The calm

The placement week is almost over. There are like 1-2 companies coming today and tomorrow each. Placing 400+ students in a week is not an easy thing and ISB always wants to up the challenge by increasing the number of students. While there were students who cracked the placements by getting the meatiest of roles or by increasing their salaries 3 or 5 times, law of averages also ensured that a few got pretty raw deals. Some did not get the kind of offers they wanted and have declined to take up anything. I made 2 more offers but for the moment decided to accept the Consulting offer. But all in all, although it was a really draining week for everyone involved in the placements it was good work all round!

Day 2

So I got my first offer. The consulting firm I was interviewing with today apparently liked me and after three rounds the question was popped. I should say the selection process was very interesting. In the first round I met the Principal of the firm and he administered a case and then I had to field a bunch of PIs. I actually messed up the numbers in the case and then announced myself that I want to do it again. The Principal smiled and I redid it. I thought I'm out of the process and came back for a nap.

To my surprise they called me for the second round. So then started the most interesting part of the process. I was given around 30+ pages of a case with lots of data. I was asked to make a presentation of case findings and my . It was a very interesting case and I thought I did that fairly well. Within 5 minutes I was called in for the final round. I was realizing that things were happening very fast. The final round was pure PI about all my professional experience and lot of scenario based questions. It went quite decently and finally the offer was made.

The firm is into sales & marketing consulting, an area of interest. I told them that I was not expecting the offer and I need some time to decide whether I want to sign it or not. They were nice enough to let me go back and huddle with my friends for an hour. They have given me a week to decide on accepting, so took my first offer. I have a few interviews for some challenging direct sales/marketing roles. So will try my hand and see if I can get something else more exciting.

Day 1

So the placement process has officially started. Day 0 was in full swing yesterday and Interviews were on till 4 AM last night. News trickled in about some of the majors trying to poach a few students. It feels a little strange that I don't have any interviews today but that is partly 'coz of the kind of applications I made. ADAG has announced a rather long list of interviews and my mates are going to be interviewed over the next two days. I think they are going to make some never seen before number of offers to ISB students. Tomorrow I have just 1 interview with a consultancy and day after I already have 5 companies lined up (with potentially 1-2 more looking clear possibilities). I hope I can make some sensible choices.

Day '-1'

"Zindha rahe tho agla haftha milenge" said one of the smart guys on campus. He was obviously kidding but taking a real nice dig at placements. Today is day '-1' and with day 0 tomorrow there are going to be quite a few on campus who will interview with big names starting tomorrow. My guess is that atleast 80-100 students will be out on day 1 and a similar number on day 2. There are already 543 different job postings this year and frankly there are a number of really meaty offers for experienced students. As the placement week nears shortlists have started pouring in. My applications are a mix of small-medium to really tiny companies. As of now, I'm sitting with a few shortlists but will start with just one on day 2 and many more starting day 3. The dream company with whom I'm interviewing for the last 2 months has still not announced anything and with 2 days to go, the ding looks more or less certain from them. Anyhow I should manage something next week if not during the month ahead, but it is truly one of the biggest experiences we came to b-school for.
ISB...Time to break a few more records :)

Meanwhile R2 results for Class of 2009 are out. Welcome folks. Time to party and chill.

Heat

So the ding from O came very quickly last weekend, but not before a good dinner at Taj Ahala, what a solace. So back to square one. One strange trend is appearing on campus. Companies come in and talk about picking the 2-4 years experienced IT guys and wanting to groom them into Engagement/BD managers in about 3-5 years post MBA. That is definitely a good prospect, I would say. And the 8+ yrs categories are gonna rake in the moolah this time with roles in Corporate strategy, Delivery and the like up for grabs.

So what about the wonderful 5-8 yr experienced bracket? What are we to these organizations? It is quite scary to hear so many companies clearly avoiding this category. 25 days to placements and the stock markets are plunging. Can't forget 2001 when I passed out of engineering and entered a market battered by a major US slowdown. Till some shortlists come, a slightly negative sentiment will linger.

What timing?

Seriously. After more than 1.5 years I have got this sore back as a result of the silliest of things I can do on campus. Well I flew kites on saturday. And what great fun it was. Donno what kind of crazy monkey jumps I did. I shouldn't have played so much with D's son.

But what to do now. Interview is gonna happen in 3 days. Will be my third interview so far. G was the first to shortlist me. Did a phone interview first. I thought I messed it but and then she called me for second round. It has been a month now and we are still faced with scheduling problems. Donno when this round will ever happen!!! Then B shortlisted me and I thought had a cracker interview. But somehow she didn't like me :(, cha too bad !

And now O wants to meet me. So J & S have been doing cases with me for a while now and today all of a sudden A administered a couple of cases in a totally new style and flummoxed me. So I came up with beautiful MECE strategies that will ensure that the problem is structured well and is presented convincingly. But what crap if I don't understand the question properly and just focus on structuring the problem. Oh God where are you!