put a lot of work and prepared a variety of drinks. So I decided, why not try them and then i kept on trying!! That was awesome....

Strange New Year Wish

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral celebration of the summer solstice holiday, practiced with the most enjoyable traditions of religious persuasion or secular practices of your choice with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.

I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2007, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make our country great and necessarily greater than any other country and without regard to the race, creed, colour, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wished.

By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms:

This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/him or others and is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.

Now you know

You saw that song on MTV, Channel V and every indian music channel almost everyday and you definitely liked the way it resonated in your mind. Listen to this one...

Bells, Ornaments and Tinsel Gardens

It's Christmas time. Another two days to go and we are celebrating Christmas on campus. Oh yes, we are a bit early this time. Of course, the students of ISB celebrate festivals according to their schedule. Well, we had to time a gala event along with the Alumni reunion that is happening over the weekend and then we decided - why not keep the reunion with the christmas theme.

so today was christmas shopping day. i have always like shopping. oh, i am a bit different. i like to shop, not unlike others who complain about going to shop. i have spent most weekends in london shopping for stuff that i want. and i have spent hours shopping for clothes. even though today's shopping experience was very christmassy, i still enjoyed it, but for the heavy traffic and the noise pollution caused by the horns.

christmas at london used to be fun. atleast 15 days before christmas day, canary wharf used to be full of decorations and the whole place used to glitter with the mood of christmas. there used to be groups of very pretty women playing western classical music. i used to spend about 30 mins listening to them on my way back to the train station. everything used to be red and green - right from the Coca Cola bottle in the Tesco's to the decorations at the citibank cafe. the best part was the christmas lunch that citi served at the cafe - turkey and venison. it dinn matter much to be coz i was a vegetarian. but it was fun - bursting small crackers, reading out jokes and having hot christmas pudding!!!

so we decided that we needed to buy bells, streamers, and other hangings for the tree. all of this took about 4 hours and during this time, i was introduced to the real hyderabad. we began from general bazaar in secunderabad and went on till all the bazaars in the muslim areas in old hyderabad. i came back tired. the taxi ride all the way back to campus was the most dangerous and bone-cracking experience i have had in the last few months.

its 3am now, and in between this, i had my dinner, joined my friends at the nearest pizza hut for a quick bite and masala lemon juice. then drove till the airport. on the way stopped at a barista thinking that it was open and then stood outside the parking lot to spend a few minutes talking about totally unproductive stuff like girlfriends.

the next day is a very long day. three continuous classes and perhaps other things to do as well - esp. for the alumni reunion thats coming up over the weekend.

A pick on the US of A

While critics decry the United States' current brand of military and economic imperialism as dangerously unprecedented, great powers have been throwing their weight around like schoolyard bullies since St. Augustine's time. This playful but pointed cartoon shows that while Uncle Sam has been an especially bad apple of late, he's following a pattern of bad behavior which goes back decades.

Why Finance jobs?

Goldman Sachs last week reported the most profitable year ever for a Wall Street investment banking institution, with total revenues of $33bn, around half that amount set aside for pay and benefits to staff. It emerged this week that the bank, which has enjoyed a record year, would be paying bonuses of unprecedented magnitude to its 4,500 employees in the capital. With £9bn to share around the world - an increase of 40 per cent from 2005, itself an exceptional year - the average employee here will receive £319,000. And that average includes everyone. High-fliers will receive between £3m and £10m; one or two are rumoured to be in line for £50m.

Market sources say Morgan's chief executive, John Mack, could collect as much as £20m in stock options for 2006. Goldman Sachs's chief executive, Lloyd Blankfein, could be in line for compensation exceeding £25m, and analysts say other chief executives, such as James Cayne of Bear Stearns and E Stanley O'Neal of Merrill Lynch, could get £20-£25m or higher.

Creativity and business

the creative director of Leo Burnett, KV Sridhar, was here to talk to us about his views on advertising. it was a two hour talk, very poorly attended. during the talk mr.sridhar himself mentioned to us that during his last visit, the lecture theatre was full.

well, blame it on placements - will you? but even before the placement buzz knocked on the students, most lectures were poorly attended. so you cant blame today's poor attendance on this single aspect. maybe there's some other reason or just that most people are just too lazy to move those cheeks.

the whole thing is so skewed and mysterious. we've had great people who have contributed to changing the face of the indian economy and then just 20 people turn up to listen to them. so whats the deal? nobody knows.

one thing i have noticed is that people rush in herds to listen to consultants from the mckinsey's and bcg's of the world. does that give any clue?

coming back to creativity and advertising, we should know that advertising is all about exploiting the minds of the consumer. if you dig deeper, then you'll realise that most advertising themes are lifted directly from events that happened in a person's life. right from Persil that said "dirt was good" to coca cola kept inside the well, its all about incidents that happened in your childhood, teenage and the later stages in your life.

then there is also this concept of connecting it with the audience. jackie chan in a bajaj ad looked like a chowkidar, but lalithaji in the surf ad was just like our mom.

ads also have to be changed according the changing trends, that is, it should reflect the mindset of the current generation. for example, we cannot use the same 15 yr old liril ad in which the bikini clad girl was dancing in the waterfall. with that lets have a look at the new liril ad. i had never seen this ad before. but when i saw it yesterday, i was surprized and thrilled. the ad was quite interesting. its based on the live-in relationships that we currently see in films or amongst friends. something like the hum-tum or salaam namaste.

Interview Prep begins at the Quad

Well, we've heard of "Charity begins at home". The latest thing at ISB is Consulting interview prep. So, we have this new one-liner "Consulting interview prep begins at your quad". everywhere, someone or the other is preparing with a team of people for consulting interviews. there are so many groups that are interested in the run up for the interviews in february that all group rooms and lecture theatres are full every other day. and out of necessity and enthusiasm to reach the pinnacle, people have started meeting in the quad. they are trying the idea of working in an informal setting and still achieving extraordinary results.

there are almost 50 jobs that students here can make in the consulting arena. and yes, atleast 300 people are making that big fight for the coveted jobs.

on the other hand, the round 1 results are out. i have seen some 70 odd emails today on the isb-pgp yahoogroups about people congratulating each other. more than 90% of the profiles are: 700+ gmat, 4-5 yrs experience on average, worked with one of the big IT firms, went abroad for a while. bottomline: did the same damn shit that most people in the current batch did. that accounts for almost 50% of the batch.

well guys, this fact cannot be denied that the IT guys occupy half the seats in any batch. and that stems from the fact that the number of applicants from the IT industry is to the tune of 100 per top IT company. so even the admissions office cannnot do much. and thats the reason why almost 50% of the jobs that people get from this place is in IT.

future applicants - for example, its not easy for someone with an IT background to make a shift to finance. thats the fact. in fact, its extremely tough and be prepared for the challenge. from what i see, the current batch is trying to position itself as a consulting savvy batch.

the companies that pay filthy unimaginable salaries take a maximum of 2 people. most people end up with the milkround recruiters and what they pay is somewhere near the last year average salary. some say its even lesser.

and i have seen that its next to impossible to make a complete career shift in a less than one year programme. you can argue with me that some people have made the shift. well, thats like a countable few and in a batch of more than 400 people its one or two percent.

Eastgate Harare

The Eastgate centre at Harare in Zimbabwe is a shopping and office complex. The speciality of this place is its natural ventilation concept. there are no big glasses and hence no huge investment to run air conditioners all day. you might imagine how this has been possible in a place like harare which has a tropical climate and is lying on the equatorial belt.

well, the architect Mick Pearce did not think so. Harare being in the tropics, still has an altitude advantage. hence, he made use of passive cooling to maintain air conditioning. obviously all of this has been lifted from wikipedia and you can read up more on the centre from the website.

the fact of the matter is frames again. if Mick had approached the problem of building the centre like any other architect, then he would not have had this idea. but when there was a constraint with the running costs, this made him think wild and his frame changed and this idea came up.

we are still talking frames in the managerial decision class and i come across many examples often and i will keep sharing the same here.

Mercer was here today - another consulting firm. it seems they indicated in their ppt today that they do not follow the McKinsey way of UP or OUT. this relieved a lot of people who were attending the talk. as usual applications for this would also cross the 200 barrier. its been a month since this started and still people are not sure where they want to go and what they want to do. in fact, i know people who have applied to every role from fixed income, marketing, pharma sales, research, IT and management consulting in the last one month.

this is one side and now i imagine how US schools are so successful without having spoon-fed placements. coming to think of that, i wonder why we have a placement week in indian schools and why is it such a big thing only here. 90% of schools abroad and even the best ones do not have 100% placements on the last day of school and they are not even bothered. they are still doing well. and here we have this thing in our mind about placements as the eternal. everybody on campus is talking about companies and jobs - nothing else. the courses have been forgotten. its now about new strategies - interview preparation strategies and strategic resume building. i cant imagine i managed to use the dirty cliched word.

Whose Frame is it Anyway

Today we had an interesting class in the Managerial Decision Making course. We were still talking about frames. Yes, we did not get any far. Its been a marathon on frames for last three classes. But its been a lot of fun.

We came up with criteria for measuring success. Btw, it was during the class that I got to know about criteria. Criteria and criterion are greek words i believe and are some of the few words that are part of the english language. and then i started drifting a bit. we were talking about latin and then my mind travelled to vatican city, where the official language of the Church is Latin. And yes, the pope and his family of bishops and other people are the very few who are still in touch with the latin language. for everyone else, its still greek and latin.

So, we had to come up with criteria for measuring success of a poilitican. Some of the few that were discussed in class today, after the 10 minutes that was given to us to prepare for the same, were: family succession measured by whether my son or daughter entered politics, loyalty - number of parties switched, dollar value - swiss bank accounts and properties, power - people under your control and then things like that.

and then came the japanese airline pilot who had landed a few miles off the landing strip somewhere on the west coast in the US and ended up in shallow waters. well, the story goes that he had miscalculated the lenght of the landing strip by about 3.5 miles and then made a safe landing into the sea. there wasnt any problem absolutely whatsoever. nobody was hurt, not even scratched, not even wet. on further investigation, it was heard that the pilot claimed to his fame - "I have flown all the way from Tokyo to San Francisco and have just missed by 3.5 miles". so, here we get to compare the frame of the pilot and the owner of the airline.

Google was here on campus yesterday. It was a sleepy afternoon and their presentation also started late. I was quite bored after what I heard from them. It seemed like everyone would go thru the same interview process no matter what role you applied for. still people had so many questions and guess what - this time, the guys from google were highly appreciative of the questions that the students asked. dont know if they'd conveyed an ironic message though. but yes, most roles are not very clear, not even to the people who are offering the roles. but thats the fun i guess in such innovation based organizations. people usually dont know what they want from the others. they just know what kind of people to recruit. then all work happens on the entreprenuerial and creative pursuits of the individual. that must be fun, aint it?

High-Tea Today

Nothing much has changed in the last few days. I was out of campus in Madras attending a wedding in the family. Two days of non-stop activity in the hall meeting friends and relatives. At the end it was like a hangover. Only today feels like I have gotten over it and come back to the typical ISB lifestyle.

And I had 100 emails to look at. You thought I did. Never. I just gave a cursory glance and deleted them. Thats all.

The fifth year celebrations are coming to an end today evening. There's a song and dance concert today and i think its going to be amazing. More about that when I finish watching the program. To incentivize the students who usually never turn up for any porganized program on campus, there is high tea being served.

That reminds me of the 30 odd emails that I had received in the two days i wasnt here about asking ppl to attend the logistics conference. the biggest names in the indian industry were here and my great mba friends were busy yapping and doing other things. and then some come and tell me that they werent informed beforehand. so again, there is this huge expectation of being spoon-fed for anything and everything - right from placements to whatever you name it. cant anyone go and check the website on their own. you think you have to be told for each and everything!! it was so ridiculous to hear such comments. total display of immaturity.

so that was it there. i happened to read today that carlsberg is planning to enter the indian market. its been a long time since i had a good beer. all the indian beers are so bitter. i'd say - they totally suck. the belgian beers are excellent and i guess they dont want to come here. the danish one - carlsberg has shown some interest. hopefully, in a few years time, we will have this brand floating in the market. generally, the per capita consumption of beer in this part of the world is very poor. i wonder why!! people had turned western in so many other things, but the beer culture is still not there, which is a bit saddening. i hope there is a boom like whats happening with the IT industry.

Mr and Mrs Job (Panic)ker

Jobs, jobs and jobs - thats all what is there on everyone's mind now. The run up to the placements has started now. Well, it had begun much before for some people who had planned it properly. But now, the whole batch has suddenly picked tremendous pace and is going for the kill in a very big way.

The McKinsey's were here. They had very long case interview (they call it something like that) session for everyone. It was just the day before ILS, the flaghsip event of the students. I said **** it, I am going to work for the event. Almost 200 people had attended the case workshop that went on for about 5 hrs. Atleast thats what I heard.

So, whats the result. From what I heard from reliable sources, some people believe that there is a set procedure to attack a case interview and they wanted to know what it was in the right order. then they would just mug it up and crack all the cases. whooaah!! isnt that just thrilling. is that what it takes to be in McKinsey or BCG or whatever.

then there were a few who wanted to know the answers for - how many questions to ask (the exact number) the interviewee? should i start asking questions right from the beginning or should i put my views? should i sit beside the interviewee or sit opposite to him? how often should i have eye contact? how do i have eye contact and write down notes at the same time?

well, thats the state of whats happening here. people have gone crazy and now, they cant even think on their feet. something's crept into their minds about the consulting jobs that they have totally lost it. after all, only 40 people are going to be shortlisted for the interviews and all 40 of them will be the toppers of the batch, which they call the dean's listers. maybe there will be a few others, 2 or 3, and they'd be exceptions. 200 others are just going to get dinged.

my friend had mentioned in one the case sessions that our batch lacks maturity. that is actually true. people have gone to the level of calling up/emailing recruiters to consider their resumes for interviews. in one PPT, some who wanted to create the "impression", went up to the recruiter and repetitively told them about their need for the job. coming to whats insane - i heard that people have floated the resume of the respective spouses too!!!

thats the sad situation here. and i dont think this can be controlled at all. this will continue and it will explode during the placement week. and i am just waiting for that.

Dont apply and you'll still get an interview call

The 6th term has started with a bang. I have one class on the Monday series and three on the Tuesday series. The three classes are back to back - with just a 15 minute break between every class. So much to read for every class, its just a killer. And today was the trial - I mean the first day with three classes in a row. Right from the first class, I started falling asleep. I couldnt stay awake. I dont know whether its my fault or the Prof's. Aint it important for every Prof to keep his students interested? you may call it a flawed argument. i can accept that too. it also important for every student to stay awake and not depend on the prof to keep a tab over him. but you know, it cant be helped. im sure that once the assignments start flowing in, the class will be the single most preferred location to have a nap.

International job short lists are coming out almost every week. Surprisingly, there are people who get short lists for the wrong jobs (apply for one and get called for the other). To add more fuel to the fire, there are people who are getting short listed without even applying for any job advertised by the company. The ignorant few spend hours over the job postings trying to find out which one fits their experience and interest, then spend few more hours writing an Expression of Interest for that particular job they narrowed down to. Then they customize their resume so that it sounds a bit relevant.

After they do all they can do best to get that short-list, they get called for a role for which they did not have any interest. Here, its the interest of the company that they found the applicant suitable for a role. So, where is the respect for my choice? Am I not being treated like a fool.

The next big joke is about people who get short-listed when they didnt even think about applying for a company. The company has access to the resume handbook of all the students. Fair enough, I dont say that you are not allowed to look at the handbook. But why shortlist people who didnt even apply for the job?? As a matter of fact, its very clear that if a person did not apply for a job posting, it means that he did not like the job. Thats it. Whats the purpose of farting(read writing) an Expression of Interest and a resume, if all you wanted to do was use the handbook?

Well, thats the state of affairs these days and its like this with just one company every week on campus. I am just imagining what kind of a screw-up this whole process will be during the placement week in february, when more than 15 companies come every day.

Given all this, I still havent lost hope. I will get some job. After all, the ultimate goal is to make sure that students get some job. Its not important that they get the job they like. Aint it?

Strictly come sleeping

An awesome video of all the people who were sleeping in class. Compiled by Ruchi, Sriram and Jagjit in Section-C, this captures those wonderful moments in Class right from the beginning of this year. I quite happy that most of the pictures that I have taken of sleeping children are part of this video.

Now, you guys enjoy the video.




Many Thanks to my Nokia 6230i

10Km in 46.31minutes

I'd managed just about 5 hours of sleep. Got up at 4 in the morning and prepared myself for the big running event in the city - The Hyd 10K. With everything under control, we left campus at 5.45am.

There were so many people who registered, collected the T-shirts and didnt turn up at all. if any of you jackasses are reading this, then please note that you didnt even have the courtesy to write back to me to let me know that you wouldnt be coming.

anyway, we didnt have to bother much. so we reached the starting point well before time and after all the hungama for the run, it all began at 7.30am. the weather was just right for a good run and i started off. from the beginning i maintained good pace - somewhere around 10.5kph to 11kph. my ankle and knee had started giving trouble right from the first kilometer, but then that sheer enthusiasm to run with everyone and reach the finish line, although it was 9kms away, was still a great motivation.

as we ran on the road surrounding the lake, the smell of waste - natural and undigested, was just killing me. that was perhaps a driver to run faster, in order to get away from the worst parts of the road to find a section of the road that was comfortable enough to run. and did that happen? NEVER!!! more than 90% of the circuit boasted of the same conditions.

happily completed 5 kms in 25 mins. then came the toughest part - the next 5. i pushed myself between 5 and 6. then took a small water break for about 2 secs. i took another break towards the 8Km line. then it was time to look towards the finish line. i was doing better by one minute and a few seconds than the usual time. and then i saw the finish line. about half a Km was remaining. i knew it was going to be tough. people were finishing before me and there were about 10 people running in front of me.

with all the energy that was remaining, i just started sprinting, went past the 10 ppl and finished by 46mins and 31 secs.

three others from ISB had finished much earlier than I had - between 35 and 40 mins. they'd just sprinted right from the beginning. that was awesome. and the best part was, everyone who had come today finished the run in less than 1 hr and 15 minutes.

i am back - tired, terribly tired. classes starting tomorrow - another killer term. right now there is zero interest for whats in store tomorrow. god save me.

Dayz Flying By

Another day and the term break is over. Time is literally flying. I had only one take home exam to turn in for this term and that took my time, almost till the last minute. I had a deadline of 5pm and I sent out my answers to the Prof at 4.45pm. While I had more than 5 days to do the damn thing, I started it on the last day, struggled for a few hours and then rushed into completing it by the last few minutes. So thats whats been happening always and i guess it will for some more time. the questions were so damn confusing that even with all the non-living material that we were allowed to search, we cudnt arrive at a conclusive answer. that was the state of affairs for a mathematics based IT course.

after that we had our project review - another big joke. in less than a month, we have another review of our project. most of us havent been able to reach our targets in the last one month. the last term - the first elective term has been literally crazy. with fewer exams and more regular assignments, we've just become super crazy and confused people. We had to make resumes and EOIs for job postings, attend seminars, PPTs and what not. And then we have this presentation to our peers - i dont know whats the purpose for this, but its during the term break forcing people to stay back and attendance being one of the most important components for a no class course like this, it has just irritated a lot of people around me. i think, we need to go over this in a detailed manner - perhaps devote a post for this.

and tomorrow's the HYD 10K marathon, for which i have gone mad getting people to collect their T-Shirts from me. less than 6 hours to go for the run, I definitely need a good sleep today.

still need to write about the EVAM play that happened today. hopefull should find some time tomorrow.

Interview Saga

The first round of interviews for the next batch is almost over now. The last few left are people in Hyderabad and the International Applicants. So, in the yahoogroups called isb-pgp, which is a forum where prospective applicants interact with the current batch, the latest thread for discussion is about the interviews.

People post their experience of the interview they had and then the others take a little bit of liberty to make good or bad comments.

right now, some frustrated souls have decided to have their take on the Interview Process. If you are part of thw group, then you should definitely follow this thread called the "Interview Saga".

one view-set is like: ISB is right now just doing brand building, the alums have not created a niche for themselves, its only about getting good placements, after all its an Indian B-School.

--> Dude, the school is 5 yrs old and in the last five yrs, the growth path the school has had is a zillion times better than any other B-School in India, given the fact that most other good schools survive on government funds. The Alums from this School are perhaps the most experienced lot when put together with all students entering B-Schools in any given year. And the kind of companies that come to get experienced people here NEVER go to the other schools in India. If you said, its all about placements, well then, how many emails have been posted in the isb-pgp yahoogroups asking questions about courses and research being done - less than 10%. The maximum number of emails that have been floating is about WHAT ROLES WILL I GET AFTER ISB types? If the basic mentality of the students who are applying to the school is just worrying about placements, then blaming the school is no good. How many US schools have organized placements like it happens in India. You are mostly on your own. But here, you expect to be spoon-fed till your first baby is born and then you blame the system for everything. Very Funny!!!

Some say that the interview results are pre-fixed!!!

--> Well dude, I really dont know what to say. For a fact, the current batch always has a say in deciding the next batch. Almost 200 people from the current batch would review applications and help the admissions team to narrow down applications. And the process is extremely efficient that all this while we havent had any sort of problem in terms of bias or whatever in that aspect. And its perfectly justified that the current batch would choose the next batch because they know what is best for the school. In that way, there is a lot of commitment from the students too. If your interview wasnt exhaustive enough, then you cant just say anything about the interview. The interviewers have definitely got the answers for all the questions they had in their mind. Dont think that if a particular question, which you think is very important, is not asked, the whole system is not working. Maybe it wasnt of any importance to the people interviewing you. Its not ncessary for every panel to sit with you and go over 25 years of your life in detail. Thats not their job.

ISB on CNBC Aawaz

Sometime back, to be precise, during the first week of November, when we had the HealthCare Summit, ISB grabbed a lot of media attention. The biggest names in the Pharma Industry were here to participate. The Summit was one of its kinds in the whole nation. Perhaps, the HealthCare Club is also a unique club in the whole country. I dont think any other B-School has such a club in its portfolio.

Anyway, the media did its contribution to promote the ISB brand and it was quite effective.

And the surprise, is that, in that less than 10 minute video, you can spot me sitting in the Atrium and talking to a few people. I never knew this was happening. Thank god, they did not ask me to speak to them. The whole thing was in Hindi and I am quite sure that I would have screwed up big time. But, the rest of them who spoke did a fantastic job highlighting the unique aspects of the curriculum.

You can watch the video on the SecC Videos Column on the LEFT or CLICK HERE to see it on YouTube.

A term without exams

I didnt imagine that this would happen, but yes, this term I have no exams at all. And why am I writing about this now - thats because I dont have anything to write about. I havent done anything in the last three days. I have so damn lazy. I sleep for more than 8 hrs, eat well, chat with friends and browse the internet. That's all what I have been doing since Friday. I feel so irritated when I do all of this, when I have so much time and I got nothing to do. It feels extremely odd and its definitely not ISB like.

Life has suddenly become so slow that my mind is not working at all. I think thats what is the effect of the ISB life. A few months back, I was talking about this with a couple of friends on campus. Everything at ISB happens at the pace of a MAGLEV. There are days when you have classes all day with information overload, guest lectures and then group meetings, interview prep, club meetings - so many things happen that you just get about 6 hrs to sleep. that too in instalments. you'd probably sleep for 4 hrs in the night and then make up for the other 2 hrs the next night or sometime during the afternoon. or even worse, you might have to pile it up for the weekend. but it could just pile-on and on because the weekend might be filled with PPTs from companies or some summit or language classes or the PARTY!!!

you so get used to thinking and acting so fast that suddenly if things come to a halt or move at a slower pace, you dont know what to do and its just not normal at all. thats the toughest part. we so get used to a life which is like sitting on the seat of a formula one car that after the 49 weeks, it becomes very difficult to hit the brakes for a while.

and i can feel that right now in the middle of the course. I just dont know what to do. without the usual mid-terms and end-terms i feel somewhat distant from the regular and perhaps brain-dead!!!

not that i took courses that have no exams on purpose. i have been troubled all through the term to submit assignments every alternate day and thats kept up the momentum.

i suddenly see that the days are long. a few weeks back, 24 hrs wasnt just enuff for a single assignment and our group used to go bonkers trying to solve a case. now i can hear the clear tick of the seconds hand of the clock.

i think i have watched about 4 tamil movies in the last 2 days - started with the Kamal Hassan thriller Vettaiyaadu Vilaiyaadu on Google Video, then went on to see Jillendru Oru Kathal on bits and pieces, saw that Mouna Ragam was being played in SUN TV. this is the first time i have had time to sit and see an afternoon movie at ISB without having to get up for any errand. then a bit of Nayagan by evening. its kind of been like a festival of movies. in between, also managed to attend a few dunking sessions - well if you got all the time in the world, why wudnt you do all this?