Career Options and self discovery

One of the better events that happened during the orientation week at ISB was the career perspectives forum. The forum was conducted in a panel discussion model and there were five panelists, all alums from ISB. The backgrounds of the panelists and the order in which they spoke are

1. Management Consultant
2. Investment Banker
3. IT Strategist
4. Marketing Professional
5. Entrepreneur.

The forum basically had two parts to it. First the speakers came up and talked about their profession which was followed by a moderated Q&A session. The first speaker was the management consultant. Due to the fact that he makes his living out of powerpoint presentations he decided to buck the trend and instead talk without a PPT to support. Management consulting in his words is the job of dealing with CXO level problems. Typical assignments range from 4 weeks up to 5-6 months. The diversity of the assignments and thrill of working with the top-management of clients obviously gives the career highs in this industry. On the flip side there is a heck lot of travel. Our speaker for instance flies out every monday morning to a client site and stays there till friday evening. After 5 years in the industry he dreads the sight of an aircraft and always keeps an air-sickness bag handy. To put in a nut-shell consulting is a thrilling career for one who wants the broader perspective, loves to solve other's problems and for one who is either not very family oriented or has a very supportive family which understands his career aspirations.

Next came the investment banker. True to his profession he looked very much emaciated. He called on to the finance honchos in our batch and beckoned them to investment banking. I-banking, as it is popularly known, is among the highest paying sectors and salaries to the tune of $200,000 are more the rule than the exception. Investment bankers probably handle much higher stress than consultants and usually have 65 hr work weeks. But the job is really rewarding with the large bonuses and the high profile work style. A key learning was the fact that career shifts into investment banking by engineers/IT pros are rare and very difficult in 1 year MBA programs.

The IT strategist was up next and the first thing he asked for was a show of hands from all who had an IT background. This year's student directory claims that our batch has only 28% students with technology background but the show of hands indicated something much bigger. This instantly thrilled him and he said that the IT industry needs all of us to come back and is also ready to welcome students from other backgrounds. He was commenting on the multitude of middle management opportunities in IT and the way the outsourcing wave was booming. In his words, the industry has still got a long way to mature and opportunities are galore for ISB grads in IT. It was really gratifying to listen to him as career advancement in IT is exactly what I'm looking at accomplishing.

On came the marketing lady. She talked a lot about how every consumer decision is influenced by marketing and she also talked a lot about branding. As is expected out of any management discipline hectic schedules, excessive travel and high targets are to be expected in this role. The auditorium had a good number of marketing enthusiasts and her presentation struck a great chord with them. She also alluded to the marketing side of IT and it rung a few bells in my head too.

The stage was finally set for the entrepreneur to come in and walk away after winning all the hearts. He started by saying that as an entrepreneur you can be a consultant, i-banker, marketing pro and a lot more single handedly. He took a dig at every profession and also drove home the point of personal satisfaction that he derives out of being an entrepreneur. He also talked about the mental strength and risk appetite that one needs to have to set out on his/her own. This guy was really amazing 'coz he had his venture running even when he was studying at ISB and he used to travel every weekend to take care of stuff. It was absolutely fantastic listening to him and I'm certain that his speech inspired entrepreneurial ambitions inside the minds of a good number of people.

After this the experts clarified a lot of questions from the audience. I thoroughly enjoyed this session and gained a lot of insight about what each of these professions meant. Hearing about more and more options can confuse you a bit but it also lays a path to self discovery. For now I know that I need to tread this path soon enough !